INV 79

Now Kwon Yihyeon sits in a cross-legged position and waits for fate.

He does not even mind his broken ankle. He has shed the mortal world. Spiritual liberation demands a long wait. Kwon Yihyeon sweetly swallows the waiting granted to him.

Had he waited for a long time? Or had he skipped over the moment? Either way, it cannot be compared to ten thousand years of penance.

Compared to you, this bit of pain is nothing.

How much time passed just like that?

Rustle. Swish.

The sound of someone’s footsteps reaches his ears. Since Kwon Yihyeon is sitting still, this is surely the presence of someone else. However, Kwon Yihyeon did not undo his cross-legged posture, nor did he open his eyes. He had realized long ago who the approaching person was. A sense that sharp had taken up residence within Kwon Yihyeon.

‘But it hasn’t been fully gathered yet.’

Spiritual liberation forced a radical change upon Kwon Yihyeon. A change where, once known, one can never return to the state before.

In order for Kwon Yihyeon to face the Jae Angshin, he had to organize the senses granted to him.

Fortunately, he slowly decelerated his pace from a hundred li away.

Without crushing even a single blade of grass.

Kwon Yihyeon offered a silent bow, then threw his body into his spiritually expanded senses.

The approaching presence informed him.

‘Even your steps did not tread upon the grass, did they, you.’

Without ever mangling the greenery, it was merely a brushing step.

He did not harm any leaf.

‘Because you are so much like the wind.’

For someone to tread upon grass meant the scream of the vegetation. What is called “living things” or “life” does not distinguish between animals or a single blade of grass; a distinct life dwelt within even a mere leaf or twig.

It meant that if the grass had been torn away, at this very moment, Kwon Yihyeon would have heard a rending scream.

However, the grass did not scream.

‘Though all beasts fear you.’

They merely danced in joy at the footsteps that gently entwined and brushed past without trampling or mangling.

‘Only the mouthless thicket welcomes you.’

Things he hadn’t dared to notice when he had just awakened his spiritual power… No, a vast status that an individual could not possibly handle, the very sense of all creation was permeating Kwon Yihyeon’s five senses as if it were simply natural.

The setting sun falling upon his skin. The warm breeze brushing his ears. Even the rustling of the grass beneath his feet.

‘I think I finally understand why the dead must return to their place.’

Our lives were such that life dwelt even in a single formless gust of wind. Even if humans felt the wind wasn’t blowing, the air was what circulated every moment in unseen places. When he noticed that the air cooled under the dusk and the air warmed by the setting sun mixed up and down, and that the surroundings which appeared empty were entirely filled with the breath of life, Kwon Yihyeon felt the sounds carried by the wind. He knew from science class that sound cannot exist without air, but this was the first time he had realized it so thoroughly. As much as the wind was felt in every grain, the following musical scales were felt with agonizing clarity. The sound of the wind tearing as it hit a tree trunk, the bird calls, the starlings, the crickets.

In the midst of all that forest canticle.

‘A chance to live again.’

Kwon Yihyeon thought of life and death.

‘Because one can only live again by returning. Even if one struggles to regain what is already lost, death is irreversible. Life is beautiful because it is only once.’

That is why humans passing through the wheel of reincarnation forget their memories. Because they are granted a chance to live anew.

Life must be only once.

This was the single absolute equality amidst the massive absurdity and unfairness triggered by the despair called birth.

Anyone can die at any time.

Life is only once.

Death is irreversible.

That very fact made humans shine. Unlike the monsters whose lifespans converged toward infinity and thus could not know when they would die, humans could live each day faithfully because they could die at any time. Not a few gods are immortal, but eternity inevitably gives birth to boredom. Can a being who merely endures eternity in the form they were born, without the conclusion of death, be said to be alive? Look at the civilization humans have achieved in this short period compared to those days in the distant past, before humans created civilization, when gods and monsters destroyed great mountains and overturned seas while burning with murderous intent. Is it not agonizingly brilliant…

The reason humans invent, discover, and develop something so quickly might lie in that short lifespan. Is it because it can end at any time that they can set it ablaze at any time? Ignition. The ignition of civilization. The ignition of development.

‘Do immortal gods look up to humans?’

Do they fear the resolve of certain death? A mere tiny creature, a maggot that cannot even live a full hundred years. But do they fear humanity, who, because they can die at any time, crawls up with the resolve to die to steal fire, light the way, build towers, and burn brilliantly?

Death could not bring humans to a halt. Kwon Yihyeon only now realized that.

What brought humans to a halt was obsession.

‘The desire to meet a dead person again, the desire to bring them back to life, the desire to defy death. Such thoughts…’

This is the reason the Underworld hides its existence. Because if they knew of the existence of the afterlife, humans would try to fix death somehow.

‘Without even knowing that it violates providence.’

However, humans who do not know the actual existence of the soul naturally come to wish to replicate at least the outer shell, the appearance.

But no matter how much genetic engineering develops, life will still be only once. One cannot be the same being just because they are made of the same genes. It is because they do not have the same memories, and they do not undergo the same stages of ego formation.

An existence had to be dignified in itself. One must not overlay someone else’s ideal upon them.

‘But obsession always catches hold of the dead.’

If so, the only words we can give the dead are to live again, to give them courage to try living.

That is why the Underworld collects souls.

Because life must circulate, because it must reincarnate.

‘Now I know. Why Grandma is a Great Shaman.’

Since all humans are the same people, one cannot help but feel compassion. It is because everyone dies someday. Because I, too, will die someday. Furthermore, since those who refuse the guidance of the Underworld Reapers are those harboring grudges, in the end, those full of sorrow and empathy are inevitably the dead they must appease.

Even so.

“A ghost is a ghost, and the living are the living!”

Without being enchanted.

Because she can scold sternly.

She is truly the Great Shaman.

“…”

The surging senses began to calm down gradually. Kwon Yihyeon slightly lifted his eyelids which had been closed in darkness.

In his gaze aimed at the ground, he saw the Jae Angshin’s feet. Blue veins bulged over the stark white bare feet a short distance away.

Kwon Yihyeon thought it was difficult to meet his eyes, but he mustered the courage to lift his head anyway.

When people first get married, they are originally clumsy. Because marriage can only be established when the entire composition of life is overhauled from a system where one person lived alone to one where two live together.

What is called a “first marriage” assumes from the start that one will be clumsy.

“Is that why? Why we weren’t awkward at all.”

The reason why it wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable despite meeting for the first time, sleeping together, and suddenly living together.

“It must be because it wasn’t our first time seeing each other…”

A lingering resonance circled at the end of his words.

It was an evening where a reddish-purple sunset was pouring down.

And at that moment, the Jae Angshin noticed that Kwon Yihyeon had realized everything.

Just by looking at a single expression.

Kwon Yihyeon was staring at the silver man dyed in cold reddish-purple, forcing a smile.

With pale cheeks drenched in tears.

‘I must erase it.’

If the memory is not erased, what is prepared for the future is only defeat.

He already knew. I came to you with the resolve for this. Even so, is this hesitation sorrow? Or a sense of grief?

Nevertheless, he walked toward Kwon Yihyeon.

Even while sensing that this would become the most cruel move.

“Disciple.”

“Yes, Master.”

Blood-colored lips quietly chew on sorrows. Is the evening glow spreading in the chilly eyes like crushed pomegranate seeds?

The sunset, like fresh blood, is red, so red like the heart within the chest.

With every step of approach, ten thousand years of time flowed by.

At every moment where shadows intersected, the Jae Angshin seemed like an elegant immortal, and then like a wicked demon.

Then, finally, Chacha stood before Kwon Yihyeon.

The words that had to be said were decided. Everything had to flow according to the script he had written. It was a play and a scenario for that purpose. Even he himself was no different. This was a farce. It was a puppet show like children’s play.

To Chacha, he himself was also nothing more than a tool. And Kwon Yihyeon was… young, terribly so.

“It is early for you.”

The moment Chacha’s fingertip touched Kwon Yihyeon’s forehead, Kwon Yihyeon collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.

Chacha caught him and aimed a cold gaze at the sky.

I do not know what warp and woof of fate weave you and me together so teasingly, but.

“They say it is calamity that pointlessly severs things like fate.”

Chacha turned around just like that. And with a coldly forged face, he began to descend the mountain.

The stark white robe fluttered violently in the wind. The mountain valley of Bukhansan that they left behind was still green.

Only the solitary cry of an owl broke out sorrowfully through the shadows of the leaves.

⋆˙⟡

Nevertheless, bit by bit the wind circles and lingers,

Bringing them back to the thatched house they missed.

Ten thousand years ago at that time, there were a master and a disciple.