Chapter 63
Bong Ji-yeon was terrified, as if she'd seen a ghost. I knew this expression on Bong Ji-yeon's face well.
A face of fear, as if her soul had left her body.
"It... it's exactly like my sister!"
Bong Ji-yeon was talking about her sister, Bong Se-yeon. I had to take a moment to recall who Bong Se-yeon was.
A delinquent girl who often visited Yang Juhee's house. But she went missing on a spring day about 5 years ago, and her headless body was found somewhere...
And now this carrier is exactly like that Bong Se-yeon.
Bong Ji-yeon continued speaking.
"My sister was also found in a carrier! I never saw it myself, but... it started appearing in my dreams! My sister struggling inside a bag! It's exactly like that!"
It seemed someone had discovered Bong Ji-yeon's sister, Bong Se-yeon's body inside a carrier.
Even though she hadn't seen it directly, the news of her sister's death and the discovery of her body would have been more than enough to cause a huge shock to a person.
So it seemed Bong Ji-yeon saw the carrier in the basement of this lodge, remembered that time, and crawled up to the first floor, unable to bear it like a trauma.
Soon, Yoo Dahee asked with a rather serious face,
"Are you saying there's a corpse in the bag downstairs?"
"I... I don't know."
Bong Ji-yeon shook her head. Soon, a thought crossed my mind.
If Bong Ji-yeon's intuition is right, there should be someone's corpse inside that carrier. And I could hypothesize and guess whose corpse it might be.
The first possibility was that it could be "Yang Do-hee", Yang Juhee's sister.
Yang Do-hee, who was said to be a friend of Bong Se-yeon, also went missing about 5 years ago.
If she had ended up in a state where she couldn't return... it wouldn't be strange if she was in there. But if it's not Yang Do-hee...?
Second hypothesis.
At the beginning of this semester, our Yeongji High was quite noisy and chaotic. It was because a female student had gone missing. She was from a fairly well-off family, and her name was Gu Hyena.
And I had met Gu Hyena.
The "Head Ghost" that appears in the Nightmare Corridor was Gu Hyena. Seeing Gu Hyena naturally raised one question.
Where on earth is the rest of her body?
Maybe I was facing the answer to that right now.
"Oh, shit..."
Even though it was my own thought, it was terribly chilling, horrific, and something I wanted to turn away from. If we want to know what's in the carrier, we should actually go check.
I opened my mouth with unbearable curiosity.
"...Should we check what's inside?"
"...Hey. Young-won."
Jung-seok looked at me with a scared face. He must have roughly guessed what might be in the carrier too. That's why he's scared.
However, we might have come to this lodge to find that carrier in the first place. It might be of great help to us in the future. It could be a signpost.
I know. That it's terribly scary. But don't we have Yang Juhee, our brave general!
"Um... Juhee. Could you check what's in the carrier?"
Yang Juhee was the bravest person I knew.
If this were a broken spaceship and someone had to go out into space relying on a single rope to fix the damaged outer wall? Yang Juhee would be the one to say, "Move aside! I'll do it!" But now, Yang Juhee frowned as if she was in a bad mood.
"No. There are too many spiders down there!"
Spiders?
Come to think of it, there were a lot of cobwebs in the basement. Yang Juhee hated spiders for some reason. Then the person left is...
"Um... Dahee."
"Me?"
As far as I could tell, Dahee didn't seem to be afraid of much. Even now when we were all tense, Yoo Dahee seemed quite relaxed.
That's when it happened.
Thud-!
There was a sound like something falling over from below. It was a sound from beneath the floor we were standing on.
Soon, Bong Ji-yeon screamed.
"Kyaa! Close the door! The door! Close the door! Lock it!"
Bong Ji-yeon, almost having a fit, placed chairs and bricks on top of the basement's iron door. We thought Bong Ji-yeon was overreacting, but only for a moment-
Thud thud-
Something was knocking on the iron door from below, and we couldn't help but tremble in fear!
Thud thud-. Thud thud-. Thud thud thud-
Whatever it was, it kept knocking on the iron door as if asking to be let out.
"W-Who's there!"
I shouted at the iron door below. Of course, there was no answer.
***
Thud thud. Thud thud thud-! Thud thud-!
Flash, Boom-!
Whoosh-
Gaeryong Mountain, where lightning strikes endlessly and rain pours down.
Outside, intense rain was pouring down so hard we couldn't take a single step out, and from below, there was continuous, irritable knocking.
I wanted to cover my ears.
3 PM.
The rain still showed no signs of stopping. Should we just go down the mountain in the rain?
If we end up spending the night here, it'll be the worst!
Boom-!
Just then, a big impact shook the ground. We heard the sound of chairs and bricks flying. When I turned my head, I could see the rusty iron door was open.
Splat-!
Soon, an unpleasantly wet noise clearly licked my ears among the various sounds.
I could see a single palm stretching out from the basement towards the ground, and I was about to lose my mind.
Soon, it revealed its identity... At first glance, it looked like a four-legged beast. But looking closely, you could see it was a human body with its joints oddly bent to take a four-legged posture.
"Aaaaah!"
Super coward Jung-seok screamed. Soon, Bong Ji-yeon also convulsed, foaming at the mouth.
"Kyaaaah! It's, it's my sister! My sister's here! Sister! Sister! I'm sorry!"
Everyone was out of their minds. The headless human torso strangely moved its body and stood up.
Crack. Crack crack.
It stood on two legs, bending its joints, and then reached out its hands towards the surroundings. And like someone playing blind man's buff with their eyes covered, it was groping around with its arms flailing as if searching for something.
There was a terribly foul smell, and it felt like my mind was about to fly off to some high place.
"......"
"......"
We silently moved around this small lodge, avoiding the groping of the headless seeker. But the lodge was very small, and we might eventually be caught by those hands.
We couldn't imagine what would happen if we were caught.
Then suddenly, I started to get angry.
Why do I have to run and hide like this? A cornered mouse, stressed out, can even bite a cat to death. Right now, I was that mouse.
Creak-
I picked up a fallen chair nearby and hit the headless torso with it!
"Die!"
Thwack-!
The torso fell from my attack. I didn't miss this chance and shouted,
"Hey! Guys! This bastard is a total pushover! Let's all beat it! Hit it hard! Beat the crap out of it!"
How dare this headless bastard try to scare me!
I beat the strange being with the chair until I felt satisfied. Soon, Yang Juhee, who had been watching this scene, also picked up a dry log and started beating the torso.
"Die! Die! Damn it!"
Thwack-! Thwack thwack-!
Did our attacks work? The torso's movements were becoming very sluggish.
"We... we can do this!"
As we gained the upper hand, Jung-seok also seemed to gain courage, picked up a broken hiking stick from nearby, and joined us in the one-sided violence.
Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud-
A scene of relentless, one-sided violence.
I'll defeat this outrageous being and make it my mercenary-
As I was having such grand thoughts,
Creak-!
Someone opened the lodge's entrance door. It was Yoo Dahee.
"Dahee!"
"......"
Yoo Dahee looked back and forth between the rainy outside and us, then went outside! Seeing this, Yang Juhee shouted,
"Yoo Dahee, that bitch! She ran away!"
Yoo Dahee, who always maintained her composure, running away? How could that happen!
The problem was that I was flustered by this unimaginable event.
Pop-!
The beaten torso jumped up like a live fish seizing an opportunity, and it pounced on Jung-seok.
Thud-!
"Aaaaaargh!"
Jung-seok, who had fallen, screamed like thunder. The torso pulled and tugged at Jung-seok's body like in a wrestling match.
"Hiiiiik! Get it off me! Aaargh! Help me!"
Jung-seok struggled frantically like a butterfly caught by a spider, and we moved our hands to beat the torso even more to save Jung-seok!
Thwack-! Thwack thwack-!
In the process, Jung-seok sometimes got hit too, but we had no time to care about that and it didn't matter anyway.
"Guys!"
That's when it happened. Yoo Dahee, who had disappeared from this scene of frenzied beating, appeared soaking wet.
In her hand was a familiar-looking stake.
"Let's stop it with this! By driving this in! It's a stake for sealing evil and ominous things, so if we drive this in, it should work somehow! Here, take it!"
"Hey! Ha Young-won! Save that bastard Jung-seok!"
Yang Juhee took the stake from Yoo Dahee. And as she lifted it with all her might, I gritted my teeth and pulled Jung-seok.
Swoosh-
Jung-seok slipped out of its grasp. Taking advantage of that moment, Yang Juhee drove the stake down with all her might.
Thud-!
The torso was pinned to the floor, impaled by the stake like a moth or butterfly fixed to a board. It struggled a bit, then lost its strength and went limp.
『Congratulations! You have defeated the 'Headless Rider'!』
『Calculating rewards for 5 survivors.』
『You gain 500P』
"Ha. It's over."
Only when the text appeared before my eyes could I finally sit down with relief. My whole body was sticky with cold sweat, as if I'd been caught in the rain.
It was an experience I never wanted to have again, but I laughed at myself for feeling happy about getting 500 points even in this situation. My guts have really improved.
Whether it was because we defeated the strange monster or simply nature's harmony, the rain that had been pouring as if a hole had opened in the sky gradually stopped.
Soon, a familiar-faced man also burst in.
"Oh my goodness, what's this! What on earth happened here! Oh, the smell. Eek! What's that! It's... it's a headless corpse!"
Dr. Ji, who had disappeared somewhere, returned and made a fuss. But we were all exhausted, and no one could answer the man's questions.
***
Wee-woo wee-woo-
The entrance to the mountain was full of police cars making loud noises. A body discovered in an abandoned lodge.
This was enough to cause a big commotion. Students chatting with the swarms of police who had gathered. Some female students were even screaming.
"No, damn it, it was moving! The corpse! Oh! This is frustrating! That's why we beat it up!"
"How can a corpse move! Did you all drink alcohol or something?"
"Look at their glazed eyes. Did they do some kind of drugs?"
"That's right! I heard high school students in Gaeryong City are doing drugs these days!"
It looked problematic in many ways.
A middle-aged police officer asked Dr. Ji Dong-seok, who was turning a rosary in his hand while watching them,
"Are you the one who reported this, sir? May I ask your name?"
"My name is Ji Dong-seok. As you can see from my business card, I'm the director of the Pacific Oriental Culture Research Institute. More importantly... has the child's identity been confirmed?"
Shaman Ji Dong-seok kept looking at where the corpse had been. According to Ji Dong-seok's memory, the corpse was wearing a school uniform. The uniform would have a name tag.
Since a wallet with an ID was also found, identity confirmation didn't take long.
The middle-aged police officer who seemed to be in overall charge of the scene said to Shaman Ji Dong-seok,
"It's a female student from Yeongji High who went missing early this year. Sigh. What kind of beast would do such a thing? It's pitiful. What kind of psychopath would do such a shitty thing... It's really sad and infuriating."
"This isn't just the work of a psychopath, but a ritual that deals with formulas. It's a type of evil sorcery that separates the body and head, reducing them to beings that follow the sorcerer's orders."
"Pardon? Ah... yes. Well."
The police officer made a subtle expression at Ji Dong-seok's words. But Ji Dong-seok was talkative by nature.
"Usually, it's a Japanese sorcery that uses decapitated animals. In Korea, there are only three people who know this sorcery. One has died from dementia, one is here... and the other one is..."
Shaman Ji Dong-seok recalled the faces of the shaman he could call his master and the man he could call his peer. It was the face of the culprit.
Two days later.
The police were able to identify two types of external DNA from the headless corpse. One was skin cells from the student Jung-seok, and the other was hair found under the fingernails.
Since the owner of the hair was already the prime suspect in a similar case, the police quickly mobilized and arrested the man.
The man's name was Kim Hae-il, and he worked as a facility deacon at Glory Church in Gaeryong City.
The man didn't resist or ask any questions, as if he knew he would be arrested. He just muttered absent-mindedly as if reciting a prayer.
"Prisoners in the cave. Everything we see is just shadows cast by the torch. Heaven is the spiritual Idea, a treasure hidden in a field, and secret spiritual wisdom..."
"What the hell are you saying? Mr. Kim Hae-il. You have the right to remain silent─"
"I saved them! I saved them! Hehehe! You stupid bastards! You can't stop it now. The water veins are overflowing! The Sea of Aion that will spew like magma from the punctured earth! Aaaaah! Aaaaaaaah!"
"This guy's completely insane! Hey! Grab his arms and legs!"