Chapter 91
“Before we go in earnest, let’s inhale this first.”
Kim I-seo stopped Kim Yul, who looked ready to lunge at any moment, and took a small device from inside her coat.
It was the sort of thing asthma patients often use, like an inhaler. The pure white liquid inside swayed lightly with Kim I-seo’s gesture.
“It’s a mental sedative. It lasts for ten minutes and blocks most mental attacks. Of course, your own resistance matters most, so don’t let your guard down.”
“Ew, that stuff tastes awful.”
Kim Yul stuck out her tongue and frowned. Kim I-seo ignored her and handed the inhaler to her.
“You’re not taking it for the taste. It’s better to take it beforehand than to get bewitched for no reason.”
“Uuu…….”
Kim Yul complained, but she squeezed her eyes shut and brought the inhaler to her mouth. Lee Min-su and Kim Mi-ryeo also took theirs and inhaled deeply. Ian hesitated for a moment, then carefully brought the device to his lips.
Ian’s mental defenses weren’t actually that weak. So far, he had never been bewitched by anything, nor had he ever even sensed it coming. Just the fact that, during the Monkey dream incident, he hadn’t fallen asleep alone was enough to prove that his mental strength was far greater than most people’s.
Compared to the agents, he wasn’t sure. But if you asked whether it was lacking, that didn’t seem right either. He was using the foreign god’s grimoire without any issue, so it would be strange to say his mental defenses were insufficient.
Still, there was no reason to refuse a sedative just because he wanted to take a gamble. Whatever the case, it was better to handle the work and take precautions in advance.
“…….”
Ian carefully pressed the release button on the inhaler. At the same time, the liquid held in the bottom of the device rapidly heated up and turned into vapor. The pure white smoke circulated inside the canister and quickly rose through the open channel toward the mouthpiece.
“Ssshh…….”
He slowly inhaled the rising smoke. The terrible taste instantly slammed into his taste buds and nose, but Ian squeezed his eyes shut and drew the smoke in. A moment later, the inhaler, having finished releasing it, disintegrated into tiny pieces and fell to the floor.
“......Urgh.”
Ian forcibly swallowed the nausea rising in his throat, took out the water he had packed in his bag, and gulped it down. That made him feel a little better.
“......The taste is seriously awful. What, did they make this out of food waste?”
“We don’t really know how the inhaler is made either. But the liquid itself is made by Santa.”
Kim I-seo answered while wiping the saliva from the corners of her mouth.
“If we get the chance later, I’ll show you.”
“......Forget it. Let’s focus on the mission.”
Ian let out a long breath and turned his head. Kim Yul, who had been the first to put the inhaler to her mouth, was sticking her tongue out toward the ground and drooling, but she wasn’t the important one.
The village was beginning to catch the sunlight. Through the windows of the tiny houses, which weren’t many to begin with, the residents’ figures began to show.
Their arms, torsos, and legs were no different from those of ordinary humans. They didn’t even look bloodstained. Only their expressions were somehow unnatural.
A face caught somewhere between a smile and a blank stare. Tears streamed down from eyes curved into crescents, and grotesquely bent fingers picked up something.
It was skin. But not ordinary skin.
Human-skin masks.
A tool made by tearing the skin off a human face and turning it into a mask.
They put on masks made without distinction between men and women. Their bloodshot eyes showed plainly through the gaping eyeholes. The corners of their mouths were stitched shut, fixed in a smiling expression. From the residents’ original mouths visible inside, incomprehensible muttering kept spilling out.
“Ugh!”
“Hrk……!”
Even though no proper words could be heard, the moment they recognized the muttering, a shock like a hammer blow struck the brains of everyone except Ian.
It felt as if insects were crawling between the folds of the brain. A horrific sensation, as if the self were being crushed whole, raked through the mind. Their fingers clung to their faces on their own, and they felt like they were going insane, wanting to tear off the damned skin stuck to their muscles.
Ah, why do humans wear such cumbersome skin? Why would anyone need an expression other than a smile?
Laughter, happiness, smiles, radiance, praise, joy, pleasure.
All of those things ultimately come from a bright, cheerful expression. There is no reason to be angry. There is no reason to be sad.
After all, humans are always obligated to be happy.
We must follow the Buddha’s will and spread happiness. We have the duty to draw smiles on everyone’s faces. We have the duty to tear off their cumbersome skin and use it as a stepping-stone for happiness.
The beginning always starts with oneself. If I change first, I can change the world.
After all, didn’t Shakyamuni say as much? The one who conquers himself is the greatest victor.
We mortals are always fighting against wicked things.
Anxiety, unhappiness, despair, exhaustion, frustration, and so on.
We must protect ourselves from emotions far removed from happiness and seize victory.
So this is the foundation. Peel off your own facial skin, a stepping-stone to becoming Buddha. You need to climb the first step toward entering nirvana—
Crack!
The train of thought sank beneath the horrific pain.
Blood was streaming from the tongue he had bitten off. Since it was an area packed with blood vessels and nerves, the bleeding was substantial, and the pain was intense. But thanks to that, he could pull himself together.
“Ugh……!”
Kim I-seo spat out the blood pooling in her mouth and quickly looked around. Far away, she could see the residents slowly emerging from their houses, and her companions still hadn’t regained their senses.
Even though a sedative had certainly been administered, it was a mental attack strong enough to blow away one’s sense of self in an instant. Because Kim I-seo had experienced something similar with Hansel and Gretel in her childhood, she was able to keep her head, but the others weren’t.
Lee Min-su and Kim Mi-ryeo were frantically clawing at their faces with their fingers, and Kim Yul was still breaking into a dazed, foolish grin.
And Ian…….
“Hoo…….”
was staring at the residents with an unbothered expression.
*
It was a sudden disaster. The moment a resident put on the human-skin mask, everyone except Ian went blank. Then they brought their hands to their faces and began desperately trying to tear them off, as if to rip them away.
The worst off were Lee Min-su and Kim Mi-ryeo. Both of their faces were already a bloody mess. They didn’t have serious injuries; the bleeding came from scratching their skin with their fingernails. It would hurt like hell, but it wasn’t at a life-threatening level.
Kim Yul just laughed vacantly. Saliva dripped from between her parted lips. Her wide-open eyes, deprived of moisture, were gradually beginning to turn red.
Unlike Lee Min-su and Kim Mi-ryeo, though, she didn’t seem to have gone completely mad yet, since she was gripping the pinky finger of her other hand tightly with a trembling hand. If left alone, she would probably bend it the other way and come to her senses.
And Kim I-seo, as if the face she had just been making had been a lie, spoke with blood staining her lower jaw.
“......M-Mr. Shin Ian. Are you all right?”
Ian looked down at her and nodded.
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt at all.”
“H-how…….”
“My mental defenses are probably sturdier than yours. Anyway, is this situation fine as it is?”
Ian turned his gaze back toward the residents.
In total there were about thirty people. Every one of them was approaching with kitchen knives or axes in hand, still wearing human-skin masks.
None of them were running. They were all walking slowly while muttering something.
“I can’t tell what they’re saying. Were they even speaking Korean to begin with?”
“......You can’t hear that?”
Kim I-seo said as she stood up on shaky legs.
“A mind that is unstable and does not know the Dharma, like a beautiful flower with lovely color but no fragrance—if a fool sees himself as foolish, he is already a virtuous person. If you befriend the wicked, their evil deeds spread to you, and even after a long time together, the stench does not disappear…… Every sentence they’re muttering is something Shakyamuni said.”
“......It sounds like Korean?”
“That’s right. But the fact that it sounds normal itself probably means…….”
“That you’ve been bewitched.”
Ian clicked his tongue, opened the grimoire, and nodded with a pistol in his other hand.
“Those two look like they’ll be taken over if we leave them alone. For now, we need to wake them up somehow, even if it means giving them a shock.”
“Ah, understood. Then Mage Kim Yul—”
“I’ll do it.”
At Ian’s words, Kim I-seo nodded. She spat out the blood pooling in her mouth again, took out a knife, and without hesitation plunged it into Lee Min-su and Kim Mi-ryeo’s shoulders. Then she twisted the blade where it met the shoulder bone, scraping at the bone’s surface.
“Aaaagh!? Gghh……!”
“Ugh……!”
The horrible pain brought clarity back to the dazed eyes of the two of them. They quickly took in the situation and, each gripping their weapon, steadied their breathing.
Ian stood in front of Kim Yul and quietly looked down at her. Her bloodshot eyes turned straight toward Ian and trembled.
It seemed her mind was awake but her body wouldn’t follow. Ian briefly put his pistol away, gently wrapped the hand that was gripping her finger in his own, and said,
“Let’s go.”
There was naturally no answer. Even so, Ian used Kim Yul’s hand as leverage and bent her finger backward.
Crack!
With the terrible sound, the joint and skin were torn away. At the same time, her stiff body began to move.
“Water, respond to my will. Become a single wave that will pierce through them!”
As soon as she came to herself, she chanted the spell.
Brrrrr……!
The flasks hanging from Kim Yul’s waist shattered all at once and condensed in one place. Then, rippling like a tiny wave, they crushed the legs of the village residents who were walking at the front.
Blood mixed with the surging water. The red current smashed the upper bodies of the fallen residents and then vanished.
“Huu, hhh……!”
Kim Yul, after using magic, let out rough breaths and turned to look at Ian.
She grinned with cold sweat beading on her skin.
“Thanks.”
Ian did not answer; instead, he drew his gun and fired at the residents.
Tatatatat!
The smell of gunpowder spread thickly over the fishy stench of the water.