Chapter 133: Building a Nest (10)

"This crazy sorcerer... Does he think I'm a sucker? Trying to pull this nonsense on me?"

Seong Min-hyeok muttered in disbelief.

He drew up his qi with a fierce expression. The qi flowed through his entire body, making it harder and amplifying his already incredible physical abilities. Unlike other martial artists whose qi flowed like water, his qi was sticky and viscous, similar to oil.

He was about to charge at Jinseong with this sticky, clumped qi.

"Don't charge at him!"

But he had to stop at the intervention of the officer who had been trembling from afar.

"Why?"

"D-don't attack him under any circumstances! If you attack, the price you'll have to pay will increase!"

The officer ran towards Seong Min-hyeok, panting and shouting.

"It's not a fortune-telling fee, it's a payment! This isn't like a fortune-teller trying to scam you!"

Fortune-telling fee.

Payment.

What's the difference?

Seong Min-hyeok couldn't understand the officer's words. The officer, looking frustrated, tried to explain but became urgent upon seeing the banknotes clinging to Jinseong's body forming shapes. He stood in front of Seong Min-hyeok and shouted:

"Please explain about the payment!"

"Is that a question?"

At the officer's query, the head wrapped tightly in banknotes caved in, forming a mouth shape. It moved around as if trying to speak and then uttered words. The officer's eyes glazed over for a moment, but he quickly slapped himself hard enough to make a sound and crossed himself, as if trying to regain his senses.

"It's not a question! I'm pointing out that you haven't explained something you should have. How can this be a question?"

After a moment of silence at the officer's words, Jinseong spoke:

"What is payment? Payment is the rightful compensation that should be given when work is done, and what must be paid when something is used. This is proper etiquette and a contract between people. Whether tangible or intangible, it's the rightful compensation that must be returned."

"You should also explain the difference from a fortune-telling fee!"

"My, aren't you fussy."

Jinseong turned his head towards where the officer was standing. The place where eyes should be caved in, creating an empty space, and wriggling ink gathered in one place to draw black pupils as if painted.

The pupils looked at the officer and then curved slightly, forming an arc.

"Did you pick up some sorcery from somewhere?"

It looked like he was smiling with his eyes.

"Good! Very good. Sorcery is the root of culture and the seed of civilization. No one is as cultured as those who know it, and no one is as excellent as those who take interest in it. Yes, I should explain. How could I receive something from someone who doesn't know what they're giving! Hahaha, but before that. Let's see. Yes, let's see. What's your name? Ah, yes. I see it, I see. I-can-see-it."

The ink forming the eyes gathered at the brow, creating a large eye drawing. The pupil in the drawing expanded and contracted repeatedly as if it were a real person's, and then read the three characters of the name embroidered on the officer's uniform.

"Yes. Cheon Hui-su. Your name is Cheon Hui-su. Your three-character name is truly well-given, huh. It's a name given by someone with great intention in naming. Let's see. What I can read from your three-character name..."

"I'll pass on the fortune-telling. Just explain the difference between a fortune-telling fee and payment!"

"Huh."

Jinseong laughed again at the officer, Cheon Hui-su, who cut off his words.

"You've learned well. It seems you worship a god with four characters, and the one who taught you this must surely be a divine sorcerer. Hahahahaha!"

Jinseong laughed maniacally. His laughter contained such great joy that it filled the air with sound, enough to shake the sky and make the soldiers who were barely standing due to tension lose strength in their legs and collapse.

The laughter continued for a while, then stopped abruptly as if time was up. Jinseong instantly erased the eyes from his face, leaving only the mouth, which began to open and close.

Every time the mouth moved, the banknotes vibrated, and with each vibration, the ink wriggled, moving the faces of the figures drawn on the banknotes.

It was a horrifying sight, as if numerous souls were speaking with their own mouths.

"A fortune-telling fee is the price for divination. The cause and effect revolve solely around the divination. The fortune-teller pays a price to see the future for divination, and the one getting their fortune told must offer something of equal value to what the fortune-teller paid. This is a transaction centered only on divination, so its weight is truly equal and fair. There's neither lack nor excess. Even if the intangible seems valuable, it's neither less nor more compared to the tangible, making it a truly fair exchange!

"But what is payment? It's a transaction with nothing in between, involving only the one who orders the work and the one who does it. The one who receives the work must receive satisfactory compensation, and the one who orders the work must pay sufficient compensation that doesn't go against moral principles. This is what payment is."

The officer, after Jinseong's explanation, whispered to Seong Min-hyeok:

"Did you understand?"

"No."

But the response was unabashedly honest. It was an answer that would make Confucius shake his head and say, "This is someone I cannot teach."

The officer, seeing Seong Min-hyeok's attitude of "What's wrong with not knowing?", gave up on expecting anything from him. Instead, he extracted the core message and explained it simply, as if to a gorilla:

"A fortune-telling fee is a fixed price, but payment needs to be negotiated."

"What? So you're saying I need to negotiate with that guy?"

"...Well, yes, that's about right."

"Why did you have to explain it so complicatedly? It's just about agreeing on a price, right?"

Seong Min-hyeok shrugged his shoulders once and approached Jinseong, saying:

"Hey, Mr. Sorcerer. I don't know what kind of trick you pulled, but thanks to that smart guy over there, it's all been exposed, huh?"

"Hehehe."

"I kind of get that I've been affected by sorcery, and I understand that I need to pay to avoid problems. So..."

Seong Min-hyeok took out a 500-won coin from his pocket, folded it twice, and threw it at Jinseong's feet.

Clink.

"Take this and get lost."

At these words, Jinseong let out a small "Hu" sound. Soon, the small sound grew louder, and the brief sound exhaled with his breath became a huge laugh.

"Huhahahahaha!"

"Hahahahaha!"

"Hahahaha!"

The mummy laughed as if it couldn't contain itself, holding its stomach. It rolled on the ground, clutching its belly as if its navel might fall out.

As the rolling mummy let go of its hands, a large hole appeared in the navel area, and something began to pop out.

Rustle.

Rustle rustle rustle.

With a sound similar to rustling paper, golden threads shot out from the hole in the belly, climbed up Jinseong's body, and created a mask on his face. The mask's shape was similar to before, but even more bizarre. The hat part formed a shape like an Egyptian pharaoh's crown, and below it was carved a face identical to Seong Min-hyeok's.

"Three questions hold a truly strange meaning."

"Regardless of East or West, in legends,"

"In myths,"

"In folktales, it's these three questions that appear countless times."

Jinseong shook the mask, which resembled a death mask molded from Seong Min-hyeok's face, back and forth. He swayed it slowly from side to side, and even brought it close as if to examine Seong Min-hyeok's face more closely.

Then the faces drawn on Jinseong's body and the mouth of the mask began to move in various directions, spewing words.

It looked as if multiple people were clinging to one person, speaking frantically.

"There was a lord who tried to drive out the Jews. The lord asked three questions, and as a result of answering those questions, the Jew was able to enjoy an abundant life, which is the reward for the wisdom of answering the questions. Ah, how truly enviable, so enviable.

"The boy who answered the grim reaper's three questions gained eternal life along with wealth and glory. Ah, the reward for the questions is truly precious. I'm so envious I don't know what to do.

"Ahmad, who heard the king's three questions, received a hint from an angel and spoke the correct answer, so his future path was filled only with truly beautiful things laid out by the angel. Ah, Contractor Ahmad. Angel's Contractor Ahmad. He lived a happy life enjoying wealth and glory, carrying the secret knowledge and wisdom spoken by the angel. Ah, how truly enviable, so enviable.

"There are three questions that test wisdom, and if you answer them, you become a wise person. That wisdom is truly extraordinary and worthy of the world's blessings. So the reward must be truly valuable, ah. It is truly a blessed, blessed thing."

Jinseong, who had been speaking with multiple mouths like this, suddenly clamped his mouth shut.

Then, in a voice filled with disappointment, he said:

"However, what I answered was far from wisdom. So I will ask three questions in return. This is the payment, the price you must pay me."

Jinseong brought his hand, wrapped in banknotes and blunted, to the mask. He grabbed the corners of the mask's mouth and pulled them up as if tearing, creating a grotesque smile.

"Just as I gave correct answers to correct questions, you too must give correct answers to correct questions. There will be exactly three of them, and if you answer just those three, there will be no problem."

Jinseong said this and raised his hand, pointing behind them.

"Also, the power of the great Shesep-ankh is present, so the path will not open until you answer the questions, and none of you will be able to pass through here."

The doll, wrapped in banknotes like bandages filled with human desire and obsession, forming a fake human shape, and covered in gold, a metal that bewitches people.

The doll controlled by and representing Jinseong imitated a monster that existed in Egypt and asked the first question:

"Are there people in this world who deserve to die?"