Chapter 153
Returning to his room, Jinseong lit up the entire space and examined the cursed object he had created.
The leather forming the object had a dark brown color, and the straw attached to it was also dyed the same color, densely packed. The short, stiff straw felt painful to the touch when lightly brushed, and the firm yet strangely squishy sensation when pressed hard made him think he might be touching a dead pig directly.
Jinseong seemed satisfied with the texture, slightly raising the corner of his mouth.
He placed the cursed object into a well-crafted wooden box in the corner of the room. Then, he took out an inkstone and a lump of cinnabar from the cabinet, and scooped up a handful of pig fat from under the cabinet, placing it on the inkstone.
"Hmm."
He sniffed the pig fat to check if it had gone bad, then lit a Samadhi fire to melt it. He slowly ground the cinnabar on the inkstone, creating a bright red dye. He continued mixing the cinnabar and pig fat until the paint reached a suitably thick consistency, then dipped his index finger in it and began drawing inside the box.
The drawing resembled cave paintings.
On the worn wood, he drew a figure wrapped in leather, holding a torch and beating a pig. The pig in the drawing was very large and ominous-looking.
Jinseong quickly dried the drawing with Samadhi fire, then closed the box and sealed it with leather straps to prevent it from opening.
Clank.
As soon as he finished sealing it, the box shook.
It shook violently as if something alive was trapped inside trying to escape, and a thunderous sound reverberated as if it might break the box and come out. Moreover, the indescribable sound spreading between the thunderous noises was like the agonized groans of a pig, and after the groans echoed, a pungent, gamey smell spread.
"It's been made very well."
Jinseong didn't bat an eye at this frightening scene, but rather smiled as if pleased.
He filled his hand with Samadhi fire and raised it high. Then, as if waving a torch, he swung it around and brought it close to the box. The box's violent movements, which had even flipped over several times, subsided, and it became quiet as if frightened.
Jinseong brought the torch right up to it, and with a 'squeak-' sound, a smell like burning hair spread. He gestured around as if trying to send away the foul smell, and after repeating this a few times, both the smell and the box quieted down.
But quieting down wasn't the end of it.
Perhaps due to the effects of the cursed object inside, mold began to form around the box, and the once-clean carpet lost its luster and began to decay as if directly hit by a storm. The wooden cabinets began to gather moisture and smell, their color changing as if rotting.
Impurity.
The symbol of impurity that Jinseong had reinforced through multiple layers of ritual was leaking out.
He had substituted a non-human entity for a ritual that should have been performed by humans, added sorcery to transfer evil from a branch that split from Judaism, and then added Islamic sorcery to an object that should have been burned while carrying the meaning of impurity. And instead of burning it, he had preserved its form intact by treating it as if it had been hunted.
Impurity, which originally had no form or should have lost its form, had taken shape.
Moreover, since it was hunted, it also carried the symbol of a corpse, and since a corpse is impure, the meaning of impurity overlapped again. Additionally, he had drawn primitive-style pictures on the box containing the cursed object, given it symbolism, and even added the meanings of 'corpse' and 'prey'...
It wasn't strange that it was emitting such terrible effects all around.
Jinseong reached into the air and pulled out the gold that had hidden in the bed.
The gold wriggled and crawled according to his gestures, drawing a square line centered on the box. Then, like waves surging upward, it stretched and overlapped its body towards a single point, creating a shape.
A golden pyramid.
It was an object suitable for suppressing and storing the impurity of a corpse, and at the same time, a symbol of a religion antagonistic to Abrahamic religions.
Once inside the golden pyramid, the cursed object stopped spreading its impurity in all directions.
The brilliantly shining gold embraced the impurity without rotting or fading, and the gold that filled every gap from the walls to the floor became a small warehouse and prison for the cursed object.
After confirming that the golden pyramid had completely suppressed the cursed object, Jinseong began taking items out of a drawer.
Iron powder.
Vitamin C.
Bandages.
Wine.
Povidone-Iodine disinfectant.
One can of bread.
And a handful of finely ground bone powder.
He levitated these items and moved to the bathroom.
After some time had passed since he entered the bathroom, something strange began to happen to his body.
The skin on his once-smooth palms began to peel off.
The skin in the center of his palms peeled away, and gradually, deep wounds began to form as if something was gouging them out. Fortunately, they didn't pierce through to the back of his hands, but they were holes that seemed to have dug in almost to the bone.
These holes weren't limited to his hands but formed identically on both of his feet. Holes were punctured in the centers of his soles.
Blood flowed from the punctured holes.
Like an exaggerated expression used in movies, blood flowed enough to fill the bathtub.
Seeing this, Jinseong picked up the wine he had been levitating. Instead of removing the cork, he grabbed the neck of the bottle and broke it, then poured it directly onto the bottom of the bathtub.
"Hic est enim sanguis meus novi testamenti, qui pro multis effunditur in remissionem peccatorum."
As he chanted the Latin incantation, the smell of blood filled the bathroom. Proportional to the bloody smell, the amount of blood flowing from his hands and feet decreased significantly, and the blood that had been flowing like a turned-on faucet eventually slowed to just dripping.
Crunch.
As the blood slowly began to stop, Jinseong started randomly putting the levitated items into his mouth. He roughly mixed the iron powder, vitamin C, and bone powder, put them in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Whenever his throat felt clogged, he bent down and sucked up the wine that had filled the bathtub with his mouth. Finally, when the blood drops had completely stopped, he poured the Povidone-Iodine disinfectant on the wounds and wrapped them with bandages.
Then he got out of the bathtub and grabbed the canned bread.
The can had a clear Halal certification mark on it.
He opened the can and ate the dry, tasteless bread in bite-sized pieces, sprinkling bone powder on it, and like before, whenever his throat felt blocked, he put his mouth to the bathtub full of wine and sucked it up.
Only after eating all of the bread did he sigh as if it was finally done, and then unwrapped the bandages.
What emerged when the bandages were removed was clean skin.
As if pretending nothing had happened, soft and white skin was in place, looking as if there had never been any wounds.
Although he had been pale to begin with, due to the blood loss, Jinseong's skin had turned even whiter, as if blanched.
He looked like a vampire with a healthy complexion.
He carelessly threw the bandages on the floor, took the shower head, and washed off the blood and wine that had stained his leather clothes and skin. After roughly drying himself with a towel, he left the room. Then, without putting on any shoes, he walked to the dining room with wet, bare feet, making splashing sounds.
As he headed towards the dining room, he felt a warm sensation along with delicious smells, and inside, he could hear the presence and voices of many people.
Jinseong counted to three in front of the door and then knocked.
Then he asked:
"May I come in?"
From beyond the door came Arin's lively voice:
"Oh, come in!"
Upon hearing the invitation to enter, Jinseong opened the door without hesitation and went inside.
And numerous gazes turned towards him.
"..."
"..."
"..."
For a moment, silence fell over the dining room.
And the first to break that silence was Serin.
"Oh, brother... Your clothes...?"
Serin, who had been cutting a chicken steak, was looking at Jinseong with an expression of bewilderment.
Her gaze was directed at Jinseong's body.
More precisely, it was the leather clothes that Jinseong would never seem to wear.
The leather clothes, which had looked new, seemed to have been broken in, perhaps from sharing in Jinseong's hardships, and had taken on a slightly reddish tint over their ordinary color. Moreover, the parts with and without gloss strangely complemented each other.
He looked like a rock star dressed up for a performance, or an enthusiastic fan of a rock star dressed up to attend a concert.
"It's for sorcery, so you don't need to worry about it."
Jinseong said this and then glanced around the dining room.
It was because he hadn't yet adapted to the changed landscape of the dining room.
But soon he understood the mechanism of the dining room and approached the chef.
"Beef steak. Blue rare. 1kg... No. 2kg. And make a drink by grinding tomatoes, tangerines, garlic, and seaweed, and boil a lump of blood and give me one piece."
After making an order that only a blood-crazed mosquito might make, he sat down at the table where his family was gathered.
Then, looking at Lee Yang-hoon, he said:
"I think we need to hold a coming-of-age ceremony."