Chapter 07

For his first job, he had certainly been given a worthwhile opponent, and a smile spread across Jun-gyeong’s face.
Perhaps taking Jun-gyeong’s silent smile for mockery, the woman’s eyes turned vicious.
But as though that were not her most pressing concern, she turned back to Seung-ho beneath her and slowly lowered her head.

“Just wait. I’ll make you regret that sneer soon enough.”

By the time she finished speaking, Jun-gyeong was already beside the bed.

“An otherworldly lust demon dares…”

Jun-gyeong seized the woman by the hair and hurled her out of the room.

“Kyaaah!!!”
CRASH-!

The woman screamed as she tumbled across the floor.
Jun-gyeong glanced down at the unconscious Seung-ho for a moment before walking toward her.
Keeping his gaze fixed on Lilith, he spoke quietly.

“I didn’t even need to bring a weapon. You’re nothing but a lust demon.”

The woman stared up at Jun-gyeong and cried out as she scrambled backward.

“How? How can you touch my body? How can… some lowly human from Earth lay a hand on me?!”

The teojutdaegam bristled at her words and began shouting.

-He’s not human. He’s our King.
-Lowly is what you call something like you. How dare you call His Majesty that?
-Your Highness, kill herrr. Tear her apart and kill herrr.
-Your Majesty, fighting!!

“You’re… not… human?”

Jun-gyeong gave a faint chuckle.

“Can’t you tell by looking? I’m human, you lowly lust demon.”
“A human shouldn’t be able to touch my…”

THUD-!

Jun-gyeong’s dress shoe slammed into the woman’s face.

“Kuaagh!!”

Lilith screamed as she rolled across the spacious living-room floor.

“A mere petty spirit talks too much.”

Jun-gyeong slowly looked Lilith over.
She had a slender, graceful figure, golden hair, and blue eyes.
She possessed the kind of face and body that could captivate nearly any man.
Jun-gyeong looked toward the chief secretary and spoke.

“Watch carefully. She’s a dream demon that enters dreams and drains vital essence, as well as a lust demon that feeds on yang energy while its victim sleeps.”

Trembling with fear, the woman spoke cautiously.

“…Please spare me.”

Any ordinary man would have fallen for her.
Lilith’s voice was infused with seductive Mana, and enchantment magic clung to every movement of her body.
At the sound of her voice, the chief secretary’s eyes gradually began to glaze over.
But not Jun-gyeong.
He had endured a thousand years in Avici Hell, the lowest depths of Hell itself.
His mind was nowhere near weak enough to flounder before a temptation as feeble as this.
And more importantly, there was only one woman for him. Seol-hui.
Lilith had chosen the wrong opponent.
A faint smile rested on Jun-gyeong’s face as he slowly walked toward her.

-Beat her to death, Your Highness.
-Pound her into mush.
-Ah~ Now I want acorn jelly.
-Me too.
-I want makgeolli too.
-It feels like forever since we had any.
-Yeah. Back when the master’s grandfather was alive, he’d bring us some now and then.

Letting the teojutdaegam’s wildly off-topic chatter wash past his ears, Jun-gyeong approached Lilith.
Then he grabbed her by the hair and lifted her into the air.

“I don’t know how you crossed the dimensional rift, but you made a mistake. You came somewhere you never should have.”
“S-Spare… me. Please spare me. I’ll go back. Please. I’ll return home and never even look in this direction again. Please, let me live.”

There was no emotion on Jun-gyeong’s face.
His gaze was calm, and his voice was even.

“Spare you? That’s a good one.”

Yet contrary to his words, his grip began to tighten.

“Kyaaah!! It hurts! Spare me! Please, spare me!”
“What use would I have for keeping someone as worthless as you alive?”
“Kuaagh!! No!! It hurts! No!!!”

Jun-gyeong met her eyes with his crimson gaze and slowly drove the blade into her heart.

Thk- Shnk-

“Aaagh!! S-Stop!!”

The blade sank into Lilith’s heart.
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
But no further sound escaped her lips.

Fwoosh-

Crimson karmic flames erupted from behind Jun-gyeong and coiled around Lilith’s body as though burning her away.
In an instant, the karmic flames consumed both her body and soul before turning into gray ash that scattered through the air.
Even that ash faded as it drifted toward the floor, like nothing more than a fleeting illusion.
A single blue orb remained in Jun-gyeong’s hand.

He studied the Book of Causality before him for a moment, then slipped the orb into his pocket.

-Wow~ The King killed the monster!!
-The master survived! He’s alive~
-His Majesty really is the best! Amazing! He took care of it in one go!!
-Long live His Majesty~ Long live His Highness~ Long live the Dokkaebi King~
-Hurrah!~ Hurrah!~ Hurrah!~

The teojutdaegam chattered excitedly while the chief secretary, finally coming back to his senses, sat collapsed on the floor and stared at Jun-gyeong.

“Haah… Th-This…”
“Did you actually see any of that?”
“…Yes. But how am I supposed to explain… Haah. The CEO would never have believed it.”

Jun-gyeong answered with a shrug.
The chief secretary rubbed both hands over his face before continuing.

“We’re beyond the question of whether he’ll believe it. I need to figure out how I’m even going to explain what happened.”
“Then it seems the job is finished.”
“Yes. Please, just a moment…”

The chief secretary disappeared somewhere, then returned and held out a briefcase.

“The advance was already given to Ms. Ok-hee. This is the success fee I mentioned earlier.”

The corner of Jun-gyeong’s mouth rose slightly when he opened the case.
The small case was packed with neatly arranged fifty-thousand-won bills.

“Five hundred million won.”

Five hundred million won.
It was an enormous amount by ordinary standards, but to Jun-gyeong it was not even enough to pay for his sword.
Jun-gyeong pulled out a single bundle, stuffed it into his pocket, and returned the case.

“I’ll take the payment directly from your master.”
“What?… Why…?”
“After-sales service. He’s been under a dream demon’s influence, so he’ll sleep soundly for a while. Let him catch up on all the sleep he’s missed.”
“Ah… Understood.”

The chief secretary watched Jun-gyeong leave through the front door, then looked around.
The teojutdaegam’s voices, which had filled the room moments earlier, had abruptly gone silent.
He pulled out his phone and placed a call.

“Buy makgeolli and acorn jelly. Lots of it.”

His gaze settled calmly as he slipped the phone away.
Then he bowed his head in every direction and spoke softly, almost as though reciting a prayer.

“I’ll make offerings more often from now on. Thank you.”

The living room had fallen completely silent, yet somehow he felt as though he could still hear their cheerful chatter.

—

The hill was just as high and steep as ever.
Lee Hye-ju was struggling up it in leggings that accentuated her slender legs and an oversized bomber jacket over her T-shirt, perhaps because the wind was still chilly.

“Haah~ Damn it. Pathetic bastard. Asshole. Dense bastard who can’t take a hint. Stupid jerk who does nothing but drive me crazy.”

Her curses grew harsher as her body tired, until they finally turned into a scream.

“Aaaagh!! This is fucking exhausting!!!!”

She dropped to the ground with a bag of chicken in one hand and a convenience-store bag in the other, and a can of beer slipped free and rolled down the hill.

“Ah, screw it. I’m not getting that. Forget it!”

After watching the beer roll far too distant to retrieve, she turned and looked up at the rooftop room waiting atop the hill, with half the climb still remaining.

“What kind of glorious reward am I expecting, coming all the way up here…?”

Even she didn’t know exactly why she had come.
The cold look in Han Jun-gyeong’s eyes when he had stabbed Park Tae-sik without hesitation that night remained burned into her mind.
He frightened her and felt unfamiliar, yet the sheer wrongness of seeing someone who had lived his entire life groveling suddenly become a completely different person kept bothering her like a thorn caught in her throat.
Was she worried about him, or did she simply want to confirm something for herself?
Those tangled feelings had pushed her up this hill.

“Haah~ Come on. Let’s do this.”

Just as she struggled to her feet, someone caught her arm and helped her up.

“Ah, thank…”

Hye-ju looked up mid-thanks and suddenly drew in a breath.
The man was holding the beer can that had rolled away moments earlier.
It was Jun-gyeong.

“If you’re hot, why don’t you at least take off the jacket?”
“……”

The casual, offhand way he spoke was the same as before, but the weight behind his voice was entirely different.
Jun-gyeong glanced at the silent Hye-ju, then casually took the bags of chicken and beer from her hands as though it were only natural and started up the hill ahead of her.

Watching Jun-gyeong’s back, Hye-ju was once again overcome by a strange feeling.
Not even a month had passed since that night, yet his frame had become more sharply masculine, and his back had broadened almost beyond recognition.
His sturdier shoulders and the thigh muscles visible beneath the shorts he wore despite the lingering cold looked densely packed, as though braided from steel.
His back now resembled an athlete’s, every trace of his former frailty washed clean away.
Hye-ju swallowed without realizing it and hurried after him.

“Wait for me, you bastard!”

She deliberately shouted roughly to dispel the awkwardness, but unlike before, a subtle tension now colored her voice.

Just as despair set in at the realization that she still had the stairs to climb after reaching the top of the hill, the crisp hiss of a beer can opening sounded from above.

“You opened one without me? Petty bastard.”

Determined to deal with that petty bastard, she squeezed out the last of her strength and climbed the metal stairs.
Perhaps it was because of the elevation. When she reached the top, a cool breeze swept over her and dried her sweat.

Hye-ju trudged over, tossed her jacket onto the wooden platform, and dropped down heavily.

“Give it here. That’s mine.”

Pssht-

Jun-gyeong obediently opened a can and held it out.
She pressed the can to her mouth and tipped back her head as though intent on draining it in one go.
After gulping down the beer for a long while, she lowered her head and wiped her mouth with her forearm just as she had that night.

“Kyaa~ That’s good.”
“What brings you here?”

Hye-ju’s eyebrow twitched at his question.
She did not have any particular reason.
No, she simply did not know what her reason was.
But her pride would never allow her to say, ‘I just wanted to see you,’ or, ‘I just wanted to know if you were doing okay.’
The defensive instincts she had learned surviving in the nightlife industry emerged first.

“No reason.”

Jun-gyeong merely nodded despite her prickly reply.
Hye-ju quietly sipped her beer as she watched Jun-gyeong pull the box of chicken from the plastic bag and open it.
Against the glittering forest of Seoul’s buildings sinking into evening, the red sunset flooded the wooden platform.
The old Jun-gyeong would have been whining over a little money or bragging about which gangster he knew and which older brother he was close with, but now his mere presence changed the weight of the entire space.
Jun-gyeong’s low voice finally broke the heavy silence.

“…You know, in my previous life.”
“Previous life?”
“Yeah. Just listen. We’ve got nothing better to do. Once, in my previous life, I spared a fox while I was out hunting. It was a royal hunting competition. I found a limping fox, probably one the soldiers had captured in another forest and released into the hunting grounds. When it saw me…”

Jun-gyeong paused to look at her face before continuing.

“Well, I suppose ‘he’ isn’t right, but anyway, maybe it sensed its own death. Instead of running, it just lay quietly before me as though waiting for me to decide its fate.”
“That’s one remarkably detailed previous life.”

Hye-ju deliberately answered curtly, yet she listened as though entranced by Jun-gyeong’s deep, pleasant voice.

“Then some tactless fool appeared and fired an arrow, trying to steal my prey.”
“And? Did the poor fox get hit?”
“No. The little thing nimbly dodged the arrow, then charged straight at the man who fired it. Fierce temper for such a tiny creature. When the terrified fool ran off screaming, it came back huffing and sat quietly in front of me like a well-trained hunting dog.”
“…So did you kill it in the end?”

Jun-gyeong’s brow twitched faintly.

“I did begin this story by saying I once spared a fox.”
“Ah… Right. You did. Anyway, what happened after that?”
“The little thing’s feistiness was rather endearing, so I simply sent it back into the forest. After that, perhaps trying to repay the favor, it began leaving pheasants, rabbits, and the like in front of the place where I was staying.”
“Oho~ A fox repaying a kindness. That’s pretty amazing. Animals really are better than people.”
“It was. But then one day it simply stopped coming, so I assumed its life had come to an end…”

A deep smile slowly spread across Jun-gyeong’s lips.
When he first opened his eyes in this world, he had been unable to fully perceive the karmic ties entwining different souls.
He had briefly forgotten that ordinary animals, not only humans, also passed through the cycle of reincarnation.
But today, the moment he saw Hye-ju limping up the hill before collapsing to the ground, he felt it.
Just as in his previous life, the fox had come to find him carrying food.
It was a truly strange and welcome bond.

“But why are you suddenly telling me this? Are you saying I’m pretty like a fox?”
“…No reason. The beautiful sunset reminded me of it.”

Perhaps it was the warmth woven into Jun-gyeong’s quiet voice.
The nameless anxiety and sense of unfamiliarity crouched inside Hye-ju’s chest quietly melted away like snow.
No matter how frighteningly the man before her had changed, she felt a strange reassurance that the essence of Han Jun-gyeong, the man who had always looked at her with warmth, hadn’t changed after all.

As though Jun-gyeong’s smile were contagious, a small smile appeared on Hye-ju’s face as well.
Perhaps embarrassed, she stared at his face for a moment before hurriedly turning away.
The sky had already softened from blood-red into a warm pink sunset.
Hye-ju didn’t realize that her own cheeks had turned just as pink.

“…You really do say the weirdest things.”

Hye-ju stayed there for a long while, drinking beer with chicken and the moon for company, then went home late at night, grumbling at Jun-gyeong’s teasing smile just as she used to.

And immediately after Hye-ju left, another guest arrived without a sound, almost as though she had been watching and waiting.
It was Ok-hee, her black hood pulled low over her head.