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Translator: penny
Chapter: 006
Chapter Title: Between the Living World and the Afterlife, An Young-hee Lives.
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The sorcerer's head exploded.
There were no shattered bones or brains spilling out in a mangled mess.
His entire head simply dissolved into black smoke and vanished.
"It's gone... on the other side too."
Kim Cheol-su's body, which he'd pulled into the real world, was left in a grotesque pose with just his head embedded in the asphalt, like some kind of prank gone wrong.
If a passerby had spotted it, they would've called the cops on the spot.
As his head vanished in Purgatory Surface, Kim Cheol-su's body—which had been left there with its spine snapped—disappeared along with it.
Whether Kim Cheol-su had cast some kind of perception-lowering spell or not, no one noticed even as An Young-hee grunted through using Heaven-Earth Flip.
"Gotta hold back on Heaven-Earth Flip from now on."
Even a sorcerer who roamed the world as his stage declared defeat the moment he entered Purgatory Surface.
And a 300-year-old monster with the power to seize that Kim Cheol-su's body couldn't lay a finger on An Young-hee.
'I just said it off the cuff, but damn, that's a pretty good name for it.'
My world flips, their world flips—heaven and earth turned upside down.
This was a sure-kill move.
The moment he used it, it exposed a secret that had to stay hidden from others.
Either the opponent dies, or I do. No middle ground.
An Young-hee approached the sports bag Kim Cheol-su had tossed aside.
The moment he touched it, a strand of Death Qi coiled around his finger, and the bag suddenly felt familiar.
He instinctively knew he'd claimed ownership.
An odd smell wafted from inside the bag.
Talismans, small dolls, bone fragments, and various antiques.
A dozen or so tiny dolls, each the size of two fingers, had their seals broken and scattered loose.
Clink.
The sound of chains rattled.
A ghost burst out from one of the small dolls still bound by chains, its seal intact.
It was one of the two ghosts that had appeared in An Young-hee's room before.
"Did you all break your seals and bail while you were in Purgatory Surface?"
For some reason, he could understand the ghost's words.
"Wasn't that a contract or something?"
The ghost nodded ambiguously.
Some ghosts had contracted with Kim Cheol-su, others had been unilaterally enslaved.
But the moment Kim Cheol-su died, all those contracts lost their power.
"Wasn't Kim Cheol-su a good contracting partner?"
He even learned the contract's backstory.
Kim Cheol-su, who ignored the backlash and risks of sorcery, was the worst kind of trade partner.
If you borrowed power, you had to pay the price—but he just dumped it all onto their true names.
"What about you?"
Clank.
The ghost shook the chains and ropes binding its hands once.
It said that if it stayed by An Young-hee's side, it could bind things freely.
An Young-hee pondered for a moment. This was the ghost that had tried to trap him and burn him alive.
Was it okay to contract with this thing?
"You know a lot about sorcerers?"
The ghost nodded. It had been a ghost for over 30 years, becoming one purely because it loved binding things.
This would be its fifth time switching owners.
"What's the price I'll pay? Do I have to play weird games with you or something? Not my thing."
The ghost frantically shook its head. No price—just let it stick around.
Since he'd inherited ownership from Kim Cheol-su, no new contract was needed.
In exchange, An Young-hee had to name it, to bind it.
"Binding Demon. That's your name from now on."
The moment he named it, the ghost nodded in satisfaction.
'Can't trust it completely, but having a 30-year veteran ghost as an advisor isn't a bad deal.'
As An Young-hee rummaged through the bag, he heard the chain rattle and felt a cold touch on his shoulder. He turned his head.
"What?"
Binding Demon pointed with its ropes toward the far end of Purgatory Surface.
From the sky, from the ground, pitch-black beasts were swarming in.
Apartments crumbled in their wake.
A black wave crashing over civilization.
That was the only way to describe it.
And the wave wasn't coming from just one direction.
Buildings collapsed on all sides, and the black tide swallowed even sound as it surged toward them.
Binding Demon pointed its chains at the blood splattered where Kim Cheol-su had died.
"Sorcerer blood is a feast for Purgatory Surface creatures? And Kim Cheol-su's is extra special?"
This wouldn't end well—they'd get swept up in that black wave.
An Young-hee checked the ground.
No one was looking their way, too focused on the fire trucks dousing the flames.
Like lying down on his master bedroom bed, he closed his eyes and fell backward.
An Young-hee opened his eyes in reality.
***
Morning came.
His house had burned to the ground.
He'd spent the night explaining the situation to firefighters and police, and hearing their side too.
The fire had started in multiple spots at once.
It looked like arson, and the flames were weirdly hard to put out.
They suspected chemical accelerants.
More like the vicious Death Qi from that ghost.
An Young-hee had become a homeless bum overnight.
A sudden surge of anger hit him.
That bastard Kim Cheol-su. Rot in hell.
Rookie sorcerer and now rookie homeless guy An Young-hee stared at a bleak future.
Arson was suspected, and the fire started from inside the house.
Depending on the fire department and police investigation, he might have to pay compensation. Luckily, since the fire mostly stayed inside, it wouldn't be too bad.
What a joke.
Losing his house was bad enough—now compensation on top?
An Young-hee was dying of injustice.
But he couldn't testify that sorcerer Kim Cheol-su had targeted him as a sacrifice and sicced a ghost on the place.
Even if that got him off the hook, he couldn't reveal it.
If word got out that a sorcerer was involved, the officials he'd seen in Purgatory Surface—the ones working the hidden side of Korea—would step in.
They'd investigate why Kim Cheol-su targeted An Young-hee.
One hard lesson from his brief day's experience in Purgatory Surface:
This constitution of his absolutely, positively could not be exposed.
An Young-hee sat in a park near the police station and opened the sports bag.
"Explaining this thing took forever... haa."
Arson suspicions.
And the bag was the only thing the prime suspect An Young-hee had grabbed from the house.
He'd brushed it off as an occult hobby, but they kept asking if he'd started some weird ritual and caused the fire.
As he left the station, they told him times were rough these days.
An Young-hee, who was about to grab a nearby motel, stopped in his tracks.
"Ah. The workshop."
He'd inherited the workshop ownership along with the bag from Kim Cheol-su.
He dug through the bag. In a small inner pocket plastered with talismans, he found a key.
Just the key, nothing else.
Anyone who could find the workshop from this alone would be the world's greatest thief.
"...Where the hell is it?"
Clink.
Binding Demon emerged from the bag.
"You know where it is?"
Nod.
An Young-hee followed Binding Demon on foot.
About an hour in, he asked,
"How much farther? Not even halfway? Can't we take a cab? We can? Why didn't you say so sooner!"
He hailed a taxi.
Blowing what little money he had on a cab sucked, but after killing a guy, enduring an all-nighter at the station, and walking for an hour, his body and mind couldn't take more abuse.
***
Kim Cheol-su's workshop was in the basement of a commercial building that looked at least 30 years old.
Security? One padlock.
An Young-hee wondered if that was enough for a sorcerer's lair, but the lock brimmed with Death Qi so thick it was practically invisible.
Kim Cheol-su had the entire three basement levels to himself.
First floor: living quarters. Second: main workshop. Third: sub-workshop and storage.
'Over 100 pyeong? All to himself?'
A world-roaming sorcerer must rake in the cash.
"And why's all the electronics top-of-the-line?"
AI for new sorcery, huh.
Sorcery had this old-fashioned image, but this guy kept up with trends a little too well.
Too tired to think more.
He shoved aside the used bedsheets and blanket, bought new ones from a nearby shop, spread them out, and crashed.
***
An Young-hee woke to a doorbell.
He'd dozed off in the morning; now it was late afternoon.
Checking his smartphone, it was a middle school buddy.
An Young-hee had lived his whole life in that house—the one that burned yesterday.
School was nearby, elementary through college all close by.
Even with his standoffish personality, he had a few friends left.
"Hello?"
-Yo, you good?
"Not good at all."
-Heard your house burned down. You okay?
No secrets in a small town(?).
The decade-old network of parents and bros had sniffed out his house fire quick.
"Died inside at the station till dawn."
-They interrogate fire victims too?
"Arson suspicions. They looked at me like I was the psycho who torched my own place."
An Young-hee vented about the cops with his friend for a good while.
-What kinda life is this for the great An Young-hee. Stay safe.
"Yeah. You too."
An Young-hee hung up.
Thought about sleeping more, but half a day out already, no drowsiness.
"City hall program's tomorrow."
Two things caught his eye.
A ridiculously expensive-looking computer on one side, and a door with stairs leading to the second basement.
An Young-hee chose to explore the second basement.
"Last night—or before bed—I just peeked."
Games could wait, but like it or not, he'd be peering into the world's underbelly from now on.
The second basement looked like a mad scientist's lab, a witch's workshop, and a museum blended in perfect ratios.
Liquids in glass cases? No clue. Giant cauldron? Empty.
Mummy-like stuff? No touching.
A bookshelf in the corner.
Books in Korean were rare. Even those were half Classical Chinese, like old newspapers.
"Chinese characters, Japanese... this one's Arabic?"
His smartphone recognized Arabic but couldn't translate.
Sorcery tomes wouldn't follow normal grammar anyway—no way it'd work.
"...Exploration on hold."
Too ignorant to touch anything.
Same story on the third basement.
"...Just sleep it off."
He wanted to do nothing but rest.
***
The Purgatory Surface beginner support program run by Seoul City Hall was held on sublevel 7.
An Young-hee arrived 30 minutes early.
Realizing city hall only went to sublevel 5, he hunted for a way down and found stairs like the gates of hell leading to 7.
Tense about some special realm, but sublevel 7 was just normal living space.
Room 705, where the program was, had a locked door.
'No info desk. Guess everyone knows to come straight here.'
An Young-hee sat in a hallway chair and pulled out his smartphone.
Yesterday, he'd done zilch. Shouldn't have.
Now he couldn't pull out of Purgatory Surface.
Eyes like the deceased were secondary.
This body.
As long as he had a body intact in Purgatory Surface, some other sorcerer might target him anytime.
As An Young-hee browsed and read true names on Purgatory Wiki, two women stopped nearby.
"Vacant Shrine Maiden's entering politics? Did I hear that right?"
"Yeah. They say she's already secured a seat in someone's backyard."
"Those lunatics. Of all people, with Hitler."
"Not Hitler himself—shrine maiden serving him. And she claims he didn't turn into an idiot from hell's torments."
"Even an idiot, he's still the maniac who tried to burn the world. A malevolent spirit with influence. No reaction from the Divine Martial Association?"
"You think? Super Tyrant King's grinning about it."
The hallway chat drowned out the wiki.
MacArthur Shrine Maiden was already in the mix.
A Hitler shrine maiden? Wouldn't be weirder than that.
'Hitler shrine maiden going political?'
Anyone knowing the name couldn't ignore it.
And one more.
'Super Tyrant King. Same as that chat guy?'
Next thing you know, historic figures popping up everywhere, duking it out.
'But is it cool to talk about this in the hall? Guess so, since they are.'
Free intel like this was a win for An Young-hee.
"Vacant Shrine Maiden, who lived her life steering clear of politics. Why now?"
"Tied to the MacArthur Shrine Maiden's exorcism mess. That's all I can say."
An Young-hee, eavesdropping eagerly, went pale.