Chương 30: S.04 Memory of the Clock 06(03) - Parousia

Scene 07. Deep dawn. Headquarters. The first light of morning was near, but the brisk, busy energy that had always filled the mornings here was gone without a trace. A heavy silence, past the point of quiet, pressed out between the threads of 인불(In-bul_Ghost Light) like thick air. A stillness beyond even silence. Apart from a handful of 내금부(Nae-geum-bu_Inner Guard) members standing sentry, one might have doubted anyone lived here at all. An Inner Guard member carrying a dispatch ran past in a hurry.

At the main gate of the quarters where the 前 단장(Former Dan-jang_Former The Oldest) had once lived, a Ritual Taboo Rope and a white paper—the sign of a house in mourning—hung in a heavy air. As if to say no one would be admitted; as if to say this was no longer the place she would dwell. To Chae-rim, who stood guard not within the gate but outside it, an Inner Guard member came running in haste. Inner Guard_02: Deputy. His breath came so ragged it seemed to reach his throat. Chae-rim nodded.

Inner Guard_02: Just as you said, Deputy. They are. Approaching the lower village entrance, we're told. Chae-rim: Every Inner Guard, stand by at the gates in each of the four directions. Do not clash recklessly, and do not open the gates. Wait. Inner Guard_02: Understood. The instant Chae-rim's order reached them, the presences that had been holding their breath inside Headquarters began to move, swift and sure. Through the desolate dark, two presences came up silently near Chae-rim.

Among them was one Chae-rim rarely had the occasion to meet face to face. Chae-rim bowed deeply toward the two. The two answered her greeting with deep bows of their own. Soo-a, small in stature, asked with a conflicted voice. Soo-a: Everyone's made their choice, then. Chae-rim: Yes. But from Squad One — the Captain — still has not. Soo-a couldn't quite answer. Eun-jae, standing beside Soo-a, watched Soo-a's hesitation in silence.

Eun-jae—slightly taller than Soo-a—waited without a word for the answer, looking at Soo-a who came up just to her shoulder. Soo-a: Honestly, I don't know. What's right. No — the right thing has been decided. I don't know if we're allowed to follow it. If we aren't committing a sin ourselves. Eun-jae: Soo-a. Eun-jae called out to Soo-a, hesitating, with care. Soo-a: Sis. Can you accept it? Eun-jae: I served the Former The Oldest, and it was thanks to her I could remain here. Acceptance is another question.

Me — I'll stop them. Anyone and anything who goes against the Former The Oldest's will. Soo-a: That's the same for me. But how this will unfold, it's so uncertain. Still. Eun-jae: I don't know the path clearly either. So — I'm just going to believe, not in the Former The Oldest, but in the old Kim that I used to know. The Kim who stood up to even the Boss's scolding on my behalf, the one who helped me stay by your side right to the end. Soo-a turned her head at the thought and looked up at Eun-jae's snaggletooth.

Only after seeing the tip of Eun-jae's bucktooth-like snaggletooth—set like a small fang at one corner of her lip—did Soo-a let her hesitating expression soften, if only a little. Soo-a: That's true. I also chose to follow the Former The Oldest, not the creed or The Code. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Soo-a gathered the flicker of hesitation she had been carrying, bit by bit. She knew there was no time. The longer they wavered, the worse the outcome.

That much was obvious. Soo-a: Alright. We stop them. We have to. At the very least, the Former The Oldest's final directive — we can't leave that with regret. Hearing Soo-a's uncoiled, honest voice, Eun-jae broke into a grin wide enough to show her snaggletooth, and gave Soo-a's shoulder one firm pat. After steadying Soo-a with care, Eun-jae let out a small breath and called the one standing before her. Eun-jae: Deputy of the Inner Guard. Chae-rim: Yes. Eun-jae: Give us your orders.

The Martial Hall's Deputy, Na-hyun, has already volunteered to hold the north gate. Assign us a gate to hold, and no one will pass. Chae-rim: They are approaching from the south, we're told. The two of you, do not separate. Please take the south gate. The north, as you said, is already held by one squad of the Martial Hall's Special Task Force. The second remaining squad is at the east, and the west is held by a Special Task Force of the Office of Rites.

The Library's Special Task Force has been reorganized into four squads, one stationed at each gate, to block the Incantation/Sorcery that will pour in. Eun-jae: Understood. Chae-rim: Judging from the move to enter through the south gate, they have surely struck Door 48. The Door that Kwon Soo-jeong bore — the Door of Self-Reproach. Eun-jae: Yes. Chae-rim: If you can hold just a little longer, from the place where the greatest deaths pass in and out, things will begin to clear. Soo-a: Understood.

Just as Soo-a and Eun-jae moved to take their assignments, an Inner Guard member who had been holding the north gate ran up in a hurry. Inner Guard_03: Deputy. At the north gate, someone we don't recognize is approaching. Chae-rim: Hm. And you don't yet know if it's one of our own. Inner Guard_03: It's that... if you can spare the time, it might be best for you to speak with them yourself for a moment. Chae-rim bowed toward Eun-jae and Soo-a and moved quickly, following the Inner Guard officer.

Eun-jae and Soo-a could not afford to hesitate either. Scene 08. I-seon and Yeon-su were not quite so pressed as to be cornered, but Jeong-hyeon and Ju-hee recovered their lost bodies faster than expected. Locked into an endless war of attrition, Yeon-su's and I-seon's breath was climbing to the top of the throat. Jeong-hyeon and Ju-hee, wearing an easy smile as they watched the two of them, stepped close toward their respective marks. Yet Yeon-su and I-seon did not yield to the very end.

However they had to, they had to cut inside—to the central position—if they were to keep those two corpses from stepping into So-hui's home. Just as they tried to think of a move—the sound of many army boots pouring down from above came at their backs. Yeon-su and I-seon held against the hostility pressing in from before and behind. Even keeping their ground looked like it would be no small task.

검은 모래(Geomeun-morae_Black Sand) wove into a long dagger in Yeon-su's grip; she held the daggers in both hands, kept watch front and back, and fought to measure her breath. I-seon's long staff, too, kept guard on Ju-hee before her and the mass of corpses at her rear. As the rustle of footsteps drew a taut air across the entire derelict apartment, a blunt, insolent voice cut in. Gyeong-seo: Hey. Corpses. How about a look behind. The Hemp cloth had already drawn aside.

As the hemp that had walled the entrance fell back, a familiar and chilling voice came through. Just as Jeong-hyeon and Ju-hee turned in haste to face the opponent they least wanted at their backs, a skein of red thread coiled around the two's throats. The instant the two were hauled away from Ju-hee and Jeong-hyeon, I-seon and Yeon-su fixed their heads in one direction. The corpses at their own backs they now glared at without restraint.

The two corpses that So-hui had yanked in hard with the red thread caught, across their waists, the sharp-drawn blade of Gyeong-seo's hemp. The hemp blades woven in her two hands cut clean through the waists of the two corpses. Given to the skim-slipped slash of the hemp blade, Ju-hee and Jeong-hyeon—their waists taken—tumbled to the floor. So-hui no longer hesitated. She blamed herself: it was because she had kept hesitating that things had come this far. Because of that, she chose to hesitate no more.

The red thread coiled around Jeong-hyeon's and Ju-hee's throats and hung them from the ceiling. Not enough to sever the necks—only enough to close off their breath. Just as Jeong-hyeon and Ju-hee moved their hands to peel the thread from their throats, 검은 물(Geomeun-mul_Black Water) chewed at their hands, leaving only wounds behind. Just as So-hui gathered the skein in toward herself and started to move close, Jeong-hyeon took the knife in his own hand and severed his own throat.

Before his body hit the floor, he sliced clean through Ju-hee's throat beside him as well. From the two severed throats, Black Water rose up and, in an instant, flooded the living room. Jeong-hyeon and Ju-hee lifted the bodies they had dropped and stared down, each at one of them. The Black Water on the floor surged, and from the floor a hand-grip thick with seething hunger thrust up through the black current. It seized So-hui and Gyeong-seo before they could brace and flung them far off.

Like a breaking tide, the Black Water roared out the corridor and swept I-seon, Yeon-su—locked in the standoff—and the handful of remaining corpses far away. Thrown out past the high-set floor, So-hui and Gyeong-seo faced the Black Water that kept lunging as if to take them. But So-hui did not tense. She hooked the red thread onto a railing of the floor below, swung her body like a pendulum, and smashed through a window, stepping inside with Gyeong-seo.

Unable to check its hurtling momentum in time, the Black Water plunged onward, down to the floor seven stories below. Scene 09. Si-yeon, about to climb upward, got swept out by the rushing current and tumbled outside. Falling from a high-set floor, Si-yeon shaped a knife, drove it into the wall, and—held against the ground that would have taken her—hung there, steadying her breath.

Suspended on the knife fixed into the wall, Si-yeon swung her body onto the floor and, holding still, traced again through what she had to do. Matching So-hui's estimate, she traced again the place she was meant to be now. She changed the direction of the steps she had been taking upward and broke quickly downward, running down. Scene 10. The sun, risen past the first light, was climbing. In the glare of the winter sun, light began to reach even the shadowed parking lot of the redevelopment apartment.

It was a short day, but the early morning was already bright. The light rose up past the rooftop of the apartment. Soo-jeong, her neck broken, barely breathing, did not reach to right the black that stained both her eyes. Min-seok sat beside her, wordless, watching the Black Water that Soo-jeong was raising and steering. Soo-jeong gripped the Black Water that ran out from her hand and pulled it in hard.