1 Volume 1. Chapter 0. Prologue

The market square was crowded. A boy of about eight years old used a stick to get through the dense crowd. As he squeezed his way through the crowds, he slapped it several times on people's backs and then slipped away, trying not to be seen. Some of them looked back angrily, and a couple even managed to grab him by the scruff of the neck, but he had become so accustomed to it that it was now routine, so he had no trouble fighting them off and disappearing back into the crowd.

Today was the Feast of the Inflorescence: the day when a large cherry tree bloomed in the center of the city. Pink petals floated through the air, spreading with them the soft, sweet smell of spring.

Stepping around the gurney of delicious smelling food, Wonho stopped beside the innkeeper and yanked the man's hem. The tall, powerful man lowered his head and looked at him questioningly.

"Excuse me, have you seen an exorcist uncle around here?"

The innkeeper scratched his chin, eyeing the boy curiously, and pointed a finger at his tavern.

"He's in the back. Fuck knows what he's doing out there. Go that way."

With a bow, the child dashed to the designated spot. Deftly jumping over a small fence, made more for prestige than for protection, he followed the grassy path to the tavern's backyard. The music that played in the marketplace was so muted that only the occasional echo of it rang in his ears.

The backyard wasn't much to look at, with wooden coal crates in the corner and a few empty, dilapidated food trays. In the center stood a small, shabby bench on which a tall figure sat with his back to the entrance. The boy's eyes immediately lit up, and he rushed forward, his fingers fleetingly touching someone else's elbow.

"Exorcist Uncle, I found you!" He said cheerfully.

The man who turned at his voice frowned and looked at him strangely. In one hand he had a sword hidden in a scabbard, the hilt of which was unusually curved, and in the other was a pitcher with foul-smelling contents. It was obviously alcohol.

Wonho frowned.

"Exorcist uncle, I thought you were a decent person. Who drinks takchu¹ in the morning?"

[Takchu¹ is a type of traditional alcohol in Korea, made from fermented grains of rice or wheat.]

The man raised an eyebrow.

"I drink."

The child pressed his lips together and turned away, then touched the man's elbow again.

"Exorcist uncle, what about the monster? When are you going to go kill it?" There was so much curiosity in the child's voice that it couldn't help but interest the man as well.

He drained the cup in one gulp and turned around, setting it aside. His dark eyes scrutinized the boy's face, and at the same moment a question shook the air:

"Who are you?"

"What do you mean?" The boy opened his mouth in surprise. His hands trembled. "Don't you remember me? I saw you two days ago, and I brought the money for the order. You told me to come back as soon as the Blossom Festival started."

"Did I? Did I?" He rubbed his chin with his fingers.

The exorcist looked very young, Wonho wouldn't have given him twenty-six years. His skin was pale and smooth, without a single blemish; his long black hair was neatly tied back with a sturdy ribbon; the strands of hair near his face were white and looked very soft and fluffy, and Wonho was embarrassed when the urge to touch them grew inside him, for they looked like fluff.

"Yes. My name is Wonho. You don't remember at all?" He asked hopefully.

The Exorcist shook his head, refilling the cup with alcohol.

"I don't remember."

Resentment pounded in Wonho's chest. Spotting the small pouch of gold plates in the man's pocket that he had brought as payment two days ago, he reached for it and picked it up, quickly bouncing it aside. The exorcist glanced at him spitefully.

"Then you don't need the money either."

For a second they stared at each other in silence. Wonho puffed out his cheeks and held the pouch to his chest, stubbornly staring at the exorcist.

The exorcist blinked and brought the bowl to his lips.

"All right," he shrugged lazily, finishing to drinking takchu.

Wonho nearly stomped his foot in annoyance. Shoving the money back into the exorcist's pocket, he dropped to his knees, his head down and stammered:

"No, wait! Please fulfill the order! This demon won't leave us alone so easily!" Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes, Wonho sobbed through his nose and shamefully covered his face with his hand. "Four days ago, he had killed a girl from a neighboring village. What if he gets us too!!! Me?!"

A heavy hand was suddenly on the back of his head. Wonho raised his head and looked at the exorcist.

"Okay, don't whine."

The exorcist pulled a canvas carrier bag from his pocket and placed it on his lap. Pulling the drawstring, he reached in with his hands and pulled out a stack of papers.

"How did you get so many hanji²!"

[Hanji² is a Korean paper that was actively used after the 8th century.]

"From the temple. The monks lent it to me."

"Wow," Wonho mumbled in admiration. He moved a little closer, still crawling on his knees. "What's this for?"

The Exorcist froze and bit his lip.

"A so-called "reminder.""

Wonho gave him a wary look and suddenly relaxed.

"So you do have a bad memory," he exhaled with relief and laughed nervously. "I thought you thought I was so unattractive you didn't even remember me."

The man nodded.

"Well, that, too."

...

Wonho jumped to his feet and sat down irritably on the bench, turning his back to the exorcist.

After a few minutes, the exorcist suddenly spoke.

"So I did have an order for a demon," the man said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, yeah."

"All right, well, will you walk me through it? Where is this demon of yours?"

Wonho slid anxiously off the bench.

"Do I have to take you there? Can I just tell you where it is?"

The exorcist shook out his hair and stood up, slinging his sack behind his back. He reached up with his hands, and his huge body loomed a dark mountain over the boy.

"Hmm, demons usually dwell in the woods. Walk me to the entrance, and you can come back there."

Wonho, after thinking for a moment, nodded.

"Good."

Together, they moved towards the forest that was on the outskirts of Sang-Pyo City. Previously it had been dangerous because of the long rains, because it had a lot of swamps that often flooded to the point where the tina was coming out of the banks, but now it was even more dangerous because of the demon that had appeared there a month ago. The first person killed was a young farmer who had gone there to get some escaped chickens. His devoured corpse was found hanging from one of the trees early in the morning. The second victim was an old woman who got too close to the forest late at night. It was impossible to describe how badly her body had been mutilated. The third victim was a girl.

Wonho preferred not to remember that horrifying sight.

As they approached the forest, they stopped. The sun was suddenly overcast and a huge, gloomy shadow fell over the already dark forest.

"Here."

The Exorcist moved into the depths without a word. No sooner had Wonho called out to him than the figure vanished into the darkness. He pressed his fingers together and averted his eyes.

"All right, I'll stay here...wait..."

For some reason he didn't want to leave, even though he was afraid to, so he stayed standing in front of the entrance.

The forest was quiet.

In fact, Shin Ilseong didn't remember making an arrangement with someone to kill a demon at all.

He didn't remember anything.

He remembered nothing but his name and the fact that he was a demon-killing exorcist.

That was his curse. Ilseong didn't know who had cursed him or why. He couldn't even remember his own age.

Every morning of the fifth day, he woke up with a completely empty head. Reflexively, he would reach for the nearest mirror to look at his face. It had become routine for him. There was always a stack of papers at hand, each one detailing how he had spent the previous four days. Ilseong woke up completely calm and not startled by the fact that he couldn't remember anything. In his head at those moments, one phrase rattled around in his head:

"Everything is normal."

But the last notes were blurred - Ilseong didn't know what the reason was, maybe he was in too much of a hurry to finish, but he didn't remember that he had made an agreement with someone about killing a demon. Basically, he didn't really care about that. He needed the money.

The only note that was repeated on every page contained only one sentence: kill demons, make money, find someone who could break the curse of memory loss.

He didn't know how long he had lived this way and wandered the earth.

Ilseong had figured out long ago that he had been cursed for something serious, but he had never found the answer.

Maybe he had killed someone?

Suddenly the forest seemed to stir. Dry tree branches rattled somewhere, disrupting his train of thought. Ilseong slowly and quietly drew his sword from its sheath.

The air reeked with the putrid odor of blood.

His body knew how to kill demons. Every movement, every step was honed to perfection. Ilseong moved forward, crouched slightly, and sucked in the foreign odor with his nose as hard as he could. His ears were ringing from the overabundance of negative Qi energy. A thin branch fell under his foot, and Ilseong quickly stepped over it before he noticed it, stopping near a moss-greened tree.

His hand rose up and glowed. Using the Light skill, he brought his palm up to the tree and squinted to inspect it. A huge red bloodstain was spreading across the bark.

A bird chirped overhead.

Ilseong muffled the sound of his own breathing and froze. The forest was once again pressurized into silence.

Someone's palm slid down his back.

He turned sharply and swung his blade through the air, barely catching the tip in soft flesh. Blood spurted out.

The demon dissolved, leaving behind a few fresh drops on the grass.

After regaining his breath, Shin Ilseong moved deeper.

He knew what kind of demon it was. Its kind were parasites - they took root in young trees and sucked the Yin energy out of them. At night, they would come out to hunt and eat people.

"If you don't get out now, I will dry up every young tree here."

It was quiet.

Leaves crunched underfoot.

A burned hand emerged from a tree five feet from the exorcist's back. Thin, bony fingers dug their nails into the bark and pulled it apart. A body emerged from the black, stinking hole.

A piece of curved spine protruded from its neck. The demon's skin was a dead greenish color, its cheeks hanging from its face, and from the side it looked as if they were filled with water. The demon's white watery eyes looked around the surroundings intently. It was ready to lunge at the exorcist when suddenly a sword stabbed into its neck, nailing the creature to a tree. It wheezed, spitting out clots of blood from its mouth.

Shin Ilseong was beside him at the same moment, and raised his hand and squeezed the demon's head tightly.

The demon squealed loudly:

"Ah! Ah! Let go let go!" he grabbed the man's hands with his bony fingers and tried to release the spikes, but was immediately paralyzed by the poison that Ilseong had applied to his sword while he waited for the demon to crawl out of the tree. "Let go!"

"Get lost!" Shin said through gritted teeth. Wrapping his palm around the hilt of the sword, he pressed down on it and thrust it deeper into the vile neck. "How many have you eaten, you son of a bitch?"

The demon grimaced and, without answering, spat in Ilseong's face. A slimy slurry of human blood and saliva rolled down the exorcist's cheek. He lifted his head, opened one eye, and grinned.

"What a freak."

He drew his sword from the demon's neck, and it took the chance to open a mouth full of sharp teeth and lunged forward, intent on nibbling the exorcist's face. The man pushed himself backward and spun around, cutting off the demon's head in one motion.

The dark blue hem of the hanbok³ sprinkled with red.

[Hanbok³ is a traditional Korean garment.]

The demon's body slumped back involuntarily and its head fell to the side. It opened its cloudy eyes and squealed, glaring at Ilson:

"Fuck you, asshole!" The demon was outraged, trying to roll as far away from the exorcist as possible.

Watching the ogre's merciless attempts to escape, Shin Ilseong got closer to him and playfully kicked his head like a ball.

"Hear me!" The demon mumbled with a mouthful of blood, and was immediately silenced when a strange hand grabbed him by the hair at the back of his head and lifted him into the air. In a flash, he was in front of the exorcist's face. "Get away from..."

A slap burned his cheek.

The demon looked at the exorcist, stunned, and humbled.

"How many have you eaten?" Ilseong asked.

"Well, a couple there, a couple here...." He mumbled. "Why the fuck do I have to tell you off!"

Another slap burned the other cheek. The demon fell silent in humiliation.

"It was definitely bad luck for you to run into me today," Ilseong said, bringing the demon's head closer to him. "How many have you eaten?"

The leaves rustled.

When the sun peeked out from behind a cloud again, Shin Ilseong was already on his way back. Shaking small clods of earth off his hands, he stepped over a fallen, flabby log and wandered toward the exit of the forest, his ear catching the mooing behind him. Involuntarily a smirk appeared on his lips.

A head lay nailed to the ground beside the tree. Trembling, the demon tried to get out, but its messy hair was firmly pinned down by a rock. Trying to hurl a few insults at the exorcist, he choked on the grass stuffed in his mouth.

"That's okay," the demon thought snidely, "I'll lie down for two days and my body will regenerate again. I'll get you, you damn bastard."

Through the rustle of leaves, he heard a long mooing. The demon froze, and slowly looked sideways.

Scalding saliva fell on his forehead.

Two eyes glittering in the shadows loomed leisurely over him.

The beast, which had come at the scent of blood, opened its mouth, presenting a row of sharp teeth.

The demon's eye twitched nervously.

Before he could mumble, he felt fangs digging hard into his face from all sides.

After waiting for the exorcist for a while, Wonho managed to get home and grab a couple of hot pancakes⁴. He sat down on the ground and unwrapped a small pile, picking up a meat pie and immediately staring excitedly towards the forest. The guys passing by grinning pointed a finger at him.

[Pyanse⁴ is a steamed meat pie with meat and cabbage.]

"What? Waiting for your exorcist? Like a stray dog. He's probably dead. No one can handle that demon. He's gonna take you too, huh?"

"Ah-ha-ha-ha," the children laughed together.

"They would also hang them at the edge of the forest."

Wonho grimly showed them his fist.

One of the boys, the local bully, flared with anger and was about to lunge at him, but when he couldn't feel the ground under his feet, he shrieked like a piglet and struggled desperately.

"Out of the way."

Startled by the icy voice that sounded above his head, he hung limply in the air.

Shin Ilseong squeamishly pushed him to the ground and headed towards Wonho. The man quickly swallowed the pie and jumped to his feet. His face lit up with happiness. The other children stared at the exorcist with hatred and fear.

"Well?"

"Dead," Ilseong nodded.

Wonho jumped for joy. Wiping his greasy fingers on the thin towel his mother had tossed in his sack, he wrapped his arms around the exorcist's waist and hugged him tightly, laughing in relief.

"Thank you, uncle exorcist!"

When they were alone, Wonho offered Ilseong a couple of pyanse to eat. He swallowed them in a couple bites, and Wonho stared at him with interest, waiting for the story. Shin Ilseong took a sip of cool water from his waterpot and glanced at the boy's burning eyes:

"I cut off his head, blood spurting in all directions. Left him for the wolves to eat. There's probably nothing left of him now."

And he was silent.

Wonho, who had expected a more colorful and intense description of the battle, was disappointed.

A hand came down on the back of his head.

"Well, I'm off."

Ilseong rose from the ground and, shaking himself off, headed toward the road. Twitching, Wonho jumped up to follow him.

"Wait!"

The man, lazily shuffling his feet, looked over his shoulder.

"What do you want?"

Wonho hesitated before asking hopefully:

"Can't you stay for the feast?" Having said that, the boy blushed slightly. "There will be a festival in the evening. Musicians from Pakho are coming. And I'll introduce you to my mom, we live alone, she's a very good cook!"

"Are you trying to marry her to me?" Ilseong asked suspiciously.

Wonho hesitated fearfully:

"No, not at all!"

They stared at each other silently.

"Well, if only a little bit ..." hiding his gaze, the child said in embarrassment.

"I'm sure your mother will find a worthy husband."

Ilseong, turning around, resumed his step.

"Wait! You...you, don't forget me!" Wonho exclaimed stubbornly. "Visit me once in a while. You know, if you're around. I...I'd like to learn from you!"

As he approached the low fence, Shin Ilseong looked around and touched his sheath with a light, weightless movement.

"If I don't forget," he said softly.

"If you forget...I will become famous and remind you of myself! We'll meet again!" Wonho waved his hand. His childish skinny face was glowing with happiness.

"Even if you become famous, I don't think I'll remember you, kid," Ilseong thought regretfully.

He waved a final wave to the child and moved forward. Wonho stared after him for a long time, until the heavy gates of the city of Sang-Pyo hid the figure of the mysterious exorcist.

Wonho was certain that this lonely man had many exciting stories behind him that he would like to hear one day...