Chapter 14
The front door opened.
The pouring light felt blinding.
“Huh?”
I had opened the door with firm resolve.
I had swallowed hard and stepped out.
But a situation different from what I expected was unfolding.
“…….”
The radiant light was bright enough to blind me, and within it was something flashing.
White fabric fluttered.
The face of a person wearing a pure white hanbok appeared.
Calm and cold eyes.
With her black hair scattering, she was clutching something that shone sharply.
A dagger that reflected light like a mirror.
The dagger had become a single blade that pierced through the ghost.
“Ms. Medium?!”
I called out.
While looking at her, who had appeared inside the urban legend.
While looking at the strange dagger that had stabbed and cut down the ghost.
“How are you here?”
Is it a dream?
Could she appear in my dream?
In a dream, things are possible according to my will.
I can summon her or drive her away.
But.
An urban legend created by a ghost is different.
Only those invited can enter.
Then how did she, who was not invited to the urban legend, get in?
“I forced the door open.”
She answered.
She said she had opened the door of the urban legend and entered, just like me.
“But why did you come outside?”
“Pardon?”
Her first question was forceful.
It was definitely her.
“You shouldn't have opened the door.”
“Ah, I should have, but the ghost was trying to drown me.”
I probably should have held out until the end.
I was alone, and I thought I was on my own.
I didn't even expect her to come.
But.
“I couldn't stay there forever. I shouldn't just keep avoiding the ghost, either.”
“There's no need for you to face it as well.”
She was calm.
“Do not fear the ghost. But you must not face it head-on, either.”
There was only one way to overcome fear.
To not avoid the terror itself, but to acknowledge it.
It required honestly accepting the anxiety and despair, and a resolve to overcome those fearful thoughts.
“And you mustn't overdo it.”
Her voice sounded worried, yet the Medium's voice was firm.
It seemed there was an irresistible power in her voice.
I listened intently to her words and did not refuse them.
“You said you saw a haunted house in your dream during the day. There are cases where a ghost's urban legend enters. Usually, they come to me, but this time it seems it went to you.”
“I guess I attract ghosts quite well.”
I let out a hollow laugh, but she didn't laugh at all.
Her ice-like face merely shifted into a pouting expression.
“Does this happen often?”
“Sometimes.”
That ghost I met in the haunted house had latched onto me.
That ghost, which had secretly attached itself to me like a leech, had tried to plunge me into an urban legend and kill me.
“It was going to reappear at night targeting you. I waited until the ghost came out.”
She looked to the side.
The end of the corridor-style apartment was a bit different from the scenery I usually saw.
“I noticed there was no elevator in your dream.”
It was true.
Because of that first urban legend, I had hated riding elevators for a while.
There was no elevator in my dream.
So, the Medium...
“It took a long time because I had to run up the stairs. The fatigue felt in an urban legend is the same as in reality.”
She was still panting even now.
As she lightly wiped the sweat from her forehead, it fell to the floor with a plop.
It was a sight that could not escape the laws of gravity, even if it was a dream.
A realistic story taking place in a realistic world.
That was the law that existed in the dream.
“Ah, so my dream was like that.”
“Next time, even if it's a dream, make at least an elevator. I almost arrived too late.”
She swung ‘Naksha’s Dagger’ once, flicking off the remains stuck to the blade.
Next, she wiped it against the hem of her sleeve and put it back into her shirt.
She finished with a neat posture, without a single hair out of place.
“That dagger?”
It was a dagger of a bizarre shape.
On the handle, there was a unique decoration as if an evil spirit were screaming.
Difficult to forget once seen.
So I remembered it clearly.
“It is indeed a dagger I've seen before. I saw it in a dream I had.”
“…….”
She, the Medium, faltered for the first time.
“The dagger I saw in my dream….”
It was certainly the dagger that had flown through the air and stabbed the Medium.
If it's similar to the ‘Naksha’s Eye’ I ate, could it perhaps be ‘Naksha’s Dagger’?
“So it actually existed.”
Was the dream I had then not an illusion?
I felt bewildered yet strange.
She answered with a calm face.
“There are many ritual tools for dealing with ghosts in urban legends. I brought this dagger because I thought it would be good for me to use. It has nothing to do with you.”
She answered nonchalantly.
She was saying it was a mistake.
She asserted that it had nothing to do with me.
“Next time, don't try to face a ghost head-on. Leave it to me.”
“…….”
“Got it?”
“Yes.”
Her words were both a warning and a request.
I briefly recalled what happened just now.
I ruminated on the sight I saw as soon as I opened the front door then.
Amidst the pouring light.
She boldly rushed in and stabbed the ghost.
That fleeting moment when she suppressed the ghost with a calm and deep gaze, without any change in expression.
Amidst the pouring light, her long straight hair fluttered and brushed against her eyes here and there.
The Medium's faint yet deep gaze at that time.
That appearance of her suppressing the ghost without delay within the urban legend was deeply engraved in my memory like a photograph.
“…….”
Without her, the Medium, in the urban legend, would I have been able to fight the evil spirit?
It was impossible for now.
“Well then.”
She turned her body.
“See you tomorrow.”
She, who had come into the urban legend, delivered a farewell.
Since the ghost was suppressed, there would be no reason to remain in the dream any longer.
“Yes….”
I clutched my still-trembling heart.
At the same time, I felt something poignant.
It wasn't just because I survived the urban legend.
Now that I've absorbed ‘Naksha’s Eye.’
I felt a nausea, awkwardness, and discomfort that was hard to explain in words.
“Should I ask?”
Should I perhaps ask the Medium?
While I was agonizing, cracks began to form and everything started crumbling.
[The urban legend is disappearing.]
As if the world were collapsing, a phenomenon of crumbling into pieces and fragments occurred.
I lifted my head and stared blankly at the sight of the world of the urban legend shattering into pieces.
“May you sleep peacefully now.”
I answered like that, as if speaking to myself.
I watched the dream turning white amidst the scattering fragments.
Like that, my consciousness also gradually blurred bit by bit.
As if falling into a long sleep.
……
“Yawn.”
As soon as I woke up, I stretched and felt refreshed.
Even though I’d experienced quite a few urban legends over the past few days, there was still a lot that felt awkward.
“Shall I go?”
Even while feeling a bit nervous.
No, even while feeling very nervous, I somehow found myself heading there.
I headed to work today as well, to that Hanok with its strange charm.
“Hello, Ms. Medium.”
Trickle, trickle.
Dressed in a pure white hanbok as usual, she was watering the flowerbed with a rubber hose.
“You water them every day?”
“No, not every day.”
She shook her head.
“There are plants that die if you water them every day.”
“Ah, really?”
“Plants require meticulous care. Just as people are different from one another.”
After finishing watering the flowerbed, she stepped onto the wooden porch.
Her steps paused briefly just before entering the room.
“Any aftereffects?”
“Pardon?”
“You went through a rough ordeal yesterday.”
“…….”
She was talking about the urban legend.
In just two days, I had experienced no less than three urban legends.
The elevator urban legend.
The medium murder urban legend.
The my-house urban legend.
“I’ve hit the jackpot.”
I spoke jokingly, but of course, it was far from good.
It felt as though the urban legends that began from the moment I sought out this place were constantly flickering by my side.
To be honest, I never even imagined I would be wandering through urban legends like this.
“I’m doing okay, more or less.”
“That’s a relief. You must have an aptitude for it.”
“Mmm. I don't think that's it.”
I rejected the idea.
Because having an aptitude for urban legends meant having the kind of physiognomy that gets along well with ghosts.
I refused firmly.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Is that so?”
She brought hot tea from the room.
“Would you like a cup too? Drinking warm tea in the morning warms up your insides.”
“It seems you have some free time today.”
“Yes.”
She handed me a teacup.
Clatter.
I received a cup that looked like an antique; it appeared quite high-end.
“It’s expensive.”
As if reading my mind.
She spoke first.
“I’ll be careful.”
“Good. If that cup breaks, it can't be replaced.”
Sip.
I carefully took a sip of the tea.
She also held the cup with both hands, carefully touched the tea to her lips, and savored it bit by bit.
“Slowly. And comfortably.”
“Pardon?”
“You mustn't run away when you encounter a ghost. You must maintain your composure somehow.”
First she told me the first method to survive an urban legend and the 0th absolute rule.
“Experience a lot of them. Then your adaptability will increase.”
This time, she taught me about composure as well.
Of course, just knowing it didn't make it so.
‘Because ghosts test humans in ways that transcend imagination.’
I had felt it acutely while experiencing three urban legends.
The way to survive this showdown can never be achieved solely through what one has learned.
Like a master sword that grows stronger as it is scorched by hot flames in a forge and struck fiercely with a hammer.
Experience and training would become an important strength for me.
However.
A question arose here.
“I’m not going to become a medium, though?”
“I thought so. You don’t have talent anyway.”
“Then why am I... that sort of thing....”
“Learning it?”
She replied while holding her teacup carefully in both hands.
“If you don't learn, you'll be toyed with by ghosts in urban legends, wouldn't you?”
“Ah, that’s true.”
“Even if you’re not a doctor, you must learn medical knowledge.”
She was right.
To be an assistant, one must know a certain amount.
Especially since a medium’s work is a battle where one bets their very life.
“…….”
The weather was too good.
When the water droplets on the flowers and grass reflected the sunlight, they shone like yellow beads.
It was so blinding, like golden sunlight reflecting off the sea.
The birds that had flown onto the roof chirped slightly and were hopping across the tiles.
It was a peaceful day.
But was the somehow ominous feeling just my imagination?
“Today is a day off.”
“Pardon?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“It’s a day off, so why did you tell me to come?”
“Because something has come up.”
She took another sip of tea.
She slowly looked up at the sky and nodded.
“The urban legend you saw. The haunted house.”
My body flinched momentarily.
I recalled that tongue-ghost that followed me last night.
“Was there only one ghost there?”
“Pardon?”
“I asked if you were sure it was only one ghost.”
My head throbbed at her words.
My mind grew hazy for a moment.
I couldn't immediately grasp the meaning of what the Medium was saying.
“There’s another ghost in that haunted house.”