He was jostled by the crowd. His collarbone felt like it might snap from the shoulder collisions, and no pleasant words escaped his lips.

Lee Taebaek muttered curses nonstop as he pushed forward. In contrast, Great Master Hong Geolgae glided through the throng like a ghost. Men occasionally shot sly glances at “him,” hesitating whether to approach before letting him slip away.

Normally, he’d wrinkle his nose in disgust, but oddly, Taebaek felt a pang of pity. Those fools had lost something irreplaceable today. Did they even realize an ancient geezer lurked beneath that flawless skin…?

“Hey, ajusshi.”

“What.”

Hong Geolgae stared straight ahead as he replied.

“Don’t you ever think this shell’s a bit too pretty for no reason?”

“Good is good, isn’t it?”

“Be honest. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“…”

Taebaek nearly had a fit.

“…Crazy?”

“Just kidding. Truth be told, I don’t relish puppeteering a woman’s body either. You have no idea how those young bucks throw themselves at me, eyes brimming with lust… It stirs killing intent more often than not.”

“Then why walk around in that meat suit?”

“What other reason? Performance.”

Hong Geolgae shrugged nonchalantly.

“This body was once a woman who was the greatest of the unorthodox sects.”

“No way… Moksanghwa…?”

“You know of Moksanghwa, young man? Heh heh, what a pleasant surprise.”

“Insane. Hey, you doddering old coot.”

He knew this woman was Great Master. He knew she ranked among the world’s strongest. Taebaek wasn’t the type to drop formalities after two meetings, even if he spat casual speech. But the revulsion was hard to swallow.

And rightly so—Moksanghwa had been the unorthodox supreme, leader of the Death Curtain. She’d elevated the minor Haomun into the unorthodox sects’ pinnacle. She overlapped with Gang Alliance’s Levi in character, but purely in strength, she was a powerhouse close to the Ten Wings.

In that brutal Jianghu, she’d shouldered one pillar of the orthodox-unorthodox divide as a woman. For reference, she’d matched the Resistance’s Commander-in-Chief in power.

The past tense was deliberate, needing no elaboration. Ultimately, she’d become Dragon Head Chief Hong Geolgae’s marionette. He turned villains into puppets, sure—but Moksanghwa? Unthinkable.

He had to remind himself whenever the chance arose.

Great Master Hong Geolgae was no saint.

He was a Jianghu man too. Orthodox, unorthodox, demonic—they merely differed in body counts. All killers at heart.

“No, how do you even think to puppet a woman you killed? Are you actually nuts? Wow, words fail me.”

“Do you know how many died by her hand, lad?”

With his arms clasped behind his back, his palms were visible.

“Plenty, I bet. Greatest of the unorthodox and all. Still—”

“Haomun—no, the Death Curtain in its heyday—famously exterminated targets’ entire clans. She stood at the forefront, this pretty-faced woman. Do you know how many children perished by these hands? Too many to count.”

Words bubbled to his tongue, but he clamped his mouth shut.

“So I killed her. So now this body manages the amusement park. Even dead, karma must be paid, no? The world’s unfair. Innocent children slain by these hands, or this woman drowned in bloodbaths—both end in death. Folks say sinners face hell after, but Jianghu folk care more about life. They crave fame from killing in life, breakthroughs in their training while alive. Thus, the guilty deserve earthly punishment.”

“And you’re the judge?”

“Why ask the obvious? I’m stronger.”

“Sounds like a threat aimed at me.”

“You brought it up first. If it feels that way, you’ve got regrets.”

“…”

Hong Geolgae half-turned, flashing a dimple on one cheek.

“Seo Punggae said something similar. Beggars always nag?”

“Don’t they spend their lives eavesdropping? They see and hear much, so they spout. Not preaching—just old habits.”

“…Ever think your deeds will bring karma someday? If there’s no afterlife, she might haunt you as a ghost.”

“Perfect segue.”

Hong Geolgae halted abruptly. Taebaek nearly stumbled forward, steadying himself.

Irritated, he looked up—shadows loomed. Right before him stood the haunted house, a staple of any amusement park. True to its nightmare fuel, the building assaulted the eyes with aggressive grotesquery.

“Here.”

When Taebaek stayed silent, Great Master personally shoved him from behind.

“Your contact’s one of the ghost actors here. Shifts rotate, so I don’t know who. They’ve got a code phrase, probably. Mutter it each ghost encounter. You’ll get a bite.”

“…”

…Talk about every trick in the book.

The man in the pumpkin mask clicked his tongue. He was the broker scheduled to meet Lee Taebaek, and when work was slow he picked up shifts like this one at the haunted house.

It was not that he was short of money. He was the sort of broker who worked on his feet, and for a broker, information gathered in the field was everything. Buying it from an outfit like the Beggar Clan was, by his reckoning, a bad habit to fall into. The more mouths a piece of information passed through, the more of its life drained out of it.

…What is keeping him?

Two full hours had gone by since the agreed meeting time, and he was beginning to wear down. Early summer was a season for heatstroke as it was.

Bundled into a fur costume on top of that, he was steaming, and that was no exaggeration. It was pure misery. The man lifted the mask a fraction and let out a lungful of hot breath.

“Haa—”

He had been checking constantly, in case the man was stuck in the queue at the gates. The inside of the pumpkin mask was crowded with screens, every one of them patched into the CCTV cameras near the park entrance.

Which was how he came to watch Lee Taebaek walk into the amusement park behind the manager—the Great Master.

No idea what the connection between those two is.

The manager, normally as remote as a porcelain doll, had gone out to meet him in person. ‘She’ was enormously popular here, and every last one of them was desperate for so much as a word.

“Never seen her reply, either…”

And that same woman had not only put on a satisfying little show out front, she had walked him to the reception room herself. He had never heard a whisper about the two of them having any connection…

Well, with looks that came through the screen like that, perhaps the man had simply charmed her on sight. The broker was lowering the mask again to hide a knowing smirk when it happened.

“Ah, shit—!”

His heart nearly stopped.

He straightened the crooked mask and snapped his eyes forward. He had not imagined it. At the far end of the dim corridor stood a small child, staring blankly back at him. That was strange. This haunted house showed its customers no mercy whatsoever. The place reeked of piss around the clock.

Couples routinely split up and ran in opposite directions. There was a reason people called it the couple shredder, and a reason the age limit was held strictly at seventeen.

And yet.

Generous estimate, that is an elementary schooler…?

She looked as though she would not reach his sternum. Short he could have let pass, but the face was younger still. For all the world a preschooler.

Had she wandered in by mistake? The checks at the door were far too tight for that. Setting his puzzlement aside, the man decided to walk her out first and think about it afterwards.

It was an unusually quiet day. Nobody would say a word if he left his post for a few minutes.

“Hey, kid.”

“…”

“Come on, follow big brother. I’ll take you outside.”

“…”

The child gave him nothing. Her expression did not move, and neither did her posture. Something in the man’s chest dropped.

“…Kid?”

“The things about ‘Him.’”

Having finally spoken, the child lifted one dainty foot and stepped forward. The man found himself shuffling backward without meaning to.

“Please erase all of it.”

“Wh-what?!”

The child made a gun of her fingers and fired it at him. The man’s field of vision went black.

He had not fainted. The CCTV feed he had been watching had simply gone dark. Badly shaken, he reached up to pull the mask off, but it was already too late.

At some point the child had come to stand directly in front of him. She was cute the way a fairy is cute, unreally so.

She rose onto her toes and flicked him in the forehead. The sound was light. What it did to him was not.

“Khek—”

The next moment his eyes rolled white and he keeled over sideways. The pumpkin mask tumbled loose and rolled until it came to rest against the child’s toes. She picked it up, put it on, and turned it left and right until it sat straight. Then she went pattering off into the dark.

Lee Taebaek pushed the vinyl sheeting aside with one hand. He was already into the final stretch.

Honestly, he had braced himself for the worst.

“Nothing to it.”

He meant that literally. However unnerving the decor, there had been nothing in the place capable of startling him. In a haunted house you expect part-timers in ghost makeup to come lunging out at you. Somehow he had not seen hide nor hair of one.

It was as if the path had been cleared ahead of him. Problematic. The contact was a ghost worker; with none visible, there was no way to ask who it was. Taebaek scratched his head futilely.

That was when it happened.

Hmm~ hmm~ hmm~

Someone was humming. Set against a place like this, the sound raised the hair on his arms. The source did not seem far off. Lee Taebaek went after it at once.

Step. Step.

A section themed after an asylum opened up ahead. He did not need to search it; something in it seized the eye at once. Someone wearing a pumpkin mask. Judging by the small frame, a child.

Except.

The child did not register on the net of presence-sense Lee Taebaek kept quietly spread around himself. His instincts told him that whatever was under that pumpkin mask did not belong.

His right hand drifted to his hip out of habit. Even so, on the off chance, Lee Taebaek tossed out the code phrase Goeun had given him.

“Three-minute curry.”

The pumpkin mask tilted to one side.

The legs that had been swinging in turn from the edge of the bed went still. The child hopped down, feet neatly together, and spoke.

“Are you Mr. Lee Taebaek?”

“…You…”

“I, Jasbi, am probably not the person you are looking for. But I have waited and searched for you until my eyes very nearly fell out of my head.”

The child bowed with her hands folded at her navel. The pumpkin mask slid free, and her hair came spilling down.

“After a total of 198479829821478924798234982349874218924719827982147249842798243798423179824179842748292478942179842798427984279821474298724984723982347982147982147842798234984757437823478478347847843783487347834783483474378347834781984798298214789247982349823498742189247198279821472498427982437984231798241798427482924789421798427984279842798214742987249847239823479821479821478427982349847574378234784783478478437834873478347834834743783478347848347437834783478 calculations I confirmed that you exist, and at long last I am able to meet you like this.”

The words were barely out before she came scurrying over and buried herself against his chest. She threw her arms around his neck and nuzzled her face into him. Then she whispered to the frozen Lee Taebaek.

“I missed you, Creator.”