Osratida - Chapter 17

The man opened the cabinet where the cymbal monkey had been placed and pulled out a small box, handing it to Shinhee.
Shinhee opened the box, blinked a few times, and looked back at the man.
“This is my reward?”
“Take it.”
“Matches?”
“You’ll need it soon.”
It wasn’t a flamethrower, a torch, or even a common lighter, just matches… Shinhee was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t even laugh. Beside him, the child spirit chattered cheerfully, admiring the matches and calling them pretty.
“If you follow the way you came, everything will return to its original state.”
The man remained as expressionless as when Shinhee first entered but now carried a softer demeanor. Shinhee suddenly grew curious. There was no way he was a high school student as he appeared.
“How old are you?”
The man, who looked like he was caught between boyhood and young adulthood, gave a faint smile and held up two fingers. Shinhee, confused by the unexpected “V” gesture, soon realized it was the answer to his question.
“Oh, twenty years old?”
“No.”
“…Two hundred?”
“No.”
The man leaned in close, whispering softly into Shinhee’s ear.
“I stopped counting at two thousand.”
“Wow!”
Shinhee shouted involuntarily. If this was true, it wasn’t just overwhelming but akin to picking a fight with a grim reaper wielding a sickle. The man shrugged, as if to say it wasn’t worth such a reaction.
“Shinhee.”
The man called out to Shinhee, who was about to leave the shop in a daze.
“A name is precious, isn’t it? You shouldn’t share something so valuable carelessly.”
Shinhee had no idea what the ghost was trying to say anymore.
“I’m everywhere, but I hope we won’t meet again.”
With that, Shinhee and the child spirit left the shop. Shinhee glanced back as they slowly walked the way they had come. But the eerie antique shop where the man had been was gone, replaced by a small cigarette shop.
As the man had said, everything had returned to its original state. In the alleyway, ghosts had resumed their usual detached behavior, hurrying past without so much as a glance at Shinhee. However, after experiencing what he had, Shinhee had no desire to wander the streets again, even as a joke.
When Shinhee received a text from Secretary Park, telling him to have dinner at the hotel, he immediately turned back and headed to his accommodations with the child spirit in tow.
After dinner, Gyojin returned in a limousine with the two of them. The translator chattered nonstop about Tokyo’s history, seemingly enough to fill a book, and Secretary Park listened attentively, showing interest. Gyojin, however, ignored their conversation entirely, scrolling through an economic newspaper on his tablet.
Although the hotel was more than a 40-minute drive from the Mishima Department Store headquarters, Gyojin appreciated the distance. When Secretary Park informed him they had arrived, Gyojin turned off his tablet after reading an article about the rise of the dollar due to Europe’s economic growth.
As soon as he entered the spacious hotel room, he showered and lay on the bed. Having already told the staff he’d skip dinner and go straight to sleep, there were no visitors to disturb him. It was a little past 10 p.m., earlier than his usual bedtime, but he decided to forgo reading or having a drink and went straight to sleep.
The unwelcome visitor returned at dawn. The same eerie sound of an instrument, neither a geomungo nor a haegeum, tickled Gyojin’s ears. It alternated between high and low, chaotic and tranquil, flowing softly and piercing sharply. Slowly, Gyojin’s eyes opened. The room was bright with moonlight streaming through the window.
“Gyojin.”
The voice that had called him yesterday sounded stronger this time, urging him. As if drawn by some magnetic pull, Gyojin slowly rose and began walking toward the source of the sound. His gaze was unfocused, and though he had no idea where he was going, he was certain the voice was coming from beyond that door.

“Gyojin.”
Just as he was about to slide open the door, a strong force grabbed his hand from behind. It was the red-eyed figure from the night before. The figure reached out and covered Gyojin’s eyes with both hands. Slowly, his legs gave way, and he collapsed to the floor.
When he opened his eyes again, it was morning, and Secretary Park was waking him.
“Director! Are you all right?”
“…Why are you here, Secretary Park?”
Still disoriented, he frowned and asked. Secretary Park’s face was pale.
“When you didn’t answer my calls, I came to check and found you collapsed outside your room.”
Shaking his head a few times to clear his thoughts, Gyojin looked around. The hotel room was just as ordinary as it had been the day before. Slowly, fragments of the previous night came back to him—a voice calling him, an unfamiliar instrument, and now waking up in front of the door with no memory of how he got there.
What was going on? Gyojin tried to piece together the events logically but found his memory fragmented. Eventually, he abandoned his attempt at analysis and instead gave Secretary Park a directive.
“Include Shinhee in today’s schedule.”
Meanwhile, Shinhee stared at the matchbox, his so-called reward, for a long time as soon as he woke up. Apart from the bright red phoenix illustration, it was an ordinary matchbox. Curious, he struck a match, only to find that it burned faster than normal matches, proving its poor quality rather than anything special.
No matter how he thought about it, this felt like a scam. He hadn’t intended to profit from helping a ghost move on, but to give such a big show about a reward, only for it to be a matchbox? If he’d had even the slightest expectations, it was because the ghost was over 2,000 years old. Disappointed, Shinhee pouted and kicked the matchbox away with his foot.
The child spirit, oblivious to Shinhee’s frustration, was busy playing rock-paper-scissors with another ghost he’d lured from the hot spring, gleefully landing playful flicks on its head after seven consecutive wins. Watching the scene with disinterest, Shinhee picked up his vibrating phone. It was Secretary Park, whom he’d exchanged numbers with on the first day for coordination purposes.
“Yes, Secretary Park?”
“Shinhee! The director asked for you to join today’s schedule.”
“Today?”
“Yes, today’s schedule is… let me check…”
After some rustling, Secretary Park added, “Ah, castle tour.”
“Excuse me? A castle?”
“Yes. President Mishima thought it was important to show the director a famous Japanese castle since it’s his first visit.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”
“Sorry?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Then we’ll see you at 10 a.m. in front of the hotel.”
Castle tour. A castle tour? After everything he’d endured yesterday, Shinhee felt like the sky was falling. Was this Mishima guy treating the director’s business trip as a school field trip? He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Old castles were infamous for being filled with lingering spirits. For someone like Shinhee, who saw ghosts without filter, they were even worse than haunted houses. Spirits in such places were rarely peaceful—they were usually headless, missing limbs, or otherwise grotesquely dismembered.
The mere thought of it drained his energy. He sighed deeply, regretting not heeding his master’s advice to avoid setting foot on this island nation.
“…No. Let’s work with a good attitude. Work.”

To get anything done, he had to work. He had come all this way, and if he returned without accomplishing anything, his master might lock him in a grain storage chest, not the outhouse, for a week for neglecting his duties.

After grabbing his wallet and phone, Shinhee’s gaze fell on a matchbox with a phoenix illustration. Just in case, he stuffed the matches into his jacket pocket.

“If it’s a ghost that’s lived for over two thousand years, it must have some kind of mystical power,” he thought.

Wearing a grimace, Shinhee stepped out of the room, followed by the young spirit child who had just won at rock-paper-scissors, landing one last playful flick to the back of Shinhee’s head before trailing behind.

If you can’t avoid it, you might as well enjoy it. Even if it meant seeing the ghost of a warrior wandering around with an axe stuck in his head. Ha ha ha. So exciting.

Shinhee internally repeated, for the thirty-fifth time, “Life is fun.” He tried hard to maintain his composure.

Deep down, he wanted to round up all the ghosts here, shove them into a hot spring, and have them clean off all the blood. If it came to that, they could even bathe together with water spirits for all he cared. Though he wasn’t sure how well that would work on lingering spirits.

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

Shinhee shook his head, smiling brightly.

Looking at Shinhee’s face, Gyojin wore a complicated expression.

Meanwhile, Mishima, the root cause of all this, cheerfully remarked how lucky they were today, as his place was usually so crowded with visitors that there wasn’t even room to step. Beside him, Yukie shyly offered a greeting.