Osratida - Chapter 5

Through the crowd of ghosts, a man faintly appeared, dressed in casual slacks and a light coat. His outfit was nothing special, but because he was tall, he somehow resembled a model from a famous fashion magazine.
Even as Shinhee crossed the street, careful not to draw the attention of the ghosts, he couldn’t take his eyes off the man. A part of him felt relieved, but at the same time, Shinhee became puzzled.
With this level of staring, a few perceptive ghosts should have noticed Shinhee and made eye contact with him, yet none of them looked away from the man.

The intensity of their focus weighed on Shinhee, making him feel even more uneasy, like a heavy stone pressing down on him. Should he really follow, or was he inviting trouble?
Anxiety began to coil inside him, slowly creeping up from within. While Shinhee hesitated between a sense of foreboding and a feeling of obligation, the man checked his wristwatch and hurried his pace, stopping in front of a nearby bus stop.

It looked like he was about to board the bus. Shinhee stared directly at the man from across the street. Despite the road separating them, his sharp features and model-like height and proportions stood out clearly. Even without the ghosts, the man would easily attract the attention of the public.

However, it wasn’t the man’s appearance that caught Shinhee’s gaze in the end. His eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights. It was then that the moment felt as if time slowed down, as though he had stepped into some sort of time-space chamber, where an instant stretched out like a full day.

Without any of the hesitation he’d had before, Shinhee ran straight across the road toward the man. Cars blared their horns, startled by his sudden appearance, but he didn’t have the luxury to even glance around. Just before he reached him, the bus glided to a stop right in front of the man. Mustering every last bit of strength, Shinhee grabbed hold of the bus as it started to pull away with the man onboard.

There was no one else on the bus except for the man. Shinhee sat a few seats behind him, never taking his eyes off the ghosts surrounding the man. In the rattling bus, Shinhee glared at the back of the man’s head. After a long moment, the source of everything that had driven him to chase after the man slowly turned its head and met Shinhee’s gaze.

A ghost with glaring red eyes, one that hadn’t been there when Shinhee had glimpsed the man on the street last time, was now staring back at him.

Red eyes?
Traditionally, red was associated with yang energy, while blue represented yin—red symbolized life, the antithesis of the ghosts.

Shinhee’s pupils trembled rapidly. Since accepting his fate as a “seer of ghosts” (gyeongwija), he had long come to terms with witnessing the dead. But now, for the first time in a long while, a deep sense of fear churned violently inside him. More than anything, this ghost…

At that moment, the corners of the ghost’s mouth, with its fiery red eyes, lifted into a sinister grin, as if to mock him.

Before Shinhee could fully register the foreboding sense of danger, the bus began to lurch violently.

“Wh-what’s going on?”
The startled voice of the driver erupted from the front. Shinhee’s instincts flared, warning him of imminent peril.

Inside the shaking bus, the ghosts clinging to the man let out gleeful, screeching cackles, their throats vibrating with laughter. Surrounded by the sound of a dozen eerie voices, Shinhee acted on pure reflex. He grabbed the emergency hammer installed in the bus, shattered the window, and immediately pulled the man outside. Even Shinhee himself was surprised by the sudden burst of agility.

The moment he yanked the man out, the cluster of spirits retreated a short distance, but neither the man nor Shinhee had time to care about the shift in the ghosts’ behavior. As soon as they hit the ground and rolled away from the bus, a deafening crash echoed behind them. The bus toppled over with a thunderous noise.

Shinhee hurriedly checked the man’s condition. Though he appeared to have lost consciousness from the sudden shock, fortunately, aside from a few bleeding scrapes, he didn’t seem to have any serious injuries. Scanning the surroundings, Shinhee noticed that the source of all this—the red-eyed ghost—had already disappeared.

People began to gather as news of the unprecedented bus accident spread. Shinhee gently laid the man down and, without drawing attention to himself, quickly left the scene amidst the growing commotion.

—

Though the person had fed and housed him for over a decade, it was the first time Shinhee had stepped foot inside the shaman’s house since the Lunar New Year.
He hadn’t even visited during Chuseok because of part-time work, so it had easily been over six months since he last saw his mentor.

Though his mentor often grumbled that his senses had dulled with age, as one of the most renowned shamans in Korea, the Great Shaman of Geumja-dang, he was waiting for Shinhee with sharp eyes peeking through thick makeup, his large frame imposing as always.

“You managed to crawl back here, I see.”

“Have you been well, Master?”
Shinhee replied with an awkward, bashful smile.

His mentor snorted in response, unimpressed, and without a word, turned his back and walked inside the shrine. Afraid of being left behind, Shinhee hurriedly followed him.

As soon as he stepped inside, a few of the ghosts bound to the grounds of Geumja-dang greeted him, befitting a shaman’s household. After spending over a decade together, Shinhee had become quite familiar with these lingering spirits, so much so that they even exchanged jokes from time to time.

Entering the inner chamber where his master usually stayed, Shinhee was hit with a wave of nostalgia—the familiar scent he used to smell daily, the crimson folding screens, and the paintings of deities hanging all around, marking the place with the spirits’ presence.

“I’ve told you time and time again, being an artist isn’t in your fate,”
the Great Shaman said, cutting Shinhee off before he even had a chance to speak. Shinhee braced himself for the scolding, glancing at the little child spirit sitting beside his master, grinning as if overjoyed to see him after such a long time.

So it was you, the culprit…

The small spirit, no different from a mischievous town crier, seemed to know its crime well. It immediately stopped its antics and darted out of the room. Shinhee let out a deep sigh, subtly gauging the mood of his master, who was sharper than any ghost.

“I didn’t quit, I just took a break from school…”
Shinhee muttered.

“You’re not going back.”

“I will, once I’ve saved up enough money…”

“You really think the spirits that have gathered around you will just let that happen?”

“Ghosts can’t really do much…”

“Ko Shinhee,”
the shaman interrupted, her voice sharp, silencing his protest.

“…Yes.”
Even though Shinhee often talked back, whenever his master called him by name like that, he had no choice but to lower his tail.

“You have no filter, living in a shaman’s house. If it weren’t for those ‘mere ghosts,’ you wouldn’t even have a foot in this world.”

The shaman fixed her intense gaze on him.
“Now, let’s hear what brings you here today. The same kid who didn’t even show his face during the holidays.”

It seemed that the little child spirit, with its tendency to chatter like a leaf in the wind, had yet to report the true reason for Shinhee’s visit.

With a sigh, Shinhee dropped the smile he had been forcing and, after some hesitation, finally began to explain the matter that had brought him there.

“I saw something strange today, Master. Well, not just today—I saw him yesterday too. It was a man dragging around a dozen or so ghosts with him.”

The Great Shaman narrowed her eyes, clearly sensing something significant, and nodded slightly for Shinhee to continue. Encouraged, Shinhee quickly added more details.

“I almost got into serious trouble because of him.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The bus we were on flipped over right in the middle of the road.”

“And you’re saying that was because of those spirits?”

“Yes. It seemed like the spirits all gathered together, and that had some negative effect on the people around them. One of them was a ghost with red eyes, which definitely wasn’t there yesterday, but suddenly appeared today. However…”

“What is it?”
the shaman prompted.

“…It had my face.”

The shaman’s expression darkened instantly, and she fell silent for a while, her gaze shifting to the lunar calendar placed on the table. After some time, she finally spoke.

“What’s today’s date?”

“It’s November 7th.”

“Lunar date?”

“The lunar date? That would be September 26th, since tomorrow is the start of winter.”

Shinhee diligently counted on his fingers as he answered, but the shaman’s expression grew increasingly grave. He began to worry that he might have misspoken and counted the date again. There were no errors, yet the Great Shaman’s face remained devoid of color.

“Master?”

“This won’t do.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t change what’s been predetermined. What makes you think you can just meddle with fate? Don’t waste your precious talent. Stick to dealing with lesser spirits under my guidance.”

“But I’m already handling those lesser spirits…”

“You brat!”

At the shaman’s sharp reprimand, Shinhee quickly shut his mouth. Despite the close bond he shared with his mentor, he still felt a sense of intimidation in her presence, which left him feeling quite small.
“I’m telling you to formally come under my guidance.”

“Master, you know that’s not possible.”

He could see ghosts, but he couldn’t foresee his own future. He lacked the skill to interpret dreams or predict others’ lives. Despite living with spirits for so long, he had never experienced the possession of a deity. Even the Guardian General enshrined in the deepest part of the temple had watched him for years without ever possessing him or whispering predictions about his future. Therefore, he believed that becoming a shaman was not in his nature.

His master, who understood better than anyone the consequences of recklessly inviting a spirit into one’s body, was now making such a proposal to him. Why?

He could capture the wandering spirits and guide them to the afterlife, but being told to become a shaman, to perform rituals and make prophecies, felt like asking a child just learning to walk to fly.

“Then why do you think I’ve taken care of you all this time?”

“That’s because the ancestral spirit came to me in a dream…”

“I’ll pay my respects to that spirit.”

“That spirit isn’t one to be trifled with…”

“Ko shinhee!”

“…Yes.”
Eventually, Shinhee lowered his head, realizing he had no argument left.

“Who said anything about you becoming a shaman?”

“…Then what does that mean?”

“I’m telling you to capture spirits. Spirits. Not the minor ones you deal with now, but the bigger and more significant ones.”

Shinhee couldn’t hide his confusion. He had heard the suggestion to turn his side job of exorcism into his main occupation multiple times, but such a sudden demand was new to him.

“I’m just a guy who gets dragged around by a handful of spirits; I know that myself.”

Shinhee’s head instinctively lifted at the unexpected words of the shaman.
“And you know that the spirit attached to that man is an 800-year-old malevolent being.”

“800 years?”
he echoed, astonished.

“There are some that look just like you, and you’ve seen one of them firsthand. Don’t pretend you don’t understand what that means.”

Shinhee swallowed hard, the weight of her words settling heavily on his shoulders. The implications of such an ancient spirit being connected to him were daunting. He felt a mix of fear and curiosity, grappling with the reality of the situation.