Immortals vs. Grim Reapers - chapter 35
Chapter 35. Your Name Is (2)
[What did the noble one just say?]
“… Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Ju Gangrim rubbed his forehead while cursing Yeomna inwardly.
He could almost hear Yeomna’s chuckling.
Of course. Everyone would know Won Gyun.
He was merely surprised by the fact that there was a shaman who served Won Gyun as a guardian spirit.
Regardless of his past deeds or karma, if he was still talked about to this day, was he simply that powerful?
Ju Gangrim set aside his personal feelings, or perhaps those of all Koreans, about Won Gyun and got straight to the point.
“You just said it was a grave he dug for himself.”
Ju Gangrim gestured toward the shaman’s corpse as he asked. Won Gyun stroked his beard and answered.
[Hmm, that’s right. The fool relied too much on his talent and got in over his head, unable to handle the consequences. His life thread was cut short.]
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Won Gyun made a clicking sound with his tongue as he spoke.
[I regret to inform you, noble one, but this matter concerns the safety of the royal ancestral shrine and the state…]
“The royal ancestral shrine? Does this have anything to do with someone called the Prince of Gangreung?”
Flutter flutter.
Won Gyun’s aura trembled.
From that reaction alone, Ju Gangrim knew he had hit the mark.
The Prince of Gangreung had said he would revive the Joseon dynasty.
No matter how great a country Joseon was or how tragic its end, to Ju Gangrim living in the modern era, it sounded like nothing but madness.
And now, hearing talk of the royal ancestral shrine and such nonsense, he felt like taking an ax to someone’s head.
“I see the Prince of Gangreung said something about preserving the royal ancestral shrine. Your loyalty as a deceased gentleman is truly admirable, but why don’t you just stay dead instead of fondling a dead pepper?”
[How dare you…!]
He had inadvertently spoken with emotion.
If Ju Gangrim had even an ounce of patriotism, that country would be the Republic of Korea, not Joseon.
“What’s the name of this Prince of Gangreung?”
[I cannot say! Even if you are a noble one!]
“Given all this talk about continuing the royal lineage, he must be from the Jeonju Lee clan. Obviously a man, since they wouldn’t care about DNA or such things. I could probably narrow down the name by searching through the records.”
Won Gyun let out a thunderous roar. A strong wind swept through, scattering papers around the room. Ju Gangrim felt the powerful aura that made his skin tingle.
Even as a spirit possessing a half-rotten corpse, and despite being cursed heavily even hundreds of years later, a general’s spirit was still a general’s spirit.
Ju Gangrim sensed that this was not an easy opponent to deal with. But he couldn’t back down. He was in a position where retreat was not an option.
Ju Gangrim drew his Death-Summoning Sword and took a step toward Won Gyun. Seeing this, Won Gyun shouted threateningly.
[I am the guardian spirit of Joseon’s generals! I became a general by the king’s august command and led this land’s soldiers! How dare you? Unless you have orders from the King of the Underworld himself, how could a mere death messenger dare to lay hands on me!]
Ju Gangrim stopped in his tracks.
“The King of the Underworld’s orders?”
Ding. A message notification sounded from his spirit phone.
[Yeomna: Go ahead.]
A smile played at the corners of Ju Gangrim’s lips. There was no need to ask what he was being permitted to do.
***
[No, but I really don’t know…]
Ju Gangrim stood with his arms crossed, listening to Won Gyun who was now prostrated flat on the ground before him.
There had been no need for beating or torture. The moment Ju Gangrim struck him once with the Death-Summoning Sword, Won Gyun realized everything.
That Ju Gangrim had come with the authority to collect Won Gyun’s soul and take it away right then and there.
And the illustrious guardian spirit of generals was weak to authority.
[The one called the Prince of Gangreung already possessed divine power when he arrived. He was already an exceptional shaman. The Hundred-Year Boy seemed like a child compared to him.]
“Hundred-Year Boy?”
[That was the divine name of this body’s original owner.]
Won Gyun answered while rubbing his cheek that still stung from being hit.
Even for a soul, being struck by the Death-Summoning Sword was bound to hurt. The fact that he wasn’t sucked into the sword on the spot showed that he was indeed a high-ranking general’s spirit.
[The Hundred-Year Boy was a once-in-a-century genius. But he was also a reckless fool who relied only on his talent. Spirits were all clamoring to serve him, so he originally wasn’t even going to undergo the spirit descent ritual. I barely convinced him to accept it by asking him to work with me for just three years.]
Won Gyun sighed and continued.
[But just as his talents were becoming known, that man appeared.]
“The Prince of Gangreung.”
[At that time, he went by the divine name of Ildang Daegoon.]
Won Gyun seemed to be recalling the memories of that time.
[He came and asked the Hundred-Year Boy to perform a spirit descent ritual for him. I told him the man already had a powerful spirit. At first, the Hundred-Year Boy tried to refuse, but the man provoked him. He said he had come after hearing he was the best in Korea, but was he someone who couldn’t even perform a proper spirit descent ritual?]
“I suppose he fell for that.”
[His pride was as great as his talent. But I think he was also curious about this Ildang Daegoon standing before him.]
Won Gyun paused for a moment before speaking again.
[Ildang Daegoon appeared young on the surface, but there were traces of countless souls having passed through him. It should have been impossible. A human can’t outlive spirits. But Ildang Daegoon was like that. And the spirit he asked to descend was also absurd.]
“Whose spirit descent did he request?”
Won Gyun closed his mouth. For a moment, his form wavered and shimmered.
His agitation was palpable just from thinking about the answer.
[The man pulled out a spirit tablet for the Hundred-Year Boy.]
“A spirit tablet?”
[From the royal ancestral shrine.]
Ju Gangrim’s expression turned from confusion to disbelief.
“Wait a minute. You don’t mean the spirit descent ritual was for…”
[That’s right. He intended to take in the souls of all the past kings enshrined in Jongmyo.]
The Prince of Gangreung was no ordinary madman. Even the word “insane” felt insufficient to describe him.
His talk of reviving Joseon was no joke. He truly intended to resurrect Joseon in the most literal sense.
As a ghost nation ruled by ancient kings.
“…Did he succeed?”
[I don’t know.]
Won Gyun shook his head.
[As a military man sworn to serve the king, I couldn’t help him. But I tacitly allowed it. After all, there were spirits lining up to help the Hundred-Year Boy anyway.]
“So you don’t know for certain.”
[What I know for sure is that after three days and nights of the spirit descent ritual, Ildang Daegoon walked out as Gangreung Daegoon, and the Hundred-Year Boy was left emaciated as he sent him off. The spirits that had gathered to help were nowhere to be seen.]
“I see.”
[After that incident, the Hundred-Year Boy lost interest in divination. He said he had already seen the pinnacle of this field. Naturally, clients stopped coming, and this place became an abandoned shrine. I dozed off for a while, and by the time I woke up, it had come to this.]
“Wait, so you don’t know how the Hundred-Year Boy died?”
[From the traces, I can tell the Prince of Gangreung came and went. There’s no one else in all of Joseon who could so easily control and seal spirits like this.]
“I need that man’s name. Do you have any other clues about his name?”
[Well…]
Won Gyun stroked his beard, hesitating to speak.
[I worry that this answer might be disloyal to the king. Although he borrowed the body of the Prince of Gangreung, if the spirits of Jongmyo’s masters have entered his body, he is the living embodiment of the royal ancestral shrine itself. I cannot speak carelessly.]
Won Gyun spoke proudly.
[I may be a defeated general, but I am no traitor.]
“What frozen nonsense about treason are you talking about when Joseon is already a fallen country?”
[…]
“Stop talking nonsense and tell me any information you know. Before you really do go to the afterlife.”
Ahem, Won Gyun cleared his throat and rolled his eyes around.
[I really don’t know much. However…]
“However?”
[The spirit tablet he carried was that of Emperor Gojong.]
Ju Gangrim’s eyes flashed.
***
Samdo Renaissance Hotel.
Upon returning from his great quest to find the name of the Prince of Gangreung, Ju Gangrim heard unexpected news from Yu Wolryeong.
“Weapons?”
“Yes. When I told the informant that Ju Gangrim the death messenger had burned down all of Shine Sand, they said they would send some weapons.”
Ju Gangrim scoffed at those words.
“If they’re trying to build rapport by acting friendly before we’ve even met, tell them it won’t come cheap.”
“So you’re confident you can be bought for a high price?”
“It won’t hurt to hear what they have to say, right?”
Even as he scoffed, Ju Gangrim followed Yu Wolryeong down to the underground parking garage.
A massive trailer was already parked in the underground lot. Ju Gangrim suddenly realized how high the ceiling of the parking garage was.
As if large cargo like this was a common occurrence.
Yu Wolryeong approached the trailer and opened its doors.
Inside the silver trailer was an enormous quantity of firearms and explosives.
These weren’t the kind of military supplies the Prince of Gangreung had been diverting from the U.S. military.
To be frank, the military equipment possessed by U.S. forces in Korea, where intense battles are rare, isn’t of particularly high quality. The truly cutting-edge, highest-performance items are concentrated in the Middle East, where conflict could erupt at any time.
But the trailer contained weapons that surpassed even that level—top-tier armaments used by special forces.
Having served in the UN forces, Ju Gangrim could tell that some of the weapons in the trailer were special armaments not even exported to other countries.
“They said a few, but… They really went all out. Still, even so…”
“They said to try them out and keep whichever one you like, regardless of the price.”
“If they’d offered to give me all of them, I might have been bought.”
Ju Gangrim said it jokingly, but he was already salivating.
In truth, he knew that even hundreds of these weapons couldn’t kill an immortal, and that the Death-Summoning Sword was far more valuable.
But to Ju Gangrim the soldier, who had always struggled with supply shortages, this trailer looked like a treasure chest.
Moreover, these conventional weapons were more intuitive to him than divine objects whose functions he had to study one by one.
“It would take a month to try each one. And there aren’t many suitable places to use them either.”
He couldn’t very well start shooting in the middle of the street, so realistically the only place to use them was north of the Han River.
Ju Gangrim climbed into the trailer to examine the weapons.
It was packed full of all sorts of equipment, from various firearms and special ammunition to grenades and night vision goggles, showing that no expense had been spared.
“But why would an informant give out weapons like this?”
“They may be called an informant, but they’re closer to an information broker. They don’t just deal in information.”
“Still, this feels burdensome when I haven’t even given them anything yet. There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world.”
“Think of it as a free sample.”
“A free sample?”
“They think that even though Ju Gangrim the death messenger is doing well with just the Death-Summoning Sword, once you get a taste for guns, you won’t be able to get out. It means they think you’ll become a good customer, so take it positively.”
Ju Gangrim wanted to sneer, but he had to admit he was tempted by the equipment before him.
What soldier wouldn’t be enticed by new A-grade gear? Especially top-tier equipment rarely seen even on the battlefield.
That’s when Ju Gangrim spotted a distinctive weapon.
“This is…?”
Among the numerous modern weapons, there was one conspicuously old-fashioned gun.
It was an antique blunderbuss shotgun that looked like it belonged in a museum rather than among these cutting-edge weapons.
Ju Gangrim approached the blunderbuss and picked it up eagerly. Yu Wolryeong asked curiously.
“Is that a gun too?”
“It’s called a blunderbuss. Pirates used to favor these back in the day.”
“It seems you have a taste for such old guns.”
“Ah, no, it’s just that seeing an old weapon stand out among all these modern ones reminded me of the common trope where it turns out to be incredibly powerful.”
“It does seem rather conspicuously placed.”
However, the blunderbuss itself was quite luxurious. It was adorned with elaborate gold and silver decorations, and despite its age, the surface was polished to a shine, showing it had been well-maintained.
Nevertheless, the marks and worn barrel here and there showed that it had been used in actual combat.
“I’m not sure about its purpose. It looks ornamental, but the barrel suggests it’s been used in battle. The barrel is so worn that accuracy must be terrible. In this state, you could load it with rock fragments instead of bullets.”
In fact, people used to load all sorts of things into shotguns. Ju Gangrim examined the blunderbuss to see if it had any special abilities he wasn’t aware of, but he couldn’t sense anything.
‘Perhaps it belonged to a pirate captain?’
That’s when Ju Gangrim saw something through his spirit vision—not a special ability, but something else emanating from the blunderbuss.
A powerful obsession, or rather, a grudge, was imbued in the gun.
The terrible fates of its previous owners and their desperate resentment clung to the blunderbuss like earthbound spirits.
Ju Gangrim almost dropped the shotgun without realizing it. Yu Wolryeong, seeming to have sensed the aura as well, spoke up.
“We should call it a cursed treasure rather than a weapon.”
“…What was the informant thinking, putting this in here? Are they trying to mess with us?”
“They might have included it by mistake. Either way, a weapon is a weapon.”
Ju Gangrim considered putting the blunderbuss back down but decided to holster it at his side.
It was a bit cumbersome, but not enough to hinder his movement.
“So you like it after all?”
“That’s not it, I’m just going to try it out.”
“You’re saying the classic line of someone who ends up wielding a cursed weapon.”
“…”