When the Apothecary examined the infected dokkaebi one by one, their condition matched the symptoms of Saksin perfectly. Now, they needed to determine how this plague had managed to spread into such a closed-off village in the first place. Iri summoned everyone except those whose condition was too severe to even move to the village chief’s house. Out of the village’s total thirty-one members, seventeen gathered, excluding fourteen.
Iri sat in the seat of honor where the village chief would normally sit, with Dojin and the Apothecary seated on either side of him. Since the dokkaebi were unsettled by the sight of masks, they had taken them off.
“Master, the dokkaebi can’t even meet your eyes. Looks like they’re hiding something.”
“Seems that way.”
Having taken the painkillers given by the Apothecary and temporarily freed from the agony of Saksin, the dokkaebi sat politely and composed. Yet every single one of them avoided looking at Iri, turning their heads away or shutting their eyes instead.
“For a plague to spread in a village this closed, there has to be a reason. It wouldn’t have occurred naturally—it must’ve come from outside. We need to trace the route of transmission backward.”
At the Apothecary’s words, Iri nodded.
Iri slowly scanned the dokkaebi, stopping when his gaze reached the village chief.
“Haeso. From now on, you will look me straight in the eye and speak only the truth.”
“…Understood.”
“Why did you not seek outside help when the plague spread?”
“…….”
The dokkaebi flinched. Haeso hesitated, then answered with a grim expression.
“Immortal….”
“…….”
“First, I must say this… that human’s death was absolutely not intentional. It was an accident….”
Iri and the Apothecary, as if they had expected this, did not react much—but Dojin, who had never even imagined it, sprang to his feet.
“A human’s death? You bastards killed a human?!”
“I-I told you. It wasn’t intentional.”
“A Wia killing a human! Did you really think a crime this heavy could be hidden? Since when did you start enjoying murder? How many have you killed so far?!”
“That one. Only one. It was a mistake. We were deceived too!”
Haeso burst out in frustration. The other dokkaebi, despite suffering from the illness, also chimed in to support him.
“It’s unfair!”
“It’s unjust!”
“We were tricked!”
“All of you, quiet.”
As the room grew as noisy as a marketplace, Iri raised a hand and calmed them down.
“Dojin, stop. He said it wasn’t intentional. Asking him when he started enjoying murder is distortion—and slander. Apologize to Haeso.”
“……I’m sorry, Village Chief.”
Dojin apologized with his lips pushed out in a sulk. The chief bowed his head awkwardly in response.
As heavy silence settled in, Iri tapped the armrest with his finger.
Cases where humans died because of Wia happened from time to time. A large Wia stretching and crushing a passing human under its palm, or a Wia singing, thinking no one was around—only for the resentment embedded in the song to rupture a human’s eardrums and kill them. These incidents were treated as accidents and not punished.
It was the same principle as when a small Wia ate rat poison set by humans to kill rats and died—humans were not punished in the underworld for that either.
The dokkaebi should’ve known this. So why were they being so evasive? If it truly wasn’t intentional, they had no reason to shrink back like this. Yet Haeso was clearly deeply intimidated.
“Immortal, we should consider the possibility that this ‘plague’ isn’t a disease at all. Perhaps an academic should’ve come instead of me.”
Iri nodded in agreement, then spoke to Haeso.
“Don’t hide anything. Tell us everything that happened.”
“Yes… Immortal.”
Haeso began recounting the unbelievable and unjust events that had occurred among the Tongyeong dokkaebi.
***
Unlike the others, an old dokkaebi named Cheolsu—who had lived in Hanyang, then Yeosu, and eventually moved to Tongyeong—frequently left the village even outside of Yin-energy collection days.
He went down to human villages to play janggi or baduk, or to haggle over prices at the market to pass the time. However, after receiving a warning from Haeso, the village chief, not to get too entangled with humans, he stopped visiting human settlements. Instead, his sole hobby became climbing the tallest tree on Mireuksan and watching humans descend on the cable cars.
One day, under an overcast sky, he went to climb his usual tree—only to find two small birds he’d never seen before busily carrying twigs and building a nest. Having no choice, he yielded the spot.
Cheolsu settled instead on a slightly smaller tree nearby. From then on, he became engrossed in watching the birds rather than the cable cars. Their foreheads looked as if red discs had been placed upon them; their beaks were yellow, with dark gray fur around them, and their bellies were tinged with scarlet.
“How’re y’all this pretty.”
Completely smitten by the small, lovely birds, Cheolsu eventually even helped them build their nest.
“Ain’t this branch sturdier?”
Peep peep.
“Alright then. Do it your way.”
Peck.
“How’d y’all even make it all the way here. What’re your names?”
Chirp chirp chirp.
The small animals lacked the intelligence for conversation and thus answered only with their cries.
After some time, the two little birds laid five pale eggs.
Cheolsu, feeling like a grandfather, cared for the eggs alongside them.
On rainy days, he’d bring umbrellas humans had lost and hang them over the nest. Sometimes he even brought plump grubs by the handful for the parent birds to eat.
When cracks finally appeared in the eggs and wrinkled baby birds were born, crying peep peep peep without even opening their eyes, Cheolsu felt genuinely moved.
The incident occurred on a day when the mother bird had gone out to find food, and Cheolsu was watching over the chicks together with the father bird.
“Ain’t that a snake? A big ol’ python, ain’t it?!”
Perched at the end of a branch near the nest, Cheolsu spotted a large python slithering up the tree trunk and shouted. The father bird, flying high in the sky, hadn’t noticed.
“What do I do… the chicks’re gonna die.”
After fretting, Cheolsu finally used his dokkaebi club to conjure a whistle and blew it—peep. The father bird, who’d been flying nearby, rushed back immediately.
Chirp chirp—
The father bird recognized the approaching predator and threatened it, pecking fiercely with its tiny body.
Cheolsu stomped his feet anxiously beside the nest.
Did I call him for nothin’? What do I do? That little thing can’t stand up to a python. What do I do?
Unless they were mountain dokkaebi, dokkaebi were forbidden to interfere with the natural order of the mountains without the village chief’s permission. But if he went back to the village now to seek approval, everything would already be over by the time he returned.
While Cheolsu hesitated, the python swallowed the father bird whole in a single motion. A few feathers scattered through the air. Seemingly satisfied, the python slithered back down the tree.
“Ah… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
All Cheolsu could do was gather the few tiny feathers drifting in the air as keepsakes.
When the mother bird returned, she circled the sky above the tree for hours, crying.
Time passed, and when the chicks had grown fluffy and the nest began to feel cramped, the python returned. Without hesitation, it climbed the tree again. Cheolsu once more blew the whistle to call the mother bird. She returned quickly and fought the python, but her wing was injured, and she fell to the ground.
As the mother bird fell, Cheolsu felt as though their eyes met. Whether a creature with no intelligence could resent Cheolsu for not helping, he couldn’t know—but this feeling alone was unmistakable.
It was a dying wish—”please take care of my children.”
“That’s it then. I done went and tied myself to this fate. Guess y’all built yer nest here ‘cause yer chicks were meant to be saved by me.”
Cheolsu clicked his tongue once, then swung his dokkaebi club and killed the python.
Then something astonishing happened. The python writhed a few times on the ground, a tremor ran through the earth, and its body crumbled into soil.
“Good heavens… it was a spirit creature?!”
Cheolsu realized he was truly in trouble.
He didn’t know why the spirit creature hadn’t resisted, but regardless, a dokkaebi killing a spirit creature was a grave matter—like an adult killing a child. There had been a reason, yes: it was trying to eat the creatures he cherished. But that was never a justifiable reason. If this got out, a conflict could erupt between the dokkaebi village and the spirit creatures of Mireuksan.
Beside the starving chicks crying incessantly, Cheolsu regretted what he’d done. At that moment, a man’s voice rose from beneath the tree.
“Ah… my wife. My wife is dead.”
A tall, neatly dressed young man appeared, wearing white mourning clothes and a mourning headband.
He approached the mound of earth and wailed.
“My love, what has happened? Who did this to you? What happened to our promise to become divine spirits together and live forever? Please—wake up!”
Cheolsu descended in tears and confessed everything that had happened.
After hearing the story, the python’s husband spoke.
“Even if it was to save the chicks, a dokkaebi killing a spirit creature violates the laws of Heaven-and-Earth Seas. Because of your interference, my wife died without even enjoying her final feast three days before becoming a divine spirit.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….”
“Because your apology is sincere, I will forgive you. However, once we became divine spirits, we intended to send the Evil God Berimos, who’s been running rampant around this area, down to the Middle Realm. Now that plan has fallen apart, and I fear great chaos will descend upon the human villages nearby.”
“Evil God Berimos?”
