Immortal Iri—the master of Dojin and the owner of the rental shop. A primordial Immortal who had lived through endless eons, yet to anyone who saw him, he looked unmistakably the same age as Dojin, or even younger.
“Master, you went to the True Mortal Realm, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? I already gathered all the materials. Don’t you trust your disciple?”
Iri’s gaze shifted to the worktable. Dojin lifted his chin proudly.
“I came ages ago and even finished organizing all the documents. I backed everything up on the laptop you struggle with, too. Wanna come check?”
“Well done. Good job.”
Iri stepped closer. The aura an Immortal carried was exceptionally clear and pure, easing the worries and anxieties of those nearby. Grinning slyly, Dojin leaned his face right up to Iri’s.
“Give me a kiss.”
Iri’s expression instantly turned awkward.
“No kissing.”
“I’m not even asking you to make out—just rub those soft lips on me a little. You won’t even do that?”
“Dojin… I’m someone who watched your very first steps.”
“If you’ve seen my first steps, can’t you watch my first kiss too?”
“Of course not… I wouldn’t be able to face your parents.”
Iri let out a sigh.
Dojin had harbored feelings for Iri since he was a minor. He’d always been blatant about it, but after becoming an adult, he grew even more aggressive, constantly putting his master in uncomfortable situations.
Whenever Dojin acted like this, Iri would avert his eyes, sigh, or bring up family for no reason at all.
“Fine. I won’t ask you to do it on the lips, so just do my forehead or cheek. Your disciple worked this hard—won’t you even give me a praise sticker?”
“Think of it as having accumulated virtue.”
“Wow. You’re really stingy.”
This time, Dojin had genuinely thought Iri might do it, so his disappointment ran deep.
Even knowing that perfectly well, Iri refused to offer his lips until the very end, quietly putting on his gloves instead. Grumbling, Dojin tied the apron strings around Iri’s slim waist.
While Iri prepared for the work, Dojin talked about what had happened earlier.
“You know that person who’s been hanging around nearby for days? Turns out they weren’t a client after all. Looks like some human who followed us after watching our videos. I chased them off by pretending to be part of a cult, so we shouldn’t see them again.”
“Not sure about that. They’re still in front of the house.”
“What?”
Dojin quickly checked the CCTV outside the gate on the laptop. Sure enough, the same person from earlier was lingering around the entrance. Without pressing the doorbell next to the sign, they peeked through the door crack, stood on tiptoe to look over the wall—doing every suspicious thing imaginable. Dojin frowned.
“Persistent, aren’t they? They definitely looked human… Could they be a stray spirit?”
“You’re wearing yellow clothes right now.”
“Ah, right—stray spirits hate yellow…. So they really are human. Damn it, do I seriously have to pretend to be a cultist again?”
“Just leave it. If they come again tomorrow, we’ll deal with it then.”
“Yessir.”
“There’s a lot of dust inside the ‘Feather Flute.’ Wia’s been looking for it for ages.”
Iri blew gently—hoo, hoo—over the thick layer of dust on the “Feather Flute”.
“I was going to clean it, but I thought it might be dangerous, so I didn’t.”
“Good call. You can clean it now, though. Want to do it?”
“Leave it to me.”
Iri immediately handed it over. Dojin went out into the yard, shook off the dust, and carefully wiped it down. Meanwhile, Iri finely chopped five pokeweed roots into a plate Dojin had prepared and poured bottled water over them. The flat plate, about 20 centimeters in diameter, needed twelve bottles of water just to reach a gently sloshing level. Iri lit a fire in the yard’s brazier and placed the plate on top. When the five pokeweed roots softened, he added snake horn and boiled it further.
The plate was a curio called the “Silver Plate,” and the brazier was a divine object named the “Paulownia Brazier.” Both were indispensable, priceless assets of the rental shop.
“Master, I’ve cleaned all the dust off.”
“Watch it carefully so it doesn’t overflow.”
“Yes.”
The “Feather Flute” looked like nothing more than an ordinary gray bird feather. Iri put the root end of the feather to his lips and blew—hoo.
Bee—
The sound was a complete mess.
“What the hell. That’s not what it’s supposed to sound like, right?”
“No. It hasn’t been used in a long time. It needs tuning first.”
“So it can be tuned… You’re knowledgeable about music too, Master.”
“I’m not. I’ll leave it to a professional.”
Dojin nodded as if he understood.
“You mean the musician, right? I’ll call them.”
“You’re going to get all worked up again while calling, aren’t you? I’ll do it.”
Iri went inside. Dojin wanted to follow but couldn’t leave the brazier unattended. Thankfully, after a few minutes, the five roots had completely dissolved. A greenish aura swirled within the black liquid. Dojin carefully lifted the plate and went inside.
Iri’s phone lay on the worktable, and the rental shop’s landline was properly placed as well. Catching on quickly, Dojin set the plate down and entered the curio storage room.
As expected, Iri was holding three curios in his arms, peering around the shelves.
“You’re looking for other instruments to send together when you ask the musician, right?”
“Yeah. I could look on my own, though.”
“Let’s look together. I’ve got nothing else to do anyway. You take the right side, I’ll take the left.”
“Thanks.”
After an hour of excavation, Iri found twenty curios, while Dojin found five. Seeing the difference in their numbers, Dojin briefly wondered if he’d been slacking off. But looking closer, Iri was also holding something like a strange pencil and a huge seashell. Identifying non–instrument-shaped objects as instruments was still beyond Dojin’s experience.
“Good work. I’ll look through them again, so take a short break.”
“Good work, my ass. I’m seriously terrible at handling tasks….”
“No, you did fine. You found five—your skills have improved a lot.”
Despite the repeated praise, Dojin was already feeling dejected.
A short while later, Iri found ten more curios that needed tuning from the same spot Dojin had searched. That made Dojin shrink even further.
Iri took out the white phone from among five phones in the drawer and dialed a number.
—Oh, is this Immortal Iri?
“Yeah, it’s me.”
—It’s been a month. What are you calling about this time?
“I need to ask you to tune some things.”
Judging by the voice alone, the other party sounded like an old man, while Iri sounded somewhere between a boy and a young man, yet they naturally spoke casually to each other.
“When are you free? The sooner the better for me. Tomorrow works?”
Listening in, Dojin checked the schedule and shook his head.
“There’s a consultation tomorrow morning.”
Iri made an OK sign with his hand, as if it were no problem.
“I’ll come tomorrow. There’s a lot to do. I’ll send the list right away. See you tomorrow.”
After hanging up, Iri glanced at the words written on the schedule—“Big-Eyed Big-Mouth, 3rd Consultation”—and shrugged.
“It’ll be over by the morning, so it’s fine. If it looks like it’ll go past lunch, secretly spray some dandelion scent. Big-Eyed Big-Mouth hates that.”
“Got it. And payment for the musician is dried acorns again, right?”
“Yeah. We still have some left from before, right?”
The musician was a case where a small squirrel yokai evolved through the stages of spirit and divine being to become a divine spirit. Most mountain-dwelling divine spirits loved acorns so much that they even used them as currency when interacting with other divine spirits. Naturally, the musician, who originated as a squirrel, couldn’t resist acorns either.
Dojin took an acorn pouch out of the drawer.
“There’s only a handful left. Is this enough?”
“Hmm. It’s a bit short, but it’s fine. I’ll throw in a signed Polaroid from the intangible cultural asset tightrope walker too.”
So they wouldn’t forget later, Iri placed the photo into the acorn pouch.
“I should go meet Yori-iki around Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Who’s Yori-iki?”
“A dokkaebi living in Cheongju. To make spring hibernation rations for the pseudo-ants, we need the bamboo bird eggs Yori-iki has.”
Iri tore off a sheet of memo paper and wrote down the work schedule in one go.
① Hexagonal Tree — regeneration of non-sprouting branches
Required — ‘Feather Flute’
② Big-Eyed Big-Mouth (Consultation)
③ Triangular Deer — ear creation
Required — ‘Eardrum of the Vermilion Butterfly’
④ Pseudo-Ants — spring hibernation rations
Required — ‘Grass Seasoning’
.
.
.
“Oh, wait—’Grass Seasoning’ is currently rented out. There’s still a month left. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll make it myself.”
“You can make curios too….”
“It’s disposable, so don’t get any strange ideas.”
“I’m not that greedy, you know. There’s only one thing I’m greedy for. And that’s Master’s—”
Just then, bzzzt—a message came in.
[Musician
You.said.list.you’d.send.it.but.it.hasn’t.come.yet.]
Dojin immediately furrowed his brow.
“For a divine spirit, you’ve got zero patience.”
“Dojin. Watch your mouth.”
“…….”
With his jaw clenched, Dojin sent the list of curios to be entrusted to the musician.
The two of them resumed working on the curios. There was so much to do that the work continued even after sunset. Iri didn’t need to eat, but Dojin had to keep regular meals, so they took time for dinner.
Dojin quickly made bibimbap and loitered around Iri.
“How did you manage all of this by yourself when I wasn’t here? Back then, you handled requests, consultations, retrievals, sales, rentals, harvesting—everything alone. Now there’s no sales anymore, and even with two of us, we’re this busy. Did you use some kind of clone technique or what?”
“I don’t know how I did it either. I just did it, and it worked.”
“Honestly, even with two people it’s exhausting. We really need to hire someone fast.”
“I posted a recruitment ad, but no one’s contacted us.”
They had already posted a job listing online to hire more staff. But perhaps because no one with spiritual sensitivity existed, there hadn’t been a single response.
“I’ll post it again. They say South Korea has fifty million people—someone’s bound to read it.”
After shoveling down his food, Dojin reposted the ad online.
[Iri’s Curio Rental Shop
Hiring 1 person — experience/gender/age irrelevant
Document management / Annual salary 40 million / 9–6
Contact ]
Since the contact information was visible only to those with spiritual sensitivity or a discerning eye, ordinary people would naturally feel frustrated, wondering why this business never listed a contact number.
