Ding— The café door opened, a bell chiming brightly. The part-time worker, who had reflexively greeted the customer with a “Welcome,” froze with their mouth open upon seeing who had entered. A man so handsome he was rarely seen even on TV was walking in. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a fierce-looking expression—but his features were clean-cut and strikingly good-looking.
And yet, behind that handsome man was someone even more impressive.
A beautiful young man with a clear, pure aura stepped in after him. For some reason, the moment the part-timer saw him, they felt shy and lowered their head. Their heart pounded like a drum. Half of them wanted to look up again and see that clear young man once more; the other half wanted to duck beneath the counter and never see him again.
“Must be someone with a lot of sins,”
Dojin whispered to Iri. The two who had just entered the café were Dojin and Iri. They’d come to a human café for the first time in a while because of an appointment, but seeing how shaken the part-timer became the instant they laid eyes on Iri made his heart ache. In the end, almost as if hiding, Iri took a seat in a corner where the counter couldn’t be seen.
When the gazes of the café patrons followed them, Dojin used a simple spell to blur their presence.
“What would you like to order?”
“Iced Americano.”
“Master, don’t have coffee. Have tea. Warm tea. Like yuzu tea or quince tea.”
“Alright….”
Dojin stood up to place the order. Then why did you even ask? Iri thought, smiling to himself.
Dojin returned with two drinks and an entire armful of desserts. The two spent some time eating and drinking human food together for the first time in a while as they waited for the people they were meeting. Dojin cut a small piece of lemon pound cake with his fork, stabbed it lightly, and held it up to Iri’s lips.
“It’s not very sweet. Try it.”
“Okay.”
Contrary to expectations, Iri didn’t open his pretty lips and let him feed it to him. He took the fork from Dojin instead, put the cake into his mouth, and chewed slowly. Dojin’s lips jutted out in a pout.
“That’s just cruel. You could’ve just let me feed you. You don’t have to be such an iron wall.”
“You’re the one who’s cruel, pulling this whenever you get the chance.”
“Since when have I done that? Do you think I’m that loose? I’m perfectly satisfied just having a café date with you after so long.”
“Dojin. This isn’t a date….”
The people they were waiting for were none other than Dojin’s younger sister, Dohui, and Oh Mina—whom they’d met one-sidedly during the Fire Cat incident.
Just yesterday, while Dojin was frantically dealing with customers, he’d received a phone call.
‘–Oppa, it’s Dohui.’
‘Yeah. What is it.’
‘–Why are you so damn curt? Is that how you greet your own little sister?’
‘If you don’t have a reason, I’m hanging up.’
‘–Ah, shit—wait. I really have something to say.’
Her tone sounded like something was genuinely wrong, so Dojin asked the customer to wait a moment and headed somewhere quiet. Dohui spoke in a slightly trembling voice.
‘–Mina’s been acting weird lately. No—more precisely, we’ve been acting weird. When Mina asks to hang out, it feels like I can’t refuse. I just want to stay by her side all the time…. I even want to skip cram school just to be with her. We weren’t even that close before, but all of a sudden….’
‘…….’
‘–Last time, the Immortal said it looked like Mina had followed some half-baked spell, right? You told us to call if anything happened. So I thought I’d check in, just in case. Am I overreacting?’
‘You’re not overreacting. You did well calling.’
Unlike Dojin, Dohui had no spiritual sight and no spiritual sensitivity at all. The only thing she had was an exceptionally sharp sixth sense—far more developed than that of an average human. And that was because of Dojin.
When Dojin was young, he was bad at controlling his strength, and he’d injured Dohui—who was three years younger than him—several times. As a result, even while playing around with her brother, Dohui quickly learned exactly when she needed to pull back. Her survival instinct sharpened her intuition.
‘Seriously, your intuition is no joke.’
‘–…Huh? Oppa, your tone’s suspicious. Did you already know something weird happened to Mina? If you did, why didn’t you tell me? Mina’s my friend!’
‘It’d take too long to explain everything here. Let’s meet and talk in person first. Are you free tomorrow?’
That was how they set up the meeting and ended the call.
“Oh Mina doesn’t know we’re meeting today,”
Dojin said.
“Maybe Dohui didn’t tell her, in case she got wary.”
“Hard to say. After she sees you, I doubt she’ll be wary.”
“Why? Because I’m handsome?”
Seizing any opportunity, Dojin leaned his shoulder snugly against Iri.
“Even in your eyes, I’m pretty handsome, right, Master? You’ve lived so long, but you’ve never seen anyone more handsome than me, have you? If your lover were this good-looking, even fighting would feel nice, wouldn’t it?”
“Dohui’s here.”
“She’s not here yet.”
The moment he said that, the café door opened and Dohui and Mina walked in arm in arm.
“Ah, this café’s expensive. You’re paying, right?”
“Of course I am.”
As soon as she entered, Dohui looked around, then awkwardly pointed at Dojin and Iri.
“Oh! Look over there! It’s my dear older brother and his friend! What an incredible coincidence to run into them like this! They say coincidence is destiny—should we sit together?”
Reciting her lines mechanically, Dohui marched over, swinging her arms stiffly. Mina froze in place, her expression clearly saying ‘What is this?’
“What are you doing? Come here. I’m saying we should sit with my brother’s group.”
“Why would we need to sit together?”
Instead, Mina stepped back.
“Tsk. That idiot.”
Clicking his tongue, Dojin stood up. Who would fall for acting like that? He was certain Mina would find it suspicious and was about to cast a spell—but…
There was no need.
“Uh… uh……?”
Mina pointed at Dojin’s face. At first, she blinked rapidly. Then her mouth fell open. And finally, like someone encountering a legendary beast, she shouted,
“Th-the exorcism video……!”
Mina, like Jiyeon before her, recognized Dojin the moment she saw his face—the huge man from the exorcism video. Naturally, she guessed that the relatively smaller young man beside him, with his mysterious aura, must also be one of the exorcists from the video. Just like that, as if she’d never been wary at all, Mina flung the doors of her heart wide open.
For Dojin and Iri, it was a stroke of luck.
“This is incredible. You didn’t show up for two whole years, so I honestly thought you might’ve died fighting ghosts…. To think you were Dohui’s brother…….”
“I didn’t know you were also obsessed with my brother’s attention-seeking video.”
“If you’d known, would you have told me?”
“No. Probably not, but still….”
Instead of feeling hurt, Mina’s eyes sparkled.
“It’s an honor to meet you. If the unnis and oppas in our research group knew about you, they’d be thrilled.”
“You mean the ‘Saeboreumi Research Group’.”
“Yes! Ah, the fact that you know our group is just… wow. Uncle Seokjin’s hard work promoting it really paid off. He’s going to be so happy.”
Dohui seemed to have an intense sense of belonging to the suspicious research group.
“That research group is actually why we wanted to meet you. You’re a member of that site, right?”
“Yes!”
At Dojin’s question, Mina nodded confidently and pulled out her phone.
The moment she opened her browser app, the ‘Saeboreumi Research Group’ site appeared on the front page.
“Let us take a look for a moment.”
“Sure! Go ahead!”
Mina politely handed over her phone with both hands. Dojin took it and held it at an angle that made it easy for Iri to see.
While explaining the results of their investigation into the ‘Saeboreumi Research Group’, the Scholar and Ihaeja had said something shocking.
‘We can’t infiltrate the site.’
For Ihaeja—whose root was that of a wandering spirit—to be unable to infiltrate it meant that there was another Wia on the other side whose root was also a wandering spirit. And that Wia’s lineage was highly likely to be an Evil God, since it had managed to repel a divine spirit like Ihaeja.
But the Evil God inhabiting Lee Ah-jin—Maninsa—had an animal root and couldn’t manipulate the internet. Which meant there had to be another Evil God.
Most likely, that one was Berimos.
They’d once suspected Berimos was an animal-rooted Evil God because it had transformed into a serpent and deceived the dokkaebi—but in truth, its root had been a wandering spirit all along.
Knowing this, Dojin and Iri had begun planning to infiltrate the research group. The member list Ihaeja provided included Min Jiyeon and Oh Mina, and just as they were debating whether to approach them or go straight to Lee Seokjin, Dohui had contacted them.
“Iri-hyung, look. There’s someone who keeps posting spell articles on the anonymous board. Oh Mina, do you know who’s posting these spell articles?”
Mina shook her head side to side.
“We’re not allowed to speculate about who anonymous posters are in our research group.”
“Lee Seokjin’s sibling is a shaman. Couldn’t Lee Seokjin have heard it from them and posted it?”
“Uncle Seokjin’s sibling isn’t even a member of the research group, and Uncle Seokjin’s so busy that I don’t think he’d have time to write posts like this….”
“No—if you all like the occult and spells that much, why don’t you speculate among yourselves about who’s posting things like this?”
Taking into account that she was a minor, Dojin tried to phrase his question as gently as possible. But his expression was so fierce that it made him look like he was threatening her. Mina hunched her shoulders, and Dohui grabbed a dessert knife and waved it sharply through the air.
“Mina’s scared. Oppa, don’t talk. Just shut your mouth. Imm— I mean, Iri-oppa, can’t you be the one to talk instead? Mina’s very sensitive.”
“Alright, I understand.”
Iri replied with a smile. In truth, it was his turn to ask questions anyway. They needed her to speak nothing but the truth.
“Why don’t the members speculate about who posted these articles?”
Iri asked the exact same question Dojin had. Looking into Iri’s pitch-black eyes, Mina answered obediently.
“Two years ago, at our first offline gathering, we swore an oath. That we would never try to guess who anonymous posters were.”
Not a promise—but an oath.
A heavy word, one not easily spoken by a seventeen-year-old high school girl, left her mouth.
