Chapter 1 - Prologue + Act 1. The Land of Dokkaebi (1)

“Does that make any sense? Even a bachelor ghost, weak as they’re supposed to be, can kill a grown man if he gets unlucky. That’s what Demons are like. And you’re telling me a ten-year-old did it? Cut off its head and hung it on a gatepost? Those villagers might be running short of drinking stories, but there ought to be limits.”

“Has everyone you’ve ever met lied to you? If you don’t believe me, go see for yourself! Run, and you’ll be there in half a day.”

Jangsam looked ready to drag him there that very moment. The man took a swig of his drink and grumbled. Jangsam might exaggerate, but he wasn’t a liar.

“Honestly... It’s just too hard to believe. So what’s the little one doing now?”

“I hear no one’s helping him, and he’s on the brink of starvation. Seems he’s decided to die. Won’t eat or drink, just sits by the graves—”

“Where did you say that was?”

At the sudden interruption, Jangsam looked up and glanced at the stranger. She was a beauty of indeterminate age, somewhere between youth and middle age. Her mysterious skin tone, large ears, and long limbs left him uncertain not just of her age, but even of her origins and her race.

Unfamiliar, and captivating.

After taking in her appearance, Jangsam cleared his throat and answered in a gentle voice.

“Subu Village in Aegul County. Follow the signs northeast from here, and it’s about half a day’s walk.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“If there’s anything else you’d like to know—”

“For something to go with your drinks.”

The woman flicked him a coin and rose.

For the woman, Mongryeon, following the rumor was something of a whim. She had happened to be patrolling her jurisdiction when she heard a tale that sounded interesting. She headed straight for Subu Village in Aegul County, where the “boy from the rumors” was said to be laying his family to rest.

It was a tranquil village. An ordinary farming settlement, the sort where years of peace would be nothing unusual—and neither would a sudden Demon attack that left it in ruins. The Demon’s head hanging in its midst was distinctly out of place: an incongruous scene of pastoral slaughter.

‘A Wadu-Scholar.’

It was a grotesque Demon that looked as though a snail’s head had been set atop a human body. Particularly fond of human heads, it would pluck them off and eat them, leaving the bodies behind.

It was certainly a low-grade Demon, one frequently hunted down—but only by skilled hunters. Even a room packed full of ten-year-old children would be no match for it. Yet here hung a Wadu-Scholar with nothing left but its head, as though someone had repaid it for its head-eating habits.

“What are you doing there?”

As she stared at the Wadu-Scholar’s head, three burly men addressed her, their voices full of suspicion.

“Do you live in this village?”

“We do. Who are you?”

“I heard the boy who killed the Demon was in here.”

“So you heard the rumors. Don’t waste your time. Just leave.”

“I hear the child is starving. Rather than care for the boy they left behind, you wretches are looting the possessions of the dead.”

“He’s no child. He’s a monster. And he has no right to any of this.”

Valuables clutched in the men’s hands. Wounds around their necks that looked like bite marks. Having grasped the situation, Mongryeon wasted no more words.

“Really? I see a different set of monsters.”

“We’ve had just about enough of you... Seems words aren’t going to—”

Mongryeon snapped her fingers once, and the men’s bodies began to swell.

POP!

With a sound like a bursting firecracker, the gates swung wide. The bell guarding the entrance rang, revealing crudely heaped graves and their inscriptions.

The boy seated before them was painfully thin, as though he had gone days without food. Contrary to the rumors, there was nothing uncanny in his gaze, no ominous air about him. He was simply an ordinary boy with clear eyes. His face and body were covered in signs of brutal violence, likely inflicted by the looters she had just seen.

With a wave of her hand, Mongryeon healed his injuries completely. His eyes widened in astonishment. Then she set a bamboo container in front of him. Wisps of white steam rose from the porridge inside.

“My name is Mongryeon.”

Only then did the boy turn to look at her.

‘He has no will to live.’

Her first impression was of someone who knew the appointed day of his death and was simply waiting for it. It was understandable. He had lost his entire family overnight and become an orphan, utterly alone. The people around him, who should have helped him, treated him like a monster and plundered his home. He must have seen no way to go on.

“Your name?”

“Yise.”

“Two years old? I heard you were ten.”

“...”

“Don’t look so grave. Can’t you take a joke, boy? A changing world... A fine name. Let me ask you a few things. Eat, and answer at your ease.”

Yise calmly picked up the wooden spoon. Though the food had been set out for him, he had waited for permission before taking a spoonful. He was a polite child who had been properly raised. What on earth had happened? Mongryeon grew increasingly curious.

“The Demon at the gate. Did you kill it?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I sought information about the Demon, devised a plan to kill it, and carried it out.”

He might as well have said he had passed the civil service examinations by studying nothing but a textbook. Mongryeon let out a disbelieving laugh at his audacious answer.

“Well, what a novel approach. Tell me a little more. Where did you get this information, and how?”

“I bought it from a man named Wisaeng.”

“In more detail.”

Yise, who had been working his way through the porridge, paused with his spoon in hand and raised his eyes as though gathering his thoughts. It seemed the stranger before him would not be easily put off.

“When the attack happened, I was hiding in a wardrobe. I was sulking because I’d had to give both eggs to my younger siblings.”

He frowned as though he hated speaking of it, but he did not stop.

“Then the Demon appeared, and I decided I couldn’t stop it on my own. So...”

The boy’s breathing quickened. A faint tremor crept into it, then gradually subsided.

“I endured it and memorized what it looked like. When the Demon left, I checked which way it had gone.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to take revenge.”

He answered without the slightest hesitation, as though it were only natural. Mongryeon tipped her head for him to continue.

“I gathered anything in the house that looked valuable, along with the household goods, and went to the home of the scholar called Wisaeng. I exchanged them for information about the Demon.”

“Why not save them for your future instead?”

“It was merely a ten-year-old’s rashness.”

“What would you have done if he’d given you false information?”

“He was the one who rescued me when I was abandoned, entrusted me to this family, and paid for my upbringing.”

“Tell me what happened next.”

“He told me it was weak against salt. I cut some bamboo and filled it with bamboo salt, then searched day and night in the direction the Demon had gone until I found it. It came out to eat me, so I pretended to be frozen with fear. Just before it swallowed me, I thrust the bamboo spear into its mouth at point-blank range. Then, while it thrashed about with the spear still in it, I cut off its head with a hand axe.”

“...”

A born hunter. Mongryeon’s interest in the boy had grown into excitement. In more than three hundred years of hunting Demons, she had never encountered such a prodigy.

But while Mongryeon brimmed with anticipation, the boy’s present was steeped in regret.

“The last thing I said to the people who raised me... was to accuse them of treating me differently because I wasn’t their real child. I regret that.”

“You’re young. It’s understandable that you would think that way. It isn’t your fault.”

“My mother fed her own child rice water so she could nurse me, even though we shared not a drop of blood.”

“...”

“I’m an ungrateful beast who failed to repay their kindness. I deserve to die.”

“They would be thankful that you’re alive.”

“...”

“Your mother would have been happy to nurse you. Your father would have found joy in raising you. And I consider myself fortunate to be able to take you in.”

She smiled as gently as she could and held out her hand.

“Will you come with me?”

But the boy had already lost his purpose in life. Yise merely stared at her with emotionless eyes.

“Is there any particular reason I should?”

“You must take revenge.”

“I already have.”

“No. That creature harmed your family. So it is only right that you wipe out every last Demon. And Wadu-Scholars are passive creatures by nature. They don’t go out of their way to enter human settlements and attack people.”

“...”

“It means someone else was behind it.”

The clever boy saw through her intentions. Perhaps she was offering him a purpose because he had lost his zest for life. Telling him not to give up on living. If life held no meaning, then he could simply live as a vengeful fiend.

“I will ensure you a peaceful life until you grow older, and help you develop the strength to take revenge.”

“Is there something you want from me?”

“Grow strong, and become a hunter who kills more Demons than anyone else.”

After quietly turning it over in his mind, Yise murmured, “That doesn’t sound so bad,” and stood. Looking at him again, she could scarcely believe that such a small, frail body had faced a Demon head-on.

“How should I address you, elder?”

“Whatever you like. You could call me your big sister.”

“... May I ask how old you are, elder?”

“No, you little shit.”

After directing that earthy curse at the boy staring at her, Mongryeon answered a little sheepishly.

“... Call me Head.”

“Yes, Head.”

One step beyond the gates revealed the three burly men, reduced to pulp with only their heads left intact. Yise tilted his head at the sight.

“Those men...?”

“Did you wound their necks?”

“Yes. They were plundering the belongings of the dead.”

“Well done. I finished the job for you. They were worse than Demons.”

Yise silently studied Mongryeon’s face. A bloodless complexion, ashen-white skin. Long ears. He had sensed it from the beginning, but there was something too alien about her to call her human. And there was her ability to turn people into chunks of meat.

“Head.”

“Yes?”

“May I ask what beings you are the Head of?”

Mongryeon smiled beguilingly and whispered, as though to keep him from being startled.

“Dokkaebi.”

And so, one day, a human boy joined the land of Dokkaebi.