Subdued Soul Chronicle

If Jin Rim had come a little earlier, he would have witnessed a shocking scene.

The scene where the demonic qi remaining in the bone was naturally absorbed into the High Governor’s body. The sky would have fallen down, and so would the Hwarang troops. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

“High Governor? Seol Young-rang?”

Jin Rim first checked to see if both of them were safe.

“Is there a problem? There was a loud noise, so I thought something wrong happened.”

Behind him, Hyo Wol and the Golden Ring Troops peered inside.

“It just fell.”

Zaha pointed at the bamboo sheets that fell down.

“It was nothing. We were just surprised at the sudden fall. What if the Memory Projection was still in progress?”

“Ah, then, are you done?”

“Right.”

Jin Rim and Hyo Wol looked relieved now.

‘Because they were so surprised at the ritual last time.’

Seol Young sent an apologetic look to them.

It was a feeling of confusion and shock after looking into something they shouldn’t have looked into. The feeling of being in another world.

After escaping all those feelings, their sense of reality returned.

‘So, the result?’

Everyone was asking with their eyes. Zaha held Mita’s ashes, and Seol Young was lost in thought.

‘Result, huh…’

He wasn’t sure how to answer him. It seemed that they had to handle this situation carefully. So the two of them cleaned it up so that there would be no more odd feelings left.

After that, they and Jin Rim moved to the main hall.

Jin Rim asked as he closed the door,

“Was it successful?”

Seol Young nodded.

“Yes, Governor.”

“Then why did the ritual stop so abruptly?”

“That…”

Seol Young hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to start talking.

“We figured out why, but it was something we didn’t expect.”

Zaha agreed with him and continued.

“Didn’t you check it through your dreams, too? The identity of the God of Cataclysm that was once the king of a nation, the supporting troops of Gaya, and the rebellion….”

“Was that wrong?”

The Governor asked.

“No. Its content was right.”

Zaha shook his head and continued.

“The only problem is that that wasn’t all there was. Right before she died, she changed into something else, as she was going through death slowly. And she summoned a being to which she gave herself up.”

“What?”

Jin Rm asked with a shocked face.

Zaha explained every detail of what he had seen.

About Mita. What happened before she stopped breathing, and the existence that stepped into this world, and then silence fell.

Jin Rim was also confused. It seemed he wasn’t sure what to say.

“How can that…”

“We understand your emotions.”

Seol Young carefully opened his mouth.

“High Governor and Governor. Could it be that we were being played? I won’t deny that another world might be there somewhere, but is it possible to bring a God or a spirit from there to here?”

“…”

Jin Rim tried to speak, but he just went silent, and Seol Young continued.

“I also met the spirits of ancient maidens and encountered age-old spirits, but I had never heard of such a story. No matter how much of a genius Mita is, is it possible to suddenly summon an unknown being from another world?”

Neither of them could answer.

After the silence was broken.

“As far as the possibilities go, it might work.”

Jin Rim said. And Seol Young looked at him in shock.

Jin Rim was a Hwarang with an orthodox education. He built a wall with things like sorcery and was one who didn’t have a broad imagination.

So he thought it would be the hardest for Jin Rim to understand that, but he was quick to accept it?

Zaha also seemed surprised.

“On what basis is that?”

“It isn’t what you think, is what I was told.”

And the answer was even more vague. Zaha asked with a stiff face,

“Who said that?”

“Woo Hyun.”

“Uh?”

Seol Young asked in a loud voice. If it were Woo Hyun, was it Zaun’s late husband?

“You heard that in your dream?”

Jin Rim answered.

“My memory of that time was slowly being erased, but it suddenly came to my mind after hearing Seol Young-rang’s story.”

And then he spoke to the two of them.

“In that odd dream, the High Governor gave me an order. You asked me to take the strange iron powder from the tomb and head out to find Lord Woo Hyun. To ask what kind of iron it was.”

Zaha nodded his head.

And Seol Young remembered it too.

After that, they found out that Jung Myung had to pay the price for helping them both, so they had to get out of that world.

So without even hearing what Woo Hyun said, they moved.

Zaha asked,

“So you mean to say that you went to see him before the dream ended?”

“Yes. I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He also said that he wasn’t that aware of it, but Zaun-rang and I looked up old records that spoke a lot about it.”

Jin Rim said that while going through his memory.

“I don’t know for sure since there is no data left, but…. It is said that among the special metals found in Gaya and its small nations, there were ones with mysterious powers. People said they were things not of this land.”

Curious, Seol Young asked,

“If it isn’t something from this land, are you saying it’s from the sky?”

“No. It is said that there is a legend among the people of Gaya. Those metals were carried on a mysterious ship that Empress Heo came across to Gaya on.”

Empress Heo?

Seol Young was surprised by the name.

Empress Heo, or Heo Hwang Ok, was the queen of King Sura, the founder of Gaya.

Jung Myung had talked about her.

-Empress Heo was said to have come from a distant kingdom called Ayuta, but according to the scholars, at that time, a kingdom with that name never existed, and she was said to have come from another world.

Ayuta.

Suddenly, something flashed in his mind. Among the numerous memories he saw, there was a scene where a bamboo strip with a spell written on it said forbidden.

And he had seen the letters.

‘… Initial… Seal.’

Maybe it wasn’t really initial seal, but Ayuta ¹

It was a name that he remembered, so wouldn’t it have caught his eye then?

“It is said that the place where the materials came from was Higan.”

Jin Rim explained.

Higan was a Buddhist term that meant the ‘Hill over there.’

It was another world that was different from the one they lived in. It was the world of nirvana, where one could go after realizing the truth.

“What if people and things really crossed over from the other side, just like what the legends say? What if a passage existed?”

Jin Rim was presenting a theory.

“Then, isn’t it possible that what you saw is possible? It could be that the last one summoned by her was a powerful being from the other world.”

Seol Young and Zaha silently thought to themselves. Since one hundred years had passed, it had been difficult for them to know the truth, having only vague clues.

And they couldn’t force it to make sense.

“In other words, it is not that impossible for her to gain knowledge about it. Because it is the same.”

At Seol Young’s words, Jin Rim nodded.

“Right. Which is why I said earlier that in terms of chances, there could really be a chance.”

“…”

Seol Young was silent.

He wasn’t trying to show himself. It was because he felt it.

Several clues indicated it.

“I shouldn’t continue like this. I need to find out about the world on the other side.”

Jin Rim bid Zaha goodbye and left. And then silence fell again.

After thinking for a while, Zaha opened his mouth.

“And so this happened.”

He nodded.

“Right. If we tried everything and were stuck because there was no other way… If that is the case, we might be able to use the last resort that no one else could think of.”

And then he added,

“Wasn’t there an identical case before us? And if possible, there is no reason why someone else hadn’t tried it.”

“…”

Seol Young was at a loss for words. This was a source of pain for many.

It was a similar choice to Zaha’s Die Together.

The lives of the two were similar, but there was something in common with their last choice. And they couldn’t deny it.

But…

Seol Young shook his head.

“It is different, though. Your choice was to destroy both yourself and the enemy, but Mita’s choice was to destroy the entire world. That is why it reached the situation where no one can control her.”

Having said that, it felt embarrassing.

“Even Jeok Ryun-rang, who was the most out-of-grasp soul I have ever seen, had emotions. She expressed her thoughts even in the form of madness, and even though it was dangerous, we were able to find out what her feelings were. But this goes beyond everything.”

“….”

“I believed that the world of ghosts was more reasonable than our human world and that they held logic, even if they seemed wild. It was believed that there was a reason for their existence, and when the reason came up, they would cease to exist. But for the first time, that thought has been shattered. What now? How am I supposed to deal with this?”

Seol Young finally let out the words he was fearing.

“Isn’t there any other way to do this?”

“…”

Zaha looked at Seol Young.

“You didn’t think this would be easy to solve from the start.”

“But I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“Still, I felt convinced.”

He said,

“Which is why it hasn’t worked out until now. Because it is a being that doesn’t belong to this world. Because it is an existence that is completely outside of our thoughts. I am relieved that I at least know this.”

And then he shrugged.

“Well, there has to be a way.”

At Zaha’s confident words, Seol Young asked back,

“You really think so?”

“It has been like that ever since. When was it ever easy? We kept getting stuck at a dead end, and no matter how hopeless it seemed, we were able to find something. It was like that each time. Which is why we were able to come this far.”

Zaha smiled.

“We can do it.”

At those words, Seol Young hesitated.

Wasn’t that what he said?

-We can do it.

In the dark room, the scent of aloe rose, and in his memory, the situation of his life felt clear.

And that wasn’t all.

The firm faith that he could do it.

Of course, the situation now is far worse than one could imagine, but Zaha was right.

‘It is really like that.’

When he thought about it, he couldn’t help but agree. He believed that he could do it, and he had been able to do it because he could.

More than anything, Zaha’s presence was proof of that. The man who was like a ruin back then was now a better guide for him.

He received words of hope and courage from him.

And above all, wasn’t he the strongest?

‘Right. I cannot be shaken now.’

Seol Young redirected his confused mind.

‘There has to be a way. Let us think. Let’s…’

His mind, which stopped working after the Memory Projection, began to work again.

And then a thought flashed through him,

“Nice.”

Seol Young said.

“Then we will head there first.”

1. TL/N: The characters of the words ‘initial and seal are A and Ta. ️