Chapter 19

“…Did you charm me?”

Hisa picked out the most important point and asked it directly. One of Hong Yeom-rang’s brows lifted. He swept his tongue along the inside of his cheek in a rough way, tilted his head, and crossed his arms.

“Do I look like some crazy bastard who’d start touching himself without even being charmed?”

Me, Hong Yeom-rang?

He barely swallowed the last words and glared at Hisa. His attitude was so shameless and confident that it almost made one forget the crude thing he had just said. The question of who mattered more, the unknown man who went into the village or Hong Yeom-rang, had drifted somewhere strange.

His personality was really strange.

Hisa looked at him in confusion, more unpredictable than any goblin.

She chose wrong. She picked the wrong sacrifice. The shaman had been right. A shaman wasn’t called that for nothing. She should have listened.

“Lady, are you regretting it now?”

As if reading her thoughts just by looking at her face, Hong Yeom-rang smirked and asked.

His shortened hair fluttered in the wind atop the cliff. The slightly wavy strands brushed across his face. His fingers reached out and lightly touched Hisa’s cheek.

So what if one human lived or died. Was that really worth leaving him behind and running off?

And when he asked outright whether it was the human or him, the one feeding her, that mattered more, she didn’t even answer.

Hong Yeom-rang stepped toward the edge of the cliff.

He showed plainly that he meant it, that he could jump at any moment. Hisa simply watched him.

“You said you like all humans.”

He used her own words like a shield. His twisted smile was firm. He looked like he couldn’t understand why she cared for humans and didn’t harm them. It almost felt like he, not her, was the monster here.

Watching him stand with the cliff at his back, Hisa didn’t step forward or reach out. Instead, she sat down right where she was.

The yellow overcoat spread out around her in a small, rounded shape. She crouched with her knees drawn up and rested her chin on one arm.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt on this mountain. You too.”

Her dark eyes, like ink spilled over water, turned toward him. There wasn’t a single trace of urgency or intent to stop him on her clear face. It was nothing like when she patiently led that man to the village.

“You weren’t even going to jump.”

She shrugged, as if asking why she should even bother arguing with him.

…That thing had seen right through him in an instant. Not a hundred years, but a thousand-year-old monster for sure. Hong Yeom-rang deliberately took another step back. Still, there was no sign of panic on Hisa’s face. Completely different from when she had worried about the lost human.

“What’s the point of standing on a cliff anyway. The wind just feels nice.”

Whoosh.

– Right, right, the wind just feels nice.

– Yeah, yeah, the wind’s nice.

As if waiting for the moment, the goblins chimed in.

At the same time, a sharp gust of wind blew as if agreeing.

Only then did Hong Yeom-rang realize that Hisa had learned her way of speaking from the goblins. She smiled faintly and waved her hand gently, telling him to stop doing useless things and come over. From a distance, her reddened, battered fingertips looked like flowers blooming one by one.

“Yeom-rang, are you coming with me, or are you going to keep walking in circles and end up back at the cave alone?”

Her face was gentle, but she wasn’t ordinary. Her words were practically a threat. And yet, strangely, Hong Yeom-rang didn’t feel annoyed. He had a talent for angering anyone to their limits, even his own father. Back in the capital, he had nearly been cut down because of it more than once. But Hisa didn’t get angry.

She just looked troubled, or acted carefree and sly.

Just as she said, he had never intended to jump. Hong Yeom-rang took long strides toward her.

“I want to see you lose your temper and go crazy.”

He said it with no trace of a smile. Standing before her as she still crouched, he said he wanted to see her get angry.

– If I see that, I’ll build you a ninety-nine room palace.

– If I see that, I’ll build you a ninety-nine room palace.

The goblins egged him on excitedly. Judging by their words, even they had never seen Hisa get angry. She just smiled lightly at them. Then, without even offering her hand, she grabbed Hong Yeom-rang’s hand with both of hers and pushed herself up.

Even so, his upper body didn’t move at all.

No matter how much strength she used, she couldn’t move him.

“Let’s go. If you come with me, it’s faster.”

Instead of tying his hand, she pulled on it as she spoke.

She never answered his question. What mattered more, the sacrifice or the human. It hadn’t really mattered to him anyway. He had only asked out of disbelief that a monster would run off like that for a human. And she hadn’t reacted much to his claim that she had charmed him.

In the end, Hong Yeom-rang just became a crazy bastard who touched himself.

Hisa had made him that.

A quiet laugh kept slipping from his lips at the absurdity. This small thing barely reached his chest, yet she kept leaving him speechless. As she pulled his hand, she glanced back slightly, her eyes curving softly.

She looked satisfied that he hadn’t stubbornly wandered in circles and had followed her instead.

She was unbelievably simple, yet complicated.

Because there was no malice or intent in that smile, Hong Yeom-rang felt like he was the one going in circles.

“This is driving me crazy.”

“Sorry. The goblins are a bit chaotic, right?”

Hisa apologized in response to his mutter.

– He’s saying you’re driving him crazy, Hisa.

– Yeah, he’s saying you’re the one driving him crazy.

The goblins protested unfairly, but Hisa didn’t respond. She simply brushed a hand near her ear as if shaking something off and led Hong Yeom-rang deeper into the forest. As she didn’t answer, the forest fell silent again. Step by step, barefoot, she walked, and he followed without another word.

Before long, the familiar cave came into view.

By then, the sun had fully risen and settled above the cave.

“See? We got here faster because you came with me.”

Hisa said proudly. Her bright expression didn’t match someone who caused trouble and then fixed it.

“So until now, you just sneaked in while the sacrifices slept and ate their hair?”

“Yeah. I didn’t get caught much.”

She nodded.

“So you did get caught at least once.”

He muttered and let go of her hand. As he suddenly released it, Hisa’s hand hung in the air for a moment. He walked past her and entered the cave first. When she tried to follow, he turned back to look at her.

“Come here right before sunrise and right before sunset. I’ll give you hair.”

It felt like abandoning a child. In truth, Hong Yeom-rang was the kind of man who wouldn’t care even if he left a real child alone. And Hisa wasn’t even human. She opened and closed the hand that had held his as she looked at him.

“That’s all you wanted from a sacrifice, right? So from now on, I’ll just do that.”

He was getting too entangled. Hong Yeom-rang realized he was reacting too much to this monster named Hisa. If he cut his hair and left it at the cave entrance, she would take it on her own. There was nothing good for a human like him to stay involved with something that wasn’t human.

A monster who cared about humans.

Something neither alive nor dead.

Hisa stood there in her yellow overcoat, right where he had let go of her hand.

Her expression gave nothing away as she kept opening and closing her hand. Each time her palm curled, her reddened fingertips pressed together. That irritated him.

She had to be doing it on purpose. Just as an annoyed remark was about to leave his mouth, Hisa spoke first.

“Okay.”

It was a ridiculously short and simple answer.

Then she turned and walked away, her steps light and fluttering. She looked like a yellow butterfly. Holding her hands slightly out for balance, she moved lightly along the rocky slope and into the forest. The forest swallowed her in an instant. As if she had never existed, she disappeared completely from his sight.

He should have done this from the start.

He turned away as well. Once the being he couldn’t kill or harm with his own hands was gone, his head finally cooled.