Subdued Soul Chronicle

“Get yourself together!”

Zaha clapped his hands in front of Seol Young’s eyes. However, Seol Young’s eyes didn’t move from the lake.

“What is it with you acting all creepy? What is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

Finally, Seol Young opened his mouth and responded.

“There is nothing wrong. Rather, it is right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you not hear it?”

“What?”

“This voice.”

“What voice?”

“Am I the only one hearing it?”

“What are you even hearing?”

“This sound. It has been calling you since earlier. You didn’t even listen. It kept calling you, and you didn’t…”

Seol Young mumbled as he stared at the lake with unfocused eyes. Suddenly, the tone of his voice changed.

There was a creepy look on his face.

“That is not good. What are you saying when I am the only one here?”

Seol Young wasn’t even listening to what Zaha said, and he stepped forward.

“I need to go.”

“Go where?”

“I need to go.”

As he went down the hill, he stumbled a bit, but he quickly balanced himself and kept going.

“Wait!”

Zaha chased after him and grabbed his arm, but Seol Young shook it off.

“I said that I needed to go.”

“To that lake?”

“It is calling.”

“So you are just going in there?”

“I need to go.”

“Come to your senses!”

He blocked Seol Young’s path.

“How can you just lose it? How do I get you back to normal?”

“Move.”

Seol Young was still fixated on the lake, despite Zaha trying to block his path.

“Think about this.”

Looking straight into Seol Young’s eyes, he asked,

“Is going into that lake all you can think about?”

“Yes.”

“Why did we come here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who am I?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“It is strange that you don’t know! Do you think this makes sense?”

“It isn’t strange at all.”

Seol Young calmly replied.

“It is a common thing among shamans. When we hear someone calling us in the middle of the night, we get this urge to go and dig somewhere. If we dig all night long, a divine object is said to appear in that place.”

“And are you a shaman?”

“I am not. But I succeeded in summoning the Tree Spirit God once before. So maybe I can do this. Now I can hear the voices of the Gods. Just like how one starts talking after meeting at a certain place.”

Zaha was speechless at this.

“It is surprising that you can still calmly explain those things despite being in a situation like this… but still, let’s calm down.”

He raised his hand to slap Seol Young, but Seol Young’s hand moved faster. It was an impossible speed.

“Move!”

After saying that, he began to walk down the hill faster.

“Stop!”

Zaha followed him again and grabbed his arm, but Seol Young threw him away.

“I need to go.”

In an instant, he was at the lake.

“Wait.”

Zaha interrupted him again.

“How are you going to get your senses back?”

“I am fine.”

Zaha hurriedly grabbed him as he was about to leave.

“Fine. Everything is fine… Do you know how to swim?”

Seol Young answered.

“No.”

“Then NO.”

“Why?”

“Are you asking because you really don’t know? People who don’t know how to swim will drown if they enter the water. Die.”

“Aha…”

Seol Young nodded and walked away again, only to get caught.

“Aha… You are going to die! Do you not know what it means to die? If you die…”

Zaha struggled to make sense of it, and came up with one thing.

“You know Baek Eon?”

Seol Young’s eyes changed.

“Baek Eon?”

“Yes, Baek Eon-rang! If you jump into that lake and die, Baek Eon-rang will know about it. But is that all? Song Ok-rang and Hyo Wol-rang will find out about it as well. The four of you are like real brothers, so how sad will they be? They might pass out.”

“Um…”

Seol Young thought for a moment. But he soon responded,

“It can’t be helped. They will be sad, but they will say I did well. Because following that voice is the most important thing in the world.”

“This is serious.”

Zaha drew his sword.

“Seol Young-rang! This is an order! Stop!”

A golden aura surged from his sword, and a barrier blocked Seol Young’s path.

But Seol Young didn’t care at all. He tried to break through the barrier that was made out of pure spiritual qi.

However, if he passed through it in an unconscious state, he would suffer a great blow, as if he had been hit by a rock.

“What are you doing?”

Zaha was shocked and pushed Seol Young away, and he collapsed on the ground, but then he asked,

“Why do you keep interrupting me?”

He also pulled out the Blue Rainbow sword. And he swung without taking his eyes off the lake.

“Do not interrupt.”

At the same time, he drew talismans with his other hand. All of these talismans contained strong spiritual qi and attacked Zaha.

In the meantime, Seol Young went straight to the lake.

“…”

Zaha just looked at him, shocked.

“Fine. Do whatever you want.”

However, seeing that Seol Young was already in the water up to his knees, he went back and grabbed him.

Seol Young didn’t even look at him, and said,

“I told you not to intervene.”

“I am not intervening…”

Zaha blocked his path. He looked straight back into his eyes and said,

“Fine. I get it.”

“Will you let go now?”

“Yes. I get it.”

Zaha said,

“The desperate voice from the lake. It is a sound that only you can hear in this world, so you need to go there, right?”

“Right.”

Seol Young nodded.

“Will you let me go?”

“Yes. I wasn’t going to stop you from the start. It was because of one problem.”

“Problem?”

“You said you couldn’t swim. Then you will die, really die, and you will not be able to go to the place where the voice is coming from, right?”

Seol Young listened to his words.

“No.”

“Right? And I have something else to ask. Do you like water?”

“No.”

Seol Young answered right away.

“I hate water. Cold and suffocating.”

“Right. So what do we do?”

“I don’t know. How?”

“I have a nice idea. Let’s take a boat.”

“Boat?”

Seol Young seemed to think.

“There’s no boat.”

“I will bring it.”

Seol Young thought, and Zaha asked him,

“You’re grateful, right?”

At those words, Seol Young nodded.

“Right?”

Zaha unsheathed his sword without taking his eyes off Seol Young.

Seol Young urged,

“Where is the boat?”

“I will bring it. First, take this oar to paddle.”

“Paddle?”

“You need an oar to move the boat, right?”

“Right.”

Seol Young held his hand out and took the sword.

“I really did everything. But you still didn’t come to your senses. So there is nothing else I can do.”

“Give it fast.”

“You cannot say anything after coming to your senses. Because this is the only way left.”

As Zaha handed over the sword, he summoned darkness into it. Then a pitch-black darkness wrapped itself around it.

Seol Young accepted the sword without knowing anything.

The next moment, he was startled.

Beyond the ‘oar’ there was this foreign energy in his body. For the first time, he took his eyes off the lake and looked at the sword.

Black flames began to appear in Seol Young’s eyes.

The focus that had disappeared came back.

“…!”

Seol Young was startled.

The sword in his hand fell down, and there was a splash. He looked down, shocked.

“…?”

For some reason, he was knee-deep in the lake. He couldn’t figure out how it happened.

Until a moment ago, he was on the hill looking down at the lake…?

“… Ah.”

He remembered,

‘I was enchanted.’

The moment he realized it, he was scared.

He forgot everything, and he just wanted to go straight to the lake.

‘And then…’

He remembered everything that had happened. Zaha continuously grabbed him, but he insisted on going to the lake.

And then he pulled out his sword and attacked him. He even used his talismans.

‘So…’

He looked down.

Seeing the red sword submerged in the water, his face changed.

‘He had to use that power.’

He was speechless.

“….”

When he looked up, Zaha was staring at him.

“There is something I am curious about…”

Zaha asked,

“Do you remember the last thing you said before this happened?”

Seol Young was shocked.

“T-That….”