By Zephyria 
「Is he not a truly selfish goblin?」
“Then perhaps it can be said that your selfishness saved my brother’s descendants and me. It was not a sin committed by my brother’s descendants, yet I was blinded by my own pain and failed to consider it….”
Princess Gyeongsun, chewing over Mae-gu’s words with bitterness, tilted her head.
“But why do you care for me so much?”
「Do you remember the day we first met?」
“Of course I remember.”
How could she forget such an intense memory? When she was a very small girl, much younger than she was now, she had discovered a fox demon dying in a horrific, charred state. There had been a man who happened to cross paths with her while she was frantically trying to save the fox. That man was Mae-gu.
As if recalling the same memory, a nostalgic smile lingered on Mae-gu’s lips.
「The mere blink of thirty odd years since then has become a memory worth cherishing for an eternity.」
Princess Gyeongsun wore a puzzled expression, not fully grasping the meaning and sincerity embedded in his answer, but she soon responded with a smile of her own.
“The memories of you were equally precious to me, irreplaceable by anything.”
They had shared precious time as each other’s friends. Was that not enough?
The brief reunion ended, and it was now time to return. To her father—the father who would warmly welcome a daughter who, blinded by pain, had made a sinful choice.
Recalling what she had to do before leaving, Princess Gyeongsun looked up at her old friend.
“Fox, grant me one more favor. I must repay my debt to my brother’s descendants, if only a little.”
* * *
[Hidden World Record]
Name: Unnamed
Classification: Aberration-ㅇ-M.Hu-0877
First Sighting Date: 202X. XX. XX.
Location of Appearance: –
Danger Level: True Kill
Containment Level: Scheduled for Enshrinement
True Eye Text: Impossible
Response: –
Remarks: How could one dare add a comment? We cannot assign any name to this entity.
Even as she headed toward Pilgyeongdang under Gong Ran-sa’s guidance, Kang Suk-young remained conflicted. Jeil Heon had hoped that the full details would not be revealed to his family or Yoo Jiha. He had asked her to tell them he died in battle, and Kang Suk-young understood that this was a consideration for those left behind.
However, she found it difficult to bring herself to lie to Yoo Jiha. Knowing what Jeil Heon had sacrificed himself for to become an Aberration, would hiding the truth until the end truly be the right path for him? Yet, ignoring Jeil Heon’s request—which was essentially his last will—made her heart feel even heavier. Unable to reach a conclusion, she finally arrived at Bukchon.
She realized her worries had been futile the moment she entered Pilgyeongdang. Yoo Jiha, who had been standing with his head bowed beside a flustered Gong Ran-sa, asked her.
“Mister… is he dead?”
Bewilderment swept over Kang Suk-young. Gong Ran-sa hadn’t said a word; how could he know? As she stood frozen in surprise, unable to speak for a moment, he seemed to interpret her silence as an affirmation. The blood drained from his already pale face.
Words tumbled out of her in a rush—that he wasn’t dead, that he had mutated into an Aberration during battle, that he was currently in containment.
No sign of breath could be felt from the pale, frozen Yoo Jiha. His eyes wandered vacantly through the air, as if he were slowly digesting the words he had just heard.
His thinly trembling lips twitched a few times as if to utter a denial, only to be swallowed by a surging tide of emotion. It would have been better if he had wailed aloud. However, seeing him collapse in silent sobbing, tears simply dripping down his face with an expression that suggested he wasn’t even aware he was crying, Kang Suk-young could find no words.
* * *
Among the containment levels of the Water Abnormality Worship Management Bureau, ‘Enshrinement’ involves sinking a containment cell made of high-pressure resistant alloy into the abyssal depths. This has been used for Aberrations with such high Corruption Levels that preventing their spread upon termination is difficult, or for those whose danger level is too high to keep in a terrestrial containment cell.
Jeil Heon fell into both categories.
“Currently, his consciousness is unconscious due to the regulation of oxygen levels. To use a human analogy, he is like a patient in a vegetative state.”
But he is a human. Yoo Jiha stared at the display, quietly biting his lip. He didn’t even properly hear the researcher’s words about how he would be moved and enshrined as soon as the containment cell was completed. All his consciousness was focused on the man reflected on the display of the temporary isolation room.
Becoming an Aberration hadn’t changed anything. At least, that was how it looked to Yoo Jiha. The long limbs, the sturdy, muscular build, the neat features—it was all Jeil Heon.
Lying there with lead wires connected to his entire body, he looked peaceful, as if fallen into a deep sleep. It felt as though he might wake up at any moment, rub his sleep-laden eyes, and greet him with, “Jiha. Did you sleep well?” But the distance between them was too great.
Yoo Jiha fiddled with the liquid crystal of the display with trembling hands. He was right there, just beyond a single wall, yet despite being so close, he could not touch him. He braced himself not to cry, but his eyes kept stinging.
“…Checking the physical reactions, although he is unconscious, he is aware of his surroundings. If you speak into the microphone, he will hear you.”
The researcher, who had intended to explain more about the containment procedures, glanced at Yoo Jiha and closed his mouth with a complicated expression. Even after the researcher quietly closed the door to the monitoring room and left, Yoo Jiha continued to stare at the display for a long time.
“You told me not to get hurt because of you…”
He had told him not to hide things from him, yet in the end, he had carried it all alone. Guilt and resentment tangled together, confusing his heart. He felt a surge of resentment, wondering if Jeil Heon thought he would shed tears of gratitude for such a sacrifice, and yet he felt guilt, wondering why the man always made the same choice whenever it came to problems involving him.
Even though he said he didn’t know if it was love.
Yoo Jiha blinked hard several times to keep the image of the man on the display from being blurred by tears. The man’s name was still not visible. It was natural since the True Eye had fulfilled its role, but it felt as though another piece of his existence was being erased from him, leaving a dull ache like a great void in his soul.
“…Jeil Heon.”
He called out carefully into the microphone. There was no change. He called him two more times, and finally, Yoo Jiha collapsed against the display.
A heavy silence settled over the monitoring room.
Only his desperately hunched shoulders trembled faintly, hiding his sorrowful sobbing.
They said it would take some time for the containment cell to be completed for Jeil Heon’s enshrinement. He was told that time was required to properly adjust the temperature, oxygen, and carbon dioxide concentrations to maintain Jeil Heon in a state of suspended animation inside the cell. Normally, access during containment preparation is forbidden to anyone other than researchers or Protective Security Office staff, but Kang Suk-young granted Yoo Jiha permission to come and go whenever he wished. She even turned off the CCTV when he visited.
Although he was free to leave Pilgyeongdang, there was no way he could attend classes with a peaceful mind. Submitting only medical certificates from a hospital affiliated with the Bureau, he visited the monitoring room every day. The man would greet him, sleeping unchanged, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Every time he saw that sight, he felt sorrow for the void in the soul the man had taken with him, yet not seeing him was even more unbearable.
As those days continued, a new question began to surface.
Anomalies contaminate humans just by interacting with them. A powerful entity like the Ten Thousand Waves Flute would have an even higher level of contamination. Because of that, he assumed Jeil Heon had been contaminated during the battle, but something felt suspicious.
On that day, the only agent who had mutated due to contamination was Jeil Heon. No matter how much of a primary force Jeil Heon had been in the battle, wasn’t it strange? He asked an Enforcement Division agent he was acquainted with tentatively, but Jeong Ing-bar and the others all remained silent as if they had made a pact.
In the end, the person he had to visit again was Kang Suk-young. He caught her at the official residence, where he had been invited to take whatever he needed before Lee Yeo-jin’s belongings were sorted.
“Was he really contaminated while fighting?”