By Zephyria 
〈Crown Prince. How could you, how could you…….〉
Even the most supreme ruler in the land was nothing more than an ordinary man when faced with the fate of his only son. The King gripped the Crown Prince with hands that would not stop trembling, his voice breaking.
〈What do you mean, “Sealed One”? What do you mean, “Divine Artifact”……! It is but a polished facade; in reality, is it not a sacrifice offered to an anomaly, a curse!〉
The Crown Prince could not hide his misery and bowed his head. As the father’s screams filled the Junghoe Hall, the mother’s sobbing grew louder.
〈Run away. Leave the palace. Leave Hanyang. If you cannot escape its curse anywhere in Joseon, then leave this land entirely! Even if you must live out your days in the lands of the barbarians, it would be better than being offered as a sacrifice to an anomaly!〉
〈But Father, if I reject the Ten Thousand Waves Flute and flee, what shall become of this palace? What shall become of the people of Hanyang?〉
It would be a lie to say he had no desire to flee his fate as his father urged. But what would happen after he fled? How could he withstand the wrath of an anomaly that had lived for over a thousand years? To protect the state and its people, this was the only path. With such a heart, the previous Sealed Ones must have accepted their fates.
Biting his lip to keep from shedding tears, the Crown Prince performed a deep bow to his father and mother.
〈The sinner who serves the anomaly shall become a dead man and step back to be a mere prince. Fortunately, the first grandson is clever…….〉
For a moment, the image of his young son, sleeping unaware of everything, flashed before his eyes, making his head spin. If he died now as the Sealed One, the grandson who would one day become king would suffer the same heart-wrenching pain as his father. He could never allow that to happen.
Soon, a group of spirits approached the Crown Prince. Warriors dressed in attire from hundreds of years ago, and warriors with queued hair. The warriors he had foreseen in dreams over the course of three days.
Spirits who were vassals of the Jeonju Yi clan but did not serve the royal family looked down at him, standing tall.
〈I make a proposal to you. I shall seal the Ten Thousand Waves Flute alone until the final moment when my soul and body are worn away, so do not burden the descendants any longer.〉
「Even if decades or centuries pass?」
〈Indeed.〉
「The wearing away of soul and body means the extinction of existence. In the end, you will become something less than dust, nothing at all.」
〈I know.〉
A spirit replied enigmatically, fiddling with its bow out of habit.
「Very well. The royal aura of this nation has run its course anyway.」
That day, the Crown Prince accepted the duty and curse bestowed by the Ten Thousand Waves Flute. From then on, he did not age. Rather, as if the Ten Thousand Waves Flute were eating away at him, he grew younger bit by bit. Growing younger was, in essence, regression. He knew with certainty that he could never move forward toward the future.
He spent the years of the mundane world in a body that did not die. His father, drowned in grief over the loss of his only son, eventually passed away from illness in the prime of his life. His son, who ascended the throne at the mere age of seven, died young in his early twenties without leaving an heir. His mother, who had outlived her son, husband, and grandson in succession, passed away after two periods of regent rule from behind the curtain. His wife, left alone, breathed her last as the national power declined. It could be called a blessing, perhaps, that he did not witness the utter devastation of the falling dynasty that followed.
Now, no longer a Crown Prince or a prince, but the Sealed One of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute, Yi Yeong opened his eyes at the end of a long dream. It had been a truly, truly long time since he had met his family in a dream.
……The omens are not good. Does this mean the end of this body is near?
As he swallowed a sigh and straightened his clothes, the spirits spoke to him.
「Your end is near. We have concluded that it is right to tentatively put on hold the child we chose twenty-six years ago.」
“And so, what would you have me do?”
「We are saying that even preparing a successor now is too late. Granting you the consideration to choose your own successor is the final courtesy for one who has sealed us for two hundred years.」
“…….”
「If you do not, we will have no choice but to choose ourselves, just as we did twenty-six years ago.」
Yi Yeong let out a heavy groan that did not suit the body of a child.
“How is it consideration to pass this burden onto a descendant who has lived their entire life without even knowing what the curse of the Ten Thousand Waves Flute is?”
「Curse? How absurd. Our core spirit is to bring peace and security to all living beings.」
“Do not try to deceive me. I shall make preparations before the time comes.”
「It would be best not to keep us waiting too long.」
With a single blink, the spirits vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Yi Yeong thought of the surviving descendants of the imperial family in this land, the tragic fates of the Sealed Ones, and his father and son who had closed their eyes in sorrow and premature death.
Ah. A desperate lament poured out. Must this burden be carried on again, unable to be ended in his generation? Truly, it is an eternal curse.
Jeil Heon’s eyes overflowed with surprise upon meeting Yi Yeong. Yi Yeong had become too young. Normally, his regression was so gradual that it could only be noticed over several years, but in just a few months, he had grown younger by a year. Was this the reason for the ominous feeling?
The surprise lasted only a moment, and Jeil Heon skillfully composed himself, but a bitter smile spread across Yi Yeong’s lips.
“Do I look rejuvenated to you as well? It seems the time I have left is not very long. At most, next year will be the limit.”
“Your Highness the Crown Prince…….”
“What Crown Prince. Did I not say I am a mere prince? ……No, forget it. What is the point of talking at length about depressing things? I must be faithful to the present.”
Yi Yeong spoke with forced brightness as he rolled up the sleeves of his clothes, which had grown too long while he slept.
“After hearing from Director Kang that you visited North Korea, I simply could not suppress my curiosity. I apologize for disturbing you during working hours with my affairs.”
“I was actually in the middle of running away for fear of being caught by Suk-young again. If I am telling you stories, there will be no worry of her dragging me away. You’ve saved my life.”
Jeil Heon responded lightly, playing along with the man’s attempt to change the mood.
Yi Yeong had never left the outskirts of Seoul in his entire life. Even during the Korean War, he stayed in Seoul until the end and was nearly taken to North Korea as a prisoner. Out of consideration for Yi Yeong, who was trapped in Seoul by his own choice, those close to him would occasionally share travel stories.
Without suspicion, Jeil Heon pulled up the report he had written on his laptop screen.
“Are there no more photos or videos?”
Saying he wanted to feel the atmosphere of the time vividly rather than through a stiff report, Yi Yeong placed his hands on the keyboard, intending to write descriptions directly under the photos. As he recalled the moment Jeil Heon stepped onto North Korean soil after leaving the Aberrant Realm, he tapped the keyboard with interest.
However, the sentence appearing on the screen was something entirely different.
[Do you not know the whereabouts of the next Sealed One?]
For a moment, Jeil Heon’s face froze coldly, but he naturally stopped speaking while pretending to drink water from a plastic bottle.
“By the way, I suppose I cannot stay here under the pretext of chatting with you until the end of the workday? I don’t know where Suk-young might be watching from.”
“Surely, even Director Kang wouldn’t monitor me all day.”
[They have no interest in the outside world at all. Above all, they have not even mastered the correct sounds (Hangeul).]
The Vengeful Spirits bound to the flute had not the slightest interest in the noble intentions with which the King created Hangeul, nor did they harbor any desire to learn it. Because that King was of the lineage of a hated enemy.
After a brief silence, the conversation resumed. Between Jeil Heon recounting his stories of North Korea and the sound of Yi Yeong’s typing as he took notes with interest.
[Do not answer. It is a guess, but I suspect you know the next Sealed One.]
“While descending the mountain, a resident I encountered was horrified to see me covered in blood, yet forced themselves to pretend not to know me. After experiencing similar reactions a few times, I got a feeling. They mistake me for an Aberration.”
“My goodness. So that is why you thought of disguising yourself as an Aberration.”
As Jeil Heon continued speaking casually, not a shred of agitation could be read from him. It wasn’t that he had suspected from the beginning that the man was hiding the Sealed One. However, upon waking from his long sleep, new information regarding the Smiling Man had been updated.
Nam Hyeon-woo.
Yi Yeong knows information about Nam Hyeon-woo that the Management Bureau is unaware of. That he and Lee Yeo-jin’s son had been designated as the next Sealed One.
Regarding the incident twenty-two years ago, Jeil Heon had said this: that for unknown reasons, Nam Hyeon-woo went mad and tried to kill even his own child, and that the child eventually died.
It is a lie.