Chapter 1 - Meeting the Corpse Under the Bed (1/2)
A tremendous power came to me one day.
A small one pyeong gos.h.i.+won. (Pyeong= A Korean unit of measurement. Gos.h.i.+won= small accommodation. Generally a cheap place for long term students to prepare for exams.)
A strange and broken body was found under the bed of my gos.h.i.+won.
It changed my life.
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Chapter 1: Meeting the Corpse Under the Bed
That day, I came back from my part time job and lay down on the small bed in my gos.h.i.+won.
How long was I asleep?
Hwiiiing –
A cold wind blew out of nowhere.
It wasn’t coming from my window, but underneath my bed.
“Why is cold wind coming from the bottom?”
Surely someone didn’t drill a hole into the floor of my room. I had a strange feeling and looked below the mattress.
“Heok!”
A close up view of a dead body!
I must have seen wrong.
“Why are you so surprised? Is this your first time seeing a corpse?”
The sunken eyes in the corpse flashed.
Unbelievable! A corpse was talking?
This was a dream! I thought it was a nightmare.
“Listen carefully. I don’t know why, but the distant ‘Hwanmong’ dimension has chosen to grant you a power.” (Hwanmong=empty dreams)
“Rather, who are you…?”
A corpse? Or a ghost?
However, the corpse ignored me and continued talking.
“Of course, you can refuse this power. Then the power of Hwanmong will leave and go to someone else. Do you refuse?”
At that moment, I fell into confusion.
A terrible corpse was saying this, so how could I accept such a bizarre situation? In addition, the corpse didn’t even tell me what the power of Hwanmong was.
“Answer. If you don’t reply then I will a.s.sume you have rejected it.”
The corpse started to fade like it was disappearing.
In fact, I wanted it to disappear but I also wanted to hear more.
I was curious about the power of Hwanmong.
“What is the power of Hwanmong?”
The corpse gave a slight grin and appeared again.
“It is the purification of black magic.”
“B-black magic?”
Black magic was something commonly seen in fantasy novels. A devil’s magic or a dark magic gained through a contract with demons!
That was black magic. Those who used black magic would inevitably disappear to become the prey of the devil.
I didn’t want such an unhappy fate.
‘I will never choose it!’
Even if this was a dream, there was no way I could accept the corpse’s offer. But the corpse seemed to read my thoughts and gave a bizarre smile.
“Keuk! You seem to be misunderstanding something. The power of Hwanmong is not what you are thinking. It is an independent power that has nothing to do with the devil. You can simply choose it.”
“Choose?”
“That’s right. Of course, there will be a price for that choice.”
“A price?”
“I will tell you what it is.”
The eyes of the corpse flashed and a strange dice appeared in the air.
A pentagonal dodecahedron dice with information on each side! Each pentagon was filled with unknown patterns.
“Throw it. Throw the dice and you will find the power.”
Such a thing?
I threw the dice on the floor.
Tok! Toruruk…!
The dice stopped rolling.