novelraw Chapter 74 : Fare for the Afterlife (6)
Chapter 74 : Fare for the Afterlife (6)
Chapter 74: Fare for the Afterlife (6)
The basics of negotiation are to coordinate what the other party wants with what I want.
I had already stated that my condition was to deliver this gift to Yeomra. Unfortunately, the other party wanted nothing. No, perhaps what they wanted most was to not be called to the negotiation table in the first place.
No matter what I did, I would be the one left wanting.
In that case, I needed to overturn the table.
“I’m not sure how I should address you.”
“I’m Deputy General Manager Oh Chang-sik. You can call me whatever you like. Ah, this is my business card. If you happen to pass away unexpectedly, just having this card will let us come find you and escort you comfortably.”
“Thank you.”
Caught off guard by the card he suddenly extended, I instinctively handed him one of my spare cards I kept in my phone case.
I wasn’t sure if I should be giving something like this to a reaper, but it concerned matters after my death, so I decided to forget about it. What mattered now wasn’t my afterlife service.
And it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Through the exchange of business cards, I gained one more piece of information.
These guys were frontline salesmen, in essence.
Their job was to somehow bring the lingering dead loitering in this memorial park to the Afterlife.
They were brazen enough to talk casually about coming for you after death, even knowing how rude that might sound.
That meant we could cut to the chase.
“What happens if you, Deputy General Manager, manage to send all the spirits here to the Afterlife?”
“Pardon?”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
“Well… I’d probably be reassigned to a slightly easier post and my term would be shortened.”
That was the kind of answer that could flip the board. Then it was time to place a bet. One so tempting the other side wouldn’t be able to resist calling.
“What if I sent up about a hundred?”
“Are you suggesting a deal?”
More than a deal, it was closer to an apology for the past.
I didn’t know how many reapers there were in South Korea, but I’d taken at least four cases from this Oh Chang-sik alone.
So my promise to send those lingering spirits to the Afterlife not only eased my guilt but also became an irresistible offer.
“I’ll do it. If you can really make that happen.”
Of course I could. Our café had two specialists in this field.
“I’ll return once everything’s ready.”
Ten days passed after Jinseong left.
The two reapers were, as usual, stationed at their stand, tirelessly trying to persuade the dead.
“Ma’am, have you given it some thought? You still want to see your grandson before you go? Look, we’ve done all we can, but there’s a limit. We can’t ask the Grandmother of Samsin, you know. How could reapers possibly know if someone’s going to have a baby?”
“That’s right. Just head up first, and during the ancestral ri— Granny! Granny!”
(See my grandson during the ancestral rite? Not a chance in hell!)
The spirit, who had been seated on a plastic chair, leapt to her feet and vanished in a flash.
“Damn it! Another bust today.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up the ancestral rites…”
“No, it’s not your fault. That old lady’s really set on not going until she sees her grandson. She’s stubborn, seriously.”
“What should we do? We haven’t succeeded once this month. At this rate, I’ll have to write another Written Explanation.”
“You get used to it if you write them often enough.”
“I don’t want to get used to writing Written Explanations!”
She said it half-jokingly, but at this rate, it wasn’t far from the truth, and Employee Shin Ji-hye looked like she was on the verge of tears.
“Still, four months without a single success… even I’m getting nervous. Losing Grandpa Deukchun while I was off catching an Evil Spirit really set us back. He was nearly in our hands, too.”
“If one’s this hard, how’s he planning to send a hundred spirits to the Afterlife?”
“Who knows. He didn’t strike me as a liar, but maybe he just doesn’t understand how things work over here yet.”
Whether or not a spirit moved on to the Afterlife was up to them.
Just as no gravestone is without a story, each spirit had lingering attachments to their long or short lives. Letting go of those attachments and moving on was also a way of accepting death, and there were no exceptions.
The only question was how long it took.
Even with months of effort, sending lingering spirits to the Afterlife often ended in failure, just like today.
“If we really sent up a hundred, do you think we’d get a transfer?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“The crematorium! All the easy spirits get taken there. Quick rotations, too.”
“You really don’t know anything, do you? The real jackpot is the funeral hall. Everyone comes, and the moment they head to the burial site is the most decisive. That ‘I lived a good life’ kind of mood.”
“Come on, the crematorium’s in a different league. They get at least thirty teams a day.”
“Then you want to go shout your lungs out there too? At the funeral hall, you can work at a relaxed pace while still meeting your quota. These days it’s all about work-life balance, you know.”
“When you put it that way, I guess you’re right?”
“Even the Fake Ancestral Meal is different now—you get pizza, burgers, even sashimi. The energy’s strong, and the flavor’s better even if it’s the same offering.”
“Sob, they only bring bread-like stuff here since smelly foods are banned. It’s been so long since I had meat.”
“Let’s ask for a transfer to the Jeolla area while we’re at it. They’ve got the best ritual spreads, enough to break the table legs.”
They say when pushed to a dead end, people cling to ridiculous hopes.
And in their situation, imagining what it would be like to really send up a hundred spirits was their only happy escape.
But the end of that fantasy always circled back to a cold reality.
“Sigh, what good is it talking like this every day? Looks like this month’s another bust.”
“Tell me about it. Let’s wrap it up. The sun’s setting.”
The two reapers were folding up their stand, grumbling about their bitter lot like a work song, when it happened.
“Huh? Did someone famous die today? Why are there so many cars coming up?”
“Where?”
Where Employee Shin pointed, a long line of luxury sedans and black vans was winding up the hill.
“One, two, three, four… wow, it looks like more than when that Assemblyman died last month. Should we unfold this again, just in case?”
“When you’ve got a lot, you’ve got a lot to leave behind.”
The answer was already set in stone.
Other reapers had already begun pulling their signs back out from their cars one by one.
But their expectations for a new batch of spirits were completely off the mark.
Not a single car in the crowded memorial park parking lot carried an urn.
“Deputy General Manager, over there…”
“What the hell!”
Most of the people getting out of the cars were familiar to them.
They were shamans. Real shamans, each and every one radiating powerful Divine Power, all gathered in one place.
And at the center of them stood Jinseong and Ria.
“The Ogu Ritual goes over there, the Soul Guiding Ritual is last, so just prep for now!”
“Is this all the pig heads?”
“Anyone doing the knife-dancing rituals, let us know early! The ground’s uneven, so we’ll need to use a level.”
Shamans pulling ritual offerings and implements from their trunks began prepping for the rite with military precision.
“Now that we’re all in one place, the scale’s pretty wild.”
“Hehe, this is our first time gathering like this for a ritual too!”
“Please take good care of them.”
“Leave it to us! We’ll get them all to move on!”
After hearing the confident resolve of Heavenly Goddess Haedong, who seemed to be the coordinator, I walked over to the clearing where the reapers had set up their signs.
As expected, they were all staring at us in a daze.
“I came to keep my promise.”
“H-how in the world did you prepare all this?”
“I just happen to know a lot of people in this line of work.”
“Still, this is just…”
They still couldn’t believe it.
“We need to help them move on, so let’s go together.”
“Moving on won’t be easy. Rituals may comfort the spirits, but those who can be soothed with words have long departed.”
“Yes, I know.”
I knew. If mere words could do it, they wouldn’t be humiliated setting up signs and luring spirits like street vendors.
That’s why I had prepared one more thing.
“O lonely Honbaek drifting between Heaven and Earth, wandering soul without a resting place, across all creation, across sea and land, from the Living Realm to the Afterlife, come now to this ritual.”
“Hiya!”
“Those who died to the west, to the east, those spirits crying in hunger and sobbing from thirst, this is the 37th descendant of the Choi family, born February 21, 1973, died May 7, 1993. Come close, come close.”
“Hiya!”
“I offer paper, pour wine, serve food. Do not wander in vain—appear here, speak, cry, and go.”
“Hiya!”
The booming sound of the janggu drum stopped.
“Sob, please let me vent my injustice. I cultivated my children with great care, only to die before seeing any fruits. I can’t leave like this.”
Heavenly Goddess Haedong’s expression and voice suddenly changed to that of a gruff middle-aged man. A different spirit had possessed her.
I approached the crying soul and took its hand. Then I revealed the true purpose behind this entire event.
“Still, you must go. Do you plan to stay until your children live out their full lifespans?”
“W-what do you mean…?”
“Ria.”
“Yes!”
-Fwoooosh!
At my signal, Ria clenched and unclenched her hand. A pillar of radiant Divine Power shot up into the sky.
“Either vanish here and now, or go to the Afterlife. You must choose.”
The carefully selected troublemakers the shamans had brought were already possessed and couldn’t run.
If they didn’t want to be erased by Ria’s Divine Power, they had no choice but to enter the Gate to the Afterlife.
A death binary.
This was the method I had devised to help them move on.
These were spirits who hadn’t budged even after reapers had spent decades coaxing them. Gentle persuasion was never on the table to begin with.
“Deputy General Manager, please open the gate.”
“Y-yes!”
-Kwoooong.
The two reapers reached out, and a massive gate appeared in the sky.
“There. If you don’t want to be erased, go in.”
At my kind suggestion, the possessed spirits rushed toward the Gate to the Afterlife in a panic.
Not a single soul chose to vanish. Their lingering attachments to the Living Realm could only exist if they themselves existed.
To them, the idea that nothing matters after death was the true death.
Once every soul had passed through the gate, we quickly began preparing to leave.
“What are you doing?”
“Excuse me?”
“We’ve still got a long way to a hundred. We’re heading to the next memorial park.”
“A-are you really going to send a full hundred?”
“That was the deal. Pack up and follow me.”
I felt no guilt over forcibly sending off the poor souls. They’d turn into Evil Spirits once their reasoning faded anyway.
Wasn’t it far better for them to go to the Afterlife like this than to harm someone, get a ticket to Hell, and be dragged there by force?
And fortunately, in this world, things like law and ethics didn’t apply.
From now on, it’s a one-sided hunt.