My Girlfriend Is a Shaman

22 – Changgui #2

We took the KTX and arrived in Jeonnam in about 3 hours.

After getting off at the station, we caught a taxi and left for Chilryongsan Mountain.

“Mr. Knight! Please go to the village near Chilryongsan Mountain.”

“I understand.”

There was a small village near Chilryong Mountain. It is a place called Mugok Village. We decided to stay there one night and climb the mountain the next day. While taking a taxi, I opened an accommodation app and searched for a guest house in the village.

Mugok Village.

Because it is a fairly small town, there is a possibility that there are no lodging establishments. In that case, you might have to pay a villager to sleep with you. I searched for lodging apps without much expectation. Sarah, who was next to me, spoke to me.

“But where are we going to sleep today?”

“If there is a bed and breakfast in the village, I should sleep there. If there is no lodging, I will just pay money to the residents and sleep there.”

“Are there any guesthouses operating at a time like this…? It’s probably not a time when people are traveling.”

“I’m not expecting much either.”

It was the moment I searched through an accommodation app.

Surprisingly, there was only one guesthouse that appeared on the app screen.

“Huh…? Is there one?”

“There is a bed and breakfast?”

There was indeed a bed and breakfast in the village. Looking at the room picture posted on the app, it was well-decorated like any motel room. I saw that there was a small refrigerator and an old-fashioned computer available for the guests.

“I’ll make a call now.”

I called the guest house. A beep rang for a moment, and soon the owner of the guesthouse received a call.

「This is Mugok B&B.」

“Ah, yes! Hello. We are planning to stay at Mugok B&B tonight. Is it correct that it is open right now?

「We are currently open for business. How many people are coming?”

“There are two of us. We plan to stay for 3 days and 2 nights until Sunday.”

「I understand. “We will prepare your room in advance, so please come anytime.”

What was heard over the cell phone was the voice of an elderly woman. Although they were using Seoul dialect, there was a bit of a dialectal accent mixed in, perhaps because it was a rural village. I hung up the phone after talking to the owner of the guest house like that.

“Sera, I heard you’re running a bed and breakfast now.”

“Thank goodness. I thought I would have to sleep on the streets again.”

“Is that possible?”

It was fortunate. If the guesthouse wasn’t in operation, I would have had a hard time going to the village at this late hour and finding a place to sleep.

It was around 10 PM when we arrived at Mugok Village by taxi.

After paying the money and getting out of the taxi, I saw the scenery of Mugok Village.

“It’s a completely rural village.”

A rural landscape with wide rice fields nearby. I saw old houses built sparsely apart. Unlike Seoul, there weren’t many street lights, so it was quite dark. However, even in the dark landscape, the high mountain to the east of the village was clearly visible.

It was Chilryong Mountain. Chilryongsan Mountain, which is 600 meters high, could not help but be visible from the time we were riding a taxi.

As I stood at the entrance to the village and looked at the mountain for a moment, I had a strange feeling.

It felt like something huge in the shape of a mountain was calling to me from afar.

It was a strange feeling that could not be explained logically.

“Jinwoo, stop looking at the mountain and let’s go quickly.”

“Yes.”

I stopped looking at the mountain because Sarah called me.

We entered the village and found a guesthouse. Mugok B&B is near the entrance to the village, so it didn’t take long to find the way. In the dark village, a brightly lit hanok-style guesthouse stood out.

We called the owner from the yard of the guesthouse.

“Is the owner here? We contacted you through the lodging app earlier.”

“There is.”

Then the boss who was at home came out into the yard.

She was an old woman who was likely to be commonly seen in the countryside.

The lady at the guesthouse welcomed us who came late at night.

“Welcome. I received the call and prepared a room in advance. Please come inside quickly.”

“Thank you.”

“Hmm… But you’re young students? Are you really the two of you?”

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The lady who was guiding us to her house soon looked at us and looked puzzled. She was like that. She couldn’t help but have doubts because she was visited by students who were just as young as me and Sarah. Because it was a trip with students to a rural village.

“Yes. It’s just the two of us.”

“Is the silver-haired girl there a foreigner?”

“She’s not a foreigner, she’s mixed race. She speaks Korean well too. Hey Sarah! Say something.”

“Hello.”

Sarah and I politely greeted the lady at the guesthouse.

However, the lady at the guesthouse did not stop looking at us with suspicion.

“This is so strange! Why did the students come here?”

“We like to travel so much. We especially like hiking, so sometimes we go on trips together.”

The two of them like to travel, so they came to the rural village. We looked around like that, but the lady at the bed and breakfast looked like she was thinking about something when she saw us.

“You came to our village for a trip? If you’re hiking, do you mean to climb Mt. Chilryong?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm… No matter how I look at it, it seems like there is a separate purpose…”

She was an unnecessarily quick-witted lady. At times like this, she needed to cover it with more elaborate words.

I smiled shyly and opened my mouth.

“Actually, we didn’t just go on a trip. We had a separate purpose.”

“I thought so too. Why did you come?”

“My father went missing in Chilryong Mountain a while ago. He has been missing for quite some time, but we came on a trip to find him ourselves. We came to look for the missing person.”

“Ah….”

The lady at the guesthouse nodded her head as if she understood only then. In the past, there were many cases of hikers going missing on Mt. Chilryong. If you claim that you came here in person because your father went missing, you have a pretty believable story.

“You’re here to find your missing father? That’s a shame. There are quite a few people like that.”

“Is there anyone else coming to the village besides us?”

“There were people. I’m talking about people who came looking for their relatives or family members. Everyone couldn’t find them and just went home.”

Now that the word is out, it went well.

I have to ask him if he has ever seen his father.

I took out my cell phone and showed a photo to the lady at the guesthouse.

The photo saved on my cell phone was none other than a photo of my father.

There was a possibility that the residents of the village had witnessed a young man who resembled his father.

“Have you ever seen someone like this on Chilryong Mountain? As you can see, he is wearing a leather jacket.”

“Hmm… Just stay for a moment.”

The lady at the guesthouse looked closely at my father’s photo and shook her head.

“I’m not sure about the lady. She’s the person who went missing from Chilryong Mountain, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then go to Namhong Baek. He has been the mountain keeper for generations in his family. Namhong knows best in our village what happened at Chilryongsan Mountain.”

It is said that there is a mountain guardian in Mugok Village who manages Chilryongsan Mountain.

It was a man named Baek Nam-hong. From what I heard, if I wanted to ask about what was happening in Chilryongsan Mountain, it would be quicker to go to the man.

“Where is this person named Baek Nam-hong?”

“There will be a management office at the entrance of the mountain. It’s there.”

It was too late to visit today.

We decided to go to the management office of Chilryongsan Mountain as soon as the sun came up.

*

That night, we unpacked and rested in the guesthouse’s separate building. The bed and breakfast, built in the form of a traditional Korean house, had a separate outbuilding. The method was to have guests stay in a separate building. It was a good thing for us because we could spend time comfortably with the lady without having to see her face.

Sera spoke to me.

“It’s a quiet place.”

“Here?”

“No, the whole village is quiet.”

Sera spoke while looking at the scenery of the village through the window of the annex. As I listened to Sarah’s words, I also realized that the village was quiet. Usually, when you think of a rural village, you can hear dogs barking or insects crying outside. However, Mugok Village was surprisingly quiet.

“I’ll sleep well because it’s quiet. Let’s go to bed early.”

Sarah and I lay down on a blanket in a separate room.

Before going to bed, I tried running an EMF meter.

When I held the device in my hand and pressed the button, an LED indicator light came on.

“What are you doing when you’re not sleeping? Jinwoo.”

“I’m checking the EMF meter. I see only one light coming on, so I don’t think there’s a spirit nearby.”

“Ah… That?”

Sera stared at the EMF meter I was holding. Although she was Sarah who did not trust foreign psychic equipment, she was not completely unaware of it. Sarah also knew how EMF meters worked.

“Does it work on the principle that the magnetic field and the energy of the spirit are similar? If the indicator light lights up a lot, does that mean that the spirit has appeared?”

“That’s right. If the LED light changes to level 4 or level 5, there is a high probability that a spirit has appeared nearby. The disadvantage is that in places with a lot of electronic devices, it may just change.”

EMF meters were unreliable in places where there were many electronic devices around. Because it will pick up the wrong frequencies and magnetic fields. However, it could be put to good use in the rural village we arrived at.

After some time, the inspection of the machine was completed.

To save the battery, the EMF meter was turned off.

We turned off the lights and went to sleep.

“…….”

We continued to sleep lying side by side. Both Sarah and I have gentle sleeping habits, so we never woke each other up when we slept together. But something happened that night that forced both of us to wake up.

“Students.”

How much time has passed?

Suddenly, a familiar voice was heard from outside the annex.

The voice continued to be heard until we woke up.

“Students there.”

I woke up to a voice calling from outside.

When I looked up, I saw that Sarah, who was lying next to me, had woken up and opened her eyes just like me.

“…Are you awake too?”

“Uh.”

After listening closely, I realized that it was the voice of the lady of the bed and breakfast.

The lady of the bed and breakfast was calling us from outside the annex.

“Are the students sleeping?”

“I woke up.”

When I looked at the time on my phone, it was already 3 am.

I couldn’t figure out what was happening to wake up the sleeping guest at this hour.

“Why are you calling me, ma’am?”

When she asked why she was calling, the lady at the guesthouse said something strange.

“Students said they wanted to go to the mountains, right? Come out now and let’s go to the mountains with the lady.”

“Huh…? Why are you going to the mountains at night?”

“The lady knows the mountain path well. She doesn’t mind it being dark, so let’s go to the mountain quickly. We can get there quickly before the sun rises.”

We had revealed to her aunt that we were going to go to the mountains.

But who would go crazy and climb a mountain at 3 in the morning?

The lady at the guest house stood outside the door of the annex and tried to take us to the mountain.

“It’s dangerous to go to the mountains now.”

“No. I’ve been to the mountains since I was young, and it wasn’t dangerous at all. If you know the mountain paths well, you can get there quickly. The people who went missing in the mountains were all outsiders, so they didn’t know the roads well. I’m a native of this neighborhood, so they were together. “It’s not dangerous to go. It’s never dangerous. It’s never dangerous. The mountains are not dangerous for us.”

The voice of the lady at the guesthouse was strange.

She was repeating the same thing over and over again, as if she was out of her mind.

I stared at the door, breaking into a cold sweat.

In the first place, is it really the lady of the bed and breakfast that is standing outside the annex?

There was window paper attached to the door of the outbuilding. A pitch-black silhouette of a person loomed beyond the window paper. Looking closely, I noticed that my height was slightly different from the lady at the bed and breakfast I had seen earlier. But her voice was the same.

“Who are you…?”

“I’ll say it again, it’s not dangerous to go to the mountains. You say it’s not dangerous, so why are you asking who I am? As proof, I’m alive and well. I’m alive. I’m alive.”

Me and Sarah’s eyes met.

There was no need to ask Sarah what that thing outside her door was.

━━Tuk!

I held the EMF meter in my hand and pressed the button.

At that moment, all five LED lights turned on.

The EMF meter reached level 5 and alerted us to the danger.