Boy Monster Chapter 47

Monk Jiguk left a confirmation and quickly hung up the phone.

While waiting for the return call, Jae Eunho sat on a bench. He caught his breath and put a cigarette to his lips, but it was soaked from the rain and wouldn’t light.

It couldn’t be helped. He laid the cigarettes out on the sun-drenched roadside to dry. Squatting down to dry them, which even he felt was quite pathetic, couldn’t be helped. He had to save money for a taxi.

As he held a cigarette, blowing on it to dry it, he looked down and saw a red line showing through his white shirt. It was a long scratch on his left chest.

Eunho slightly opened his shirt collar to check his body. Red heat rashes had bloomed around the scratch. It was a mark that no one had ever been able to leave on Eunho’s body. A red mark that could only be left when lips had coveted his skin.

—…Ah. It’s like sucking on something sweet.

Jae Eunho shot up and cooled his reddened ears.

—To those who try to take my Yeonri away, I can do things more cruel than all the dog-like shit I’ve done so far.

It would have been easy to shed tears. But Jae Eunho did not cry. He only sharpened his forward gaze.

“The same goes for me.”

He would shatter the forbidden union and the golden wheel of the curse.

He would never lose him again, and he would erase everything that stood in their way.

He would break the shackles of fate and cover the black moonlight.

He would execute his plan before the lunar eclipse. Having made his vow, Jae Eunho’s eyes were as cold as frost. I can do anything for him now. It was only right.

The moment that resolve surged from the depths of his soul, Eunho sensed a divine power boiling in his blood and body.

“……Why? No way….”

This was the biorhythm of when he used his empathy ability. Jae Eunho raised both hands. The four prayer beads wrapped around his wrists emitted a golden light. Looking at the beads floating above his wrists, Jae Eunho realized.

The control over his ability was released.

Last night when their bodies touched, he had touched the forbidden and turned into a monster, and a correspondingly great change had occurred in Jae Eunho’s body as well.

It was the rampage of his ability. The empathy power that had been stirring for some time had finally broken free from the control of the chip in his head. After the waves in his mind had spread far across time and space last night, Eunho’s body was different from before.

Jae Eunho lifted his head. He brought his hands together in a prayer position and tried to use his power simply, without chanting a sutra. The consciousness of the residents scattered throughout the neighborhood spread out before his dark vision like a star map.

Eunho opened his eyes again.

The power the government had controlled until now had grown beyond the scope of their system and was now swirling through Jae Eunho’s head and body!

Before this power that was now completely his own, Jae Eunho felt a brief thrill. A loud phone bell rang. It was an incoming call to the payphone.

:･⚜️⊹.️

The Blue House National Security Office and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, facing an emergency, were busy evading immediate responsibility with shouts and arguments. In a situation where no countermeasures for a bioterrorism attack were in place, they had been miserably defeated by a mysterious terrorist organization. Thanks to S.E.T.U., special forces, and a citizen, they had avoided major casualties, but they had failed to capture the enemy and had lost Jae Eunho. Moreover, the Army Chief of Staff was unconscious.

Who knew how much budget and manpower had been poured into just blocking the media and hiding this state of emergency. If S.E.T.U were to be shaken like this, a huge gap would open up in various critical national security and citizen safety areas. They couldn’t just take it lying down. The operation to dispatch elite intelligence teams to various countries was approved. It was now time for all ministries in charge of national defense to focus on this matter.

“We must never hand over Jae Eunho. We cannot let his ability be stolen. Apprehending the terrorist organization is urgent, but finding Jae Eunho is the top priority.”

“I agree.”

Chogwang expressed his agreement with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and scanned through all the videos related to the KTX train hijacking incident. He was hoping to find some evidence about the terrorist group. Chogwang, who was carefully watching the man who had been a great help in subduing the enemy inside the train, rubbed his eyes. The smell of cigarettes and his suit felt suffocating.

‘If Eunho was really kidnapped by the terrorist group, this is a real problem. I have no idea what those bastards are thinking.’

As Chogwang stared blankly at the tablet PC with his chin in his hand, something unusual caught his eye. At first, he thought he was seeing things. It was a relatively steady shot taken from a helicopter before S.E.T.U. entered the train. On the cell phone placed on the windowsill by a hostage lying on a chair, a peculiar shape was reflected.

‘A horn…?’

It was a silhouette of a single horn sprouting from a spread wing. Chogwang zoomed in on the screen and brought his eyes close. The image quality was not clear, so he couldn’t be certain, but it looked like a wing and a horn.

He was so absorbed in examining it that he didn’t even notice the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff watching him from the next seat. The Chairman, who had been watching the silent Chogwang, shouted loudly.

“Isn’t that the Sa Hwelju?”

“What?”

The eyes of not only the President but everyone else gathered on him. Chogwang furrowed his wrinkled brow and shook his head.

“Do you really have the energy to exercise such imagination in the midst of this chaos?”

“It would be perfect if the monster were alive. Isn’t it the best weapon of the Republic of Korea, revived right on time?”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs… he was truly a guy who got on his nerves at every turn. Chogwang, hiding his deep animosity, looked at him pathetically and got up from his seat. He switched the video to a different section. Although he had denied the Chairman’s words mockingly, Chogwang was deeply anxious inside.

No way, I must have seen it wrong.

He wanted to ask Eunho if he had sensed any sign of the monster at the scene, but Eunho’s whereabouts were currently a complete mystery.

“Haa…”

Chogwang paced the stairs and picked up his phone. A look of frustration cast over his firm, bronze-colored face, which, despite numerous smallpox scars, did not look like an old man’s skin.

Jiguk wasn’t answering his phone after several calls. When he called Jogyesa Temple, the answer came back that he was out. Chogwang paced again, lost in thought. The video taken at the scene of the incident couldn’t be a composite…. Could it be an optical illusion…. The 18-year-old gangster suspect on leave from the detention center and currently of unknown whereabouts, the mystery of the broken window at the Chosun Hotel last night, the disappeared Jae Eunho, all of it was a labyrinth.

—The Great Train eXpress (GTX), a deep-level express train that travels 60m underground at a maximum speed of 180km/h, is experiencing troubles even before its opening. Following the delay of the opening date due to the unfinished construction of the Samsung-Dongtan section….

The news did not broadcast the incident of the top-floor window of a famous hotel in Euljiro being shattered last night. Instead, news was flowing in that citizens in the vicinity had suffered inconvenience due to a water leak and loud noise at the GTX construction site overnight.

—After a loud noise occurred around the construction site last night, a ground leak was discovered, and confusion seems inevitable for the time being.

Chogwang was plunged into deep thought.

Could the faint shape captured in the video really be the Sa Hwelju?

In the premonition Chogwang had received, it was clearly stated that there would be one who would possess that power.

‘There is a Maitreya Buddha who lives in both the human and celestial realms simultaneously. This being will command and possess the Sa Hwelju.’

If the afterimage reflected in the train was really the Sa Hwelju, what would become of our future? It was undoubtedly a change that would shake this land, this era, and this history. Chogwang sensed the cataclysm much later than Jae Eunho. Looking at the deep mountains and high-rise building skyline beyond the window, Chogwang muttered to himself once more.

What if, the Sa Hwelju is alive……?

Jae Eunho finally lit the end of the now-dry cigarette. He inhaled the smoke and looked down at the distant ventilation shaft of the construction site.

It was a day when construction was not proceeding due to the rain, but because of the noise and leak from the previous night, an investigation team was surveying the site. Jae Eunho subtly planted a thought in their minds. The judgment that ‘it would be better to investigate tomorrow when the rain stops.’

The officials who were investigating the reason for the ground shaking last night began to come to a consensus one by one. The rain was preventing them from properly assessing the leak anyway. Let’s call it a day and disperse.

He waited until no one was left at the entrance to the underground tunnel. It didn’t take long for it to become quiet.

Eunho descended 60m underground through the ventilation shaft. In the hand not holding the cigarette, he held a lantern. It was a lantern he had obtained by manipulating the consciousness of a manager so he wouldn’t forget to put it away. As he went down the temporary stairs, his left knee throbbed.

Underground, with the construction site lights off, was nothing but darkness. Jae Eunho, relying on the beam of the lantern, descended deep into the earth.

The tunnel, where the lining work of covering the walls smoothly with concrete was underway, was silent. Eunho stood still quietly. He closed his eyes and searched for a trace of the monster. After the prayer beads glowed faintly, Jae Eunho knew which direction to go.

Eunho’s footsteps trod upon the silence. Drops of water, collected from the moisture, occasionally fell with a drip… drip… sound.

In the ever-colder darkness, something crunched under his foot.

Eunho shone the light down. It was Shi Taehyun’s cell phone. It seemed like the music the kid had been listening to was flowing from the phone with the shattered screen. A beat that seemed to rush forward as if to break everything in its path and a dark voice buzzed in his ears like an auditory hallucination.

Just as the darkness in the tunnel seemed endless, time flowed endlessly as well.

Finally, he reached the end of the tunnel excavation. In the deep cavern, a collapsed pile of earth was visible. As he got closer, a panting sound, like the wind, grew louder. Jae Eunho, who was slowly walking into the cave, discovered something glittering in the pile of dirt.

He shone the lantern on it. It was the butterfly-patterned sky lantern key ring he had lost at the detention center.

When he picked up the key ring and lifted his head, Jae Eunho couldn’t help but release the breath he had been holding. Far from his helplessly trembling breath, before the giant body that swelled and deflated.

The boy was not there. There was only a monster that had lived in the underground of Seoul. A monster with only instincts turned to look at Jae Eunho.

The five colors in its large pupils became balls of fire and blazed. The harsh breath of a male that filled the cave grew louder and rougher as Eunho’s footsteps drew nearer.

“Hwonwoo.”

The heart in that large body was probably the size of Jae Eunho’s upper body. A huge breath bursting from the large heart, heok, heok… shook the ground.

“It’s your teacher.”

Eunho’s feet continued to tread the darkness. The monster burned the fireballs under its high horn even redder. The creature, letting out a terrible roar, did not recognize Jae Eunho. Only its ego as a Sa Hwelju and a monster was raging in fury.

“Or, is it Taehyun…?”

—For your entire life, you will never be able to obtain what you desire most, nor will you be able to touch it.

The curse cast upon the boy once again circled in his mind.

What covered the monster was only hatred for the humans who had killed it. The two eyes on the body, which he had to crane his neck to see, growled, spewing fire and killing intent. Around its waist, the wound from the bullet Eunho had shot yesterday was regenerating with a gaping motion.

To the monster, Eunho’s body was nothing more than a small piece of prey.

But Jae Eunho, with that body of his, could embrace it, which had turned into a grotesque monster. He could kiss its hideous skin texture, its tree-trunk and armor-like arms, its wings that couldn’t be taken in at a single glance.

It was only when he thought he could embrace the terribly changed monster that he realized his affection. That he would never again, even if he were reborn, find someone to love so dearly….

That realization was the same now, facing the monster again.

I waited for you while revolving through the six realms. As long as the connection was not broken, I could not die. Whispering that if they had entered the realm of hell together, they must leave together, Jae Eunho reached out his hand to the monster.

“I came to keep my promise. ……Like you said, I am a bit… wicked. I endured.”

An unpleasant body fluid seeped from its rough skin. Eunho, upon touching it, ended up laughing.

“Hwonwoo.”

I’m sorry for shattering you to pieces.

The monster unleashed its hatred from deep within. Jae Eunho stopped walking. At the end of its gaze that stretched out like a flame… its claws sharpened and aimed at Eunho’s heart.

Water trickled down from the top of the cave. Like the monsoon rain falling from the eaves.

What engulfed Eunho next was all sound. The auditory hallucination of a single bell at the end of the eaves jingling wrapped around his ears.

Harsh breathing.

And the raindrops falling from the eaves,

drip… drip….