Surviving as a Sorcerer in Seoul - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: I Became a Sorcerer? (4)

TL: DDTL

What the hell did these people actually do for work?

No matter how far I scrolled, there wasn’t a single concrete description of the job.

All I could see were titles and price tags.

[Yeoro Tea House] – Rank 7 Commission | Payment 5,000,000 | Conditional Bonus 2,000,000

[Museong Real Estate] – Rank 5 Commission | Payment 10,000,000 | Inquire for details

[Bukcheon Office] – Rank 5 Commission | Payment 11,000,000 | Please discuss in person.

[Kiparan Cafe] – Rank 6 Commission | Payment 7,000,000 | Inquire for details.

[Baeksong Office] – Rank 6 Commission | Payment 7,500,000 | Conditional Bonus 4,000,000

.

.

.

.

.

.

Most of them only operated through 1-on-1 inquiries via the PM function.

“What, are they asking somebody to whack a guy? Why so damn secretive?”

Out of sheer frustration, I dug through the free board.

But it was just as barren there.

Author: SoltKIM

[Title]

I hate voodoo lol

[Content]

Hated it so much I killed five of ’em today lol

└ [Not A Geezer] : You one of the Haegil Office kids? Knock it off already.

└ [SoltKIM] : Got a problem? PM me lol. Want me to come pay you a visit in person?lol

With everyone just posting garbage like this,

there was no way to find out what Sorcerers actually did on a job site.

“I’m dying to know.”

What kind of work was it that made them fork over millions of won, no, 10 million, just like that?

Were they even really paying those amounts in the first place?

What if it was a phishing scam, or some pyramid scheme? What if they’d harvest my organs?

I couldn’t quite work up the nerve to send a PM.

Actually take on work like that? That thought was out of the question.

Why? The people who’d been held captive in Cambodia not long ago, for one.

A lot of the victims had been folks who got reeled in by promises of high-paying gigs, or so I’d heard.

Now that I was seeing this for myself, it didn’t feel like someone else’s problem.

In the end, meaningless doubts just kept chaining one into the next.

But no matter how much I doubted it…

the fact that my bank balance was converging on zero wasn’t going to change.

“Forget it. Like it even matters.”

I flipped my phone face-down.

Either way, I still had a real life to live, didn’t I?

I needed to worry about tomorrow’s credit card bill.

This was no time to get my head stuck in some fantasy novel nonsense.

Grumble.

My stomach chimed in, oblivious to the mood.

“Guess I should eat.”

I opened the delivery app, then closed it right back.

A 4,000 won delivery fee? Hell no. For a total deadbeat like me, delivery food was a luxury.

A convenience store lunch box was just right.

Even better if one was near its expiration date, about to be chucked.

Dragging my slippers along, I stepped out of my studio apartment.

Whew.

A cold wind swept through my hollow chest.

Autumn must have really deepened. My ribs felt the chill.

The convenience store was at the mouth of the alley.

A three-minute walk.

I thought it over as I went.

Should I grab a cheap Hye-ja lunch box, crack open a bottle of soju, and just sleep it off?

Or eat a rice ball, wake up early tomorrow, and comb the job sites some more?

Agonizing over these pitiful questions, I pushed open the door of the convenience store.

Jingle-

“Welcome.”

The rote greeting came from behind the counter.

The night-shift part-timer.

A college kid who always looked wrung out with exhaustion, five or six years younger than me.

I gave a small nod and started toward the lunch box section.

But I couldn’t move my feet.

“……huh?”

For a second, I couldn’t help but freeze.

Wondering if my eyes were playing tricks, I rubbed them. Then opened them again.

But it was still there.

On the ceiling of the convenience store.

Something was stuck to it.

And not just one or two.

Strange things were darting between the shelves, scuttling along the ceiling pipes like monkeys.

They were about the size of five or six-year-old children. But their appearance wasn’t that of children.

Wrinkled, ashen skin.

Scalps mottled with liver spots, showing through patches of thinning hair.

And bellies that bulged out like tadpoles.

Deformed beings shaped like old men.

‘What the hell… are those?’

They hung upside down from the ceiling, defying gravity, cackling.

There was no sound, but their mouths were unmistakably laughing. Yellow teeth bared wide.

One of them dropped, thump, down to the floor.

Where it landed was the counter.

“Haaah…….”

The part-timer let out a huge yawn, his eyes sunken and hollow.

Right next to him.

That monster was squatting on top of the POS machine, and the part-timer didn’t so much as blink.

No. He couldn’t see it.

‘He can’t see it? He really can’t see that?’

The one sitting on the POS slowly crept up onto the part-timer’s shoulder.

It wrapped itself around his neck and hung there like a sloth.

Its ashen skin pressed against his cheek, but he just rolled his head side to side, as if his neck was stiff.

The thing brought its mouth to his ear.

And began whispering something, endlessly.

Hiss, hiss, hiss…….

To my ears, it sounded like the skin-crawling rasp of a snake slithering.

“God, I’m so fucking tired…….”

The part-timer dug at his ear, face drawn with fatigue.

“Why are my shoulders so heavy?”

Completely oblivious to the horrible thing clinging to his shoulder. He just muttered that he should slap on a pain patch.

That was when it happened.

Another one hanging from the ceiling whipped its head around.

And its eyes met mine.

Cloudy gray pupils, set deep in sunken sockets.

It grinned.

Its mouth split open all the way to its ears, and a bright red tongue flicked out.

“……..”

Lunch box or whatever. My hunger vanished without a trace.

I backed away.

And that was how I slipped out of the convenience store.

I half-ran down the alleyway.

Tromp, tromp, tromp.

I walked a good while before stopping under a streetlamp. After catching my breath for a moment, I straightened up.

“Fuck. What the hell was that?”

Had I gone crazy?

* * *

A few more days passed after I saw those monsters.

I holed up in my room and lived like a wreck.

Forget the convenience store, even stepping outside my front door felt off.

Instead, I threw myself into [Principles of Sorcery] like a man possessed.

Free board, info board, Q&A board…….

I combed through every old post I could find.

And now I was sure.

I wasn’t crazy.

The world had been going mad all along.

I’d just finally started seeing it for what it was.

Among everything, there was one post I’d bookmarked and practically memorized.

It had been written almost five years ago.

Strangely, no one seemed to care about it. Maybe because this place wasn’t exactly newbie-friendly to begin with.

Author: No Brake-it

[Title]

Pro tips for newbies.tip (must read)

[Content]

Hey, newbies.

Suddenly seeing ghosts, stumbling onto some weird website? Freaked out, right?

I was too. At first I thought I had schizophrenia and went straight to a psychiatrist. But even after taking the meds he prescribed, the “hallucinations” didn’t go away.

So I’m writing this. To help you hold your shit together.

1. How Spirit Sight Opens

Usually it opens up when you take a big shock, brush with death, or happen to touch an object that holds Spiritual Power.

The fact that your Spirit Sight has opened means an energy called Spiritual Power has started flowing through your body. The tap’s been turned on.

2. The Habits of Demons

You know those wrinkled, gross-looking bastards you see out there? We call those Demons.

These things basically live off humans’ negative emotions. That’s why they’re latched onto the shoulders of stressed-out salarymen and test crammers.

Here’s the messed-up part though: they have a freakish knack for spotting humans who can see them.

The second you spot one, make eye contact, and go “huh? what is that?”, the thing switches targets.

Why?

Because to them, a human with open Spirit Sight is top-grade Korean hanwoo, 1++ rated. Spiritual Power flows through you, so the flavor’s just different.

3. How to Survive

Once a Demon marks you, it’s one of two things.

Die, or get stronger.

Running isn’t going to solve this. The things will chase you to the ends of the earth.

So you fight.

It’ll be scary at first, but as you take Demons down, Spiritual Power builds up in your body. Leveling up, basically.

Keep getting stronger, and at some point Demons won’t dare mess with you. They’ll be the ones running from you instead.

That’s when you finally become a halfway-decent Sorcerer.

PS.

But keep this one thing in mind.

Once you set foot in this world, going back to an ordinary life is impossible.

You can cosplay as a normal person, sure, but the world you see will be forever different.

So quit whining and adapt. That’s how you survive.

“……hah.”

Even rereading it, the contents stole the breath out of me.

A normal life is impossible?

It meant that the life I’d imagined, going to a regular office job, earning a decent paycheck, getting married, growing old, and watching the grandkids play, all of that was done for.

“Damn it.”

I held my head in my hands.

It wasn’t like I’d asked for Spirit Sight to open. I’d just bought one 50,000 won doll on impulse.

But throwing a pity party wasn’t going to change anything.

Like the post said, the tap was already open.

Those things I’d seen at the convenience store.

Demons, was it.

I remembered them licking their chops at me.

Just to be sure, I dug deeper through the boards.

A few hours later, here’s what I’d figured out.

Everyone else’s Spirit Sight had opened through triggers within a predictable range.

A dead grandfather’s watch, an old broom left in a country farmhouse, a gravestone atop a tomb, and so on.

.

.

.

Among all those triggers, nobody else had walked in through a QR code like I had.

“….I really can’t wrap my head around this.”

I had no idea what to make of it.

Was I some kind of prototype Sorcerer? Getting Spirit Sight through modern tech.

My only conclusion was a long sigh.

But that job board still had me dying of curiosity.

‘Alright, maybe I’ll at least find out what kind of work it is?’

It wasn’t like they had some location tracking system.

And looking at the people spewing garbage on the free board, or the <Inquiries welcome> notes plastered all over the job board, sending one message didn’t seem like a huge deal.

“Maybe I’ll just try it.”

Just to test the waters. Really.

No reason to turn down free money. If things looked sketchy, I could just bolt.

I scrolled down and found the most manageable-looking post.

[Yeoro Tea House] – Rank 7 Commission | Payment 5,000,000

Rank 7 was the lowest rank, right? Payment of 5,000,000 won. Beyond sweet. Downright mouth-watering.

I tapped the author’s ID and clicked the Send PM button.

The cursor blinked. What the hell was I supposed to write?

[Hello. My name is Ju Gi-baek, I’m 28 years old, and my Spirit Sight has just recently opened…….]

“No, no. This makes me sound like a total small fry.”

I hammered the backspace key.

It wasn’t like I was writing a cover letter.

This whole setup was basically like looking for a day-labor gig on Karrot Market. And I was about to apply for one sweet side hustle.

Did I really need to pour out my entire life story? It was an anonymous site anyway.

“Okay.”

Finally, I had my answer.

As aloof as possible. Acting like a pro.

[Inquiry.]

Done.

Concise, right? Absolutely reeking of cool.

The second I hit send, a reply came back, as if on cue.

Ding!

[From: Yeoro Tea House]

[Content: 152-1552 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. Myeongseok Building, 2nd floor.]

“……?”

Their reply was just an address and nothing else?

No “hello”. No “here’s the job”. Not even the bare minimum of an explanation.

It was so absurd I let out a dry laugh.

I even pulled it up on an internet map.

What came up in the street view was a commercial building. A gukbap joint on the first floor, and on the second floor…….

“It’s a pool hall?”

[Jackpot Billiards].

Even the sign was cheesy as hell.

Wasn’t it supposed to be Yeoro Tea House? Where was the tea house? Why was it a pool hall?

Had the tea house gone under and a pool hall taken its spot? Or was the sign just a front?

Doubts kept chaining one into the next.

Then another PM came in, late to the party.

Ding!

[From: Yeoro Tea House]

[Content: An Intermediary is waiting on site. Please go meet them. Payment will be delivered in cash by the Intermediary. Deadline is by 10 PM tonight.]

“…….”

I debated whether to go.

One look and it was obvious, wasn’t it? They were asking me to go beat up ghosts.

They weren’t about to hand me a rag and have me wipe down the pool cues. They weren’t going to fork over 5,000,000 won for a cleaning gig.

In that case, I’d better make at least some preparations.

What if I showed up empty-handed and got swarmed by those wrinkled bastards I saw at the convenience store?

“Should I make some Talismans or something?”

I scrambled back to the free board.

[Search: Talisman, how to make, materials.]

Thankfully there was a tip post for newbies. Not many, but one existed.

| Author: Old Man Who Carves Talismans |

[Title]

Newbies. Stop asking where to buy Talisman materials.

[Content]

You don’t get tired of asking the same damn thing every day? For all you Finger Princesses, your hyung is going to lay it out just this once.

1. Paper (Spirit-Yellow Paper)

There are knuckleheads asking if A4 paper works. If it were you, would you recognize a contract written on toilet paper?

Use Spirit-Yellow Paper, no exceptions. They sell it on online shopping sites too. If you’re in a rush, at least go to a stationery store and grab some hanji.

2. Ink (Mirror-Face Cinnabar)

A red ballpoint? A marker? Are you kidding me?

Get Mirror-Face Cinnabar powder and mix it with oil. That’s the proper way.

If you can’t afford it, supposedly you can use chicken blood, but where exactly are you getting chicken blood these days? Gonna ask the fried chicken joint for some?

As a last resort, at least head to an art supply store and buy some red Oriental-painting pigment. What matters is loading it with Spiritual Power.

3. Brush

Can you use a Daiso brush? Yeah, you can.

But if the bristles start falling out it’ll piss you off, so get something halfway decent.

4. How to Draw

Do you need to be good at drawing? We’re not prepping for art school entrance exams. What matters is momentum. You gather Spiritual Power at the tip of the brush and slash it out in one go.

If you hesitate halfway or go back to touch up a stroke, that Talisman is just a doodle. Rip it up.

3-line summary

Get Spirit-Yellow Paper, Mirror-Face Cinnabar (or pigment), and a brush.

Tip.

Load it with Spiritual Power and draw in one stroke. And don’t flinch. You flinch, and the Talisman flinches too.

“……A Daiso brush works?”

The barrier to entry was lower than I’d expected.

I checked the clock. 4 PM.

There was still plenty of time…