Prologue (1) — The Unlicensed Guide

"Good morning, Director."

"Morning."

Ji-won replied mechanically without so much as a glance toward the information desk — until a strange, foreign energy brushed against the back of his head like a hand snatching at it, and he slowly turned around. He hoped he was overreacting. He hoped in vain. The moment an unfamiliar man who had been clinging to Soo-bin, who stood there wearing a smile as warm as a painting, met Ji-won's eyes, he averted his gaze and began slinking backward, step by step.

Well, that's a lovely way to start the morning. Hah, no wonder my dreams were so restless. What a nuisance. Maybe I could just pretend I didn't see anything. Frowning, Ji-won weighed his options for a moment, then let out a short sigh as he watched Soo-bin anxiously reading his expression. He had never once bothered to study her face before, but today, of all days, the traces of sleepless nights that her makeup couldn't quite conceal stood out with painful clarity.

"Ms. Kim Soo-bin."

"Yes, Director."

"Let's have a word in my office."

"Pardon? Oh… yes, of course."

Startled, Soo-bin scrambled to her feet and trailed after Ji-won's brisk stride. Her heart lurched at her employer's sudden behavior — he was never one for small talk — but it wasn't her place to demand explanations, either.

Why is he in such a foul mood today? Well, he's never exactly been the smiling, personable type… did I make some kind of mistake? Gah. He wouldn't be firing me, would he? No, no. I haven't done anything bad enough to warrant dismissal, and no one gets let go like this in this day and age. Still, just in case… would I be eligible for unemployment benefits?

"Director, you're in early today. Oh? Ms. Soo-bin…"

The secretary, who had greeted them warmly, couldn't hide her bewilderment at the sight of Soo-bin shuffling along behind Ji-won. All communications were supposed to go through her; Ji-won summoning an employee to his office himself was unprecedented. What's going on? Did she do something wrong?No idea. At the secretary's worried glance, Soo-bin gave a small shake of her head and stepped into the director's office with the heaviest footsteps of her life.

"Ms. Kim Soo-bin."

"Yes, Director."

"First, let me make one thing perfectly clear: everything I'm about to say comes with no ulterior motive whatsoever. Not even the smallest scrap of one. I am absolutely not making a pass at you."

"Oh… yes, sir."

Soo-bin strained to keep the displeasure off her face and answered with as much courtesy as she could muster. Well, at least he's not firing me on the spot…. Honestly, you don't need to build a fortress against an attack no one's making. Relax. I don't even like you. The memory of her first day on the job — the fleeting flutter of her heart when she'd received his soulless welcome in this very office — made her cringe all over again.

To be fair, a man named Cha Ji-won did possess plenty of qualities that worked on other people as charms. A refined, delicate face. Impressive height. Even his proportions were model-tier, and befitting the owner of a fashionable gallery, he dressed impeccably. She'd personally counted seven different cars that changed with his daily moods, and according to a curator with a passion for automobiles, the combined sticker price came to precisely four billion won.

But what good did any of that do him? The man is so high and mighty he can't spare a single glance at a person's face when saying hello. How positively noble of him.

"Did you, by any chance, have a boyfriend who passed away recently?"

Soo-bin, who had been quietly snarking to herself with her gaze lowered, jerked her head up, startled clean out of her skin by a question that belonged to no reality she recognized.

"How… how did you know that, Director?"

"An explanation would take a while, so I'll cut straight to the point. Were you close? Close enough that you wanted to follow him?"

Follow him?Follow him where? Soo-bin blinked blankly for a long moment before the meaning landed, and she shot upright, waving her hands in frantic denial.

"No! It was sad and painful for a long time, but… I have my own life… my family, too…. I never once thought about… about dying with him."

"I see."

Ji-won answered indifferently, drew out a single sheet of A4 paper, and began to sketch something with swift strokes. Soo-bin stared dumbly at his moving hand, soul half departed — and then, upon seeing the drawing he'd completed in barely thirty seconds, her mouth fell open of its own accord. The portrait, rendered with such precision it was hard to believe it was a casual ballpoint sketch, was identical to the face in her memory. To a chilling degree.

"Is this the man?"

"Yes."

"He's been appearing in your dreams lately, hasn't he?"

"…Yes."

"He's been asking you to go somewhere with him, hasn't he?"

"…!"

Unable to bring herself to answer the last question, Soo-bin's lips trembled. Her lover — whom she'd been struggling so hard to put out of her mind — kept showing up in her dreams, and it had wrecked her sleep for days. A year had already passed since the horrific accident, and she had only just begun to feel halfway okay. Waking each morning, the fresh wave of longing was exhausting, and she'd felt guilty for gradually forgetting him.

But every ounce of that tenderness evaporated in an instant. He kept begging me to go see the East Sea with him…. And that was him asking me to walk the road to the afterlife together?! You — how could you do this to me?

"Would you like it if he never appeared again?"

Utterly ashen, Soo-bin nodded, shaking like a leaf, and Ji-won drew a lighter from his pocket and burned his own drawing to a clean ash. He watched it smolder until nothing remained, then spoke in a flat voice.

"He won't bother you anymore."

"R-really?"

"Presumably. And since I'm not normally in the business of meddling, I'll only add this because you seem unusually susceptible to suggestion. Remember it. If a dead person ever appears in your dreams again and tries to get you onto a bus or a train — never, ever climb aboard willingly."

"…W-why not?"

"Because that's a funeral bier. Their own."

At Ji-won's curt reply, a chill crawled over Soo-bin from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Just this morning, before dawn, she had followed him all the way to the train station while he went on and on about the East Sea. She'd been about to board the train when her brother woke her, asking to borrow a charging cable. She'd raged the entire commute — not only had he ruined a working woman's precious morning sleep, he'd had the audacity to kick her awake with his foot — but now…

Even as he watched Soo-bin turn pale enough to faint on the spot, Ji-won's expression didn't change by a hair. He gave a small nod toward the door. Business concluded; kindly see yourself out.

"Excuse me, Director."

Ji-won, who had already pulled out his phone to check the stock prices, glanced up. The irritation in his eyes was unmistakable, and it made her flinch — but she simply couldn't leave without asking.

"If… just hypothetically. If I had wanted to die and follow that man…. Would you have left me alone today?"

Ji-won considered the question for a moment, then nodded slowly. If she hadn't been someone he had to see every day — if the hassle of hiring a replacement hadn't fallen on him — he would never have bothered summoning her to ask in the first place.

"I would have. It's not my place to interfere with your life, Ms. Kim."

Having finished signing a few documents awaiting his approval, Ji-won lazily rolled his neck and checked the time. Eleven already. His body felt heavy from exerting himself so early in the morning — maybe he'd just call it a day. He'd decided to hit the sauna at his hotel and sweat it all out, and was just rising from his chair when a soft chime sounded and the intercom light blinked on.

"Yes?"

Ji-won's eyes widened slightly at the unexpected request. Zenith Company? Isn't that a cosmetics firm? Why on earth would a conglomerate like that want me? And their head of security, no less. If it were marketing or the cultural affairs division, maybe. But security…. A premonition whispered that this was about to become a massive headache — but he couldn't exactly turn a Zenith employee away at the door, either. Tsk. Why is today's luck so rotten? Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Ji-won gave a grudging reply.

"Show him in."

[Understood, Director.]

A moment later came a respectful knock, and a man in his fifties with a dignified bearing opened the door wearing a smile that reached from ear to ear. His face was all gentle warmth, but the gaze that swept over Ji-won in a lightning-fast appraisal was anything but. Ji-won realized he'd just been assessed — measured and weighed — and his mood soured instantly. The hand that gestured him to a seat was, accordingly, not particularly gracious.

"Good morning, Director. I'm Kwon Hyun-ho, Head of Security at Zenith Company. My sincerest apologies for descending on you without an appointment."

"I'm Cha Ji-won. Now — what business could Zenith's Head of Security possibly have with me?"

"Quite right — neither of us has time to spare, so I'll dispense with the pleasantries. Director, are you familiar with a Mr. Park Jae-kwon?"

Park Jae-kwon? Ji-won searched his memory for a beat, then shook his head firmly.

"No. That name means nothing to me."

"Ah, you may not know him by name, then. I'll need to be more specific. Do you recall the young man in his mid-twenties whom you personally escorted to Jungcheon this morning at 9:37? The deceased who, while alive, was in a relationship with one of your employees here — and who, I'm told, made direct eye contact with you mere moments before his forced escort?"

…What? Ji-won's mind went blank; while he stood groping for a response, the man carried on reciting ever stranger things as if they were perfectly ordinary. Foreign terms kept cropping up, but it was the fact that he could roughly grasp the meaning that made it all the more absurd.

"We've identified a few more incidents in our records of unofficial escorts that match your pattern, Director. One in Sokcho twenty-two years ago, one each in New York and London, and as recently as two years ago, a woman in her forties near your own residence — escorted to Jungcheon as well. Am I correct?"

Ji-won, listening in silence, arched an eyebrow. The timing does roughly line up with when I cleared out those spirits… but Jungcheon is an actual, physical place? No — wait. That's not the point. Why is Zenith's Head of Security talking like some back-alley shaman? And near my residence. How do you people know where I live? You dig through my private records without permission and then stand there acting righteous about it? As the initial shock of the ambush settled, indignation came flooding up in its place.

"And how exactly is any of that a problem?"

Despite Ji-won's frosty face and pointed challenge, the security chief's expression remained as benevolent as when he'd walked in. It was the practiced smile of a man long accustomed to this kind of pushback.

"Of course you couldn't have known — but we live in an era where human rights are fiercely emphasized, even for the dead. Unless the situation absolutely demands an immediate judgment, every deceased soul must first be informed of protocol, then guided to Jungcheon using the most nonviolent means available. When procedure isn't followed properly, resistance tends to erupt."

"Resistance… from the deceased?"

"Yes. They inflict physical harm on the living. They run. As I'm sure you can appreciate, society has grown so complicated that once one of them decides to hide in earnest, tracking them down is no small feat. Mr. Park Jae-kwon, whom you saw this morning, was one such soul — signs of corruption had been detected, and our Guides had been searching for him with special care. I'm late in saying this, but thank you deeply for your assistance in his capture."

"Guides, you say?"

"The term for those in the mortal realm whose role is to hand the deceased over to Jungcheon. In Eastern tradition they were commonly called psychopomps or death-bringers; in the West, the Grim Reaper. These days we simply call them Guides, for ease of communication. It's a global society, after all."

The security chief's breezy explanation made Ji-won's head ache; he pressed his fingers hard into his temples. So. In modern society, even a ghost's human rights are respected and everything must be handled by the book — and I ignored all of it and played freelance death-bringer. And apparently that offense is serious enough to warrant ransacking my personal history and chasing me down at a dead sprint.

"Then let me ask you plainly. What is the precise purpose of this visit?"

"I'm afraid it's a bit of a bother, but you'll need to come with me to Jungcheon for a short while. The Representative wishes to see you."

"The Representative?"

"Yes. The master of Jungcheon — and the Representative of Zenith Company, of course."

"And why exactly should I follow your Representative's orders? If they want something from me, they can come here themselves."

For the first time, the security chief's ever-smiling mouth flattened slightly at Ji-won's acid reply.

"The Representative is the one being in all the mortal realm with the authority to judge everything in it. I say this in complete sincerity and good faith: it is in every way preferable that you walk there on your own two feet, rather than wait here for the Representative to come to you."