GRR 32

The office of Kwon Chasa, located in the underground of Yeomra Palace, was bustling for the first time in a while. Noksa¹ belonging to the court of the Ten Kings sat in a corner while reading scrolls.

Yegang Noksa, who had finished his review first, shook his head at Kwon Chasa, and Seongye Noksa, who had just put down the scroll, also shook his head. Kwon Chasa sighed.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. Among the deceased who stood trial in the past year, there is no Jo Yunkyung born in the 1970s.”

What is going on? Kwon Chasa ruminated on Yegang Noksa’s words. He simply could not understand the current situation.

‘I gathered only the souls who have been dead for about ninety days first. The rest are being distributed little by little to the other grim reapers, so don’t be too upset. Alright?’

Yeomra had clearly said so when handing over the mountain of the registers. She said she had selected only the deceased who had been dead for three months. Since it was already October, the register of Jo Yunkyung, who died in March of this year, should also have fallen into his hands.

However, Jo Yunkyung’s name was nowhere to be found. Not in the registers, nor on the list of those tried in the afterlife.

“Chasa-nim, perhaps… there might have been some kind of misunderstanding?”

It was a remark made by Yegang Noksa, who had been lost in thought for some time. After a brief silence, Kwon Chasa expressed his opinion by shaking his head.

The moment the soul separates from the body, the deceased loses all physical senses. The only things these spirits can perceive are fellow souls, namely, grim reapers, souls in similar circumstances, and humans heavily imbued with the energy of the underworld.

Since they were mother and daughter connected by blood, Park Seolhwa would have felt her mother’s energy even more acutely. In particular, if she felt a strange energy from the urn, it could only be interpreted as meaning that the owner of the urn had not yet departed for the underworld.

“Was there any incident between January and March of this year?”

He had always had little interaction with other grim reapers, but he had led an even more isolated life since being assigned to handle grave sinners. Naturally, he had no way of knowing what was happening at Yeomra Palace, and he often missed the incidents that became topics of conversation among the grim reapers.

Occurrences where the order of the human world is disrupted by the deceased remaining in the living world, leading to the death of the wrong person or a grim reaper mistakenly taking another person’s soul. In the underworld, such events were often referred to as ‘incidents.’ If Jo Yunkyung’s name was not in the registers he possessed, and if she was not among the deceased who had been tried in the underworld over the past year, there was only one possibility left to speculate on.

Jo Yunkyung had been caught up in an ‘incident’.

“Hmm… I’m not sure….”

Seongye Noksa rubbed his chin and mumbled in a low voice, and Yegang Noksa frowned. Kwon Chasa tapped the desk with his index finger, hoping that one of the two would speak up quickly.

“Ah!”

Not long after, Seongye Noksa clapped his hands and exclaimed.

“There was one. Yegang-nim, do you remember the deceased that Chasa No. 204 was originally supposed to bring. You know how the palace was turned upside down back then.”

At the sound of his agitated voice, Kwon Chasa’s gaze fixed on Seongye Noksa’s face. As if remembering only then, Yegang Noksa let out a low groan.

“Ah… but wasn’t that resolved? They agreed to destroy the register, and Sobyeolwang promised to save the other living… Ah…?”

At the mention of “Sobyeolwang” by Yegang Noksa, Kwon Chasa immediately frowned. Sobyeolwang, the second child of the Jade Emperor and the one in charge of the human world, was sometimes clumsy, leaving his work unfinished. Seongye Noksa sighed, then looked at Kwon Chasa and continued explaining in a gentle voice.

“There was indeed an incident around the time you mentioned. As far as I know, a person who should have died at that time was saved by someone. I heard that the living person who helped them ended up in a coma.”

Then the living person who was unconscious must be Jo Yunkyung. Kwon Chasa weighed the words of the two noksas as he sorted out the situation.

Jo Yunkyung was not originally destined to die. He did not know why the order of the living world became twisted, but the one who should have died lived, and Jo Yunkyung died after being left in an unconscious state due to Sobyeolwang’s negligence. Naturally, the underworld must have assumed that Jo Yunkyung was still living out her natural lifespan.

As a result, Jo Yunkyung ended up wandering around the living world, unable to do anything.

“Ah! Could that living person from back then be the Jo Yunkyung you mentioned…?”

Seongye Noksa, with a pale face, looked at Kwon Chasa and asked. When he nodded, the two noksa’s mouths gaped in shock.

The human who should have died had their lifespan extended because their register was discarded, and since it was agreed to spare Jo Yunkyung, there was no need to create her register in the underworld. But Sobyeolwang forgot about this and neglected Jo Yunkyung.

“How-how could something like that…”

“That is why she was bound to be omitted. Jo Yunkyung has already turned to ashes and has no body to return to. We must bring her to the underworld as soon as possible and reincarnate her.”

He knew that being dispatched meant cleaning up after the mistakes or wrongdoings of other grim reapers, but this was far more serious than he had anticipated. While it was said that those who committed unforgivable sins in their past lives become grim reapers to be punished, he could not understand why he had to clean up after the incompetent Sobyeolwang as well. Kwon Chasa massaged his throbbing temples and sighed.

He had told Yeomra that he had no interest in wishes, but at this point, his thoughts were starting to drift in a different direction. It might be better to at least make a demand that they stop exploiting his high level labor for this kind of nonsense.

While the two noksa paced anxiously, not knowing what to do, Kwon Chasa took rice paper and a brush from a drawer and began writing. He wrote down what he knew of Jo Yunkyung, as told by Park Seolhwa, and handed it to them. The priority right now was to quickly create Jo Yunkyung’s register. This was because the absence of a register was tantamount to the person not being dead, making it impossible for the grim reaper to track the soul’s movements.

“I will report to Yeomra. When will the register be completed?”

“Um… I think it might take three days…”

The register contains everything from the deceased’s name and date of birth to the life they lived as human beings. The noksa were the very officials who compiled that register. Since the register contained only objective information and served as crucial evidence when the deceased stood trial in the afterlife, it could not be handled carelessly.

This was because the Ten Kings of the underworld determined the fate of the deceased based on the tilt when hung on the Mirror of Karma, the reflection in the mirror, and the contents written in the register.

Kwon Chasa wanted to threaten them to bring it immediately, but knowing it was not their fault, he simply waved his hand and dismissed them. After all, the fate of having to clean up the mess was the same for both him and the noksa.

“We will inform you as soon as it is completed.”

“All right.”

The two noksa bowed and hurriedly left Kwon Chasa’s office. Kwon Chasa let out a long, hollow sigh, and tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling. It was to try and calm his anger, even just a little.

It might have been better to just threaten Park Seolhwa and bring her to the underworld quickly.

He thought he might have stepped back unnecessarily, but at least because of that, he had learned that the incident had not been resolved and had been left unattended. If an omitted soul continued to linger in the human world and caused another incident, it might become truly irreversible.

Should he report to Yeomra first and then descend to the living world to meet Park Seolhwa again? Or would it be better to meet the student first and tell him it would take some time? As Kwon Chasa weighed the priorities in his head, he found himself chuckling. It was because he recalled the sudden rumbling sound of Jion’s stomach echoing through the spacious living room.

Jion was a person who simply could not hide anything. From the look on his face that clearly showed his annoyance, to the way he gasped for breath, exhausted from running, to the sound of his stomach growling, revealing his hunger.

It was impossible to tell whether all humans were inherently like that, or if Jion was just an exception. For Kwon Chasa as well, it had been such a long time since he had lived as a human that he had little basis to draw any conclusions.

‘I will definitely listen to you. I promise.’

‘But if I grant your request, you have to follow the grim reaper too.’

Since he did not bother to cut off the thought once it had arisen, even what Jion had said lingered in his mind. What is he relying on to be always so confident…? As he recalled Jion boldly reaching out his hand to Park Seolhwa, Kwon Chasa stood up.

1. High-ranking administrative officer who manages the records of the dead. ↩︎