The rain in Gyeongju didn't fall; it seeped. It seeped into the cracked mortar of the stone walls and the weathered grey tiles of the ancient hanok houses that lined the narrow, winding alleys of the old district. Far from the neon-soaked clamor of the capital, this place felt like a city holding its breath, preserved in a layer of dust and damp earth.
Ji-yeol navigated the maze of high stone fences, his footsteps uneven. The sound of his right boot was a dull thud on the wet earth, while his left leg—now a heavy column of unfeeling porcelain—emitted a sharp, crystalline clack against the stones. To any passerby, he sounded like a broken clock.
He stopped at a crossroad where the scent of the "Smudge" grew thick. It was an area the locals avoided after sundown: a cluster of abandoned traditional houses where the wooden beams were rotting like ribs.
Here, the red threads weren't neat lines; they were tangled like cobwebs across the dark entryways.
Ji-yeol reached into his satchel and pulled out a small, handheld Spirit-Lantern. He didn't light a flame; instead, he fed it a small scrap of paper containing a "Secret of the Mundane"—a memory of a boring Tuesday he had harvested earlier. The lantern glowed with a sickly, flickering indigo light.
The light revealed the truth of the alley.
The walls weren't just stone. They were covered in thousands of tiny, postage-stamp-sized frames, each containing a flickering image of the people who had lived here during the Joseon era. They were "Flat" ancestors, forgotten by time, their ink fading into a grey wash.
But one frame was different.
In the center of a decaying gate, a single frame sat perfectly clean. It was empty of a person, but it was filled with the image of a Chessboard. The pieces were carved from bone, and one of them—the King—had a face that looked disturbingly like Ji-yeol's own.
"You're late, Scribe," a voice whispered from the darkness of the courtyard behind the gate. It wasn't a human voice; it was the sound of paper being torn.
Ji-yeol felt a cold sweat prickle his neck. He adjusted the weight of his suitcase, his fingers tightening around the handle. He knew the cost of entering this house. To step over the threshold of a "Staged Memory," he would have to pay.
He looked at the empty frame on the gate. He could smell it now—the scent of the courtyard beyond. It didn't smell like the old days. It smelled like fresh, wet paint and the sharp, ozone tang of a cosmic storm.
Ji-yeol took a breath, feeling the hollowness in his chest expand. He lifted his porcelain leg, the joint creaking with a sound like a breaking plate, and stepped into the dark.