Transferred to an SSS-rank Production Class

“The scarecrow at the edge of the Western Garden.”

Baek-a’s necklace was in a place we’d never even considered.

According to Sa Mok-yeong, if you follow this flower garden westward, you’ll reach the domain of one who calls himself ‘Yeomra’ and rules over the Western Garden. Apparently, one day a short scarecrow appeared on a hill at the edge of his territory.

‘And around its neck hung a blue jade necklace.’

It was clear that this scarecrow was a trace of Baek-a.

But not all questions were answered. Why had Baek-a come this far? And why couldn’t she return? The answers to these two most crucial questions were still elusive.

“I’m sorry, but could you fly a bit faster?”

The intelligent crane, which understood human speech, opened and closed its beak once in response. I gently stroked the crane’s feathers in gratitude for carrying me.

This crane was originally raised by the person who was the flower keeper. When we said we were going to Yeomra’s domain, Sa Mok-yeong willingly lent us the crane. She said that this snow-white crane, with a trace of spiritual beast blood, was larger than ordinary cranes and could perform a few tricks.

I looked back, concerned about increasing speed without consulting the others.

“Are you keeping up alright, Hunter Han Cha-hyun?”

“Don’t worry about me. Rather, Yun Su-ho…”

“I’m fine. More importantly, Yun Gaho.”

A sudden gust of wind blew away the loosely tied hair ribbon. Yun Su-ho, this is the real you. I irritably brushed back my disheveled hair.

“Would it kill you to be a little more careful?”

Yun Su-ho seemed to ignore my words completely, nonchalantly flapping his wings.

He’s such a stubborn fool. Just earlier, for instance. Sa Mok-yeong only had two cranes. I suggested that Han Cha-hyun and I could ride together, but Yun Su-ho insisted on using his own wings. And this was right after he’d just woken up, mind you.

‘After all my worry, he just had to be needlessly obstinate.’

I considered retying my hair but decided against it. The feeling of my hair fluttering in the wind wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“So. Why did you call me?”

“I sense something. Two of them, for now.”

Yun Su-ho stared intently at the horizon. I could still only see the undulating flower fields, but it seemed he had picked up on something. It meant we were nearing our destination.

“Let’s be careful. Both you and me. That Yeomra fellow doesn’t seem to be ordinary.”

The ruler of this Western Garden, Yeomra. Though we hadn’t met him yet, I believed he was connected to Baek-a’s disappearance.

‘And perhaps to the Three-Headed Nine-Tailed Fox as well.’

I had no concrete evidence. But the conversation I had with Sa Mok-yeong before leaving the thatched house kept nagging at me like a thorn.

◆◇◆◇◆

While waiting for Yun Su-ho to come to his senses, I asked Sa Mok-yeong a few more questions. Some were doubts stemming from what I’d heard from Sa Gam-yeong, while others arose after meeting Sa Mok-yeong herself.

“You told Sa Gam-yeong not to go west of Sohan, right? Can you tell me why?”

“Well, you see…”

From the very first casual question, I received a shocking answer.

“Do you know Arajin? From what I heard when I was in the palace, he was designated to be the Commander of the Royal Guards.”

I never expected to hear the name of Arajin, or rather the Three-Headed Nine-Tailed Fox, even here. They say there’s no lazy villain, but this was excessive.

“Yes, I know him. He’s now the Commander of the Royal Guards and serves as the king’s right-hand man. But wait, you were in the palace?”

“It wasn’t for long, but yes. I entered the palace by royal command.”

As I had suspected, Sa Mok-yeong, renowned for her medical skills, had indeed been summoned to the palace.

“I thought I would be looking after the youngest princess, but the one who was actually ill was…”

“The king, wasn’t it?”

“Oh my, you knew?”

“I saw it myself. The plague flowers blooming on that person’s face.”

The king gave the physicians he summoned three chances in total. The Three-Headed Nine-Tailed Fox revealed itself on the night before Sa Mok-yeong’s final examination.

Sa Mok-yeong, who had already treated numerous plague patients, had a vague idea of what was mediating the plague by that time. She intended to report this to the king during the examination the next day.

“That man came without a sound or presence. He said I had discovered too much and placed his hand on my forehead.”

When morning came and the sun rose, Sa Mok-yeong was expelled from the palace. Overnight, plague flowers had bloomed on her face.

Sa Mok-yeong was certain that Arajin was the cause.

“I know I shouldn’t make rash assumptions. But all the evidence pointed to one place. That Arajin, he must have joined hands with the yokai.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. When Arajin reached out his hand, I grabbed his wrist. But I couldn’t feel any pulse. He was either originally a yokai, or he had surrendered his body to one. It had to be one of the two.”

It was an astonishingly accurate guess. Moreover, Sa Mok-yeong knew facts that even we hadn’t discovered yet.

Everyone believed that the yokai had attacked On, led by the plague. But Sa Mok-yeong argued that the sequence was reversed. It wasn’t that the yokai were caused by the plague, but that the plague was caused by the yokai.

“Negative emotions are the medium for the plague. Since I realized that, I’ve been suspecting the yokai all along.”

“Is that even possible? Emotions spreading disease?”

“A physician should always question all possibilities. There are yokai that feed on emotions and souls, so why couldn’t there be such a disease? Don’t you think?”

She had a point. If we start arguing about common sense and logic, there’s no end to it in the World Tower, is there? Seeing that I quickly accepted her opinion, Sa Mok-yeong’s explanation gained momentum.

“The plague grows by feeding on negative emotions, and in the battlefield of disease, more negative emotions bloom. To the yokai, Sohan must have seemed like a cornucopia.”

“But… why didn’t you tell Sa Gam-yeong about this?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell my brother. If he found out I got sick because of Arajin, he would surely go after him…”

Sa Mok-yeong trailed off, but her meaning was clear enough. No matter how strong Sa Gam-yeong might be, he was still an ordinary human. If he angered Arajin and caught the plague, it would be disastrous, so she deliberately kept quiet.

I had only asked one question, but a flood of surprising information poured out. Yet this was just the tip of the iceberg.

“When my heart stopped, I thought everything was over. I didn’t realize that my ill-fated connection with Arajin wouldn’t be severed so easily.”

“What else happened with him?”

“When I was a soul butterfly, I mean, in the world of the living. At that time, Arajin caught me as I was flying to Cheonsan. Then he trapped me in a cage and handed me over to Yeomra.”

Only then did I realize that Sa Mok-yeong’s existence here was a contradiction.

Soul butterflies cross over to the Western Garden on the night of purification. Sa Mok-yeong, who had been dead for less than 10 years, should have rightfully been in Cheonsan, not here.

‘The Three-Headed Nine-Tailed Fox must have made a deal with Yeomra regarding Sa Mok-yeong.’

Perhaps the claim that she knew too much was just an excuse. It seemed more plausible that they had been waiting for an opportunity to kill Sa Mok-yeong.

“You said you were acting as the flower keeper’s proxy, right? What happened to the person who originally held that position?”

“From what I’ve heard, there was some friction with Yeomra. After he went into seclusion, no one could find him, so they had no choice but to bring me in.”

“That’s interesting. We have a flower keeper where we live too.”

Han Cha-hyun, who had been quietly listening to our exchange until now, spoke up. After explaining the role of the flower keeper in our country’s mythology, he naturally ended with a question.

“Does the flower keeper here do the same job?”

“It’s a bit different.”

The flower keeper of this floor was, so to speak, a servant for the soul butterflies. The keeper’s main duty was to diligently care for the flower garden where soul butterflies, having shed all their karma in Cheonsan, could rest comfortably.

“This place, with the Western Garden of Flowers, is the most comfortable land in the entire west. The eighteen thousand gods and spiritual beasts yielded this place so that the soul butterflies could rest at ease.”

“Then where did they go?”

“Beyond, to where the sun sets.”

It was unclear whether this was metaphorical or factual. I could only vaguely guess that the gods and spiritual beasts had departed for a very distant place.

As I mulled over everything I had heard, Sa Mok-yeong suddenly slumped her shoulders, looking dejected. Han Cha-hyun quickly checked on her condition.

“Have we been tiring you out?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… after tending to an empty flower garden every day, meeting you two after so long… I don’t know, I just feel strange.”

“Come to think of it, we haven’t seen any other butterflies besides you, Butterfly-nim, I mean, Mok-yeong-nim.”

Han Cha-hyun was right. This vast flower garden was all for the soul butterflies, yet why couldn’t we see a single butterfly? It was bizarre.

‘Surely the dead must have crossed over during the last purification month.’

“Yeomra took them all to his domain.”

Only the original flower keeper could fully care for this place. Yet when the keeper abandoned his work because of her, Yeomra took all the soul butterflies hostage.

Sa Mok-yeong, caught between the quarrels of those in high positions, sighed.

“Flowers and soul butterflies have a mutually beneficial relationship. I’m trying to care for the flowers with the knowledge I gained in the living world, but…”

To be honest, she said it wouldn’t be surprising if all the flowers withered by tomorrow morning.

Wait a minute. If all the flowers wither, wouldn’t that cause problems for the soul butterflies’ passage to the afterlife?

‘No way. Surely they can last a few days. …Still, I should keep it in mind, just in case.’

Despite my attempts to deny it, I couldn’t shake off an uneasy feeling.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Yun Gaho, enough with the distractions.”

I must have been deeply lost in my recollections. At the brusque comment, I jerked my head up to see that we had drawn close enough to the edge of the flower field for even me to see it.

As if announcing Yeomra’s domain, a tall vermilion gate stood at the point where the flower field ended.

We had finally reached the edge of the Western Garden of Flowers.