25 – Jangsan Beom Hunting #1
“I have been investigating what was happening on Chilryong Mountain for a long time. Climbers are disappearing every year, and the police are investigating the mountain. “I searched, but couldn’t find a single person. That’s why I also investigated separately. As the manager of Seven Dragon Mountain, I felt some responsibility.”
As Nam Hong spoke, he held a rosary in his hand as if he was praying. At the same time he was constantly squinting towards the curtained window. It’s like being wary of other people outside eavesdropping.
“Then it was a year ago. While patrolling at night, I met a young man who appeared to be a hiker in the mountains. He was a young man climbing a mountain path in the middle of the night.”
“A hiker? Why was that person climbing the mountain?”
“I was curious too, so I asked, and the young man answered. I came here to see ghosts. I heard that there are many people who see ghosts on Chilryongsan Mountain… Well, that was the answer. Actually, a lot of people like that come to the mountain. People who want to see ghosts.”
I could roughly guess what kind of person the hiker was. Chilryongsan Mountain was also a famous place on the Internet for ghost sightings. It seems that he was probably someone who came to visit after hearing a rumor.
“I tried to send him back because it was dangerous. The young man just didn’t listen. Not only did he not listen, he suddenly ran up the mountain. I had no choice but to chase after him. But by the time I found him again, it was already too late. .”
Nam Hong tightly clutched the rosary in his hand. Nam Hong’s body, sitting in his chair, trembled slightly. He looked into his eyes and saw that he was trembling with fear.
“Well, it was a place far away from the hiking trail. I saw an unidentifiable monster between the trees. I think it was a beast covered in pure white fur. The tiger-like monster was eating the young man I saw earlier. “To chew and swallow even the bones… It was a terrible thing to see.”
“It’s a tiger with pure white fur.”
“Yes! But do you know what’s even weirder?”
Nam Hong took a deep breath for a moment.
After a long breath, Nam Hong opened his mouth again.
“I saw a person being eaten by a monster! But when I was watching it, I didn’t feel dangerous at all. As I was looking at the pure white fur, I felt like I was possessed. What I was seeing seemed like a natural scenery. I saw it…!”
“So what happened? Have you been seeing a monster that looks like a tiger?”
“After watching it, I returned to the management office without thinking. I really didn’t think anything of it. The next day, I prayed with the rosary as usual. That’s when I came to my senses! What I saw was truly a monster! Natural It wasn’t like a scenery. There’s no way it’s natural for people to be eaten by monsters.”
After that, Nam Hong said he realized what was happening on Chilryong Mountain.
There was a cause for the accident in which the hikers went missing.
A pure white tiger was preying on hikers.
“Have you ever reported it to the police?”
“If it was a report, of course I did. The police searched the mountain but couldn’t find the monster. There were no traces left, so I was the only one treated like a crazy person. The police asked me where there are wild tigers in the world these days.”
“I see.”
Nam Hong’s story has come to an end.
It seemed like enough clues had been gathered through her eyewitness account.
I spoke to Sarah who was next to her.
“Sera, what do you think after listening to the story?”
“I’m slowly getting the hang of it. It’s a tiger covered in pure white fur. It also has the ability to deceive those who witness it. There are many monsters that resemble a tiger, but there is one strong candidate.”
“I also thought about my identity…”
From noble mtl dot com
A body covered with pure white fur.
Appearance that is thought to be a tiger.
Above all, the ability to deceive Nam Hong, who was the only witness.
I told you the identity of the monster living in Chilryongsan Mountain.
“It must be Jangsanbeom.”
Jang Sanbeom.
It was the name of a monster that was floating around like a strange rumor on the Internet.
“I think so too.”
Sarah nodded her head.
A pure white tiger that deceives people by imitating all kinds of voices.
It was a monster called Jangsan Beom because it mainly appeared in the Jangsan area of Busan. However, the area where it mainly appears was around Jangsan Mountain, but it does not mean that it does not appear in other areas. There were ghost stories going around about white tigers being seen on Mt. Manwol in Gangwon-do or Mt. Jirisan in Gyeongsangnam-do.
However, Jangsan Beom was never a strange rumor.
I had clearly heard the story from his father. He said his father had personally hunted Jangsan Beom in the past. The location was Busan. In Busan, which can be said to be the source of the rumor, there was actually a Jangsanbeom.
Sera looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression.
“But Jinwoo, didn’t you say that your father hunted Jangsan Beom? But why is Jangsan Beom living here?”
“My father once hunted a Jangsan beetle. But he said it wasn’t over just because he killed one. The Jangsan beetle had the ability to reproduce.”
“Breeding…?”
“Yes. I don’t know specifically how they reproduce. But what is clear is that the Jangsan tiger can give birth to babies. There is not one Jangsan tiger, but many.”
━Jangsanbeom is not one, but many.
━The Jangsan criminal hiding somewhere may attack people again.
My father definitely told me something. Although he couldn’t remember much else, he remembered that part clearly. It certainly makes no sense to think of Jang San-beom as one person. It was not only found in Busan, but sightings were also heard in other regions.
Even in the Annals of King Yeongjo, a record from the distant past, there was a story about a sighting of a monster presumed to be Jangsan Beom. The location was Pyeongan-do, the northwestern part of the Korean Peninsula.
“Oh, it makes sense if it has the ability to reproduce!”
“So, they are troublesome people.”
It was when we were talking about Jang Sanbeom.
Namhong, who was sitting quietly listening to our conversation, opened his mouth.
“What the hell? What on earth are you guys talking about?”
“Jangsanbeom! Don’t you know Jangsanbeom?”
“Jang Sanbeom….”
Nam Hong made a puzzled expression when he heard the name of the monster.
“What is that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s the name of the pure white monster you saw. It’s called the Jangsan Beom because it usually appears in Jangsan Mountain. It’s quite famous on the Internet, but haven’t you heard of it?”
“I’m not very literate, so I don’t know much about the Internet.”
It turned out that this was Nam Hong’s first time hearing the name Jang Sanbeom.
Just looking at him, it was obvious that he was an elderly middle-aged man. The rumors about Jang San-beom were only famous on the Internet. There were many residents in Busan who had no idea about Jangsan Beom. Until now, Nam Hong did not even know the name of the pure white tiger he had seen.
“Actually, there is not just one pure white monster that you saw. A monster that can be said to be of the same species has also appeared in Busan.”
“Really? Is there anything else so terrible?”
“Yes. My father was the one who hunted the Jangsan tiger that appeared there. I also know how to hunt because I heard about it from my father.”
How to hunt Jangsan Beom.
I heard the story quite a long time ago, so my memory is vague.
But it didn’t matter because I made a note before I forgot.
I had a precious notebook containing all of my father’s stories.
“Look, the method for hunting Jangsanbeom is written here.”
I took out a thick hardcover notebook from my duffel bag.
Nam Hong stared intently at the note I was holding.
“…….”
After staring quietly for a moment, Nam Hong burst out laughing, as if he couldn’t believe my story.
“hahahaha…! There’s a way to hunt monsters? Does that make sense? How are you going to hunt a monster that even the police couldn’t catch?”
“You can hunt. All the records written here have been verified.”
“Then let’s listen! What on earth is a method?”
This was before I opened the note.
Before revealing the method, I decided to ask Namhong something important.
*
The original purpose of climbing Mt. Chilryong was to find our father.
I found an article saying that a spirit resembling my father was seen on Chilryongsan Mountain.
I didn’t know whether Nam Hong, who manages the mountain, might have seen Yeongga.
“Before I tell you how, I have something to ask you first.”
I asked Nam Hong about his father.
“Uncle Nam Hong, have you ever seen a man wearing a black jacket on Chilryong Mountain? I saw an article on a mystery site a while ago. They say there was a man who turned away a hiker who was trying to climb the mountain.”
“The man in the black jacket…?”
“It looks like this.”
I took out my cell phone and showed Nam Hong a photo of my father.
When Nam Hong looked at his father’s photo, he looked surprised for some reason.
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“No, I’ve seen this person before. I’ve been seeing him sometimes on the mountain at night for a few days now.”
He was told that he had seen his father. At that moment, even I, who had asked the question, was a little surprised.
It was not an ambiguous expression of seeing something that resembled my father.
I ended up getting the answer that they saw my father exactly as he was in the photo.
“Look, you saw it? Where did you see it?”
“You said you saw it on the mountain earlier. The places it appears are so diverse that I can’t tell you where it is.”
Nam Hong looked at me and continued speaking.
“I thought he was a hiker and tried to talk to him. But when I got closer, he disappeared. I had no idea what he was doing.”
“Anyway, I saw it recently.”
“That’s right.”
It was good news. Until now, we didn’t even know for sure whether my father’s spirit song was wandering around the world. There is a possibility that he attained Buddhahood without any attachment to the world. However, there was a witness here who said he saw his father intact. This means that Sarah and I’s search for seven years was not in vain.
Sarah smiled as she spoke to me.
“Jinwoo, does it seem like your father is really wandering around?”
“I’m sure. It was meaningful that we walked around to see ghosts together.”
There is a reason to search Mt. Chilryong.
However, in order to conduct a safe search, hunting Jangsanbeom was the priority.
“Let’s take a look at the notes first. I don’t want to get bitten to death by Jangsan Beom while looking for my father.”
I opened the note in my hand.
The notebook contained a record of Jang Sanbeom.
What I paid attention to was the characteristics of Jang Sanbeom.
[…] … It is a monster in the shape of a tiger. Those who die after being bitten by a tiger become ghosts and cannot go anywhere else, becoming the tiger’s slaves. Likewise, a monster called Jangsanbeom could perform similar tricks. Those who are bitten to death by the Jangsan Beom become ghosts and follow the Jangsan Beom like their master. And he will never attain Buddhahood until he finds another victim.]
Changgui.
Referred to ghosts who died after being bitten by a tiger.
Jangsanbeom was also a monster in the form of a tiger, so it seemed like it could control ghosts like slaves.
“What we saw last night were ghosts.”
“For some reason, they all looked terrible.”
Sera and I were attacked by spirits in the village last night. The spirits all looked miserable, as if they had been bitten by wild beasts. If you think about it again, the spirits that appeared in the village were ghosts that were bitten to death by the Jangsanbeom.
We continued to read my father’s records.
[After researching, I learned why Jang Sanbeom has magical abilities. His ability to imitate human voices and his transcendent physical abilities had separate sources of power.]
[They were window ghosts. Jang Sanbeom was gaining magical power from the ghosts he was using as slaves. Just as shamans gain strength by manipulating ghosts, Jang Sanbeom also gained strength from ghosts.]
[In fact, there were spear ghosts in Jangsanbeom’s jaw. Jang Sanbeom’s magical ability was a type of necromancy.]
The next part was important.
We couldn’t take our eyes off our open notebook even for a moment.
Because the note really wrote about how to hunt Jangsanbeom.
[If the source of power comes from the ghosts, then you can also know how to deal with Jang Sanbeom. It is a method of weakening Jangsanbeom by temporarily sealing the ghosts. In order to seal away the ghosts, I created a trap using a tiger gun in the Jangsanbeom habitat.]
Hosikchong (虎食塚).
The moment she saw that word, Sarah next to her made an interesting expression.
“Aha! Your father made a trap using a hosik gun?”
“Yes.”
“It’s actually possible! Hoshikchong is a spell that has been used since ancient times to ward off evil spirits.”
Hosikchong was a unique tomb where bodies eaten by tigers were buried.
The tomb itself was also a type of spell to ward off evil spirits.
In the distant past, people on the Korean peninsula sealed their ghosts by cremating and burying the bodies in hosikchong.
This means that if you use a hosik gun to set a trap, you can sufficiently tie up the ghosts.
The note contained the things needed to make a trap.
[The items used to make the trap are as follows. There are many stones, a holey skewer, an iron skewer, and a sour-smelling plum.]