101 – Independence Is Coming
Ella’s teacher, Agnes A. Reich, arrived at the hotel within a few hours.
When Lee Se-rin said that she seemed to have come with her own ability, Jin-seong took her sister and came out to the hotel as she noticed.
Se-Rin Lee and A-Rin Lee seemed to want to say hello to Ella’s teacher, but if they did it now, would the person who is struggling to hold on to her spirit because of what happened to Ella get a proper greeting?
Jin-sung persuaded her sister that if she returned after doing her ritual, she would be able to have a proper conversation only then, so she should let the three of them spend time together for now.
So, Jin-seong led Se-rin Lee and Ah-rin Lee to the remote area.
Ingredients were shoveled into a borrowed truck, and in the case of items that should not be damaged, it could be solved by storing them in a box enchanted with cooling. However, the temperature in Russia was too cold for the goats and capybaras to be put in the back compartment, and they risked freezing to death if they made a mistake.
Because of that, the capybara and the goat had to be ridden by the sisters hugging one each.
“Kyaa, kyaak! Stay still, stay still!”
“Oops! It’s like a stiff hair ball that’s sh*tting!”
Thanks to this, the capybara and the goat escaped from the danger of death thanks to their body temperature, but Lee Se-rin and Lee Ar-in suffered instead. The goat in Se-Rin’s arms twisted her body over and over again as if he wanted to get out of her and run through the wide snow field, and the Capybara in A-Rin’s arms was quite calm, but ceaselessly peed and pooped on her clothes. Edda was fighting. In addition, when this ‘stiff hair ball that poops’ starts to poop, the goat pees as if it can’t lose, so it’s literally like a big deal.
At least, Jinseong, who expected this to happen, was equipped with a cleaning artifact, so he was able to prevent the inside of the truck from being covered with dirt. The cleaning artifact not only completely erased the feces and urine on the floor, but also made the clothes that were first hit with animal filth clean and dry, as if they had been in and out of the laundry.
There was no problem with the dirty body, as it was only necessary to wash it using a cleaning artifact made for the purpose of maintaining cleanliness during the trip.
But it’s really strange how people feel.
No matter how clean and new it is, it is instinct to be reluctant if the word ‘used’ or ‘refurbished’ is attached.
No matter how clean your clothes and body are, the fact that you’ve been urinated on doesn’t go away, so of course there’s no choice but to build up bad feelings.
“Brother! How far is it until we reach our destination?!”
“Uh, come on! Come on, sorcery!”
Shortly after we set off, ‘Even the capybara is unexpectedly cute…’ . It’s a bit pitiful to offer it as a sacrifice’, ‘The goat is so cute, can I do it with something else?’ The cruel words of ‘Let’s kill this evil beast and sacrifice it’ flowed naturally from her sister’s mouth.
“Oops! Why are you trying to bite my hand!”
“Kyaaagh! Why are you eating my clothes! Oh, no! You don’t have to tell me about the behavior of goats!”
A goat gnaws at the hem of Isaline’s skirt and turns it into rags, and a capybara gnaws at Iarin’s finger to sharpen her growing teeth. It didn’t stop there, and while Lee Se-rin was careless, her goat escaped and tried to move behind Se-rin, but pooped on her head.
It was literally a nightmare for the sisters to be with these out-of-control animals.
But nightmares are nightmares because they don’t end the way you want them to.
Her sisters listened to nonchalant replies such as ‘It won’t be long’, ‘We’re almost there’, ‘I’ll enjoy the scenery outside’, etc.I had to spend time with the animals.
In the end, I was able to get into the car when the sun rose and arrive at my destination only after the sun had completely set.
“Uh…Long?”
As Lee Serene got out of the truck and saw the scenery, she marveled.
“Wow, the scenery is truly amazing. Wouldn’t it be strange if a ghost appeared? Long rain, this is not your destination right now, huh? Say no.”
Following this, Irene admired.
However, the admiration of the two was never positive admiration.
It was an admiration that would come out when seeing something terrible and fearful, different from the general admiration at seeing a superb view.
What they saw in their eyes was an abandoned amusement park.
First of all, near the entrance, there were full of unknown grass and trees. What appeared to be vines were tightly surrounding the densely grown trees and withering them away, and the roof made in that way wrapped up the road to the amusement park with a black curtain of darkness. Even if I turned on the flashlight, I wondered if the light would be eaten by the darkness.
Besides, I could see the entrance in the distance, but that entrance was also unusual. There was even a ghost standing at the front door, which was firmly closed with a thick chain and padlock. The rust on the metal looked like dried bloodstains, and the graffiti that someone had painted as a joke seemed to be screaming with all their might, ‘This place is dangerous’.
And beyond the entrance, I saw a huge ride, only the ones that were so precarious that I wondered if they would lose their balance and collapse at any moment.
“This is right.”
However, Jinseong did not blink an eye.
Instead, she just looked at her sister as if there was something wrong.
“The most important thing in holding a ceremony is the shamanistic meaning. Of course, a place with history, legend, and tradition would be the best. It is a prejudice that only such a place can properly use magic.”
Everything changes with time.
The same goes for witchcraft rituals.
A long time ago.
Around the time when mankind just started to create civilization, they must have performed magic in a place that looked magical.
It is on top of a mountain that creates a white sea-like scenery thanks to cloud and mist all year round, a lake where lightning strikes constantly, a cave whose walls are glistening with sunlight at a certain time, and a person floating instead of sinking even when lying down. Lakes, seas that are so clear that you can see the bottom, but the depth is several tens of meters.
A place where incomprehensible natural phenomena are accompanied.
A masterpiece created by nature that naturally awes.
A mysterious place that cannot be understood no matter how much you explore it.
Such places were the main places of witchcraft ceremonies.
However, as time passed, man conquered nature, and he destroyed and possessed such awe as he deserved to conquer. And in the process, the place where witchcraft rituals were held also changed, and that was the altar.
The shape of this altar differs depending on the era and region.
In some areas, countless steps were built by cutting stones to create structures as high as tens of meters, and in some areas, it is in the form of a tower as tall as piercing the sky, filled with sculptures and murals related to mythology. In some regions, numerous skulls were piled up like towers, and in some regions, square pyramid-shaped altars were made with mud bricks made by putting human skulls in well-kneaded mud.
“I was a little worried before coming, but seeing it in person, it’s not bad. No, it’s rather great.”
Man fears, respects, fears, and longs for heights.
So thatPeople have believed that there is a gigantic being beyond the sky that they cannot understand, and prefer to send it flying toward the sky when praying for something.
It has been believed that when the smoke from burning sacrifices rises to the sky, it reaches the gods above, and when the traces disappear after being burned, it is believed that the gods took offerings through fire. A loud sound is a medium that stimulates people’s emotions and allows them to communicate with the gods over there, and at the same time, it was a human struggle to make it possible for the gods far away to hear them.
And as time went on, man’s obsession with the sky grew.
Altars were elevated to bring one closer to the deity.
The sound to reach the god was elaborately refined and shaped.
Raising the spirit to communicate with God became their only goal.
It wasn’t until humans finally flew in the sky that this obsession with the sky was broken…
Even so, the symbol does not disappear.
High places are close to the sky.
The closer to the sky, the greater the effect of the burnt offering.
And here, there are tall artifacts created by humans.
“That ferris wheel is the place for your ceremony.”
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Jinseong looked at Lee Se-rin and said so.
“Hey, are you there?”
At the place where Jinseong’s finger pointed, there was a lump of junk that would not be strange even if it was broken and rolled down immediately. Even at first glance, it seemed like decades had passed since it hadn’t worked, and even if it worked, scrap metal that we had to worry about would explode because something went wrong.
“Hick.”
Se-rin’s complexion turned pale.
“Don’t worry. You don’t have to go up there.”
Jinseong patted her on the shoulder as if to reassure her, then took the goat out of her car and held it in her arms. Her goat tried to escape crying in her arms when Lee Se-Rin, who had been holding him all the time, was held back in her arms, but Jin-seong put her hand on her head, and her eyes fell through her eyes. I wrapped it up and left her body to her.
As the goat in her arms fell asleep, Celine looked at her goat in vain. And Lee A-rin, who was standing next to her, also looked at Jin-seong resentfully.
With a question about why she didn’t sleep like this when she was in the car.
“If you fall asleep for a long time, the value of the sacrifice decreases and it deteriorates. Sleep has been considered close to death since ancient times, and if you sleep for a long time, the symbol related to life will fall.”
In ancient Greece, Hypnos (Ὕπνος), the god of sleep, was considered the twin brother of Thanatos (Θανατος, the god of death). It was because people who saw people die as if they were falling asleep regarded death as ‘eternal sleep’.
And not just in ancient Greece, but in other cultures as well.
There are places where sleep is considered to be the rest of the soul, and in a folktale of a country, it is described that a person’s soul takes the form of an animal and wanders outside and returns. And if the soul gets lost or does not return in time, it is believed that it will die as it is, which also indicates a close relationship between death and sleep.
“Of course, there wouldn’t have been a big difference unless they were left to sleep for an incredibly long time, but wouldn’t it be nice to receive it with the highest efficiency?”
Jinseong explained to the two and took out a sack from the truck.
The inside of the sack was full of white salt that had been exposed to the sun.
As Jinseong grabbed the air, the salt floated in the air as if against gravity, and began to circle around Lee Se-rin and Lee Arin like the rings of Saturn.
“This salt will ward off injustice.”
After saying that, Jinseong led the two of them to the amusement park.