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Warning.

The atmosphere turned cold due to those heavy words.

In the eerily quiet forest, I felt a gaze upon me, and it seemed as if something strange was emanating from the headless Ksitigarbha statue, and an odd expression lingered on Jinsung’s tightly sealed face.

The warrior felt the hairs on his arms stand up.

The cool wind sent chills down his spine, and it felt as if ice were pouring inside his clothing, despite it not even being winter.

Yet he didn’t show it and, putting on a facade of calmness, asked Jinsung.

“Really? Is that all?”

“Huh? Hahaha. Yes.”

Jinsung burst into laughter and got up from his seat.

Then, like someone stretching, he moved his body around and looked at the warrior with a cryptic smile.

“Yes, this is the end. But, you see, while it is the end, it’s not really the end.”

“What?”

“There’s something that people who experience the supernatural or enjoy superstitions know quite well. Do you know what it is?”

Jinsung gazed straight into the warrior’s eyes.

“Perception becomes reality.”

A smile spread across Jinsung’s face as he watched the warrior’s eyes waver.

“It’s just like a phone call. When someone dials, the one who answers can talk to the caller. Urban legends and superstitions work similarly. When someone hears a story, they become aware of it, and when the ‘opportunity’ arises, they can witness that supernatural phenomenon. Isn’t it fascinating?”

“What does that…”

“This might relate to the cognitive abilities humans possess. Like mistaking a crumpled plastic bag for a cat in the dead of night, misinterpreting the shadow of a tree as a robber, or seeing the swaying reeds as a ghost. Unconscious thoughts and beliefs can get projected through perception, potentially creating fear.”

Jinsung spoke in a calm, soft voice that the warrior found hard to understand. Then, seemingly satisfied, he turned his back on the warrior with a blurry smile.

“Well then, I’ll be off.”

And with that, the ‘college student having a spirit experience’ who had trespassed onto private property disappeared.

What remained were only two things.

A Ksitigarbha statue, reeking and headless.

And one warrior, unable to hide the uneasy expression stirred by Jinsung’s tale.

The warrior glanced at the Ksitigarbha statue.

“Ugh…”

He slowly inspected the statue from top to bottom, then bottom to top.

Always the same appearance of the statue.

A part of his daily scenery he had seen while patrolling.

Rubble sprawled across the ground or trees standing by the roadside, or streetlights—they were unremarkable sights that held no significant meaning in his life.

But to the warrior now, that statue felt unsettling.

Like coming across a roly-poly bug scuttling beneath a rock he had always casually passed, or discovering that a tree he often took shade under was, long ago, a chilling cherry tree where many had lost their heads.

Realizing an unwanted truth, everything suddenly felt completely different.

“Damn it! I should just punch it and throw it away!”

The warrior tore his gaze away from the Ksitigarbha statue, which felt as if it were looking back at him despite lacking a head, and turned back towards the training ground.

His mouth was full of curses, but his movements appeared bold and unfazed.

Yet, his footsteps were decidedly quicker than before.

It was as if the fear he felt was prodding him along.

* * *

Time passed, and darkness settled in the forest.

That darkness signified many things.

For beasts, it was time to roam and search for prey, while plants basking in sunlight prepared to droop and rest, and the warriors who had trained hard at the dojo sought honey-like slumber to ease their fatigue.

And for one warrior, who had to take the ‘watchman’s’ role on the mountain, it was a bothersome, frustrating time.

“Ah, damn it, damn it, damn it!”

A truly frightening time.

Even as he donned a large flashlight and a wooden sword, the warrior muttered curses under his breath.

His consciousness lingered within the darkened forest. No, to be precise, it was fixed on a certain statue deep within that dim forest.

“Damn, it’s scary.”

The warrior stared at the forest that looked exactly the same as ever but bore an ominous aura.

The shadowy forest seemed to open its lips like a mouth, beckoning him closer into the gloomy abyss, and holding the flashlight to step inside felt akin to foolishly inserting his own self into the yawning mouth of a monster.

Yokai.

It felt as if the very forest had become a yokai itself.

The warrior stared into the dark woods for a moment, then slapped his palms against his cheeks until they sounded loud. Using the fiery pain from the slap to muster his courage, he stepped forward, one foot, then two.

But courage was fleeting, like a fire that flares briefly before extinguishing.

The cold air of the night and the madness induced by the moon’s glow wrapped around him, chilling him to the bone and snuffing out the courage that had bloomed like a candle flame.

“Why is this so scary?”

Carefully walking, he recalled what the college student had said during their afternoon encounter.

“What’s perception? It becomes a phenomenon?”

Perception becomes reality.

The words he’d muttered with a meaningful smile came back to him.

Thinking it over, he murmured a famous Japanese proverb.

“I thought it was a ghost, but it was just dry reeds….”

A saying indicating that what one feared turned out to be meaningless.

The warrior muttered the saying, then closed his eyes for a moment. He recalled the familiar scenery of the forest, the seniors and junior sisters he’d lived alongside in the training ground, as well as his strict master, and the madness-like courage emphasized by Shiheng Style.

“I thought it was a ghost, but it was just dry reeds.”

He murmured the proverb once more, then opened his eyes.

At that moment, the ominous aura of the forest reverted to its previous atmosphere, and the shadow that appeared like a ghost’s arm transformed into mere dead branches.

The warrior’s piercing eyes penetrated the darkness, confirming that what had frightened him was merely items like mushrooms, branches, leaves, clustered dead leaves, and rocks.

“Heh, yeah. Perception did become a phenomenon.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at the foolish face of the college student who had tried to scare him by saying, “Perception becomes reality.” That laughter was a mockery of himself for being scared by a trivial urban legend and a celebration for shattering the college student’s nonsensical intent.

Fully reclaiming his courage, the warrior began to scour the mountain with his flashlight.

With keen eyes, he scanned for any signs of intruders, spreading his awareness to detect the presence of animals and humans, and whenever he spotted something suspicious, he would carefully shine the flashlight on it. He even plucked a few edible mushrooms to stash away in his pocket and poured himself a sip of the hidden alcohol he had kept stashed on his patrol route.

“Ahhh.”

He let out a small exclamation as the sweet potato soju flowed down his throat.

The somewhat high alcohol content warmed his esophagus and gave his stomach a nice, cozy feeling.

Feeling unsatisfied with just one sip, he lightly shook the bottle, his mouth watering at the sound of the leftover soju sloshing inside. Yet, fearing he might get caught if he drank more, he sealed it up and cleverly hid it among some rotten leaves.

Then, with lingering regret behind him, he continued his patrol.

“Ah, a Ksitigarbha statue.”

After walking for a bit, he came across a statue.

It was a Ksitigarbha statue with a red cloth draped over its head, looking like a hat.

The statue was situated in a spot where all the surrounding trees had been cut down, presenting a clean appearance without any sign of mold.

The warrior marched boldly towards the Ksitigarbha statue, opened the small wooden box behind it, and pulled out a broom made of twigs. Then, as always, he swept away the fallen leaves that had landed near the Ksitigarbha and returned the broom back into the wooden box.

He took out a clean cloth from the box and meticulously wiped the Ksitigarbha, checking to make sure its red cloth wasn’t unraveling.

“Phew, what a hassle.”

However, his face was filled with boredom and annoyance despite the seemingly meticulous task.

“Why do I only take care of this one? I could just leave it alone like the others.”

I don’t want to do it.

The warrior’s face quite clearly showed the depths of his inner feelings.

He didn’t want to do it; he truly didn’t want to do it, and he intensely wished he didn’t have to do it.

But he had to.

This was the only statue that Shiheng Style managed, and if the statue had leaves or dirt on it, he would receive all sorts of verbal abuse along with severe training.

With an expression of reluctance, but hands moving diligently and carefully, the warrior managed the Ksitigarbha well, locked the tools back into the box, and set off on the path again.

Perhaps due to completing the tiresome task, his stride felt a bit lighter, and a sense of relief could be seen on his face.

“I should probably check again when I come back.”

The warrior remembered when he had cleaned the statue for some unknown reason and found it dirty, leading to several stern reprimands: “You didn’t clean it properly,” “You neglected its care,” “You’re clearly out of your mind,” “Your training was insufficient,” and “Must be a mindless fool; it’s been a while since you need some mental conditioning!”

Since that incident, he’d always checked the statue once more on his way back.

There were three Ksitigarbha statues arranged in a triangle, so checking again was child’s play.

But….

“Which way should I go….”

The warrior stood at a fork in the path.

“I used to go to the headless statue first….”

Statues to manage.

The headless statue.

The statue with a staff.

Usually, the warrior would patrol in that order, and there hadn’t been much of a deviation from that routine.

But somehow, today felt oddly uncomfortable to follow that order.

“It’s that college student who intruded, talking about some spirit experience or whatever. Dammit.”

In the end, rather than going as usual to the headless statue, the warrior moved towards the one with a staff. After briefly checking the worn statue, he reluctantly made his way to the headless statue.

Fortunately, the distance between the statues wasn’t too far, and he quickly arrived, spotting the statue from afar using his enhanced vision.

“Well, nothing seems off. It’s just that bird droppings have accumulated a bit thicker, but otherwise, there are no damages, and it looks as filthy as always.”

The warrior distanced himself from the statue after performing a quick check due to the unease stirred by the urban legend.

However, as he walked away, something suddenly flickered in his mind.

“Wait a minute.”

He came to a halt and started looking around nervously.

“Wait, wait. I said there were no damages?”

The warrior recalled the sight of the statue he had just seen.

There were bird droppings piled up thickly.

Leaves littered the surroundings.

And.

There were no damages.

No body, no arms.

No head.

“This can’t be happening.”

Every hair on his body felt as if it was standing on end.

“I need to verify, I need to check.”

With a pale face, he turned back along the path he had come.

And then.

“This can’t be!”

He saw it.

The headless Ksitigarbha statue had sprouted a head.

A head of an indiscernible material, sprouting atop the broken white stone body.

 

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