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“I understand. I will observe carefully as you, Deity, instructed.”

Rise replied to Jinseong’s words.

Her tone suggested that what Jinseong said was the truth and following it seemed only natural.

It resembled the loyalty a pet shows its master, the faith a believer sends to a prophet, or the trust a family extends to its head.

Perhaps it merely felt that way because Rise’s attitude was thoroughly obedient.

“Then I shall contact you again soon. You won’t have to wait long.”

With that, Jinseong ended the call.

He then sat at the landing, staring blankly into space, beginning to lose track of time.

His eyes held no focus, as if he were looking at the void, yet they moved slightly from side to side, up and down, as if witnessing something invisible squirming. He repeatedly tensed and relaxed his eyes as though trying to deliberately blur his focus and induce fatigue.

Once his eyes grew sufficiently tired, he began to manipulate the insects, changing the shape of the vitreous body in his eyes.

Not abrupt or extreme, but the movement was enough to create anomalies in the vitreous.

The insects he moved induced the perception of visual floaters.

To Jinseong’s eyes, it appeared as though mayflies swam aimlessly in the air, glimmering like sparks before vanishing in an instant, disorienting his vision. In their midst, long trails or shadows would weave in and out, evoking the illusion of a sizeable insect disturbing his sight, and even with his eyes closed, they lingered, muddling his senses.

Dizziness.

Shiny and dark figures danced, while mayflies fluttered about, stopping and then darting again, further disorienting him. The illusions from the anomalies in the vitreous began to misrepresent his vision, gradually affecting other senses.

He could almost hear the nonexistent sounds of insects buzzing around his ears.

Far-off sounds of a building’s boiler and water pipes, mixed with the noise of cars and people outside, transformed into what resembled the true sound of insects.

Humans tend to hear what they wish. The brain registered the dance of the visible insects as real, extracting sounds reminiscent of them from the various noises, feeding that into the brain.

Thus, the illusory insects became a tangible presence, buzzing around him.

Next came taste and smell.

The air tasted rancid in his mouth, and the same air felt strangely incongruous. This sense of incongruity further heightened his taste, prompting an awareness that, despite the familiar environment, the current situation felt abnormal.

Each taste bud sensed the air, and he could also recognize the smell of mold wafting through it, along with lingering scents. The aroma of dust piled in the landing, the metallic scent held by the handrail, and the distinct chemical taste from the freshly painted surface all jabbed at his tongue and nose, scrambling his senses. His heightened awareness suggested this was an environment suitable for insects to thrive.

Then came touch.

The hairs on his body stood on end as the air, which he had previously felt neutrally, brushed against his arms. It created the illusion that insects were crawling or brushing against him, irritating him, and he would repeatedly experience the sensation of something flicking at him, fading away before returning, evoking the idea that insects were buzzing around him.

As time passed, darkness cloaked the landing, and when the soft glow from outside through the window became his only reliance, his disturbed senses made him imagine he was standing naked in an insect’s den.

It was only then that Jinseong slowly rose from his seat on the landing, beginning to recite an incantation.

“———.”

However, the incantation sounded far closer to that of an insect than a human.

It echoed like the combined crickets’ chirps, mimicking the calls of cicadas, and resembling a cacophony made by a gathering of all sorts of bugs.

“——–.”

The more he recited the incantation, the more it transformed to sound like the creatures he was invoking.

Along with his voice becoming reminiscent of them, Jinseong’s form slowly began to alter.

His once erect posture hunched, akin to that of an old man, and a bulging lump protruded from his bent back as if he were carrying an egg. His hands started to be covered in a dark, sticky liquid.

Slosh.

The liquid wrapped around his hands, beginning to rise.

Like a brigade of caterpillars climbing a tree, it crawled up his arms toward his shoulders, meticulously covering every inch of his skin. Thus, his arms became encased in a black liquid.

As that liquid reached his shoulders, it erupted, spreading over his whole body.

It flowed towards his hunched back, surged over the bulging lump, and fanned out to his legs, neck, and face.

Yet, strangely, it stopped just beneath his chin.

That black liquid encasing Jinseong’s body began to harden.

It resembled asphalt solidifying, cracking as he moved slightly, reminiscent of parched land splitting in drought.

From the cracks, something slowly emerged, polishing the surface, and as the shine increased, Jinseong’s appearance started to resemble that of an abnormal creature draped in scales.

His body was covered in fish-like scales, and he had long claws reminiscent of a monster.

A creature that could easily belong in a B-grade horror movie.

“Kr-uh.”

As Jinseong’s body became enshrouded in scales, he manipulated his vocal cords to produce a sound.

From him came a harsh sound, akin to scraping metal, resembling the voice of an old man whose vocal cords had failed.

Jinseong realized his magic worked flawlessly and smiled with satisfaction.

“Wonderful, truly- wonderful.”

The magic he performed transformed his body by mimicking insects.

But the method he used differed slightly from before.

Previously, he had altered his form by imitating insects. Now he was embodying the symbol upon his body to enact the change.

Jinseong was now an entity closely resembling an insect, a host inhabited by insects, a collective of bugs, a person breathing in an insect den, and the mind controlling them.

A host and a leader.

A dwelling and a treasure.

Having enhanced the symbol through the rite of passage, Jinseong could now disguise himself far more efficiently than before.

And the finishing touch on this transformation was the mask that concealed his face.

Jinseong grasped the air and pulled gold from within his robes.

The molten gold trickled out from the cracks of his armor and flowed down his shoulders. It amassed, creeping up his neck to his head, swelling like dough to a baked state.

It then squirmed as if it were slime, losing its shape and pouring down like a liquid.

The transformed gold began to cover his face, moving and hardening to form a shape.

It somehow resembled an insect.

Not just any ordinary bug, but a grasshopper’s face, long considered a terrifying pest throughout history. The difference lay in the strange remnants of human features upon it and a scale pattern that oddly evoked a snake.

Upon the completion of the mask, Jinseong slowly raised his head.

Steadying himself with one hand on the handrail, he began to descend the stairs slowly.

The sight was ominous yet impossibly fitting.

After all, insects were known to be active during the night.

* * *

Disturbing the world and deceiving the people is called “Hokse-mumin.”

“Hok” is to cause doubt in the mind, leading to confusion of the spirit.

“Mu” refers to the act of a believer, in their ignorance, amusing those who are unwitting with their three-inch tongues.

 

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