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If you were to ask whether there were any shamans in Unified Korea, the answer would be no.

The Republic of Korea is a powerful country with the titles of a great and advanced nation.

Sure, there was the minor issue of evil spirits and ghosts running rampant in the northern regions occupied by a puppet group, but it was a nation with brilliant economic power and a strong military force.

On top of that, the cultural industry had succeeded remarkably, making its name known worldwide.

This meant that many people were also coming to visit Korea.

And among these tourists, there were quite a few shamans.

Shamans who had come to experience Korean culture and, like other tourists, found it intriguing.

They visited to practice necromancy or possession magic, or to create divine objects using materials from evil spirits or ghosts.

There were also priests who had learned divine arts sent by the Vatican to combat evil spirits.

And then there were those who had no choice but to come to Korea.

The largest group was undoubtedly the last one.

East Asia was filled with exciting topics for shamanistic research.

From China, which had long boasted of being the center of the world while building a brilliant civilization, to the Mongol Empire, known for its global notoriety as it destroyed and plundered everything in sight, and Japan, an insular island nation that gathered shamanistic practices during World War II; even Korea had managed to maintain its status among those great powers.

Moreover, the public safety was not bad, and the country was not impoverished.

So, those wandering the world in pursuit of enlightenment had no reason to shy away from East Asia.

Yet the problem was that while shamans might not be wary of East Asia, there were plenty of East Asian countries that were wary of shamans.

First off, there’s China.

A communist country where the atmosphere can change arbitrarily according to the government’s whims.

Plus, it committed the absurd act of utterly dismantling shamanism during the Cultural Revolution, and ever since, it has been making every effort to restore shamanism in any way possible.

Can a foreign shaman with no connections really enter such a country?

You can be sure that it wouldn’t end well.

They would come up with all sorts of excuses to detain the shaman and attempt to extract magic. If they couldn’t detain them, they would annoy them with offers of money, power, or women. This annoying behavior would probably continue until the shaman managed to escape China.

And it wasn’t just the government that posed a problem.

Historically, China has viewed shamans as harmful deceivers causing chaos in the country.

It was common to reject shamanism by referring to it as evil magic (邪術), and exploiting shamans without giving them proper recognition was totally normal. Despite enduring this persecution, the Cultural Revolution awaited them.

During that time, shamans in China were treated as relics of a bygone era and were thoroughly oppressed as superstitious charlatans. Many shamans disappeared from China in the process.

Some hid away in places where humans couldn’t set foot, some fled to other countries, and some even met their end.

The remnants of that time still linger in the minds of the older generation in China today.

Shamans are beings that must be suppressed.

Shamanism is something evil.

They must be avoided as if seeing something filthy, persecuted, and rejected at all costs.

Those who experienced the Cultural Revolution might outwardly show no reaction to the current Chinese government’s policy of promoting shamanism, but internally they would still view them with distrust and contempt.

Is a shaman really going to travel there in pursuit of enlightenment?

No matter how you think about it, there’s no way that would end well.

However, it’s not like hiding the fact that you’re a shaman would work either.

That was possible in the past, but present-day China made it impossible.

China is now equipped with surveillance devices densely installed in its cities and tourist spots, keeping the people under strict observation—including foreigners. Plus, in rural areas where surveillance devices are less prominent, the aging population would undoubtedly have a distrust toward shamans, immediately reporting anyone they saw.

Given these circumstances, going to China was not a favorable choice at all.

What about Mongolia?

The situation in Mongolia wasn’t much better.

China’s influence even reached Mongolia.

China was using Inner Mongolia to incorporate Mongolia into its own history, building legitimacy for itself as it prepared to consume Mongolia through war. And to smooth this process, they bribed the Mongolian upper class through various means to make them comply.

What this meant was…

Going to Mongolia would likely lead to experiencing similar issues to those faced in China.

The difference was that while citizens wouldn’t outright reject foreigners, that was about it.

Various power holders and people sent from China…

Countless annoyances would surely surround them.

Japan?

That goes without saying.

You couldn’t even set foot in Japan.

They used every possible method to prevent anyone from even stepping foot in the country.

What if someone managed to sneak in despite the surveillance?

In that case, they would identify the shaman using the surveillance devices scattered across Japan, suppress them with force, and either kill or expel them from the country.

Moreover, even if one were to thoroughly hide their identity as a shaman, the surveillance would continue.

Abrahamic religious followers are always under strict watch by the Japanese government, and even foreign nationals who have not mastered special abilities and stay in Japan for an extended time are treated similarly.

They insert foreign residents into police patrol routes to monitor them frequently and conduct intermittent checks. Plus, if any bizarre incidents occur that are hard to judge logically, foreigners would be the first suspects on the list.

Some might grumble that it was blatant foreign discrimination…

But it wasn’t.

If one had special abilities like martial arts, summoning, or magic, the level of surveillance would significantly drop.

Japan was simply just cautious of shamanism.

In fact, very obsessively so.

In such circumstances, if a shaman wanted to venture into East Asia, there was only one option.

Unified Korea.

Whether a shaman enters or not doesn’t matter; they rarely get bothered except when entrepreneurs occasionally reach out. Furthermore, there was a certain level of acceptance toward shamans. And with public safety on the rise, robbers and lunatics were not lurking around, and even if someone were to use their abilities to earn money, they wouldn’t be bothered by the mafia or gangsters.

Thus, foreign shamans were a rare sight in Unified Korea.

Moreover, since shamans often engage in strange behavior characteristic of capable individuals, even if they were rare, they left a strong impression on the people, making them relatively familiar.

This is why whenever Jinseong wandered about dressed oddly, people would understand it as just him being a shaman or engaging in unusual behavior.

However, the existence of foreign shamans in Korea and the idea of having incidents or accidents in Korea resolved by that foreign shaman were entirely different matters.

Foreigners.

On top of that, shamans whose thoughts were a complete mystery.

What would they trust to hand over?

In the government’s perspective, a “foreign shaman” was like a walking dice.

With a low roll, they’d cause an incident, while with a high roll, they’d bestow blessings upon people.

If the dice rolled a 1, they’d show up out of nowhere at a military base in Paju, claiming they wanted to summon evil spirits or ghosts.

If the dice rolled a 3, they’d visit an orphanage to bless the children.

If it rolled a 6, they might propose to remove the stakes embedded in the mountain ranges of Korea in exchange for access to the government’s shamanic records.

This was the nature of shamans—they were completely unpredictable and incomprehensible beings.

Therefore, from the government’s viewpoint, they couldn’t trust shamans.

It wasn’t that they didn’t believe in their abilities.

It’s that it was very hard to place trust in such erratic beings.

Given this situation, the government opted for alternatives instead of relying on foreign shamans.

They were working to create shamans themselves and planned to rely on folklorists and cultural anthropologists to handle matters until they appeared.

This wasn’t a bad strategy.

Records contained information about shamanism and its origins, and while they couldn’t provide a complete solution, they could certainly help them maneuver through the issues.

However, the government misjudged the challenge of artificially creating shamans, which was immensely difficult.

It was entirely reasonable.

Using shamanism wasn’t the hard part.

They simply needed to know the correct methods and be prepared to face the costs.

However, taking shamanism as a profession was a different story altogether.

It required being so accustomed to the costs that they could make extraordinary pain a part of their daily life.

It wasn’t just any pain.

The pain from each shamanic practice differs, and it can vary even with the same practice.

It’s a type of suffering that one could never get used to.

Should they endure such suffering for a lifetime while being exploited by the government?

Could this even be feasible?

Threats or brainwashing?

Impossible.

If that were possible, the northern regions wouldn’t have become a land of death.

Shamans are not beings that can be controlled by someone.

Promising them immense wealth and fame?

That wouldn’t work either.

If they desired wealth or fame, it would be smarter to study to become a judge, lawyer, or doctor, or to start a business.

If they had a talent for special abilities, they could simply pursue martial arts or magic.

Why would they necessarily want to take shamanism as a profession?

Thus, a government-led initiative to create shamans was a distant dream.

And expecting shamans to naturally emerge?

That was equally tough.

Even if one wanted to cultivate an interest in shamanism, there has to be something to pique that interest, right?

There would be no data on shamanism, no rituals to test, and even if one wanted to search, they wouldn’t be able to find anything.

Considering all this, could shamans really emerge?

Just like flower seeds dropping onto parched ground but unable to bloom, Korea had slipped into such a vicious cycle.

The environment as a magic desert prevents shamans from being born, and without shamans being born, the environment as a magic desert only worsens…

Yet amid this vicious cycle, a shaman miraculously appeared.

A native Korean, guaranteed by a chaebol, young, and possessing a handsome appearance that’s easy to present to the public.

Thus, the government could hardly help but feel a spark of hope.

A promising youth and a shining candidate for shamanism, Park Jinseong.

 

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