Sukju was a simple creature.

  It (He? She? They?) would run in a circle on command and could spell out basic words.

  Past that?

  Useless.

  Add the fact that it wanted to leap on me at every opportunity it got, and I felt I was in a worse situation I had been in before I prayed. At least I could command the cockroach to ‘stay’.

  I squinted at the creature. “Do you know The Tale of Chunhyang?”

  “How does it end?”

  Great.

  “And the magistrate?”

  Did it not understand the word ‘magistrate’?

  “The… bad guy?”

  “What kind of punishment?”

  Ugh.

  I tried to ignore my grotesque new familiar, although I didn’t dare to turn my back on it just in case I suddenly felt its disgusting little legs on my shoulder.

  In short, it seemed this story was intended to end as many folktales did.

  The hero saves the girl and punishes the bad guy.

  Was I meant to just try and hold out as long as I could until Han Sung-hyuk came back? When would that be? Tomorrow? Five years from now?

  Sounds from outside. Sukju scuttled into a dark corner and disappeared as the door opened.

  The servant had returned with another simple meal, but she was followed by a man in official’s robes. I had seen him around once or twice before, but knew nothing about him, other than the fact he wore a perpetually stern expression.

  “Seong Chunhyang.”

  It took me a few seconds to remember that name referred to me. “Sir.”

  “Seong Wolmae is dead.”

  “Wol- Mother?”

  “Do you know why this might be?”

  Of course I do, but would you believe me if I said it was your pet magistrate? Would you care?

  “I don’t…sir. She was alive when I was put in here.” My hands felt cold. Wolmae’s screams and sobs clung to my ears, and I shivered, feeling sick.

  The bristling brows furrowed disagreeably. “You are in a different cell. And the door of your previous cell is missing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have an explanation?”

  “I do not, sir. The magistrate might. As he might with my mother’s death.”

  “You will be more respectful when speaking of Magistrate Byeon.”

  Until this moment, I had no idea the name of the character Wen Yong was playing, and it was also more than a little surprised that the man in front of me had not already decapitated me. “Yes, sir.”

  “You are accused of witchcraft, Seong Chunhyang.”

  “I’m not... I’m not a witch,” I said weakly. When the official merely continued to frown, I reasoned, “Sir, if I were a witch, I would not still be trapped in this room.”

  I wanted to say that I wouldn’t kill my own mother either, but for some reason the words wouldn’t come out.

  The servant scuttled from the room with the empty bowls from this morning. The official checked outside the door to ensure she had left, and sighed. His brows and short beard were peppered with silver hairs. “Magistrate Byeon wishes to possess you, Seong Chunhyang. I do not trust the man.”

  This was unexpected. Status [Concerned] was an ambiguous sentiment, but it was either this or the assistance(?) of a cockroach, so I said, “Sir, are you able to send a message to the old magistrate? Or rather, his son?”

  “Official Yi’s son? You mean Yi Mongryong? Why is that?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I…” Come on. Come on. “We... promised ourselves to each other. Mongryong and I. W- My mother knew.”

  “I see.” The dark look on Kwon Ram’s face did not improve. “The capital Hanyang is far away. Even travelling at speed on fresh horses, a message would take more than a day to arrive, and if Yi Mongryong returns, it could take him another three days. Not to speak of any matters that he might need to resolve before he leaves. If he leaves.” With this last comment, his eyes examined me suspiciously.

  I had no way to prove anything. The umbrella that Han Sung-hyuk had tossed to me was sinking to the bottom of a rice paddy somewhere, if that could be considered evidence. I could only demurely fold my hands and say, “He will.” with a confidence I didn’t feel.

  “I sincerely hope so.” Official Kwon checked again for anyone listening outside the door. “I will contact Yi Mongryong. In the meantime, you should prepare yourself, Seong Chunhyang. Magistrate Byeon intends to take you as his concubine as soon as he can. I and a few others are protesting as much as we are able, but it is only for show, in the end.”

  His broad back disappeared through the doorway, and the door slammed shut and locked behind him.

  I chewed my lip. I had to delay the wedding preparations somehow. When a familiar scuttling little shape appeared in the corner of my vision, I asked immediately, “Hey, do cockroaches eat cloth?”

  “Sometimes when? Why?”

  “Are cockroaches really that picky? Dammit… I need to delay the wedding somehow.”

  “I’m sure there are lots of you, but could you really ruin everything? And besides…” I tried not to think of a literal avalanche of cockroaches invading the kitchens. “You’d all be killed.”

  And then we would be back to the start again.

  The cockroach came flying towards me.

  I smothered a scream of shock and threw myself out of its flight path. “Down! DOWN!”

  Sukju scrambled merrily about the ground, leaving characters almost illegibly shaky.

  No! No, I don’t! I’m sorry but you make my skin crawl!

  The insect began scrambling towards the door.

  “Hey, hey wait! Where are you going?”

  “Wait! Don’t do it yet! Wait until it seems like they’re going to hold the wedding really soon!”

  Before I could fully explain what was needed, Sukju squeezed under the door and was gone.

  The next morning, judging from the screams, I decided I had to be somewhere relatively close to the kitchens.

  Pressing my ear to the door, I could hear panicked calls, and the sounds of people running back and forth. I sighed and slid down with my back to the door.

  I guessed I wasn’t going to be shaking those witch accusations any time soon. It seemed more likely that I would be executed than married.

  Seriously, Mik Tsaam, just marry the guy. Survive for now. It doesn’t mean anything.

  “He killed Rohan,” I muttered aloud, pressing my hands to my eyes. “He murdered my friend.”

  Rohan was being a dick anyway…

  I slapped my face, hard. How could I think such a thing about my own friend? He deserved to die because he was being rude?

  He probably didn’t even die anyway. It’s just a game…

  I bit my hand, savagely, feeling the crunch of cartilage as my teeth closed over the meat of my thumb.

  The chaos outside continued for the better part of the day, dying down some time after sunset. I slept fitfully, half-expecting Sukju to come crawling over me in the middle of the night, but no cockroach appeared.

  Had… Had Sukju actually died? That couldn’t be possible, it had infinite HP.

  I was finally woken by the sound of the cell door opening and hands grabbing my arms, pulling me abruptly out of my doze and my cell.

  “What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”

  There was no response. My muddled brain scrambled to right itself as I was dragged from the prison building, a sort of shack behind the main complex, and into the courtyard.

  It was dawn, just about. The sky was rosy and golden and warm, and a bird sang in one of the courtyard trees.

  The officials were all lined up, Wen Yong pacing slowly back and forth before them with his hands behind his back. I caught sight of Official Kwan, but his expression was impassive.

  The men holding my arms forced me to kneel.

  Wen Yong continued to pace in contemplative silence. I could just about see him through the strands of my unkempt hair, dragging across my face after my struggles. I tried to toss my head to get the locks out of my face, but one of the men grabbed my neck and pushed me down so that I almost smacked my teeth against the flagstones of the courtyard.

  Wen Yong had stopped pacing. I heard him approach until I could see the tips of his shoes at the top of my vision.

  “Seong Chunhyang…” He sighed, very deeply, and I thought of how the NPCs must see him, an elegant scholar who had offered an opportunity to a slave girl beyond anything she should hope for, who had instead turned out to be a witch and essentially spat in his face.

  He bent down, voice low so that only I could hear. “I had very much hoped we could help each other in the future, Maria. I really didn’t want to kill you. A Priest is a useful thing to have.”

  I couldn’t feel my hands and feet. My heart slapped the insides of my ears.

  “Hey, Maria, I heard that there’s another version where the heroine is beaten to death.” He straightened, swinging his arms in front of him and testing the heft of the wooden club he carried against his hand. “Should we test it out?”

  He gestured. The two men holding me dragged me upright and hauled me towards a bench that had been set out in the courtyard.

  I looked wildly about. The kisaeng stared at me through the cracked doors of their dormitory, silent. The officials, lined up in neat rows in the courtyard, also stared at me in silence.

  If I used Camael’s Cloak to shake myself free, would I have enough speed to run without getting caught?

  The men pulled me down onto the bench, face-down, and I felt a hand grab the collar of my robes and begin to pull. They were going to strip me.

  I activated Camael’s Cloak, wrenching myself easily free, turning immediately for the way out.

  I had taken two steps before Wen Yong appeared in front of me, a curved sword gleaming in his hand.

  “Your Dexterity points must be quite ordinary,” he said, with that same regretful tone he liked to adopt. “Bye, Maria. I’ll try to be quick but I don’t seem to have as much Strength as you.”

  He swung the sword with both hands for my neck.

  If I hadn’t been about to die, I might have laughed at how awkward his swing looked.

  Except the sword didn’t land.

  We stared at each other.

  I realised that there was a sword tip pointed directly at my nose, about a handspan away, shining faintly blue.

  The sword was stabbed directly though Wen Yong’s back and chest.

  The sword retreated, and he fell forwards against me, a dead weight, eyes still open. I staggered and managed to twist to one side, letting his body slide to the ground, where he stared up at me.

  The person that stood in his place was…

  It was a spectral skeleton in the uniform of the Korean Army of the time, a sort of half-transparent figure, glowing blue. It sheathed the sword.

  The entire courtyard had frozen, staring at the skeleton, stupefied.

  Something moved in the middle-distance, behind the skeleton. Dazed by the shift in perspective, I managed to tear my eyes away from the armed ghoul to find out what the movement was.

  The pale face of Han Sun-hyuk was peering out from behind a tree, as he gestured urgently for me to join him.