Underworld Flower Collector

[The exalted King Yama will take as a companion one who is more useless than a maggot.]

This is the first prophecy delivered to the great ruler who dominates the underworld through the harshest fear politics in the history of the kings of hell, King Yama. Yama scoffs at the absurd prophecy, but as fate would have it… at the sixtieth-birthday feast of Jangsaengjang, he happens to meet a short blind young man named Gungi and is completely taken by him.

Beyond falling at first sight, he begins scheming to save Gungi, who is pitifully rolling around in a muddy life. The underworld officials, seeing Yama—who is usually cold and overbearing—adoring and pampering that insignificant Gungi, are so shocked they think the heavens and earth have turned upside down……

This work borrows from the traditional folktale "Igong Bonpuri." Please note that some parts following the folklore may seem different from modern sensibilities and may be uncomfortable to read.

"Stop crying."

Yama wiped Gungi’s tears away with a large finger. Then he raised one eyebrow sharply at the tear droplets that soaked his finger.

He was astonished at what he had just done without thinking. For a moment, he thought the pearl-like tears flowing from that small body and wetting the floor were a waste, and his hand had moved first without thinking. It was a mad act that could not be explained by cause and effect.

But that was not all.

'What is this strange ache...?'

Every time he stared at the child, his chest throbbed even more painfully. The unfamiliar dull pain left Yama’s mind confused as well. And yet, strangely, he could not take his gaze off the child’s face.

And watching all of this with both eyes, Yeoho, the commander of Yama’s secret special-duty unit, Hwarangdan, could only be stunned.

'T-this is something that shakes heaven and earth!'

Yeoho looked at his lord with a dazed expression.

Then he seriously wondered whether he should tear out his own eyeballs and offer them here and now. He could not understand at all the intention behind his lord’s bizarre, incomprehensible behavior.