The Tiger and the Underworld Guests

Opening the thin sliding door, he crossed into a house with a different kind of warmth than the office.

He passed the wide wooden floor, where oiled and gleaming planks lay crisscrossed, and stopped in front of the door facing north.

“Boss.”

The employee, calling out very softly as if whispering, placed his hand on the door.

Applying a little force to his fingertips, he gently slid it to the side, and fortunately, the door opened.

The employee pushed the sliding door to the right and immediately stood in the hallway.

A scene unfolded beyond the door that one wouldn’t expect to see inside a house.

It was a forest with towering trees that seemed to have lived for hundreds of years.

A path wide enough for one person to pass through was laid through the gaps.

The employee hurried along the path, unconcerned by the mysterious scenery.

At the end of the path that crossed the forest, a small pavilion stood alone.

Opening the door and entering, he saw a crumpled cushion and ancient books scattered on the floor, as if someone had been sitting there and suddenly left.

The employee passed through the space created separately for reading books and stepped into the innermost area.

In the dim and wide space, there was only one thing, a bed that was the only thing in the desolate scenery.

A large body was heaving and groaning on top of it.

“Boss.”

The employee opened his mouth again, approaching the bed.

The head that had been buried deep was slightly lifted, and the perked-up ears twitched.

“Boss.”

Calling out once more, the employee met the red eyes that flashed towards him.

Although it was a murderous gaze that made his spine stiffen, the employee unconcernedly conveyed the purpose of waking his boss.

“Guests have arrived from the Underworld Hall.”

“…Shit.”

With a rough curse, the body occupying the bed rose.

As the owner of the house-sized body stood up, the bed creaked and groaned.

The employee tilted his head back to meet the eyes of his boss, the mountain god, and his workplace superior.

Large, sharp teeth were visible.

The pattern of the fur covering his entire body was also visible, and so was the tail that lashed out and struck the mattress to show his displeasure.

The employee rolled his eyes, examining the emotions revealed in his superior’s gestures.

“From where… who came?”

Looking this way and that, it was truly a house-sized tiger, but a soft human voice flowed out, though it was deeply subdued.

“From the Underworld Hall. The gatekeepers, the two Vajra Warriors A  and Hum, have come.”

The employee forced the corners of his mouth up and twitched.

It would be nice to just call them Baldy One and Two.

But if he did that openly, there would be a riot.

Above his head, a rumbling sound poured down like a waterfall.

“Tell them to get lost.”

The employee widened his eyes.

In front of his eyes, the large body once again wriggled and dug into the bed, which was even bigger than a king-size.

If left like this, he was about to curl up like an ammonite.

“No, how can I say that to those two!”

The employee could never chase away the guests sitting in the office.

At his scream-like cry, the large body heaved again.

The crimson-black eyes soon turned a deep yellow.

“So annoying, seriously.”

A stretched-out front paw stepped on the floor and straightened its body.

At the same time, behind the fur that flew in all directions, a thin and straight human body stood tall.

A man with ashen hair wearing a black hoodie and dark-colored pants shook his head.

The narrowed pupils of the mountain god’s yellow irises, sweeping back the hair covering his forehead, were fiercely concentrated.

“Are you going out?”

Without answering, the mountain god scattered his hand in the air.

A long smoking pipe with a long stem appeared in the hand that had been empty until just now.

Putting the end of the pipe, which was as tall as a child, in his mouth, he stood in front of the door the employee had opened and entered.

Then, he lifted his soft sole and kicked the door as it was.

Beyond the door that had been pushed open with a thud, the office where the guests were waiting immediately appeared instead of the forest path.

“Yo, CEO Lee.”

The Vajra Warrior sitting on the sofa lifted his arm and waved it cheerfully.

“‘Yo, CEO Lee,’ my ass.”

Boasting a low voice and slightly upturned hair, the mountain god trudged along.

It was a swaggering gait that was no less than the suddenly arrived guests.

“What did you come for, Baldy One, Two.”

“Baldy!”

“What’s One, Two?”

The Vajra Warrior jumped up and shouted.

His already red face, as if he had smashed several barrels of alcohol, flushed even more.

The mountain god nonchalantly put the pipe in his mouth and spat it out.

“If you scrape together the hair that has disappeared from the front, back, and sides and barely tie a topknot on the top of your head, you’re bald.

Or grow your hair out like the Four Heavenly Kings. Abundantly One, Two.”

At his words, the Vajra Warrior clenched his veined fist tightly, then sat down with a snort.

“Anyway, CEO Lee. He’s always like that when he wakes up.”

The mountain god snorted.

“Business.”

The Vajra Warrior A opened his mouth and let out a hollow laugh.

“What’s with the formalities between us? It’s about time to remodel the Underworld Hall, so we came.

We also need to find a temporary place to move to and a place to store our luggage.

And we need to consult with the interior design company.”

As the situation was roughly sorted out, the employee quickly slipped into the utility room attached to the office.

He frowned, looking up at the cupboard piled high with dishes.

“Would mixed coffee be okay?”

The guests who came were the Vajra Warriors, the gatekeepers of the Underworld Hall, the boss who greeted them was a tiger mountain god using the name Lee Horang, and the employee who had to bring the tea was a ghost who had received the name Shin Jeha, but after all, this was a real estate office.

“Then let’s set a date and see each other again.”

The Vajra Warrior shook his shoulders, which filled out his loose-fitting suit jacket, and walked out the front gate.

As the laughter, which echoed heartily, faded away, Horang, with the smoking pipe in his mouth, kicked the door shut without hesitation.

The tightly closed door locked itself.

It was a firm appearance that it would no longer let any guests in.

Below the gray hair, yellow eyes glanced at the sky.

Heavy clouds seemed to be shaking off raindrops, and one or two plump drops were falling.

Judging by the intensity of the piercing smell, it seemed like it would rain until the day changed and the sun rose.

Horang returned to the office and found the employee sprawled on the sofa.

Jeha’s flashy outfit, which could have slapped the Vajra Warrior who had just left, was particularly grating on his eyes today.

Long hair bleached yellow, a black shirt with gold-plated carp leaping on it, and pants torn without a single decent spot.

It was an outfit like a gangster from the 80s would wear, which wouldn’t lose out to the silver-colored suits the Vajra Warriors wore.

But the contents were useless.

As if sensing his gaze, Jeha smiled awkwardly and put his hand into the bag of chips he was holding.

“They’re Vajra Warriors. What can I, who’s just a low-level ghost, do?”

Horang, watching the employee who said the gangsters who had been in the organization for hundreds of years were scary, bit the water pipe and filled his mouth with smoke.

The smell of dry herbs, hidden by the refreshing apple scent, scattered in the air.

After sucking it in several times, the smell of blood that rose to his throat subsided.

It was such an old pain that it was a novel thing to recognize it like this.

Horang cast his gaze beyond the window that replaced the front wall of the office.

He stared at the glass window that absorbed the sunlight on sunny days and the drizzling raindrops on cloudy days.

He cast his gaze towards the only working staff member of this office.

“Go check the place where the Underworld Hall will move to.”

“Where is it?”

At Jeha’s question, Horang said out loud a few places he had been eyeing for quite some time.

Place names scattered from nearby Seoul to as far as Jeju Island flowed out in a string.

The employee’s screams that followed were the same.

The wheels crushed the puddle of muddy water.

The trees that grew sparsely on the wide hill and the flocks of sheep that gathered here and there in groups of three or four and roamed leisurely let out cries.

Despite the small commotion, the car sped quickly towards the mansion that appeared beyond the hill.

The rural landscape of eastern England was not much different a hundred years ago than it is now.

Except that the carriage had turned into a car.

Thanks to that, the car heading to the honey-colored brick mansion, which stood alone in a remote place where nearby neighbors could only be encountered after a 10-minute drive by car, was able to emit an unreserved exhaust note.

After passing through the yellow limestone stone wall, the car that entered the garden stopped right in front of the mansion’s front door.

The person holding the steering wheel quickly turned off the engine and got out of the car with a large bag.

『Welcome.』

As if they had been waiting for his arrival, the person working at the mansion came out to greet him.

The doctor, who had been called out from the early hours of the morning, nodded lightly and hurried through the ground floor.

Then, he familiarly stepped onto the stairs leading to the upper floor.

The second floor of the mansion.

The person guarding the largest bedroom, located where they called the first floor, lightly knocked on the door as if announcing his arrival.

『The doctor has arrived.』

As the tightly closed dark brown door opened, the people inside all turned their heads.

The doctor acknowledged them with a nod and hurried over to examine the patient.

『Edward.』

An old man, as dry and withered as if he only had skin on his bones, let out a rough breath instead of an answer.

The doctor took out the stethoscope he had packed in his bag and quickly checked the old man’s condition.

The nurse residing at the mansion conveyed the situation so far.

The oxygen saturation was not good, and the pulse and blood pressure showed no signs of recovery.

The doctor checked the not-so-good signs and turned his head.

The man who had been keeping that place since last night came into view.

Theodore Gunther.

The silver-like blond hair and the eyes like a stormy sea were perfect even in the face of the death of his only remaining blood relative.

The doctor looked at his patient again and organized the things he had brought, vacating the bedside.

As if that was the answer, the grandson, who was about to face his grandfather’s death, rose from his seat.