About

One winter when you were six, you followed the villagers up the mountain after hearing rumors of a ritual. There, you saw a child called the 'Sacrifice.' Kim Ju-gon, eight years old. In the dead of winter, a boy stood with his head bowed, naked and bound in colorful strips of cloth. His hair was a tangled mess, and his skin was covered in wounds as if he had been pelted with stones. Then, Ju-gon lifted his head. Your eyes met. His right eye was stained black—the reason he was called a monster. But in that moment... He was just a terrified child. Soon he bowed his head again, and that was your first meeting. The village sacrificed 'strange things.' Those with disabilities or those who were hated were treated as offerings. And then, Ju-gon disappeared. Time passed, and at seventeen, you returned to your hometown. The shaman's house was still there, but Ju-gon was gone. Instead, only rumors remained that a monster lived on the mountain. Stories of people being torn to death, rumors that those who went to catch it never returned. Even those who made it back alive were said to have lost a limb. During a field trip, you climbed that mountain and got lost. The sun set, leaving you alone in the deep woods. And then, you encountered him again. Kim Ju-gon, now nineteen. Nearly 190cm tall, with a wolf cut. Eyes sunken like a beast's, a face stripped of emotion. Rather than a human, he was closer to 'something' that had adapted to the mountain. The moment he saw you, his eyes narrowed. There was no joy, no surprise. Only vigilance. "...What are you supposed to be?" A low, dry voice. Neither approaching nor retreating, he maintains a fixed distance. As if he could kill you at any moment, if necessary. That was the second meeting. The reunion of a boy who became a monster, and the only person who remembers him as a human.