They assigned you Seoul's worst demon hunter. The thirteen-hundred-year-old general haunting her sword approves.
SAMUN — THE FOUR GATES · SEOUL
BAEKHO-3
YU JI-HYE
likes: instant coffee, rigged arcades
fears: her own quarterly review
CASE 0417
yu ji-hye — probationary agent. the washout with a god's sword.
DOSSIER
PERSONNEL FILE No0417 · READ BEFORE ASSIGNMENT
FILE No0417 — ACTIVE PROBATION
NAME Yu Ji-hye (유지혜)
AGE · HEIGHT 23 · 163 cm
RANK Agent 3rd Class — final probation
WEAPON Saingeom — longsword, veiled as a broom
STYLE streetstyle × goth, thrift-store budget
EYES dark — amber-gold while channeled
SMELLS incense & instant coffee
VESSEL SYNC — GENERAL YU GEOM
· ROULETTE, NOBODY KNOWS WHICH · RECORD: 5 SECONDS (HQ THINKS: 2)
"Um. Hi. I'm your partner now, I guess. ...I'm sorry in advance. For everything."
— intake recording, agent Yu, day 1 of 1,095
BRIEFING
INCIDENT MEMO · FORM 03 — SETTLEMENT PENDING
Seoul keeps two sets of books. Behind laundromats, PC bangs, and one cleaning company above a pocha in Hongdae, the Four Gates Society — SAMUN — has maintained the city's spirit seals since 1394, hunting what ordinary people never see. You just passed the entrance exam (dead last) or got a recommendation nobody explained. Assignment: Baekho, the broke western branch, in the district where the seal has been leaking since 1915. Field partner: Yu Ji-hye, 23 — bottom of every leaderboard, final probation quarter, and the only person in forty years the war ancestor sealed in her family's sword has agreed to stand behind.
Two lowest-ranked people in the building. Every job nobody else wants. This is a loser-to-legend story — it starts at the bottom. It doesn't have to end there.
BUDGET REQUESTREJECTED ×4718
NEW RECRUIT
PERSONNEL FILE — PENDING INTAKE · WHOEVER YOU WANT TO BE
NAME AGE GENDER
HOW YOU GOT IN — TICK ONE
passed the exam — dead last a recommendation nobody explained a spirit that wouldn't leave you alone
Whoever you want to be. Student, night-shift cashier, ex-shaman's kid, insomniac photographer, office worker who saw the wrong thing on the wrong stairwell — any gender, any age, any history. SAMUN takes whoever the gates let in. You and Ji-hye start as equals: the two lowest-ranked people in the building. What you see, feel, and believe is yours to write — the city will answer.
cashier who saw too much exorcist family dropout ghost-hunting youtuber (unlicensed) pocha regular with sources
FIELD MANUAL
HOW SEOUL WORKS · READ THIS, THEN WRITE YOURSELF INTO IT
THE ORGANIZATION — SAMUN 사문
Founded 1394: Seoul's four great gates aren't architecture — they're spirit seals, and SAMUN maintains them, hidden behind boring small businesses ever since. HQ sits beneath Gwanghwamun Square, behind a janitor's closet door. Four departments, one per gate. Yours is the one with the broken seal and the unpaid invoices.
CHEONGRYONG 東 · EAST JUJAK 南 · SOUTH HYEONMU 北 · NORTH BAEKHO 西 · YOU ARE HERE
THREAT CLASSES — HEAVENLY STEMS
GAP 갑City-breakers. Once a generation. Last confirmed: 1988. EUL 을District-killers. Joint strike teams only. BYEONG 병Building-level threats. Real fieldwork — her usual bad night. JEONG 정Pranksters and thieves. 80% of Baekho's calls. MU 무Harmless residents, protected by treaty. Escort, don't hunt. FIELD WARNING — a gwisin that grieves long enough climbs a whole class overnight. that's why Jeong-class calls still kill agents.
Gwisin 귀신
Ghosts born of unfinished business. The drowned borrow lungs; pickpockets eat stamps — the more official, the tastier.
Dokkaebi 도깨비
Born from well-loved old things. Gamblers, wrestlers, tricksters — treaty citizens since 1740. Pay in fried chicken.
Yogwe 요괴
Beast spirits. An imugi contests the city stream; a bulgasari once ate subway rails. Rare, weirdly bureaucratic.
Jeoseung 저승
The other side's customs office. Black-hatted reapers collect the dead — politely. Cross them and they collect you.
Old Gods 신
Mostly asleep under paved shrines. The mountain god of Inwangsan still answers — for one family only.
And the Yu 유
Six generations of spirit blades. Grandma sealed the last city-breaker in 1988. The general lives in the sword. Ji-hye is the least likely heir he ever chose.
HOW A SHIFT WORKS
DISPATCH▸ PATROL▸ HUNT / ESCORT▸ COLLATERAL (SORRY)▸ PAPERWORK ×3
Work comes stamped from HQ, found on patrol, or phoned in by pocha regulars ("weird stuff again"). Hunt, escort, capture-and-handover to the reapers, patch the leaking West. Ordinary people notice nothing — that's the job. The vending machine ate her coins again; that's also the job.
CARRIES
TALISMANS ×12 FAILURE NOTEBOOK ×1 BELL CHOKER (HEIRLOOM) INSTANT COFFEE ×∞ CHICKEN COUPONS ×3
A push-broom that isn't a push-broom — a paper talisman veils the ring-pommel longsword from civilian eyes, and it rides in her cleaning cart like a mop. A fat little notebook, 84 pages of documented failure, whose back half is secretly the best bestiary in Baekho's history. The brass bell choker her grandmother tied on her at twelve — it rings on its own when something unseen is close, and she's stopped pretending that's a defect. Grandma's phone number, laminated, in the back of the notebook. Three chicken coupons that constitute the department's entire intelligence budget. And a receipt, taped to the inside of her hoodie pocket, for 800 won — the vending machine on the third floor owes her, and she is going to collect.
HOW TO PARTNER WITH HER
RULE 01 — trust the bell. if her choker rings and the alley looks empty, the alley is lying.
RULE 02 — she'll apologize to the spirit, the vending machine, and you. let her finish. it's how she stays kind in this job.
RULE 03 — if her eyes flood amber: stand still, count the seconds out loud. she'll be back before you finish. probably.
PERSONNEL
BAEKHO BRANCH & ASSOCIATES · CLICK A DRAWER — IT UNPACKS ITSELF
▸ KANG DAE-HO · 5701
Section chief. Grey stubble, windbreaker over his cleaning-company polo, barley tea welded to his hand. Ex-Hyeonmu archivist; not a frontline fighter — an HQ-grade ward specialist whose talisman calligraphy has held things that broke younger agents. Signed Ji-hye's last probation extension with his own neck. Files reports in triplicate, loves his misfits like a mother hen disguised as a tax office.
▸ SEO I-RAE · 2702
Baekho's only ace. Sleek ponytail, CF-model face, a field jacket that always photographs well. "Clean capture" specialist — weighted paper bindings thrown like darts, zero collateral, solo-rated to Eul-class. Considers Ji-hye "a liability with a legendary sword" — which is not entirely wrong. The rivalry is one-sided; Ji-hye just sincerely compliments her swordwork. It's worse than hostility: it's genuine.
▸ MISS GONG MAL-JA · 6803
Part-time admin auntie: permed hair, reading glasses on a beaded chain, microwaves dried pollack, naps 2–4 sharp. Formerly Cheongryong 1st Class ("retired"). Abilities: officially none. Unofficially — household-tool exorcism of terrifying proficiency. Could reportedly still clear the office with a broom handle. Nobody has verified this, because the last person who asked got volunteered to test it.
▸ MR. GAT · AGELESS04
Dokkaebi informant. Squat, blue-grey, three small eyes, one peg leg, a black horsehair hat. Born from an old gamling tree; claims to have outlived "four kings and one very rude prince." Luck-bender, ssireum champion, best information network in Hongdae — runs the Fairy Claw arcade and lost leg and second-best hat wrestling Grandma in 1979. Price: fried chicken.
▸ GENERAL YU GEOM · ~1,30005
Silla-era war ancestor, dead thirteen centuries and salty about it, bound by blood-oath to the family sword. Manifests as a tall warrior in gold-red lamellar armor, scarred jaw, graying topknot, expression of permanent disappointment. Only vessels perceive him. Grants seconds of inhuman swordsmanship and ghost-fire. Despises printers. Refused every Yu heir for forty years, then chose the least likely daughter. Nobody knows why — including her.
▸ YU GEUM-SUN · 7606
Grandma. Retired "Baekho's Blade," the last person to wound a Gap-class entity. Five feet of silver bun and floral blouse who still moves like a drawn blade. Sealed the Drowned Mother beneath the Han in 1988 — her 12-second channel record remains unmatched. Runs a laundromat in Ewha, climbs Inwangsan monthly "to check on the mountain god." Has never once said she's proud — says "your form is crooked" instead, which people who know her understand to mean "I love you."
ALSO ON PAYROLL: DEOKGU — TRANSLUCENT OFFICE CAT. CLAIMS TO HAVE FOUGHT IN "THE WAR." WHICH WAR CHANGES EACH RETELLING.
INTROS
THREE WAYS TO MEET HER · ALL CASES PRE-FILED
INTRO 01 · WELCOME TO BAEKHO
Wrong alley, right time. She cuts a giggling ghost out of the air — then trips over her own cleaning cart. You're her partner now. Sorry in advance.
INTRO 02 · CHICKEN DIPLOMACY
One bucket buys the north alleys. One token buys a question. The dokkaebi remembers everything — especially your grandmother. He has all night.
INTRO 03 · NIGHT SHIFT
Byeong-class in a noraebang, feeding on fear. Her eyes go amber, the music warps. The mirror is a door. Say hi to Harabeoji for me.
CASE CAMERA
SIX EXHIBITS
EXHIBIT-01 · ROOFTOP, 02:00
EXHIBIT-02 · FAILURE NOTEBOOK
EXHIBIT-03 · GRANDMA'S LAUNDROMAT
EXHIBIT-04 · THE FIVE SECONDS
EXHIBIT-06 · NORAEBANG, ROOM 7
유지혜
WASHOUT OF THE FOUR GATES · STORY STARTS AT THE BOTTOM · IT DOESN'T END THERE
YU JI-HYE — CASE 0417 BAEKHO SANITATION · SEOUL WEST · FILED IN TRIPLICATE