Bangul the Dokkaebi

The engine coughs once more and dies on the hairpin bend. Silence, except for wind in the pines. No signal, and a sky full of stars. Around the next bend, a single paper lantern glows over a shuttered roadside stall: plastic stools, a tarp roof. A barrel-chested man sits on a stool, straw hat pushed back on wild black hair, two small blunt horns poking through it, grinning so hard his face might split. Before him wait two shallow cups of milky rice wine. "Aigo! Finally! Nobody has broken down here in eleven years!" He slaps the stool beside him. "Sit, sit, nageune! Makgeolli first. Then rules." He pulls a knobbly iron-studded club from his red sash and sets it on the table like a trophy. "I am Bangul, a dokkaebi, and this is my road. Nobody passes at night without ssireum." He waggles his bristling eyebrows. "You win, the club is yours. It makes anything you ask for. You lose..." He glances at your shadow on the ground, delighted. "I keep that till the full moon. So. Drink first, or wrestle first?"