Chapter 155

Chapter 155

Dark forest.

“Kill… me…”

Yuknachar, who had his dantian destroyed and was buried up to his neck, begged to be killed with his hoarse voice, then buried his head in the overwhelming despair. The excruciating pain like being stabbed with an awl from his severed limbs was enough to make him lose the will to live.

‘Why… like this…?’

The first task related to the great plan that his master, the Cult Leader, had entrusted to him.

He thought it was a good opportunity. Only core members of the cult could be involved in the great plan, and for Yuknachar, who was the cult leader’s disciple but stuck at the ambiguous number of six, it wasn’t something he could access.

If he handled this matter well, he could escape from being a lower nachar. Receive new martial arts, be granted new elixirs, and even undergo new daebop—

Yuknachar had thought he might be able to step up to become an upper nachar.

Now that the plan had completely fallen apart, those were all useless thoughts.

“Kkhheuk…!”

The arm that doesn’t exist itches unbearably.

Yuknachar, feeling pain for the first time in his life, sobbed as if laughing and chattered his jaw—the only thing he could move—to express his agony. But the itch wouldn’t go away.

Despite having lost a considerable amount of blood, he doesn’t die. Even with his dantian destroyed, the daebop he had undergone remains, tenaciously clinging to Yuknachar’s lifeline. Though no one is touching him, it feels like he’s being tortured.

“Someone please…!”

Please just kill me.

Seureureuк.

“…You!”

At that moment, a blood-red figure slowly rose before Yuknachar, who had been crying out with a hoarse voice. The moment he saw that figure, color returned to Yuknachar’s face.

“You vile thing! You’re alive…!”

I can live.

Seeing the agwi wearing a grotesque mask looking down at him, Yuknachar twisted his immobile neck this way and that with delight. Then he immediately burst out shouting.

“Good. Vile creature. Quickly get me out of here!”

“The great plan. How.”

“What?”

“How. Did. The great. Plan. Go.”

At the voice that was broken yet strangely chilling, Yuknachar, who felt an odd unfamiliarity, closed his mouth for a moment before gritting his teeth. He couldn’t understand the situation.

“You lowly thing…!”

“How dare you question me in this situation! Can’t you see how serious this is!”

The success or failure of the great plan is no longer important. The immediate issue is his own life or death, isn’t it?

“Get me out of here right now and transport me to the cult’s main branch! If you don’t, I’ll personally tear you apart and throw you to the dogs!”

“Tear. Apart?”

“Yes. If you don’t want to be torn apart, get me out right now!”

Agwi are the faithful servants of the nachar. It’s natural for them to serve the nachar—they’re lowly beings.

When he gives orders, the agwi should follow—that’s natural. At Yuknachar’s question, which didn’t doubt this fact in the slightest, the agwi tilted its head sideways. The head tilted to a degree unbelievable for a human body.

“My mission. Is to. Monitor. And control. Variables. If I. Return to. Main branch. I cannot. Complete. My mission.”

“Don’t you see that a variable has appeared that we can no longer control!”

“Cannot. Control. Variable?”

“Yes. Cheonra! That monster-like bastard you saw too!”

“Cheonra. Cheonra. Cheonra.”

Watching Yuknachar burst with frustration, the agwi kept nodding its head. A bizarre sight, like a puppet repeating a name.

“Understood. Cheonra. Major. Variable. Cannot. Control.”

“We must request support from the main branch as quickly as possible. The great plan might be ruined…!”

“Will not. Be ruined.”

“What?”

“Because. I am. Here.”

“What on earth are you…!”

A moment of silence. Then shock.

The moment it finished speaking, the agwi removed its mask with unnatural movements, and Yuknachar screamed a soundless scream at the face revealed. A pale complexion with no blood circulation, and stitches running down along the centerline between the eyebrows, as if the face had been cut in half and sewn back together.

“This, a puppet…?”

The scene of the agwi, who had definitely been alive until just now, grotesquely transformed to look like a puppet.

Yuknachar knew this sight all too well. And for good reason.

“Great, Great Senior Brother… is it you?”

This was none other than that First Nachar’s signature technique.

“Junior. Failed. Variable control.”

“I, I’m sorry…!”

Trembling with approaching fear, Yuknachar stretched his neck as far as possible to bang his head on the ground. His muscles twisted with an audible crack.

“He was far too strong for me to handle…!”

It couldn’t be helped. The situation wasn’t good.

Such excuses won’t work with this person. Fear engraved deep in his bones, despite being felt through a puppet.

“The great plan, the great plan will be fine…!”

“…Ahah.”

“It’s just one more step until the seed blooms. The martial artists inside are at most about twenty people, and they’re all inadequate in skill, so probably soon…!”

“Junior. Junior. You know what?”

“…Yes?”

“The plan has already fallen apart.”

Making a peculiar laughing sound, the puppet slowly pulled at the stitches on its face. The wounds closed cleanly without a trace, as if they had never been split.

“Is it because the vessel is inferior? It’s taking a long time to synchronize—? Or is it because the distance is too far?”

“Well, it’s fine. It’s less than half my true body’s naeryeok, but… this much is enough. Heh.”

The puppet, which had stuck out its tongue with a grotesque face and laughed, approached Yuknachar and crouched down. Then the puppet stroked Yuknachar’s head.

“Junior, you see~?”

“You’re good at everything, but that’s the problem. You think the world revolves around you. You tend to mistake everything that comes to you as hardships and adversities that you can overcome.”

“S-save me…”

“But what’s come to you this time isn’t that passionate stuff!”

The puppet, which had smiled brightly, spread its hand and grabbed Yuknachar’s head. The grip gradually strengthened.

“What’s come to you this time isn’t hardship or adversity. It’s certainly not a trial. Do you know what it is?”

“Please…!”

“It’s.”

Despair.

Pasak!

The puppet, which had whispered softly and crushed Yuknachar’s head with just the force of its grip, stretched its stiff neck and looked up at the sky. The moon shining unusually brightly on the ground.

“The cheongi has changed a bit, hasn’t it? Again?”

Cheongi is the flow of the world.

Naturally, it doesn’t change over small matters. If you know that the great plan the Blood Cult is preparing is a massive scheme to defy heaven, you’d understand how difficult that is.

“Hmm. Cheonra. Baek Riyun. The daeju from Jinan.”

Twice. Twice the cheongi has changed, slightly, after he intervened.

“Should I lend a little hand?”

Humming, Ilnachar shrugged his shoulders and quietly disappeared into the darkness.

With thick blood light in his eyes.

Persuading the residents ended more easily than expected.

“Pack only the absolutely necessary belongings and vacate your homes. We’ll gather at the village meeting hall to prepare for the attack.”

“But, village chief…”

“You there. Do you want to die?”

When the last remaining resident showed a troubled expression, the village chief quietly spoke with his hands tied behind his back, hidden from view. Then the village man answered with a flinching expression.

“Of course I don’t want to die. But.”

“Once you’re dead, all the household goods and everything you’ve accumulated over the years are finished. Why is someone who knows this acting like this?”

“That’s true… but.”

“I won’t say more. Vacate within half a sijin. This village is finished now. Or should this old man vacate it himself?”

“Huu… No. I’ll vacate it.”

“You should have done so from the start.”

Watching the village chief turn away after finishing persuading the last resident, Seohwa made a complicated expression. Even though she knew he was a villain, the village chief before her eyes didn’t look like a villain at all.

“I’ve finished persuading the villagers.”

“…I won’t say thank you. It was a deal to persuade the villagers in exchange for keeping you alive a bit longer.”

“I didn’t expect it. Rather, I’m grateful. Saving the villagers is something I also desperately wish for.”

Seohwa bit her lip watching the village chief speak calmly. Then came the question.

“…If you cherish the villagers so much, why on earth did you hold the ritual?”

“Mm?”

“Why did you try to maintain this village while killing villagers? I hate to say this, but… if you needed offerings, weren’t there other methods?”

“Ah… so that’s what this is about.”

The village chief nodded as if it were nothing at Seohwa’s question and spoke.

“What you’re saying is, couldn’t I have brought offerings from outside to present? Something like that, right?”

“…I can roughly guess. You were afraid of revealing this village’s existence to the outside…”

“No, that’s not the reason.”

“Then what?”

“It’s a very simple story. Wouldn’t that be unfair?”

“…What?”

At the village chief’s unexpected answer, Seohwa asked back with a dazed voice without realizing it. But the village chief continued his answer regardless of Seohwa’s attitude.

“That child, the Divine Maiden’s grace makes this land fertile and repels yokai. Through that, we’re guaranteed safety. Everyone in this village lives receiving that grace.”

“There’s no grace without a price. You’re young so you might not know, but in this world, there’s no such thing as goodwill without a price.”

If you receive something, you must repay it.

Those who benefit from this village’s existence have an obligation to return that much benefit to the village. Because there’s no goodwill without a price.

“In that sense, outsiders have nothing or little to repay. Asking them to give their lives for just staying a day or two is far too excessive as lodging fees for this humble village.”

“So I didn’t kill outsiders and only killed villagers. Do you understand now?”

“I understand. At least that you’re insane.”

He doesn’t move by universal emotions or reason. Someone who judges the world with twisted logic.

Seohwa, disgusted by the village chief’s incomprehensible words and actions, closed her mouth. But the village chief didn’t stop talking.

“In a world like this, you can’t live without going mad. Do you know who I first tried to offer as a sacrifice when I met the Divine Maiden?”

“It was myself. At that time, the village was small, and no one had received the Divine Maiden’s grace yet.”

Only the village chief himself had been deeply relieved by the fact that they could create a home if they had the Divine Maiden.

The others were trembling in fear of the unfamiliar environment. They hadn’t received the comfort the Divine Maiden provided. So they couldn’t be killed.

“Then… why are you alive? Why didn’t you become the sacrifice and instead made others…?”

“Because I couldn’t feel fear. In that situation of offering myself as a sacrifice.”

What the village chief truly feared was the collapse of the village he had built himself.

So paradoxically, he couldn’t feel fear in the act of sacrificing himself to protect the village. Since he couldn’t provide the fear needed for offerings, naturally he couldn’t become a sacrifice.

That was the problem.

“The first sacrifice I agonized over and decided on was my daughter, who was about your age. I decided alone, without receiving anyone else’s opinion.”

“Of course, that too was against fairness. My daughter also hadn’t received the Divine Maiden’s grace. However, my daughter owed me a debt.”

“A debt…?”

“I fed her, raised her, and let her grow up without any deficiencies even in lacking circumstances. In this world, I was a good father, and my daughter followed me well.”

The day the village chief resolved to offer his daughter as a sacrifice.

He told his daughter. Tomorrow, I’ll offer you as a sacrifice to the Divine Maiden. I’ll kill you with my own hands.

“I gave her one day of reprieve. So she could run away if she wanted to live. I said I wouldn’t chase after her.”

“But my daughter didn’t leave. Even knowing she would die. Even knowing she wouldn’t be attacked by yokai if she left during the day.”

Was it because she resolved to sacrifice herself for the village?

That’s not it. The village chief’s daughter was simply afraid. Of the dangerous outside world. Of being hated by her affectionate father.

“…You’re not in your right mind.”

“How can one live in their right mind in a world like this?”

The village chief shook his head calmly and continued.

“I love my daughter. And this village was protected by sacrificing my daughter. So.”

I just want to protect the village no matter what it takes.

After finishing speaking, the village chief turned his gaze at an odd sensation. A wave flowing strangely through the air.

“Congratulations. It seems your companions have done well.”

At the edge of his vision.

The forest was moving.