Chapter 164

Chapter 164

My head hurts.

“Euuk…….”

Choil, who had been lying on the hard floor and opened his eyes, assessed his current condition and rolled his eyeballs around. A situation where he was bound and restrained like a criminal.

‘Ah…….’

Looking at the village chief standing blankly beside him, Choil recalled his memories and fell silent. As soon as he regained consciousness, what had happened just before clearly flashed through his mind.

—Choil. Kill me right now!

Before losing consciousness.

At the village chief’s sudden words, Choil, who had been calming people in the village hall, was flustered. But the village chief spoke with a furrowed brow, not caring.

—Choil. Kill me right now. Right now!

—Why, why are you saying that?

—I don’t know either. But if you don’t kill me now, something, something……!

He remembers going close to care for the village chief whose mind suddenly went back and forth. And his memory goes that far.

The next moment, the village chief, who didn’t even possess internal energy, tore the rope with sheer force.

Then he lost consciousness and woke up here. Inside a cave so dark he couldn’t see anything.

“……Village Chief? Are you okay?”

“Didn’t I tell you to kill me? Damned brat.”

The village chief muttered in a weak tone, his face contorted as if in great pain. But Choil chattered on regardless.

“How can I kill a person? And in such a short time at that.”

“Indecisive brat.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know either. Just suddenly a voice flowed into my head telling me to break the rope and escape, and impulses wrapped around my body……It must be some yokai’s sorcery.”

“──It makes me too sad when you say it like that, treating a perfectly fine person as a yokai.”

At the voice that flowed from the darkness as if catching the village chief’s words, Choil stood up abruptly with his only unbound legs. But the shadow approached regardless.

“A woman……?”

“Ahah! Unfortunately, this body is male! Though it’s a bit pretty.”

“Who…….”

“Ilnachar.”

Ilnachar, who whispered quietly, tilted her head and looked back and forth between the village chief and Choil. The question that followed.

“Now, I have a question. Which of you two is closest to the Divine Maiden?”

“……Why do you ask that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? To decide who to kill first.”

“……Kill?”

“That’s right.”

Looking at the terrified Choil with a kind expression as if soothing a child, Ilnachar smiled brightly.

“The Divine Maiden is almost complete, but not entirely. One last piece remains……If I kill someone close to her, I think that’ll be achieved?”

“So tell me. Which of you is closest to the Divine Maiden? If killing just one person achieves the goal, I’ll spare the other. See? No need for extras.”

Silence.

At Ilnachar’s declaration to kill the closest person first, Choil, who had been gauging the situation, opened his mouth to say something. But the village chief spoke first.

“This old body. The one most intimate with the Divine Maiden.”

“Really?”

“That’s right. This old body presided over the rituals. This old body met the Divine Maiden most often. Wouldn’t that make us close?”

The village chief shook his head at Choil, who opened his eyes wide, and continued.

“I’ve killed countless people with these hands. I thought I’d receive judgment someday. Now that time has simply come.”

“Village Chief, what do you mean…….”

“Kill me. That’s the only way to achieve your goal, isn’t it?”

At the village chief spreading his arms weakly in a non-resistant state, Choil bit his lip. But Ilnachar paid no attention to that sight.

“Interesting. Very distinctive. Village Chief Grandfather. Trying to die instead of that child—you’re not afraid of death?”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You seem like it. But deliberately choosing death when you could live…… Ahah. Is it because that brat is a villager? Because he’s someone you must protect? You just mechanically judged that way without any emotion, didn’t you?!!”

“Heuhi. Hihi. Hahak!”

Confirming the village chief’s expression crumpling at being hit on the mark, Ilnachar bent over laughing.

“You’re really interesting. You thought if you just stalled for time, those warriors would come find and rescue that brat? But how about this. I already know who’s closest!”

“……How.”

“If I can control actions, why wouldn’t I be able to read thoughts? Escapism? Or are you just stupid?”

Looking at the village chief’s gradually crumbling expression, Ilnachar turned her head slightly to look at Choil, who had retreated toward the wall. And at that moment, her mouth corners tore grotesquely.

“Don’t be too angry. It was just a joke.”

“I just teased you because the reaction was fun. The result was the same anyway.”

From the report and reading the village chief’s psychology, the answer is clear. The one closest to the Divine Maiden isn’t the village chief but Choil.

Then what needs to be done is simple.

“Village Chief, it’s an order.”

“Keueuuk……!”

Ilnachar’s eyes glowing eerily.

Watching the village chief groan as he faced her, Ilnachar smiled faintly. And.

“Let’s slowly begin the final ritual.”

The next moment.

Receiving Ilnachar’s order, the village chief stood up.

After some time passed, the party that had gone out returned to the village.

“……Huh? Divine Beast?”

“Right.”

“She wasn’t a yokai? No, and she was kidnapped?”

“That’s how it is.”

“Huh? What? So. What?”

When I told Baek Risan, who had returned to the village, what had happened, Baek Risan, whose eyes were filled with doubt and confusion, rolled her eyeballs in circles, falling into chaos. She seemed flustered by the large amount of information that suddenly flowed in.

“……What’s going on right now? Wasn’t everything over?”

“No.”

“We protected the village.”

“That’s all.”

I smiled bitterly and shook my head. It was too much to say everything was over.

“I already told Seohwa, but this formation is one created by the Blood Cult to corrupt a Divine Beast into a yokai.”

“Corrupt a Divine Beast into a yokai……?”

“Right. Not just the formation, but the yokai that isolated the village and the darkness were all the Blood Cult’s arrangements for that. I didn’t investigate it directly myself, but that’s what I was told.”

“By who?”

“Hyeong-nim.”

“Hyeong-nim? Ah……That bastard.”

Realizing who I was referring to, Baek Risan frowned as if she’d heard something unpleasant. But Baek Risan didn’t say anything else.

“The information must be reliable then. He’s not the type to lie about something like this. Though anywhere else he’s completely useless.”

“That’s right. And he’s not a useless person. Isn’t Baekri the smartest person around?”

“Who doesn’t know that? The problem is he uses that intelligence for nonsense and causing trouble.”

“……I can’t deny that.”

“Anyway, that’s not what’s important. So what happened? Did she get corrupted?”

“Not yet. But she might.”

“Why?”

“Because the method to corrupt a Divine Beast is to feed her sufficient fear and trigger a major incident that changes her values.”

The Blood Cult’s original plan was to spread fanaticism through the village and feed the Divine Beast an excess of emotions. Fear mixed with faith. They planned to use that to corrupt the Divine Beast into a yokai.

When humans are driven to extreme situations where they can do nothing, they inevitably realize their own powerlessness and seek god. And the faith that arises in such situations transforms into fanaticism.

If the Divine Beast continuously consumes that fanaticism, having eaten negative emotions disguised as positive ones, she would corrupt into a yokai. This was the essence of the plan the Blood Cult had established. But.

“That situation has now become impossible. It’s not an environment where fanaticism can emerge.”

I continued speaking while examining the corpses of the eliminated yokai.

“The village has fallen apart. The villagers who should harbor fanaticism will soon scatter and live as slash-and-burn farmers or return to being commoners, and if left alone, the Divine Maiden will also be mistaken for a yokai and killed or taken by others.”

“So from the Blood Cult’s perspective, they’re making a final gamble before that happens. If the villagers can’t provide negative emotions, they just need to extract emotions equivalent to the villagers from someone else.”

Can the kidnapped village chief and Choil survive?

No, one hundred out of one hundred will die. The Blood Cult’s way of handling things is both bizarre and cruel. They wouldn’t leave witnesses alive.

It’s a low-risk attempt. The Blood Cult probably kidnapped the Divine Maiden, village chief, and Choil without much sense of crisis. They wouldn’t think we’d pursue them.

That’s only from a general perspective. The story when the Blood Cult’s scheme hasn’t been figured out.

Now it’s a bit different.

“We need to find them right away.”

“Why?”

At Seohwa speaking firmly, Baek Risan frowned and asked back. The answer that followed.

“Our current situation isn’t that good. We’ve recovered internal energy, but everyone’s exhausted, Wangpal is bedridden again with his injury flaring up, and you’re even completely drained.”

“If the Blood Cult has laid a trap and is waiting, we could fall into greater danger. Rather than that, resting a bit before going would be…….”

“No.”

Seohwa cut off Baek Risan’s words sharply and clenched her fist. Seohwa’s eyes shining coldly.

“We need to find them now. Even if it’s dangerous, it’s the same.”

“Why?”

“Because all of Uicheonmun is gathered here, and Uicheonmun never breaks promises.”

The promise Seohwa made with Choil. The promise to help them become independent from the village.

Such things are actually trivial matters. If the situation truly doesn’t permit it, one could make excuses saying it couldn’t be helped and move on.

What had their actions been like until now?

“We treated Choil’s sister as a yokai. We said we’d kill her for our safety, and we nearly did.”

“That’s…….”

“I’m not saying that was wrong. To anyone’s eyes, she was a yokai. And conventionally, yokai are beings you can’t associate with. But.”

Now that it’s known she’s not a yokai, what then? Can we simply say ‘we were mistaken’ and move on?

Is that conduct befitting an Uicheonmun disciple?

“The one who tied the knot must untie it. Right?”

“Yes. Do as you wish.”

At Seohwa asking me, I smiled brightly. Seohwa nodded with a resolute expression. The proposal that followed.

“It’s a knot we tied. We need to go rescue them right away. But I can’t force anyone. It will definitely be dangerous.”

“Eueum.”

“So I’ll ask like this.”

Please help.

“……Ah, really.”

Watching Seohwa bow her head, throwing away all pride and everything else, Baek Risan irritably scratched her head and sighed.

“If you say it like that, it’s awkward not to go.”

“Will you help?”

“What’s there to help or not help with? If you go, I go too.”

At Baek Risan speaking with a scrunched face, relieved Seohwa broke into a smile across her entire face. But Baek Risan’s words weren’t finished.

“But there’s still a problem. How are we going to find them?”

“……Ah.”

“Even if they’re in this area, the forest is vast. We’re only about twenty people. Tracking techniques will be hard to use because of the yokai traces.”

If that limitation can’t be overcome, rescuing Choil and the Divine Maiden is out of the question. It goes beyond whether to do it or not into the realm of whether it can be done or not.

“Is there a way?”

“That’s…….”

At Baek Risan’s realistic point, Seohwa, unable to answer, stopped speaking. And at that moment.

“Seohwa Sojeo. Do you know why Gyoryong has the character Gyo?”

“Once they bite, they won’t let go until either the opponent dies or they die—that’s why they’re Gyoryong. Those bastards are crazy. Gyoryong can’t stand being wronged.”

Jinwoong, who had smiled, stood up. The words that followed.

“Two days.”

“If they’re in this forest, we can find anyone within two days.”

“Gyoryongpa’s numbers aren’t that many…….”

“Didn’t I say it before? Everyone in Anhwa County is our siblings, parents, children, and sisters. People living in this backwater village all have a lot of affection.”

It’s winter and there’s no farm work anyway, isn’t it? If they say a child has gone missing, countless people will step forward.

“Should I call about four thousand people?”

Watching Jinwoong speak as if it were nothing, everyone blinked. An unexpected statement.

The Jinwoong who had only seemed like a neighborhood uncle until now looked a little cool.