Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 419

419. Only Four in the Entire World

In the space where Lumena had been forcibly taken, Lapsus stood blankly. The waiting room was surrounded by mirrors, but not a single one reflected him properly.

Lapsus regretted his choice, but he also knew that even if that moment came again, he would have no choice but to make the same decision.

‘It’s enough that she’s alive.’

He lamented to himself, then turned his head to look at Rembrary standing at the door. Rembrary was leaning against the door, peering intently inside, worried about being caught by Owan.

The moment their eyes met, Rembrary immediately wore a sympathetic expression, and Lapsus felt a surge of anger at that irritating look, only for it to recede like the tide.

On second thought, he wondered what good it would do to fight with that guy. He didn’t have much time left. And spending what little time he had left on Rembrary was the most foolish and regrettable thing he could do.

For the next five hours, Rembrary and Lapsus maintained a strange coexistence in the room.

Rembrary sat in a corner, dozing off and occasionally waking up to tell old stories, while Lapsus sat in a chair in the waiting room, ignoring him as much as possible, occasionally getting caught up and retorting, “That never happened!”

It was a brief peace.

* * *

“There will be a commotion. When it gets noisy, people will lose interest in the waiting room. That’s when you get out.”

After five hours, Owan called Lapsus from outside the waiting room.

Lapsus stood up and spoke, and Rembrary didn’t ask, ‘What about you?’

Rembrary didn’t understand the psychology of a second-in-command like Lapsus, but as a fellow high priest, he knew what he was feeling.

From the moment Lapsus sent Lumena away, Rembrary knew what he was planning to do.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo.”

“Just call me by my name, just once.”

“You admire me, don’t you?”

“Hey!”

“I like you too. The most among the heretics.”

“!”

Lapsus stopped as he was about to open the door. His head moved slightly as if to look at Rembrary. But in the end, Lapsus didn’t look at Rembrary and just opened the door and left.

As the door closed, he heard Owan saying, ‘People are already gathering.’

After Lapsus left and the door closed, silence returned to the room.

Left alone, Rembrary slid down the wall and sat on the floor, stretching out his legs.

He placed his hands on his legs and recalled the first time he saw Lapsus.

Saying that Lapsus was the best among the heretics was actually a lie.

When Rembrary first saw Lapsus, he thought, ‘Lumena-nim [Lumena-sama, showing respect] has no taste.’

In fact, he still felt the same way… but separately, he did like him.

Saying he was the best was a lie, but saying he liked him even though he was a heretic was the truth.

‘Goodbye, Cock-a-doodle-doo.’

Rembrary closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.

* * *

“You don’t look well.”

As they walked down the hallway leading to the stage, Owan asked with a worried voice, and Lapsus twisted the corners of his lips upward.

It was ridiculous. It was the Demon King and his gang who had made him into a dying body, yet he was now worried about his complexion.

He should be worrying about himself. Lapsus muttered inwardly, but he didn’t say the words out loud.

Owan might notice Lapsus’ change of heart and take immediate action.

He had begged Lumena to return with a bleeding heart to get this opportunity. Lapsus had no intention of throwing it away by saying a single honest word.

When Lapsus didn’t respond to his words, Owan shrugged and didn’t say anything more.

In the meantime, the two arrived at the back of the stage.

If you go up the stairs from here, the stage is set up. A desolate stage that can’t be compared to the stages where real idols or singers perform. A truly poor stage with only the sound equipment barely set up and checked. A poor stage that was only enormous in size.

However, the front of this stage was already filled with people addicted to his voice. People who would cheer only for Lapsus’s song, without caring about the performance, dance, or missed notes.

“Well, then—”

Owan was about to say something in front of the stairs, but Lapsus went up the stairs without listening to the precautions.

As Lapsus, who had climbed the stairs, appeared from behind the black curtain hanging on the edge of the stage, his followers, who had been staring intently at the stage, screamed like crazy and waved their phones with the lights on.

“Lapsus!”

“Lapsus!”

“Lapsus!”

His name was chanted from all directions, but Lapsus didn’t waver. He knew that the object of the people’s cheers was not himself, but the Demon King who had permeated his voice.

Lapsus skipped the greetings and immediately grabbed the microphone. Those who were completely captivated by all of Lapsus’ actions screamed that even that was cool.

Owan watched the scene with a satisfied expression. This would be the last time, and Lapsus would probably die. The number of people gathered this time was in the tens of thousands.

But the addictiveness that had permeated them all would not disappear and would remain, and the song he sang would remain as videos and audio, continuing to addict people. It wouldn’t have the same effect as a live stage, though.

“Ah.”

When Lapsus made a sound without accompaniment, as if to check the microphone, the tens of thousands of followers who had gathered in a hurry screamed at that alone.

Lapsus closed his eyes, and even the human staff, not demons, stood close to the stage from behind, wanting to hear Lapsus’s song.

Owan brought a chair that he had brought in advance and sat down in the corner.

Finally, a faint accompaniment began to flow out. Owan closed his eyes.

At that moment, the song flowing from Lapsus’s mouth had a different atmosphere than usual.

He sang just as well as before, but there was no atmosphere to attract people.

No, it even felt like he was pushing them away. It was clear that he wasn’t singing badly, but still.

The gathered people were smiling at first, but later they murmured among themselves.

Owan listened to the song and jumped to his feet.

‘Lapsus! Could it be!’

He tried to push his way through the crowd, desperately trying to get closer to Lapsus’s stage.

But it didn’t work. There were too many people gathered.

Moreover, perhaps because they were disappointed with Lapsus’s song, some people were quickly walking in the opposite direction of the stage. They didn’t feel the need to listen to Lapsus’s song anymore, so they were leaving halfway.

Even the people who stayed in their seats showed a noticeable decrease in their response.

By the time Owan managed to get to a position where he could see Lapsus….

‘It’s already too late.’

Lapsus looked like he was about to die.

He would have died today even if he had sung normally, but at the last moment, he changed his mind and was undoing the curse he had placed on the people, and as a result, Lapsus was weakening faster every minute and every second.

This was why people felt like they were being pushed away even while listening to Lapsus’s song, which was the same as usual.

People grumbled and left, unaware of what they had received back, and Lapsus’s voice grew fainter and fainter.

* * *

On the empty stage after everyone had disappeared.

Lapsus was still standing there.

He seemed to have lost even the strength to move, and he was breathing slowly while clinging to the long microphone.

But the color of his eyes had returned to normal. It was because Lapsus had completely severed the connection between himself and the Demon King after finishing what he had to do.

So that even the previously recorded songs would lose their power to addict people.

Owan approached Lapsus and sneered.

“Really. There’s no human among the demons who betrays as often as you do.”

“……”

“I raised a human who was wallowing in inferiority to Rembrary to the highest place. To think you’d stab me in the back right before you died. Huh?”

Lapsus flinched at the mention of Rembrary, but he didn’t have the strength to respond and remained still.

“I’m curious. Why did you bother changing your mind at the last minute? You’re going to die anyway, whether you change it or not.”

“So that Lumena-nim wouldn’t resent Yeomra [the King of Hell in Korean mythology].”

“But isn’t it the same? Even if Lumena doesn’t resent Yeomra, you don’t have to help them. Not resenting and helping are different, aren’t they?”

“Because Lumena-nim… likes people.”

“!”

Owan’s atmosphere became more and more ominous as he approached Lapsus. As if he was going to kill Lapsus right away.

No, in fact, he was planning to kill Lapsus himself before he died. He was so angry and his pride was hurt that he had caused an accident while under his responsibility. It was unbearable.

However, before Owan could reach Lapsus.

“If you kill him, I will kill you.”

Owan’s hand froze at the voice from behind.

Owan closed his lips tightly and looked back.

Rembrary was leaning against a pillar near the curtain next to the stage.

When their eyes met, Rembrary took his body off the pillar and carefully informed him once again.

“Don’t think I can’t do it. The place I lived was a bit rougher than here.”

Owan glared at Rembrary with ominous eyes and asked.

“Did you plan this with him? All of this?”

“No.”

Rembrary said firmly and smiled gently as usual.

“You guys underestimated Lapsus too much.”

Lapsus, who was listening to Rembrary and Owan’s conversation powerlessly, widened his eyes for a moment.

Rembrary didn’t look at Lapsus and told Owan.

“That kid was one of only four high priests in the world. And he was one of the strongest high priests in history.”

He’s just mentally weak. Rembrary swallowed the rest of his words and stared intently at Owan.

He was truly ready to attack him the moment Owan tried to do anything else here.

The method was easy. He could suppress him with ‘Divine Majesty’ and then approach and kill him.

He usually only used ‘Divine Majesty,’ but Rembrary had not been to the next level.

Cloth, who was familiar with the Demon King, seemed to be able to withstand the Divine Majesty somehow, but the demons here, where the Great Demon had been sealed long ago, seemed to be vulnerable to the Divine Majesty.

“If you attack me now, Lapsus will die too.”

“He’s going to die anyway.”

In the end, Owan turned around and disappeared with a grinding of his teeth at Rembrary’s nonchalant words.

Lapsus was also dumbfounded by the words ‘He’s going to die anyway’ and looked at Rembrary.

He didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful, and he thought that that guy was being ambiguous until the end.

But it was a strange feeling. Rembrary, who had been ignoring his existence all along, not looking down on him but really not even paying attention to him, was saying that he was ‘one of the strongest’ for the first time.

Rembrary approached Lapsus, who was still standing as if clinging to the microphone, and tried to heal him with divine power.

Lapsus’s complexion improved a little.

“……”

But that was it. Lapsus was not injured, but he had been given an incompatible power and had used up all the life force in his body, so he could not be healed by this method.

Rembrary lowered his hand with a sullen expression and asked Lapsus honestly.

“I can’t heal you. Should I stay with you?”

“No.”

When Rembrary tried to say something more at Lapsus’s firm answer, Lapsus frowned.

“If I’m going to die, I don’t want to see your face. Because you’re the guy I hate the most.”

Rembrary nodded and stepped aside.

As Rembrary disappeared, Lapsus slowly bent his legs and sat down on the stage, as if climbing down the microphone.

At that moment.

“You are a high priest. The holiest of the saints, so if you hadn’t been tainted by evil, you would have died and become a demigod. I still regret why you fell.”

Lapsus sighed at the voice from behind.

“After sending Rembrary away, is it your turn?”

The person who approached was a grim reaper who had been on the same team with Lapsus when he worked in the underworld for a while.

“My soul shouldn’t be taken care of by these grim reapers.”

Lapsus sneered, but unlike Rembrary, the grim reaper still stubbornly approached him and took out a handkerchief, as always, and wiped the cold sweat flowing from his forehead.

“!”

Lapsus flinched at his forehead, but he didn’t bother to push the grim reaper away.

After wiping away all the sweat, the grim reaper lowered his hand and muttered softly.

“I don’t know if you will be reborn as an ordinary human or something tainted by evil. But I thought I should meet you before you die. Because, as Lapsus-ssi [a polite suffix in Korean] said, we won’t take your soul.”

“Nosy.”

“But we were colleagues, weren’t we?”

“……”

Lapsus sighed as the grim reaper didn’t leave but sat down next to him.

Suddenly, Lapsus thought for a moment about whether to tell this grim reaper.

That when he was reborn, he wanted to be born as a white camellia.

Not as a human or something tainted by evil, but just as a white camellia.

That was the flower that Lumena liked the most.

If there was a next life, Lapsus wanted to be born as that flower and quietly bloom by Lumena’s side. Without causing any trouble, just like that.

He was the type who couldn’t easily say his wishes. On the other hand, Rembrary told everyone about his wishes.

He wanted to try to be like Rembrary this time, just once. Then maybe it would come true?

However, even as he was thinking, his mind became more and more blurred, and now it was difficult to even feel the presence of the grim reaper next to him.

Lapsus opened his lips, but in the end, he didn’t tell his very private story.

He was envious of Rembrary, but he knew that he was not Rembrary.

Instead, Lapsus faintly informed him in a fading voice.

“Woo Yeon-woo.”

“Woo Yeon-woo?”

“Inside that person… there is a very small piece of the Demon King……”

Before he could finish the words, Lapsus’s breath stopped.

The grim reaper brought his ear to his lips to hear Lapsus’s words well, and when he didn’t hear the slow and heavy breathing, he widened his eyes and turned his head.

Lapsus’s purple eyes were fixed on the void, towards that endless above.

The grim reaper moved his lips a few times, then carefully raised his hand and closed his eyes.