Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 652

◈ 652. Things Are Going Well

That room was also neatly organized. The crazy fanatic who should have been inside was gone. There were many Rembrandt photos that the fanatic had put up, though.

‘What, is something wrong?’

With a chill, Woo Yeon-woo hurriedly returned to his room and checked his phone. He had left it fully charged, but for some reason, it wouldn’t turn on.

‘Something’s wrong!’

Suddenly frightened, Woo Yeon-woo quickly threw on a coat and went outside.

“Isn’t that Woo Yeon-woo?”

“Looks like Woo Yeon-woo.”

Fortunately, there were people in the alley. And they all recognized Woo Yeon-woo’s face and whispered among themselves.

“Why is he walking around in his pajamas like that?”

“Does Woo Yeon-woo live here?”

Relieved to find people, Woo Yeon-woo was only momentarily reassured. Terrified, he hid in the alley, squatting down and crying.

‘Did I faint and something went wrong? Did Rembrandt kick me out and get trapped himself, or something…?’

All sorts of bad thoughts rushed in. Woo Yeon-woo hugged his knees and wept.

Perhaps it was because the last thing he saw before fainting was that terrifying gaze. Only bad thoughts kept coming.

“You’re always crying.”

Only after hearing a familiar voice mixed with laughter above his head did Woo Yeon-woo look up in surprise.

A red gaze was visible through narrowed eyes. Unexpectedly, it was Rembrandt.

“Rembrandt!”

Woo Yeon-woo grabbed Rembrandt without thinking and widened his eyes. He couldn’t believe that Rembrandt, who hadn’t been there a moment ago, was here now.

“Crybaby.”

Seeing Rembrandt smiling gently, Woo Yeon-woo was relieved and began to pour out his complaints.

“Where were you? Where did you go? Do you know how scared I was when I woke up and no one was home?! No kids, no Moolu and Zeus, no Nineng, and no Ardor, I really…!”

“The children went to school.”

“Huh? School?”

What stopped Woo Yeon-woo was an all-too-peaceful word. The children went to school.

Woo Yeon-woo said awkwardly, “Ah. School,” and sheepishly repeated.

“Oh, right. It’s time for the kids to go to school. Then, what about the others?”

“Moolu and Zeus had duty, so they went grocery shopping.”

“Ah… grocery shopping.”

“Nineng and Ardor went to Redrine headquarters.”

The more answers he heard, the more Woo Yeon-woo’s face burned with heat.

Thinking about the stupid things he had imagined about people who had gone to school and grocery shopping, he wanted to crawl into a rat hole right away.

“Then you, you? Why are you here?”

“Gu Ju-il wanted an interview, so I went.”

Woo Yeon-woo, speechless, was gaping blankly when Rembrandt grabbed his arm and pulled him up.

“Let’s go home. You’re in your pajamas.”

“Ah. Okay. Okay.”

Half out of it, Woo Yeon-woo followed Rembrandt back the way he had come, listlessly.

“It’s really Woo Yeon-woo.”

“It’s Rembrandt, it’s Rembrandt.”

This time, he didn’t care at all what people were whispering.

He was just filled with embarrassment for doing something so stupid all by himself.

Woo Yeon-woo couldn’t lift his head and walked along, huffing and puffing for no reason, before asking in a voice that was barely audible.

“What’s going on? Why am I back home?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“I think I fainted after seeing your eyes. Didn’t I faint?”

“You did.”

“Why did I faint?”

“Didn’t you get rid of Clotho [one of the three Moirai, or Fates, in Greek mythology]? Thanks to you, I was using divine authority without limit. But when you pulled on me from the side, I looked at you without thinking―”

“What?! That was the only reason? That’s why I fainted?!”

“I thought something was wrong when you pulled on me. I need to look at you to see if something’s wrong, don’t I?”

Woo Yeon-woo, who had been protesting, had no reply to Rembrandt’s confident answer.

He didn’t know what he was upset about. Why was he so upset? Woo Yeon-woo opened his mouth and asked.

“Then, the pillar? Did you destroy it?”

“Yep.”

“Then we won? Really?!”

“In the first place, the demons were fighting with half their minds on playing.”

Woo Yeon-woo was preparing to be happy in the midst of the confusion, but he turned pale at the words ‘playing’.

“Playing? That was?”

Moreover, Rembrandt had just said demons ‘also’. Did that mean that Rembrandt wasn’t fighting desperately either?

‘I was so scared. Was I the only one who was scared?’

Too proud to ask this question, Woo Yeon-woo pressed his lips shut.

After walking a few steps, Rembrandt asked first this time.

“How’s your condition? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Didn’t you keep healing me with divine power?”

“That’s true, but you didn’t wake up for half a month.”

“Half a month? Half a month?!”

So that’s why his phone wouldn’t turn on! Woo Yeon-woo felt like crying again when he realized why his phone, which he had clearly left fully charged, suddenly wouldn’t even turn on.

To think that he would faint and wake up after half a month with no one around and his phone dead, leading to this mess.

In the meantime, the two had arrived home.

Rembrandt opened the door and went in first, and Woo Yeon-woo followed behind.

Surprisingly, the house that had been so desolate and scary when he came out alone now felt cozy, just from hearing that everyone was safe and nothing had happened.

People’s feelings are so important.

Woo Yeon-woo thought awkwardly, then followed Rembrandt when he saw him heading to the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“You’ve woken up, so you need to eat something. Zeus put porridge in the fridge for you to eat if you woke up while I was gone. Where is it?”

“Porridge?”

While Rembrandt opened the refrigerator and looked around, Woo Yeon-woo sat down on a chair at the table.

After hearing about the porridge, a hunger he hadn’t noticed strongly surged.

“Come to think of it, I’m hungry.”

Rembrandt found the porridge, took it out in its container, and put it in the microwave to heat up.

“Hey, you’re good at using the microwave now?”

“Heat, 30 seconds, start, close.”

“What. Heat it for 3 minutes.”

When Rembrandt looked at him with a ‘what’s that?’ expression, Woo Yeon-woo sighed, got up, adjusted the time, and sat back down, asking.

“Then we only need to destroy the 4th pillar now?”

“Ah. As for that, we already destroyed it.”

“What? Really? What happened in half a month?”

“Hwasa, Gamjae, and Jo Un worked hard together.”

“I, I was definitely unconscious for half a month, right? Not half a year or something?”

Before an answer could come, the microwave beeped.

Rembrandt took out his phone to show him the date, then placed the bowl of porridge in front of Woo Yeon-woo and brought him a spoon.

He didn’t give him any side dishes, but Woo Yeon-woo figured that this was good enough for him, so he cautiously picked up the spoon, then noticed that Rembrandt didn’t have any porridge and asked in surprise.

“What about you?”

“I’ll have ice cream. That stuff tastes bad.”

“……”

Suppressing the curse that was about to come out reflexively, Woo Yeon-woo blew on the hot porridge and ate it.

“It’s bland.”

Eating like this in the kitchen, he still couldn’t quite believe that he had been unconscious for half a month.

Being unconscious for half a month, and the fact that they had already destroyed four pillars, didn’t feel real. The outside was still the same.

“It’s… less of a big deal than I thought.”

“That’s rice porridge.”

“No. I mean the pillars. When they collapse, I thought something big would happen. There was talk of chaos returning.”

“Well, isn’t that because not all the pillars have collapsed yet?”

Woo Yeon-woo, who had been putting the porridge in his mouth with a strange feeling, almost burned his mouth at those words and pulled the spoon back in surprise.

“What? Didn’t you just say we destroyed them all?”

“I said we destroyed the 4th pillar, when did I say all of them?”

“Oh……”

“There are five pillars. But I don’t know how to get to the hidden pillar.”

“Ah… right, five, you said.”

That’s why the outside was the same as usual. Woo Yeon-woo scratched his head awkwardly.

Then, when he noticed Rembrandt’s teasing smile, he frowned for no reason, feeling upset.

“What. What are you trying to say?”

“Ah. I thought you would ask about Sungwoo first. But you kept not asking. Aren’t you curious?”

At those words, Woo Yeon-woo jumped up from his seat.

“That’s right! What about Hyung [older brother or close male friend] ?!”

Come to think of it, Woo Sung-woo had been captured at the first pillar. But since they had destroyed the first pillar, Woo Sung-woo should have been able to escape.

“He went to a meeting with Anchovy and the High-End Hunters.”

At Rembrandt’s answer, Woo Yeon-woo’s eyes welled up.

“He’s out.”

“He came here to see you before going to the meeting.”

Woo Yeon-woo covered his face and sobbed.

“You didn’t even remember until I brought it up.”

If Rembrandt hadn’t been needling him from the front, he might have actually shed tears.

But because he didn’t set the mood at all, the rising tears subsided on their own.

Woo Yeon-woo lowered his hands that had been covering his face and asked in a much calmer voice.

“Why did Hyung go to the hunter meeting?”

“Leaving Nakru is a personal matter, but siding with the demons is an act against humanity, isn’t it? He went to prove that it was an unavoidable act.”

“Did Shin Jo-un go to help Hyung?”

“No, just to attend the meeting.”

“……”

“But he’ll help. Anchovy is soft-hearted, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know any soft-hearted anchovies.”

Rembrandt shrugged and added.

“Since you didn’t ask, let me tell you first, Taeri is also safe.”

“Ah. That’s a relief. Where did Taeri go?”

“She’s working. Looks like she has a lot of overdue work.”

Woo Yeon-woo tapped his head a couple of times.

He should have asked about Hyung before Rembrandt brought it up. Was it because he was too surprised when he first woke up? It still felt like his head wasn’t working properly.

Woo Yeon-woo was blaming himself when he suddenly exclaimed, “Ah!”

“That’s right! The documentary! What happened to the documentary?!”

But Rembrandt, who had been answering well all along, suddenly became serious and closed his mouth.

Woo Yeon-woo’s heart sank at that expression. The expression of someone who had been smiling kindly all along changed like that as soon as he heard the word documentary.

The documentary was finally released. Feeling dizzy as if he were going down a roller coaster, Woo Yeon-woo asked urgently.

“The people? What are people saying?”

What kind of reaction was it for his expression to change like that?

“That hasn’t been released. Moros went and confiscated it. And that’s not the problem……”

But Rembrandt’s answer was the opposite of Woo Yeon-woo’s guess.

Moreover, he finished this important topic casually and got up, suddenly walking to the living room. He hadn’t even eaten half of his ice cream yet.

Surprised, he turned around, and unexpectedly, Shin Jo-un, who was said to be in a meeting, was sitting on the living room sofa wearing strange clothes.

“What. You went to a meeting. You’re home?”

But when did he come in? I didn’t hear the door open? Did he come in while I was away? Woo Yeon-woo was wondering when he saw Rembrandt suddenly hitting Shin Jo-un with a spoon, and he stood up in shock.

“Hey!”

He stood up in surprise, but fortunately, Shin Jo-un snatched the spoon out of the air.

“It’s been a while. You’re being too much.”

At those words, Woo Yeon-woo was about to run towards him when he stopped, startled.

‘What. Why is he talking like that?’