Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 170

170. Must Bring Him

Rembrary looked around. While driving, he was sure he’d seen someone collapse while he was dozing off.

Moreover, what had briefly flashed past that person was definitely a monster.

Rembrary stopped in the middle of the alley and looked around again. It was somewhere around here…

As he was thinking, a faint groan reached his ears from nearby.

‘Is it that way?’

Rembrary hurried in that direction. Shin Jo-woon followed him, puzzled by his sudden urgency.

After running for a short distance, Rembrary finally found the person rolling on the ground and stopped.

“Are you alright?”

Rembrary quickly approached and lifted the person’s head.

“Oh?”

Unexpectedly, the injured person was someone Rembrary recognized.

“You’re definitely… someone I’ve seen before.”

As Rembrary frowned and muttered, the injured person moved his lips, barely managing to say, “Seong-woo… Seong-woo.”

Recognition dawned on Rembrary. It was Nakru.

He remembered unwillingly following Woo Seong-woo somewhere for some kind of test, with Nakru accompanying them. Nakru, the man without ‘eyes’ [referring to a lack of spiritual sight or perception] but possessing formidable combat abilities. He hadn’t exchanged many words with him, perhaps due to Nakru’s taciturn nature, but it was definitely him.

He also recalled meeting Im Yu-han there, and a strange individual who walked around with a demon on a leash, making the encounter quite memorable.

“What are you doing here?”

When Rembrary asked, the taciturn man gestured weakly towards his back with a nod.

“Oh, dear.”

Rembrary sighed. From the man’s shoulder area to his arm, and from his back to his side, a deep, ragged wound was visible.

“That must hurt.”

As Rembrary muttered, the taciturn man glared at him, his eyes seeming to say, ‘Are you kidding me?’

It wasn’t Rembrary who had injured him, but the considerable pain made him unusually sensitive. Seeing Rembrary muttering like that in front of him only served to amplify his annoyance.

“How did this happen?”

“Monster…”

“What are you doing, running around when you’re so weak?”

Rembrary clicked his tongue and took out his cell phone. Seeing that he was clearly about to call 119 [the emergency services number in South Korea, similar to 911], the man endured the pain and tapped Rembrary’s ankle.

“Don’t…”

“I need to call an ambulance. You’re bleeding a lot.”

Despite Rembrary’s words, the man shook his head.

“Don’t call.”

Rembrary frowned.

In a different situation, or with a different person, he might have risked using his divine power to heal him directly. But this man had an obvious external wound, was Nakru who had tried to kill a saint, and Shin Jo-woon was standing right next to him.

He couldn’t heal him directly under these circumstances, so calling an ambulance was the only option. But the man was bleeding profusely and still refusing help, which was incredibly frustrating.

“I don’t want to.”

Still, no matter how he looked at it, life was the priority. Rembrary refused firmly and picked up his cell phone again.

“Don’t—”

The man tried to protest, but he stopped, gasping for breath.

Following that, a subtle ‘shush’ sound came from somewhere with perfect timing, silencing him.

The man gritted his teeth and reached for the sword he had dropped.

Rembrary tapped the man’s wrist with the hand holding the cell phone, signaling him not to, and then picked up the cell phone again, as if he hadn’t heard anything.

“A monster.”

Whether it was the dying words of a dying man or not, the man finally confessed, as if he wouldn’t listen to anyone else’s opinion.

“There’s still a monster near here.”

Rembrary stopped with only the ‘1’ key pressed on the keypad. Instead of lowering his hand, he only moved his eyes to look down at the man lying on the floor.

“I have to kill the monster.”

The man groaned weakly, expressing his pain and pleading.

“Don’t get excited. If I call an ambulance now, other people might get hurt too.”

“You don’t even have ‘eyes’ and you’re so injured, what are you going to do?”

“Call… call Seong-woo.”

“Calling Seong-woo won’t make you better.”

Rembrary said firmly and pressed the ‘1’ key again.

At that moment, the ‘shush’ sound came from even closer.

Again, Rembrary ignored it and moved his finger to the ‘9’ key.

It was right then that something screamed and rushed towards the three of them.

The injured man, lacking ‘eyes,’ looked in a slightly wrong direction and tried to force himself up.

On the other hand, Shin Jo-woon and Rembrary, who had ‘eyes,’ properly saw the monster rushing towards them, making a strange noise.

The monster was shaped like branches woven together, and even though they couldn’t discern its eyes, it seemed to see perfectly well and was rushing towards them like a madman.

The moment Shin Jo-woon saw it and calmly reached for his waist,

Rembrary took off his shoe and threw it at the monster.

‘What a strange thing to do?’ Shin Jo-woon stared at Rembrary with wide eyes.

The man who didn’t know what was going on also had eyes that widened in surprise when Rembrary suddenly took off his shoe and threw it.

But no matter how surprised Shin Jo-woon and the man were, it wasn’t as much as the monster itself, which had confidently rushed towards the humans who looked like they wouldn’t even make a mouthful.

―Hooong!

The monster was excited and tried to swing its arm, which was like a tree trunk, but it was hit in the head by the shoe and staggered backward.

It was just a shoe thrown by a human, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. Surprisingly, the moment it was hit by the shoe, it felt a strange sensation like lightning striking inside its head.

The monster’s judgment was swift. Staggering backward, it turned around and fled the way it had come without even looking back. It was a quick escape without any hesitation.

“What, what happened?”

The man without ‘eyes’ asked in surprise when the monster’s threatening ‘shush’ sound suddenly disappeared.

Shin Jo-woon raised his eyebrows and smoothly lowered his hand, which had been on his waist, ready to draw a weapon.

Rembrary hopped over to the shoe rolling on the floor, put it back on, and asked Shin Jo-woon.

“Shin Jo-woon, please carry that person.”

“Are you going to pick him up?”

“I have to take him to the hospital.”

“You shouldn’t pick up people like this carelessly.”

“Why are you so heartless?”

Shin Jo-woon frowned.

“But why do I have to carry him?”

“If I carry him, my clothes will get blood on them.”

‘Even if I carry him, my clothes will get blood on them……’ Shin Jo-woon started to retort, but he changed his mind and obediently slung the injured man over his shoulder.

* * *

Shin Jo-woon called his secretary to arrange for the man to be taken to the emergency room.

At first, he had carried him himself, but because both Shin Jo-woon and Rembrary were well-known figures, getting involved in such an incident could unnecessarily cause problems.

Only after confirming that the man had entered the emergency room did Rembrary ask Shin Jo-woon to ‘take him to the dorm.’

He had just saved a dying person, but he didn’t seem to dwell on it. He didn’t even seem proud.

Shin Jo-woon walked with Rembrary to the place where he had parked the car and asked.

“Do you know who that person was earlier?”

“I don’t know. Hyung [older brother or close male friend] might know, though.”

“Does that mean he’s Hyung’s friend?”

“They didn’t seem close, but I’m not close to Hyung either, so I’m not sure. I thought they might be from the same workplace, but I don’t even know if it’s a workplace.”

Shin Jo-woon raised his eyebrows at the ambiguous answer.

Rembrary was still walking forward with a blank expression.

In reality, Rembrary didn’t have any particular thoughts. He vaguely thought, ‘I should tell Sa Gam-jae about this, but even if I tell him, will he do anything?’ That was about it.

On the other hand, Shin Jo-woon’s head was filled with complicated thoughts.

He had let Hyung go, assuming they were close, but Rembrary himself said they weren’t. And the way he threw his shoe to chase away the monster. And the way he ran to help the injured person as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And yet, he didn’t listen to the injured person’s words at all. There were many ambiguous points.

“Yeon-woo.”

“What?”

“Do you know what Hyung does?”

“I don’t care.”

Again, the two walked silently down the dark alley. Finally, Shin Jo-woon’s car, parked alone under the reddish streetlights as if it were floating in the air, came into view. Rembrary naturally got into the passenger seat and fastened his seatbelt.

Shin Jo-woon also got into the driver’s seat right away, but he didn’t start the engine. He didn’t fasten his seatbelt right away either. He hesitated for a moment and then asked again.

“You said that before too. That friendship isn’t important when saving people. Is that still the case?”

At the sudden question, Rembrary turned around with a ‘why?’ expression.

“Shouldn’t it be?”

“Let’s say your Hyung’s friend provoked that monster who was just standing there, and that’s why the problem occurred.”

“Okay.”

“The monster attacked the person who attacked it in return.”

“Let’s say that’s the case.”

“Even in that case, do you still think you should save that person?”

“If I can save them, I should save them.”

At Rembrary’s natural answer, Shin Jo-woon

“Why?”

He asked back, his face showing genuine incomprehension.

Rembrary also didn’t understand Shin Jo-woon’s confusion, so he looked at him with strange eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Even if your friend provoked that monster first?”

“How would I know in that situation whether they provoked it first or just got hit while passing by?”

“If. Let’s assume that’s the case.”

“Even then, shouldn’t I save them?”

“Why?”

Like a repeat sign, the two people’s conversation circled around one point.

Rembrary looked at Shin Jo-woon with eyes that said, ‘This person is strange,’ and explained.

“Because monsters are basically evil. There are just exceptions.”

Shin Jo-woon stared at Rembrary silently for a moment and then asked.

“Do you really think so?”

* * *

“You’re all getting hospitalized one after another. Did you make a schedule to take turns resting?”

That was the first thing his colleagues said to him, who was lying in a hospital bed after undergoing emergency surgery.

Nakru, whom Rembrary called ‘the taciturn man’ in his mind, glared at his colleagues with an annoyed face, but no one even blinked.

“What happened?”

The team leader gave Nakru, who had made a sharp noise, a look that said, ‘Shut up,’ and asked Nakru, who was lying in the hospital bed.

“Do you know how surprised I was when I suddenly got a call saying you were seriously injured?”

Next to him, Un Du-shin added naggingly.

“What would have happened if you had been on the news too?”

In reality, the reason why ‘the taciturn man’ hadn’t been reported in the media even after suffering such a strange injury was because Nakru had a solid network of connections in various fields.

Nakru was part of a group that had existed alongside human history since humans began to dismiss supernatural phenomena as unscientific. Naturally, they were connected to the ruling class.

Those who wanted to dismiss supernatural phenomena as unscientific helped Nakru in various ways, such as information concealment, information provision, and weapon provision. In return, Nakru solved the supernatural phenomena that troubled them as a top priority.

Of course, even those who were allied with Nakru couldn’t properly intervene if there were too many witnesses, like when Un Du-shin was injured on set, but overall, they were helpful.

The taciturn man ignored Un Du-shin’s nagging and spoke directly to the team leader.

“I encountered a monster that I had failed to hunt before and was attacked. I will submit a separate report regarding that. More than that, I would like to talk about Woo Yeon-woo.”

The team leader, who was also a personal fan of the celebrity Woo Yeon-woo,

“Why Yeon-woo?”

He asked and quickly turned around.

“I heard he helped you? Is that why?”

“It’s not just helping.”

“Then?”

“Woo Seong-woo’s younger brother. We must bring him to our side unconditionally.”