Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 217

< 217. I Wouldn't Think So >

“Yes.”

Rembrary answered as if it were obvious, then tugged at the hat Shin Joowoon was holding onto.

“Let go.”

Shin Joowoon released the hat. But this time, he grabbed his sleeve.

“Stop it.”

Rembrary frowned.

“Shin Joowoon should stop. Why do you keep grabbing people? If you keep doing that, I might get angry. I’m very scary when I’m angry.”

Having experienced it more than once or twice, Shin Joowoon didn’t get caught up in Rembrary’s way of speaking. Instead, he pointed to the wrecked car with a stern look.

“Taeri almost died because of that person. You saw it.”

“That doesn’t mean we can leave them to die. And Taeri almost got hurt because…”

…the car crashed into a crack that suddenly appeared. The driver couldn’t see the crack, so they couldn’t avoid it. They were speeding, but if the crack hadn’t appeared, or if they could have seen it, the accident wouldn’t have happened.

Rembrary thought it was excessive to blame the driver. But… can I talk about the crack?

Rembrary paused.

Shin Joowoon guessed that Rembrary’s unspoken words were, ‘They’re alive, so it’s fine.’ That’s true. As a result, Jang Taeri survived. But Shin Joowoon didn’t waver.

“That person would have died without you anyway.”

“?”

“Anyone else in your place would have died. Even the most brilliant doctor would have failed. Why did you have to interfere and heal them?”

“But I’m the one here.”

Shin Joowoon’s expression twisted, as if he had heard a very sad story.

“Seeing you like this, you really are a saint.”

Instead of agreeing with Shin Joowoon’s lament, Rembrary silently turned and approached the driver. But Shin Joowoon blocked Rembrary again. For a moment, the two stared at each other, not understanding.

“What are you doing!”

A shout came from behind.

Startled by the sudden rebuke, Rembrary turned his head and saw Jang Taeri. He must have recovered, as he was opening the car door and getting out.

Rembrary was flustered. He should have treated the driver before Jang Taeri woke up. What will he say to Jang Taeri now?

But as soon as Jang Taeri approached, he pinched Shin Joowoon’s cheek and scolded him.

“What right do you have to decide who lives and dies?”

Then he immediately said to Rembrary,

“Yeonwoo, do what you were going to do.”

Rembrary looked at Jang Taeri in surprise.

“Do you know… what I was going to do?”

He seemed to know.

Jang Taeri asked back with a dubious expression.

“Weren’t you going to heal that person?”

* * *

After Rembrary treated the driver to a reasonable extent, Jang Taeri called 119 [the emergency telephone number in South Korea] with his phone.

“Yes. Near Dage Rock. If you come up the central road from the 24-hour convenience store there. Yes.”

While Jang Taeri was on the phone, Shin Joowoon coldly examined the car’s black box [the vehicle’s event data recorder]. However, the black box was completely broken, making it difficult to function. Fortunately.

After thoroughly searching the card inside and confirming that the video was unusable, Shin Joowoon called the butler and gave various instructions, then checked the location of the CCTV cameras on the road.

“What are you doing?”

“I didn’t want your healing to be filmed.”

“Do you think it was filmed?”

“Even if it was, from a distance, it would just look like you’re touching them. Well, I guess someone approaching an injured person and touching their wounds would look like a psycho.”

“Do you think people will call me a psycho?”

“…No. Looking at the angle, it wouldn’t have been filmed.”

Still disliking that Rembrary had saved the driver, Shin Joowoon’s voice was cold.

While waiting for 119 to arrive, the three sat side by side on the front of the car. The peaceful atmosphere from when they first came to see the sunrise was long gone.

After a while, Rembrary spoke first.

“Taeri, you’re not surprised?”

Jang Taeri blankly looked at his feet, then suddenly raised his head, saying, “Huh?”

“No, I was very surprised. I thought Yeonwoo was like a living angel, but I never thought he was a real angel…”

Shin Joowoon retorted.

“What angel is he?”

“If he’s a saint, he’s a living angel.”

“What are you talking about? They’re completely different.”

Rembrary listened to Jang Taeri’s expression with satisfaction, then narrowed his eyes and looked at Shin Joowoon.

Shin Joowoon blocked Rembrary’s gaze with his bag but didn’t stop talking about Rembrary.

“That’s the problem with saints. They have no standards. Even if they have abilities, do they have to use them in useless ways?”

Just as Rembrary was about to retort to Shin Joowoon’s mockery of saints, Jang Taeri unexpectedly spoke up first.

“Are you insulting my brother right now?”

Rembrary stopped trying to argue with Shin Joowoon and looked back at Jang Taeri, bewildered.

“Brother?”

At those words, both Jang Taeri and Shin Joowoon’s expressions hardened. Rembrary looked back and forth between them. Then, Rembrary belatedly understood the context and asked back in surprise.

“Jang Taeri’s brother is a saint? Shin Joowoon, do you know that too?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“How old is your brother?”

Jang Taeri smiled awkwardly and clasped his hands together. Shin Joowoon also silently stared at the unconscious driver. The atmosphere was unusual. Rembrary wondered if he had asked a question he shouldn’t have and glanced around.

After hesitating for a while, Jang Taeri answered in a small voice, as if throwing it out.

“He’s a twin. He’s seven years old.”

“Ah. Seven years old.”

“For 21 years.”

At the small addition, Rembrary’s eyes widened.

“Is he a vampire?”

Rembrary was really surprised. Vampires often calculate their age like that. Could Jang Taeri’s brother have become a monster?

But as soon as he asked the question, Shin Joowoon gagged Rembrary.

Rembrary belatedly realized. He didn’t become a vampire. He must be dead.

The atmosphere turned dark in an instant. In the meantime, the sound of sirens cut through the silence.

* * *

Shin Joowoon dropped Jang Taeri off first, then took Rembrary to his accommodation.

The atmosphere became even more awkward when it was just the two of them.

In particular, Rembrary was busy piecing together what Jang Taeri had said and Shin Joowoon’s reaction.

After a long time, Rembrary finally asked Shin Joowoon directly.

“So Taeri knows about the Saint too?”

Shin Joowoon frowned and answered.

“Yeah.”

Rembrary stared at Shin Joowoon for a moment. And he thought about Woo Sungwoo. Woo Sungwoo had definitely said that his brother had an accident, and after that, he gained ‘eyes’.

As the car stopped at a red light, Shin Joowoon noticed the look and asked.

“If you have something to ask, just ask. Don’t roll your eyes.”

“Jang Taeri’s brother died, so why did Shin Joowoon get ‘eyes’?”

“!”

Shin Joowoon didn’t answer. But the veins on his hand holding the steering wheel showed that there was something unpleasant about it.

Rembrary decided not to ask further. Rummaging through wounds he didn’t want to talk about wasn’t his style.

Instead, when the car stopped in front of the accommodation, instead of getting out right away, he seriously suggested to Shin Joowoon.

“Shin Joowoon, do you have a religion? Would you like to convert if you’re having a hard time?”

“You looked like you were thinking a lot. Why is the conclusion conversion?”

“You look like you’re having a hard time.”

Shin Joowoon chuckled and then asked seriously.

“Not all saints are like you, right?”

Then, adding in a small voice, “That would be a disaster,” Rembrary skipped the greeting and left.

Then Shin Joowoon honked the horn softly from behind. When he turned around, he was waving goodbye. But instead of greeting him back, Rembrary snorted and went inside the entrance.

But when he got on the elevator and looked at the mirror on the wall, he felt worried. There was so much shocking information earlier that he couldn’t calculate it. Jongwoo. Is he okay? If this spreads, Jongwoo will definitely faint….

* * *

At that time.

Sagamjae was at the filming set in a black suit.

There was no filming today, so the filming set was dark without a single light, but Sagamjae didn’t care whether it was dark or bright and wandered around.

Then Sajikjae, who was also dressed in the same clothes and investigating, asked.

“Are you sure this is the place?”

Sajikjae was also straining his eyes as if looking for something.

“This is the right place.”

“Really?”

“Definitely.”

“But why isn’t there anything?”

“They must have cleaned it up.”

Sagamjae tried to recall his memory by touching the direction where the problem occurred on the filming set. However, the inside of the filming set looked almost the same, so it was difficult to pinpoint a specific location.

“Somewhere around there, there was definitely a hand…”

Finally, Sagamjae found the most similar spot and pointed his finger. Sajikjae quickly approached.

“Where? I don’t know. …Ah. Is that it?”

After looking at the direction Sagamjae pointed for a long time, Sajikjae finally recognized one spot and muttered. There was a faint crack in the place Sagamjae pointed. But it wasn’t that big of a crack.

“A hand came out here? Is the hand the size of a rat’s hand?”

“No. …The crack has gotten smaller.”

“The crack has gotten smaller?”

“It used to be a little bigger than this. Enough for a human-sized hand to pop out.”

At that time, Sagamjae’s phone rang.

“Wait a moment.”

Sagamjae straightened his back, which he had bent to examine the crack in detail.

“Yes. Hello.”

The caller was Rembrary.

“What’s wrong?”

As Sagamjae asked politely, a poor-quality voice came over the receiver. Sajikjae tapped the crack with his phone while listening to Sagamjae’s call details.

But the voice mixed with mechanical sounds was difficult to understand. Finally, after the call ended, Sajikjae immediately asked Sagamjae.

“Why?”

Sagamjae, who was hanging up the phone, had an even darker expression. It was hard to get any darker than this, but anyone could see that his complexion was bad. His already grim reaper-like appearance was now even more eerie.

“What’s wrong? Judging by your bad expression, it’s not good news.”

Of course, Sagamjae, who was also a grim reaper, was not swayed by the atmosphere and asked repeatedly. Sajikjae held his phone in one hand and stared at the shrunken crack, muttering.

“It’s getting bigger.”

Sajikjae immediately understood and pointed his finger at the crack.

“That? Are there any others? Maybe the place where it first appeared? The concert hall or something?”

“No. Another place.”

“Another one appeared?”

“It seems to have appeared in the middle of the road.”

“Wow. At least there wasn’t a big accident this time.”

“There was a car accident.”

“What? Did another hand pop out? Did the hand block the car this time?”

“It seems the car was bounced off the crack while driving.”

Sajikjae’s eyes widened. Isn’t that… a really serious matter? Cracks appear in the air, and people are directly affected by them. Isn’t that like a sinkhole appearing in the air?

Sagamjae opened his mouth. To say that something was definitely happening. To say that he might have to go to the underworld.

But before he could speak, someone’s voice was heard from inside the shrunken crack.