Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 267

267. What on Earth Happened?

It felt like he was surrounded by bread. Soft bread.

Rembrary reached out and pushed against the yielding surface. It dented where he pushed, but when he removed his hand, it slowly returned to its original shape. He couldn’t decide if it was comfortable or suffocating.

Then, crack. He heard something breaking. The sound jolted Rembrary. Now. He could get out now!

Opening his eyes, Rembrary pushed against the ‘bread’ that had been surrounding him. This time, it didn’t spring back. Rembrary slowly sat up.

“Where is this…?”

It was familiar. Surprisingly familiar, yet unsettlingly alien. Before he could fully process the situation, the words ‘frog egg’ popped into Rembrary’s head.

At his feet lay a frog egg, split in half. What he had thought was bread was the black membrane lining the inside of the frog egg.

‘Why am I here? I clearly fell through the rift. Or, can I even say I fell?’

To use the word ‘fell,’ the rift would have to be below him, but the rift Rembrary was investigating wasn’t below. Besides, he’d been sucked into the rift, so ‘fell’ was definitely the wrong word.

Rembrary looked around again. A frog egg at his feet. The surrounding scenery suggested Korea. If so…

‘Does coming out of the rift mean you end up wearing this frog egg? Does this frog egg act as a buffer when crossing dimensions?’

He stood there, trying to make sense of it all, when a child’s cry cut through his thoughts. He stopped analyzing and looked ahead. A real child was sitting on the ground a few steps away, looking at him and sobbing.

Rembrary carefully climbed out of the remains of the frog egg and approached the child. The child, perhaps thinking that ‘everyone who comes out of a frog egg is a monster,’ looked terrified and backed away.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to be scared.”

However, when Rembrary knelt to make eye contact and gently projected a calming wave of divine power, the child sniffled and stopped crying. Then, staring intently at Rembrary’s face, she asked,

“Are you an angel? Did Mom send you?”

“An angel?”

“My sister didn’t come back, so Dad went to find her. But Dad didn’t come back either, so Mom went out to find Dad and my sister.”

“!”

“Mom said if she couldn’t come back, she would send an angel instead…”

Rembrary suddenly understood why this place felt familiar yet alien. Before he left, Korea had been a clean and orderly place. Of course, there were some less-than-pristine areas, but generally, the roads were well-maintained, the buildings were sound, and cars were everywhere.

Even when the frog eggs had first appeared, cars, bicycles, and motorcycles had skillfully navigated around them, and people had gradually returned to their daily routines.

But now, this place was subtly, disturbingly different. The buildings and roads were the same, but the number of cars was drastically reduced. Hardly anyone was walking around, and broken objects were scattered everywhere.

The atmosphere was desolate. So desolate it was eerie. Besides, where had all the frog eggs that had been piled up gone?

“Angel?”

As Rembrary frowned and scanned the surroundings, the child called out to him again, her voice anxious.

“Are you really an angel?”

Rembrary replied gently, “Your mother asked me to… what is your name?”

“Ju-kyung.”

“Asked me to comfort Ju-kyung.”

As the child seemed to relax a little, Rembrary looked around and asked, “Why is this place in such a state?”

“What do you mean?”

“The city. Where have all the people gone, and you…”

Rembrary hesitated, thinking he shouldn’t ask, ‘How did your family all go missing?’ to the child. He rephrased, “Are you guarding this place alone?”

“People are all wandering around. Or they went to the ‘city’.”

“Isn’t this a city too?”

“This is ‘non-city’.”

“‘Non-city’?”

“Angel is ignorant.”

“Tsk, tsk.”

The child named Ju-kyung was too young to articulate the situation clearly, but Rembrary gleaned one crucial piece of information from her responses.

‘Time flows differently here than where I lived.’

Even if the child was young and couldn’t fully explain things, she should have been able to describe events she had experienced or heard about. But she didn’t understand Rembrary’s questions at all.

In other words, the child had grown up accepting this strange, broken world as normal. It was highly likely that the world had been like this since before she was born, or before she had developed a clear sense of self.

“Ju-kyung. How old are you?”

“Seven.”

‘So, it’s been at least three years since I left.’

“Angel?”

As Rembrary’s expression darkened, the child asked worriedly, “Is there a problem?”

“Everything is totally…”

* * *

Following Ju-kyung to her house, Rembrary nearly reeled back when he opened the refrigerator door. It wasn’t cold at all. The refrigerator wasn’t working.

Moreover, five cans and three water bottles were all that was inside. No other food. As Rembrary stared at the meager contents in dismay, the child quickly explained, “Mom said she would bring food and find my sister and dad.”

Rembrary paused, his lips moving silently, then asked, “How many days has it been since your mother left?”

The child held up all ten fingers, then folded five of them after a moment.

“13 days.”

Since it was definitely more than ten days, Rembrary ran a hand over his forehead. What on earth is going on? What happened to this once-thriving place?

“Internet.”

“Huh?”

“Ju-kyung. Can I use the internet? Do you have a cell phone?”

“No.”

“You don’t? What about a laptop or computer?”

“There is a computer.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s password-protected, so the angel can’t use it. Ah. Can the angel unlock passwords?”

“No. Angels can’t unlock passwords either.”

Rembrary ran a hand over his forehead again. What am I going to do?

* * *

If he had entered Woo Yeon-woo’s body, he would have been a famous person, and he could have asked people to find Shin Jo-woon, Jang Tae-ri, Jong-woo, or the Wild Animal members to find out what was happening. But after coming here through the rift in his original body, he couldn’t even impersonate Woo Yeon-woo.

‘As soon as I got paid, I returned to my original body… my money.’

As the child fell asleep in the room, Rembrary wandered alone in the living room, pondering his next steps. First, he had to understand the situation. He also had to find Mullu and Nin-ryung, who had come with him. He was a heretic, but he had been swept away while trying to help, so he also had to find the nameless Eastern paladin.

That wasn’t all.

‘The fact that I fell from the rift and came out in a frog egg… those people who came out of the frog eggs back then. Are those monsters the people from where I lived?’

Rembrary frowned, thinking of the purple hair. Then that person too? The monster with vines coming out of its mouth, or the monster with an eel tail?

After careful consideration, Rembrary concluded that he ‘couldn’t know for sure’. When he was here before, frog eggs had covered not only Korea but also other countries. However, not all the people from Rembrary’s world had immigrated here. The populations of the two worlds weren’t the same, and even at a glance, the numbers didn’t match. It was true that people had emerged from the frog eggs, but not everyone in the frog eggs was originally ‘people’ from his world.

No, more than that, the number of frog eggs that had been filling the ground had already decreased considerably. So, had all the eggs hatched? Could this mess have happened because all the eggs hatched?

‘Redrin-nim.’

First, Rembrary stopped thinking and called out to Redrin. It had become difficult to contact her recently, but he still had to try.

[Rembrary.]

But for some reason, Redrin answered immediately. Just like when he was in his original world.

‘Redrin-nim?’

Surprised, Rembrary called out once more, and the sound of Redrin laughing echoed back.

[I was the one who pulled you here this time. I felt your energy over there, so I pulled you in.]

As soon as Rembrary heard Redrin’s voice, his eyes welled up, and he complained, ‘Redrin-nim, people are having a hard time. Both the people of the original world and the people of this world.’

[…Yes. I just wanted to relocate people here. Things have become too dire. Because you suddenly disappeared, the Eastern heretic child led the people to try to relocate them instead, but even that didn’t turn out well.]

‘Didn’t turn out well? How so?’

[…]

‘Redrin-nim?’

[Find the Archduke. He will be active in my name, so it won’t be difficult to find him.]

Redrin’s voice, which had been gradually fading as if she were turning down the volume, eventually became completely silent. Rembrary called out again, but there was no answer.

* * *

The next day, the child woke up and came out yawning. Seeing Rembrary standing by the window, bathed in the morning sunlight, she was startled and asked,

“Angel. Are you going to fly away?”

Rembrary had been lost in thought all night. Only when the child shouted in surprise did he snap back to reality and ask,

“Ju-kyung. Do you know about someone named ‘Redrin’?”

“Isn’t it a hunter group?”

“A hunter group?”

‘It’s completely divorced from religion?’

As Rembrary asked in bewilderment, Ju-kyung added after thinking for a moment, “Uh…”

“A religious hunter group.”

“Really?”

“They help people a lot, I think.”

“I see.”

“But Dad said that Redrin’s followers are all swindlers.”

“…I see.”

Rembrary’s expression, which had brightened at the child’s explanation, deflated at the word ‘swindler’. Anyway, if even a young child knew about it…

It seemed the name had made quite an impact.

“But why?”

“Ju-kyung. I think I need to go out for a while.”

“Where are you going? Let’s go together.”

As the child clung to him with a frightened face, Rembrary considered whether it would be safer to take her with him or leave her here.

However, the child seemed terrified of being abandoned, like the family members who had told her to ‘stay here’ and never returned.

“Are you going to fly in the sky? That’s why you can’t take me?”

As the child looked anxiously at Rembrary’s back, worried that wings would sprout, Rembrary had no choice but to pick her up.

“Then let’s go together.”

* * *

Fortunately, there were some people around, and Rembrary approached them. Perhaps because of the young child he was carrying, people were wary but didn’t run away, and they answered his questions.

“Why did the world suddenly become like this?”

But when Rembrary asked this, everyone looked at him strangely and slowly backed away. It was difficult to talk to people for more than a minute, let alone find out about Redrin and the Archduke.

In the midst of this, a strange thing happened. Suddenly, the sky was quickly covered with black clouds, and in an instant, it became like night.

Before he could even react to this bizarre phenomenon, huge pillars began to fall from the darkened sky. People screamed and ran for cover, mostly inside buildings.

Rembrary also entered the lobby of a department store in a daze. Watching from inside, he could see why people had sought refuge in the building. The pillars didn’t fall on the buildings but only on the ground.

‘What’s the principle behind this?’ he wondered, when someone ran towards the building and tripped. As soon as that person fell, a pillar slammed into the ground at their feet. The terrified person tried to get up and run, but they were too slow because the pillars were falling everywhere, and they kept stumbling.

Unable to stand by, Rembrary put Ju-kyung down and quickly ran towards the fallen person, grabbed them, and pulled them inside.

“Thank you.”

The person gasped for breath as soon as they were safely inside the lobby and thanked Rembrary.

Rembrary frowned, looking at the sky where the pillars were still falling. He had saved this person, but in the distance, some people had been hit or crushed by the pillars. They were too far away to save.

After about 30 minutes, someone muttered, “I think it’s going to end now,” and the black clouds really did dissipate, and it became daytime again. The pillars stuck in the ground vanished with a rustling sound. As if this was a common occurrence, people calmly went back outside to go about their business.

‘What is this?’

He was so surprised he was gaping when it happened.

“Hey, handsome guy over there. Are you an Awakened [a person with supernatural abilities]?”

A person sitting on a department store chair approached and spoke to Rembrary. It was the same voice as the person who had muttered, “I think it’s going to end now.” When Rembrary looked over, the person repeated, “Awakened?”

When Rembrary nodded, the person took out a business card from his pocket and handed it to him.

“You seem a bit clueless, so I’m guessing you haven’t been Awakened for long. Would you like to come work with us?”

Rembrary stared intently at the business card. It read ‘Hunter Alex, affiliated with World Boom’. As Rembrary remained fixated on the card, Alex chuckled nonchalantly.

“You must be thinking this is a dream, getting scouted by World Boom so soon after Awakening. Of course, we won’t hire you right away. We’re just making initial contact. You have to pass the training center to get in.”

Rembrary cut Alex off. His surprise had nothing to do with World Boom being prestigious or anything like that. It wasn’t that he was surprised that the hunter had a business card. It wasn’t because there was a training center either.

“World Boom… Isn’t that an entertainment agency?”

The entertainment agency where Shin Jo-woon was the president. As far as Rembrary knew, that was definitely the name.