Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 288

288. Puppet Lord (1)

“Wait, aren’t you Gamjae?”

Rembrary looked at Grim Reaper Gamjae in surprise. Of course, Gamjae was a Grim Reaper from this world, so it made sense he’d be wandering around here somewhere, but it was still disconcerting to run into him so suddenly in this situation.

More importantly, did he just say, ‘Long time no see?’ Isn’t that something you say when you already know someone? Does that mean Gamjae recognized him in this form?

As a surprised Rembrary blinked, Gamjae approached and pointed his chin at the Lion Lord.

“Who is that?”

Feeling the gaze, the Lion Lord jumped up, straightened his shoulders, and stood face to face with Gamjae.

“I’m the lord of the neighboring non-city.”

But this wasn’t the time for Rembrary to be introducing Gamjae and the Lion Lord to each other. Rembrary looked at Gamjae with a strange expression and asked,

“Why are you here?”

“I heard that humans with remaining lifespans are continuously dying in this area, so I came to investigate.”

As soon as he heard those words, the Lion Lord narrowed his eyes sharply and pointed at Gamjae.

“Remb. Is that guy with the government?”

He didn’t seem to like government officials very much. Rembrary shook his head.

“No. He’s not. Gamjae is just someone with similar tastes to you.”

At those words, the Lion Lord asked, “Eyeballs?” and Rembrary nodded.

“Yeah. Taste.”

Gamjae frowned, about to ask Rembrary how he suddenly disappeared from Woo Yeonwoo’s body.

“What are you talking about? How are my tastes similar to that guy’s?”

Rembrary pointed at the Lion Lord’s bare upper body.

“Look at what he’s wearing. Isn’t that your style?”

The Lion Lord didn’t understand Rembrary’s words right away because he didn’t know about Gamjae’s swimsuit, but Gamjae immediately became unpleasant and replied,

“What are you saying? I’m offended.”

“Don’t you like being naked?”

“I consider the time and place. And it’s not that I like it, it’s just that the designs I pursue have a lot of exposure.”

The Lion Lord, belatedly understanding what Rembrary was saying, also retorted in anger.

“Remb. I don’t like being naked either. It’s just that pursuing practicality led to the conclusion that being naked is the best choice.”

Rembrary shrugged and gently informed them.

“Everyone has their reasons. But collectively, people like you are usually called perverts.”

“!”

“!”

The Lion Lord’s eyes widened, and he huffed, but Gamjae paused, put his hand to his chin, and muttered, “I see.”

“What are you understanding? Don’t agree!”

The Lion Lord, having been lumped in as a pervert, shouted in anger, but Gamjae wasn’t muttering “I see” about that part.

Gamjae ignored the Lion Lord, stared at Rembrary, and nodded.

“I was still doubtful, but it is you, Rembrary.”

“Doubtful?”

“I stopped by a hunter company before coming here. I saw your picture and name among the new trainees there. I was thinking ‘maybe’ based on your 말투 [manner of speaking] and name.”

“So you recognized me right away.”

The Lion Lord still didn’t understand what the two were talking about and frowned, but no one gave him a detailed explanation.

* * *

While Gamjae and the Lion Lord, having exchanged names, were taking out travel bags from the car trunk and preparing food for a simple meal,

Rembrary opened the passenger seat door, sat inside, and searched for ‘Puppet Doll Lord’ on his phone.

He sent a text to Shin Joowoon to ask specifically what it was, but the guy who used to reply like a knife suddenly wasn’t replying, and he wasn’t answering the phone either, so he was just searching directly.

‘It’s not coming up well.’

But even when he searched, only pictures of puppet dolls came up, and there weren’t many threatening stories.

‘Ah. There.’

Rembrary searched through various sites and belatedly remembered the hunter trainee community site that Mori had told him about, and he went there and posted a question.

“Remb. Eat up.”

After eating and checking again, there were many comments posted in about 15 minutes.

* * *

Title: Who is the Puppet Doll in the Singing Forest? >ㅅ< I came to the Singing Forest. It's a place with only buildings and no forest, but anyway, that's definitely the name. The lord here is a puppet doll, does any trainee know anything about it? >ㅅ< ―ㅅㅂ Which trainee keeps winking? I'm gonna puke;;; ―Aren't you an Awakened? Even if you're not, wouldn't it be better to remove the >ㅅ< ? It completely kills the motivation to answer. If you send something like >ㅅ< to a client later, the client might withdraw the request. ―I don't know >ㅅ< Go find it yourself >ㅅ< ―Reminds me of Woo Yeonwoo lololol He spammed SNS with >ㅅ< a few years ago lololol He doesn't do that these days though. ―Why is everyone like that? It's cute. ―Ignore all the humans above. If you really went there, how many people are with you? How many hunters went in there? * * * There weren't many helpful comments, but one of them seemed to be seriously trying to explain, so Rembrary quickly replied. ㄴ(Writer) Three people including me >ㅅ< ㄴYou should be excluded, you're still a trainee. ㄴ(Writer) I'm stronger than the hunters! >ㅅ< ㄴEven if you're stronger, you're not a hunter yet. And even including you, three people isn't enough. Get out of there quickly. ㄴ(Writer) Why? < "Ah. Typo." While Rembrary was frantically searching for the edit button because he was using the idol emoticon strangely, someone left a long comment. It was written at length, but to summarize, the lord there is one of the top five worst lords, and because he has such a nasty personality, all sorts of bad stories circulate, such as he was a death row inmate before the Cataclysm, a gangster, a betraying spy, a psychopath, etc. Of course, no one knows the truth yet, but it was clear that he was a bad person. ―They say he reigns like a king and uses people like slaves. They say that if anyone challenges or resists him, he turns them into puppet dolls and plays with them until they die. I don't know why you went there, but if there are only three hunters, I recommend getting out immediately. Moreover, when that person commented seriously, the other trainees stopped teasing and started sharing the stories they had heard about the puppet lord, and there wasn't a single good story among them. Everyone was just telling them to get out quickly. ―(Writer) I need to get a signature from that lord to leave. I need a signature to drop out early. >ㅅ< When Rembrary, who was watching this, revealed the reason why he couldn't leave, the comment reactions became even more ferocious. ―Are you crazy? You can get an early dismissal signature from any lord, right? But why are you trying to get it there? ―If you're applying for early dismissal, you seem like a capable trainee, so I recommend returning obediently. There's nothing to lose even if you become a hunter at a leisurely pace. There's no particular merit to becoming a hunter by dropping out early. ―There are always guys like that. Guys who do everything they're told not to do and go everywhere they're told not to go. "They talk so roughly." Anyway, since there didn't seem to be any more information to be gained, Rembrary put his phone in his pocket and told Gamjae and the Lion Lord the story he had heard from the trainee community. "Investigating that guy might solve the problem." Gamjae listened to Rembrary's explanation and nodded cautiously. He came to solve the problem of people with remaining lifespans continuing to die, and if the lord was so infamous, he thought he might be behind this incident. "Puppet what? I don't know, that kind of thing." On the other hand, the Lion Lord didn't seem to have any interest in the puppet lord, even though he was the lord of this neighboring non-city. "Rembrary-nim. You said you also have business with the puppet lord, right?" "Yeah. I need to get a signature." "I need to find that human too, so let's look together for the time being." "Let's do that." The Lion Lord protested in the middle, asking why they weren't asking for his opinion, but anyway, the group suddenly became three, and the two humans and one Grim Reaper began to gather information while wandering around. However, even if they wanted to gather information, there had to be people around. Unlike the non-city where the Lion Lord lived, where there were many people wandering around the streets, there were hardly any people wandering around here. Even if there were, they would make strange noises and run away as soon as they saw Rembrary's group. Even the Lion Lord, who had reigned as a figure of terror in his own territory, was bewildered and muttered. "Why are they running away? What did we do?" "It's probably because of that mask. Do you have to wear that mask?" "What?" "If there's no reason to wear it, can't you take it off? It seems like people are scared of us because of you." "Do you think you can make unreasonable demands of me just because you're an acquaintance of my benefactor? I'm already shirtless. And now you're telling me to take off my mask too?" "You can wear a shirt and take off the mask. Is that an unreasonable request? Is there a reason why you can't?" Gamjae's question to the Lion Lord sounded utterly useless, but Rembrary, who had inadvertently heard it, became curious and perked up his ears. "I'm..." However, just as the Lion Lord was about to answer, a restaurant that was open finally appeared in front of the three. "Ah, there are people there. Let's ask while ordering." Seeing the restaurant, the Lion Lord changed his mind and went straight inside. 'What's the reason? Why do you keep wearing the mask?' Rembrary became curious about what the Lion Lord was originally going to say, but the Lion Lord had already taken a seat inside the restaurant and was ordering 칼국수 [kal-guksu, noodle soup]. Seeing that, Rembrary realized that it wasn't the time to ask questions and hurriedly went to the next seat and ordered 칼국수 [kal-guksu, noodle soup] together. "You still have a strong appetite. What have you been doing while you were gone that you're still starving?" "I was starving there too. Strangely, I kept getting hungry." "Where? Where did Remb disappear to?" While they were eating 칼국수 [kal-guksu, noodle soup], Rembrary was telling Gamjae that he was going to join 'Redrin,' and Gamjae was complaining that his colleagues were still calling him a pigeon because Rembrary suddenly disappeared, and the Lion Lord was asking Gamjae if Rembrary was his only human friend and the rest of his friends were all pigeons. A person who was sitting alone in the corner eating 수제비 [sujebi, hand-pulled dough soup] hesitated, approached, and cautiously spoke to Rembrary. "Excuse me... are you perhaps a hunter?" He wasn't a hunter yet, but Rembrary didn't think it was necessary to take care of such details, so he replied that he was. "Yeah. Why?" Then the person hesitated, then pointed to a very ambiguous point beyond the window. "Somewhere over there, anyway, there's a hunter from Redrin who came out for volunteer work. Would you like me to guide you if you're okay with it...?" It was like a line from an extra who briefly appears at the beginning of a horror movie and points out a place that you should never go into. Gamjae and the Lion Lord both frowned at the sudden kindness of the villager. If it were an ordinary village, they would have appreciated such sudden kindness from a stranger. However, the people of this village had been shunning outsiders to the point of running away from the group all along. But they listened to other people's conversations, approached, and suddenly offered to guide them? It was an offer that could never be accepted. However, just as they were about to refuse. "Let's go." Rembrary answered easily and got up. Of course, Rembrary didn't get up because he believed the person who made the offer either.