Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 289

289. Puppet Lord (2)

‘It doesn’t matter if it’s suspicious. As long as there’s a small clue.’

Rembrary was confident he could overcome whatever scheme the other party had in mind with such a proposal. Wasn’t that enough? Rembrary, having risen, pointed to the door with his chin.

“Let’s go.”

The proposer was more embarrassed by the easy answer. The person glanced at the restaurant owner with trembling eyes, appearing suspicious to anyone.

“Look at that. You’re going to a place like that?”

Seeing this, the Lion Lord asked Rembrary if he was crazy, but Rembrary didn’t change his mind.

“Lead the way.”

The villager hesitated, looking back and forth between the Lion Lord and Sagamjae, and eventually went out of the restaurant first.

“What about you guys?”

Just before following him, Rembrary asked the Lion Lord and Sagamjae as if he had just remembered.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to follow, or are you going to stay here?”

Sagamjae immediately answered.

“I’m not going. I don’t want to meet unpleasant people, even if it’s just in case.”

People belonging to the Redrine Hunter Company, even if they are not true believers of the Redrine God, are potential enemies of Sagamjae. Of course, there was no reason for Sagamjae to follow.

“What about you?”

When Rembrary asked the Lion Lord, he also answered immediately.

“I’m not going either. Following even though I know it’s suspicious is the situation I hate the most. I always wanted to backstab those characters in movies who do that.”

“Suit yourself.”

Rembrary respected their opinions, so instead of persuading them further, he followed the villager outside.

As Rembrary left, the Lion Lord and Sagamjae, who were practically strangers, were awkwardly left in the restaurant. In addition, the restaurant owner, who had exchanged subtle glances with the villager earlier, was also quite suspicious.

“Come to think of it, I also have something to do.”

But that awkwardness was broken soon after. Sagamjae got up from the table and muttered, then left without saying what that business was.

“Where are you going?”

The Lion Lord asked from behind, but Sagamjae disappeared without answering.

‘Those heartless people.’ The Lion Lord, left alone, felt abandoned and sadly stroked his beard.

‘If Mom were here, she would never leave me alone… I miss Mom.’

The depressed Lion Lord eventually picked up his phone and called his mom. But as soon as the signal rang three times, an unpleasant scene appeared before the Lion Lord’s eyes. The stone monsters that had smashed the car earlier appeared in a line and blocked the front of the store.

“Ugh.”

The Lion Lord, glancing at the store owner hiding and trembling behind the counter, slowly got up from his seat and pressed the end call button.

‘Is it an attack?’

However, the monsters did not enter the store, as if they didn’t want to destroy it.

“No, are they accomplices?”

It didn’t matter either way. The Lion Lord put his phone in his pants pocket and slowly walked out of the store.

* * *

At the same time.

Rembrary stopped in his place, looking around and rubbing his chin.

“Hmm. This is troublesome.”

What Rembrary was looking at were the villagers.

Brandishing weapons unsuitable for their purpose, such as saws, knives, rakes, and baseball bats, and huffing and puffing at Rembrary as if looking at an enemy.

The villager who had guided Rembrary was now standing about nine steps away from him.

There was a subtle sense of victory on that person’s face, also, a false sense of intoxication that they had cornered an Awakened and a Hunter.

“Which one of them came from Redrine?”

However, when Rembrary seriously asked the person who had guided him, the villager, who had been smiling like a villain with fear and pride, became angry and shouted.

“No one! You’ve been fooled, you Hunter!”

“Ah. I see.”

Then, when Rembrary smiled brightly and understood even the story that he had been fooled, the villager became even more angry and gnashed his teeth.

“You’re going to die! We have to live if you die. Kill him!”

As soon as that person shouted, those who had been shrugging their shoulders with weapons rushed at Rembrary at the same time, tasted the majesty of God, and collapsed on the spot, panting.

All of this took less than 3 seconds.

Rembrary glanced at those who were trembling after putting down their weapons, then smiled gently at the person who had guided him and asked again.

“What did you just say? I heard you clearly, but say it one more time.”

“!”

* * *

After appropriately sorting out the situation and returning, Rembrary forgot the location of the restaurant from earlier, so he circled around for about 50 minutes before finally finding his party.

“Were you all here?”

When Rembrary found the Lion Mask and Sagamjae, he quickly ran over and reached out his finger to tell them what he had experienced.

“Huh? Why do you all look like that?”

However, the two were not in a state to listen to the conversation. The Lion Mask was folding his arms as if he was angry, and Sagamjae was also pretending to be expressionless, but a blue vein was visible on his forehead.

“Why is that?”

When Rembrary asked again, the Lion Mask and Sagamjae took turns explaining the situation.

“So, after I left, you were both attacked separately in different places? But Sagamjae has difficulty dealing with people, and the Lion Lord has difficulty dealing with stone monsters, so you ran away from each other and solved each other’s enemies? Is that right?”

It seemed that the Lion Mask’s beard being half pulled out and Sagamjae’s black suit being crumpled were things that happened in the process.

“You’re both weak.”

When Rembrary summarized this situation once more, Sagamjae changed the subject as if it was nothing.

“It was strange that we were attacked as soon as we scattered, so I threatened the restaurant owner and asked him, and he said that all of this was the work of the puppet lord here.”

The Lion Mask glared at Rembrary.

“It’s your fault, Remb. Everyone pitied me because you left me behind.”

Rembrary ignored the Lion Mask and asked Sagamjae.

“Why? Does he have a grudge against us?”

“Rather than a grudge…”

“Is?”

“It seems that he catches all the outsiders who could be a threat and attacks them, after sending something like that stone monster that attacked the car first to see their abilities.”

The Lion Mask glared at Sagamjae with a fierce look this time.

“Then it’s all because of you! Because you broke the stone!”

“If I hadn’t broken the stone, your head would have been broken.”

However, when Sagamjae ignored the mask in a different way from Rembrary, the angry Lion Mask appeared right next to Sagamjae and narrowed his eyes.

“Watch your words. I’m stronger than you. I might just take your eyes away.”

“Find the half of your lost beard first before that.”

“You!”

The moment the excited Lion Mask was about to grab Sagamjae’s hair, saying he would fill his beard with his hair.

“Excuse me…”

Someone called out to the three of them with a microphone not far away. As the buzzing voice echoed, the Lion Mask put down Sagamjae’s hair and quickly looked towards the sound.

There was a modified truck there, and a person who looked very tired was standing at the back of the truck, trembling.

As soon as the Lion Mask appeared next to him in the blink of an eye, the person grabbed the microphone and screamed, causing Rembrary to cover his ears.

“Seeing how scared he is, it seems that he is not someone who came to attack us. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Rembrary tapped his tingling ears and approached the person who was clutching the microphone like a lifeline.

As Rembrary approached with a gentle face, the person, thinking he was the easiest to deal with among the three, quickly stuck to Rembrary and handed over the envelope he had brought.

“I, I came to deliver this. I didn’t come to attack the Hunters. I’m not an Awakened, and I don’t know how to fight!”

As soon as the Lion Mask appeared next to Rembrary again in the blink of an eye, the person screamed again and returned to the truck.

“What is it?”

Rembrary tore open the envelope and took out the letter inside. There was a card with a few lines written on it.

“What is it?”

“It’s an invitation.”

“An invitation?”

“It’s an invitation from the lord here to us.”

* * *

A discussion was held very briefly on whether to accept the invitation or not, but since all three were in favor of going, a conclusion was reached in 30 seconds this time.

Rembrary and the Lion Lord needed the signature of the lord here, and Sagamjae thought that meeting the person behind the scenes was the fastest way to investigate the deaths of people.

When the person who brought the invitation heard that Rembrary, the Lion Lord, and Sagamjae would all accept the invitation, he trembled and started the car.

“You can ride in the back.”

Thanks to his personality of doing everything he was told, he was getting a little trust from the lord and doing odd jobs, but this person was an extremely ordinary citizen.

In this situation, just being near the three hunters who had defeated all the people and monsters sent by the lord made his hands tremble.

It hadn’t even been a day since those three hunters were attacked by the people sent by the lord. He even had the scary thought that they might suddenly change their minds, kill him, and send his body to the lord.

“Seeing the microphone, I want to sing a song for the first time in a while.”

“Remb, are you good at singing?”

“Would you like to hear it?”

“Go ahead.”

“Hmm. Hmm. You hypocrite! Saint with a knife in your mouth, may your three generations be cursed! Your descendants will be the dirt of your grave…”

Such a messenger’s fear was maximized when Rembrary grabbed the microphone connected to the truck and started singing.

“Heeek. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

However, Rembrary could not hear the messenger’s apology because it was drowned out by the microphone sound, and he was excited and sang hard.

Rembrary put down the microphone after the messenger completed his mission and fainted in fear.

“Oh. I guess we’ve arrived.”

The Lion Lord looked around when the car stopped, and stopped admiring the song and got out of the truck after seeing the large building with the only lights twinkling.

Rembrary also put down the microphone and followed him out.

‘That guy?’

Only Sagamjae discovered that the person who delivered the letter had fainted, but he didn’t care much, so he turned his head away.

Thus, the three entered the mansion without anyone’s guidance. But before long, the three had to stop at the same time.

‘A person?’

“Welcome. Thank you for accepting the Lord’s invitation.”

A person in a suit came up and bowed politely, but it was because of the heterogeneous disharmony felt from that person.

The person was smiling, but the ends of his lips were strained, and his actions and expressions were strangely awkward. But it was not easy to notice what was strange.

“Come this way.”

As the person bowed and turned around to walk, the three finally noticed what was strange.

‘Floating in the air?’

It’s hard to recognize at first glance, but if you look closely, that person’s feet were slightly floating in the air. Nevertheless, the shape of his feet moved forward creakingly as usual, as if this was how the ‘walking shape’ came out.

As they were watching that closely, they heard the sound of clapping from the front of the hallway. When they looked up, there was a person standing there, ornately decorated with gold from head to toe.

‘That person is not floating in the air.’

“Thank you for accepting the invitation.”

As the gaze turned to him, the person smiled so brightly that it seemed excessive and spread his arms.

“I am Hwang Gyushin, the lord of the Singing Forest.”

He had a bright and good impression for someone who was carrying all kinds of bad rumors.

But no matter how brightly he smiled, Hwang Gyushin was the very person who had separated the group and attacked them a few hours ago.

As Sagamjae and the Lion Lord, excluding Rembrary, stared coldly, Hwang Gyushin put his hands together and smiled embarrassedly, then spread one hand and pointed to the hallway he had walked through.

“There was a bit of a misunderstanding, wasn’t there? If it’s okay with you, how about a meal…? Shall we have something to eat together and have a conversation?”

On that outstretched palm, Rembrary placed the early dismissal consent form.

“This first.”