Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 296

296. Why Couldn’t Daeju Do Something This Easy?

This all happened while Rembrary was enthusiastically rapping for Redrin.

Knock, knock. A knock echoed, and Rembrary abruptly stopped his performance, asking in a solemn voice, “Who is it?”

Instead of a verbal reply, a strange ‘Keup’ sound emanated from beyond the door.

*Who is making that sound?* Not recognizing the person solely from the ‘Keup’ sound, Rembrary opened the door himself.

To his surprise, Shin Jo-woon stood there, his face redder than usual. Moreover, his shoulders were visibly shaking.

“Why have you come?” Rembrary inquired with dignity, unsure of the reason for Shin Jo-woon’s peculiar behavior. Shin Jo-woon bit his lip even harder and abruptly turned away.

“What’s wrong with him?” Rembrary muttered. Shin Jo-woon remained in that state for a moment. Just as Rembrary considered poking him in the back, he spun around, a faint smile gracing his stoic face, and asked, “I have two things to tell you. Which should I tell you first?”

“Get me the signatures.”

“You guessed right. One is about the signatures.”

It wasn’t really a guess. Shin Jo-woon acted as if Rembrary had correctly answered his question and settled onto the single sofa in the room, explaining, “I got the signatures from everyone, as promised.”

“Then give them to me quickly.”

“Except for one person.”

“Then you haven’t kept your promise.”

“One mayor attached a condition to the signature.”

“Condition?”

“He said that agreeing to early discharge is something to be done carefully, so he wants you to show proof that you are strong enough for him to acknowledge.”

Rembrary raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

“Proof? What kind of proof? If I fight the mayor and win, will that be proof enough?”

The voice that followed was gentle but laced with a prickly edge. Shin Jo-woon was dumbfounded and scoffed.

“Why don’t you just tear up the signature paper, saying you don’t need early discharge?”

“Would that work?” Rembrary immediately took the bait and asked, so Shin Jo-woon quickly retorted, “No, it wouldn’t.” He then straightened his face and explained the mayor’s intentions more specifically.

“He probably wants you to bring the head of a villain that everyone can acknowledge, or something like that.”

“A villain that everyone can acknowledge…”

The mayor who refused to sign the early discharge was known for being a moral and justice-loving individual. Moreover, he genuinely believed that a hunter should not only be good at hunting monsters but also be helpful to people.

Given that such a person demanded ‘show me your skills’ as a condition for agreeing to early discharge, Shin Jo-woon was confident that his interpretation was correct.

However, Rembrary didn’t immediately accept it and was lost in thought, making Shin Jo-woon feel strangely uneasy. He wanted to knock on his head and ask, ‘What are you thinking?’

“Trainee Rembrary?”

At that moment.

“Lion? Come here?” Rembrary suddenly called out beyond the door, his voice as smooth as honey. Shin Jo-woon was startled and grabbed Rembrary.

“Why are you calling that guy?”

“Well…”

“I don’t like him, but isn’t he still your colleague? I don’t think you should hand him over with your own hands.”

“What are you talking about? Hand him over?”

“?”

“I was going to ask for his mask.”

Shin Jo-woon sighed and rubbed his temples.

“Are you going to give that to the mayor? If so, don’t bother. That’s fraud.”

“But I can’t actually give him his head, can I?”

“…First, stop thinking about your colleague’s head.”

Rembrary picked up a cookie from the desk and crunched on it. Shin Jo-woon decided to continue this conversation later and changed the subject.

“A broadcasting station released a video of you cursing the puppet lord. Did you see it?”

“Curse?”

As he was wondering what he meant, Shin Jo-woon connected to the internet on his phone and showed him the screen.

Rembrary was shocked. His name, the puppet lord, and the names of strange programs were densely populating the real-time search rankings.

“What is this?”

Shin Jo-woon silently played the video. He was worried about what Rembrary would say about his abilities after seeing this.

However, Rembrary’s reaction was different from what Shin Jo-woon expected this time as well.

“Wait, isn’t that Jung Seo?”

Shin Jo-woon was about to urge him to focus on the person vomiting blood, but Rembrary smiled kindly at the pale man being grabbed by the collar by the person vomiting blood, and Shin Jo-woon frowned.

“He’s still alive.”

Shin Jo-woon asked awkwardly, “Do you know him?”

Of course, Shin Jo-woon knew who this man was: Han Jung-seo. And since Wild Animal was a popular group, Shin Jo-woon knew it wasn’t strange for Rembrary to know about Han Jung-seo.

But do people usually smile so happily when a celebrity they know appears? Even while seeing him being grabbed by the collar?

“An enemy?” Shin Jo-woon asked awkwardly, but Rembrary shook his head and smiled gently.

“No. I’ve never met him before.”

That’s not something you’d say to someone you’ve never met before. Especially with that expression.

Shin Jo-woon frowned, but since it wasn’t a new thing for Trainee Rembrary to be strange, he skipped that part for now and asked, “Your ability. Is it a curse? Many people think it’s a curse.”

“My ability is to punish children who break promises.”

“That sounds like something out of an elementary school textbook.”

“Elementary school textbooks probably have something about honorifics. And that mixing casual speech with honorifics doesn’t make it honorifics, but the sound of anchovies crumbling.”

Shin Jo-woon, who was unknowingly mixing the way he spoke to Woo Yeon-woo with the way he spoke to Trainee Rembrary, was surprised and widened his eyes.

Rembrary wasn’t very interested in Shin Jo-woon’s surprise, so he scrolled through the comments under the video.

“But I don’t understand. I don’t even appear in this video, so why is my name trending in real-time searches?”

“They released this as a teaser video related to you on a program that covers promising hunters.”

“Wait, how do those people know it’s a video related to me? Who are they?”

“So, did you get any contact from those producers?”

“No.”

Rembrary checked his phone’s call history and text messages for no reason and answered again.

“No. My last call record is… you.”

Shin Jo-woon smiled as if he expected it and urged, “If you get any contact from the production team, tell me. Judging from the fact that they released this video without permission to film, they’re not very considerate people.”

* * *

Compared to the lawless zone that B-City had become, the regulations and laws within the city were still relatively well-maintained, but that didn’t mean the law was as strictly enforced as it had been before the cataclysm.

Moreover, people’s threshold for stimulation had increased due to the appearance of monsters, so those who were making broadcasts were looking for more sensational material than ever before.

The reason Shin Jo-woon told Rembrary to ‘tell me if the production team contacts you’ was for this reason.

However, Rembrary couldn’t understand the meaning unless Shin Jo-woon explained it in detail. As soon as Shin Jo-woon left, he began to worry about what to do with this unexpected fame.

If it were the original world, there would be no need to worry since he was originally famous. When he was in ‘Woo Yeon-woo’s’ body, Jong-woo and the company people worried, so there was no need to worry then either.

But now that he had gained this fame out of nowhere in a situation where there were neither temple people nor company people, Rembrary began to seriously consider this fame.

If it were a peaceful city, it might be different, but now he had to gather believers for Redrin. Fame might be helpful for that.

‘I don’t even know what Daeju is doing. And the group Daeju created doesn’t seem to be trusted by many people.’

Then wouldn’t it be faster for me to proselytize [convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another] directly? Rembrary pondered for a while, and with the conviction that his idea was right, he went to find the SNS [Social Networking Service] he had used in Woo Yeon-woo’s body before.

‘It’s still the same!’

Fortunately, the way to use the SNS hadn’t changed at all from before. He was a little worried because he didn’t have an ID card or a phone made in his name, but perhaps because the world had changed, it seemed that he could create an account without an ID card.

Rembrary created an account, took a selfie with his phone, and uploaded it. And so that people could know that he was the ‘Rembrary’ who was currently dominating the real-time search rankings, under the name Rembrary…

‘Wait, who is impersonating my name?’

However, when he tried to register the account he had created, the name Rembrary was already being used by someone else. Even when he looked closely, someone was even using the name ‘Trainee Rembrary.’

The problem was that the person using the name ‘Rembrary’ was just quietly creating an account, but the ‘Trainee Rembrary’ was even acting as if he was Rembrary himself.

Moreover, the fake ‘Trainee Rembrary’ had even uploaded the teaser screen with the puppet lord on the main page of his account, and even wrote a post below it.

-I’m going crazy lolololol Don’t upload things like this without permission. I’m embarrassed.

*Shouldn’t you be the one getting permission?* Rembrary punched the air twice in anger.

-OMG. Are you the real Trainee Rembrary?

-The person trending in real-time searches right now???

People who saw it were wondering if that person was the real Rembrary, and Rembrary became even more furious.

“How dare you!” Rembrary was angry and panting, but after checking that the number of people who liked the fake Rembrary’s post was quite large, he came up with a plan.

Rembrary went back to his account and changed his name to ‘The Real Rembrary.’

‘This can’t be!’

However, ‘The Real Rembrary’ also already had an account. Flustered, Rembrary tried changing his name to ‘The Real Real Rembrary,’ but that name was also being used by someone.

‘Why are so many people impersonating me!’

In the end, Rembrary set his name as ‘I’m the Real Rembrary,’ even though it was a bit embarrassing, and took a great selfie.

Then, he went to the fake Rembrary’s account, uploaded his picture in the comments there, and scolded them in the comments.

-Get out of here, heretic! Everyone, come to my account. I’m the real one. #IamtheRealRembrary #IamalsoTraineeRembrary #Thatpersonisfake #TheRealRembraryisalsofake #TheRealRealRembraryisFake

And after adding tags as Keshi had taught him in the past, comments began to be added to Rembrary’s comments before long.

-lolololol What is this situation lolololol Is this person the real one?

-Judging from the authentication, this person seems to be the real one lolololol

-Wait, it’s only today that it’s trending in real-time searches, and there are already fakes and reals lolololol

The fake with the name ‘Trainee Rembrary’ came to Rembrary’s account and cursed, but Rembrary didn’t care and uploaded his cool pictures one after another.

Then people quickly realized that ‘Trainee Rembrary’ was fake and that ‘I’m the Real Rembrary’ was the real one, and they giggled, saying that this situation was funny.

But among them, there were also many who were seriously interested or praised him, such as whether Rembrary’s ability in the teaser was real, that he was the most handsome hunter they had ever seen, whether he would appear on that program, what kind of Awakener he was exactly, and that he was really cool.

‘Daeju is a fool. It’s so easy to get attention like this.’

Rembrary clicked his tongue and called the Lion Lord to take a picture with him and then uploaded it again.