Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 357

357. Saving the Archpriest (3)

“Then who was that kid we saw?”

Ardor’s question made the others exchange glances and murmur amongst themselves. Their bewildered expressions were contagious, spreading to Ardor.

“Really?”

Ardor rushed to the door, frantically shaking the handle and kicking at it.

“Rembrary! Rembrary! Let’s go together! Rembrary! Open up!”

* * *

Rembrary, who had been following the child inside, also turned back when the door suddenly closed and Ardor didn’t follow. He wondered what was going on.

“Ardor? Is that you, Ardor?”

He knocked on the door a few times, but Ardor didn’t respond. Rembrary grabbed the handle and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Ardor, don’t you want to come in?”

The child who had entered earlier scurried over.

“What is it?”

“The person who was with me isn’t coming in. But the door won’t open.”

“Really?”

The child shook the handle himself, then looked up at Rembrary with a flustered expression.

“Isn’t someone holding it from the outside?”

“Are you saying people pushed Ardor aside and are holding the handle? …Our Ardor isn’t someone who’d be pushed around by people.”

Rembrary muttered suspiciously, and the child shook his head.

“No, maybe that Ardor person is holding the handle.”

“Surely not.”

“It’s possible. Because he’s scared to come in.”

“No way.”

“Why are you so sure? People will do anything when they’re scared. Don’t you think so?”

“Still, I don’t think Ardor is holding it.”

“Why? Do you trust him that much?”

“It’s not about trust. How would Ardor know if this place is scary or not, to grab the handle and hold on, when he just got here?”

The child frowned at Rembrary’s words, tilted his head, and muttered, “Maybe not?”

The child dejectedly grabbed and released the handle a few times, and Rembrary pointed inside with his chin, asking:

“Since it’s like this, I’ll have to go up alone. You stay here. I don’t know what’s up there.”

“Aren’t you going together?”

“No, you stay here. If I find your sibling up there, I’ll bring them down.”

Rembrary waved at the child and went inside. There were no lights inside the building, but the starlight and moonlight coming through the windows allowed him to see the silhouette of the path.

“Let’s go together!”

But the child insisted on running over and grabbing his hand, so Rembrary had no choice but to take the child with him.

“It would have been better to wait there.”

“It’s dark. It’s scary to wait alone.”

“Is that so? You don’t seem scared. Do you know you’re very calm?”

“…I am scared, okay?”

Rembrary shrugged, and the child stomped his feet as if he was sulking, but didn’t let go of his hand.

“Can’t you leave me alone?”

“Where’s the elevator?”

“Over there… How would I know that?”

“It seemed like you were about to tell me ‘over there’.”

“……”

“By the way, what’s this about the townspeople being crazy? They seemed crazy, but also seemed normal in their craziness.”

“It’s exactly as I said. After sacrificing my sibling, they act like my siblings never existed at all. And… they act like they can’t see me either.”

“They’re ignoring you?”

“It’s not just that. Whenever outsiders come, they say things like there’s no key here and no grandson of the priest, making everyone disbelieve me.”

“That’s strange.”

“And then they make the outsiders smear something on their bodies, saying that the wyverns won’t take them if they’re dirty. But that actually makes them a target for the wyverns.”
The child, who had been muttering dejectedly, suddenly perked up and pointed to a certain spot.

“There! The elevator!”

As the child said, there was an elevator there.

Although the building had no lights, the numbers on the elevator panel were dimly lit, so Rembrary found the up button and pressed it as soon as he got close.

“Are you really going to come up?”

Rembrary asked again, and the child nodded anyway.

“I’ll go.”

A moment later, the elevator doors opened with a ding, and Rembrary took the child into the elevator.

However, Rembrary faced a difficult situation when he tried to press the top floor button.

“Is it broken…?”

The light on the button he pressed lit up, but immediately went out.

Eventually, he pressed the buttons from top to bottom, and only one button stayed lit. It was the 2nd floor button.

The doors, which had been open all along, finally closed with a whoosh.

Fifteen people in the garden. The 3rd floor is a dental clinic, the 5th floor is a tutoring center, the 6th floor is an internet cafe, and the 7th and 8th floors are gyms. The remaining parts are blacked out and cannot be seen.

As Rembrary was looking around the elevator, the doors opened with a ding before long. Rembrary looked left and right before looking ahead.

“This is…?”

But unexpectedly, what appeared was ‘outside’.

Of course, there could be spaces inside the building that were connected to the ‘outside’. Like the rooftop or a veranda.

However, this place was literally all ‘outside’ above. Even the air felt different.

Moreover, all sorts of stalls with lanterns were lined up as if a night market had opened, and people were busily buying things as they went back and forth.

‘This is strange.’

Rembrary was puzzled and pressed the close button without getting out, but instead of the doors closing, the elevator disappeared.

“!”

Rembrary hadn’t moved an inch, but he was already standing on the ground of the night market, and there was no elevator or even the wall where the elevator had been.

“Since it’s like this, let’s buy something to eat.”

Rembrary exclaimed, and the child looked up at Rembrary strangely, holding his hand tightly.

* * *

At that time.

With the car ruined and Rembrary gone, Ardor decided to follow the people for now.

He didn’t go far. It seemed like they were popping out of the alleys whenever he approached the building. That’s because the people all lived near the building.

The person Ardor ended up following was an old man with a rake.

The old man seemed flustered when Ardor kept following him, but he figured it would be better to keep him by his side than to let him cause trouble, so he didn’t bother chasing him away.

“I won’t stop you from following, but you’ll have to make your clothes dirty. Roll around in a garbage field or get some dirt on them.”

“What?”

“Or else the wyverns will take you.”

“So what if they take me? I don’t want to.”

“It’ll cause me trouble!”

The old man smeared a lot of mud on Ardor’s clean clothes, and only then was he relieved and entered a house that was already about 2/3 collapsed.

Ardor grumbled but followed the old man inside, then found a relatively intact spot to sit down and asked.

“The priest doesn’t have a grandson. And what’s this about not having a key? Tell me clearly.”

The old man frowned, but when Ardor took out an energy bar from his bag and handed it to him, he readily answered.

“It’s exactly as I said. I’ve never heard of a child. We’re the ones who want to ask. What child and what key?”

Ardor took out an energy bar from his own bag, tore open the wrapper, and grumbled.

“That big priest guy said he had a key, right?”

“He said he wouldn’t give it to you even if he had it.”

“When…”

That’s right. Now that he thought about it, that’s what he said. He didn’t say he had it, but that he wouldn’t give it to them even if he had it. The two were clearly different.

“Then what about that kid? The one with the big backpack on his front. He opened the door with the key and took our Rembrary in, you know?”

“I’ve always wondered how outsiders get through that closed door. That kid with the backpack you’re talking about might be the culprit. What did he look like?”

Ardor stared at the old man with a dumbfounded expression, chewing on the energy bar between his teeth.

“So there have been other outsiders who went through the door before? What happened to those people?”

The old man shook his head sadly.

“Do you know why the people here desperately try to stop outsiders from going inside the door?”

“Because the god gets angry.”

“When the people who go inside the door start dying, we have to watch it in our dreams.”

“You can just close your eyes.”

“You can’t even do that in your dreams. But that wouldn’t be a problem if that was all. We can get used to seeing even things we don’t want to see. The worst thing is that we share the dying person’s emotions. As vividly as if it were our own.”

Ardor crumpled the empty wrapper and tossed it aside, raising his eyebrows.

“The conclusion is that they all died? The people who went in before?”

* * *

Rembrary took the child and wandered around the night market, but most of the things they were selling were things like, ‘Why would anyone sell this?’ Bottle openers, broken glass, half-torn stationery, blood-stained handkerchiefs, and so on.

There was no food that Rembrary wanted. Moreover, the currency used by the customers here was not the kind of currency that Rembrary knew, so Rembrary became a little dejected and drooped his shoulders.

“Why am I always broke, no matter where I go?”

“You don’t have money?”

“I guess not.”

Well, at least there’s no food here, so it’s not that disappointing, Rembrary was about to say, when a faint smell of food wafted over.

Rembrary took the child and quickly went over there.

Then, finally, there was one place that sold food.

Rembrary went over there excitedly, then raised his eyebrows. The child, who had been following Rembrary closely, screamed and hid behind Rembrary.

“Oh, dear.”

There, souls of all colors were on display. At first glance, the souls looked like palm-sized flames, but if you looked closely, you could see videos playing inside them as if they were sped up 100 times.

As Rembrary was clicking his tongue, the shop owner, who was fanning himself and chasing away flies, asked Rembrary listlessly.

“Did you come to buy something?”

“I came to buy something… but there’s nothing worth buying.”

Rembrary muttered and left the shop with the child. But even after searching every nook and cranny of the night market, the elevator was nowhere to be seen.

Eventually, they passed by the scary soul stall again, and the shop owner asked Rembrary.

“Looking for the elevator?”

Rembrary tried to pass by without even looking at him, but stopped and looked at the shop owner. The shop owner was fanning himself and grinning slyly.

“Do you know?”

When Rembrary asked, the shop owner replied, “Of course, of course,” and pointed to the souls on display with his finger.

“There are two ways to get to the upper floor. Become a customer and eat the food, or…”

Rembrary frowned at the word ‘food’. The child’s face turned blue and clung to Rembrary’s arm.

“What’s the other way?”

“Sell me one of your souls!”

“!”

“Either buy or sell. You have to do one. That’s the only way you can go up.”