Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 358

358. Saving Grand Scholar (4)

“Do we really have to buy or sell that thing? What if we don’t buy or sell it?”

“The elevator won’t appear.”

The shop owner grinned.

Rembrary fell silent for a moment, lost in thought. His expression as he looked at the Soul Flame was so serious that the shop owner watched him with anticipation.

*Either way was fine with him*, his face suggested. That expression was so sinister that even a timid person would feel fear just looking at it.

So, when Rembrary caught a glimpse of that face, he slapped it squarely with his palm.

“!”

Startled by the sudden action, the shop owner stepped back.

“Did he just hit me?”

The child also widened his eyes and looked up at Rembrary.

When their eyes met, Rembrary looked down at his palm once, then smiled and apologized.

“Ah, did I startle you?”

No, he *started* as if to apologize, but it wasn’t really an apology.

The shop owner was momentarily dumbfounded, then angrily shouted, “Hey!”

But instead of answering, Rembrary turned around with the child.

“Let’s look around somewhere else.”

“Is that guy crazy?”

The shop owner was so dumbfounded by the humiliation he was experiencing for the first time in 727 years that he pointed his finger, but Rembrary didn’t think he needed to listen to unwanted words, so he ignored the finger-pointing and shouting.

The child, who didn’t have such skill, was initially flustered, glancing back and forth between Rembrary and the shop owner, tilting his head a few times.

But soon, he wore a bright smile and followed Rembrary closely without looking at the shop owner, asking,

“But where are we going?”

“Looking for something.”

“For what?”

“A suitable shop.”

“What’s suitable about it?”

Without explanation, Rembrary stopped in front of each shop, staring intently at what they were selling. About 30 seconds per shop. It was a different behavior from before, when he had just passed by all the shops as if passing through.

After passing by several shops, Rembrary stopped at a T-shirt shop.

“Why here?”

“It’s a suitable shop.”

As the words went in circles, the child widened his eyes. Instead of giving a long explanation, Rembrary asked the shop owner.

“If I sell you a T-shirt, can you make an elevator for me?”

“!”

The T-shirt shop owner, who had been dealing with other customers, looked at Rembrary with a ‘what’s with him?’ expression. But only for a moment. The owner, looking back and forth between Rembrary and the child, grinned thinly and readily replied.

“Of course.”

Rembrary took off the top he was wearing and handed it over. The shop owner took it and pressed a button inside the stall. Then, surprisingly, the elevator that couldn’t be found no matter how hard you looked appeared right in front of the stall.

“You better get on quickly.”

As Rembrary took the child to the elevator, the door opened automatically before he could even press the button.

Rembrary immediately got inside.

At that moment, he saw the shop owner who sells souls shouting, “Catch him! Catch him!” and running towards them with a large knife.

The child was startled and stepped back, but Rembrary pressed the 3rd-floor button with one hand and waved at the soul shop owner with the other.

The soul shop owner, even more enraged by that, was almost at the elevator when the elevator door slid shut.

The knife the shop owner thrust forward got stuck between the doors, but fortunately, the elevator didn’t open again.

“It’s scary here……”

As the elevator started to go up, the child finally mumbled weakly and grabbed Rembrary tightly. Rembrary patted the child’s shoulder and smiled gently.

“Do you know what’s really scary?”

“What is it?”

But before Rembrary could finish his sentence, the elevator door opened with a ding.

This time, it wasn’t a night market but an indoor space. There was a large room like a waiting room, and people were sitting on long sofas, reading magazines or holding their cheeks.

‘3rd floor. Is it a dentist?’

As Rembrary stepped out of the elevator, the child followed him with wide eyes.

“What’s the rest of the story? What’s the rest of the story?”

* * *

Calling out the elevators that disappeared one floor at a time, Rembrary finally got on the elevator that went to the floor right below the rooftop.

“What’s really scary, anyway……”

The child was still sulking because Rembrary had asked, ‘Do you know what’s really scary?’ but hadn’t answered it yet.

“Ah, didn’t I tell you?”

Hearing that grumbling, Rembrary was about to tell him again as if he had belatedly remembered, but when the elevator on the floor below the rooftop opened, he looked ahead and exclaimed, “Oh ho,” instead of finishing his sentence.

The child was frustrated that he hadn’t heard what was ‘really scary’ again, but Rembrary walked out of the elevator ahead of him.

After all, even if he tried to stay in the elevator, the elevator would disappear, so he just had to move on.

Rembrary, who had taken three steps forward, admired this floor, which was completely different from the floors he had passed through.

“This is also amazing.”

This place was literally darkness. Pitch-black darkness with nothing in it. On the 2nd floor, there was moonlight and starlight because it was outdoors, and there were lamps on the stalls, so it was bright.

The 3rd floor, the dentist’s office, had proper lights working, so everything was clearly visible. The same was true for the other floors he had passed through since then. The 1st floor was the darkest, and the rest were all bright.

But this place had no lamps, no lights, and no natural light coming in through the windows. Naturally, it was impossible to tell what was around, where he was standing, or even how large the area was.

Besides, there was a fearful silence. The surroundings were completely silent, and not a single sound could be heard.

Still, as Rembrary continued to look around, the child gripped Rembrary’s arm tightly and whispered.

“The Healer is the first person to come up here.”

“Is that so.”

“You have to take me up there. If we go any later, my brother might really die.”

* * *

Although the ground was still dark, a reddish light began to rise above the clouds.

As the spaces between the clouds cleared as if sky-blue paint had been dropped on one side, Ardor, who had been leaning against the wall and rolling his cell phone in his hand, couldn’t stand it any longer and jumped up.

The old man, who had been dozing off, was startled and asked.

“Why?”

“I can’t stand it.”

“Can’t stand what?”

“Even though it’s morning, Rembrary hasn’t come.”

Ardor took out another energy bar and handed it to the old man, then immediately left the house and walked towards the building.

But even when he pulled the doorknob, the door was still closed, and Rembrary was nowhere to be seen.

Confirming this, Ardor took a short breath, then took out his gun and loaded it.

The old man chased after Ardor, asking what he was doing, and hid behind the wall when he saw that. Was he going to shoot the door again? Even though it was a futile act?

But this time, Ardor didn’t shoot the doorknob. He gripped the gun tightly and walked somewhere, then immediately opened fire…….

‘Is that crazy bastard?’

The old man widened his eyes. The target Ardor shot was frog eggs. He shot at the frog eggs that no one else would even try to touch.

“What are you doing! Stop it!”

The old man jumped up and ran towards him, but Ardor ignored him and started shooting all the eggs he could find.

“Stop that guy! Catch that guy!”

The old man screamed at the top of his lungs, and the villagers who had returned home peeked out, wondering what was going on, and were surprised and ran out.

“Stop it!”

“Hey! No! Don’t do it!”

The quiet dawn was turned into a mess by the gunshots Ardor fired, mixed with the screams and shouts of people trying to stop him.

The priest, who came after hearing the commotion, immediately realized that he couldn’t reason with the stranger with hollow eyes who was shooting everywhere with a crazed look, and called people.

“Looking at the way he’s acting, I don’t think he’ll listen if we try to stop him.”

“But we can’t just leave him like that! What if the gods get angry……!”

The priest looked in the direction Ardor had gone. Ardor was no longer visible there, but the gunshots continued to be heard.

“If this continues, the monsters that hatch from the eggs will harm us. We have to get rid of that guy before that happens.”

“How? We don’t have guns.”

“We can have the wyvern [a dragon-like creature] take him away.”

“But we smeared him with dirty paint. The wyvern won’t want to take him.”

“Everyone, please prepare water with body wash in it. We’ll have to spray it on him.”

The villagers nodded and scattered to find body wash.

But no matter what plan the villagers were devising to send him to the wyvern, Ardor was busy breaking eggs and wandering around.

Some of the monsters that hatched from the eggs attacked him, but Ardor shot them all in the forehead and roamed the streets like a person whose reason had been paralyzed.

Then, it was when one of the eggs broke.

Ardor shot at an egg placed inside a store, then stopped abruptly as he was about to walk towards an egg placed between a broken car and a car.

Because he felt something strange behind him.

He took a few steps back, then slowly turned his head towards the egg he had broken last.

There was an egg split in half on either side, and a person was standing between them. A woman with light green hair tied in a single braid, wearing a neat uniform of white and gold. She was holding a long spear in her hand.

Ardor’s eyebrows went up.

“Holy Knight Commander?”

The Holy Knight Commander of High Priest Rembrary. Mulu, the Holy Knight Commander that Rembrary had ordered him to find, saying that she had come over with him.

* * *

Maeng Woo-shin was stuck in the white mud on the rooftop. It was definitely mud on the rooftop. Strangely enough, it was so deep that there was no bottom, and it was so sticky that no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t escape from the strange mud.

Moreover, the more he moved violently, the faster he sank, so Maeng Woo-shin had been motionless for several hours.

Instead, he kept watching the video that was playing on the large wall in front of him, as if it were being projected.

What appeared on the screen was a familiar face. The healer Rembrary, whom Grand Scholar cared for so much. Next to him was a child he didn’t know.

Hearing the child and Rembrary talking, Maeng Woo-shin knew that the arrogant newbie had come to save him, and he watched the screen intently without taking his eyes off it.

*Please, please*.

He didn’t know how anxious he was when Rembrary hesitated in front of the shop that sold souls, or when he was chased by a doctor who ran at him with huge pliers, saying he would call an elevator if he gave him his teeth.

Still, Rembrary seemed to be coming up well, but when he was finally trapped in the dark on the floor right below, Maeng Woo-shin frowned. There seemed to be no roads, no enemies, and nothing in that darkness. Even from here, it seemed impossible to get up.

The person who had been caught before Maeng Woo-shin and had already had half of his body eaten by the white mud mocked Maeng Woo-shin’s expression.

“Give up. There’s no way to get up here by elevator.”

Maeng Woo-shin gritted his teeth and glared at him.

“Why don’t you just shut up? If you’re not going to help.”

Even though they were in a similar situation, he couldn’t help but get angry. It wasn’t just this time that that person had been so negative.

They had been watching this scene on video from the moment Rembrary entered the building, and that person had been saying only bad things like that from the 1st floor, as if he wanted Maeng Woo-shin to despair.

But no matter how sharply Maeng Woo-shin shot back, it was not threatening at all from the captured position, so the person with half of his body eaten continued to laugh and mock.

“Why, isn’t that right? Even if you managed to get up from other floors, how are you going to get up from there? There’s nothing this time. You need a situation where you can use your head to use your head. You can’t see anything in that dark darkness, can you?”

That was why Maeng Woo-shin bit his lip tightly at that moment.

A halo flashed behind Rembrary’s head on the screen.

‘Fraud!’

The person who had been chuckling darkly was surprised and widened his eyes.