Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 365

365. Five People Simultaneously Became Strange

A strange smell, a mix of burning grass and incense, hung in the air. Rembrary was the first to notice it.

“Is this what he was talking about?”

The Lion Lord and Rembrary arrived, after several teleports, at the mouth of a cave easily twice Rembrary’s height. It didn’t appear particularly wide from the outside, but the interior remained a mystery.

‘Even so, it doesn’t seem like a particularly long or winding cave…’

However, it was impossible to accurately gauge the cave’s interior from the outside. Thick smoke billowed from within, obscuring everything.

Rembrary spotted faint silhouettes flickering in and out of view through the smoke and urged the Lion Lord forward.

“Let’s go inside.”

“There?”

“Quickly.”

The Lion Lord, though reluctant, obediently followed.

As they ventured into the cave, the strange feeling intensified. The smoke swirled around them, making it difficult to discern which way was forward or backward.

“Hold onto me with one hand and cover your nose with the other,” Rembrary instructed the Lion Lord, his eyes scanning their surroundings.

Just then, the faint silhouette he had glimpsed from outside passed by again. This time, he could make out its form more clearly. It looked like a person.

Reacting instantly, Rembrary reached out and grabbed the silhouette, shouting to the Lion Lord, “Outside!”

In the blink of an eye, the three of them were back in the smoke-free space outside the cave.

The Lion Lord coughed, bending over as he released his grip on Rembrary.

“That place is… unpleasant.”

Rembrary turned his attention to the ‘silhouette’ he had pulled out. The silhouette’s owner was…

“Senior Maeng!”

It was Maeng Wooshin, who had left a few hours earlier and completely lost contact. As soon as Rembrary recognized him, he grabbed him and shook him.

“What happened? I told you to go ahead and find Daeju, so why couldn’t I reach you? Why were you in there, wandering around like a ghost…”

But there was no response. Rembrary stopped talking and released Maeng Wooshin.

It wasn’t just the lack of an answer, but the look in Maeng Wooshin’s eyes that gave him pause. An unfamiliar, distant look. A far cry from his usual demeanor.

“Senior Maeng? Are you okay?”

Rembrary tapped Maeng Wooshin’s arm.

“Chirp.”

The response was far from reassuring. Rembrary quickly withdrew his hand.

“Senior Maeng?”

Was Senior Maeng joking? He waved his hand in front of his face in disbelief, but Maeng Wooshin didn’t react with his usual annoyance.

Instead, Maeng Wooshin stared at Rembrary blankly and made that strange sound again.

“Chirp chirp chirp chirp.”

“Maeng… Senior?”

“Cheep cheep cheep cheep. Cheep cheep cheep cheep.”

As Maeng Wooshin made bird-like noises and circled around Rembrary, the Lion Lord wore a dumbfounded expression.

When Maeng Wooshin spread his arms and jumped high, Rembrary’s expression mirrored the Lion Lord’s.

Maeng Wooshin resembled a bird attempting to fly towards a large tree in front of him, mimicking the motion but lacking the ability.

Predictably, he fell in less than 0.1 seconds. What was even more perplexing was the bewildered expression on Maeng Wooshin’s face as soon as he landed.

A look that seemed to ask, ‘Why am I like this?’

Rembrary was the one who wanted to ask that question.

“Senior, are you crazy?”

Rembrary glanced back at the cave, trying to make sense of what was happening.

At that moment.

“There’s someone else over there.”

The Lion Lord muttered, disappearing and reappearing in the blink of an eye. In his grasp was Ardore.

“Let go! I said let go! Why are you pulling me when I can just talk?”

And he, too, exuded a very different aura than usual.

Rembrary stared intently at Ardore, and with a hesitant feeling, called out, “Ardore?”

However, shattering Rembrary’s hopes, Ardore frowned and snapped, “What is it, newbie? Why are you calling me by that crazy guy’s name?”

Newbie. That was Maeng Wooshin’s nickname for Rembrary.

Rembrary covered his mouth with one hand, looked back and forth between Ardore and Maeng Wooshin, and hurriedly pulled out his phone.

But as soon as he did, Ardore rushed over, snatched the phone, and growled, “You’re going to post my messed-up appearance on social media, aren’t you? ‘Actor Maeng Wooshin’s disheveled appearance!’ You’re going to write a post with that title, aren’t you?”

He openly referred to himself as Maeng Wooshin. Unbelievable.

Rembrary was genuinely amazed, then quickly became bewildered.

If Ardore had taken Maeng Wooshin’s memories, shouldn’t Maeng Wooshin have taken Ardore’s memories?

But why was Senior Maeng chirping?

‘No, first, let’s show Ardore the real Maeng Wooshin. Since he believes he is Maeng Wooshin, he might return to normal.’

“Ardore, look at that person.”

Rembrary pointed to the real Maeng Wooshin, who was calling himself Maeng Wooshin.

The real Maeng Wooshin was sadly frustrated because he couldn’t fly, despite waving his arms towards the sky.

“What is that crazy guy?”

Even while looking at the real Maeng Wooshin’s body, Ardore didn’t realize that Maeng Wooshin was Maeng Wooshin and he wasn’t Maeng Wooshin.

Rembrary understood why the owner of the pavilion used the vague expression ‘memories get mixed’ instead of ‘souls are swapped’ or ‘bodies are swapped’ when he inhaled the fog.

He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it seemed different from when Rembrary’s soul was swapped with Woo Yeonwoo.

“Oh? There’s something else over there!”

As he was thinking, the Lion Lord covered his nose again and disappeared, then reappeared.

Wondering who he had brought this time, it wasn’t a person. It was a bird. And the bird was…

—Chirp!

As soon as it saw Rembrary, it rushed at him like crazy, climbed onto his shoulder, and started dancing.

Then, when it made eye contact with Rembrary, the bird turned around and shook its tail feathers at an incredible speed.

Rembrary cautiously asked, wondering, ‘Does it swap with animals too?’

“Ardore?”

The bird chirped even louder, as if happy that Rembrary had called its name, and danced a tap dance.

Later, it bowed deeply with its plump belly, and even added a flourish, pretending to be touched, while slyly glancing at Rembrary.

—Chirp

Rembrary stared blankly at the absurd sight and muttered to himself.

“A crow-tit [a small, fluffy bird], is he okay?”

“What? You’re going to leave him like that?”

Rembrary quickly smiled and waved his hand when the Lion Lord, who was examining the cave, widened his eyes and turned around.

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“That’s how it sounded just now… Wait. There’s one more.”

Fortunately, the Lion Lord discovered something new just in time and disappeared again. Rembrary sighed in relief and poked the end of the crow-tit’s beak with his finger.

‘Let’s see. Ardore received Maeng Wooshin’s memories, the bird received Ardore’s memories, and Maeng Wooshin received the bird’s memories?’

As he was thinking, the Lion Lord came out with Daeju this time.

Rembrary approached, hoping, ‘Please, you be normal,’ but also thinking that Daeju must have had his memories mixed with someone as well.

‘Senior Maeng, Ardore, and the bird are all mixed up, so Daeju wouldn’t be mixed with those three. He arrived much earlier, too.’

Besides, Daeju couldn’t escape using his own power, miracles. He must have entered with a body that didn’t have divine power.

‘Maybe if memories are mixed in that smoke, it’s impossible to walk out on your own.’

“Daeju.”

Rembrary approached Daeju and called out to him. Fortunately, Daeju’s gaze as he looked at Rembrary wasn’t completely unfamiliar.

“Oh my gosh. Aren’t you a healer?”

But the words that came out were unfamiliar. Daeju recognized Rembrary, but not as Daeju.

Rembrary rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I was trapped in the cave the whole time, but suddenly a person wearing a lion mask saved me, and now I’m meeting a famous healer here.”

But the content of what he was saying didn’t seem like Daeju, but the tone and calm atmosphere were exactly like Daeju.

Unlike the bird, Maeng Wooshin, and Ardore, whose personalities followed their memories as if their souls had been completely swapped.

‘Was the person whose memories were mixed with Daeju also like Daeju’s personality? Or has Daeju become more stable because he’s been here for too long? Was Daeju somewhat protected because he has divine power?’

The answer was unknown, but it was certain that there was at least one more person to save inside that cave, so Rembrary looked at the Lion Lord.

“Lion, one more…”

But Rembrary couldn’t finish his sentence. For some reason, the Lion Lord was frowning, even taking off his mask.

Tilting his head, he tapped his temple, which didn’t bode well.

“Lion?”

As Rembrary cautiously called out, the Lion Lord muttered, pressing below his eyebrow bone.

“I feel a little strange after going back and forth so much. What were you trying to say to me just now?”

“You stay here. I need to find one more person, so I’ll go.”

“Why? I’ll go.”

“No.”

Rembrary shook his head and pointed to Maeng Wooshin, who was still trying to fly into the sky.

“If you go in any further, you’ll end up like that too.”

The Lion Lord looked at Ardore looking in the mirror, the bird grooming its feathers on Rembrary’s shoulder, and Maeng Wooshin chirping and running around, then nodded.

“Okay.”

* * *

After entrusting the bird that wouldn’t come off to the Lion Lord, Rembrary surrounded himself with divine power and entered the cave.

For fear of getting lost, he placed his hand on the cave wall and walked along it for about 30 minutes.

Rembrary found a place where there was noticeably less smoke than other places and walked towards it. There was a circular area with almost no smoke on one side.

‘Why is it like that?’

And in the center of that smoke-free zone was a rock, and on that rock sat a person he had never seen before, cross-legged.

‘Is this the person whose memories were mixed with Daeju?’

As Rembrary approached, the person slowly opened his eyes.

Then, before Rembrary could even call out, “Daeju,” he jumped up and shouted, “Rembrary-nim!”

Rembrary rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t help but sigh.

“Did you come to save me?”

“I didn’t come to save you, but… let’s go with that for now.”

Rembrary scanned the person who had received Daeju’s memories up and down, thinking that it had become troublesome. He placed his hand on him and examined him, and he was an ordinary person with no divine power at all.

“It’s strange, Rembrary-nim. I tried to use miracles to get out, but my abilities wouldn’t work, so I’ve been trapped here the whole time. Redrin-nim isn’t responding to my prayers either… Has Redrin-nim abandoned me?”

No. He’s never been interested in the first place.

Rembrary opened and closed his mouth, then pointed in the direction he had come from.

“Let’s get out first. Let’s get treatment…”

But as he was about to speak, he saw smoke coming out of one place.

Rembrary left Daeju and walked towards it. There was a unique pattern drawn there, and on top of it was a stone the size of half a palm.

Rembrary looked down at the pattern and the stone and rubbed his head.

‘It’s a trace of the Demon King’s army. So, was this smoke deliberately caused by demons?’