Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 370

370. News of Rembrary’s Disappearance

“What exactly do you want, and why did you call me?”

When Shin Jo-woon asked, Dae-ju shrugged.

“Then, let’s rephrase the question. What do you want me to do, and why did you call me?”

Dae-ju shrugged again. Shin Jo-woon frowned, staring intently at Dae-ju.

“You’re the landlord…….”

Dae-ju offered an excuse under that intense gaze, and Shin Jo-woon almost laughed out of sheer absurdity. Landlord?

“You only treat me like a landlord at times like this. You never contact me otherwise.”

“That’s how it usually is between a landlord and a tenant.”

Shin Jo-woon stared in disbelief. Dae-ju avoided his gaze, as if he also realized it didn’t quite make sense, and cleared his throat.

“Come to think of it, you’re not exactly my tenant, are you?”

“There was a bit of an… accident. I was just staying here temporarily.”

Shin Jo-woon was about to retort, but stopped himself. This wasn’t the time. What mattered now was finding Rembrary, who had been kidnapped by the Grim Reapers.

‘Why am I even in this guardian position?’ He felt a brief moment of doubt, but Shin Jo-woon immediately called Jang Tae-ri to inform her of the situation.

* * *

“Grim Reapers…… Okay. Yeah. Uh. Got it.”

Jang Tae-ri, who had been listening to the call with a serious expression, put down her phone. Hwangbo-gwa, dressed in a crisp white uniform and sitting across from her, asked in a daze, “The Grim Reapers called you again?”

Hwangbo-gwa was one of the Aegis members who had given a business card to a younger Jang Tae-ri. Jang Tae-ri had contacted her again while inquiring about the Saint. Then, Jang Tae-ri truly became a Saint, and after the Cataclysm [a large-scale disaster], she became the president of Aegis, which had evolved into a volunteer organization. Now, she and Hwangbo-gwa were very close.

“No. It’s something more serious this time.”

Jang Tae-ri answered, clutching her phone tightly and fidgeting her toes anxiously.

Even at the word “serious,” Hwangbo-gwa asked jokingly, “Is there something more serious than now? Are the Grim Reapers coming to take you away?”

Because of the fantastical and foreign feeling associated with the name “Grim Reaper,” even when the situation was serious, it didn’t quite *feel* serious. Even after learning that Grim Reapers actually existed, she always felt this way when she heard about them.

“They’re taking someone, but not me. Someone else.”

“Someone else? Who?”

Jang Tae-ri had been telling the Aegis employees about her encounters with the Grim Reapers and receiving some help in returning the people of the world beyond the Rift [a tear in reality between worlds].

However, she hadn’t revealed that Rembrary was a ‘King’ from another world, so she couldn’t give Hwangbo-gwa a detailed explanation. She simply shook her head anxiously before getting up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going somewhere.”

“Yeah, but where?”

“Somewhere.”

At a loss for a real answer, Jang Tae-ri quickly grabbed her coat and hurried out of the office.

With a bang, the door closed, and Hwangbo-gwa, left alone, blankly stared at the closed door before taking another sip of her coffee.

“Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. She’s strong.”

* * *

As soon as Jang Tae-ri stepped outside, she got into her car, turned off the black box [a device that records video and audio while driving], and called Sa Jik-jae.

“Hello… what is it?”

The phone rang a few times before disconnecting, but in less than a minute, Sa Jik-jae called back.

“Hello?”

As soon as Jang Tae-ri answered, Sa Jik-jae spoke from the other end of the line. [You’re calling because of Rembrary, right? I thought you would, since you two are close.]

“You knew right away. What’s going on?”

[What did you hear?]

“That he was kidnapped.”

[That’s exactly what happened.]

“Why did you kidnap him? You said it yourself, that even though Rembrary is a King, you wouldn’t touch him. So why now……?”

[His life is not in danger. We’re just planning to keep him on our side for a bit.]

“How long is ‘a bit’?”

The answer came from the back seat.

“Five years if it’s short. Ten years if it’s long.”

“!”

Startled by the voice that came from both the phone and from inside her car, Jang Tae-ri flinched, trying not to show her surprise as she turned her head.

Sa Jik-jae smiled brightly and put down the phone he had been holding to his ear.

“So Saint Tae-ri doesn’t need to worry. Because there’s nothing that will change, even if you do worry.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“No matter how great a Saint is, you can’t just waltz into the Underworld. Especially since Grim Reapers can’t freely come and go to ‘that place’ where Rembrary is now.”

“…….”

Jang Tae-ri glared at Sa Jik-jae with an angry face. Sa Jik-jae noticed the warning in that fierce gaze—’If you come at me like this, I won’t help you with your work either’—and sighed.

“No matter how much Saint Tae-ri asks, some things just can’t be done. But if you want…….”

“Are you going to at least let me see his face?”

“I’ll deliver the prison food.”

“Prison food?”

“It’s currently a period where human food is prohibited. But if it’s Saint Tae-ri’s request, that much can be done.”

* * *

“What is this?”

“Vanilla ice cream that Saint Jang Tae-ri asked to be delivered.”

“I thought you couldn’t bring in anything but Underworld food.”

“Jik-jae is weak against that Saint.”

“Aren’t you weak against me?”

“That’s obvious.”

When Rembrary stared intently, the warden looked around and then put the ice cream on the floor. It even came with a disposable spoon. Rembrary slumped down and lamented.

“No bed, no table, no chair, no desk—just having to live like this on the floor.”

“If you ask His Highness [Yeomra, the King of the Underworld], he’ll make you a table. Probably.”

“What about a bed?”

“Probably a bed too.”

Rembrary sighed and took the lid off the ice cream container.

* * *

The Redrine Hunter Company tried to keep Rembrary’s kidnapping a secret for the time being, but the news spread quickly.

―Is it true that Rembrary was kidnapped?

―Seriously?!

Yes, yes.

―No way. It must be a rumor.

―The person who lives with Rembrary said that first? Asking to report if Rembrary is found…….

Where? Link please.

The post is down now.

―Probably took it down because they were scared of spreading rumors lol [laughing out loud]. It’s weirder to believe a random comment they just threw out there.

―No, but it could be real. My cousin is going to Redrine’s general services because of some illness, and they said Rembrary hasn’t been seen for the past few days.

222222

333 I heard that too. Because of that, a lot of general followers who entered Redrine wanting to receive treatment have been leaving recently.

―ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ [laughing] Aren’t they deliberately not showing up to weed out the people who are leaving? If I were them, I would filter out fake followers like that once.

Dae-ju watched the people gossiping on the internet bulletin board, then closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

Most of the posts floating around the internet were rumors, but coincidentally, this time the rumors weren’t entirely false. In fact, the person who first posted on the internet that Rembrary had been kidnapped was Follower No. 305, who lived with Rembrary.

Of course, he didn’t mean any harm. Since many people knew Rembrary’s face, he thought it would be easier to find Rembrary if the kidnapping was made public, so he posted it out of concern in his own way.

The problem was…….

‘Rembrary isn’t in this world, and if the news of Rembrary’s kidnapping is received in the midst of this, people’s faith in Redrine will weaken, and the possibility of Redrine rescuing Rembrary will also decrease.’

Dae-ju let out a heavy sigh and stared at the monitor before getting upset and pressing the power button. The screen turned black and the messy letters all disappeared, but his heart still didn’t calm down.

‘Redrine can’t be reached right now. How can you rescue someone in the Underworld…….’

* * *

“Director. Have you seen this? The healer who ran into you with a car before has been kidnapped.”

At the words of a hunter from , half laughing and half worried, Lumena put down the newspaper he was holding. Inside the paper newspaper that Lumena was looking at, Rembrary’s profile was already plastered in a large size.

‘The world’s only healer kidnapped?’

Below the sensational title letters were ‘These kinds of rumors are circulating, but it has not been confirmed.’

less sensational and uncertain sentences were visible.

“You were already reading it.”

“Yeah.”

“Considering what he did to the director, it’s quite satisfying. But considering our country and people, it’s not a good thing, so it’s a bit like that.”

“That’s right.”

“Yes. Whatever his personality, he was healing people well. Was he kidnapped by a criminal who wants to monopolize the healer’s abilities? Or another country’s government aiming for the world’s only healer?”

“Something more difficult than that…….”

The hunter’s eyes widened at Lumena’s trailing words.

“Do you know who did it?”

Lumena gestured for him to leave instead of answering. As the hunter left, Lumena got up from his chair and stood by the window with his arms crossed. Although his power had weakened a lot, he was still a god, so he could use his abilities to go to the Underworld. The problem was…….

‘Can I take him out of there?’

If he went there, he would have a fight with Yeomra, but he didn’t have the ability to openly fight with Yeomra right now.

Of course, unless he was trying to destroy the Earth, Yeomra wouldn’t be able to fully reveal his power either…….

Lumena frowned and looked up at the sky.

‘What are you doing, you son of a bitch? Your kid got caught.’

* * *

‘This won’t do.’

After eating the food that the Grim Reapers and Yeomra brought and spending several days just praying to Redrine.

Around the time when he didn’t even know exactly how long it had been, Rembrary resolved that he couldn’t just keep praying here.

If he just kept eating and eating and eating like this, he didn’t know how the world would have changed when he was released.

‘Lumena said that Redrine must be very busy right now. He wouldn’t deliberately leave me alone, so there must be something making it difficult for him to come here.’

It would be difficult for Redrine, who had to maintain the Rift while avoiding Yeomra, to enter Yeomra’s space. But he couldn’t give up the Rift that he had barely created with Lumena’s help in order to save Rembrary. If he did, all the residents of the other world who hadn’t crossed over yet would die there.

Rembrary took a deep breath and tried to understand Redrine. And around the time when his heart had calmed down a bit, he began to prepare for a full-fledged ‘Oath to the God’.

The full-fledged ‘Oath to the God’ originally took much longer to prepare than the simplified version he had used on the puppet lord before, and the degree to which it bound the opponent was also a much longer and stronger binding ability.

‘It won’t work on the king here, but it will work on the Grim Reapers.’

But it was when Rembrary was sitting blankly alone, preparing the ‘Oath to the God’ to use on the Grim Reapers, that screams and shouts seemed to be heard from unseen parts. Then, one part of the space opened like it was opened with a zipper, revealing a space with a different background inside.

And the one who popped out from there was…….