Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 406

Looking at each other, Sagamjae and Shin Jowoon simultaneously turned their heads.

“You don’t know either? Can I do it? I…”

Rembrary, who had spoken that far, suddenly lowered his phone. When Rembrary’s gaze reached him, Sagamjae raised his eyebrows, wondering what was wrong, and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

Rembrary’s expression was subtle. He seemed angry, and also worried. Either way, the smile that was always on his face was definitely faint.

Instead of explaining, Rembrary placed his palm on Sagamjae’s forehead.

A warm, peaceful, and soft energy erased the ‘thud thud’ sound that had been ringing in his ears. Sagamjae slowly opened his eyelids, which he had briefly closed.

“How is it?”

Rembrary asked, taking his hand away. He still had the phone to his ear, but it seemed like he was asking Sagamjae, not the person on the other end of the call.

“I can’t hear Lapsus’s piano sound anymore.”

When Sagamjae answered, Rembrary immediately relayed the words to the person on the other end of the call.

“I’m fine. …Okay. …Okay, then do that. …Okay.”

As soon as Rembrary put the phone down on the table, Shin Jowoon asked this time.

“What’s wrong?”

Instead of answering, Rembrary pointed to the door with his thumb and instructed Sagamjae.

“Get out.”

* * *

Only after Sagamjae left did Rembrary tell the remaining group that the person who had called earlier was Daeju, and what he had said.

“It was Daeju. He said he can’t use his power.”

The Lion Lord cautiously came to the sofa and took a seat, then asked back in surprise.

“Can an Awakened [someone with supernatural abilities] become a non-Awakened?”

Rembrary shook his head.

“I don’t know. The power that Daeju lost isn’t a power he gained from Awakening.”

The Lion Lord’s eyes widened even more at that answer. Not a power he gained from Awakening? The Lion Lord was reminded of Rembrary’s god, whose presence was enormous in his mind. Is it that kind of power?

It was Ardor who immediately understood the seriousness of the situation.

“Is there a problem with Redrin?”

Only after hearing Ardor’s question did the Lion Lord and Shin Jowoon realize that Daeju’s loss of power was related to Redrin, and they also wore serious expressions.

“I don’t know. Has his power weakened further?”

Rembrary anxiously drummed his knees with his fists, then suddenly, as if he had thought of something, he asked.

“Ardor, where’s Ninring?”

Ardor quickly approached Rembrary’s feet and answered.

“The Captain took her out for local adaptation training and she hasn’t returned yet. 305 also went along because he was worried. Shall I call them back?”

“No, call them and have them test if they can use their divine power first.”

While Ardor was calling Mullu, Rembrary crossed his arms and paced anxiously around the living room.

‘The Demon King is gradually expanding his influence. Why is Redrin’s power weakening?’

Rembrary thought of the people from another world he had rescued from the lab. They were currently gathered at the lodgings for local adaptation training.

They were originally people who knew of Redrin’s existence, so he thought that if he rescued them, it would naturally help Redrin. But is that not the case?

Why is Redrin’s power weakening even more after he rescued them? Rembrary couldn’t understand.

How long had he been lost in thought? Ardor took the phone away from his ear, having finished the call, and approached Rembrary to report.

“The Captain can use it. Ninring seems to be able to use it sometimes and sometimes not.”

“Ninring too?”

Rembrary clicked his tongue in frustration, and Ardor took another step closer and whispered in a low voice.

“To have her power disappear at such an important time, Ninring is truly useless. If she doesn’t have divine power, she should squeeze it out and use it. Can she even be called a Holy Knight who protects the High Priest then? No, she is not a Holy Knight. Doesn’t the High Priest think so?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How generous you are!”

Ardor clasped his hands together in admiration, but Rembrary, instead of proudly accepting the praise as usual, continued to pace around the living room, deep in thought.

Then, a couple of hours later, when Daeju appeared, he told him the hypothesis he had been thinking about.

“Daeju, perhaps there are people among our believers who are affected by Kkokko’s song [referring to Lapsus’ song].”

“I was thinking the same thing. Otherwise, Redrin’s power wouldn’t suddenly decrease. The number of believers has been steadily increasing since he manifested and showed his form.”

“It seems that simply blocking the song with a song won’t work. Unless we get rid of all of Kkokko’s songs on the market…”

Even if a person who fell for Lapsus’s song felt better after listening to Rembrary’s song, they would become addicted again if they listened to Lapsus’s song again, which was only natural.

To prevent this, they would have to erase Lapsus’s song from all spaces on the internet, which was almost impossible.

Even if they mobilized power and threats to remove the song from all music sites, how could they stop the song that had already spread everywhere?

He was pondering over it for a long time.

“High Priest?”

At the sound of the doorbell, Rembrary instructed the Lion Lord to go and see who it was, but suddenly Daeju frowned from across the room and called out to Rembrary.

“What is it?”

When Rembrary asked back, Daeju pointed to his eyes with his hand.

“Here…”

Rembrary also put his hand over his eyes.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“The whites…”

Daeju tried to say more, but in that short moment, Rembrary’s eyes had returned to normal. It was as if he had seen something momentarily.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”

When Rembrary asked again, Daeju shook his head.

“It’s nothing. I must have seen something wrong.”

Daeju said that and turned his upper body towards the front door, but Shin Jowoon called him again and questioned him once more.

“Were the whites of your eyes black?”

Daeju looked at him with an expression that said, ‘How did you know?’

Ardor looked back and forth between Daeju and Shin Jowoon, wondering what was going on.

Rembrary turned on the camera on his phone and checked his eyes in selfie mode. The whites of his eyes were normal white.

Shin Jowoon frowned, hearing the answer to his question from Daeju’s expression.

“Anchovy [Shin Jowoon’s nickname for Rembrary].”

When Rembrary called out for an explanation, Shin Jowoon answered, lifting the tablet from the coffee table.

“At the lab too… when that guy touched you, your eyes changed to that color. Wait a minute.”

Rembrary checked his divine power. It was working properly. Just in case, he bit his thumb hard, and the wound was healed properly.

The people around him were even more horrified to see that.

“I’m fine.”

Rembrary showed his intact thumb and lowered his hand, but those sitting around him couldn’t relax their expressions and glanced at each other.

Sensing the ambiguous atmosphere, Rembrary stood up from his seat and instructed.

“Daeju, gather the people who were rescued from the lab. Later… around four o’clock, I will visit.”

* * *

Sagamjae, who had returned to the underworld, found the line to be about half the length it had been when he came to deliver the news of the Demon King’s head.

Normally, he would have plenty of time and would have waited in line with them, but now he was in a hurry, so Sagamjae didn’t wait in line and just went to the front.

The fellow reapers in line glared at him as if he were cutting in line, but Sagamjae didn’t care and walked straight to almost the front of King Yeomra’s office.

King Yeomra’s aide also recognized Sagamjae’s face and approached him first, asking.

“Did you do everything His Majesty ordered?”

When Sagamjae nodded, the aide told him to come this way and took him inside.

When the reaper who was reporting left, King Yeomra told the next reaper in line to wait and gestured for Sagamjae to report first.

Sagamjae approached as instructed and reported in detail what he had seen and experienced.

He told him that Lapsus seemed to be on the Demon King’s side, and that not only that, but his power had become so strong that he himself showed symptoms of addiction when he met him directly.

King Yeomra listened to the story while fiddling with his coat strings, and when Sagamjae told him that he had received help from Rembrary to get rid of the auditory hallucinations, he let out a heavy sigh.

“It seems that there are not only symptoms of addiction but also withdrawal symptoms.”

“Yes.”

“If it has that much effect on you, it will have an even stronger effect on humans.”

“That’s probably true. But humans don’t listen to the song directly, they listen through audio files, so it might appear weaker than it did on me. The effect will be greater if it is stacked, though.”

“Anyway, won’t this make the enemy’s power even greater?”

King Yeomra clicked his tongue and walked to the long chair, slumping down powerlessly.

“Redrin will quickly recover his power because he has a saint from another world, and the Demon King from another world will increase his power by addicting people, so we are worried.”

Every time King Yeomra tore at the chair with his hands, the torn cotton turned into fluffy clouds and floated away. The sight was mysterious and fun enough for children to jump up and down with joy, but King Yeomra’s expression was endlessly gloomy.

“Don’t worry too much, Your Majesty. Still, we have blocked many rifts, haven’t we? Redrin’s power is weakened, so he can’t reopen the rifts that Your Majesty closed, so there won’t be any problems on that side for the time being.”

Even though the aide tried to comfort him positively, King Yeomra couldn’t ease his expression.

“What good is it if the Demon King gets stronger by that much, even if Redrin weakens?”

“That’s…”

“Reaper Sagamjae.”

At King Yeomra’s call, Sagamjae, who had been silent all along, took a step forward, and King Yeomra waved his hand in the air. Following the tip of King Yeomra’s hand, clouds formed in the empty space, and soon the clouds turned into sharp shards of glass.

“We must unconditionally interfere with what the enemies are doing. The fact that the Demon King is crossing over in pieces means that he is trying to merge into one. Prevent him from ever fully regaining his original form.”

When King Yeomra grabbed the pieces he had made with the clouds, the pieces turned into powder and fell down, then turned back into clouds and floated onto King Yeomra’s long chair.

“Yes.”

Sagamjae answered obediently and knelt on one knee.

“Aide.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Tell the reapers to look for the Demon King’s pieces in their spare time while performing their main duties. It won’t be difficult to find since they are literally in the form of body pieces.”

“Yes.”

“Tell them to kill Lapsus too. It’s okay to kill him directly since he’s not from our world.”

The aide looked at King Yeomra with surprised eyes for a moment, but soon answered obediently.

“I will.”

* * *

While King Yeomra was prioritizing the Demon King’s side, which was becoming stronger, over Redrin, whose power was weakening, Rembrary visited the lab with the Lion Lord, as he had told Daeju in advance, to meet the people from the original world who had been rescued from the lab.

The people from the original world whom Rembrary met were all happy, and some even shed tears.

Rembrary skillfully embraced them one by one, then gathered them in the underground auditorium and instructed them to focus more on praying for Redrin in the future.

He thought that Redrin’s power had weakened even though the number of believers had increased because they were too busy adapting and neglecting Redrin.

But the reaction that came back was unexpected.

Instead of shouting “Yes!”, the people looked at each other and exchanged strange glances.

Feeling strange, Rembrary put his hand on the podium and frowned, and one person who seemed to be the leader walked out and cautiously spoke.

“I’m really sorry to say this to the High Priest. But Rembrary, through this experience, we have come to realize that it is useless to rely too much on God.”