Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 410

As Rembrary finished singing and slowly opened his eyes, the staff watching forgot it was just a rehearsal and applauded. It was practically an automatic reaction.

Rembrary fully opened his eyelids and scanned the staff one by one with his red eyes. Even that appearance looked like someone from a television screen with various visual effects applied, making the staff admire him, forgetting their likes and dislikes about Rembrary.

“…….”

However, Rembrary’s expression as he looked over the staff wasn’t very bright. It was an unusual expression for Rembrary, who usually wore a gentle smile as if it were glued on.

But those watching just assumed Rembrary wasn’t satisfied with his song, so they didn’t worry too much. Except for a slightly less present smile than usual, Rembrary looked perfectly fine.

“What’s wrong?”

“Are you alright?”

“Is there a problem?”

On the other hand, the group that had followed Rembrary noticed that he was different from usual and immediately approached him as he came down from the stage.

As Rembrary walked down the stairs and headed back to the waiting room, he glanced at Lapsus, who was standing far away.

Returning to the waiting room, Rembrary closed the door and asked in a dark voice,

“Melchi, Ardor. Can one of you bleed a little on your palm?”

Ardor and Shin Jo-woon looked at each other before turning their heads back towards Rembrary.

“Why blood on our palms?”

“If High Priest desires, I can bleed from my neck!”

The reactions to his request differed.

Before Rembrary could answer, Ardor bit his own palm, causing Shin Jo-woon to frown, finding it unsightly.

“Can’t you do it somewhere else?”

Shin Jo-woon chided, but Ardor grinned and proudly showed Rembrary his bleeding palm.

“Praise me, High Priest. My hand is bleeding. It’s blood for you, High Priest.”

Instead of praise, Rembrary healed his palm. The wound on his palm disappeared in the blink of an eye.

After meticulously wiping away the blood with a wet wipe, Rembrary made sure Ardor’s hand was completely healed before putting his hand down and explaining the situation.

“I couldn’t heal those Kokko had poisoned. But Ardor’s hand heals so well.”

At those words, Moolu, Ardor, and Shin Jo-woon’s eyes widened.

Ardor looked down at his hand with a trembling voice.

“Does, does that mean… I’ve become special to you, High Priest?”

Shin Jo-woon and Moolu were each about to react, but they looked at Ardor, thinking that what he said was slightly different from what they had understood.

Rembrary immediately corrected Ardor’s misunderstanding.

“No. It seems Kokko has become special.”

“!”

* * *

After several more tests, the results were the same.

Rembrary’s other abilities were all the same. His healing abilities, as well as ‘Divinity’.

Even the divine power worked properly through the album Rembrary had recorded.

“But why couldn’t I heal the staff on the spot?”

After the broadcast ended, Rembrary muttered deeply in thought as he moved to the research center.

Originally, there were no plans to go to the research center, but he added the destination to get the opinion of the research center director regarding this phenomenon.

“The Demon King inside Woo Yeon-woo stabbed your forehead. Could it be because of that?”

Rembrary shook his head at Shin Jo-woon’s careful words as he turned the steering wheel.

“It’s rare for me not to know something. I really don’t know about this one.”

“Did anything feel different, or anything like that?”

“Nothing.”

Since they weren’t at the scene where Redrin had manifested, Moolu and Ardor couldn’t join the conversation and just looked back and forth between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat.

Later, when they arrived at the research center, the director, who had been waiting after receiving a call in advance, quickly opened the car door to help Rembrary out.

The research center director guided Rembrary and his group to his office and asked.

“I heard the story briefly over the phone. You said your powers suddenly aren’t working.”

“They worked. They just weren’t effective.”

“Isn’t that the same as not being able to use them?”

“Normal healing is possible. I just can’t heal those poisoned by Kokko.”

Arriving at the director’s office, Rembrary told him in more detail about what happened during the music show rehearsal.

However, even with the research center director adding his two cents [giving his opinion], the only thing they could guess was similar to what Shin Jo-woon had said earlier.

“Could the Demon King have done something at that time? He couldn’t completely take away Rembrary’s power, so he changed the direction the power comes out, or something like that.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know the exact principle. But if the power hasn’t disappeared but can’t be properly exerted, then… I think he might have changed the path the power comes out of.”

When the lion’s head asked, “Like changing the waterways?” the research center director nodded.

Rembrary sat on the sofa with his arms crossed.

His unusually cautious and serious appearance made the people around him feel uneasy.

It was easy to imagine how shocking it would be to see someone who was always smiling like that.

How long had he been like that?

“High Priest. I will go and deal with the Eastern High Priest who is attached to the Demon King.”

It was when Moolu, unable to watch any longer, stepped forward to speak.

Suddenly, Rembrary exclaimed, “Yes. That’s it!” and jumped up.

‘He was waiting for someone to step up and say that. High Priest also wants to kill Lapsus,’ Moolu thought shrewdly and firmly gripped the spear she had taken out.

“Do not worry. Killing him will solve half the problem.”

As soon as Moolu finished speaking, she turned around without hesitation.

“Hearing your words reminded me, Moolu, of the good idea I had earlier!”

However, Rembrary grabbed Moolu, who was about to go outside, and she had to turn back.

“A good idea?”

Shin Jo-woon asked, opening the window halfway, perhaps feeling hot. The smell of fallen leaves mixed with the wind flowed in through the half-open window.

Rembrary smiled with a face that was unexpectedly not discouraged.

“It won’t be easy to kill Kokko. He was already quite strong, and now there will be demons camped around him. But if Kokko changes his mind himself, it doesn’t matter how many guards are around him.”

Moolu frowned without putting away her spear. Make Lapsus change his mind?

“He seemed to hate High Priest and Redrin. Will it be easy to change his mind?”

It must have taken a lot of consideration for someone who served a god to go over to the Demon King’s side. Not that she understood that consideration.

But if Rembrary, who wasn’t on good terms with him in the first place, tries to persuade him, would Lapsus really change his mind? Moolu couldn’t think positively.

However, Rembrary still had a confident attitude.

“Listening carefully to what Kokko said when we fought, it seems he still has feelings for Lumena.”

“He betrayed her, didn’t he?”

Ardor interjected with a frown. As if to say, what good is it if a traitor still has feelings.

“He already sided with the underworld before Lumena disappeared, so what good is it even if he still has feelings?”

“Well. Don’t you see that he abandoned Lumena and sided with the underworld, and then came back out of the underworld when Lumena disappeared?”

“Ah.”

“If Lumena is alive—”

When Moolu interjected, “He won’t believe it,” Rembrary nodded. That was right.

“Yes. He won’t believe it if we say it. But he’ll believe it if Lumena appears herself. Maybe he’ll even abandon the Demon King again. Betrayal seems to be his specialty.”

Rembrary recalled the aura of Lumena he felt when he entered the body of the eunuch Woo Yeon-woo.

If that being is the real Lumena… no, it must be Lumena. There can’t be multiple auras like that.

Ardor and Moolu looked at each other. Moolu agreed with Rembrary’s words but was still not relieved.

“Of course, things will work out if that happens. But… where is Lumena, Rembrary?”

At Moolu’s words, Rembrary confidently replied.

“I don’t know. But Redrin knows the exact location. Just like she found me through Woo Yeon-woo before, she’ll be able to find Lumena through Woo Yeon-woo this time. Even if we can’t bring her, we might be able to have a brief conversation.”

At those words, Moolu’s expression brightened. Shin Jo-woon, the lion lord, and the research center director, who couldn’t fully understand the conversation, nodded, thinking that things were going well.

Hope sprang up. If Kokko, like Rembrary said, changed his mind after seeing the god he originally served, it wouldn’t matter how many guards the Demon King had placed around Kokko.

But the feeling that everything would work out was crushed by the words Rembrary added.

“The problem is that we don’t know where Redrin is…”

Shin Jo-woon’s added words were enough to dampen the group’s spirits.

“Let’s say Redrin is like that. Doesn’t Woo Yeon-woo have something strange inside him? The guy who caused an accident when he brought you last time, will he just let it go this time? It’ll be harmful to him, right?”

“…That’s true too.”

The words returned to the same place like a broken record [repeating the same information]. To appease Lapsus, Lumena is needed; to find Lumena, Woo Yeon-woo is needed; and to talk to Lumena, Redrin is needed.

Rembrary and his group glanced at each other.

“What should we do?”

“What do you want to do?”

* * *

Even after returning to the residence in a good school district, Rembrary couldn’t shake this matter from his head and remained deep in thought.

The scattered group also tried to think of ways for Redrin and Rembrary to meet, but it wasn’t very helpful.

Even Rembrary, who was closest to God, couldn’t reach Redrin, so there was no way other people could come up with ideas first.

Rembrary, who had even contacted Daeju and instructed him to think about it, only ate about half of his usual food that day while continuing to worry.

“Angel. Aren’t you eating? Why aren’t you eating?”

Eventually, even the children, who noticed Rembrary’s strange behavior, became worried and asked.

“Angels live on one and a half meals a day, so you can’t starve.”

“Healer, are you not feeling well?”

When the children became seriously worried, Rembrary smiled as usual and got up.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

“But why are you only eating three bowls?”

Rembrary soothed the children, saying he would eat his fourth bowl now, and first walked to the kitchen.

In any case, this wasn’t a problem for the children to worry about, so he had to reassure them before the children were also weighed down by the heavy atmosphere.

In the meantime, the two children kept talking to Rembrary from both sides.

“Is it because of Lapsus who debuted this time?”

“Healer is stronger than Lapsus!”

“Or is it because of Woo Yeon-woo?”

“Healer is stronger than Woo Yeon-woo too!”

Rembrary entered the kitchen and opened the freezer door, about to protest that he had a broad mind that didn’t care about Lapsus or Woo Yeon-woo, but stopped.

Woo Yeon-woo.

“Yes. Woo Yeon-woo.”

“You’re angry because of Woo Yeon-woo….”

The children seemed convinced that Woo Yeon-woo was the reason Rembrary had started eating less, and began to comfort him by tearing down Woo Yeon-woo.

However, that wasn’t why Rembrary called Woo Yeon-woo’s name.

‘Yes. Even the Demon King can’t watch Woo Yeon-woo all day long. If I find out that time, I might be able to talk to Lumena without the Demon King knowing. If only I could get in touch with Redrin!’