Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 463

463. How to Deal with the Devil’s Fragment

It felt like feathers were floating in the air.

“Lumena, please have a cup of tea. It’s made from Green Snow, grown for 500 years near the Pond of Dreams.”

A tiger walking on two legs approached Lumena and tilted a teapot over a delicate white teacup, pouring a clear, emerald liquid inside.

The tiger poured tea for the person sitting next to Lumena, and then for the person next to them.

Lumena brought the teacup to her lips and sipped, thinking,

‘Too leisurely.’

Her fingers nervously tapped the teacup one after another.

Lumena continuously drank tea, trying to shake off her uneasy feelings. It wasn’t working well, though.

It was fortunate that it was her, at least.

If it were Redrin, he would have already flipped the table, though no one would know he did it, of course.

‘It’s much better than being hostile, but…’

Lumena drank her tea again.

The demi-gods here were less hostile compared to Yeomra, but the problem was they were too relaxed.

It seemed like quite some time had passed since she was invited here. They had been talking about the newly planted peach trees the whole time.

They were seriously discussing whether the spirit emerging from the peach tree would be in the form of a human, a peach, or a cat.

‘It’ll obviously be in the form of a peach. But what does it matter even if it isn’t?’

Lumena was the only one feeling anxious here.

“Give me another cup of tea.”

Lumena called the tiger walking on two legs, received another cup of tea, and gulped it down.

Normally, she would have found these peaceful and amicable demi-gods lovely and pleasing.

However, Lumena didn’t yet know how the time zones differed between the place where humans resided and this place.

Even if the time zones flowed similarly, if a lot of time was lost during the ‘movement’ between the human realm and the divine realm, ten years might easily pass.

“Now that I think about it, Lumena, you said you had something you wanted to ask?”

After drinking five cups of tea in a row and being served three plates of fruit, the demi-gods concluded that the peach spirit would smell like peaches no matter what form it took, and then turned their attention to Lumena.

The green demi-god who had guided Lumena here interjected with a smile.

“Lumena wants to know about the sleeping god.”

At the green demi-god’s words, the other demi-gods added a word or two, pretending to know, saying, “Oh, the sleeping god,” “You mean that one?” “He’s been sleeping for a long time.”

“Do you know about him?”

When Lumena asked calmly, the demi-gods glanced at each other, then began to open their mouths briefly.

“He was a god who passionately cared for humans.”

“He was very strong.”

“He traveled around ninety-nine countries every day.”

“I see. He must have been busy.”

“He was busy. He was a god who liked being busy.”

Lumena realized that the demi-gods were all referring to the sleeping god in the past tense.

However, she didn’t directly ask questions, only muttering a word or two in agreement, letting them talk as they pleased.

It seemed that once a topic came up, they would talk about it for a long time.

As Lumena expected, the demi-gods, who initially spoke about whatever came to their minds, finally began to tell the story of how the ‘sleeping god’ fell asleep.

“We don’t know exactly why he fell asleep.”

“He suddenly stopped moving, and when we checked, he was asleep.”

“We can only guess.”

“For about ten years before he fell asleep, there was a priest that the god cherished the most.”

After that, the demi-gods took turns throwing out a word or two, as if recalling memories.

When someone brought up a memory and spoke, the person across from them would say, ‘Ah, right!’ and add something related.

Combining the words that came out in such a haphazard way, the ‘sleeping god’ here was originally a very powerful and passionate god.

Moreover, he found the concept of countries that humans created and lived in very fascinating and interesting, so he was so passionate that he traveled around 99 countries every day.

However, at some point, he lost all motivation and stopped doing this, and the demi-gods didn’t know the exact reason, but they guessed it was because of the priest he cherished at the end.

For some reason, humans killed that priest, and the god came to hate the humans who killed the priest.

However, on the other hand, the god found it hard to bear himself hating humans.

In the end, unable to bear his anger and feeling that he couldn’t control what he might do to humans, the god used all the power he had used to care for the 99 countries to put himself to sleep.

He went into a deep cave and gradually absorbed the sleep of the people of the world to put himself to sleep.

In other words, the reason the sleeping god could fall so deeply asleep was not thanks to any special conditions or circumstances, but because that god used all his abilities only to put himself to sleep.

“It’s been hundreds of years already, so now even the humans have forgotten about that god.”

“It’s a heartbreaking thing.”

Lumena unconsciously brought the empty teacup to her lips and smiled faintly.

If that god was putting himself to sleep with his divine power, it was a good thing.

The devil’s soul fragment was an entity that had to be attached to someone.

So, what would happen if the devil’s soul fragment was sent to that sleeping god?

The sleeping god would continue to put himself to sleep permanently, and the soul fragment would have to sleep with him, whether it wanted to or not.

Once the devil’s fragment was taken out of Rembrary, she could return Rembrary and his group to Earth, even to a place similar to where they originally were.

If she, Redrin, and Yeomra joined forces, they could safely send them back without causing major damage here, at least once.

‘I’ve obtained good information.’

When Lumena felt she had obtained the information she wanted, she nodded and asked her last question.

“Do you happen to know where that god is sleeping?”

“We don’t know the location. He doesn’t want anyone waking him up, so he made it impossible for us to track his location with our energy.”

* * *

Meanwhile, at that time.

Mulu was taking the first skill verification test for days to raise her rank in the Blood Cult.

The first skill verification test was a format where everyone had a one-on-one sparring match once, and the people with the most wins were cut in half, with half passing the first test and half being postponed to the second verification.

Because of this, the number of participants in the first test was not large compared to the total number of recruits, but it took a long time compared to that.

In addition, the sight of a new master fighting in a fresh way was a good experience for those watching, so there were many people who wanted to observe the first test, so the progress was as slow as a snail.

The reason why Mulu had been taking the test all along was because of this slow speed.

Still, the results were quite good, so Mulu had won all five fights so far.

And just today. Mulu was about to have her sixth sparring match.

Her opponent was a new recruit, Yungcheon, who used the room next to Mulu under the same roof.

It was a drizzling day, but sparring matches were held outdoors without exception.

When everyone gathered and finished preparing to watch the sparring match, Mulu finished preparing for the sparring match and walked to the end of the sparring arena.

Yungcheon, who had come out first and was swinging his sword around, smiled brightly when he saw Mulu and said excitedly.

“I hope we both go to the same rank, Junior Sister.”

Instead of answering, Mulu took out her spear.

In addition to the examiners who were obligated to watch the two people’s sparring match, there were many spectators gathered around.

Since two of the six people with the highest win rate were competing in martial arts, it seemed that there were especially many people who came out to watch despite the rain.

Mulu loosened her wrist while looking at Yungcheon, who was grinning.

‘These people use strange powers in a different way than us.’

The people here used swordsmanship that was somewhat different from the earth’s Awakened and the people from Mulu’s world.

It was understandable that they put internal energy into their swords, as there were people in her original world who used similar powers, but only one thing. The lightness skill [a martial art technique that allows one to move swiftly and lightly] was difficult to deal with.

In order not to be careless, Mulu recalled Yungcheon’s movements that she had seen a couple of times before in her head.

Yungcheon watched Mulu like that, then grinned and teased.

“Junior Sister. We’re close, so should I let you win?”

“Does saying that make it less embarrassing even if you lose?”

Mulu didn’t fall for the provocation and answered calmly, gripping her spear properly. Yungcheon laughed out loud.

“Junior Sister is strong. But your weakness is clear. You know that too, right?”

The moment the judge made a sound announcing the start of the sparring match.

Yungcheon, who had turned behind Mulu in the blink of an eye, snatched her spear and teased her.

“Junior Sister is good at everything, but you’re not good at lightness skill.”

Seoltan, the vice-leader of the cult, who was watching the scene, whispered to Johu, who was standing next to him and watching the sparring match with particular seriousness.

“The woman you admire is in danger?”

Johu, the head of the Blood Cult’s Red Scarf Unit, but in reality, a spy sent by the Martial Arts Alliance Leader, hurriedly retorted, keeping his eyes on Mulu, at Seoltan’s sudden words.

“I’m not interested in such a terrifying person.”

“Terrifying? She doesn’t have that kind of vibe at all?”

“Look at her hair color. Her hair color is green.”

“Green is a peaceful color.”

“It’s peaceful when it’s in nature. If your hair is green, it’s not peaceful.”

Even while speaking, Johu didn’t take his eyes off Mulu.

Since she was a woman that the Alliance Leader had told him to keep a special eye on, he was watching without batting an eye.

However, even Johu thought that Mulu would lose to Yungcheon now. Hadn’t she been disarmed?

But as soon as he thought this, Mulu suddenly turned around, and at the same time, the chopsticks in her hand lengthened and turned into a spear, hitting Yungcheon.

Yungcheon, perhaps not knowing that the chopsticks would suddenly turn into a spear, was surprised and stepped back, having been confident that he was out of attack range.

“What, Junior Sister? What is that?”

“…….”

“Damn it. I don’t know whether to be surprised that the chopsticks turned into a spear or that Junior Sister is carrying chopsticks around.”

Mulu was carrying chopsticks as a spare weapon and to make her opponent careless, but there was no need to explain this in detail during the sparring match.

Yungcheon clutched his aching stomach and smiled again.

“I was surprised, Junior Sister. But that doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly become good at lightness skill.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Yungcheon rushed towards Mulu with one hand around his stomach. Wielding the heavy-looking sword with one hand without difficulty.

However, in the blink of an eye.

Before he even arrived next to Mulu, a man suddenly appeared in the air and stepped on Yungcheon, and Yungcheon fell forward with a sound strong enough to break his jaw due to the momentum of moving forward using lightness skill.

The vice-leader of the cult, Seoltan, who was watching this, admired and shook Johu’s shoulder.

“Amazing, isn’t it? Did you see that? He summoned a person!”

The people were also surprised and buzzed.

“I’ve never imagined such a technique.”

“What is that?”

“Did that new recruit do it?”

Since the person who suddenly appeared in the air and stepped on Yungcheon didn’t seem to have jumped in from anywhere, it didn’t feel like an attacker.

However, whether people were surprised or not, Mulu calmly lowered her spear after being momentarily stunned by the person who had appeared stepping on Yungcheon, or rather, the grim reaper.

To think that one of the group she had been looking for would suddenly appear like this. She was surprised and happy.

Sagamjae also smiled a little more clearly than usual, thinking that he had finally found one.

“One. I barely found you.”

“It’s been a while.”

Underneath him, Yungcheon screamed.

“Do you know each other, Junior Sister? Then tell him to get off my back!”