Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 529

529. Black Lake

“A dragon, you say?”

Daeju stared at Rembrary, who explained with a serious expression.

“The ruler of the Black Dragons. One of the Demon King’s closest aides.”

“Demon King?”

At those words, the gathered people were horrified and stared at the demon.

Those who were sitting half-rose, and those who were standing reflexively reached for their weapons.

Daeju also looked at the demon with a wary expression.

Even though this was their territory and there was only one demon here, everyone instinctively felt uneasy.

However, even amidst the tense atmosphere, the demon smiled leisurely and asked.

“High Priest, shall I come with you?”

The people stirred at the unexpected suggestion. Rembrary looked at the Black Dragon and asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just what I said.”

The demon’s eyes narrowed.

“Shall I come with you? Wasn’t that what you were talking about?”

Daeju stood up so abruptly that his chair was pushed back with a loud thud.

His angry face suggested he felt the demon had come to insult them.

“High Priest! It’s good that he’s not hiding. We must capture that devil now!”

Before Daeju could finish speaking, Sagamjae approached the Black Dragon and suddenly drew a sword from somewhere and swung it.

He seemed intent on acting rather than talking.

However, even as the large sword approached his face, the Black Dragon didn’t even blink.

Then, the moment the sword was almost touching his face, something next to the Black Dragon swallowed Sagamjae’s sword.

What briefly appeared as it swallowed the sword looked like a pitch-black dinosaur.

However, as soon as the sword disappeared, it also vanished, so most people didn’t even realize what had happened.

Sagamjae, perhaps not expecting to lose his weapon, froze and looked at the Black Dragon.

“How…?”

But just before Sagamjae fell into shock,

something like a pitch-black dinosaur head appeared next to the Black Dragon and spat out the sword it had swallowed.

Sagamjae instinctively caught the sword, then frowned at the sticky saliva on it.

“Not an ordinary weapon, I see. It smells like heaven.”

At the Black Dragon’s muttering, Sagamjae frowned even more and glared at him.

Rembrary watched this and returned to the main topic, asking the Black Dragon.

“Why do you want to come with us?”

The Black Dragon replied as if it were obvious.

“It looks interesting.”

The people looked even more displeased at the answer, which sounded like mockery or ridicule.

However, everyone was unsure of what to do with this suddenly appearing demon, so they couldn’t take any particular action.

They likely had an instinctive fear of demons.

However, Rembrary thought that unless they were going to engage in an all-out war, it was better for the people to remain frozen for now.

If Mullet were here, he would have been twitching his tail and doing something, and then who knew what that demon would really do.

In any case, it seemed that if they stayed like this, the awkward standoff would only lengthen, so Rembrary, feeling that he, as the most composed, should step forward, quickly replied.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

While the Black Dragon smiled brightly at Rembrary’s ready agreement, Daeju and the others exclaimed in surprise.

“That won’t do!”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s a demon!”

“Are you crazy?”

Rembrary shrugged and put his arm around the Black Dragon’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. This one is a dragon.”

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ the Earthlings thought simultaneously, but they wondered if there was some connection they didn’t know about, so they all quieted down.

As the people quieted down, Rembrary patted the Black Dragon’s back and asked Daeju.

“Is it okay?”

Daeju asked more directly.

“Does him being a dragon make him trustworthy?”

“No, not really.”

“!”

“It’s just that he looks really cool when he transforms into a dragon.”

Daeju’s expression twisted.

Rembrary smiled at Daeju’s expression and added.

“Just kidding. I just thought it would be okay to take him along. Anyway, those devils keep interfering every time we enter a dungeon.”

“!”

“I thought it would be better to bring him along than to deal with them without knowing who’s a demon.”

Daeju opened his mouth at Rembrary’s words but couldn’t say anything.

The same was true for Nakru.

In fact, in District 1, at least one unidentified person suspected of being a demon had interfered with Rembrary’s group, and thanks to that, Woosungwoo couldn’t leave the dungeon.

It hadn’t been long since they had that experience, so everyone could understand what Rembrary meant.

The Black Dragon watched the scene, put his hands behind his back, and smiled contentedly.

“Humans, I’ll show you what I look like as a dragon… if I feel like it.”

Sagamjae stared coldly at the scene and stepped forward.

“Then I will join you as well. I can’t just send that demon along with you two. Who knows what he’s planning.”

* * *

Waryon was preparing his dungeon.

It was because he had overheard the humans openly saying, ‘District 3 is the easiest.’

It didn’t need to be the most difficult dungeon, but Waryon didn’t want to be treated as the easiest, so he began to carefully refine the existing dungeons.

However, a dungeon was like building with bricks; he could decide how to stack the bricks, but he couldn’t break the basic bricks that made up the structure.

At that moment, the chat window suddenly flashed, and Clot called out.

Clot: Where’s Dragon?

Waryon wiped the mud from his hands on his clothes and replied curtly.

Waryon: Why are you asking me? I don’t know.

Then he went back to work.

How much time had passed since then?

As he was looking around at the dungeon’s layout, wondering if he should let a demon inside to assess the difficulty, the chat window began to flash repeatedly.

Waryon looked up and widened his eyes.

Clot kept typing ‘헐’ ‘헐’ ‘헐’ ‘헐’ (Heol, Heol, Heol, Heol) [Korean slang expressing disbelief or shock].

Waryon: Stop it.

Annoyed by the meaningless noise, he spoke, and Noir said.

Noir: Wary, you weren’t watching the screen. Set the screen to District 4.

District 4? Clot’s district? Waryon frowned and set his crystal ball to the entrance of District 4.

Then he saw a group of people standing in front of entrance number 1 of District 4.

Waryon focused the screen on them and realized why Clot had been shouting ‘Heol Heol Heol Heol.’

“What is that.”

Waryon muttered in reality rather than typing on the keyboard without realizing it.

There was the High Priest, and one of the humans who had been messing around near the High Priest, and one of the divine messengers called ‘Grim Reaper’ in this world, and behind them…

“Why is that bastard there?”

Clot: That bastard. Was he serious about being Red Dragon?

* * *

Rembrary, standing in front of the 4-1 entrance, turned the doorknob and asked the Black Dragon.

“Do you know what’s inside here?”

The Black Dragon grinned and shook his head.

“I’d have to go in to know, High Priest.”

“Any guesses?”

“Clot likes animals.”

A strange light appeared on Rembrary’s face.

“Ah. Is Clot himself inside here?”

Firestarter asked, puzzled.

“Do you know him?”

“Even Mullet would know.”

“How?”

“Clot himself used to run a restaurant.”

“What?”

Firestarter couldn’t tell if Rembrary was joking or serious.

He glanced at the Black Dragon, but the demon was just grinning, so it was difficult to tell whether it was a joke or not.

Sagamjae was completely focused on the Black Dragon, holding his sword in one hand and being wary, so he didn’t pay attention to the conversation.

Firestarter sighed. This dungeon felt hopeless from the start.

Meanwhile, Rembrary opened the door.

* * *

However, unlike his hopeless feeling, the first thing Firestarter said as he stepped inside was an exclamation.

“Wow.”

He didn’t want to exclaim in admiration at a demon’s dungeon, but the interior was truly beautiful.

Firestarter was from Earth, so he had seen videos about space a few times.

And this place was like an island floating in the middle of that universe he had seen back then. Judging by how comfortable it was to breathe, it wasn’t space, but still.

“It’s cool.”

Firestarter unknowingly muttered again and looked around, but Sagamjae was still only paying attention to the Black Dragon.

No one knew how wonderful this scenery was.

Firestarter clicked his tongue and looked at Rembrary, but he noticed that Rembrary was frowning and asked.

“You don’t like it? In terms of appearance, it’s much better than the classroom before, right?”

At that moment, the Black Dragon, who had been silent all along, put his arm around Rembrary’s shoulder and asked a strange question.

“Why? Do you remember something, High Priest?”

It was a friendly voice, but the question was somehow strange, so Firestarter looked at Rembrary. What was that about?

“Yes.”

But unexpectedly, Rembrary agreed to the strange question, and Firestarter became even more puzzled.

Was this scenery from Rembrary’s original world? But if it was his original world, would he say, ‘Do you remember something?’

“Yes. I remember you being in a nest as an egg.”

Firestarter looked at Sagamjae.

Sagamjae was also concerned about the conversation between Rembrary and the Black Dragon, and he looked back and forth between them before asking.

“Otherworld Saint, were you perhaps beside that Otherworld Demon when he was born?”

As soon as those words came out, the Black Dragon burst out laughing.

“No way! I was born over a thousand years ago!”

Only then did Firestarter frown. That Otherworld Cultist and Otherworld Demon were exchanging Otherworld jokes.

Sagamjae coldly muttered as if his pride was hurt that he had been tricked like Firestarter.

“What are the rules here?”

The Black Dragon shrugged.

“I don’t know either. I’ll have to see. I don’t check every single one of the other guys’ dungeons.”

“You’re not helpful.”

“All I can do is be cute.”

“?”

While Sagamjae was looking at the Black Dragon with an expression that said, ‘What did I just hear?’, Rembrary continued to walk forward.

“Hey, Rembrary. Is it okay to just move around with that demon like that?”

“He’s not the type to act by calculating the distant future, so it’ll probably be okay.”

“I would be a little more relieved if that ‘probably’ wasn’t there.”

“I’m not sure either.”

“?!”

Just as Firestarter was about to ask if it was dangerous then, Rembrary pointed somewhere with his finger.

“That must be it. The rules here.”

There was a gloomy-looking cave there, and in front of the cave was a large sign.

As they approached it, they saw the words ‘Please catch only three’ written on the sign.

“Three? Catch?”

The group’s gazes all turned to the pitch-black lake near the cave.

Firestarter looked around. The surroundings were scenic, but it was just a vast expanse of sand with nothing else.

There were no birds flying, no insect sounds, and no passing animals or people. Just the cave and the black lake.

Firestarter swallowed hard and pointed to the lake water, which was so dark that he couldn’t see inside at all.

“Don’t tell me. You’re not saying we have to fish in there, are you?”

Sagamjae calmly replied.

“I think that’s right.”

The Black Dragon, who had been bothering Firestarter all along, also said with a bright smile.

“I think they want us to catch fish.”

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he added a word like a demon.

“Since there are no fishing tools, we’ll have to go in and catch them?”

Firestarter’s face turned pale, and he looked at the lake, grabbed a handful of sand, and threw it into the water.

The water didn’t ripple and just absorbed the sand.

Firestarter instinctively felt goosebumps.

Even if it was a lake where he could see the bottom, he would hesitate to go in, but to go into a completely black lake and catch fish? The moment he went in, he felt like piranhas would swarm him.

At that moment, Sagamjae made a proposal that Firestarter would be satisfied with.

“Rembrary, you swim like a dolphin, so it would be better for you to go in.”

“Me?”

Sagamjae nodded as Rembrary stared blankly.

“Don’t you also emit light from your head? Like an anglerfish, you’ll be suitable for hunting in this dark water.”