Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 536

◈ 536. Different Places

Rembrary smiled contentedly.

“Yes, yes. I understand. You don’t have to shout.”

Waryon cursed inwardly. How did things end up like this?

The thought of the other demons snickering at this sight made him angry.

‘It’s okay. I’ll take him around for a bit and then make it look like he got swept away in the dungeon.’

After all, this dungeon either doesn’t hold onto its targets, or if you take your eyes off them for a few seconds, they get separated from those nearby.

Transported to another place.

So, even if Waryon naturally exited, Rembrary wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

Only now feeling relieved, Waryon chuckled. Huhu.

But his laughter was cut short when Rembrary suddenly grabbed his hand.

“Why, why!”

‘Is this guy crazy? Why is he holding my hand?’ Waryon stared at him, repulsed, as Rembrary smiled gently and made eye contact.

“I think if we stay like this, we won’t get separated.”

You figured it out too! Waryon screamed in a Munch-like fashion [referencing Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’].

“Are you that happy?”

Rembrary smiled benevolently, but Waryon cursed inwardly.

“But this is it. I’ll only hold your hand.”

Waryon cursed a blue streak in his mind.

* * *

As Waryon expected, the demons were very pleased watching this scene.

Noir: Crazy bastard, lol. What is he doing, lol.

Cloth: I’m recording everything. I’ll have to show it to Wary when he comes. Play it when he’s angry, play it when he’s happy.

Black Dragon: Wary is so friendly, lol.

Noir: Is that friendliness, lol? He’s just like a tiny iron filing being dragged by a huge magnet.

Black Dragon: The High Priest was wary of me, though.

Cloth: It’s because he hasn’t seen your true form.

Noir: He’d be even more wary if he saw your true form, lol.

Noir, thinking that he was the best at utilizing the dungeon, shifted the focus from Waryon and Rembrary to the human who had been freezing alone earlier.

‘Huh?’

Unexpectedly, the human wasn’t frozen.

* * *

After melting his frozen body, Shin Joong-woon thought about the principle that made this possible.

Only Shin Joong-woon himself could melt Shin Joong-woon’s ice. But this ice is also melted by Shin Joong-woon’s power.

So, this ice must indeed be the ice that Shin Joong-woon himself created.

But why did this side freeze when he attacked the illusion?

‘Is it some kind of trap?’

In any case, it was fortunate. It would have been a disaster if his head had been frozen instantly, or if he had been cut with an ice blade.

He thought it was a dungeon trying to inflict mental shock. He never expected it to attempt a physical attack like this.

As he was thinking, a child resembling Jang Tae-ri stared at him intently.

Shin Joong-woon looked down at the child for a moment, then raised his hand and waved.

“Hello.”

The child waved back. Shin Joong-woon watched this, then muttered softly.

“Go inside. Even if someone asks for help, just once, don’t listen and run.”

With that, Shin Joong-woon turned away without regret.

That was neither ‘that child’s’ soul nor a ghost, nor anything else, but a trap set for him by the demons here.

If it were the real ‘that child’s’ soul, she wouldn’t even show her face, afraid that Shin Joong-woon would come to her.

If Shin Joong-woon knowingly walked into a trap resembling her, she would be appalled.

She was such a kind child.

If there was a god Shin Joong-woon could imagine, that god would have the appearance of that child.

Once he left the child’s side, Shin Joong-woon moved without batting an eye, no matter how bizarre the other ghosts looked.

In the first place, he hadn’t followed ‘that child’ thinking she was real.

He just followed her because she had a familiar face.

But the other ghosts didn’t have familiar faces, so no matter how terrifying they looked, they couldn’t arouse his interest.

As he walked along, he saw Rembrary.

Rembrary was walking down the hallway alone.

As Shin Joong-woon approached him, Rembrary clicked his tongue and asked.

“Myulchi [Korean for ‘anchovy,’ often used as a nickname]. Where have you been?”

“I saw a face that bothered me. What about you?”

“Nothing bothered me. I was just going.”

* * *

“Then can you let go?”

Waryon, holding hands with Rembrary, suddenly burst into anger.

The other demons must all be watching.

Knowing that, he felt humiliated and hated having to hold Rembrary’s hand so tightly.

“If I let go, won’t you disappear?”

But Rembrary, intending to protect his fan whom he had met in such a place, didn’t easily let go of his hand.

At the benevolent answer, Waryon cursed another string of curses inwardly. ‘Damn it! What are the ghosts doing that they aren’t beating this guy up?’

Looking closely, he realized that it wasn’t just Rembrary who was ignoring the ghosts.

The ghosts were also desperately trying not to look at Rembrary.

A few brave ghosts tried to approach Rembrary, but Rembrary didn’t bat an eye.

“Aren’t you! Aren’t you afraid of those things?!”

Waryon, unable to bear it any longer, asked outright.

“Why should I be afraid?”

Rembrary replied as if he didn’t understand the question.

“They don’t bother me much.”

Waryon asked again, protesting.

“Why?”

Rembrary only muttered words that were unclear whether they were an answer to Waryon’s words or just to himself.

“I need to find Ninring, Myulchi [Korean for ‘anchovy,’ often used as a nickname], and Yeonwoo.”

Waryon was about to get angry for ignoring his question, but he remembered something and asked, pretending not to know.

“Who are those people?”

At the subtly changed voice, Rembrary answered, “Friends.” Waryon’s lips curled up into a smirk.

“Friends? Friends, huh.”

‘So, those are the High Priest’s weaknesses,’ Waryon thought, and laughed again.

Of course, Rembrary’s weakness would be Redrin, but targeting that side was absurd.

Even Waryon knew that much.

Even if he was a weakened god, he was only weak in their terms, not to the point where he could be compared to others.

Waryon asked slyly.

“Would you be sad if your friends disappeared?”

Rembrary glanced at Waryon.

‘Oops. Was I being too obviously demonic?’ Waryon flinched and smiled as if he had no ulterior motives.

But Rembrary was passing by Waryon, heading diagonally behind him.

“Oh? What is that?”

Of course, still holding Waryon’s hand.

‘He’s not even interested in what I’m saying.’

Rembrary dragged him to a hallway, which was slightly different from the other hallways.

There were red rose petals. The rose petals were all torn off one by one, creating a path in the hallway.

It looked beautiful on the surface, but when something like this is in a ghost mansion, it’s eerie in a different way.

Rembrary stared intently at the flowers.

Waryon stared at Rembrary’s profile and asked.

“Why? Does it remind you of something?”

* * *

Meanwhile, Woo Yeon-woo was still watching Ninring carefully.

“Why did you suddenly become quiet? Is it very scary?”

Ninring was as kind as before, but Woo Yeon-woo began to hear his every word twistedly.

It felt like he knew who he was and was deliberately pressuring him slowly.

“Ah, no. I just thought I heard a sound.”

“What sound?”

“That’s…”

‘What kind of sound should I say to get past this appropriately?’

It’s a ghost mansion, so any sound is fine. Like a piano sound.

Woo Yeon-woo was racking his brains when he suddenly noticed something strange and muttered, “Huh?”

In the hallway ahead, a student was studying with a desk that looked like it was from a school attached to the wall.

Woo Yeon-woo’s spine tingled. That student. He looked like the student he saw when he first entered the ‘room’.

He couldn’t see his face then or now, but his attire was the same.

“Th-there. Mr. Ninring.”

Seeing that, Woo Yeon-woo was frightened and shook Ninring’s arm.

“That. Look at that.”

Ninring looked in the direction Rembrary had mentioned. But the answer that came back was quite nonchalant.

“What are you asking me to look at?”

“That person.”

“There’s no one there?”

“!”

“Can’t you see the desk and stuff?”

“No. It’s just a hallway.”

Woo Yeon-woo turned pale. ‘Is it only visible to me?!’

Seeing that he was the only one seeing that terrifying sight and Ninring was completely calm, Woo Yeon-woo’s heart began to waver little by little.

‘Is it because that person is a Redrin follower that he’s not swayed by this?

Do you become unable to see things like that if you become a Redrin follower? Does faith become courage?’

At that moment.

“Oh? Isn’t that person that person?”

Ninring muttered, pointing in another direction with his hand.

Ninring wouldn’t call Rembrary ‘that person,’ so is Shin Joong-woon there? Woo Yeon-woo also looked in the direction Ninring was pointing, almost unconsciously.

But there was nothing there.

“….”

Seeing that sight, the heart that had almost become a follower calmed down. ‘Becoming a Redrin follower doesn’t mean you don’t see ghosts.’

Ninring and Rembrary are calm just because of their personalities.

“There’s no one there, Mr. Ninring.”

Woo Yeon-woo and Ninring eventually avoided the studying student ghost and the ghost that looked familiar and changed direction to another path.

How long had they been there? They simultaneously discovered Shin Joong-woon and muttered.

“Huh?”

“Shin Joong-woon?”

The fact that two people saw him at the same time meant that there was a high probability that he wasn’t a ghost. Ninring and Woo Yeon-woo walked towards him at the same time.

But hearing the conversation that followed, they couldn’t help but flinch.

“Rembrary. In District 1, the dead were trapped in that place. I think it’s the same here?”

Shin Joong-woon was walking and talking with someone who didn’t know who he was, and he kept calling that person ‘Rembrary.’

“Oh my god. Did we get tricked?”

Ninring clicked his tongue and stepped forward to take Shin Joong-woon away. It was clear that he was possessed by a ghost.

But Woo Yeon-woo grabbed Ninring’s arm and shook his head.

“Don’t go.”

“Why? He’s one of our party.”

“It’s not that… That Shin Joong-woon, he’s strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“Shin Joong-woon usually doesn’t call Rembrary by his name. But he keeps calling him by his name. That Shin Joong-woon might be fake.”

“Oh? Now that I hear it, it’s true?”

Before that conversation could end. Shin Joong-woon, who was walking ahead, suddenly sighed and turned around.

Ninring and Woo Yeon-woo were so surprised that they almost fell. Regardless, Shin Joong-woon explained firmly.

“You were doing well, but the interpretation went in a strange direction. I’m not being deceived, and I’m not fake. I was deliberately watching where that ghost was going.”

As soon as he said that, the person who was walking next to Shin Joong-woon made a surprised expression and hurriedly tried to run away.

But before Shin Joong-woon could turn around. That person’s lower body froze as if it had entered a square freezer.

‘He froze the ghost!’

Woo Yeon-woo and Ninring were horrified, but Shin Joong-woon’s face was calm.

Instead of explaining his actions further, Shin Joong-woon instructed the ghost, whose body was half-frozen.

“Please guide us.”

Woo Yeon-woo grabbed Ninring’s arm anxiously and asked.

“Can we trust him? What if he guides us to a strange place…”

* * *

Meanwhile, Rembrary, who was looking down at the flower petal path, deliberately walked towards it.

It was definitely a bold move. Everyone avoids paths marked with ‘Come this way’ like this.

But Rembrary followed the flower petals and opened the door to which the path led.