Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 604

“Even if that child mistook me for you, Aquari, in the end, I’m the one who built new memories with him.”

Redrin looked at a rose on the Demon King’s attire, plucked it off, and smiled.

“And I gave that child so much: power, honor, authority, everything. I even erased the rumors that you tainted him with. But what about you?”

Redrin’s eyes narrowed.

“If you had kept that child, what could you have given him? The stigma of being an ominous prince? The disgrace of being in league with demons? Far from giving, you would have taken away even what he was born with.”

“!”

Redrin, who had been looking at the Demon King, tossed the flower she had taken from Aquari’s clothes to the ground and laughed.

“Aren’t you just a burden he has to carry?”

Aquari’s eyes wavered, but Redrin ignored it and turned away.

At that moment, something sharp whizzed past Redrin’s side.

A fine line seemed to crack on Redrin’s jade-like skin, and a drop of blood trickled from it.

Redrin slowly turned around.

Aquari’s eyes, glaring at Redrin, were darkly flickering.

“I… have endured enough. Because they were once people I protected. Because it was land I protected. Because they were friends.”

As Aquari’s eyes turned red, his smile began to look eerie.

“But now…”

In an instant, the Demon King appeared next to Redrin and seized her neck.

His eyes had already turned like those of a bird of prey.

“I guess there was no need to think about such things.”

Just then, Redrin lightly waved her hand, and an explosion erupted between the Demon King and Redrin.

The explosion was so intense that the screen Rembrary was watching shattered with a sharp sound.

The explosion happened in the movie, but it felt like the movie screen actually breaking, so Rembrary blinked in surprise.

Moreover, as the only screen emitting light shattered, the darkness surrounding the screen also began to crack and gradually crumble.

As the black darkness fell piece by piece, a ruined city slowly revealed itself.

Rembrary looked up. About three steps away, there was a broken black pillar.

Rembrary lowered his head.

The carry-on bag he had brought when he entered the dungeon was still in his hand.

He looked around again. Now the background was not inside the dungeon but completely reality.

“The 2nd dungeon… is broken?”

Rembrary, who was looking up at the sky, looked at his watch to check the time. It had been 3 days and 30 minutes since he entered.

‘Has so much time already passed?’

Surprised, he looked at his phone and clearly saw the change in time. His phone battery was already dead.

Rembrary put his phone away, pulled his carrier, and turned around.

Slowly, slowly, he continued to walk alone through the ruined city.

As he walked, he saw people gathered in the distance where he guessed there had once been a wall.

It was the press. They knew somehow and had gathered again.

The press cheered and took pictures of Rembrary with their cameras, and the flashes were blinding.

Seeing that, Rembrary stopped walking and stood still for a moment, looking at them.

The scene he had just seen and the scene he was seeing now were so different that his mind couldn’t process it for a moment.

The cameras kept flashing, but seeing that the people with microphones didn’t come over and stood in one place, Rembrary’s sense of reality slowly returned.

‘Are they reluctant to come into the demon realm?’

Rembrary moved back, right, and left, confirming that the press would never cross the line. Then, he stopped playing around and walked forward again.

The press was momentarily stunned, wondering ‘What’s wrong with him?’ when Rembrary suddenly went back and forth. But when Rembrary walked forward, they regained their senses, held out their microphones, and shouted.

“Mr. Rembrary! Mr. Rembrary! Please look here!”

“Mr. Rembrary! Did you clear the dungeon alone this time?”

“Mr. Rembrary! Please tell us about the dungeon!”

“Mr. Rembrary! Did you fight with a demon?”

As Rembrary got closer, the number of questions increased, and eventually, the questions mixed together, making it difficult to understand.

Still, Rembrary walked on without answering. But since he had come all this way, he thought he should at least show off his cool side, so he struck a few poses.

“?”

People were momentarily frozen when Rembrary struck poses in front of them, but they started pressing the shutter button continuously.

Then, when Rembrary ignored their interview requests again and started walking, the reporters were taken aback for the second time.

They had already seen all kinds of people who didn’t want to be interviewed.

Those people were also diverse.

They had seen people who ignored the press and went their way, people who ran away, people who answered perfunctorily, people who postponed answering, people who got angry, people who cried, and even people who colluded with their managers to shake off the press.

But they had never seen anyone who didn’t want to do an interview but actively took pictures.

Should this be classified as cooperative or uncooperative?

But Rembrary leisurely walked on alone, regardless of what the reporters thought.

Then, he found a reporter he had met during the 3rd dungeon incident.

The reporter was a little late, so he couldn’t stand in the front row and was grumbling in the back. When he made eye contact with Rembrary, he seemed to think it was a good opportunity and quickly ran over and offered.

“Shall I give you a ride?”

“No, I also came by car…”

Rembrary was about to refuse, but when he saw the press spread out around the car he had come in, he changed his mind.

“Give me a ride.”

The reporter, who had checked where Rembrary was looking, burst out laughing.

“It’ll be a little hard to break through there, right?”

“No. That’s not the problem. I’m just not confident in driving without hitting anyone.”

“Hahaha, of course… Huh?”

The reporter, who had reflexively laughed, was taken aback and asked again. Rembrary said shyly.

“I’m good at driving, but you know, when I see something, I always end up crashing the front into it.”

The reporter felt a chill. It was scarier than just saying he couldn’t drive.

He was expressing it indirectly, but didn’t that just mean he would run over anything with his car?

“What’s wrong?”

“…No, it’s nothing.”

The reporter was sullen, but he thought this was a problem for Rembrary’s acquaintances to point out, not something he should say, so he started the car.

The reporters who had come early and taken their places in the front row were disappointed to see the reporter in the back taking Rembrary away, but the car had already left.

On the other hand, the reporter who had ended up taking Rembrary was feeling good about the unexpected achievement when he saw Rembrary sitting comfortably in the passenger seat, and he asked.

“Are you tired? People flocked to you as soon as you cleared the dungeon.”

“You’re talking like you’re not one of them.”

“Well, this is my job. But Mr. Rembrary’s job is to clear dungeons, not to do interviews.”

‘My job isn’t to clear dungeons either.’

Rembrary thought so, then suddenly became curious and asked.

“By the way, how did everyone know I was breaking the pillar and coming out?”

“Ah, there are cameras around the demon realm.”

“I see.”

“And you can see cracks around the pillar before it collapses. If you look closely.”

“Is that so?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“I was inside.”

To be honest, Rembrary didn’t even think the pillar would collapse as soon as he saw the video.

He thought he would receive the memories of the black dragon like before.

“I guess so.”

“Can I have some gum?”

While Rembrary took a piece of gum from the gum container and chewed on it, the reporter timed when to ask Rembrary a question.

He could tell that Rembrary didn’t want to do dungeon-related interviews just by breaking through the crowd of reporters.

But that’s why the reporter wanted to hear the story even more.

Then, when he glanced at Rembrary and saw him smiling contentedly as if he liked the gum, the reporter cautiously asked.

“I gave you a ride and answered your questions. Can I ask you a few exclusive questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“Oh. Are you going to answer? How exactly do you break the pillars? Be specific.”

“I don’t think I should answer.”

“Huh? Are you going back on your word?”

“Is there a rule against it? And I didn’t even say I would answer.”

“Ugh… That’s mean.”

In the end, the reporter didn’t get any results until he dropped Rembrary off in front of the Redrin headquarters.

Because of that, his initial joy faded a little, but he thought he would be able to hear the answer someday, so the reporter maintained a smiling face and said goodbye until the end.

However, as soon as Rembrary left, the cameraman, who had been silently in the back seat, grumbled as if he had been waiting.

“Are you okay after waiting for hours and just driving? Looking at his personality, I don’t think he’ll do an interview even if we meet him again. Why doesn’t he do it?”

Judging by his sullen voice, he seemed dissatisfied that Rembrary had gotten a ride but hadn’t done any interviews at all.

On the other hand, the reporter answered as if it was nothing.

“So what? It doesn’t matter if I can’t get an answer until the end. It’s good to know someone with that kind of connections.”

“I don’t know. I heard the story over there is complicated too.”

“Ah, you mean it might be related to the Cataclysm?”

“Yeah.”

The reporter chuckled.

“Do you believe that?”

He acted as if believing such things was something only fools did.

The cameraman frowned.

“I don’t know. Kim Murok is crazy about ratings, but he doesn’t manipulate anything.”

“Isn’t evil editing also manipulation?”

“Still, it’s different to make it a documentary topic.”

* * *

Unlike the two who were talking about Rembrary even after he left, Rembrary immediately forgot about them as soon as he got out.

What filled Rembrary’s head were the scenes he had seen before the dungeon broke.

In particular, the conversation between Redrin and the Demon King remained most strongly in his mind.

The Demon King’s claim and Redrin’s claim were both correct.

Assuming that it was all true, Rembrary would not have liked Redrin unconditionally from the beginning if he had not had time with the Demon King.

But whatever the reason, it wasn’t like he went to Redrin with all the memories he had with the Demon King.

Rembrary began to like Redrin because of the vague affection he received from the Demon King, but the reason he trusts and follows Redrin so much now is because it’s Redrin.

All the long time Rembrary spent with Redrin was actually spent with Redrin.

Even if he now knew that the initial vague affection was for the Demon King, he was already Redrin’s high priest.

His whole heart was filled with faith in Redrin.

Even if he knew the past, he had only experienced those days, and the emotions of that time did not return.

Don’t the demons know that? Listening to what Warion said, it wasn’t like they couldn’t guess at all.

‘But if there hadn’t been a Demon King, I might not have been able to enter the temple.’

While walking in thought, he heard the sound of the elevator doors opening, and the hallway leading to Daeju’s room appeared.

It seems he had walked here unconsciously.

Still, since he came all this way, he should ask for a ride home, Rembrary thought as he was about to get out of the elevator, but he stopped as a thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘Maybe?’