Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 637

◈ 637. If Two Fight, One Feels Uncomfortable

Rembrary stared intently at Shin Jo-woon. His expression was so calm that it was hard to guess what he was thinking.

But Shin Jo-woon didn’t seem to think he was in a place he shouldn’t be.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because I can’t trust that side.”

His tone shifted from casual to formal. Hwasa widened her eyes.

Rembrary smiled.

“You don’t trust me? But you’re saying you’ll come in with me?”

“The less I trust, the more closely I need to watch.”

Hwasa looked back and forth between Rembrary and Shin Jo-woon, her eyes wide.

Both Rembrary and Shin Jo-woon seemed calm on the surface, so it didn’t look like they were arguing. But the tension between them was palpable, like a taut rubber band.

Shin Jo-woon gestured towards the door with his chin.

“Let’s stop this and go in.”

Hwasa unconsciously muttered, “How are you going to handle the aftermath…?” but, catching Shin Jo-woon’s glance, she quickly asked Rembrary, “Shall we go in? It’s going to get dark.”

It would be a while before it got dark, but Hwasa didn’t want to get caught in their conflict and get hurt.

But unexpectedly, instead of walking towards the door, Rembrary firmly instructed Shin Jo-woon.

“You go back.”

Shin Jo-woon frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Rembrary clearly repeated.

“Don’t you know what ‘go back’ means? It means you’re not helpful, so leave.”

Hwasa made a tearful face.

“Can’t I leave…?”

“You stay.”

However, Rembrary firmly held onto Hwasa and fixed his gaze on Shin Jo-woon. His attitude made it clear that Shin Jo-woon was the only one who should leave.

Shin Jo-woon’s eyebrows twitched.

“Are you saying I’m less helpful than that person?”

“Going in there now won’t save Tae-ri.”

“!”

“The top priority is to pass through the dungeon and destroy the pillar. That’s the only way Tae-ri can escape safely. But looking at your condition, I don’t think that’s possible. You’re like a hedgehog, prickly all over, nothing but a burden.”

“A burden? Are you calling me a burden?”

Shin Jo-woon’s expression quickly hardened, but Rembrary remained as sharp as a knife.

“Yes. You’re excess baggage.”

“Waste?”

Now Shin Jo-woon looked like he was about to freeze everything around him with just his expression.

Hwasa gasped and looked back and forth between Rembrary and Shin Jo-woon.

Rembrary seemed to have said ‘excess baggage,’ but she didn’t understand where ‘waste’ came from, or why ‘excess baggage’ was even being used here, but it was clear that the atmosphere was grim.

“Go.”

Rembrary said again.

Hwasa wanted to say, “Okay,” and just leave.

When she found Shin Jo-woon here, she felt both annoyed and reassured.

If she had known it would turn out like this, she would have preferred to have Rembrary go alone.

Then, when Shin Jo-woon started walking, Hwasa was relieved, thinking the argument was over.

But this feeling lasted less than a second. The direction Shin Jo-woon was walking was towards the dungeon entrance.

Arriving at the entrance, Shin Jo-woon opened the door without hesitation.

Then, holding the doorknob, he smiled at Rembrary and asked, “What to do?”

It was absurd, but as he said, the door was already wide open.

“…….”

Rembrary looked at Shin Jo-woon with a look of exasperation, but eventually shook his head and grabbed Hwasa’s arm with one hand and Shin Jo-woon’s arm with the other.

“Please, just give up on me, you guys…”

Thus, the three people holding each other tightly entered through the open door.

* * *

What appeared after passing through the entrance was a forest.

Rembrary frowned and quickly looked around, wondering if another Dungeon 1-6 was going to appear.

This time, there was no one hiding and watching.

Shin Jo-woon just coldly pulled away the arm Rembrary was holding.

Hwasa was even more anxious, but Rembrary said, seemingly not paying much attention, “It looks like an ordinary forest.”

Hwasa quickly chimed in. “I know, right!”

Rembrary carefully looked around.

Here, trees that were almost 10-13 feet [3-4 meters] tall grew in all directions.

It was a dense forest with sunlight filtering through the leaves that covered the sky.

It looked ordinary on the surface.

Rembrary pointed to the path in the middle of the forest.

“Let’s go there.”

“Okay. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Once the direction was decided, Hwasa urged Rembrary and Shin Jo-woon.

She came because she was worried about her mother, since the demons were targeting the lords, but seeing these guys, she thought it would have been better to stay with her mother.

Being apart made her worry, so she wanted to go back quickly.

Rembrary and Shin Jo-woon also wanted to resolve the matter quickly and leave, so the three of them started moving, keeping a slight distance from each other.

But the path just continued. The dungeon mission didn’t appear.

“I hope everything works out so we can go back quickly. Right?”

It was after walking quietly for a long time. Just as Hwasa, unable to bear the heavy silence, was about to cautiously speak to Rembrary, Rembrary looked somewhere with a serious expression, instead of answering.

“Why?”

His expression was so serious that she looked in that direction as well, but it was just an ordinary forest.

“Why? What do you see?”

Still, wondering if there was something only Rembrary could see, she asked, and Rembrary opened his mouth in a heavy voice. “No, I didn’t open the door, so I came into the dungeon. But now that I think about it, if this is the case, do I have to go back through all the doors to destroy the pillar?”

“No way. That would be terrible.”

“Right. But if that’s the case, even if we get out of this dungeon, Shin will have to go back four more times.”

“Shin… you mean CEO Shin?”

“…….”

Hwasa looked at Shin Jo-woon. Fortunately, Shin Jo-woon didn’t seem to care.

Hwasa sighed, wondering what was going on in the middle.

At that time.

“It looks like an ordinary city?”

Rembrary muttered.

“What are you talking about? A city?”

Hearing those words, Hwasa looked closely, and at the end of the path, she could faintly see something like an ordinary street.

As they walked further, the shape became clearer. It was as if a bustling street from before the Cataclysm [a large-scale disaster] had been cut off and brought here.

The signs and buildings were all intact, and the asphalt road was also clean.

The people passing by were smiling and talking without worry.

The number of people seemed a bit small, but otherwise, it was a peaceful scene.

If the forest path didn’t lead directly to the street, it would be easy to believe that everything up to now was a dream and this place was the truth.

“What is this? Is it all an illusion? A pre-Cataclysm illusion?”

Shin Jo-woon also seemed surprised by this, quietly looking around.

Rembrary tilted his head.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell just by looking.”

At that moment, a person crossing the crosswalk with traffic lights looked this way and shouted, “Oh!” and his eyes widened as he started running here.

Hearing that exclamation, the three people looked around and then looked at that person.

Then, when that person came close, Hwasa and that person shouted almost simultaneously.

“Shin Jo-woon?”

“It’s a YouTuber.”

It was understandable that that person recognized Shin Jo-woon, but it was strange that Hwasa recognized that person, so Rembrary asked quietly, “Hwasa, who is it?”

“Don’t you know? He filmed videos of voluntarily entering the demon realm, and later he filmed promotional videos inside, saying it was better to live there than he thought. I thought it was all fake. But he’s alive?”

They were exchanging questions quietly, but it wasn’t a distance where they couldn’t be heard.

The YouTuber heard all their stories and said with a smile. “That’s right. It’s not fake. It’s good to live here, and monsters don’t appear, but everyone doesn’t believe me. Even if I say it’s not, they think I’m just saying it. It’s because of prejudice.”

Rembrary put his hand on the YouTuber’s arm and sent divine power.

If this person was a transformed demon, he would be in pain, if it was an illusion, he wouldn’t feel anything, and if it was a person…

“Wow. What did you just do? I feel like all my fatigue is gone?”

Rembrary frowned and muttered, “Is he a person.”

The YouTuber, being perceptive, seemed to grasp the situation as soon as he heard Rembrary’s words and shouted in an absurd tone. “Huh? Did you just do some kind of test? Of course, I’m a person!”

Rembrary frowned.

If the demons have actually recreated the past Earth in this area… and if people who come here, like that YouTuber, show satisfaction… what would people’s reactions be?

At that time, Hwasa shook Rembrary’s arm.

“Hey. That. Look at that.”

Rembrary looked at the building she was pointing at.

As if the entire building was an electronic display board, large letters were passing by.

“Watch a movie… and come out safely…?”

Hwasa whispered, “That must be the mission.”

On the other hand, the YouTuber looked at the building Rembrary and Hwasa were watching and muttered in confusion.

“There are no letters?”

The dungeon mission seemed to be visible only to the three of them.

“Are you three joking?”

To the YouTuber who asked with a sullen expression, Shin Jo-woon asked coldly, “Where is the movie theater here?”

“Ah. It’s not far. If you walk a little that way…?”

Shin Jo-woon visually confirmed the location the YouTuber pointed to and asked again, “Have you seen CEO Jang Tae-ri here?”

“Ah, no.”

Rembrary saw Shin Jo-woon’s face darken immediately.

* * *

The group, having parted ways with the YouTuber, went to the movie theater that he had told them about, each recalling the YouTuber’s earlier remarks.

Unexpectedly, Hwasa was also the same today, so he asked carefully, “Here. It seems like this isn’t a dungeon, but a residential area where people voluntarily move into the demon realm. What do you think? Is it really like the old world, like that person said? Or is it a well-made trap to entice people?”

“I don’t know. What’s certain is that demons don’t just do things to help people. Even if it’s helpful, it’s probably because it’s more beneficial to them.”

“Does it matter what the purpose is? Isn’t it considerate if they help without causing harm?”

The conversation would have flowed more constructively if Shin Jo-woon hadn’t intervened.

“You’re cynical. Is this your original personality, and you were pretending in front of me, or did you lose your personality as you lost your memories?”

“What was my personality like?”

“You were a bit weak, but you lived diligently.”

“?”

While walking through a once familiar but now missed ordinary street, bickering like that, the group arrived in front of the movie theater building.

Although it was called a movie theater, when they entered the building, there was no one inside and it was empty.

Instead, there was only a sign saying to go up to the second floor, so the three followed the sign.

Going up the escalator, a wide hallway with all the doors of the theaters closed was revealed.

And only one place, Theater 3, was open, as if telling them to come here.

“Are we supposed to go in there?”

Rembrary quickly went inside.

Like the hallway, the inside of Theater 3 was also empty.

Hwasa grabbed Rembrary, who was about to sit in the middle, and recommended, “Let’s go to the back row, just in case.”

Shin Jo-woon also seemed to think that was better, so the group moved to the back row.

Then, they sat down in the darkness, leaving a space between each other, and as soon as they sat down, cartoon animal characters suddenly appeared on the black screen.

After the animal characters, muttering unknown words and playing among themselves, passed by, this time a forest was shown on the screen.

It was a different forest from the one the group had passed through earlier.

Then, surprisingly, Rembrary and Jang Tae-ri’s figures appeared in the video.

There was even a scene where Rembrary knocked Jang Tae-ri unconscious while talking.

“That scene…?”

Rembrary frowned at the sight.

Rembrary immediately recognized that scene. It was when he entered the 1-6 entrance.

The hunter, who had already sacrificed his friend, tried to trick Rembrary again, but was defeated instead.

The difference was that the hunter’s appearance in the video looked exactly like Jang Tae-ri.

Rembrary looked at Shin Jo-woon. Would Shin Jo-woon believe that was real?

Whether he believed it or not, his expression wasn’t good.

Unable to watch any longer, Rembrary opened his mouth to ask if he believed it.