Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 711

◈ 711. Mulu Reunited

The Fire Lion stared at Rembrary, mouth agape, then jolted upright a beat later.

“What? Back to your world? Why the sudden departure?”

Rembrary briefly rolled his eyes, then offered a gentle smile. “Because my home and my job are there, remember?”

“Huh?”
The Fire Lion blinked, then mumbled, “Ah, right. Right.”

Even as he spoke, the Fire Lion struggled to process the information. “Right. Your house is there, and your temple too. The temple’s where you work.”

“Exactly. They’re calling me back now.”
The Fire Lion sat down, then popped back up from the sofa several times, finally regaining his composure enough to protest again. “But isn’t this awfully sudden?”

“Didn’t I mention I’d be returning eventually?”

“You did! But! You said you’d finish things here before leaving! That you’d work to restore everything to its original state!”

In fact, most Otherworlders were in the process of returning to their original worlds.

With the Demon King sealed, some Otherworlders had chosen to settle here, wanting to stay, but the majority had applied to return and were leaving in an orderly fashion.

Many were still waiting for their turn.
The Fire Lion knew all this. But even knowing it, he hadn’t truly imagined Rembrary’s departure.

The Fire Lion had vaguely assumed Rembrary would linger even after everyone else had gone.

He’d even participated in the High-End Hunter preliminaries just a few days ago.

But now, suddenly, he was leaving. The Fire Lion felt a pang, like a friend announcing, ‘I’m transferring schools. Goodbye.’

Rembrary smiled knowingly at the Fire Lion. “So, you’re sad I’m leaving. You’re more sentimental than I thought, Lion.”

“No, that’s not it. I’m just…surprised.”

“Originally, Redrin [Rembrary’s deity] was waiting for the Demon King’s corruption to be undone. After I blocked the rift here, he was planning to call me back to my original world.”

“So, you’re going back now that the Demon King’s corruption is undone?”

“No. It doesn’t seem like it will be undone, even if we wait.”

“Huh?”

“Redrin is an unfamiliar god to the people here, isn’t he? So, no matter how much good I do, even if I reveal that I’m a follower of Redrin, it doesn’t seem to have enough impact to reverse Redrin’s Demon King corruption.”

“Ah…….”
The Fire Lion’s eyes widened. He hadn’t considered that before. But listening to Rembrary, he realized there was definitely something to it.

When Rembrary acted strangely, he’d think, ‘He’s really weird. Why did the god he serves make him a high priest?’

Conversely, when Rembrary did good things and seemed impressive, he only thought, ‘He’s a bit strange, but he’s amazing,’ and it didn’t occur to him that Redrin’s judgment might be sound.

Rembrary shrugged, noticing the Fire Lion’s expression. “It can’t be helped, can it? The established gods here are too entrenched.”

“Then what happens here when you leave? Didn’t you say you’d restore things before leaving? What about that? Are you abandoning that plan?”

“I’m not abandoning it. I’m just changing the method. Redrin’s power is weaker here than before, right? If I go back, I can recover my power quickly. I’ll build up my strength there and then close the rift. It’ll be a shame for a while because there will be no one to heal when I disappear, but in the long run, closing the rift quickly will be more helpful to Earth, or so he says.”

Before the Fire Lion could reply, Ardor bounded down the stairs, shouting cheerfully, “Rembrary-nim, you’re finally going home!”

Ardor seemed to have received a message from Redrin as well.

The Fire Lion looked at Ardor’s bright face and thought, not for the first time, that he really didn’t get along with that guy.

Ardor, descending with dancing steps, was strangely irritating.

“If you go home, won’t you even be able to step on Rembrary’s shadow?”
The Fire Lion, emboldened, tried to provoke him, but the cheerful Ardor didn’t falter.

“The time I spent with Rembrary-nim here doesn’t just disappear when we return, Heretic. Rembrary-nim won’t ignore me even when he goes home. Right?”

“…….”

“Even if he ignores me, I’m still better off than you, who won’t even be able to see Rembrary-nim’s shadow, Heretic.”

Ardor’s voice turned cold towards the end, as if he was annoyed by Rembrary’s silence.

The Fire Lion ignored Ardor and pressed Rembrary again. “Then when are you leaving?”

“Redrin told me to come as soon as possible, but he didn’t give me an exact deadline. I’m planning to resolve some things that are bothering me before I leave.”

“What’s bothering you?”

“Didn’t I mention it briefly? There’s a strange power around the Demon King’s tomb. I’m going to resolve that.”

The Fire Lion had been annoyed, bothered, and generally put out when Rembrary and his party ignored his opinions and dragged him around as they pleased.

But now that they were all leaving, he felt a pang of sadness.

“You seem sad. Then, would you like to come with me?”

However, the Fire Lion immediately rejected Rembrary’s kind offer. “No way.”

He was curious about what Rembrary’s home was like, but he didn’t want to leave his mom.

And unlike Rembrary, the Fire Lion was planning to participate in the High-End Hunter finals, round 2.

The competition would be fiercer in the second round of the finals, as hunters from all over the world would gather, but he had no intention of giving up.

“That’s a shame. Can’t you come visit sometimes after I go?”

“Wouldn’t it be possible? I can come if I want, but too much time will pass.”
The Fire Lion’s shoulders drooped. He’d felt uneasy the whole time he’d watched Rembrary, even though he seemed fine. Was it to hear this news?

“But I’ll miss you guys.”

Then, when Rembrary said that with a gentle smile, the Fire Lion felt like he was going to cry, so he turned his lion mask upside down.

“When you go home, Rembrary-nim, I’ll find a lion mask similar to that one and imitate that guy for you. Then you won’t miss that heretic.”

* * *

While Rembrary watched the Fire Lion and Ardor chase each other, he took out the pizza Jongwoo had bought and warmed it up in the microwave.

‘This is delicious.’

Rembrary munched on the pizza, smiling as he remembered the shock he’d felt when he first ate pizza.

‘I should tell Ardor to learn how to make it. But will the taste be the same if the ingredients are different?’

Just as Rembrary finished the pizza and was wondering what else to eat, he heard the sound of the door lock being released.

Rembrary assumed Ardor had given up chasing the Fire Lion and was returning, so he didn’t turn around and continued looking in the refrigerator.

Then, Rembrary realized the approaching footsteps were too quiet to be Ardor’s, so he quickly turned around.

The person standing there wasn’t Ardor. It was the green-haired Mulu that Rembrary had been searching for.

“High Priest.”
Mulu, looking a little haggard, quietly greeted Rembrary, then slowly approached, lightly kissed the back of Rembrary’s hand, and smiled.

“I’ve been waiting.”

Ardor, who had entered through the second-floor window, saw the scene and his eyes popped out as he tried to charge forward, but the Fire Lion barely managed to grab Ardor’s clothes.

“It’s a reunion after years! Just leave them alone!”

* * *

That evening, Rembrary abandoned his plans to text Sagamja and instead took Mulu to a well-known restaurant.

“It’s okay to just eat nearby.”
Mulu said shyly at Rembrary’s hospitality, but Rembrary shook his head firmly. “You won’t be able to eat this even if you want to when you return to the original world. You should go around here and there often and eat the food here.”

The Fire Lion had joined them for the meal by chance, but when Rembrary said that, he felt a sudden sense of alienation.

Fortunately, the alienation faded as he watched Ardor glare at Mulu while tearing at his clothes.

Meanwhile, Rembrary clicked his tongue, feeling sorry for Mulu, who had become so gaunt. “Did those nasty guys take you away and not even feed you? Why are you so thin?”

“Ah. That’s because I was wandering around looking for Rembrary-nim…….”

“Where’s Ninling? Where’s Ninling?”

‘I think he’s avoiding the question.’

“It was easier to find you because your hair color is unique here. Ninling is a bit difficult to spot.”

“Ninling went to the original world first.”

“She left?”

“Yes. Rembrary-nim suddenly disappeared. She thought you might have been bounced back to the original world, so she went there to look for you.”

Rembrary was a little disappointed that he couldn’t find Ninling here, but he nodded in agreement.

Anyway, once the matter of the Demon King’s tomb was resolved, he would return to the original world, and then he would be able to see Ninling.

“The food is here.”

Then, when the employee brought the food on a cart, Rembrary stopped talking to Mulu.

Only after filling his stomach to his satisfaction and getting something to drink at a cafe did Rembrary ask Mulu a serious question again.

“Why did you go to the place where the Demon King was sealed? Did you go there because you felt the strange flow of power there too?”

“Yes. It was a power that I had felt before, so I wanted to check it out in more detail.”

Rembrary looked at Mulu, who was eating well even after suffering, with admiration, then raised his eyebrows at the unexpected story.

“A power you’ve felt before?”

“Yes.”
Mulu nodded, then quickly added when he saw Rembrary looking expectant, “It’s not certain. If Ninling were here, we could compare notes, but that’s not the case.”

“It’s okay, tell me. Where did you feel that power?”

Mulu glanced at the Fire Lion and answered. “When preparing to cross dimensions. Before it became stable like now, I felt something similar to the rifts that were created in the early days.”

“!”

Rembrary recalled that Sagamja had said the energy felt there was similar to Shin Jo-un’s ability.

Shin Jo-un was right next to the rift when the cataclysm began, and he awakened by receiving the power pouring out from there.

Rembrary was thinking this might be why Sagamja said Shin Jo-un’s power was different from other Awakened ones.

But listening to what Mulu was saying now, it seemed like the pieces were falling into place.

“So, the power flowing there is similar to the power flowing between dimensions?”

Mulu added one more time. “High Priest, I didn’t think I’d see something like this here again… It’s not certain.”

However, Rembrary thought Mulu’s words were likely correct.

If Mulu’s words were correct, some of the things that could be inferred were not good.

The Fire Lion, who had been quietly drinking his cafe latte, watched this and asked, summarizing Rembrary’s thoughts, “Wait a minute. Then what are you saying? Is the Demon King not completely sealed and is creating an escape route from within? Or did something happen in the sealing process that created another such passage? Which one is it?”

Rembrary checked his watch and stood up. “Let’s go check it out.”