Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 81

< 81. Already… >

“What’s the problem with receiving it? Why is he hesitating like that?” Rembrary looked at him anxiously.

The King frowned and explained.

“I can’t hear his voice. The connection goes through, but he doesn’t speak. This usually doesn’t happen between gods. I think I can hear background noise, too…”

Rembrary’s face turned pale.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

Does ‘not speaking’ mean he’s in a situation where he can’t speak?

If he had been ejected from a normal world, he wouldn’t have worried like this. What could possibly endanger a great god like Redrin?

However, just before coming here, Rembrary’s world was precarious. It was on the verge of collapse.

Because of this, only bad thoughts came to mind. Rembrary imagined the worst-case scenario, and his face turned blue, which was unlike him.

‘Did the Demon King already mess up the world?’

Rembrary urgently asked the King.

“Your Majesty, can’t you use your power to send me back to my original world?”

The King avoided his gaze with a troubled expression. It didn’t look like a positive sign at all.

“You can’t?”

Rembrary asked repeatedly.

The King avoided answering and made strange noises, pretending to be cautious.

“It’s difficult for me to be here. I’ll go back right away. Please help me.”

As Rembrary repeatedly pleaded, the King finally answered aloud.

“It’s difficult for me to send you back directly with my power. But if ‘he’ takes you back, it’s fine.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s a complicated issue.”

“?”

“To put it simply, it’s a hassle.”

Rembrary was dumbfounded and stared at the King. He looked lazy enough, but still. What was that half-hearted answer?

“Otherworld Saint, it’s not the kind of troublesome reason you’re thinking of.”

The King frowned.

“The situation is complicated.”

The King got up, put his hands behind his back, and paced around.

In the meantime, Sagamjae poured Rembrary another cup of coffee.

Only the clattering of the saucer was heard in the quiet room.

After contemplating for a while, the King sat down across from Rembrary again and explained.

“Actually, there’s no need to explain this to you, the Otherworld Saint, but I’m explaining it just in case you misunderstand and think that the gods of our world are cold and harsh.”

“When you first came to our world, you were surprised that there was no magic or divine power, right?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no way there wouldn’t be. Originally, we had it too. We had magic, something similar to divine power, and saints traveled the world, receiving the adoration of humans and acting as intermediaries between gods and humans.”

“Really?”

Then why is it like this now……

“There were also many beings that threatened humans, such as demons, monsters, magical beasts, and evil spirits. Then, about a few hundred years ago, the saints here reached an agreement. They decided to sacrifice themselves to seal most of them.”

“Yes?”

“Evil and good are like a pair, so if good collapses, evil has no choice but to collapse as well. The distinction between good and evil is actually made based on humans, and from the perspective of the world itself, good and evil are really just differences in direction. So, no matter how much good suppresses evil, the world continues to spew out evil. In other words, if good disappears, the world will step in and swallow up the evil to maintain balance.”

“Ah.”

“In the end, the saints here chose to perish together with evil. Since then, saints, magic users, magical beasts, and demons have disappeared from our world.”

“Ah…”

Rembrary opened his mouth and nodded before blurting out.

“But before I came here, I saw an evil spirit or magical beast with a cow’s head and ram horns walking on two feet. That…”

The King sighed.

“They haven’t completely disappeared. Their numbers have just decreased to the point where they can’t be seen. But recently, the number of evil beings has suddenly increased dramatically. Did you know that?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“That’s right. Do you know why?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“It’s because of you, Otherworld Saint.”

Why am I suddenly appearing here? Rembrary raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You came here with a powerful soul. And you brought something strange with you.”

Rembrary was about to deny it, but then he remembered what was attached to Woo Yeon-woo’s shadow and widened his eyes.

“The balance was disrupted when you came. Thanks to you, the evils that the world had sealed are awakening one by one. Well, there are many more complicated circumstances, but to put it simply, that’s it.”

“……”

“And I’m supposed to send you back to your original world from here? More evil will awaken. The peace that the saints created by sacrificing their lives will be shattered.”

Rembrary urgently pleaded.

“But Your Majesty, if I don’t go back, countless lives in my world will die. They might be massacred by the Demon King. No, they might have already been massacred. You said my god isn’t saying anything. Please, have mercy on them and send me back.”

“I’m sorry, Otherworld Saint. I have no choice but to prioritize the lives of my world.”

Rembrary was shocked and jumped up.

The King calmly asked Sagamjae.

“Coffee for me too. With milk.”

While Sagamjae went to get coffee with milk, Rembrary couldn’t suppress his boiling emotions and stood there the whole time.

The situation had worsened. He thought he could return to his original world if he met or talked to the god here, but he received a firm confirmation that he couldn’t return.

On top of that, he learned that something serious had happened in his original world. It was the worst.

“What if.”

As Rembrary opened his mouth quietly, the King cut him off without even hearing the rest of his words.

“It’s no use going to other gods. It’s not like I decided this alone.”

“……Did the gods make that decision?”

“It was the saints’ decision. But in the end, that’s how the order was established. We don’t like the situation either. But if we change the order here again, there will be tremendous chaos. If the world becomes chaotic, countless lives will die. Knowing that, we’re protecting this order.”

Rembrary bit his lower lip and groaned before changing the question.

“You said that if the gods here send me back, the order will be broken and chaos will ensue. What if I cause more chaos and disrupt the order here than that? More chaos than would occur when crossing dimensions?”

The King scoffed.

“Try it if you can. It’ll be your loss, Otherworld Saint.”

“Do you mean you’ll use grim reapers like Sagamjae to catch me?”

“Otherworld Saint, how do you think the saints here killed themselves? Even if they’re saints, it wouldn’t be easy to take their own lives, right? Besides, it’s not like there was only one or two saints. Would all of them have agreed to perish together?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

The King’s smile turned even colder.

“Not all the saints agreed to perish together with evil. Most of them agreed. But in the end, they all died. Why is that? Did the saints kill their comrades?”

“Did they kill them?”

“Similar.”

“!”

“There were humans who helped the saints’ sacrifices. Those humans formed a group and killed the saints who refused to sacrifice themselves first. And then they killed all the saints who had made agreements.”

Rembrary’s eyes widened. As a high priest who had received the love and respect of everyone, he couldn’t understand it at all.

“That group still exists. And with its old mission, it kills and eliminates newly born or awakened evil beings and saints.”

Sagamjae added quietly from the side.

“In the last hundred years, another group has emerged to oppose that group, and those groups have become complicated as they split into groups that try to protect the saints, groups that try to borrow the power of demons, and so on.”

The King chuckled, propped his chin up, and said to Rembrary in a mocking tone.

“What happens if you go around disrupting the order? Those who think that killing saints is the way to protect the world will come to kill you. Conversely, those who want to support you and subdue them will flock to you. You’re an idol, aren’t you? And your face is all over the place, so aren’t you in a good position to be caught?”

Rembrary became completely dejected.

Looking at him, the King sighed and muttered bitterly.

“Saints are close to us, so I don’t like them dying in vain like that. That’s why the grim reapers are bothering to stay in the human realm to find the saints.”

Originally, the grim reapers commuted from the underworld, Sagamjae quickly added.

“Anyway, thanks to that, Otherworld Saint, we found you and brought you here first. It’s not like you’re a saint from here, and if you, an Otherworld Saint, die by mistake, the problem will become even bigger. Because your divine power is different from that of the saints here, we were a bit confused about whether you were fake or real in the middle.”

“So, bringing me here was…”

“We were going to tell you to go back. If that didn’t work, we were going to advise you to stay still, but the ultimate goal was to protect you.”

But that doesn’t mean they can send him back. Rembrary became completely depressed and spaced out.

He couldn’t just resent them because they clearly had their own circumstances. It was a harsh thing to say, but just as Rembrary was worried about his world, they were just worried about their own world.

But it was difficult. What they wanted and what he wanted was for the god Redrin to step in and take Rembrary back. Redrin was not responding, Rembrary didn’t have the power to move dimensions, and the gods here said that if they stepped in, things would get bigger.

The King warned Rembrary, who was contemplating.

“The point of my words is, Saint, it’s not like you shouldn’t use your power at all. I won’t say anything about using it little by little. But don’t use too much power. Don’t let humans know about your true identity or your power.”

***

“Yeon-woo? Still no contact?”

Jong-woo asked urgently. Jung-seo answered, “No,” and checked his phone.

It had been an hour since Woo Yeon-woo disappeared. It was ambiguous to say he had disappeared after an hour of no contact, but anyway, it had been an hour since he couldn’t be reached.

In the meantime, the internet was turned upside down.

It was because of the five photos that were uploaded 30 minutes ago with [Breaking News].

One photo of Woo Yeon-woo running towards Im Yu-han, who was falling. One photo of him catching Im Yu-han, one photo of him frowning and looking up while holding Im Yu-han, one photo of Im Yu-han standing alone, and one photo of Jung-seo talking to Im Yu-han and Woo Yeon-woo looking up again. A total of five photos.

The reporter who took the first photo titled it like this.

[Breaking News] Woo Yeon-woo Saves Im Yu-han from Suicide Attempt.

The article seemed to have been uploaded in a hurry, and the content was very short, but the content was similar to the title.

It said that Woo Yeon-woo caught Im Yu-han falling from the terrace garden.

At first, those who read the article also focused on ‘Im Yu-han’s suicide’ and ‘Woo Yeon-woo’s rescue’.

But as time passed, two other things became more of a hot topic.

One was that Woo Yeon-woo kept frowning and looking up.

The other was that both Im Yu-han, who fell from the 6th floor, and Woo Yeon-woo, who caught Im Yu-han, both looked fine.

Those were the two things.

< 81. Already… > End