By Zephyria 
“……Um, Teacher. If it’s difficult to disclose, you can just say it’s not possible.”
“That is actually true.”
Since he wasn’t lying, Kim Si-baek replied confidently. Yang Eun-ho looked confused for a moment, but his expression gradually settled. Over his now serious face, Tae-un’s solution overlapped.
〈You can say whatever you want, Hyung. Even if you spout nonsense, Eun-ho will polish it up nicely on his own.〉
Sure enough, before long, Yang Eun-ho pushed up the bridge of his glasses with a finger. He wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but the lenses seemed to flash.
“Thinking about it, that concept isn’t bad. Possessors of rare traits attract more attention. Even Tae-un Hyung, being unrivaled among hunters who handle similar traits, has faced quite a bit of gossip.”
“…….”
“Various countries are researching ways to artificially trigger awakening. If you say you’ve awakened the only healing ability in existence, there would be more than a few people who would try to kidnap and dissect you in the name of humanity’s future…… Being treated as a cult leader would be better than being the sole ability user. It’s not like you’ll be hiding your powers for the rest of your life.”
Something was truly being polished.
“If you insist that the power was obtained through faith rather than an awakened ability, it will serve as a decent, albeit flimsy, smokescreen. Miracles brought about by religion, while absurd, aren’t entirely without precedent. To be blunt, there have been quite a few hunters playing the role of cult leaders. It’s a good concept to blend in with.”
“Oh……”
[Death and Beauty asks in surprise if there was such a deep meaning behind it.]
Hardly.
‘As expected, our Eun-ho would have definitely gotten a perfect score if he’d taken the CSAT.’
Kim Si-baek felt immensely proud of his younger brother’s intelligence for beautifully packaging nonsense that anyone would recognize as a cult. At the same time, he could guess just how much nonsense Tae-un must have spouted over the years to dump so much work on Yang Eun-ho…… but he decided to pretend not to know.
“Well, your reputation will suffer in exchange, Teacher. You’ve taken that into account, right?”
“Yes. For it is the will of God.”
“Your commitment to the concept is excellent. Let’s coordinate the detailed settings after we finish the raid.”
Seo Gae-un, who had been listening blankly and muttering to herself, “Our guild is now not just a mad dog, but a cult too……” finally snapped back to her senses.
“If you’re done talking, let’s head out.”
Once only they remained, their pace actually quickened.
When Seo Gae-un blocked the magical beasts’ attacks at the vanguard, bullets fired from Yang Eun-ho’s rifle triggered explosions. Over that, Tae-un’s darkness spread extensively, slicing and piercing through the magical beasts.
Following his younger siblings, Kim Si-baek imagined the scene if Pi Min-hyeong and Lee Han-gyeol had joined them. Pi Min-hyeong would deal damage in close quarters while dispersing the aggro heading toward the rear, and Lee Han-gyeol would provide support with magic.
‘Their offense and defense fit together so cleanly, it’s as if they were designed to match.’
These children, who were only in their early to mid-teens during the Great Cataclysm, must have clung together to navigate through those harsh and cruel times. If he had remained on Earth instead of drifting into mak slecht, would he have been of help?
Watching the backs of the siblings who did not remember him, Kim Si-baek felt a bitter sense of loss.
[Remaining Time: 4 hours 32 minutes]
3rd floor, 4th floor. The party cleared the path without hindrance, searching for survivors, but found no traces. It was the same even after they reached the rooftop.
“There’s nothing inside the water tank either.”
Seo Gae-un jumped down from the water tank with a disappointed look. While they were searching for the last survivor, the Management Center’s hunter teams began attacking the main body of the giant vine, but they had yet to find the core. They had no more time to delay.
“They might be hiding in a cabinet or something. Si-baek Hyung, what should we do?”
“……It can’t be helped. We’ve cleared the way as we came up, so we have to find the core as quickly as possible and hope the survivor holds out safely.”
Seo Gae-un and Yang Eun-ho agreed. Before jumping over the rooftop railing toward the main body of the giant vine entwined between the two buildings, Kim Si-baek stopped the group.
“Ah, wait a moment. You must be tired from climbing all the way up here; let me help you recover.”
Before they could respond, Kim Si-baek’s hand touched the shoulders of the three in succession. As a faint light seeped in and the fatigue that had been weighing down their limbs vanished, Seo Gae-un and Yang Eun-ho’s eyes widened. Seo Gae-un even let out a low exclamation.
“Huh? I thought it was strange that I suddenly felt refreshed at the Id Portal in the department store. Did you secretly help me then too?”
“A little.”
“The power of faith is amazing……”
With a look that almost suggested she wanted to join the cult, Seo Gae-un marveled, while Tae-un became displeased.
“Hyung, how do I build this ‘faith’ thing? At this rate, I’m going to lose my spot as the number one believer.”
“Pray diligently with a devout heart?”
Kim Si-baek lifted Biyendwe high from the crown of his head.
[Death and Beauty spreads its wings wide on both sides ostentatiously.]
Tae-un, staring intently at the vicious-looking baby crow that lacked any shred of dignity, silently looked away, leaving Biyendwe feeling a bit sorrowful. Would dignity come once it became an adult?
“Maintaining the concept is all well and good, but let’s move quickly.”
Justina’s lance, embedded deep in the crown of the main body, looked down at the group as if urging them to attack.
As the situation dragged on, news helicopters broadcasting live from the scene were flying around. The hunters climbing the main body of the giant vine and pouring out attacks looked like the boy climbing the beanstalk that grew to the sky in a fairy tale.
While toxic fluid, intended to melt and absorb prey, was secreted incessantly, the hunters did not stop their attacks as they ran along the stems where flowers were blooming. Magical tools detonated with loud booms through the gaps where the epidermis had been deeply sliced by weapons, burning the scattering fragments to slow the regeneration speed.
“Dammit. Where is the core!”
“Watch out! There are fruits above!”
Hunters equipped with measuring devices tracked the magical energy leaking from the main body’s wounds, but the core remained undiscovered. The hunters grew anxious. It wasn’t that they lacked experience hunting giant vines. After poking around this much, they should have already caught the tail of the dense magical energy held by the core.
The regeneration speed of the giant vine’s main body was fast, and the time limit for the fruits to ripen was drawing closer by the second. Fatigue and anxiety gradually settled on the faces of the hunters who continued to launch wasteful attacks that failed to deal a decisive blow.
“Aaaagh!”
Perhaps fatigue had dulled his footing. A hunter running along the stem slipped and fell into a deep wound in the main body, carved out by others’ attacks. From the gap of the wound that had been waiting for prey, small tentacles regenerated and shot out with fierce speed, swallowing the hunter into its body.
Just before despair settled on the face of the hunter, whose head was now enveloped, a white flash of light flickered before his eyes. The tip of a white-glowing sword sliced precisely through only the tentacles and cut downward rapidly.
“Th-thank you.”
The hunter barely managed to thank him, though he was in pain from the poison that had seeped into his body in that brief moment. The strange-faced man supported him and then immediately ran toward the opposite side.
As he hurriedly administered a new injection to prevent the poison from spreading further, the hunter looked down. A chill ran down his spine at the thought that he had almost died by falling in there.
‘But the wound is strange?’
The cut surface where the man had sliced was not regenerating. It was distinctly different from a moment ago, when it had pretended not to regenerate while waiting for prey. The cut surface was twisting as if it would have screamed in pain if it had a mouth. He had no way of knowing that this was the result of a permanent wound inflicted by divine power, which is polar opposite to magical energy.
‘My divine power is cutting it close.’
Kim Si-baek clenched and unclenched his fist a few times. No matter how many tentacles he sliced, they weren’t the main body, so his divine power did not recover.
He had tried to refrain from using it as much as possible, but he had consumed more than expected while treating the injured. Healing power and his divine power had very poor compatibility. He was only holding on because Kim Si-baek’s divine power was pure, allowing it to be operated efficiently even in small amounts.
[Remaining Time: 2 hours 19 minutes]
The core was still nowhere to be found. Kim Si-baek carefully examined the system window once more.
[Bonus Quest]
[Discover the survivors of the magic stone exchange (28/29)]
[Completion Reward: Fragment of Longing]
There was a part that had bothered him since the quest first appeared. The system did not ask to ‘rescue’ the survivors, but to ‘discover’ them. If he had discovered a survivor and passed by without saving them, leading to their death, would the quest have still proceeded smoothly?
And the one final survivor, who had not yet been discovered.