I went down the long vertical shaft and entered the underground air-raid shelter.
Spaces of the shelter stretched straight ahead.
The shelter wasn’t in good shape.
After Cheongho died, I brought Chae Taewon and a few others to strip anything worth taking, and no one had come since.
“It is one of my bases, but.”
I didn’t pay it much mind, with no particular use for it.
No—since this place is designated as a secondary residence, I could make use of it any time I wanted.
Even so, I didn’t like it here, and I’d left it without even marking it for [Gate Creation] over a long time.
Is it because Cheongho died here?
Because of the death of that man I wasn’t even close to?
“No. Honestly, it doesn’t move me.”
...
My intelligence stat can recreate what happened here that day with perfect vividness and even recall what I felt then—but it’s only at the level of “that happened.”
So why don’t I like this place?
[screeeek]
Throwing open a hatch like a submarine’s, I kept going.
Dark.
Most of the mana-stone lamps that lit this place before—I tore them out and moved them to the [Hungry House]. Just their light gives buffs like increased HP regen and improved immunity.
Too good to leave abandoned in a place like this.
So the underground shelter became a dark, damp place without even a single working light.
“My life’s kind of darkness just keeps going.”
Right, this is where I need assurance.
“This loathsome fake world.”
And I am a drifter wandering this horrible fake world.
I still haven’t found a proper clue.
All I’ve done is run from here to there restoring a world about to collapse, then run back from there to here to remove whoever’s trying to topple this flimsy world—all on repeat.
“There is someone dressing a stage and thumping about a climax.”
Even if I run to Busan right now and wreck the plan the [Source of Life] is setting up—
What waits after that?
“Sure. The only encouraging thing is that a sibling of the [Great Source] has stepped onto the stage.”
The [Source of Life] is an avatar of the [Great Source], and among beings of the Abyss the [Great Source] ranks at the very top.
If I bring that bastard down, the others below won’t dare act up easily.
And then it’s over?
“I know how it goes. ‘That one was only the weakest of our four abyssal kings,’ and they’ll come in order.”
Damn it.
Grumbling, I moved to the deepest room of the shelter.
“Glória in excélsis Deo.”
A song came from the very deepest part of the shelter.
Latin.
In translation: “Glory to God in the highest.”
Dok Go Gyeom was singing.
“You’re a cultist. By what right do you sing the Catholic Gloria?”
When I pointed that out, Dok Go Gyeom stopped.
“Kheh heh heh heh—”
Laughter of the [Laughing One] from the dark.
“Why is the light off?”
There are no lights elsewhere in the shelter, but this room has them.
“Kheh heh heh heh—because the jailer and the prisoner have the same taste.”
I needed a guard who could watch Dok Go Gyeom without rest, twenty-four hours a day, and who wouldn’t succumb to his surreal persuasiveness.
And a guard with the ability to kill him if it came to it.
So I set a shard of the [Laughing One]—possessing a corpse golem—to watch him.
“My taste runs brighter. Let’s turn them on.”
I snapped my fingers and activated the mana-stone lamps on the ceiling.
[flash]
Bright light drove away the dark, revealing the shelter’s filthy, shabby shape the darkness had hidden.
I spoke to the [Laughing One] wearing Cheongho’s shape.
“Hey, even for you, standing here looking like Cheongho is bad taste, isn’t it?”
This place is Cheongho’s legacy and also where he died.
And the [Laughing One] is the monster that imprisoned him here, killed him, and ate him.
Catching on to my thoughts, the [Laughing One] snickered and said:
“Thus spake the great Kim Sinhwa: Monster, I command you—steal Cheongho’s face and speak with his voice. And you shall, in this abyssal dark, watch over the head of a cult that serves a heretical god.”
Heh heh heh heh—kheh heh heh heh—uh heh heh heh—
“Shut it. Move.”
When I scowled, the [Laughing One] arranged Cheongho’s face into a leisurely expression, bowed theatrically, and stepped aside.
And where he cleared—
“Kim Sinhwa. Kim Sinhwa... I’ve heard that name.”
[chirr—chirr]
The sound of chains with Dok Go Gyeom’s voice.
“Right... The name Heo Sanghyun... was just a phantasm you devised to beguile me, a mere illusion true to its name...”
Perhaps because he’d been sunk deep in darkness a long time, Dok Go Gyeom spoke in a subdued, quiet voice.
“Sorry to spoil a clever notion, but Heo Sanghyun is simply the name of the man who owns the boarding house where I rent a room.”
Dok Go Gyeom, bound by a restraint suit reinforced with mana-stone and chains carved with occult sigils, lowered his eyes with a vacant look.
Lips parting slightly without strength. Eyes drooping without energy.
The complete opposite of the clownish frenzy he’d shown at the Masquerade.
“Is it depression now?”
Dok Go Gyeom suffers from severe bipolar disorder. In deep depressive swings, he can drop to where conversation is impossible, but he hasn’t sunk that far yet.
“Heo Joo...”
He spoke in a voice like a crumbling dry leaf.
“What did you do?”
“I killed him.”
“Ah...”
Moisture gathered faintly at the corners of his eyes.
“A precious one has gone...”
After a long while struggling to finish his words, he looked at me with trembling eyes and said:
“Heo Sanghyun... yes. The name of his disciple and family. I remember. Kim Sinhwa. You not only killed him, you took his family as well.”
“You make it sound like I killed a good man and then took his wife and child.”
I stepped a few paces closer.
“I eliminated a monster that had parasitized a family for years, exploited their flesh, and even robbed them of the right to be freed by death. And I helped Heo Sanghyun live the life that had been stolen from him.”
“...”
Dok Go Gyeom looked at me in silence for a moment.
“I can’t see your face well, Kim Sinhwa. Would you come a little closer?”
The gag covering half his face twitched strangely.
[chirr—chirr]
Chains moving.
“Kim Sinhwa, I don’t recommend getting closer.”
The [Laughing One]’s advice.
“I know.”
Dok Go Gyeom was bound by five layers of restraints installed by the Foreigners Administration, and I had added one more layer of barrier myself, but it cannot hold him completely.
Even Yang Seoho couldn’t kill him.
If he recovers the energy he burned battling Yang Seoho... or flips back into mania—
He’ll punch through the barriers binding him and escape.
“This too follows the game’s settings.”
By design, Yang Seoho and Dok Go Gyeom cannot help but be at odds.
Maybe to prevent the scenario where Dok Go Gyeom—the obstacle meant for the player—gets caught and torn apart by Yang ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) Seoho? Dok Go Gyeom has near-immortal hyper-regeneration and escape faculties.
“The problem is, even I, the player, can’t kill him or lock him down.”
Not that I intend to hold him indefinitely. A few days stuffed in here is enough...
In the meantime I can talk with him—or test other things.
“I only have one question.”
“Did you bring me for questions?”
“Of course not. Spiriting you away here gave me political leverage and influence I can use any number of ways. I don’t expect much from the question. But—”
I glanced at the [Laughing One], then back to Dok Go Gyeom and asked:
“Before the Masquerade, you were the cult leader of [Mannse Ilwon Church], correct?”
“The great [King Father] laid such a heavy calling upon me.”
Dok Go Gyeom truly looked pained as he spoke.
“In principle, you have nothing to do with the [Source of Contamination]. Correct?”
“The great [King Father] comprehends all and spans all time. And I am not one to fathom the calling He laid on me.”
Dok Go Gyeom of [Mannse Ilwon Church] serves an abyssal being whose other name is [King Father].
Among the beings of the Abyss, [King Father] is foremost, and his influence reaches to the other abyssal beings.
“So you’ll let the [Source of Life] destroy this world? Is that [King Father]’s will?”
“...[King Father] awaits the time of descent.”
Good.
I smiled.
“Then we have a partial point of agreement.”
I want to stop the world’s destruction, and Dok Go Gyeom needs this world maintained until [King Father] descends.
He wouldn’t want the [Source of Life] smashing the world at some sloppy timing.
To drive the wedge, I added one more line.
“I told people you’d be in Busan. Your faithful apostles will head to Busan, where the [Source of Life] will rampage, to rescue you.”
“...Base.”
“Call it what you like. For [King Father], and to save your followers, you’ll have to move to Busan.”
For a long time he only worked his lips without answering.
“Kim Sinhwa.”
A voice so faint he might die any second.
“Yes.”
“What do you move for? Faith?”
Very cultist question.
“No. I have a separate purpose.”
“What purpose? Why do you deny the truth?”
“The truth?”
“Yes. The truth. Why do you think we believe and follow gods? Why do you think we abandon family and friends and revere alien beings that demand what lies under the skins of our kin and nation?”
A strange sharpness came through his low, quiet voice.
“I know what you’re trying to say. That the masters of this world aren’t us, and we must serve the true masters... you’re about to spout that kind of nonsense, right?”
“Yes. That is the truth of this world, a law that those born of this world can never reject. Why do you deny that simple, firm truth?”
A flicker of annoyance rose.
“Whoever owns this world—it has nothing to do with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I am not of this world.”
Dok Go Gyeom shook his head, the chains rattling with it.
“Kim Sinhwa. Are you saying you are an outsider born under the laws of another world?”
“That’s it. This is a crudely made fake world. I’m leaving it and returning to where I belong.”
This world is an artificially made game world.
Everything here moves by settings someone tampered into place, and everyone thinks by those manipulated settings.
I will leave this world and return to the original world I came from.
“That matches our doctrine.”
Ridiculous.
“No, you don’t understand what I’m saying...”
“I have heard the great voice from beyond the soft, flimsy veil and know the same as you. This world is a land kneaded from hollow wordplay, a world maintained for the delight of those greater than we are.”
Beneath the iron mesh of the gag that kept him from biting... Dok Go Gyeom smiled, chillingly.
“Everything in this world moves as the great ones beyond the cosmos allot and foreknow, and the great revelation injects new knowledge and thought and ideas into us. Beyond this world’s veil is a land where beings of a higher dimension dwell. And at times, madmen arise who long to leave this land for a higher dimension.”
It has already been three days since I locked him here. I have not given food—nor a single drop of water.
Yang Seoho likely treated him the same way I do.
He must have gone over ten days without a drop, and yet Dok Go Gyeom’s lips were blood-red, his two eyes gleaming with a sinister mania.
“Kim Sinhwa. Just like you.”
Bursting with rapture, he laughed and sang:
“Et in terra pax homínibus bonæ voluntátis.”
And on earth, peace to people of good will.
“Forget it. Trying to talk with a cultist was my mistake.”
“Unpersuaded. A cultist who exalts empty obstinacy and baseless knowledge. Kim Sinhwa. Can you not see that you and I serve the same god and follow the same doctrine?”
“What...?”
For a moment, I almost got angry.
“I will let myself be used by your plan. But this will in no way depart from the will of my great Lord, Yog Sothoth.”
