Chapter 107
Light didn’t enter her hospital room, not even during the day. The blackout curtains that fluttered with the breeze prevented any sunlight from entering the room. Occasionally, a dim light would trickle from the broken fluorescent light, but it was far from enough to fully illuminate the room.
"Ms. Jeon Hae-Soo? Are you awake?"
The only time light entered the rooms was when nurses came in for their routine checks or to serve meals or water. The bright white light from the hallway partially pushed away the darkness as it seeped through the slightly open door, but the patient sitting on the bed didn't even flinch. Covered with a blanket, the patient was sound asleep, as if she was mechanically continuing her long slumber streak.
"Ms. Hae-Soo?"
The nurse cautiously approached the bed, holding a tray with breakfast. Still, the patient on the bed didn't even flinch. The nurse struggled, trying to calm her anxious heart. She set up the table, placed the tray on top, and gently pressed down on the bed.
The patient was still in bed. Judging by the slight movements, it seemed that she wasn't asleep and simply did not want to see the nurse. The nurse sighed. She was thankful that the patient hadn't escaped like last time.
"You startled me. You used to spring awake every time I came in... Are you listening?" the nurse asked the unresponsive patient. "By the way, they said they'll fix the light during lunch today, but that’s not too much of a hindrance, is it? You always disliked the light..."
The patient caused a commotion a while ago by pulling out the wires from the fluorescent light in a suicide attempt, breaking the light in the process.
After the nurse finished speaking, the broken fluorescent light swayed from the ceiling. The warm breeze of late spring flowed in through the window.
The nurse took a deep breath. It was refreshing to breathe in clean air. It’d been a while since she last did so. She felt so refreshed, as she was expelling the filth that had been accumulating in every inch of her body. Soon after, a creepy and unpleasant sensation tingled down her spine.
"Ms. Hae-Soo?" the nurse called again, to no response.
Flutter, flutter...
Under the curtain dancing in the wind, she caught a glimpse of the sky. The red sun diving into the horizon dyed the blue sky red.
Swoosh—!
The nurse roughly pulled back the blanket.
The hospital bed where Jeon Hae-Soo should have been was empty. Instead, there was a doll that resembled a human, clumsily made by attaching animal skin together. The doll occasionally twitched as if trying to claim that it was alive. However, it was nothing more than death poorly disguised as life.
"Aaaaahh!" A belated scream echoed.
The wind picked up. Beyond the pulled-back curtain, the sky was visible, and darkness creeping in. It covered the light blue sky tinged with the colors of the sunset.
The night sky became vivid.
***
As the days went on, the sun beamed down intensely, so much that she couldn't go outside the dormitory during the day. Being outside in the sun meant risking getting sunburnt. She made a habit of going for a walk every night because she couldn't go out during the day. Today, Ha-Yeon made her way out of the dormitory as soon as the sun set, and she aimlessly roamed the streets. Her mind swirled in turmoil with the past wrongdoings she had committed against Sun-Woo that she heard from her friend.
She wrote the proposal for him because she felt guilty. She shallowly believed that by doing this, Sun-Woo would forgive her misdeeds, at least a little.
"Sigh..." Ha-Yeon sighed, recalling Sun-Woo's expression during the meeting.
When she handed the proposal to Min-Seo, he made a cold and stiff expression toward her. His gaze had been filled with doubt and suspicion. Instead of gaining forgiveness, her actions only reminded her of her past misdeeds. This caused her distress.
However, she didn't, no, she couldn’t apologize. She had never once apologized to anyone other than her father. Whenever she tried to apologize, it felt as if the word would stuck on the ‘s’ in sorry.
Drip drop.
As she was walking aimlessly, she suddenly felt raindrops falling from the sky. The rain, which had been tapping the ground gently with one to two drops at a time, suddenly poured down like a waterfall. The unexpected rainfall hadn’t been in the forecast, and Ha-Yeon had no umbrella.
"What the—ugh...!" Ha-Yeon muttered to herself out of habit and spat out the rainwater that entered her mouth.
Then she looked around. There was no place to buy an umbrella in sight—she only heard faint sirens coming from the alleyway. She didn't know what was happening, but it seemed like the paladins were mobilized in that direction.
In the past, when she revealed that her father was Sung Yu-Da, the paladins gladly lent her an umbrella or gave her a ride. There were even times when they recognized her first and offered their help without her having to reveal who her father was. As a priest, relying on the assistance of a paladin wasn't exactly pleasant, but she decided to focus on dealing with what was more important at hand and headed toward the alleyway.
Splash, splash.
With every step that she took, water splashed and hit her ankles. Ha-Yeon continued to run despite her damp clothes clinging to her skin. If she asked the paladins for help, she would be able to avoid the rain. Even if she didn’t meet the paladins, taking the alleyway would get her to the Florence Academy dormitory faster than any other route.
Finally, the faint red light of the sirens became more vivid. It appeared that two cars were parked at a distance. Ha-Yeon approached them with mixed feelings of disgust from being in the rain and joy in finally seeing the paladins. Because of this, she felt more shocked when she saw the scene before her.
"You bastard! You think you’re a cardinal just because you have a cassock on?"
"Bastard? How old are you? Who are you calling a bastard—?"
"I'm old enough, you bastard. You're the one who speaks informally to anyone—”
They were fighting, but it wasn't just a verbal fight. They grabbed and shook each other by the collar and hurled insults, which was relatively tame compared to the other things occurring around them. While wet from the downpour, some were slapping each other's cheeks with no remorse and some of them were locked in silent fistfights.
The gazes of the paladins and priests that seemed to disregard the downpour flickered with killing intent. Each punch and slap was clearly ridden with the intent to kill the receiver of the blow.
"..."
Ha-Yeon silently turned around and tried to leave the alleyway. Her body was trembling like crazy and her teeth chattered. It wasn't because of the cold. It was because her body was trembling uncontrollably in fear.
The eyes of those clergymen kicking and brawling in the rain were so similar to the eyes of the unknown men who had tried to cut off her arms when she was very young. Fear consumed Ha-Yeon as she recalled the eyes of those men. She was reminded of the chilling sensation of the saw they brought toward her arm as she pleaded for her life.
Thump.
At that moment, someone grabbed her shoulder.
Splash!
Ha-Yeon collapsed, covered her face with both arms, and started mumbling gibberish. "Ah, aah! D-don't come... It's not me. It's not me..."
Even in the midst of the pouring rain, the terror that hung over her face was vivid.
"What do you mean it’s not you?... Come on, get up." The man grabbed Ha-Yeon's arm and tried to lift her up.
In a panic, Ha-Yeon refused to get up. She lowered her center of gravity and flailed around, but the man did not let go of Ha-Yeon's arm. His hand persistently attempted to lift her up.
Crunch!
In the end, Ha-Yeon bit the man's wrist, hard. One bite wasn't going to be enough, so she continued biting three times more. Still, the man held on. She even tried to tear off his skin, but by then, her jaw had already lost its strength.
Unable to bear the pain, the man screamed, "Hey, stop... Hey!"
Startled, Ha-Yeon raised her head, trembling. Due to her fear and the pouring rain, her vision was blurry, and she couldn't make out the man's face. Nevertheless, Ha-Yeon could instantly recognize him.
"Huh?"
"The hell are you doing, suddenly biting me... Never mind, just get up." The man roughly shook his arm, trying to eliminate the pain, and then offered his hand to Ha-Yeon again.
She hesitantly took his hand and stood up. Then she wiped away a few raindrops and tears from the corner of her eyes. The man who roughly tidied his wet hair with his hands was Sun-Woo. Wiping away the blood flowing from the torn flesh with the rain pouring from above, he shot a melancholic look at her.
"Can you do it? What your fa...father does."
"What?" Ha-Yeon asked, tilting her head in confusion.
She didn't understand the meaning of Sun-Woo's words, partly because of her confusion but also because the sound of rainfall was too loud, thus making it hard to make out his words.
Sun-Woo furrowed his brow and cradled his forehead before speaking again.
This time, he enunciated his words clearly. "You know, the thing that purifies demonic energy and dismantles pentagrams."
"...Ah." Ha-Yeon let out a short sigh.
Her father had used a special blessing that only members of the purification clan could use to dismantle pentagrams and expel demonic energy. Although she wasn't particularly inclined to use the blessing because it required shedding blood, she knew how to use it.
"I know how to use it."
"Yeah?"
Sun-Woo nodded his head toward a woman sprawled out in the middle of the blood-splattered, fighting clergymen. Black tears trickled from the woman’s eyes, and her mouth was foaming with black bubbles. The tears and foam had black mist rising from them.
"There's a pentagram on the back of that person's neck. That's why the paladins and priests are fighting."
"..."
"Can you do it?" Sun-Woo asked, staring intently into Ha-Yeon's eyes.
Ha-Yeon cautiously avoided his gaze and saw the black magic array drawn on the back of the woman's neck. Fortunately, it looked small. She felt like she could manage if it were that size.
"...I think I can do it."
As soon as Ha-Yeon said those words, Sun-Woo grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward.
They passed through the paladins and priests’ brawl, and he guided her to the fallen woman. Although the wrist that Sun-Woo had grabbed ached, it wasn’t a bad feeling.
Sun-Woo scanned the surroundings with a vigilant gaze behind Ha-Yeon as she began to draw the blessing array she had learned from her father.
Unlike other blessing arrays, the blessing of purification needed to be carefully drawn stroke by stroke. If even one stroke were diverted from its intended size and shape, the blessing of purification would instantly turn into a completely different blessing array.
Ha-Yeon was halfway done drawing the blessing array under Sun-Woo's protection when she suddenly stopped. Her pupils trembled like crazy.
"..."
She had forgotten how to draw the next part. She knew how to use the blessing of purification, but this was her first time actually using it.
‘...What should I do?‘
***
After crushing the raven’s eyes, the first thing I did was call forth rain through Dan Wedo. The demonic energy flowing from the pentagrams had the characteristic of settling on the ground when it rained. I did this because if demonic energy was spread through the air, it would turn the surrounding area into a battlefield. As soon as I did so, the first person I encountered was Ha-Yeon.
It was humiliating for me to ask Ha-Yeon for help, but only the members of the purification clan could dismantle a pentagram. Given the situation, I had no choice but to ask her for help.
At that moment, Ha-Yeon suddenly stopped drawing the blessing array and stared at me blankly.
"Hey! What gives?" I yelled angrily.
Ha-Yeon, seemingly startled, cowered like a frightened puppy and cautiously opened her mouth while glancing at me.
"...I need to shed blood in order to use the blessing of purification."
"So?"
"It seems like it’s gonna hurt a lot."
“The heck do you mean...!”
I was on the verge of losing my temper. The urge to curse rose to the tip of my tongue, but I barely held it back. Without saying a word, I showed her the teeth marks on my wrist. She had bitten so hard that the wound still dripped with blood. She hadn’t just bitten me—she had gnarled her teeth into my hand.
"I-I understand. Then..." Seeing this, Ha-Yeon responded reluctantly, looking around as if searching for something.
"What is it?"
"Do you have something like a fruit knife on you?" Ha-Yeon asked urgently, shifting her gaze.
It seemed like she was looking for something to draw blood in order to use the blessing of purification. However, there were no sharp objects nearby. As I looked around, a green soju bottle came into my view.
Smash!
Swiftly, I grabbed the neck of the bottle and smashed it on the ground. The blunt soju bottle instantly became a plausible weapon with its jagged edges. It seemed like it would be enough to cut. Since Ha-Yeon was a member of the purification clan, there was no need to worry about getting infected.
"Make do with this, for now—”
"You."
Someone called out to me just as I was about to hand the broken bottle to Ha-Yeon.
The attention of the brawling clergymen was now all directed toward me. One of them slowly approached me, his index finger glued in my direction.
"You, what did you just do?"
In the pouring rain, the man's eyes glared fiercely. As if they had discussed this beforehand, the clergymen who had stopped fighting began to surround me in a synchronized manner, closing in on me in a circular pattern. They all pointed their index fingers at me.
"What are you doing? My mind feels clear now.”
"Yeah, I can see clearly now."
"What did you do? I heard the sound of glass breaking."
"The sound of glass breaking.”
"Glass breaking—"
I couldn't understand what they were saying at all.
[I see how it is... Two were true, but one was false,] Legba said.
I couldn't find the words to respond to him. It was a strange and unfamiliar terror that I had never experienced before, and I stumbled backward. Ha-Yeon and I were surrounded by the clergymen as they closed in on us. The madness and anger were vividly reflected in their eyes. Just a moment ago, the anger that they directed toward each other was now collectively focused on us.
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