chapter 190

Chapter 190

A mermaid was a child of the sea.

The sea was a part of them, and they were also a part of the sea. Among them, Aria and Iser possessed the authority to commune and communicate even with the seas of other dimensions.

And through that sea, Iser caught a familiar scent. Traces of a small, delicate child that resembled sunlight, somewhere...

“...”

“Ah! Eunha!”

“...It’s Iser.”

At Cha Isol’s cheerful greeting, Iser was so dumbfounded he asked.

“What are you doing?”

“We were doing practice, yo!”

“Training for Sun Church apprentice priests should be done with many people together—why are only you two left?”

“Everyone ran!”

“Haa...”

At the deep sigh, Lee Ruda, who had been beside Cha Isol, flinched. Iser, who had ended up in the miserable position of having to cater to even the mood of little human whelps, spoke with a bleak feeling.

“As I see it, it appears your fellow apprentice priests ran away, leaving only you two. And since I only smell your two blood scents, it seems they deliberately intended to put you in a difficult situation.”

“That’s too hard to understand.”

“I would appreciate it if you decide whether you will use honorifics or informal speech. In short, it seems you two are being ostracized or bullied. I believe Korea has a term called wangtta.”

“Right, super petty.”

“So it doesn’t seem like you’re unaware.”

Iser waved a mermaid’s hand and pushed back the dungeon’s sea. He’d caught a familiar scent from the sea connected to Earth and come here, and to think this was what had been going on. If things had gone wrong, they could have suffered serious injuries.

‘Then teacher would have been sad.’

He did not want that.

‘This may become Giovanni’s first apostle.’

If it was something that could help Gio in any way, there was no reason not to do it. Iser slowly looked over the now-quiet dungeon beach. It was a dimension whose space was quite tangled.

“Aren’t there priests assigned to supervise apprentice priests?”

“This practice was something we were doing just among ourselves.”

“Even so, given the nature of Korea’s Sun Church, there should be personnel watching.”

“Th-that... is that so?”

In place of Cha Isol, who was stammering, Lee Ruda opened her mouth.

“...Even if they aren’t directly supervising, there should be priests assigned in case of a serious accident. But recently, they had to develop an A-rank dungeon, so there weren’t many priests left.”

“You mean there are few personnel available, so there are also few priests assigned to dungeon practice? In that Sun Church that was crawling with humans? Still, the human scent in this sea is faint. There probably aren’t that many humans here.”

“It’s true the church has many priests, but there aren’t many teachers who look after apprentice priests. And even among those, I think only about two came here at most, and they were so busy managing the apprentice priests scattered everywhere that they couldn’t spare attention for us.”

Cha Isol grumbled.

“It’s because we’re too good.”

“...That might be part of it.”

Across the entire Sun Church class, the Cha Isol and Lee Ruda pair—talents you could count on one hand—were often evaluated as “kids who don’t require hands-on attention.” The supervising priests who came along would naturally be focusing on those with higher risk of injury.

Iser thought.

‘How barbaric.’

No matter the dimension, the religious world had blind or forced aspects. As if they believed everything in the world could be solved by faith alone. There were no bigger idiots.

‘...Or perhaps something higher-dimensional polished the framework of fate...’

For a moment he wondered, but this wasn’t Iser’s specialty. He recalled again why he had personally come here.

“You’re being reckless. If you die, the Black Cloak will be sad, you know?”

“Ah, is hyung doing well?”

“I am not some kind of informant. If you need something, it would be better to contact him yourself.”

Iser, making his displeasure obvious, disappeared through the sea as he had when he first appeared. Lee Ruda, who had been holding her breath at the sudden appearance of a humanoid monster, finally let out a deep exhale.

“...Haaaaah...”

“Why? Were you scared?”

“If you’re not scared, you’re not sane.”

“T-then me...? Then what about me?”

“Sometimes it feels like you’re out of your mind.”

“Was I a lunatic?!”

“Be quiet for a moment.”

Lee Ruda, who had reflexively covered Cha Isol’s mouth, corrected herself.

“Ah, no. Just explain the situation.”

“Uh... a monster friend I know showed up and helped us when we were in danger.”

“Do you really think that’s a perfect explanation?”

“If there’s anything you’re curious about, you can ask anytime!”

“That was the thing I was most curious about.”

Lee Ruda asked.

“Are you close with monsters? Are you a tamer?”

“I awakened as a priest, didn’t I?”

“Then what kind of confidence makes you go hahahoho and act friendly with monsters?”

“Eunha doesn’t really like me, so I don’t think we’re close.”

“I meant why you act so friendly when it could be dangerous.”

“I thought we were close enough to at least talk that much!”

“Cha Isol’s affinity again...”

It was social brightness so sunny it gave you a headache. A monster coming to save a human, of all things.

“...And there’s something else I’m curious about.”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Are you really going to become the Black Cloak’s priest?”

“All of a sudden...?”

“The mermaid we just met said it with that kind of nuance.”

The mermaid had clearly said, ‘If you die, the Black Cloak will be sad.’

“Like he’s marked you as his follower.”

“I don’t think that’s it...”

Cha Isol tilted her head.

“I do want to do that, though!”

“You... if you ever summon the Black Cloak, you have to call me. Got it?”

“Huh? Yeah, I said I would before. Trust me.”

“I can’t.”

Lee Ruda really liked Cha Isol’s sunny innocence, but if something happened to her safety, it was another story.

‘Cha Isol isn’t the type to have ulterior motives, but... sometimes she acts before she thinks, and the people watching feel their hearts drop.’

Lee Ruda had to protect Cha Isol, whose talent for being a sucker was strong.

“Ah, my aching joints...”

“What are joints?”

“The muscles and bones in your body.”

“Why are you calling them?”

“I meant my whole body hurts.”

“Ooh...”

“...”

Unlike Cha Isol, who was steadfastly the same as always, Lee Ruda was one step away from spewing resentment.

‘...Those bastards dare.’

They left me and Cha Isol behind and ran?

To think that after all that, we’d be stabbed in the back by humans and end up getting help from a monster—I never even imagined it.

‘In the first place, I don’t know why that mermaid helped us, but if we say this is the result created by Cha Isol’s insane affinity... then the fact that we’re safe like this really is like a miracle.’

Even that monster, whose displeasure at helping humans had been obvious, had clearly looked dumbfounded as it mocked the state of the Sun Church.

‘If it were me, I’d mock it too.’

The Sun Church isn’t some common cult—this is, however you look at it, a massive order representing Seoul. No matter how busy they got because of an A-rank dungeon, to manage apprentice priests like this...

“...”

No—this, too, could have been part of politics.

“...It’s dogshit...”

“Why is it dogshit?”

“Because I did something wrong, so you shouldn’t use words like that.”

“You mean don’t swear? Okay. But seriously, why?”

“No matter how I think about it, I feel like I was too careless.”

There was no guarantee the religious world would be clean and upright. Rather, modern priests who held blind and arrogant faith cultivated an even more political side within a closed environment.

‘Mother clearly warned me, and yet I let things get to this point—pathetic.’

There were two ways to secure power in the religious world: be loved insanely by divinity, or pull off insanely good politics. Without that, it was hard to even gain a voice.

‘It can’t be only me who knows how to use my head.’

A priest who was simply talented with nothing else would easily wither and die under harsh vigilance. It was even more so in the apprentice-priest days, when there were many immature parts. I should have navigated that well.

“To try to crush our spirits like this...”

“Who’s getting crushed?”

“It feels like the other apprentices are determined to crush our spirits.”

Lee Ruda laughed hollowly.

“No, to be precise, they were probably targeting me.”

Cha Isol basically had a personality people didn’t dislike, and objectively, she was highly cooperative. She even had a sucker-like side, so there was no need to antagonize Cha Isol and build bad blood by checking her.

But because she was paired with Lee Ruda, she got dragged into being checked along with her.

“Exactly what scheme did they pull... Did they buy off the priests? Or they might’ve just cooperated to draw the teachers’ attention away. Our pair is usually considered students who don’t require hands-on attention...”

“Could you summarize?”

“I don’t think I can summarize this well either.”

Even though she was strongly precocious, Lee Ruda was still only an apprentice priest. She’d heard a lot and knew a lot, but she had no experience. She was aware that her peers disliked her, but this was unexpected.

It truly crossed the line.

“...”

“...Should we treat ourselves first?”

“Let’s.”

Lee Ruda didn’t bother asking, ‘Do you regret being paired with me?’ Cha Isol wasn’t the type to regret something like that. But it couldn’t be helped that she felt sorry toward her precious national treasure.

‘If she hadn’t been paired with me, she wouldn’t have gotten into trouble like this. No, if I had just paid a little more attention to my surroundings and acted better...’

No matter how she thought about it, this was calculated. Taking advantage of the chaos in the order from developing the dungeon, it felt like a few quick-witted peers had gathered and planned this. Or perhaps one person had decided it and received support.

‘Otherwise there’s no way it would go this far.’

The order wasn’t one that would abandon precious apprentice priests until they suffered severe injuries from monsters and became combat-incapable. At least, the Sun Church Lee Ruda knew was like that. And yet this had happened...

Sure enough, the priest who came to find them belatedly was horrified.

“T-this, what on earth happened...! Are you all right?!”

“The other team members left the area, leaving only our pair. So...”

“No, I definitely took measures beforehand...? Why was there no contact...”

Before the practice, the supervising priest had said, ‘This is practice where you go in with just yourselves without our help,’ but yes, there was no way that would really be the case. It seemed they’d put magical measures in place so that if something happened, contact would go to the priests.

‘But if it still turned out like this, then someone really got bought off, or they spent that much money.’

Among the apprentice priests, there were children in difficult circumstances like the Carnation Child, but there were also many like Lee Ruda—children with first-class citizenship living in the city. Having grown up in environments with strong ties to hunters or the order, their range for scheming would also be wide.

‘Even so, this was too much.’

The one who caused this likely wanted Lee Ruda to take a critical hit, and accepted a big loss for it. Even so, it wasn’t something that could be easily let go.

As if he had grasped the seriousness of the situation, the supervising priest’s expression also hardened.

“This is my and the order’s fault. We intend to contact your guardians and offer apology and compensation, but as for this... ha... may we discuss this after finishing treatment for you two brother-and-sister?”

“Yes, we will do that.”

“I truly have no excuse. Once again, I apologize. Since it was practice among apprentice priests, we should have been even more careful. Watching the other children and neglecting truly valuable talent... no, I’m sorry. Let’s move to the infirmary immediately.”

Perhaps he didn’t want to keep spouting meaningless nonsense in front of the kids, so the supervising priest hurriedly moved them to the infirmary. And Lee Ruda saw it.

“...”

“...”

One of her peers glaring at the two of them with a very dissatisfied face.

‘...That bastard?’

Lee Ruda swore revenge.

* * *

A corridor meeting after returning from Jeju-do.

“...Can it really get that bad?”

At Juhyeon’s words, Yoo Seongun gave an awkward smile.

“The religious world’s political games are pretty fierce.”

“Even so, it was about apprentice priests.”

“The younger they are, the more people there are who aim for the naive gaps.”

There was always a battle of wits among priests, but even considering that, this incident was quite big. Kang Seodam, who had been out of his mind from developing the A-rank dungeon, learned the situation late and contacted Yoo Seongun.

Looking at Gio, he said,

“Priest Kang Seodam said he’s really sorry to you. To the people involved too, and that it was his class to manage, but he used being busy as an excuse and didn’t pay attention, so this happened...”

More than anything, Cha Isol wanted to become the Black Cloak’s priest, and the Black Cloak also found Cha Isol cute. To avoid incurring the wrath of divinity, lying flat in advance was a wise decision.

“He says he’ll accept punishment gladly.”

“Why would I give punishment?”

“I’ll tell him that.”

Around then, Juhyeon asked once more.

“I asked earlier too, but normally, does it really... go that far?”

“Hm?”

“It means someone broke the device that can protect apprentice priests’ minimum safety. Even if it was practice without a supervisor, there should have been plenty of personnel watching from the rear, and if it’s to that extent, it feels like it would need an adult’s help rather than just a child’s scheme...”

“Ah, that part.”

“It’s a big incident to say it happened just because a peer hated them.”

“Well, that’s true, but...”

Yoo Seongun rubbed his neck.

“The world has always been like that, hasn’t it?”

For a single grain of power, people will trample others regardless of age or gender. Because it’s a world that thinks you can only protect what’s yours by living that tenaciously and despicably, and that doing so is wise.

“What’s so new about it.”

“...I guess I’m not one to talk, since I’m the one who got taken out by those political games.”

“But it’s true it was a pretty bold method for their age.”

“It feels like there’s more to the story that we don’t know...”

“You can’t possibly know every conspiracy in the world.”

“So the word conspiracy came out in the end.”

“You could call it a scheme.”

Gio nodded.

“It does seem certain that they are disliked by the other children.”

“Who? Ah, the apprentice priest named Lee Ruda?”

“Yes, I also experienced similar situations a few times when I was young.”

Giovanni also knew well the blind zeal that priests possessed. It wasn’t just minor injury—he had drunk poison that burned his insides, been pushed off cliffs, and been framed as an evil demon.

The reasons they did those things were varied. Because they didn’t like the sight of him acting superior. To crush his spirit and make him docile, then use him. To remove Giovanni in advance, who would inevitably rise to a high position.

“In this case as well, there was likely a similar context.”

“People who serve god, really...”

“Sometimes it was internal commotion, and sometimes they joined hands with outsiders. This time, I wonder which it is.”

“Like there was some other large conspiracy?”

“I’m not sure. Rather than a large conspiracy...”

Gio tilted his head.

“It may have been a tantrum.”

“What kind of tantrum is this murderous?”

“I agree.”

* * *

The red jewel in the laboratory grew sullen once again.

“Lord Sancalut...!”

“■...”

He wanted to go home, but it really wasn’t easy.

(To be continued in the next episode)