chapter 236

Chapter 236

For the record.

“...”

Giovanni had seen scenes quite similar to this a few times.

‘Didn’t the sight of people said to be possessed by a demon look similar to this?’

Gio looked up at the ceiling. The marble that had once glittered like chilling, shining silver was nowhere to be seen; in its place were only dark red lumps of blood and writhing chunks of flesh.

And through the vast pit that had opened deeper inside, something enormous could be seen.

“...Mm...”

“Do not look.”

The bishop who had come with him stopped him with her eyes lowered.

“It may cause abnormalities in your mind.”

“Aha.”

So it really was Cthulhu.

‘The detailed feel is a little different, but the large outline is pretty similar.’

Gio’s range of tastes was extremely broad, so the genres of media he enjoyed were also diverse.

Among them was a genre called “cosmic horror,” and simply put, it dealt with stories where humans are overwhelmed by some unimaginable, enormous something and break down in grotesque ways...

‘For those without the aptitude, perhaps the very existence of divinity can’t help but feel like that...’

As Seo Gio, he had never had that experience in the first place; Argio, being an evil god himself, couldn’t really objectify it well; and Giovanni, whose vessel had been large from the start so there was no problem no matter what he held, couldn’t truly feel it either.

Only Giovanni, who as a human could take various mysteries into his eyes, could vaguely recognize how serious the situation was.

‘So the Moon Lady Religion was raising a small calamity that would someday devour the world.’

How cute.

“It’s fine.”

“...Is it?”

“You may step outside.”

“I did not bring Hunter Seo Gio all the way here because I wanted you to resolve something immediately.”

For some reason, the bishop spoke as if telling him not to overdo it.

“If something happens to you, I will have no face to show the Collection Merchant, so would you simply check the state?”

“It’s fine, Bishop.”

On Earth, it would be hard to find someone more of an expert.

“I think I can be of help, so I will take a closer look.”

“...Then I will stay near the door.”

“You won’t go out?”

“Because I cannot leave an outsider alone.”

“I understand.”

The words were spoken in a tone as though she could not leave an outsider alone inside the temple, but in truth she was likely worried about the safety of the Collection Merchant’s precious guest. Priests really do make things difficult to say.

‘Since it’s a trait you can find in common across various dimensions, it is something strange. Is it because it follows the point that the language of divinity sounds extremely vague to humans? Like how parents and children resemble each other little by little...’

After finishing that brief stray thought, Gio looked around again.

The space where the saintess stayed was quite twisted. Blood, darkened so black it felt like ink, had drawn a fairly plausible pattern on the floor, and that pattern would sometimes writhe like a living creature.

“...?”

Ah, come to think of it, wasn’t that the Moon Lady Religion’s emblem?

‘It looked so disgusting that it came to me late.’

Along the border of the emblem, fingers resembling the saintess’s were sprouting, but to avoid further mental attacks on those enjoying his story, Gio decided to stop the description here.

‘Still, looking at it as a whole...’

If you looked at this entire room.

‘...Does it resemble the universe?’

It felt like entering the moon floating in empty space.

There’s that kind of story too, isn’t there. Interesting conspiracy theories that aliens live inside the moon and repeat all kinds of cruel experiments, things like that.

‘Or that the moon itself is a huge living creature.’

That was the feeling.

‘It’s not an incorrect impression.’

In the end, all of this was beginning from the “Moon Lady” they served.

Centered on the bed that seemed to have been used as a bedroom, something like muscles and blood vessels stretched long like a spiderweb, or like arched bridges.

The marble pillars that had once decorated the room stretched in spirals, like genes given form. Red as if soaked with blood, they had become quite transparent and emitted a beautiful light like crystal.

Paintings and candlesticks and such, which must have once been decorated in ordinary forms, were also writhing as if they had gained life.

‘A universe where blood flows...’

The feeling of holding a universe with blood and flesh in his eyes. It seemed a being that did not understand humans very well had wanted to decorate a small child’s room.

‘It’s a bit much, though.’

The intention didn’t look bad.

“...”

If it were Juhyeon, he would have thrown an objection even at thoughts like this. Gio unconsciously recalled his friend.

‘In some sense, I think what Juhyeon said is right.’

Divinities needed to attend a speech academy or receive basic education if they were going to live on Earth. Of course, Gio was an exception. He seemed to be doing well on his own already.

“...”

“Hu-e, ha, haha. Hahahaha... ha...”

“You look tired.”

Her bleached-white hair had grown beyond merely becoming disheveled, long enough to fill the room. It was a length difficult for a human to grow naturally.

The Moon Lady Religion’s saintess surely hadn’t never cut her hair in her life, so it seemed this, too, was the Moon Lady’s influence.

Her nails were long as well. When he carefully touched them so she wouldn’t be startled even if a stranger grabbed her, they flaked off with a plaster-like crack. Then they grew anew again.

“Weak...”

The girl’s entire body was drenched in blood.

‘It doesn’t look like she self-harmed.’

Blood was leaking from every hole in her body. Even from her pores, viscous bloody fluid seemed to ooze out, making the back of his hand sticky. At this point, it seemed like it should be massive hemorrhaging, but there was no such sign.

‘Hm.’

Where did the all-ages rating sticker go?

‘This is troublesome.’

Before my healing story fully tries to switch genres, it would be better to settle the situation. Today as well, Gio called out Honey, who had been hiding inside his hood.

“Honey.”

“Grrrrk.”

“Let’s help.”

“Grrr.”

Juhyeon always said it.

‘Don’t go around spamming miracles alone.’

Borrow the power of children known as contracted beasts, and tools that would look splendid to anyone. That way, no matter what Gio did, he could prepare at least a minimum excuse.

Today, faithfully following that advice, Gio came with Honey, Dana, and the golden branch staff that Iser had returned. With this lineup, it would be difficult to suspect Gio himself.

“Excuse me.”

Gio looked at the bishop.

“May I begin treatment?”

“...Is treatment possible?”

No, wasn’t that why you called me?

“...”

He wanted to ask what, exactly, she had invited him to do, but Gio soon realized. Since things had come to this, the Moon Lady Religion must have entrusted the request to him, an outsider, with the feeling of clutching even at a straw.

‘No matter how much they expected, maybe they only thought I could give a bit of advice as a senior saint. When it comes to matters of mystery, sometimes miracles happen with just a single word...’

Anyway, reading in her reaction, “That can really be done? It should be impossible,” Gio gently shifted his words.

“I think I can try a few things. As you know, Bishop, since this matter is not a wicked mystery but something connected to your teacher, the Moon Lady, it cannot be purified.”

“Yes, and that is why we reached the point where we could only watch, unable to do anything. It would have been better if it had been a matter related to an unclean mystery, but...”

“However, thanks to having my children and good tools, I think I can provide at least minimal help. It seems this problem happened because she awkwardly got stuck between human and mystery, so I can guide her back toward the human side.”

“Is that... truly possible?”

Oh?

‘Even this isn’t possible?’

Gio read a “contradiction” in her reaction. But then just how much was he supposed to overlook?

Under his calm face, feeling deeply awkward, Gio once again thought, ‘Ah, so they really did call me hoping for a miracle whose probability isn’t even clear.’ Their expectations for him seemed far lower than Gio had imagined.

Well, turning back a situation that had reached this point in an instant was not ordinarily possible.

‘But if we don’t at least do this right now, this child’s life is truly in danger...?’

Between hiding his identity and the safety of the pitiful saintess, which mattered more? Without needing to think, it was obviously the latter. Since it didn’t look like something he couldn’t settle with his holiness and acting skill, Gio decided to do it first and see.

As always, he wore an unchanging smile.

“I will help you.”

“...”

“May you give me the opportunity?”

“...I do not know Hunter Seo Gio well.”

“So your faith is lacking.”

“But right now, we have been unable to accomplish anything.”

It was so unusual that the Moon Lady Religion, with its strongly closed culture, had even requested help from the Collection Merchant. They had tried everything they could internally, and the best choice they could invite was Hunter Seo Gio.

The bishop stared at the man smiling as if painted.

‘The one also called the Black Cloak’s saint.’

If he truly were a saint...

‘Then in the Republic of Korea, at least, there is no being more reliable than this.’

The situation was urgent. With mystery tangled beyond repair, the saintess’s entire body twisting and even the space being eroded, if they did not try something, this calamity-like mystery could spread to other priests as well.

After dozens, hundreds of rounds of agonizing, the bishop nodded.

“I will trust you. If something happens, it is now my responsibility. However, if you succeed, I will serve Hunter Seo Gio as the Moon Lady Religion’s benefactor and accept you as our senior brother.”

“Is that so.”

“If your heart is moved by such a future, then please, I beg you.”

“Thank you for your considerate words.”

Hunter Seo Gio, looking around pointedly, said,

“Could you close your eyes?”

“...Very well.”

“Thank you.”

With this, I attempt concealment.

‘There’s nothing good to see anyway.’

Giovanni’s vessel was so large that no problem would arise, but for the bishop, who wasn’t even as much as the fallen saintess, it might be a scene hard to endure. Gio tapped the shadow of his cloak.

“Meow.”

“That’s right.”

Dana, who had spat out her soul and shrunk to the size of an adolescent cat, jumped out.

“There’s something you need to do.”

“Meow.”

“Looks like you understood well.”

These guys were disguises for cleanup.

Gio met the eyes of the girl holding a red universe, dyed entirely dark red. They had become eyeballs in which it was no longer possible to distinguish pupil and iris, but he could still seize her gaze without difficulty.

Looking at that, he smiled softly at her.

“Can you see me?”

“...”

“Then first...”

He slowly, gently, closed her eyes for her.

“Shall we start by practicing sleep?”

These days, it felt like he often helped unfamiliar people with rehabilitation exercises.

* * *

And like that, Gio succeeded in reclaiming the genre.

“...Thank you.”

“Not at all.”

The bishop’s voice trembled as if she still couldn’t believe it. Even though he hadn’t treated everything at once and had only made her fall asleep for now, because doing it all at once would still look suspicious.

‘From here on, I should show them the process of proceeding step by step.’

It was easier than making Ater, who had been meat-porridge for thousands of years, into a person, but it wouldn’t look that way even to those around him.

He had returned her body—grotesquely twisted like a cockroach that had crawled up from hell—to normal, but the saintess was still asleep.

She would gradually return to the human path by recovering the fatigue she had built up through sleep, so it was a good thing.

“It would be best to move rooms. Since the space the saintess has been staying in is also twisted by mystery... if she remains here, she will likely step carelessly into the path of mystery again.”

“I will arrange a separate space for the saintess to sleep. I originally wanted to do so as well, but I was only concerned that the mystery might spread or cause another abnormality. Is there anything else we should be careful about?”

“You need not worry about meals. Until all the mystery accumulated in her body drains out, even if she eats something, it would likely become poison, so there will be no need for something like an IV drip.”

“Ah, meals...”

Hesitating, the bishop said,

“She did not eat well before, either.”

“...”

After a brief silence, Gio asked,

“...Is there a reason?”

“As you said, it is because she has drawn close to mystery. Before, it was not to the point that eating something would become poison, but even so, she did not feel appetite nor try to eat anything.”

“Aha.”

‘Skipping meals...?’

Unforgivable.

‘So yet another pig increases. O Sun, forgive this greedy priest.’

I really wanted to respect your lifestyle habits and ways of thinking. But if you keep showing such provocative and careless behavior, there was no choice but for him to become a single demon crone.

Feeling bitter toward an inescapable destiny, Gio smiled.

“If you skip meals, you will once again walk the path of mystery.”

“I would rather she walk that path entirely, but does it seem difficult?”

“For now, yes.”

Truly ambiguous talent.

“As you said, her vessel is wide, but her mind remains human.”

But by that measure, Gio was no different from her senior. This side, too, having a mysterious body and a human mind, was no easy thing. In that regard, he thought he could help her.

Gio smiled.

“She will likely not wake from sleep for some time. It is the process of tuning the wavelengths of body and mind and stabilizing her heart and body, so you need not worry too much.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“And...”

“...”

“Ahem.”

Cough.

“Kek, cough...!”

“H-hunter Seo Gio.”

“Cough!!”

Gio vomited blood.

At the sight of the guest coughing up blood, the bishop was startled and dismissed most of the priests in the reception room. The few remaining priests seemed to be those trusted by the bishop, but before they could approach to help, Gio stopped them.

“I-it’s fine.”

“But right now...”

“It seems I overexerted myself for a moment.”

“...Ah...”

“It’s not as great a matter as you think.”

Gio forced a smile as he broke out in cold sweat.

“If it is alright... could I find a place to rest for a moment?”

“Of course. You will need treatment, so immediately to the infirmary...”

“I’m sorry, but I would prefer to be alone.”

“...”

After falling silent for a moment as if thinking, the bishop nodded.

“...We will do so.”

“Thank you.”

And so, under the Moon Lady Religion priests’ utmost protection, Gio was able to find a place to rest. The bishop asked several times about treating him, but Gio continued to refuse, and in the end all the priests left the room.

“...”

Left alone, Gio thought.

‘The con succeeded.’

With this, he could block most of the room for Juhyeon to scold him later.

Indeed, one of the good things about becoming a portrait was that you “can do anything.”

(Continued in the next part)