Chapter 245 – Ep.17 – Loss (2)
————————————-
The man who managed to return home clutching the injured area also did not eat anything. His mind is filled with concern for his daughter’s safety.
As we remember the cases of several people who were arrested by the Inquisitors for the crime of blasphemy, the concerns are further amplified.
Once you are dragged away, you will never be able to come out in a healthy state.
Rebellion against God and the Holy Kingdom is the same as giving up oneself as a human being.
Especially within the Holy Kingdom, if you do not consistently show your faith, you will be stigmatized as an impure heretic.
If you’re lucky, you’ll be expelled. If you mess up, you will see hell until the moment you die.
And,
All of those things should never be experienced by a young daughter.
The man sits in front of an empty table and thinks for a while. He must somehow find a way to save his daughter, or to get her back and run away with him abroad.
Bang, bang, bang-!
But before the worries are over,
A murmur is heard outside and someone is knocking harshly on the door.
—————————————
“Oh, my. Officers…”
“Oh, mother! Hello. It’s no different. You know what I told you over the phone earlier, right? I think it would be better to meet you in person.”
The woman bows down to the point of excessive obedience and escorts two police officers into her house. One guy who looks young but cool, and another guy in his late 30s who looks even cooler than his age.
Although neither of them are very high-ranking people, the woman treats them as if they were police chiefs and quickly searches her refrigerator and takes out some of her fruit.
Apples, pears… Only the ones that look the best.
After picking them out and peeling them, they put them neatly on a plate and presented them to the police along with two bottles of Bacchus.
“Soo, thank you for your hard work, right? Oh, my…”
“Oh my gosh, please give me everything. Thank you.”
The woman’s nervousness is fully revealed. Her public power is close to her last hope.
No matter how much she goes around, she can’t find her son, but they will definitely find him and help him come home.
“Actually, I have more questions to ask my mother.”
However, even though more than a year and a half have passed since the disappearance was reported, coming here again and asking something from the family of the missing person,
In other words, it means that the police did not have any evidence or direction.
In fact, since the department originally in charge of the investigation was hastily transferred to the criminal department, the disappearance investigation system within the Republic of Korea can be seen as having completely lost its functionality.
They just pass the blame on to each other,
Insufficient manpower is not replenished,
A place where cases are not solved.
“Honestly, we don’t have a single clue that’s so embarrassing. I know it’s painful, but I’d like to ask you a few questions. Did your son say anything out of the ordinary or anything like that at that time?”
“No…?”
Nevertheless, the woman sat down as politely as possible and answered enthusiastically.
The only people she can trust and rely on are these busy investigators.
“Does it make sense that there were no signs of disappearance?”
“I also left my smartphone behind, but there was nothing special there either.”
“It says that you had a good relationship, but did you ever have a big fight before you went missing? No matter how good your relationship was, you suddenly got into a big fight and got angry and left the house… There are quite a few cases like that, right?”
However,
Sometimes, a woman’s anger boils up inside her.
“… There wasn’t any.”
“Seup- It’s really strange.”
Two police officers mutter something into each other’s ears.
“Is this really the end? Is there anything else? There is no CCTV nearby, and there are no witnesses who saw it?”
“Yes, I received all the materials from the Women’s Office, but it was a case where they almost gave up because they said they had no information.”
All three people sitting around the table are vaguely aware.
This disappearance case,
Nothing can be solved with the power of three.
————————————————– —
“If you have a mouth, can you speak?”
The man keeps his mouth shut and glares at the women in front of him. From his words, I already vaguely know that there is nothing I can do about that angry crowd, so for now I have to think about how I will go see her daughter after all this is over.
“It’s harsh. As expected, heresy is different.”
Everyone is gathered together with their faces covered with white stone masks, but the man seems to vaguely know who they are.
I hear familiar voices.
“Shall we go tie him up in the square?”
“Well, I’ve had enough at this point, so let’s go quickly.”
The man is dragged through the streets, dragged and bound by his bare feet. He leaves sparse traces of blood on the stone floor. His knees and feet were already scuffed, so there was no more skin left to be damaged.
“Merciful Fenola! I am angry as a believer before you show your kind mercy even to this wicked sinner!”
The torches begin to turn on one by one. Those who come out to the main street and throw stones at this wicked man dress up and prepare with reverence.
The woman, who walks five steps ahead of the men and leads her procession, screams with a lot of emotion in her voice.
“Listen, people of the Holy Kingdom! This is the end of the heresy who rejects God’s grace and seeks to walk the path of evil!”
Everyone knows it.
Men are not guilty.
It’s just that his daughter will be punished for the crime of blasphemy.
Nevertheless, the reason stones are thrown at the man is also to prove that everyone is not a heretic.
He who does not throw stones is like rejecting the divine will,
Even those who sympathize with the man and pity him throw stones.
Instead, you can throw it near the man’s feet, so it doesn’t hit his body, or you can throw a small, light stone.
However, most people throw stones so hard that they break their bones if hit incorrectly.
This is a man who walked around with his head held high just because he was the father of someone who would become a saint.
There are many people who do not like that appearance.
He didn’t do anything directly wrong to them. But isn’t he arrogant?
There is no entertainment more thrilling than bringing down someone who has climbed high.
On the way to the square, a feast of catharsis continues.
A man gets hit with just enough stones to not die. Symptoms such as bruises, scars, and fractures are added to his body one by one, but humans do not die to that extent.
Never,
Everyone doesn’t throw stones at their heads.
If someone throws a rock at his head, it would be because they really love this man.
Sometimes there is no salvation as certain as death.
—————————————
“Honey?”
The woman’s husband opens the door and enters the dark room.
A woman lying on her side with her back to the door, she doesn’t even react and just sobs, she
Her husband takes a deep breath and sits down by her bedside to talk to her.
“Honey, let’s have a drink. I brought only the things you like.”
The black plastic bag he brought with him contained two bottles of soju, four cans of Cass, and two bags of shrimp crackers.
When the couple’s youth was shining brightly, they did not have much money, so they would buy and drink alcohol in this way.
We didn’t have a house at the time, so we sat on the stairs we could see and got drunk together.
Now, I have lost a lot of energy and have become less able to drink alcohol.
“It’s okay. I’ll drink it alone. Furthermore, I’ve said that before. Furthermore, I don’t know why I can’t even drink alcohol, so I put it in a bag, but when I buy it, I drink it and drink it alone.”
The man drinks soju without a glass. The foul smell of alcohol fills his throat. It’s not delicious, but it feels like it’s filling my empty stomach.
“… So, what did the police say about starting a new investigation? It’s stuffy, isn’t it?”
No answer comes back. The man nods his head to himself and takes turns taking a bite of the snack and a sip of the drink.
“That’s it. They’re saying something obvious. They say it’s coming back. If you wait, it will come. If you’re going to believe that it’s alive, believe it is like I do…”
“I’m not believing it! I’m alive!”
The woman screams, yanks off her blanket, and stands up with a sigh. Tears as hot as blood flow from her eyes, which are already red and swollen.
“He’s alive! Why is he dead? He never dies! Whenever I went to see him for fortune-telling, he said that even if I brought him to the top of the mountain, he would live alone! When I was over 60, he got huge, and from then on, I couldn’t get a drop of water in my hand. They said he was still alive even though he wasn’t buried. Why did he die?”
“Okay, okay… I made a mistake. Okay, let’s have a drink.”
“Fuck your heart out, Nina.”
The room is still dark,
The drinking doesn’t stop,
The woman cries out loud.
Not the colorful crosses on the drawer’s side, the Buddha statue, or the prayer beads, nothing can stop the woman from crying.
Still, maybe she will feel better because she can cry freely today.
Next to her husband, she stayed up all night crying,
I was exhausted and fell asleep only after the sun had fully risen.
