## Chapter 211 – 211. Underground City (6)
# 211. Underground City (6)
Seeing the smile spreading across his face, I reflexively frowned.
I’d never seen such an ugly lion before.
“If you become my apostle, I will share my power with you.”
“Are you telling me to become a demon worshiper?”
I pretended to focus on his words while concentrating on recovering.
I didn’t know what an apostle was, but receiving the power of a demon was no different from being a demon worshiper.
“Heh heh, I thought you were somewhat smart, but it seems your head is emptier than I thought.”
Snap-
I heard something snap in my head.
‘That lion head…’
If I wasn’t suffering from internal injuries, I would have slit his throat right away, but until my body recovered, I had no choice but to buy time.
“A demon worshiper is a term that encompasses all intelligent beings who worship demons. Like a believer. But apostles are those who have directly contracted with us. You can think of it as the same concept as saints in the church.”
“This lion head, it’s the same thing in the end.”
Whether they are saints or not, in the broad sense, they are believers who believe in gods.
“Haa, do you still not understand?”
He sighed and shook his head.
I didn’t like the way he looked at me, as if I was pathetic.
“Do you put an ant crawling on the ground and a pet you brought yourself on the same level?”
“…What?”
“I won’t beat around the bush. Become my apostle. I will give you the power to wield storms and lightning like limbs.”
He reached out to me.
Unlike the lion’s head, it was the hand of the already dead demon worshiper.
“The owner of this body was trash with no talent. His body and mind were as ugly as could be. Such a person almost annihilated your party. You surely know what that means, don’t you?”
“…”
As he said, if I hadn’t been there, the party would have been annihilated.
The black magician was, at best, a 3-circle magician.
It didn’t make sense that such a guy was wielding powerful magic with curses and commanding hundreds of undead.
“Take my hand! Contract with me and become an apostle! With your talent, you will one day be able to reach the qualifications for transcendence!”
His clownish, exaggerated gestures were annoying, but objectively, his offer was attractive.
The black magician I had just defeated hadn’t even made an apostle contract, yet he had almost annihilated a B-class party single-handedly.
If I contracted with him, I would be able to gain even greater power at once.
“H-Hyunwoo, no! You mustn’t believe in demons…!”
“Outsider, get out of here!”
The lion head’s expression twisted, and a fierce killing intent enveloped the surroundings.
Kim Yujun, who had been directly exposed to the killing intent, gasped. Her complexion turned pale enough to make it seem like she would faint at any moment.
“…If I really contract with you, I can become stronger?”
“Hyunwoo!”
A grotesque smile spread across his face.
“Of course!”
“How strong can I become?”
“That depends on your mindset. Offer me sacrifices and bathe in the blood of your own kind. You will become as strong as the blood you shed.”
I heard voices calling out to me desperately from behind, but I ignored them and approached him.
“Come! Take my hand! You will have all you desire: money, fame, and women!”
He was two heads shorter than me, staring at me with a crazed smile.
He had the appearance of a corpse on the verge of rotting, and he was reaching out to me.
But I didn’t take his hand.
“What are you hesitating for?”
“The contract.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not going to make a contract without a contract, are you? You’re a demon. What am I supposed to believe in you?”
“Hmph… fine.”
Click.
As he snapped his fingers, a rolled-up parchment appeared in the air.
“Being unnecessarily suspicious is also part of being human.”
I unfolded the contract and checked the contents.
On the surface, there didn’t seem to be any problems.
“The first party shall offer 1,000 human souls to the second party every six months? Isn’t that too many?”
“Haha, other guys demand 5,000 when making an apostle contract. You should consider it a sign of goodwill.”
“I feel like I’d die trying to collect 100, let alone 1,000, from the church or heroes.”
He shrugged as if it was none of his business.
Well, he wouldn’t be a demon if he took such circumstances into consideration.
“Wait, there’s a strange clause here.”
“Hmm? Where?”
“Number 7. Are you playing tricks in the contract?”
“Playing tricks? What do you take me for…”
Thud-
Along with the sound of something piercing flesh, his head tilted downwards.
In the momentary silence, he looked at me.
His eyes, which had always made me feel disgusted just by looking at them, finally twisted.
“You, what is-“
Slash.
Before he could finish speaking, his head flew off.
Not a single drop of blood flowed from the lion’s head as it rolled across the floor.
It looked just like a mascot head.
“…I don’t understand. Why are you refusing the contract? It was a chance to become stronger quickly and easily.”
After rolling for a while and hitting the wall, he spoke as if it were obvious.
It was a grotesque sight.
“I don’t usually hold hands with guys.”
Unless the other party was a succubus.
No matter how urgent the situation, I had no intention of holding hands with a smelly beast.
“Heh heh… If I had known, I would have contracted with a woman.”
“Crazy bastard.”
Thwack.
I immediately stomped on his head.
There was no skull or brain there.
It just felt like mud. Even though half of his head was caved in, he was still smiling.
“I look forward to the day we meet again.”
I quietly raised my middle finger.
With his bitter laughter, the remains soon turned to dust and disappeared.
But I wasn’t careless.
He was a demon who could teleport. He might pretend to disappear and then suddenly pop out from anywhere to launch a surprise attack.
After that, I heightened my senses and guarded my surroundings, but his presence couldn’t be felt anywhere.
The ominous magic power that had covered the plaza was also gradually disappearing.
“Hoo.”
Just when I thought it was really over.
Woo-oong-
I felt a small vibration from somewhere.
There was no way a cell phone could ring inside the gate.
‘Could it be…’
I opened my inventory.
I was able to find the culprit causing the vibration inside.
No, not the culprit, but the cause?
In my hand was a jet-black pendant.
[Cursed Obsidian Pendant
Grade: Rare
Consumes magic power to imbue magic and weapons with the element of darkness.
Allows the use of ‘Black Curse’.
Allows the use of ‘Weak Domination’.]
It was the lowest-grade artifact I had obtained by defeating a skeleton mage in the underground dungeon beneath the World Tree.
I had put it away because I hadn’t had a chance to use it.
Woo-oong!
The vibration became even stronger when I took it out of the inventory.
Wondering what it was, I poured magic power into it.
Ding-
[The ‘Cursed Obsidian Pendant’ resonates with demonic energy.]
[Would you like to absorb the residual demonic energy of Purpur, Count of Gehenna, 34th in the hierarchy?]
[Y/N]
A new screen appeared before my eyes.
Residual demonic energy?
From the moment I cut off the lion head’s head, I had been maintaining my senses at their peak, but I had never felt any demonic energy.
‘What should I do…’
[Y]
After hesitating for a while, I finally pressed the accept button.
I was certain that the app wouldn’t recommend anything that would harm me.
There had been times when the process was rough, but the results had always been helpful to me.
[The ‘Cursed Obsidian Pendant’ absorbs demonic energy.]
[Absorbing…30%]
[47%]
[62%]
[81%]
[97%…]
[Absorption complete.]
[Special condition achieved.]
[The ‘Cursed Obsidian Pendant’ has transformed into the ‘Demon’s Pendant’.]
[Demon’s Pendant
Grade: Epic
A pendant imbued with the power of a demon.
??? (Unreleased)
??? (Unreleased)]
The pendant’s appearance had changed.
I was distracted by the overall sharp design and the incomprehensible explanation when.
Thump!
I heard something falling nearby.
Due to the unusual vibration, I unconsciously raised my head.
Thump!!
The ceiling was shaking as if it would collapse at any moment.
Perhaps due to the aftermath of the vibration, stalactites hanging from the ceiling began to fall one by one.
The huge stalactites were smashing through the city like bombs.
The scale was too unusual to be the aftermath of the magic I had used.
Above all, the flow of magic power throughout the gate was unusually unstable.
It was as if the gate was about to close.
‘Did that demon do something?’
I wasn’t sure, but it was the most likely possibility right now.
Pushing aside the creeping anxiety, I returned to my party members.
“Hyunwoo, are you okay?!”
“T-Thank goodness…! I never imagined that a demon would appear on top of the demon worshipers…”
They both seemed to be in better condition than before, but they didn’t seem to imagine that the gate would close.
Well, only veteran magicians would be able to feel the flow of magic power inside the gate right now.
“We have to get out of the gate right away. The gate will close soon.”
“What?! The gate is closing? What are you talking about?”
“There’s no time to explain everything.”
Thump, Thump!
The ceiling was steadily collapsing even now.
Judging from the flow of magic power inside the gate, there was about 20 minutes left.
“Noel, take the people and get out of here right away. You can treat the men like luggage, so carry them.”
“What about you, Oppa?”
“I have a place to stop by for a while.”
There was something I had to take care of before leaving the gate.
“Then see you later.”
***
After parting ways with Noel, I headed straight for the castle.
It was quite a distance, but thanks to using Boundless Transcendence to the limit, it didn’t take long.
Bang!
Kicking down the front door, I used Detection to find the stairs leading down to the basement.
‘Is it there?’
I broke through the iron doors blocking my path one after another and headed down to the basement.
The annoying spiral staircase briefly reminded me of the old days.
Back then, I couldn’t even detect magic properly, so I was always nervous because I didn’t know when a monster would pop out.
Anyway, if this was a normal gate, I would have thought it was the way to the treasure vault.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“It stinks.”
When I reached the lowest floor, the stench of rot vibrated.
Corpses scattered everywhere and unidentified reagents.
It was the black magician’s workshop.
If I had enough time, I would have taken research materials and reagents, but I didn’t have the luxury right now.
“Found it.”
Through magic detection, I found Song Minha unconscious inside the prison.
Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be seriously injured. Maybe she was kidnapped to be used as a sacrifice.
I broke the lock and went inside to pick her up.
Now all that was left was to escape outside.
“Ugh…”
As I was going up the stairs, Song Minha woke up with a faint groan.
“Wh-Where am I…? I was definitely scouting… Huh? Hyunwoo…?”
“Go back to sleep. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
I covered her eyes with my hand.
I don’t want to have to persuade more people.
“…Okay.”
