Chapter 563 – 563. Savior Of The Academy
563. Savior of the Academy
Holding a spear in one hand, Seong Hari stormed into the Korean branch of the Nine Wood Church.
Wearing bizarre masks with nine eyes drawn on them, the black-clad fanatics of the Nine Wood Church blocked her path.
Seong Hari scanned them with narrowed eyes. There was a mix of Awakened and non-Awakened individuals. Killing an Awakened person would be self-defense, but killing a non-Awakened person could lead to serious problems. It was also impossible to claim a non-Awakened person was Awakened. The Hero Association could distinguish between Awakened and non-Awakened through corpses.
She wanted to wipe them all out, but she held back. She couldn’t go to jail and leave Yujin behind.
“Where is Yujin?”
“Did you come to take away the Ninth Apostle? No way! The Ninth Apostle must stay with the Nine Wood Church! Believers! Kill that woman!”
Crack.
Lightning sparked from Seong Hari’s spear.
Immediately after, her feet pushed off the ground. The members of the Nine Wood Church couldn’t even follow Seong Hari’s movements with their eyes.
“Disappeared… Keuk?!”
Seong Hari struck them with the shaft of her spear and her fists, knocking them unconscious. She didn’t kill them. To save Seong Yujin, she needed information, and to verify the amount and reliability of that information, she needed to keep as many of them alive as possible.
“Can’t see… Ugh!”
“A m-monster!”
Neither Seong Han-gu nor the other spiritists of the Jinryeong family needed to step in. They couldn’t even follow Seong Hari’s movements, let alone stop her.
Seong Han-gu, who had been watching Seong Hari’s movements with his arms crossed, secretly broke out in a cold sweat.
‘She must be weakened by the Spirit King’s curse… Still, she’s ridiculously strong.’
Seong Han-gu ordered the spiritists to handle the situation.
“You’ll have to tell me everything you know.”
While Seong Han-gu interrogated the subdued members of the Nine Wood Church, Seong Hari couldn’t stay still and wandered around the Nine Wood Church. She hadn’t given up hope that Seong Yujin might be hiding in a corner. Several spiritists followed behind her.
Seong Hari quickly approached a wooden cage in a corner of a room. A familiar spirit was trapped inside.
“Moka!”
Crack.
Seong Hari smashed the wooden cage with one hand and grabbed Moka’s body.
Moka trembled. She knew Seong Hari wouldn’t kill her, but her spirit instincts made her fear Seong Hari.
“Moka! You’re contracted with Yujin, so you know where Yujin is, right? Where is Yujin?!”
“Kkuu… Kkuu…”
Moka shook her head. It meant she didn’t know where he was either. If even the contracted spirit didn’t know where he was, Seong Yujin was probably trapped in a special place.
Seong Hari wasn’t disappointed. It was what she had expected. More importantly.
“Moka. The contract isn’t broken, right? Yujin is… Yujin is safe, right?”
“Kkuu.”
Moka nodded.
Seong Hari let out a sigh of relief. The situation Seong Hari had been most worried about was Seong Yujin being killed after being kidnapped. Fortunately, the worst-case scenario was avoided.
‘It’s clear that Yujin isn’t here. But let’s look around a bit more. There might be a clue.’
Seong Hari wandered around. Whenever she encountered a member of the Nine Wood Church, she immediately subdued them and asked.
“Where is Yujin?”
“I cannot say.”
Seong Hari didn’t engage in deep conversations with the members of the Nine Wood Church. She knew that she couldn’t reason with them. They were fanatics who would give their lives for their god. They wouldn’t talk even if tortured. She had to use another method to find Yujin.
And finally, Seong Hari arrived at the altar.
The priest, who had been kneeling and praying in front of the altar, rose to his feet.
“Uninvited guests. This is a place to serve the god with nine eyes. Please be quiet, at least here.”
“……Are you the leader here? I won’t waste words. Where is Yujin?”
“The master of this place is the god with nine eyes. He is the true master of the Nine Wood Church, and we are merely servants.”
The priest’s mask fell to the floor with a thud. His exposed face was ordinary. Except for the third eye on his forehead.
Seong Hari gripped her spear and stepped forward, telling the spiritists behind her.
“You guys step back.”
“We’ll help too, Seong Hari-nim.”
“I’m enough on my own. You’ll only get in the way.”
Lightning crackled from her body as she spoke coldly. The spiritists looked at Seong Hari with pity.
“I know you are the mother of the Ninth Apostle.”
“Then tell me where Yujin is. A child should be with their parents.”
“Thank you for bringing the Ninth Apostle into this world. But it is the will of the god with nine eyes that guides the Ninth Apostle. Your existence is nothing but an obstacle to him. Even if it means earning the Ninth Apostle’s hatred, I will eliminate you here.”
“You sure take a long time to say you’re going to kill me.”
Seong Hari threw her spear at the priest. Thwack! The spear aimed for the priest’s chest with a thunderous sound.
The priest’s third eye trembled. The direction of the spear changed, and its tip was now aimed at Seong Hari.
Seong Hari easily caught the flying spear with her right hand.
“That eye. I don’t like it.”
“Hehe. You still don’t understand. This eye is an eye given to me by the god with nine eyes. Even if it doesn’t match the eyes of the Apostles, it is one of the greatest treasures in this world.”
Thwack!
A spear imbued with lightning flew from Seong Hari’s right. The same spear that Seong Hari was holding.
“……”
Seong Hari didn’t panic at all and swung her spear to deflect the incoming spear. The spear flew through the air and disappeared.
Thwack.
This time, it came from behind and in front. Two spears flew at her. Seong Hari spun and deflected the spears.
“I tried to reproduce your spear, but it’s meaningless and tiring.”
Blood trickled from the priest’s third eye.
“To think that you’re already at your limit after only using it four times… Just how strong are you?”
“It’s not that I’m strong, it’s that you’re weak.”
“This is the first time I’ve heard such words since becoming a priest. But I can’t deny it. I can’t stop you as I am now. So… I’ll have to ask him for help.”
He was trying to pull a trick. Seong Hari, sensing it, moved. If throwing spears didn’t work, she could move directly. She closed the distance in a second and thrust her spear at the priest. But an unknown force repelled her along with the spear.
“Oh god with nine eyes. I offer you everything. Please grant me strength.”
The priest’s body began to pulsate and grow. The clothes he was wearing tore apart, and his skin turned blue. Dozens of eyes appeared all over his body.
He had clearly become a monster, not a human.
“This is crazy! A human turning into a monster…!”
“Seong Hari-nim! We’ve recorded it! Do as you please!”
The spiritists shouted from behind her. Even if they hadn’t said it, Seong Hari was going to do as she pleased.
Crack.
Seong Hari dashed forward and jumped into the sky. A translucent blue barrier appeared in the air. She kicked off the barrier without hesitation and moved freely in the air.
The giant priest extended tentacles from his body and aimed at Seong Hari, but they couldn’t reach her.
Seong Hari swung her spear and cut into the priest’s body. But the priest’s body, which had increased in durability, wasn’t cut in one go.
‘If I can’t cut it in one go, I’ll cut it multiple times.’
The priest’s eyes followed Seong Hari’s movements. But unlike his eyes, his body was too slow. Even though he could see Seong Hari’s movements, he couldn’t catch or block her. Eventually, the priest fell to the ground. The dead priest’s body didn’t return to its original human form.
“Seong Hari-nim. We’ll take care of this corpse. The Hero Association will definitely want it. It will be helpful to the family.”
“Okay.”
The spiritists took the corpse and left. Seong Hari didn’t care about the priest’s corpse.
She looked around. There might be traces of Seong Yujin here.
Apart from strange patterns on the walls and floor, there were no special traces. She leaned against the wall and let out a small sigh. She hadn’t slept properly for days and had been worried about Seong Yujin, so she felt more mentally exhausted than she had imagined and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Kkuuuk. Kkuk!”
Seong Hari, who had opened her eyes at the sound of Moka next to her, glared at the altar that seemed to have been made for a ritual.
A magic circle was drawn on the altar.
A teleportation magic circle. Someone was coming here through magic.
‘Is it an enemy?’
Soon, a group appeared on the altar. Two masked figures and one child.
Her eyes, which had been showing hostility while holding her spear, widened. She ran towards the altar faster than Moka.
“Yujin-ah!”
Her running body stopped. She had seen Seong Yujin’s golden eyes. They were not the eyes of her son that Seong Hari knew. The eyes that looked at her were dry. There was no sign of joy.
“……Yujin-ah?”
Seong Yujin was wearing a black priest’s robe. A round red jewel was embedded in his chest.
“That woman dares to call my name so carelessly.”
His voice was as dry as his eyes.
“Get rid of her.”
“Yes, Ninth Apostle.”
The masked figures on either side of Seong Yujin rushed towards Seong Hari.
•••
I asked Cassandra, the leader of the Nine Wood Church, to appear with two moderately strong members.
Cassandra agreed to cooperate with the scenario I had planned.
‘If I go back and say that nothing happened, who would easily believe me? The members of the Nine Wood Church in the Korean branch might say strange things and make things difficult for me.’
And I planned to use this opportunity to make Seong Hari cherish me more.
‘They say that people realize the value of something only after they lose it. It’s a common situation in comics too. Well, Seong Hari cherishes me even normally.’
Actually, the plan wasn’t anything special. I was going to pretend to be brainwashed by the Nine Wood Church. The bead hanging on my chest was the source of the brainwashing, and the brainwashing would be undone if it was destroyed. The important thing in this situation was my acting. And I had acting as a trait. I was confident in my acting.
I watched Seong Hari fighting the two masked figures. Seong Hari’s skills were incredible. Her speed was hard for my eyes to follow.
‘Not only that. Her spear handling is amazing. It’s like the spear is a part of her body.’
Seong Hari had many opportunities to kill the masked figures. But she didn’t kill them. The reason was easy to guess. She didn’t want to show me that she was committing murder.
Seong Hari was trying to subdue the masked figures as much as possible.
“You pathetic things. How long are you going to keep disappointing me? Finish her off quickly.”
One was already knocked out and unconscious, and the other was struggling.
“S-sorry, Apostle. Please wait a moment. I’ll finish her off soon… Ack?!”
The masked figure, grabbed by the neck by Seong Hari, was slammed into the floor. The knife the masked figure was holding spun around and fell towards me.
“Yujin-ah?! Dodge!!”
Seong Hari came towards me, trying to grab the knife. I grabbed the knife faster than her and swung it at Seong Hari.
Seong Hari raised her spear and blocked my knife. It was a pretty serious attack, but she blocked it so easily that it was a bit shocking.
“Yujin-ah! It’s me! It’s your mom! Can you recognize me?! Huh?!”
“You are my mother?”
“Yes. Yujin-ah! It seems like those guys did something to you, but it’s okay. You can come back. Mom will help you.”
“……I have no parents. The god with nine eyes is the one who created me in this world.”
I strengthened my body with mana and swung the knife. But this time too, it was still easily blocked by the spear.
“It’s brainwashing. Those Nine Wood Church guys brainwashed you!”
“I have never been brainwashed.”
