Chapter 274 – 4. Is It a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? Is It a Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing? (2)
The long-clothed man just stared blankly at the bright flames burning on the altar.
Three hundred years had already passed since the torch was extinguished due to the machinations of wicked people who claimed to be political parties.
Originally, the sacred fire that should have never been extinguished on the sacred altar of the main school was now extinguished. It should have received such a holy flame and moved it to the altars of the villages where believers lived and worshiped the holy white fire, but now they just lit this ordinary fire on the altar instead and just offered their faith as a formality.
I know myself now.
Baekhwagyo is no longer the Baekhwagyo he knew.
He also knew that he himself was no longer clean enough to serve the holy white fire.
Seeing the wood fire burning bright red with a crackle, the long-clothed man turned around without hesitation.
When I returned to the old prisoner’s house, I saw the blue-haired girl who was to be used as a bowl for the torch, sleeping soundly with her tired face.
Seeing that little body struggling to even maintain its life, he took out a small pouch from his bosom and gently sprinkled the powder on his nostrils.
The girl who inhaled the powder while breathing, wondered if her nose was tickling, ‘Eh, eh? Eh?’ He showed a very cute appearance as if he was about to sneeze, but soon returned to his stable breathing.
More than anything. Unlike a moment ago, the condition seemed more stable.
“…”
Was it still a problem with acid poisoning?
Since he’s not an ordinary human being, he doesn’t know what he’s strong against and what he’s weak against.
And just before he leaves.
“Pchup -!!“
The super cute sneezing sound coming from behind him made him stand tall and stop his feet involuntarily.
Since he was a child to be used as a vessel and a sacrifice to light a new torch, his resolve to see it as an object went nowhere and he looked back without realizing it.
* * *
When he regained consciousness, his condition was such that he could not even say ‘good’ with good words. It was withering away little by little under the same circumstances, but not now.
I couldn’t feel it properly due to the thorns in his head, but it seemed that something blocking the flow of psychic energy in his body had disappeared.
YuRia let out a sigh of relief at the feeling that her body was finally returning to normal, and her expression slightly frowned at the somewhat pungent feeling in her nose.
Have you received powdered drug injection through the nasal mucosa? I don’t know what kind of powder he inhaled into himself, but judging from the circumstances, the identity of the medicine seemed to be an antidote for poison that blocked the flow of magical power.
“Ha…”
Her head still hurts, but it’s fortunate that the worst was averted anyway.
YuRia, who got up from her seat with a blush, went out of the house once.
The village was an ordinary rural village.
Filled with buildings made using mangrove and cypress trees, it was still showing that this place was a Yeon Kingdom.
‘Maybe I can go back now’
However, her steps did not drop.
She might have done it without hesitation if she had been here just ten years ago.
But before, he realized what his mental state was like. Now that she has had a change of heart, promising and swearing that she will not do anything that does not value herself again. YuRia couldn’t even move her feet.
She still shuddered at the fact that she could die not just physically, but in the true sense of the word.
More than anything. The aftereffects of that time had not yet fully recovered.
No, I couldn’t recover. Because even the flow of psychic energy can’t get better in a situation where it’s blocked.
In the end, Yuria, who had been watching her village blankly for a while, returned to her house again.
What did he want to show himself?
That we’re not the kind of blood-crazed evil you know?
I’m sorry, but I knew from the beginning.
In the end, to Yuria, his actions were like a plea for paranoia.
The target to talk about is wrong.
He himself is the Murim leadern of the East. He is not a man of officialdom, let alone a man of the East.
He lives in the western region, but he is not even a existence of the western region.
On the contrary, he was more distant from the human race here than other races such as elves and dwarves.
Even though the probability of pregnancy is low, compared to those who can mix with each other without much difficulty, it was almost impossible for her to mix with the humans here using ordinary methods.
After returning to the house and sitting down to wait, the owner of the house, his grandfather, returned home.
After working on the farm for a long time, he came back to have lunch, but he came back with a little dirty clothes. And admired.
“Ohhh… It is the grace of Ahura Mazda”
“Hmm?”
The words that came out of the old man’s mouth surprised Yuria a little.
It’s not an Eastern name, but it’s the original language?
I knew something about this world was pretty messed up, but this was a bit unexpected.
“Are you feeling better now?”
“…”
Yuria couldn’t help but be overjoyed by the old man’s words.
That his condition is getting back to normal is what those bandit-like slavers said in the end. Doesn’t it mean that even those who are disqualified as human beings will go to hell where they can’t hold back their sympathy?
With only her bitter taste lingering in her mouth, Yuria quietly opened her mouth.
“Where is this?”
“It’s just a village without a name. Those damn things wipe out villages all the time, so there’s no time to name them. That’s how we leave the village and rebuild it, scatter and gather, and still haven’t met since my son broke up when he was young.”
At the words of presbyopia, Yuria couldn’t bear to look at the old man directly.
His story of being separated from her son and not knowing whether he is alive or dead reminded Yuria of her own children, who now had no way of contacting her.
How much have you grown now?
It is so heartbreaking to lose each day like this, but how does it feel for the old man who doesn’t even know if his child is alive or dead…
In the meantime, Yuria flinched and regained her senses.
This is it what he was aiming for
She was trying to empathize with them and become assimilated without knowing it.
To not be able to ignore them.
Aww… !
With her fists clenched and her rage about to boil over, Yuria quietly asked her old man.
“You said that I would revive the torch… Then, does the old man know how to do that?”
What about the old man? As she did, a look of bewilderment began to appear on her face.
I can’t tell you, though. Like it’s hard to say.
But not because it harmed herself. It was that kind of look in such a complicated and delicate situation, wondering if it would be okay to say this to the other person.
“Um…”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t talk?”
“Oh, no. It’s not like that…”
The old man hesitated for a while before opening his mouth.
“I don’t know too well, but I’m going to be very strict if I just say what is known to the public. Hagu manyu”
“Are you being strict?”
“That… They say that they conceived the torch in their stomach, burned it from the inside, raised the torch, gave birth to the torch, and then even the body that remained was turned into firewood… The process was so painful that I couldn’t stand the process. It is said that there are many cases where they die on the way, die from madness, or commit suicide without being able to overcome the pain…”
The old man’s words made Yuria goosebumps.
Doesn’t the part where he twists and turns his words in the middle means he’s going to insult you no matter how you look at it?
Is what the old man said true? I don’t know if it’s true or not, but no matter how you look at it, he was so different from the Zoroastrians he knew.
Baehwagyo itself has a sense that many things have changed from the original Zoroastrianism, but at this point, I have no idea where and how much has changed.
‘If this is the case, is it correct to say that I don’t actually know anything about Baekhwagyo?’
In fact, I didn’t even know that much about Baehwagyo.
Zoroastrianism, which is the original source, also did not have that many materials.
Of the ancient religions, it was inevitable that not much material was left aside from the Abrahamic religions that survived to the end.
Even so, it was possible to make some inferences.
He would be able to make accurate judgments only after regaining his ability, but he was wearing a long robe decorated with black background.
The power he used, as the old man had called him, looked similar to the being called the Demon King.
The Demon King also had a similar concept to Angra Mainyu of Zoroastrianism.
The name of the god of Baekhwakyo that the old man worships is Ahura Mazda. Considering that he is the main god of Zoroastrianism…
Baekhwagyo, no.
Forcibly turned into Demonic Cults by their surroundings, the white fire they worship is the black fire that stands at a dead end in order to take revenge on the world.
It is clear that he touched Angra Mainyu’s power.
‘What kind of Abrahamic religion is the sound of worshiping Satan?’
But on the other hand, I also came to think about how much resentment I would have had.
How long did they suffer so much until they caused a contradiction that God did not abandon this world even though they resented this world to the point of wanting to seek power even by borrowing the power of the adversary of the god they serve?
And the next day.
The head of the Demonic Cult saw Yuria’s condition and, seeing that it had improved a lot, resumed her movement.
The vessel for the holy fire and the girl to be sacrificed improved drastically just by detoxifying one of the poisons of the mountain gong.
The first day was set as an example and forced to walk almost to the point of death, but even now, he must not have fully recovered, but he was silently following the path he was taking without saying anything.
As he walked along the road without a road, he felt a bit bitter as he almost arrived at the place he was aiming for.
It’s already been 10 years, but the feelings of that day have hardly faded.
Suddenly. The two arrived at a village.
In a village that has become a ruin without a single person.
Yuria frowned at the ruins she had arrived at led by the elder.
Like an ancient painter. The visionary art style created by Baek Jin-ski, full of death, was buried all over the town.
Should I say bones? Should I say Mira?
Strange corpses that looked as if they had decayed but withered away were left full of pain and despair, and there were burnt buildings and appliances here and there. There were also quite a number of corpses that seemed to have been burned along with them.
Seeing such a scene, Yuria opened her mouth.
“Do you want me to relate to this landscape?”
“…”
“Unfortunately I picked the wrong person. I know about you guys”
The captain was silent for a moment at YuRia’s words, but she soon spoke with a low rumbling sound as if she were purring.
“You know about us? What do you know about us?“
“Those who couldn’t hold on after being falsely accused, and eventually the false image that the hypocrite put on them really became their own image.”
At those words, the momentum that had risen slowly came to a halt.
“Idiots who really served Angra Mainyu just because others were saying they were demonic cults.”
“Shut up… “
“I can’t say I know it well. But it’s also true that I don’t know enough to say I don’t know.”
The elder just stood there in a daze, without saying anything, for more than ten or twenty minutes.
“Since the world persecuted you, if you want to say that I am also the perpetrator, then you misunderstood the scope.
“…”
It wasn’t a fact worth revealing to anyone, but it wasn’t a fact worth hiding either.
It wasn’t a fact that would be nice to brag about, but it was also true that there wasn’t a fact like this to shake the man in front of me right now.
If they still claim to be Baekhwagyo rather than Demonic Cult, then there should be at least a justification for their actions.
In the midst of a very long silence, the captain opened his mouth with a trembling voice.
“You… How do you know about us?
“Can you believe that I am from another world?”
“I have no choice but to believe it. It would be more strange to say that we are human beings with such a different body structure.”
It seemed that there were more eyes than I thought.
At first glance, there may not be much difference in appearance, but as he said, the human body of this era and his physical structure are enormous.
“It’s hard to explain, but this world is retelling my world’s historical past in a distorted way. Although the details are different, the big picture is almost the same.”
Yuria analyzed what she could say and what she could not say.
If I do something wrong, how will I get rid of the part that could be subject to sanctions? There was no need to give unnecessary information. The important thing is that he collapses the legitimacy of the actions he is doing to himself.
Information that was not for that purpose was excluded.
To be in a slightly better position.
The captain, who had been quietly listening to YuRia’s words, looked at YuRia again.
“I don’t know everything, but I don’t know enough to say I don’t know.”
“And I’m somewhat anticipating what you’re going to do through me.”
“…”
“I don’t come to complete death by normal means. But you have the means to completely kill me. That’s why I obey you now.”
YuRia opened his mouth, thinking that from now on it would be quite a tightrope walk.
“But… No matter how much I fear complete death right now, if the end is a future in which I will not be able to see my loved ones, I will resist you.”
“Do you have any means to resist the current you?”
“I can kill myself. If that happens, I will be resurrected and see my husband and children. The children will not be all grown up, so it will take time for me to see my grandchildren as I grow older, but at least I can see them again.”
Yuria hesitated and stepped back at the elder’s hand reaching out to her. However, the elder’s hand, which reached out faster than Yuria’s retreat, grabbed Yuria’s head tightly.
His body trembled in horror that he, who had the means to completely kill himself, was clutching his head, and tears began to form in his eyes, but Yuria desperately regained her composure.
“Do you intend to prove that those who framed and persecuted you were right? They are evil cultists who worship the black fire, not the holy fire?”
Awesome!!
The captain gnashed his teeth softly, and his hand that held his head began to tremble.
“You… What did you do when we got it wrong”
“Then you. What did you do when I was raped on the western continent beyond that continent, my stomach was split, and my internal organs were lifted, and I suffered indescribable humiliation and pain?”
“I didn’t know. But you did.”
“It’s sophistry. It was only possible to deduce that misfortune exists somewhere in this world.”
Before the elder could reply to that, Yuria inserted his wedge.
“Then did you really think that you were the only ones with such misfortune, misfortune, and persecution in this world? No, if you said so, it would be a lie. I was aware that there must be people as unfortunate as us somewhere in this world. You defined that Did you go out for the sake of it? Even if it wasn’t for me?”
The captain could not say anything to him.
The more she talked, the more reason she had to save her Demonic Cult disappeared, and her justification for doing something about her on her own diminished.
As she said, he gritted his teeth in a situation where he gave justification to the actions of the political faction that framed and persecuted them.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if your heart is not shaken, if you are a being with a heart, then it will be shaken just a little.”
“…”
“You can’t kill yourself easily. If you tried, you would have done it right after the industrial poison was released. There must be something wrong with the method, right?”
“…”
That’s why I don’t like things that make sense.
If you try to use the ability as if you were knocked down after unconsciously trying to dismantle the tuna before. If he tried to use it as powerfully as he could, death was virtually certain.
But. There was no guarantee that it would die instantly. No, rather, the probability of dying instantly is quite low, and he must have been unconscious for quite some time, frothing at the mouth and trembling.
If that’s the case, somehow save him from that situation. Or if, out of anger, he inflicts complete death upon me while I am still alive?
In the end, telling him that I would kill myself in this situation was nothing more than a bluff.
Above all else, self-determination is also a last resort. I want to get back to Loa somehow. If you can’t go back to Loa forever, it was the last resort you chose to go back to his arms even after decades to a hundred years.
Yet. I couldn’t give up my life easily now, holding in my hand the small hope that I might be able to return somehow even if I didn’t commit suicide.
In the end, Yuria had no choice but to fall asleep in a town where her ghost seemed to haunt her without earning any income.
Even so, Yuria did not give up.
After all, he doesn’t even deny that he serves the holy fire. Because he chose a kind of evasion and escape that does not even affirm going the path of Angra Mainyu.
There was still room to squeeze through this small gap.
