Chapter 162

“That is correct. Just as you all have heard, the truth is that I was on a secret mission as the Apostle of the Outer God, infiltrating humanity to gather Star Scars.”

The moment my restraints were undone, the very first thing I did was drop to my knees on the floor.

My opening move was the ‘Banality of Evil’ strategy.

A classic evasion of responsibility along the lines of: ‘Those were the instructions from above, and I was merely following orders.’

However, a single spoonful of ‘crocodile tears’—which had never made an appearance during the actual war crime trials—was added to the mix, blending it all together into a savory, pathetic display.

“But the journey was truly exhausting. I had to go through a hellish ordeal in the Demon Realm, and the Outer God—who was no different from a villainous sweatshop owner—forced unpaid wages and overtime on me without even providing basic employment insurance.”

To make matters worse, the only thing available to eat was tentacles.

Hearing that I had lived like that for a full ten years, one would think that even Division Commander Ha Yeri—who possessed neither blood, tears, nor any active growth plates left in her bones—might cast a sympathetic gaze my way.

“…”

“…”

“Yawn.”

Yet, their reactions were completely lukewarm.

It seemed that what they wanted wasn’t some long-winded, sob-story pity party.

How strange. Whenever I spoke about this during my broadcasts, the viewers’ reactions were great, and Sparks practically exploded.

Was this type of speech pattern something that truly only worked if you were a breathtaking, blonde, beautiful girl hiding behind a virtual avatar?

But it didn’t matter.

This was merely the foundation.

The real crucial part started now.

Namely, the ‘Enemy Turned Ally’ strategy.

I quickly wiped away my tears.

Reflected in a mirror on one side of the basement—installed for what seemed to be some sort of playful purpose—was my own remarkably intelligent self.

“But no longer. The wicked Outer God has fled in sheer terror, and I am finally a free man. This is all thanks to you three.”

“And why exactly is that thanks to us?”

“Uh… well, because you all have given me so much, obviously.”

“What did we give you?”

“Um, well…”

Instinctively, I could feel that whatever answer I gave right here would determine whether my body became firewood or if I would remain as Sae Hayan.

What had the three of them given me?

When I thought about the words and actions they had shown me—things they had never shown any other man in the Special Unit—the answer was simple.

Hesitation would only shorten my lifespan.

I immediately wrote down the near-perfect answer that popped into my head and submitted the exam paper.

“Obsession?”

“Should we start carving him now?”

“Shall we?”

“Are you sure hitting him with this axe will actually divide his soul?”

“At least, I followed the refinement method written in the book.”

No.

That wasn’t it.

“Te-Tenacity! Possessiveness? No… ah! I’ve got it! The dark, twisted desire to corrupt an innocent soul!”

“Should we gag him?”

“It’ll be troublesome if he screams, so let’s do that.”

“Hayan, ‘Shut up’.”

Mmph, mmph!

Even if Cheon So-baek was called the Flawless Heaven and commanded the unified respect of countless mages, she wasn’t an Awakened well-versed in Black Magic.

To say nothing of magic that was intertwined with witch curses.

If I got struck by those axes, I would be split wide open right then and there, leaking brain fluid all over the place.

Just as I was about to meet my end—already imagining three display cases being ordered from the Witch Trade Association in the near future—something squirmed deep inside my sleeve.

Mala-nim?

No, this was…

‘Digestion?’

‘Kkiiieeek~.’

You didn’t abandon me after all.

Who knew when she had learned it, but she was transmitting her thoughts through a Channel just like Mala-nim used to.

She was telling me that she would get me out of this crisis right this instant.

I had my doubts about how Digestion—who had been relegated to a completely ordinary tentacle—could possibly save me, but she was overflowing with confidence.

Just once, if I used a Channel to convey the words she was about to tell me to the three women, I would be set free.

‘Is that true?’

‘Kkiiieeek~ kkiiiek.’

In exchange, what she demanded was, as expected, the Star Scar she used to possess before it was confiscated.

It seemed she still harbored a lingering desire for freedom.

Since I had recovered the one that was at the lighthouse when No Yeon-hwa used her Word-Spirit ability to annihilate the Archduke of Darkness, that was exactly what Digestion was demanding.

After deliberating for a moment, I cautiously tried to negotiate through the Channel.

‘How about half?’

‘Kyack, kyack.’

Faced with her mocking expression that practically said, ‘And what exactly can you do without me?’ I had no choice but to promise her the whole thing in the end.

“Where should I strike?”

“I’ll draw a line for you.”

“It’s okay, Hayan. It only hurts the first time.”

And so, the exact moment No Yeon-hwa, Cheon So-baek, and Yoo Se-byeol raised their axes to strike the marked spots—

“L-Love!”

Borrowing Digestion’s mouth, I blurted out the answer I couldn’t bring myself to utter moments ago.

“-Could that be what it is…? Ahaha…”

The Outer God of Judgment had vanished.

The Archduke of Darkness had been annihilated, but due to the unprecedented strike he unleashed right before falling to Earth, the Star Scar possessed by the Outer God shattered, raining down upon Seoul and Busan respectively.

Since the Astronomical Observation Wing of every Magic Tower was monitoring the phenomenon, the locations were quickly pinned down, but the recovery process didn’t proceed as rapidly as expected.

This was because the place where the Star Scar had fallen was none other than Sector 0 inside Ground Zero—the only remaining Seed of Calamity in Seoul.

With the demons’ influence growing weaker on the Korean Peninsula, the Special Unit agents’ operational range had expanded significantly, not just outside Seoul but deep into the interior as well.

Ever since the collapse of the Purple Magic Tower, surveillance outposts had been established all across the inner side of the walls.

Guided by Kim Seong-gon, the Commander of Division 5, and the Recon and Disruption Unit, we made our entry into Ground Zero.

Despite having been in the Special Unit for over a year, I had barely any points of contact with him, but the moment he saw me dispatched for this investigation, he spoke up.

“So it’s you?”

“Pardon?”

“That pitiful bastard.”

It was a blunt and entirely impolite remark blurted out from beneath his bandaged mouth, but I couldn’t bring myself to refute it.

Because just as Kim Seong-gon had put it, I was currently regarded as the most pitiful person in the entire Special Unit.

The inception of it all began exactly a few days ago in that basement, when I had blurted out a word I didn’t even fully understand just to preserve my own life.

Since it was done by borrowing Digestion’s mouth through a Channel, it wasn’t technically something I said directly, but there was no use crying over spilled milk.

The price for escaping that basement without being carved into three pieces was the start of an indescribably bizarre romantic relationship.

To be precise, it felt less like a romantic relationship and more like a master-servant dynamic… but anyway.

There was no way the other agents wouldn’t notice when I was being rationed out to them on a daily rotation.

“I swear, I will never understand kids these days.”

“Right? No matter how messed up the world has become, men and women should still maintain a proper distance. To think they’d develop such a scandalous relationship.”

“No, I’m talking about you. What kind of guts possessed you to pick those three of all people?”

“…”

Since the rumor that a rookie agent had established an intimate relationship with two Division Commanders had spread like wildfire, I had expected a much sharper atmosphere or mocking reactions regarding my coworkers’ true colors.

Surprisingly, however, public opinion was overwhelmingly sympathetic.

The incomprehensible part was that Yoo Se-byeol, Cheon So-baek, and No Yeon-hwa all enjoyed rather excellent reputations, not just within the Special Unit but externally as well.

“Being a good person is entirely separate from this.”

“Why is that?”

“Your grandfather-in-law is the Sword Immortal, and there are hundreds of men with swords strapped to their waists beneath him. If word gets out that you laid a finger on his only granddaughter, do you really think you won’t get knifed in the middle of the night?”

“…”

The same went for Cheon So-baek.

Her titles as the Successor of the Red Tower and the disciple of the Heavenly Immortal were more than enough to make her the most influential figure among mages.

A prestigious lineage of martial arts, the pinnacle of magic, and an operative with the ultimate supernatural ability who wielded the Word-Spirit.

“Anyway, if word of this leaks outside the Special Unit, you’re going to be torn limb from limb.”

“Are you saying the secret is being kept?”

“Well, Division 2 will control the information on their end, but it’s only a matter of time. Especially if you two keep hanging around each other openly like this…”

“My, what are you two gossiping about?”

Cheon So-baek lightly skipped toward me—me, who now had to worry about being ground down to the atomic level instead of just being carved into three pieces.

She wore her usual bright, beaming expression, but today, the smile hanging on her lips seemed even deeper than usual.

“It’s nothing.”

“For something that’s nothing, you two sure were talking for a while.”

“I’ll go re-examine the spot where the Star Scar crashed. I’ve swept away the anomalies nearby, so follow the agents.”

“Ah, he ran away.”

Seeing Kim Seong-gon vanish from the spot using his supernatural ability the exact moment our eyes met, it seemed the sympathy he had directed toward me wasn’t merely out of concern for what would happen when the relationship was exposed to the public.

“But why are you just standing there like that?”

“Pardon?”

“You should hold my hand, my hand. Here, hold it as much as you want.”

It was more like…

His reaction seemed to be asking, ‘Why on earth did you pick women who are reliable as comrades but downright dangerous to be close to?’

“It’s so nice to be able to hold the hand of such a kind, rich, pretty, and capable girlfriend as much as you want, right? If you had just confessed sooner, I would have accepted while pretending to give in, so I really don’t understand why you dragged your feet for so long.”

“…”

“Answer me.”

“Yes, you are absolutely right.”

Since I didn’t understand this situation either, the answer I gave just now was completely genuine.

At any rate, instead of dividing ‘Sae Hayan’ into three equal parts, the three of them had reached a mutual agreement to properly tenderize me, chew me up, and taste me among themselves.

It deviated quite drastically from my common sense, but they seemed to have hammered out some sort of compromise that kept them from clashing with one another.

For instance, they wouldn’t engage in any physical contact beyond ‘holding hands’ for this week.

Of course, my opinion—despite being at the very center of this treaty—was completely ignored.

“Anyway, let’s get moving. I want to recover it quickly and head back so we can act all lovey-dovey.”

“Um… So-baek.”

Fixing the ribbon attached to my robe, I stopped Cheon So-baek just as she was about to follow the Division 5 agents deep into Ground Zero.

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Th-That Star Scar… if the recovery is a success, could I possibly keep just a tiny bit of it?”

As of right now, my connection with Mala-nim was completely severed.

Quite literally, because Mala-nim had packed her bags and pulled a midnight flit.

Unlike before, I wasn’t lonely since someone was stuck to my side twenty-four hours a day, but separate from that, there was one major problem.

Without a Star Scar, I couldn’t manifest any tentacles within the single-digit range.

I had already run out of wine, and I had given every single bit of what I gathered in Busan to Digestion.

“A Star Scar?”

“Yes. It’s just going to end up locked away in a vault once the mission is over anyway.”

The strategic value the Bureau placed on a Star Scar was merely that of a playing card to be used in negotiations with the Apostle of the Outer God.

While they knew it contained immense power and was a material coveted by Archdukes and certain Transcendent-level Awakened, utilizing it to elevate one’s realm of cultivation was currently impossible.

“Hmm~ what should I do?”

Since there was no telling what might happen, I wanted to hold at least a piece of the Star Scar in my hands.

Even if the other two were a different story, Cheon So-baek had a flexible nature, so it felt like I could pull it off if I persuaded her well enough.

Just as expected, she spun her body around, a mischievous smile playing on her lips as if a brilliant idea had just struck her, and spoke.

“Then let’s do this.”

“Pardon?”

“Let’s see how well you treat me today without the other two finding out, and then I’ll make my choice. How about it?”

A strange tension radiated from the hand I was holding.

Cracks were already forming in the treaty the three of them had established.