Chapter 168

While crying in Ha Yeri’s embrace, I managed to deduce a shocking conclusion using my brilliant intellect.

It was regarding the reason why “Sae Hayan, the Mage of Light” currently only accounted for a mere 0.7% of the search term share on the Special Unit Bamboo Forest (including 422 ego-searches from my sub-accounts).

Because the “Saint of Salvation,” who occupied a similar position, was actively thriving to great acclaim, I was clearly being pushed down the search term rankings.

There could not be two suns in the sky.

This time, I absolutely had to strip away Moon Ah-rin’s abominable mask.

That was the purpose of dragging her into the Council.

Some might call this emotion boiling deep within my chest inferiority, but most Seoul citizens would agree that it was actually closer to a sense of justice.

In a world where only skill should be spotlighted, someone occupying an executive position in the Special Unit through empty, illusory fame should not exist.

Let’s see if she can survive in the pit of hell teeming with demons despite being a mere Middle Level rank.

Thus, standing beside Ha Yeri as she earnestly persuaded her, I joined in to provide covering fire.

“Hayan has also made a massive decision. He has been putting on the Patel mask and working hard for the Special Unit until now.”

“Exactly. Even a regular agent like me is running around to dig up enemy information at the risk of my life, so surely Miss Moon Ah-rin, the Saint of Salvation, isn’t planning to stay cooped up in safe Seoul, right?”

“O-Of course, I want to step forward too if I can be of help. But for me…”

Moon Ah-rin waved her hands frantically, sending a pleading gaze my way.

Completely ignoring her look that practically said ‘You know everything, don’t you?’, I handed her a mask as well.

“Come on, take this. Today, Miss Ah-rin is a black mage apprentice entering the Council for the first time. Her name… right. Let’s go with Margarine.”

“It sounds exotic and nice.”

“Mr. Hayan…”

Did she perhaps need some motivation?

If so, I had a bait ready to cast.

I approached Moon Ah-rin, who was hesitating over whether to accept the mask, and spoke in a low voice.

“Has there been any anomaly in Tartaruga’s health recently?”

“Huh? How on earth do you know that, Mr. Hayan…?”

As expected, she poured out her worries regarding the health of the Demon Realm alligator snapping turtle, which had successfully gained about a billion tons of weight over the past year.

“Lately, the poor thing has no energy at all. It won’t even eat well, and there are signs of necrosis, particularly around the tail area, so I need to get medicine. I have absolutely no idea how to treat it…”

“Just as I thought.”

That wound was probably a chunk of flesh torn away by my childhood friend.

Whispering to her as if playing a sweet lullaby, since she had snapped up the bait immediately, I said,

“Tartaruga is originally a creature of the Demon Realm. The only ones who know its ecology or treatment in detail are the demons.”

“Is that true?”

“Of course. If you go to the Council, you’ll be able to find a way. Though, of course, the process of finding a doctor and gathering the cure will be a painful and long journey, worse than walking on a bed of thorns.”

“I can endure it, if that’s the only way…”

After hesitating, Moon Ah-rin finally picked up the mask.

In truth, if I requested Tartaruga’s treatment from Rubietta, she would roughly drop the grimoires and medicinal ingredients in front of the Special Unit’s main gate via witch delivery by tomorrow morning, but I didn’t bother mentioning that.

Having successfully recruited the final member, we waited for the hour to enter the Council.

Ha Yeri’s office was dark and quiet, unlike usual.

She pulled something out from inside a drawer.

Checking the phases of the moon, I saw it too.

It was the Star Scar that we had successfully retrieved during the last mission, though half of it had been snatched away by my childhood friend, leading to an agreement with Cheon So-baek to return it to the Special Unit for the time being.

I knew the true identity of that demonic sword, but it was Moon Ah-rin’s first time seeing it.

“It would be best to pack this.”

“Commander Ha Yeri, what is that?”

“It is a demonic sword embedded with the Outer God of Judgment. It elevates an ordinary person to the level of a Middle Level Awakened, but at the same time, it is said to bring out the owner’s evil side and drive them mad.”

“To think such a terrifying relic existed…”

“We don’t know what kind of dangers might be lurking. It would be ideal if there’s no situation to use it, but we must be prepared for any contingency.”

Saying so, Ha Yeri attached the blade to a hilt she had prepared in advance.

Judging by the insignia carved on the hilt, it seemed she had received it from The Old Gods’ Wound.

As the pure white blade shone under the moonlight, I instinctively felt that the time had finally come.

A ferocious demonic sword that would turn its surroundings into a sea of blood if handled incorrectly.

The only one capable of wielding it would be someone with a soul so pure that even the angels in heaven would need to wear sunglasses just to look at them because of the blinding radiance.

“I am ready.”

“Good. Then, take it.”

“Haha, thank you… Huh?”

“What? M-Me?”

The one Ha Yeri handed the sword to was Moon Ah-rin.

“There’s no need to decline, Miss Moon Ah-rin. The only person in the Special Unit who can handle this sword is you.”

“…”

“What is it, Hayan? Didn’t you say you were all ready to enter the Council?”

“Tch.”

By the time this night ended, that thing would find its true master and end up back in my hands anyway.

Clicking my tongue softly, I opened the door to enter the Council.

—Selling display cabinets to showcase enemy heads! Purchase today and we’ll send it within a day via witch delivery!

—Requesting the assassination of a high-ranking figure in the Yellow Tower’s European branch. The client is a deceased soul named Kate, who wishes to reunite with her ex-husband in the afterlife!

—Giving away 666 ‘Mage of Light’ figures from the New Monster Wars clearance stock for free! Take them now and advance all the way to the Witch Trade Association’s VVIP rank! Please take them! Please!

—Ah, is that person…?

—Lord Patel? It’s Lord Patel…!

Entering the Council after a long time.

Normally, I would have leisurely looked around the surroundings before entering the Door of Flame when the meeting started, but the atmosphere today was different.

Because the demons who spotted me all displayed intense interest and gathered around.

Excluding the Thunder Martial Arts Assembly where I made a brief appearance inside a Gate, when was the last time I actively moved while wearing the Patel mask? Was it during the great invasion?

Even though I hadn’t done anything since then, my status had risen to an incomparable degree.

“The Spirit Speaker rarely shows themselves either… Lord Patel is our last hope!”

“Which Archduke do you plan to summon during this Council session?”

“The Hooves of the Statue? Is it the Hooves of the Statue?”

“Calm down. Today, I merely came to see some familiar faces after a long time.”

Through the Channel, Moon Ah-rin let out a screaming cry that practically asked, ‘What on earth have you been doing all this time?!’

But rather, wasn’t the problem lying with the Special Unit, which treated me poorly despite me carrying out most of the heavy lifting?

While the witches and nightmare demons used Patel’s name to achieve a position where they weren’t particularly discriminated against even among demons, over here, I was still receiving a hazard pay of a mere 150 won (about 11 cents).

“Right, could you send one mirror ball display cabinet to this address? Charge it to Tentacle Pay.”

“Thank you very much!!”

At this rate, it was hard to tell who was the demon and who was the human.

Asking the witch who sold the cabinet—and stuffed the dead stock (Mage of Light figures) inside as cushioning material—I inquired about ‘Walpurgis Night’ being held during this Council.

The little witch, whose eyes were obscured by her long bangs, was at a complete loss just from being spoken to, even pulling out a blackboard to explain.

“W-Walpurgis Night is a banquet for the Archdukes. O-Originally, it belonged to us? But after the Spirit Speaker created the Council, the Gate to the Demon Realm is set to connect immediately after the meeting begins.”

“Which means we can meet the Archdukes there.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But isn’t their descending to the surface a completely different matter?”

Moon Ah-rin chimed in, but since I had placed a black mage mask on her and had her wear a black robe, no one suspected her.

It was probably because she had alone brought a bright blue sword to the Council, which was basically a banquet hall where everyone came dressed up.

Since she didn’t even know how to hold a sword, gripping it in a reverse style while trembling violently from a lack of strength, they seemed to view her as some sort of insane aspiring black mage.

The little witch nodded cautiously.

“Y-Yes, that’s right. Just because it’s connected to the Gate doesn’t mean they can remain here when the Council closes. However…”

“However?”

“If someone is sacrificed, the story changes. If you push a scapegoat onto the burning pyre where numerous witches were executed, that soul becomes an offering as is, causing the Archduke to be unleashed upon the world.”

And the targets were traditionally the demons of other seats sitting on the opposite side of the Council.

A witch hunt, now that was quite an entertaining piece of content.

Since instigation and fabrication… no, honesty was precisely my specialty, it seemed I had caught an excellent timing.

Pinching the cheek of Ha Yeri, who was disguised as Mala-nim’s Incarnation, I spoke.

“Then conversely, it means if we corner the opposing seats, we can incinerate every single troublesome bastard out there.”

“…Grit.”

“Hoho, very excellent. Shall we go then?”

Furthermore, summoning an Archduke as a reward meant the Hooves of the Statue, who had been constantly fleeing from me all this time.

In other words, it meant we could lure Gamigin, the 4th-ranked Archduke of Necromancy, into the living world.

Excluding the Outer Gods, the number of Star Scars currently held by Archdukes was a mere three, including that bastard, so I could just wipe him out while disposing of the other demons.

The moment I was about to enter the Door of Flame to attend the meeting, the little witch who had sold the cabinet gestured to me.

“Would you like to head inside first? If you see a guy who looks like a snake head, you may stab him with that sword.”

At her request that she had something to say to me in private, I let the two women go ahead first.

There was still plenty of time, so I could just walk around the vicinity and do some shopping before going.

Walking down the street, the little witch spoke to me in a trembling voice.

“Y-You must be careful, Lord Patel.”

“Hmm?”

“Once the fire of the fallen begins to burn, those inside the assembly hall will no longer be spiritual bodies.”

I was already aware of that, as it was written in Rubietta’s invitation.

However, it appeared there was one more thing I had failed to comprehend.

“A-And even if it is Walpurgis Night, disposing of the demons who managed to cross over to the surface just to summon a single Archduke doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s fine when the victim is a witch like us, but if it’s not, it will become a seed that incites conflict among the factions of the entire Demon Realm.”

“But surely…”

Inside a dark alleyway that seemed endless no matter how much we walked.

Standing with her back against a streetlamp that stood in the middle of the road, withered like an old tree, the little witch spoke.

“An innocent woman who burns to death on the pyre has all her connections to the human world severed, dying and being reborn as a witch. That is what it means to sacrifice.”

“You’re saying they don’t completely die?”

“Yes, it will be easier if you approach it as a concept of reincarnation. That’s why you must be even more careful, Lord Patel.”

I understood that if I put Karzos on the pyre, a snake-headed demon would be reborn somewhere on the Chinese continent.

But why did I have to be careful? Why was that?

“To my feeble eyes, Lord Patel is bound by far too many threads of fate. You barely managed to preserve your life after your left ring finger was severed, but if you keep mortgaging your soul like that, you will be torn to shreds one day.”

Mentioning the finger that Mala-nim had taken away, she spoke.

“Therefore, it might actually be better for Lord Patel to step onto the pyre and be reborn. A-Ah, no… there might be demons who think it’s better. For example…”

“For example?”

I didn’t get to hear the answer.

Because with a loud thud!, my vision began to blur.

If it were outside the Council, there was virtually no entity capable of pulling off a successful surprise attack against me, but this was a space where we still existed as spiritual bodies.

It was the front yard of the witches, crafted through their sorcery and magic.

—Hmph, you have worked hard.

A woman with massive horns offered a Choco Pie to the witch.

—It is your payment. Enjoy it thoroughly with your companions.

—…

—I told you to take it? T-This is an extremely precious item!

The little witch, who had gone as far as betraying me to cooperate with her, pulled something out from her bosom.

—I shall collect it!

—Ack! Fine! I will definitely pay you back later, so my horns—at least spare my horns, which I barely managed to reclaim!

Trembling in terror while looking at a very well-sharpened cheese grinder, the demon was none other than Velada, who had completely absorbed the Star Scar.