#174: Chapter 174 — Favored by The Outer God

A massive entity suddenly revealed its form overhead.

Everyone who witnessed the appearance of Mala-nim froze in sheer horror.

“W-What on earth is that…!”

“It’s an Outer God. The one that guy worships…”

“Does that mean—right now—an Apostle of the Outer God is actually here?”

“Shh! Don’t call them by that name! They might really come for us!!”

Their legs locked up entirely on their own, leaving them looking like a pack of mice cornered by a serpent.

Even the witches, who had been subtly enjoying the chaos until just a moment ago, now snapped their heads down and played dead.

The Archdukes and the Special Unit were equally astonished.

Mala-nim carefully extended a single leg—the very one she had been using to munch on a cluster of stars floating around her.

Pryingly widening the dimensional rift, she spoke to those gathered in the Council.

『Fear not.』

The responses from the demons who heard those words were diverse, to say the least.

“Kyaaaaak!!!”

Screams erupted.

“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die here!”

Desperate shrieks echoed.

“Gurgle…!”

“Hehe, hehehe…”

Fainting and madness ran rampant.

In the midst of the bedlam, Karzos crawled like a snake and managed to reach the vicinity of the burning stake.

He grabbed Rubietta, who was pretending to be dead in her seat, and shook her violently as he shouted.

“Get up, you lowly wench!”

“Ugh, please stop shaking me. I’m dead. Look, I’m not even breathing.”

“Shut up and tie me to that stake right now! I need to get out of here!”

“Ugh-ugh-ugh.”

For a guy with a high survival instinct, he sure came up with a clever trick.

He clearly figured that keeping his soul intact to be reborn was better than having his entire existence obliterated.

I would have given his judgment a perfect hundred points, but unfortunately for him, his wish wasn’t meant to be.

Before a dazed Rubietta could even clear a spot by thrusting her hands into the hot ash and tossing it around, they were interrupted by an attack.

“Gah!?”

“Kyaa!? Why all of a sudden again…!”

Amidst the chaotic Council chamber, the sword Moon Ah-rin was holding began to thrash wildly, as if it had sensed Mala-nim’s presence.

Being a mere clump of Star Scars, it was utterly consumed by the fear of being devoured.

Mala-nim, who had been looking down at the tiny creatures with mild curiosity, also detected the magic sword.

Her violet eyes went wide in an instant.

『J-J-Judgment! Save!』

『F-Fear?』

『F-Fear! S-Save me!!』

『Fear not!!!』

Watching the magic sword desperately beg for its life, Mala-nim made a show of flailing her tentacles.

‘Just consider meeting me a natural disaster.’

She was absolutely having the time of her life.

She looked completely bright and innocent, showing not a single shred of guilt despite having abandoned her sole believer in a dark, damp basement to be mauled by three predators that resembled a wolf, a fox, and a tiger.

I immediately connected a Channel toward Mala-nim, who was thoroughly enjoying the terrified reactions of the demons.

Then, wagging my finger, I spoke.

『Hey, stop having so much fun and get down here, will you?』

『F-Fear?』

『Yes, I made it back alive without dying. And I’ve realized perfectly well just what kind of existence I was to you, Mala-nim.』

『F-Fear not…!』

Like the sky shutting closed, the massive violet eyes blinked, and what followed was a torrent of excuses that barely qualified as excuses.

『N-Not!!』

Mala-nim held up one of the stars she had been eating earlier and showed it to me.

She explained that the shimmering blue-white powder was the Star Scar that the Outer God of Revelation had possessed. She claimed she had returned to her original form on her own to reclaim it from that god.

Mala-nim knew.

She knew how I had broken my own body, working myself to the bone to collect Star Scars.

With injuries growing worse by the day, a wearing mind, and increasingly powerful enemies looming ahead, she had felt despondent about her own helplessness—only able to watch from inside my sleeve. That was why she had left me.

『Fear not, fear not…』

Ultimately, unable to bear the sight of me suffering, Mala-nim had ascended on her own. Using the Star Scars gathered so far, she clashed with one of the two remaining Outer Gods.

After a bloody, savage battle, she seized victory and reclaimed her stolen power.

However, her opponent’s resistance had been fierce. The despicable final strike thrown just before that god’s fate ended had left a massive wound on Mala-nim’s true body as well.

The face that flashed through her mind right before her consciousness faded was that of her most cherished, unique believer.

Stating she was glad to see that face one last time, Mala-nim offered her farewell.

『Mala-nim…』

『Fear… Not…』

『Where are you trying to sell that snake oil? Your tongue has grown long enough to wrap around the Earth three times since I last saw you.』

『Fear?!』

『You can’t even recognize my face properly, so what did you visualize? Why don’t you draw it exactly as it is? I’ll give you a piece of paper.』

Naturally, such a blatant lie didn’t work on me for a second.

Even if I gave her credit for smoothly taking care of the Outer God of Revelation by herself, it didn’t mean her sin of abandoning me was forgiven.

Just how many nights had I fallen asleep while swallowing my rage beneath the blankets?

I had already purchased a custom mirror ball display case from the witches, specifically designed to lock Mala-nim inside.

『I’m counting to three. If you don’t come down by then, I’m dragging you down myself. One…』

『F-Fear not!』

『Two.』

『Not!』

Did she instinctively realize that if I reached three, she would spend the rest of her life—no, her tentacle-life—eating nothing but the leftovers from the cafeteria?

Scooping up the Star Scars she had been absorbing, Mala-nim hurriedly rushed in this direction.

Of course, the phrase ‘rushed in this direction’ was strictly by my standards. To everyone else, it was a completely different story.

The massive Outer God beyond the void was drawing closer and closer, causing cracks to spiderweb across the sky.

“I-It’s coming this way!?”

“Kyaaaaak!!”

“E-Everyone, calm down…!”

Amidst the world-shaking tremors and impact, Kravec shouted in a voice packed with mana.

“This is the Council where Walpurgis Night has descended! Even if it is an Outer God far worse, an uninvited guest cannot simply set foot here as they please!”

The demons’ expressions brightened at his words, which cut through the primal terror.

However, Rubietta’s following statement immediately made everyone realize the end was nigh.

“No one has been offered as a sacrifice yet. As long as we put out the embers like this, it will be fine—”

“Karzos, I’ve prepared the spot. But there’s a bunch of ash here—or should I say, burnt tentacle corpses? Will you be okay with… huh? Karzos?”

Late in the night, as dawn approached.

A fleet of fire trucks had deployed outside the Management Bureau headquarters.

An unexplained fire had broken out on the 14th floor of the building used by the Special Unit.

Three Special Unit agents who had lost consciousness inside the office were rescued and transported to the hospital.

As I found out later, fires had broken out simultaneously all across the globe at that exact hour. The impact of Mala-nim’s descent had caused a small explosion at the coordinates where every single person connected to the Council originally existed.

Though ‘crushed under her weight’ would be a more accurate description, but anyway.

During the hectic few days following the collapse of the Council and the urgent report from the Blue Tower announcing the obliteration of an Outer God, I stayed hospitalized and ate hospital food.

I wasn’t seriously injured, but the other two had sustained non-trivial wounds, which prevented me from getting discharged early.

“Huh? Who am I? What on earth is this black sword that keeps talking to me…”

“Deputy Commander Moon Ah-rin still hasn’t regained her memories. She needs to realize her identity as the Saint of Salvation as soon as possible.”

“Excuse me, mister?”

“Yes? Me?”

Moon Ah-rin, her head wrapped in bandages from the impact, stared at me with a dazed expression.

She stroked the magic sword as if trying to soothe its trembling form and spoke.

“This sword keeps telling me that it absolutely must stab whatever is inside your sleeve to death. Is something hidden in there by any chance?”

“Hmm… who knows?”

I stuffed the carrots and lotus roots I had set aside into my sleeve.

My patient uniform squirmed as Mala-nim resisted wildly, but I shoved every last piece inside and shook my head.

“I don’t think there’s anything there.”

“That’s strange. It definitely said there was…”

“It’s probably just your imagination.”

“Where do you think you’re going, Hayan?”

As I pushed myself up, Ha Yeri asked from the neighboring bed.

She had casts on both of her fractured legs.

According to the doctor, her height would shrink by at least one centimeter compared to before, unfortunately.

Sending a look of pity toward her—since she could no longer ride any of the amusement park attractions—I told her I was heading out.

“There’s a place I need to visit.”

“Are you going to look for another lost tentacle that you were raising?”

“This time, I’m going to look for something else.”

The day after escaping from Walpurgis Night.

I remembered seeing on the news that a fire had also broken out in Ground Zero.

The lower-class demons would have been obliterated just from existing in the same space as Mala-nim for a split second, but those two would be different.

Leaving the hospital, I took a bus and headed toward the wall entrance closest to Sector 4.

『I really didn’t want to come here ever again.』

『Fear not?』

『You might not know, Mala-nim, but I ran into something I shouldn’t have encountered here not too long ago. Wow, come to think of it, you weren’t by my side back then either.』

『Not! Not!!』

Stretching Mala-nim out like a piece of rice cake dough over and over, I stepped into Sector 4.

As I neared the cult building, traces of the fire were still visible.

“Oh, if it isn’t our brother.”

Sebas, who was sweeping the yard, bowed his head in greeting.

His once-barren scalp was now occupied by thin, hair-like tentacles. He had managed to pull off a hairstyle resembling a late-century rock band vocalist.

“Thank you for the gift you sent last time.”

“I never sent anything like that.”

“Did you not guide three living sacrifices here to be offered to the Outer God?”

Living sacrifices?

The family I ran into while retrieving the Star Scar that dropped in Ground Zero last time suddenly came to mind.

No, had they already fallen into corruption just because their scale grew a bit larger?

It stood in stark contrast to the other cults, whose influences were rapidly weakening due to the recent consecutive obliteration of Outer Gods.

“Don’t tell me you offered them as sacrifices?”
“No, the children you brought here first stopped me. They said we need to raise them more before eating them…”

Fortunately, Velada and Flauros had intervened, allowing the family to settle safely in a shantytown slightly further away.

I honestly couldn’t tell who the bad guys were here.

“That’s a relief. Where are those two?”

“Hmm, at this hour, they should be making kimchi in the backyard.”

“Kimchi?”

“Parang robbed some good cabbage from a Gate a few days ago. Ah, by the way, the second-floor loft those two kids were using burned down a few days ago…”

“I know about that.”

I lifted a large bag I had brought from outside.

Inside were gifts meant for the two of them, packed with my apologetic feelings for everything that happened.

“Oh, do you happen to have something for me too?”

“Just finish your sweeping.”

There’s nothing for you, you cultist.

I headed toward the backyard just as Sebas had directed.

More children were gathered at the Cult of the Void now than at the orphanage where I used to live.

It was lamentable that most of my salary went toward fattening up these freeloaders, but it couldn’t be helped.

After all, these kids were the very ones who would be responsible for my retirement pension in a country with a birth rate of 0.03.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yeah.”