Ch.184184 – 4 : 17 3

# 184 – 4 : 17 # 3

Meow~

Yang Juhui had turned into a cat.

A white cat resembling Baekseol. Yang Juhui squirmed and twitched around as if she couldn’t believe she had become a cat, but it looked exactly like she was being adorable.

Seeing this, Yu Dahui trembled.

“C-cute.”

It was a bizarre situation, but honestly, she was cute.

If she wandered the streets like that, women especially would flock around her in delight. She looked like an expensive purebred cat, so someone would surely pick her up quickly.

The problem was that the onmyoji’s gestures weren’t finished yet.

“Om~”

As the onmyoji muttered a strange incantation, another problem occurred.

This time, it was Kwon Sua’s body that bent and twisted in a bizarre way as it transformed.

“Aaaah! Nooooo!”

Kwon Sua struggled desperately as if trying to escape her fate.

But like Yang Juhui, she helplessly grew white fur.

In Kwon Sua’s case, she became a rabbit.

“Eek! I’m a rabbit!”

Do rabbits normally make sounds like that?

Whatever she became, this was insane. This wasn’t part of the plan!

Turning people into animals.

The onmyoji was even crazier than I thought. If we stayed like this, we might all turn into animals. We’d become the Bremen Town Musicians instead of pirates.

“We need to exorcise him! Everyone, snap out of it! We need to exorcise him before he points his finger at us!”

I clapped my hands loudly and shouted. Everyone who had been shocked at the sight of Yang Juhui becoming a cat and Kwon Sua becoming a rabbit came to their senses.

Jeongseok trembled as if terrified.

He pointed the metal mirror he was holding toward the onmyoji. Our plan was to seal the creature inside this mirror.

But something was strange about the onmyoji’s reflection in the mirror.

The onmyoji we saw with our eyes was a monster with traditional Japanese clothing and a pure white face with only a sharp-toothed mouth.

But the onmyoji reflected in the mirror looked more like a blood-covered beast than a human.

A blood-covered beast. A sneer emerging from the darkness. That was the true identity of the demon.

“Marbas—”

I quietly uttered the demon’s name that I had heard from our class president, Jeong Sojin.

Instantly, the surrounding air grew colder, and the already chaotic atmosphere became even more bizarre.

Drip, drip—

Blood began flowing from the onmyoji’s gaping mouth.

He began growling like a hungry beast, and his size and form twisted strangely until he became a giant nearly 3 meters tall.

If we had felt mystery and awe from the Gandara shaman with her coexisting attributes of mercy and destruction, all we could feel from the demon before us was fear and disgust.

There was anger too.

I couldn’t believe someone had thought to lock this thing in the basement of a school crawling with students. This was a disaster. A living curse. A disease. A nightmare.

It was an evil that shouldn’t exist in this world.

I looked again at Jeongseok, who was trembling while holding the iron mirror.

We had to exorcise this creature to reach the fourth floor, and we were running out of time.

“Marbas! In the name of the Lord, I command you! Come out of that body and enter this mirror!”

What was needed to exorcise a demon was a name, faith, and a sacrificial vessel to seal the demon. The mirror would serve as that vessel.

But the demon just laughed with its blood-dripping mouth.

[Do you think you can exorcise me just by knowing my name? What foolish thinking for mere shadows. I am the roaring lion, the beast that roams the valley of Gehenna.]

“Ugh!”

Dahui showed severe symptoms of vomiting.

Splash—

Tremendous amounts of blood spewed from Dahui’s mouth, and Ms. Hong Miri, who was watching, frowned deeply, not hiding her tension.

“Marbas is… a demon associated with machines, bodily diseases, and beasts. I never thought it would actually exist in the world… What on earth did they create in this basement!”

As Ms. Hong Miri spoke, her hands were rotting like those of a leper.

Her flesh was decaying and dropping off while still alive, dripping foul pus, and the bones were already visible.

The demon we met before was trapped in an operating room and seemed pathetic. But this one we met now was absurd and unreasonable, befitting its existence. Its only purpose was to bring trials to humans.

The coffin lid we had brought as a sturdy shield now felt like our own coffin.

Snap—

The onmyoji spread his arms to the left and right.

He spoke.

[Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The kingdom is not far away but in the hearts of people. Your peaceful mind is heaven, and your despairing mind is hell.]

“Hey! Ha Yeongwon! Keep going! You need to continue the exorcism! No matter how great it claims to be, it’s just a security guard protecting this school! Since it’s a security guard, we can defeat it!”

Jeongseok shouted loudly. I snapped back to my senses. Jeongseok was right.

No matter how great and blasphemous this creature was, it had ultimately been sealed and reduced to a watchdog guarding a school where children attend.

If someone had succeeded in sealing it before, there was no reason we couldn’t do it too.

“Marbas! Please enter this mirror! Please! You don’t like being tied to this school either, right? You said you want to roam around causing chaos in the world? I’ll let you do that, so please just come into this mirror quietly!”

It was truly a plea.

It was such a desperate plea that if I had been a poor beggar, anyone would have thrown coins at me. But as if mocking my words, the onmyoji stretched out his hand and pointed at me.

“Ugh!”

Intense pain shot through my body.

It felt like I had contracted an incurable disease.

“This isn’t working! I’m shooting!”

Ms. Hong Miri loaded her gun.

Soon, with a loud bang, a red flower bloomed on the onmyoji’s white clothes.

[—!]

The onmyoji let out an incomprehensibly loud scream. It was a terrible scream that defied human understanding, one that seemed to twist your brain just by hearing it.

“I’ll keep shooting! We won’t need this gun anyway once we reach the fourth floor!”

Bang, bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

Ms. Hong Miri had six bullets. All six hit the onmyoji’s body and head without missing. Ms. Hong Miri’s shooting skills were truly remarkable.

“Tsk, if my hand was in better shape, I would have put them all in his head!”

Ms. Hong Miri clicked her tongue in regret, but the onmyoji who had been hit by six bullets was groaning in tremendous pain.

[—Argh—]

Seeing him in such extreme pain was both satisfying and joyful. All that posturing, and now he’s whining like a little girl when shot! Ms. Hong Miri is finally showing her worth! Her role was the gunslinger!

[Argh-hehehehe-]

But the onmyoji’s voice, which had been groaning in pain, soon turned into laughter.

[I am the primordial scream. A concept that existed before the stars twinkled in the sky. The name you call me is merely one of my many forms.]

So Marbas isn’t this demon’s name? He stretched out his finger and turned Ms. Hong Miri into an animal.

“Gack!”

Ms. Hong Miri let out a strange scream and became a fox.

Yip, yip—A fox wagging its tail.

As I felt dizzy at the sight, Dahui darted out like lightning.

“Die!”

Dahui was holding a wooden block in her hand.

It was the nameplate of Pastor Cheon Aesu from Yeong-gwang Church, and I wondered if Dahui’s clumsy clubbing would work on a demon that bullets couldn’t harm.

Thwack!

[Argh!]

But Dahui’s clubbing seemed to have the same effect as bullets, as the demon writhed in pain.

“Yeongwon! Now’s your chance! Trap this thing in the mirror! Bring the mirror! The mirror! I’ll hold him down! Hurry!”

Thwack-thwack-thwack!

[You half-dead bitch! You whore!]

“…I’m still a virgin! Die!”

[Argh!]

Dahui was right. If this creature wouldn’t willingly enter the mirror, we would have to deliver the mirror to him!

The problem was that the iron mirror was too heavy for Jeongseok and me to carry together. Was that why he turned people into animals?

To prevent us from carrying the mirror?

It made sense.

“Ugh! Put some strength into it! Jeongseok! You bastard!”

“I’m giving it all I’ve got!”

I gritted my teeth so hard they might break, but it was impossible.

Jeongseok and I alone couldn’t lift this iron coffin. We needed help. We needed more hands. I quickly opened my status window.

『Name: Ha Yeongwon Lv.5

Trait: ◀ Click to open

Quirk:

Funds: 240 Points

Description: Time that had been stopped for a long time has started moving again. Inevitably experiencing various events and growing, you fear and simultaneously look forward to what will happen next.』

After unlocking my quirk, I had 240 points left.

If I used them well, I might be able to overcome this obstacle. I’ll get help from the journeys we’ve been through so far.

「Mercenary Corps List」

The curse that turns you into a ghost after answering three times

The electric fan ghost story

The Invisible Hand

Water Ghost

Thug Ghost

There were exactly two ghosts here that could help.

I dispatched “The Invisible Hand” and “Thug Ghost” to me.

The effect of spending 200P was immediate.

The iron mirror that wouldn’t budge no matter how much we struggled suddenly lifted. Invisible hands were helping me, and Kim Geonho the thug was helping us too.

“You…”

I felt like all our hardships until now had been for this moment. Justice prevails. Everything returns to where it should be. My steps felt lighter.

We brought the iron lid to the suffering onmyoji.

[Do you really think you can trap me in there?]

The onmyoji was bleeding from various places after being hit by bullets and the nameplate. His size had already shrunk to about our size.

Could we really trap this guy in here? Even in this situation, I had doubts. He seemed to read my mind and growled like a beast, laughing.

[Faith doesn’t dwell in a doubting heart. The hearts of you monkeys who doubt and hate are the hell that has arrived. You cannot trap me. Most regrettably.]

So we’re still not enough?

But Jeongseok seemed to have something to say.

“Even a typhoon was just wind until it was given a name. Even a primordial scream is just noise unless given a name.”

[…]

“Marbas. Because we gave a name to an abstract concept and called that name, you transformed from an abstract concept into a real existence. We seal that existence here.”

[After imitating a mediocre priest, now you’re imitating a philosopher?]

“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Marbas. You, who originally had no meaning, enter the mirror and become meaningless again.”

Jeongseok put strength into his hand holding the mirror.

Tilt—

The iron mirror seemed to collapse like a falling building, then raised dust with a boom as it crushed the onmyoji’s body. Would the onmyoji’s body be flattened like a bug crushed under a shoe?

But the onmyoji’s body had disappeared without a trace.

When we mustered our strength to lift the mirror again, we saw a lion embroidered on the previously plain iron mirror, like something you’d see on a kingdom’s flag.

“Does this mean… the sealing was successful?”

I was incredibly happy.

My legs went weak, and my whole body ached.

“M-my body is back to normal!”

“Mine too!”

“I’m alive too!”

Yang Juhui who had turned into a cat, Kwon Sua who had turned into a rabbit, and Ms. Hong Miri who had turned into a fox all returned to their original forms.

Dahui who had vomited blood also recovered, and Ms. Hong Miri’s body, which had been rotting and twisting like a leper’s, was also healed.

Dust to dust. What was normal returned to normal.

And now we would head to the fourth floor.