Ch.303Work Record No. 042 – The God Wearing the Beast’s Hide (7)

Himena had been fighting to prove herself both in the past and present. She simply decided to dedicate her self-validation to a god who didn’t require it rather than to a city that demanded it.

Above all else, the self-validation she offered to that god was reciprocated. When she was nearly at the bottom level and surrounded by a swarm of the clowns’ drones, the swarm scattered and El Sueño emerged.

Following him, Himena found a clown sliced into exactly four pieces. This was why she had decided to believe in El Sueño. He was there when needed.

Having support before even calling for it, having someone to rely on when needed—it was addictively sweet. Once again, El Sueño’s voice could be heard.

“You’re reliable, Himena. Let’s go together. I must show the warriors of the Bazaar that my bloodstained hands have come here with them.”

El Sueño’s words of reliability were nothing but sweet to Himena. As they descended to the lowest level of the pit—specifically, to the lowest level of the structure installed in the pit—a man in body armor stood waiting.

He was a security officer of The Bazaar. More precisely, he was probably the head of security, but before the now-deified dream and his bloodstained hands, he looked so small and insignificant. He too had seen hope.

He had seen a god who tore apart clowns as if they were nothing and healed all of The Bazaar’s problems in just thirty minutes. He didn’t believe El Sueño was actually a god, but he could address him as one.

If the only conditions of the contract were to call him a god and do what his heart desired… it was far better than the clowns who had been randomly abducting merchants and customers.

He reported to El Sueño. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do. The giant who emitted light from the center of his face exuded that kind of atmosphere. The Bazaar’s security chief cleared his throat.

“Most of the clowns on the lowest level have been killed. Some threw themselves down below, and some escaped… but let them escape. They don’t know anything about the Bazaar’s internal systems anyway.”

“Still, if they can be caught without much effort, there’s no reason to deliberately let them go.”

The security chief shook his head. They had gone somewhere that would require significant effort to capture. They headed to the surface via an elevator connecting the ground outside the pit to the Bazaar’s lowest level.

They could have cut the power, but seeing El Sueño’s crusaders pouring in from outside, the security chief chose not to. The Bazaar had already fallen into the cult’s hands, so there was no need to fight further.

“They went up by elevator so they’d have to be chased on the surface, which would be troublesome. We’ve already cleaned up inside the Bazaar, so there’s no need to chase them, El Sueño.”

El Sueño, pleased to hear reports of clowns being completely eliminated coming in one after another, made a request to the security chief. His voice was gentle as always.

“In that case, would you connect the broadcast system for me? I need to inform my children about the end of the crusade, and the children of the Bazaar about the end of the emergency.”

Soon, several camera drones for broadcasting began to focus on El Sueño. The voice of El Sueño, who emitted only radiance instead of a face, began to resonate as if whispering sweetly.

“You have willingly thrown yourselves into this new home, my children. Then, I must specially commend you. The Bazaar has been liberated from the clowns. The cult has gained a new stronghold.”

But El Sueño’s gentle voice didn’t last long. It was difficult to distinguish when his voice began to incite fervor and when it did not.

“But doesn’t the echo feel hollow? Did we target The Bazaar when we began the Crusade of the Spring? This place is merely a stepping stone, and our purpose remains to kill the Las Vegas Strip!”

After the rebuke, his voice softened again. It was a voice that seemed to train them, to reinforce what they already knew while rearming their minds—a voice that was gentle yet made one shrink.

“Still, with this, we have proven our strength. We have shown the entire wasteland that even the strongest clowns in this wasteland cannot resist the wave of crusaders. This is something we must do again and again.”

“Don’t die during all that time of self-validation. I am neither life nor death, and I need living workers more than those who would join me in dreams after death. What do you want? To be martyred for me?”

At that moment, the Bazaar’s security chief couldn’t suppress the chilling feeling. Despite there clearly being multiple people, their voices sounded as one mass. The content wasn’t… probably wasn’t that bad.

“We wish to live together in the paradise of pleasure and enjoyment that you have created!”

As El Sueño, who made people ecstatic and cheer, raised both hands to shout, El Pastor’s urgent voice was heard. It seemed like something had happened, but he wasn’t too anxious.

Because he had a final lifeline. Because a god named El Sueño, who could solve all problems, was with him. Because he had just demonstrated that power.

“I apologize for interrupting at an important moment, El Sueño. La Roca is nowhere to be found. We’ve been inquiring everywhere, and there’s a report that someone saw her rushing to the surface level after seeing the elevator cable move…”

El Sueño had expected that someone would eventually start showing excessive loyalty, but he hadn’t thought at all that it would be La Roca. Perhaps the cultivation of a fanatic had gone well.

Still, El Sueño wasn’t flustered. If La Roca captured them, he would praise her and then rebuke her; if she failed to capture them and died, he would commemorate her. Her death would inflame the fanatics.

El Sueño moved on with such emotionless calculations, but someone who wasn’t present yet had been here all along hoped that La Roca wouldn’t die. Those who received hope from El Sueño needed to live.

‘Send the reconnaissance team waiting outside to look for her. Report information about La Roca only to me, and tell the others that she was deployed on a reconnaissance mission as soon as we subdued the Bazaar.’

“I will do so, El Sueño. The speech…”

‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t interrupted, El Pastor. I must care for the crusaders as much as I need to care for her.’

El Sueño, who had been communicating only in his mind, resumed his speech. The few seconds during which he had been communicating with El Pastor were filled with the cheers of the crusaders, with no awkward silence.

El Sueño, who had quieted the believers by raising his fist, shouted lightly.

“Paradise exists nowhere but in the dream we dream. Look around you. Do you see paradise? Or do you only see a wasteland so devastated by the aftermath of that war that even the word ‘desolate’ has become desolate?”

This was followed by words that gradually built up. The crowd, which had suddenly fallen silent at El Sueño’s gesture, began to wait for a chance to respond. The Witch of the Wasteland, watching from afar, shuddered again.

She had thought such human masses had gone extinct with the extinction war. The fact that such a young person could speak those ecstasy-inducing words… made her unable to help but recall that brilliant yet hideous past.

“Therefore, I will not lead you to paradise. I will not say that you must wander the wasteland for 40 years to reach paradise. I will neither bring divine punishment nor salvation!”

With those words, El Sueño denied his own divinity, but his followers didn’t care. They knew he wasn’t life and resurrection. They knew he didn’t have angel wings.

Their El Sueño was a god with bloodstained hands instead of white wings. Not a god who drove people to death in the name of life and resurrection, but one who stained his own hands with blood and stood with them.

El Pastor, who had finished his report, led the response. As a skilled religious figure, El Pastor always gave the answer that El Sueño thought was right, or wanted.

“El Sueño will be with us as we tear down Babel! He will be with us when we build a new paradise from the ruins, and he will see us build paradise with our own hands!”

Only then did voices cheering for El Sueño begin to pour out across the Bazaar. The cheers, which started as shouts, gradually became slurred like the howls of beasts, eventually turning into arbitrary roars.

After they had vented all their combat stress through those near-bestial cheers, the El Sueño cult began to clean up the blood-soaked Bazaar.

With that simple action alone, the merchants of the Bazaar began to think that the El Sueño cult was better than the clowns. Some merchants asked the crusaders why they had come to believe in El Sueño.

The answers were mostly similar. El Sueño had given them dreams, opportunities—specifically, the opportunity to have the opportunity to have dreams. El Sueño was a god who led such hopeless people to achieve greatness.

As corpses were thrown into the seemingly bottomless pit of the Bazaar, and blood was wiped away, the largest black market in the wasteland began preparing to reopen. Only the lay believers had returned to normalcy.

The reconnaissance team’s report was devastating. A report meaning that the worst thing—or the best opportunity—that La Roca’s excessive loyalty could cause had occurred came into El Sueño’s mind.

“O Dream… we found traces. There are signs of combat between La Roca and one of the clown leaders, with La Roca’s helmet and bloodstains scattered around. She doesn’t seem to be dead, though…”

If Los Payasos, the clowns, were a gang controlled by the Las Vegas Strip as El Sueño had suspected… taking their position was an even more strategic move than originally thought.

It meant that the Las Vegas Strip headquarters would now truly have to take action, and abducting and interrogating an officer of the El Sueño cult, one of his bloodstained hands, was more than enough reason.

‘Do you think they captured her and took her to the Las Vegas Strip?’

“That’s all we can think right now. What should we do? Perhaps a special detachment…”

‘First, come back. Stabilizing the new stronghold is the priority. And proceed with the Crusade of the Spring as planned.’

Those words sounded as if he was abandoning La Roca, but none of the reconnaissance team questioned El Sueño. They believed that El Sueño would rescue La Roca.

The person who was here but nowhere to be found began slowly calculating the odds. The Las Vegas Strip’s forces… weren’t objectively strong.

Clearly, when they had helped the Sin City women escape, they had said that Talos and prostitutes with military personality chips implanted in the backs of their necks, along with Talos himself, would be sufficient.

Considering that most of those prostitutes had been able to escape, it meant that someone like Talos alone could almost completely destroy the defensive forces.

Objectively, El Sueño wasn’t as powerful as Talos, but he had a definite advantage. Unlike Talos, he had perfect optical camouflage capabilities.

Was there a possibility that they had reinforced their security team after Talos had ravaged the interior? Quite possible, but not that important. With his optical camouflage, El Sueño could choose when and whom to fight.

Then, was there a possibility that, after seeing El Sueño subjugate the wasteland while turning invisible, they had installed pressure sensors throughout the building? No. That was enough.

In summary… the idea of El Sueño infiltrating alone to rescue La Roca seemed more feasible than expected. What he would gain from that single action was… this entire wasteland.

Even if he failed, he could make La Roca a martyr and incite the El Sueño gang to rise up, swallowing his tears. Either way, the crusade would be accelerated. Someone who was there but not there came to that conclusion.

La Roca was tasting the bitterness of failure. Ironically, even in this situation, she recalled what El Sueño had said—the penetrating words that she was merely an abandoned contract killer in the wasteland.

But those words were true. While ruminating on the truth of those words, she seemed to have been quite a good follower for El Sueño… perhaps she had gotten carried away after receiving the tactical armor.

Bloodstained hands? What bloodstained hands? She had clearly been chasing one of the clowns, but only realized the truth when she saw they were taken away in a Las Vegas Strip van.

It was her own mistake, her own sin. So she had no intention of avoiding what was to come. No, it wasn’t that she felt responsible and wouldn’t avoid it. It was because El Sueño had said something else.

He had clearly said, while drawing mercenaries who were about to attack the cult into the fold instead of hunting them down, “Humans make mistakes, and gods forgive.” Perhaps… she might be forgiven too.

So La Roca steeled her resolve. She resolved not to die before being forgiven by El Sueño. El Sueño’s dream was still branded in her mind, flashing like a seal.

Fortunately for her, the Las Vegas Strip had no brain scanning equipment; unfortunately for her, the Las Vegas Strip had no brain scanning equipment.

Without brain scanning equipment, no information would leak if she kept her mouth shut; without brain scanning equipment, the Las Vegas Strip would do anything to get information.

La Roca, with her prosthetic limbs removed, was thrown into a deep interrogation room in the Las Vegas Strip. El Pulpo, a Strip organization member who had wiped off the clown makeup that didn’t suit him, was about to speak, but La Roca was faster.

“Tell me. Do you think you’re lucky?”

“What? I think I am lucky. Those fucking bastards, those crazy clown fuckers stole the Bazaar that we were barely managing to keep people from being eaten in… and from there, a high-value asset rolled in.”

“No, no. Not past tense, future tense. Going forward, do you think you’ll be lucky?”

El Pulpo kicked her simply because he didn’t like her tone. La Roca, with her limbs detached, couldn’t resist, but despite the pain, she began to speak like a preacher speaking in tongues.

“If you’re lucky, El Sueño of the Bloodstained Hands will enter the Las Vegas Strip and take only the throne, but if you’re unlucky, he will come here to forgive me. So, do you think you’re lucky?”

“What crazy talk…”

“The point is, keep going. Let your most terrible torturers do their worst until they vomit from the horror. So that when El Sueño comes, I can at least say, ‘I have paid the price for my mistake.'”

El Pulpo felt somewhat afraid of La Roca’s appearance. Like someone whose brain had been carved with a knife and inscribed with a covenant, the sight of La Roca smiling as she imagined that moment was somewhat frightening.

She looked like one of the clowns he couldn’t understand. But unlike the disorganized madness of the clowns, her madness had form and fanaticism, which made it all the more terrifying.

What El Sueño had spread was essentially deception and temptation, but something was hatching from within it. It was faith. A faith that denied that one was made by someone else’s hands.