episode_0041

It was quick to retrace our steps. And the door that had been closed as we entered the bunker was exactly the same as when we arrived.

I wonder how Maria is doing. If something happens, it’ll be annoying.

With that in mind, I motioned for the old man to open the door. The old man seemed to be worried as well, as his expression was not bright while he opened the door.

“Madam?”

“Are you done?”

Maria, a pharmacist and an old woman, spoke in a voice that seemed as if she would suffocate at any moment, sweating profusely.

Well, how long has it been since someone has become so haggard? Is he suffering from separation anxiety or something?

“There will be no more strange noises coming from the orchard.”

“Well, I guess it was resolved well.”

“Haa… Thank goodness.”

Maria let out a sigh of relief, her expression brightening slightly.

“The orchard is in good condition?”

“No, I’m leaving here.”

Maria said, clenching her fists.

It seemed that the hope that he could escape from the One Mind Church had crossed the line into the realm of certainty. After all, he wasn’t coming to our shelter, so I had no reason to stop him.

I exchanged glances with the old man. Maria was the only one who wanted to leave the church, unlike the other people who lived in the Hanmaum Church.

Before seeing the situation inside the bunker, I thought that they just wanted to leave because they weren’t being treated properly at the Hanmaum Church, but that wasn’t the case at all.

But since it was something I couldn’t force myself to ask someone who didn’t want to talk, I decided to just pretend I didn’t know.

“Let’s quickly go find a person who is a pastor or something.”

As we came out after our daily activities, the ground was already covered with spiderwebs. The cold had become even stronger, and all the people who had been warming themselves around the building by the fire had disappeared, leaving only cold oil cans lying around.

The pastor who had been away seemed to have returned, as a faint light was coming out of the church building we were heading to.

“Enter.”

After saying that, the old man opened the door without thinking. Maria and I followed the old man who went inside without hesitation.

Inside, the ladies were moving busily, as if they were preparing something.

“Huh! Aren’t you Brother Do-Hoon? What brings you here at this hour?”

The pastor, who was leading them, looked at the old man and spoke quickly.

“Is there any other reason why the client comes to see the client?”

“Ah! Then what about the orchard problem?”

The pastor’s face brightened. He grabbed the old man’s hand and looked like he was going to start crying soon.

“Thank you. As expected, there is no one else but Brother Do-Hoon. How can I repay you for this…?”

I found that sight a little disgusting. They were the ones who created such a monster, and yet they were going to pretend not to know until the end.

“I don’t need anything grand. I just want a moderate amount of compensation and one favor. How about that?”

Maria’s expression brightened at the old man’s words. She realized what his request meant.

“Oh! You seem more frugal than us religious people, so I feel ashamed as a shepherd. Deacon? Would you please go to the storehouse and get me some honey and preserves?”

“Yes, Pastor.”

The pastor said this to one of the women and then turned his gaze away. His gaze, which passed me and rested on Maria, was full of questions.

“Maria, why are you with Brother Do-Hoon and his group…? And it’s not even confession time yet…”

An unpleasant voice flowed into our ears. Maria’s body shrank slightly. She seemed to be weak-willed by a man who was so sane, despite pretending to be strong.

“A person who actively took the initiative in resolving this issue and helped a lot.”

“Is that Maria?”

“Yes, it was a great help not only in guiding us around the orchard, but also in finding the source of the strange noises we heard in the orchard.”

The old man continued to praise Maria’s achievements. The pastor, unable to refute what the old man said, could only nod his head and mutter to himself something like, “Who is protecting whom?”

You phony bastard.

“But there are some parts of the process that I’m not sure about, so would you mind giving me some advice or opinions?”

“Of course. What part?”

“Did you know that there is an underground bunker on the church grounds?”

“Yes?”

The pastor reacted as if he had never heard of it before. He must have acquired this land and managed it for a short period of time, so how could he not know about it?

The soldiers must have also requested cooperation from time to time, saying they were conducting inspections.

“Wouldn’t you have been a pastor here before the accident happened?”

“I’m busy with pastoral work… even that part.”

Hey, are you going to stick your flippers out until the end?

“The military unit must have sent out cooperation letters often.”

As expected, the old man also pointed out the part I had been thinking about. The pastor must have thought it was difficult to pretend not to know any longer, so he started to admit it in a pretended, exaggerated tone.

“Ah…! Those soldiers came once or twice a year. Is that why? They said they came to check something. But our church is not small, so that kind of thing would have been handled by the deacons or warriors under me. So I don’t know much about it.”

“Is that so…”

“Didn’t you know? Don’t you think it’s a bit absurd that the owner of a church doesn’t care about its operation that much?”

The old man readily backed down, but I had no intention of doing so. I felt like I wanted to break that calm-looking face.

It was also because I could not accept, based on my common sense, that he did not know that dozens, not just one, of people had died in the business he was running.

“I think the little lady’s words are making me angry. It’s definitely something I lack and need to improve on, but why are you so angry?”

“There were a lot of zombies in the bunker. And only women. They were practically naked. Since this happened on the grounds of the Hanmaum Church, I wish you could explain it to me as the pastor and leader of this church.”

“Sisters in the bunker…? Well, I can’t say it myself, but our church is closed. We pay a lot of attention to the management of our members. As far as I know, there hasn’t been any change in the number of members in the past year. They’re not from our church, but from outside…”

“Liar.”

Maria directly refuted the pastor’s claim that he was busy drawing a line and saying that it had nothing to do with the Hanmaum Church.

“Maria?”

“It’s not Nanmaria, it’s Han Yuhwa. You crazy fake bastard…”

The startled pastor called out to Maria with wide eyes, but Maria only responded with contempt.

“How can you pretend not to know? He, they, and I…were all brought here by you and these crazy guys from the One Mind Church.”

The pastor’s face distorted. Maria, no, Han Yu-hwa, glared at the pastor with her eyes wide open.

“Please explain. It doesn’t seem like a simple case. If you won’t explain it properly.”

The old man stared silently at the pastor.

“How much we suffered… And then all of a sudden, all the kids disappeared, and I… I was so…”

“Stop, this is not the place to talk. Come to my room.”

I took on the role of Han Yu-hwa, who was trembling with emotion. It wasn’t something I really liked.

What could I do? I couldn’t leave a person in a state of mental weakness in the hands of a man with a secretly sinister side.

It was a good thing, because I didn’t really like talking to that pseudo-pastor.

“Ugh…sob!”

As soon as the pastor entered the room, he ran half-jogging to the desk. I, who was trying to calm Yu-hwa down, and the old man who was following the pastor were both startled.

It was not that the Hanmaum Church was poor in material, and it was a place where a few pistols could have come out of a drawer like that without any problems.

“Up to there.”

“If you open that, you’ll end up lying next to the corpses in the underground bunker.”

The jungle dagger that the old man liked to use was sending a cool breeze across the pastor’s neck, and my arrow was also aimed squarely at the pastor’s chest.

“Hahaha, why are you guys like this? It’s just a cigarette, a cigarette. Check it out, Brother Do-hoon.”

The man opened the drawer and took out the contents. A bright red pack of cigarettes appeared.

“If you’re a pastor, isn’t it impossible to avoid it?”

“It was like that in the past. The Bible never said not to do that. That is also a wrong prejudice.”

Isn’t that a cult? His words were really like a cult. He was a clean pastor who drank, smoked, and had women around.

The pastor began to smoke a cigarette in a very familiar posture, and the strong smell soon filled the room.

“켁…”

What kind of cigarette is this toxic…

“Good. Would you like to have a drink, Brother Do-Hoon?”

“Okay. My partner doesn’t like smoking that much.”

“That’s too bad. Haha.”

The fan began to spin, accompanied by a clicking sound. It felt strange to suddenly see something like this appear in a place where there was no sign of electricity.

“There is a ventilation fan. There is a small generator in the main church building.”

The pastor clicked his tongue once and began to talk about what the old man had asked earlier.

“When leading a church. No, not only in a church, but when leading a group, there are many problems that arise. If there are complaints, they need to be resolved. If they are terrified, they need to be consoled. And they need to be given the strength to escape from such fear.”

“Besides, in a world like today, we need men. We need a lot of young, healthy men. Anything will work out.”

“Stop talking about things that everyone already knows and get to the point?”

I glared at the pastor. The pastor furrowed his eyebrows and swept the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray.

“The orchard business started to go well, and I made deals with each group in the city. I realized the capitalism I had learned as a child. The church became rich, affluent, and safe. Since eating and sleeping became easier, the complaints of the deacons and the female believers completely disappeared, but…”

The pastor paused for a moment. He took a deep drag of cigarette smoke and exhaled it into the air.

This is seriously a mess.

I thought it was fortunate that the old man wasn’t like that.

“Brothers, that is, male believers, a new complaint has arisen.”

Sex drive, women.

After spitting out those words in a chewed-over manner, the pastor leaned back in his chair.

“As a person leading a church, I did not want the believers to become Sodom and Gomorrah. But what can I do? If we don’t solve it, it will explode somehow. It was just a matter of time.”

“So we gave supplies to the survivors and brought homeless women to the church. Everyone readily gave in without much suspicion because it was a religious group and there were many female believers.”

The pastor stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. He smiled faintly and looked at me and the old man.

“Do you need more explanation?”