episode_0078

Guro-gu (1) ― Daegu Metropolitan City Circular Shinrikyo Parish

Seongpil Kim was an ordinary man born and raised in Daegu.

Go to school like everyone else, get a job at a company, and get married.

A man who was proud of a life without ups and downs.

That’s why he cursed his mediocrity today.

“Today too, people came to realize our great truth together.”

He was tied up with a rough rope and being dragged somewhere.

I opened my eyes wide to understand the situation, but I couldn’t see anything.

His entire vision was blocked by something he couldn’t tell whether it was a battery or a sack, so there was only darkness for him.

“Woman, honey! Are you okay?”

“… … Yes.”

A response heard very quietly from behind me.

My wife, who could not overcome her hunger, found it difficult to even answer her own questions.

I could feel the taste of metal from my chewed lips.

It was the last way to solve hunger.

The final choice to protect my wife led us to this absurd ending.

“Let’s all welcome them with a big round of applause!”

Clap- clap- clap-

Three inorganic applause.

Kim Seong-pil, who was suddenly hit in the back from behind, fell to his knees.

“Aaaah!”

“Honey! Oh, you bastards!”

I shook my body as I heard my wife’s screams one after another, but it was no use.

Behind him, someone was holding him back by pressing down on his shoulders.

“Why! Why are you really doing this! Please, someone please give me an answer!”

Kim Seong-pil’s cries of injustice and sorrow resounded through the main hall.

“… … .”

also! also!

They just said what they had to say and didn’t even respond to what I said.

Someone in the back silently took off the gun bag he was wearing.

Kim Seong-pil, who had finally secured his vision, looked ahead.

People sitting at regular intervals in a large space.

They were all wearing white hoods with their heads down.

Seongpil Kim narrowed his eyes to look at them more closely.

Perhaps because the candle was the only light source, their faces were not clear.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

A man made a face at me.

The only man not wearing a hood was bent down and looking at him.

It was a man of similar age to me.

The well-groomed features and rimless glasses gave off an intellectual and moderate atmosphere.

Seongpil Kim hurriedly opened his mouth as he felt like he could communicate.

“, why are you suddenly doing this to us?”

“Suddenly? Aren’t you the ones who came here?”

“That’s true, but when we said they would give us food… ”

“Yes. you’re right. Shinrikyo will solve your hunger.”

“Thank you. But why on earth do you tie yourself with a rope? ”

The atmosphere here was too strange to be simply wary of outsiders.

I was prepared when I roughly heard the name, but this was truly a stranger sight than I could have imagined.

Not a single person among those who filled the main hall raised their hooded heads.

In this place where even the sound of breathing could not be heard, a man’s voice flowed softly.

“Why are you so anxious? On the joyful first day of entering Shinrikyo.”

“That… Well, first of all, my wife hasn’t eaten anything for several days. How can you give me the food you mentioned right now?”

“Are you okay?”

Seongpil Kim tilted his head, not understanding what he was saying.

Why are you asking yourself if it’s okay for you to share food?

“… … Of course it’s okay.”

“Stepping into the truth is, as always, painful.”

“… … Yes?”

Seongpil Kim frowned and asked a question.

What on earth is that guy talking about now?

“… … Honey.”

Seongpil Kim turned his head when he heard his wife’s voice calling him.

Her smile, which seemed to tell her not to worry, was so faint that it seemed as if it would break at any moment.

Seongpil Kim’s eyes were filled with tears as he stared at that scene.

Starvation to death.

Dying just because you were hungry, not for any other special reason.

I couldn’t keep my promise not to make her suffer for the rest of her life, but I didn’t want to let her starve and leave her.

Passing by Seongpil Kim, who was unable to do either this or that, the man squatted down in front of his wife.

The man slowly grabbed his wife’s chin and whispered.

“It’s beautiful. It is indeed a lotus that bloomed in the mud.”

Seongpil Kim’s pupils trembled at the words the man spoke.

The sincerity in that man’s voice gave me goosebumps.

The most vivid nightmare I expected and feared.

“My, this is my wife.”

“That’s right. It’s your wife. Do you know why the lotus flower is beautiful?”

“Please, please just… We… We made a lifelong promise… ”

“Because the world grows in muddy water but is not stained by dirt.”

He stood up slowly.

People wearing hoods came creaking behind him.

“Well, what are you doing!”

They formed a circle around his wife, as if to prevent Kim Seong-pil’s voice from reaching them.

I tried to get closer, shaking my body out of anxiety, but someone was still pressing down on my shoulder.

“What are you doing! You fucking bastards!”

Someone’s head slightly popped out of the circle at the desperate cry.

The man with glasses said as if it were obvious.

“What are you doing? I will satisfy her hunger according to your request.”

There was no food in their hands.

That doesn’t solve hunger.

It’s rape.

Those bastards are trying to rape my wife who is starving and has no energy.

“Don’t do it! Don’t do it you fucking bitches!”

The guys in the circle were getting closer and closer to my wife.

Seongpil Kim, who was running wild and crazy, closed his eyes tightly.

Hot tears flowed down his cheeks.

Crackle!

“Ahhhh! Oh, honey!”

“… … Huh?”

Seongpil Kim hurriedly opened his eyes at the sound of his wife’s screams.

The men in the circle surrounded my wife and fell down.

And he kept moving his head back and forth.

“Ahhhh! Ah- that, that maaan!”

… … He was chewing and tearing at something.

Blood splattered and the sound of raw flesh being chewed rang out.

The wife, who was screaming and struggling, twisted her body.

Seongpil Kim denied reality in the face of an all-too-familiar scene.

She slowly stood up in the center of the circle.

He looked at himself with a bloody face and opened his mouth.

“kkieee―”

“Oh no, no!”

There was a deeper bottom to the worst that I wanted to avoid.

To become a zombie means to die.

Seongpil Kim shouted at the man approaching him.

“Why! Why! Why did you kill my wife!”

“Killing? We just satisfied her hunger.”

“Aaaa— this, this, this—”

The anger was so intense that not even a curse came out.

His eyes sparkled as he stared at his wife, who was making a futile scratching sound.

She didn’t rush at him.

The zombies should have made a fuss a long time ago, but she stood there as if nailed to the spot.

Seongpil Kim looked at the man and spoke urgently.

“You didn’t become a zombie, right? yes? Didn’t they give you some strange medicine or something like that? huh? Right?”

The man just smiled without answering.

Kim Seong-pil, whose anxiety was further amplified, spoke again.

Looking at him, I desperately rubbed my hands and pleaded.

“Please! You said my wife was beautiful! Please, please, you can do anything, just please save me!”

For the first time, the man wiped the smile from his face.

Trap – plod –

He approached with a cold expression, grabbed Kim Seong-pil’s head, and growled.

“I am a seeker. He is also a visionary. To me, this is lust!”

White light slowly flowed from his body.

“I did not join you just for such sins!”

He pointed his finger at his wife.

“She has no hunger anymore! You don’t even need sleep! I created her to be one level higher! like… ”

He whispered with an ecstatic expression.

“Like a lotus blooming in the mud.”

He made circles with his fingers in front of his eyes.

The white afterimage draws two circles and eventually becomes one.

“Circulation.”

The anger that had been burning at his gestures and voice subsided.

His voice rang out along with a deep sense of helplessness throughout my body.

“The greatest truth of the world has always been circulation.”

The white space in my once complicated head widens.

“The tadpole becomes a frog, the frog becomes a corpse and is buried in the soil, and the eggs float on top of the soil again.”

He turned slightly.

In that open field of view, someone was creaking and approaching him.

“I love you too, human being. However, the era of humans has come to an end. In order for everyone to become human again, everyone must first become a zombie.”

Seongpil Kim’s eyes, the only thing he could control, trembled widely.

His wife was walking towards him.

“That is the cycle and the truth.”

The man smiled with such a benevolent smile.

A white light appeared on his body.

That bright light illuminated the main temple, and Seongpil Kim was astonished at the world revealed by that light.

That man was the only human here.

“Welcome, believer Seongpil Kim. You too are part of a great cycle.”

My wife hugged her body.

Crackling-

With the sound of raw flesh chewing, I shed my last tears as a human being.

“It means that you have become a member of the Circular Shinrikyo family.”