New Year Doomsday Theory (5)
I tucked Park In-ha under my arm and scanned our surroundings with a quick sweep. "I don't like religion in general, but cults? Those I fucking despise."
"Because they don't give out Choco Pies?"
"Exactly."
I nodded at Park In-ha's spot-on observation. Back when my parents dragged me to church as a kid, we got not just lunch but snacks too. But cults? They don't believe in handouts. The cash, real estate, and women (slaves) go straight to the cult leader, his relatives, and his inner circle. The rank-and-file believers? They end up looking like beggars in no time flat.
If you've got a decent house, they snatch the deed before you know it. If not, they push you into loans or loan sharks to cough up something anyway. Look at your average cult drone—they're missing a screw or two, or just look off. That's what happens when you're sucked dry to the bone. Some wake up late and try to bail, but they're under constant surveillance, and they've already lost too much. No choice but to stick around.
I can't fathom why anyone crawls into that hellhole voluntarily. A cult that won't even toss snacks to its followers? No business for me. Just look at those glassy eyes—like their souls got vacuumed out. No sense of self, lives pawned off wholesale, dragging chains behind them.
If normal religion is the opium of the people, cults are cancer cells. Cut off the drug supply, and you're done. But cancer? Once it spreads, good luck. Even in the best case, you need surgery (sacrifice), and push it too far? No coming back.
These ones in front of us? Terminal cases. They've gone way past blind obedience to some lunatic leader's sweet talk. Now they read meaning into his every word and deed—full-on deification. What's deification? Recognizing a target as an all-knowing god and offering up everything you've got. No river of no return there? Please.
I couldn't even see sin fragments leaking from them. Why? Because they were one big lump of sin, start to finish.
"The moment you humans gave up being human, you became worse than wandering ghosts."
What makes a human? Clear purpose and self-awareness, betting it all on the one shot at life you're given—true fighters, right? Way back in our primitive days, humans fought tooth and nail, seized victories, built progress from the spoils. That led to civilization, collective intelligence. We realized we're not beasts. We learned we each have to clash with the world through our own lives.
That's how we were born, evolved, progressed. But these things standing before us? Worthless as wooden puppets in human shape. No infinite potential, no shining life—just empty jars, hollow and meaningless. Utterly valueless. Even a roadside pebble has meaning as part of the world's building blocks.
They just waste air and trip up actual humans trying to move forward. What lets humans be human? Believing we are. Vowing to give our all to the life we're given, filling our blank canvas with our own colors. That's what makes us human.
"Sure, I get everyone has their reasons. Lives wrecked beyond repair, walls too high to climb, storms you can't face alone. Get battered enough, and you crave something to lean on."
That's why we have therapists, asylums, rest homes. Not everyone's a winner; failures vary; not all wills are ironclad. So we set up safeguards. But if humans deny their own worth? What's the point? Humans shine brightest precisely because we're not omnipotent gods—we're flawed, beautiful, limitless in our way.
"I think you're uglier and more repulsive than the vile things crawling the abyss. Hell, I didn't even wanna ask if you believe in Jesus."
No point asking when they're already worshipping something else. Still, I had to—duty. When I started this gig, I swore I'd ask every being (except me) once, and ship them all to heaven regardless of the answer.
Like hookers servicing geezers and pigs for cash without discrimination, I'm just whoring out the question with an open mind. Me, the most diligent guy around? Nobel Peace Prize for Han Daeri sounds about right.
"Park In-ha, from now on, you're the Heaven-Piercing Halberd."
"Why?"
"'Cause I'm Lu Bu."
With that, I swung her around reverse and drove her high heel straight through a cult fanatic's chest in one thrust.
"Come to think of it, I feel seasick..."
"Shut it."
I've heard tales of a lone guy on a deserted island romancing a talking sword, but Lu Bu and his halberd chit-chatting? Never. Still, I swung her with delicate care to keep her black lace panties from flashing the goons, so she should feel safe.
The cultists, fed up, charged with iron rods. I blocked their view with Park In-ha's flowing long hair and unleashed Air-Walking in a flash. They realized too late I was overhead, thrusting rods upward. Pointless.
Her merciless 5X kg payload in that stiletto heel smashed down, and the cultist flopped like a speared fish before going limp. Finish: a spritz of perfume from her handbag right into his eyes, pepper spray on steroids. He clawed at his face, rolling on the ground. I kicked up his dropped rod and skewered his skull. Quiet at last.
"...Honestly, I thought the odds of you treating me like this were slim to none, so I let my guard down."
Park In-ha glared, clutching her dizzy head.
"What, in some other route, Han Daeri treats you like a princess and keeps you safe?"
"Other you smacked my head a few times but took decent care of me overall. Who'd guess this nightmare route was real? Even I didn't wanna believe that prophecy."
"Life's like that. Nothing goes your way."
Not everything falls neatly into prophecies. Least of all for me.
"Anyway, you kill people way too easily. Hotel too. Not your average worldview. Why not quit now? I prophesied this myself, but I'd love for this one to be wrong."
"Self-inflicted. Not on me—on God."
"......"
"If God really exists, he shouldn't have done that to eight-year-old Han Siwoo."
I ruffled Park In-ha's hair again as she tried fixing it, then strode ahead through the street littered with non-human corpses.
If there'd been even a scrap of help, comfort, encouragement, salvation, hope...
A eight-year-old sick of weekend church drags, half-listening to the pastor's bullshit while sulking? He wouldn't have grown into late-20s Han Daeri, yelling Jesus Heaven Nonbelievers Hell in this chaotic world, rocking outdated long-coat fashion.
How could a normal kid's life spawn a guy like that? That kid just wanted to be ordinary. Burst classmates' noses, master booger-flicking while learning gender equality. Not Han Daeri, piercing the darkest unseen realms with his eyes. Not rejecting death by sheer will. Not forgetting his parents' faces.
Whatever uncertain "God" made me this way. Now I'm just lending a hand with his job.
So yeah. Self-inflicted.