I Attended the Gathering (2)
“One month? Isn't that a bit stingy?”
Rembrary clicked his tongue. The wish itself had tempted him, but honestly, what good was anything that only lasted a month?
Meanwhile, Daeju stood before the person making their wish, hands clasped together.
After about thirty seconds of that, Daeju nodded and said, “The angel has answered.” At those words, a faint light began to seep out of the wish-maker's body.
The gathered crowd burst into applause.
Nobody even knew yet whether the wish had actually come true, and the wish itself came with a one-month limit on top of that. And yet everyone seemed more than satisfied with just this much.
As the wish-maker stepped down, Daeju unclasped his hands and waved to the people.
As far as Rembrary could tell, Daeju was only giving them a careless one-handed wave, yet the crowd cheered and flailed both arms in the air.
Rembrary stared at the scene with wistful eyes, his mind drifting. Seeing that made him think of the past…
“Hey, idol. Did your soul get sucked out of your body or something? What's with that face?”
“That is certainly a possibility.”
“Is it because you don't want to gain weight either?”
“Would that be so bad?”
Rembrary forced down the longing for his original world. No matter how much he missed it here, it wouldn't help anything.
Instead, he resolved that if he ended up talking with Daeju later, he would ask him to cast that wish magic on him too.
Daeju continued to bustle around after that, while Rembrary helped himself to the food on the tables.
It was a good thirty minutes later that Daeju finally noticed him and came over.
“Maeng Woo-shin.”
Even with his face completely covered, Daeju had somehow recognized him. He walked straight up to Maeng Woo-shin and asked how he'd been.
“I've been well, of course.”
While Rembrary waited anxiously, wondering when exactly he was going to talk to me, Daeju exchanged a few words with Maeng Woo-shin, then made a request.
“Would you step aside for a moment?”
He then turned and bowed courteously to Rembrary.
“It is an infinite honor that you have graced us with your presence.”
Maeng Woo-shin's eyes went wide as he looked back and forth between Rembrary and Daeju.
“Why on earth are you using such extreme honorifics with him, Daeju-nim?”
It was strange enough that Daeju treated Rembrary with such deference, but his manner of speech was stranger still.
But instead of explaining, Daeju simply repeated his command.
“Step aside for a moment, I said.”
Maeng Woo-shin had no choice but to move away.
Even from a distance, though, he kept craning his neck, trying to see what the two of them were talking about.
Perhaps even that was too much. Daeju waved his hand at Maeng Woo-shin, urging him to go even farther, then led Rembrary to a spot entirely free of other people.
“Must we really talk all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“There are a few people I'd rather not have overhearing our conversation.”
Once they were completely alone, Daeju picked up where they had left off.
“I have shown you an embarrassing ability of mine.”
“No, it was fascinating. I quite enjoyed it.”
“You did? What part of it, may I ask?”
“The one-month limit? I have never seen anything of that sort before.”
“…Then I truly did show you something unbearably shameful.”
“There is nothing to be ashamed of. In truth, I find your ability rather enviable.”
“Do you?”
“If it's no trouble, could you do that for me as well?”
“Do… what, exactly?”
“Eating food as I please. Dieting has been rather a struggle, you see.”
“I am terribly sorry, but I've already used it for this month. I cannot.”
“Granting only one wish per month — that was not simply a concept you invented?”
“No. That is the limit.”
So his divine power really is on the weaker side, then.
“Then tell me, Daeju. What do you do when a wish comes along that is beyond your ability to grant?”
“When someone states their wish, if it is of an impossible difficulty, I am permitted to refuse it.”
“And what happens to that person, then?”
“They may change their wish to something else.”
“So every wish lasts no longer than a month?”
“It depends on the wish, but one concerning an ability like that will only last a month.”
Rembrary marveled, again and again, at Daeju's words.
“Daeju. You really are quite weak, you know.”
He received a wonderful ability, but the divine power underlying it is certainly not strong.
In a way, Daeju's Angel's Wish was the perfect opposite of Rembrary's True Bet.
But while Rembrary could use his ability without restriction, Daeju's seemed burdened with severe limitations.
Perhaps those thoughts had shown through on his face, because Daeju gazed at him for a long moment before smiling bitterly.
“Of course. Your strength is on an entirely different plane from the likes of me, High Priest.”
“I could not say whether I am strong, but my ability is likely the finer of the two.”
“It is a great joy to be able to serve someone as remarkable as you.”
“Praise me. Praise me more.”
When Rembrary smiled with satisfaction, Daeju added yet another compliment.
“I do hope you will visit us more often.”
“Do you mean that, or is it empty words?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Very well. But if you wish me to come visiting, then set a proper date.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Daeju, who knew nothing of the conversation between Rembrary and Sa Gam-jae, could only ask back in bewilderment.
But when it became clear that Rembrary had no intention of elaborating, Daeju posed another question instead.
“By the way — would your ability happen to be of the healing variety, High Priest?”
“Healing? Where in the world did that come from?”
“Surely you know that all manner of rumors circulate about Daeju-nim within the entertainment industry. Everything from chilling rumors to whispers that he has mysteriously cured people's ailments. If one were to assume those rumors are true…”
“That is indeed the branch my power falls under.”
Rembrary, thrilled at the rare chance to discuss his own greatness with someone, tucked a pleased smile beneath his cloak.
Daeju made an odd expression, but with the hood pulled down low, Rembrary couldn't see it.
It was just then, as the two of them walked along talking, that it happened.
“Come to think of it, you said you had something to tell me, did you not?”
Daeju asked, recalling that Rembrary had once tried to seek him out.
Rembrary stopped short, realizing his slip.
Right. He had wanted to meet Daeju because he had a question to ask.
Not because he wanted to gawk at a wish that let someone eat as much food as they wanted for a month.
“Ah. Yes. There is something I must say. A very important question.”
At the words important question, Daeju tensed and fixed his gaze on Rembrary.
Rembrary asked in a grave voice.
“What is my aura like?”
“…”
“I am gentle and merciful. But do you sense a rough edge beneath the surface?”
Daeju laughed awkwardly. He couldn't push back against the High Priest, but privately he thought Rembrary's words were utterly pointless. He couldn't understand why such a question needed to be put to him at all. What answer was the man hoping to hear?
“Which way would you like me to answer?”
“What nonsense is that? Answer as you truly feel.”
“The god has yet to grant me sufficient insight into you, High Priest, so I do not know which answer would please you.”
“I said answer as you truly feel.”
“?”
“Some time ago, a certain demon beast treated me with great familiarity, you see.”
Only after hearing that did Daeju nod along with an “Ah, I see.” So he wasn't asking with an answer already decided.
“It made me curious. Do I seem strange to you? I did come from another world, after all… It's possible I appear rather odd to the people of this place, no?”
Yeomra and the grim reapers had said as much to his face, after all.
Rembrary wanted to know for certain whether the strange attitude the demon beasts and demons showed him came from this world's energy — or from that thing lurking within his shadow.
But the person he'd chosen to ask was hardly an ideal candidate for maintaining an impartial perspective.
“You are not strange in the least, High Priest. You are perfect, High Priest. You are the very best, High Priest.”
“I see.”
“Yes.”
Rembrary nodded, satisfied. So he was perfect and the best even here, with nothing the least bit strange about him.
Then why had the demon beast, and the demons too, all acted so oddly toward him?
Lost in these thoughts as he walked, he noticed the people gathered for the assembly growing restless, itching to catch Daeju's attention.
Ever perceptive, Rembrary realized that the crowd was envious of him for monopolizing so much of Daeju's time.
He had asked everything he needed to ask anyway, so Rembrary told Daeju, “I shall wander about on my own from here.” He'd gotten his questions answered; there was nothing more he needed from him.
But then Daeju said something unexpected.
“In fact, there is something I would like to show you as well.”
“Something to show me?”
“A rare and precious item.”
Rather than heading toward the people waiting for him, Daeju said, “This way, please,” and quietly opened a door and slipped outside.
Not the door through which Maeng Woo-shin and Rembrary had entered, but the one Daeju himself had come through.
Beyond the door lay another long corridor.
Daeju raised a hand to indicate they should proceed down it, shut the door firmly behind them, and continued speaking as they walked.
“Performing a miracle only once a month makes it very difficult to expand one's following. Many of the people here are the sort who dismiss anything supernatural out of hand.”
There was even a faction that tried to kill every Saint they found.
Winging miracles far and wide to spread word of mouth would attract Nakru's attention, and accepting huge numbers of new followers all at once — enough to simply ignore Nakru — required more visible miracles than Daeju had to give.
That was the crux of the problem.
This was also part of why Daeju gathered his followers mainly from among celebrities.
Celebrities could easily recruit other believers through their own connections, while occupying a position where they necessarily had to keep their mouths shut.
Rembrary nodded along, conceding the point.
“Yes, I can see that. So where are we going now?”
“Do you remember when you asked to meet with me, High Priest, and I said I had a prior appointment?”
As if he could forget. That was the day he'd been scolded for asking whether he could come anytime he liked.
Rembrary stared at him hard, but Daeju went on without a trace of apology.
“As I said, on my own I lack the power to work miracles dramatic enough to make people follow a god they've never heard of overnight. So I am always collecting artifacts — items of divine significance — whenever I discover them.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes. They are useful. And the prior appointment I mentioned was a meeting with a dealer who trades in such items. We were in the middle of negotiating a purchase.”
Is this divine significance he speaks of the same thing I'm thinking of?
“That is what I wanted to show you. Though there is, in fact, a slight problem with it.”
Just then, the two of them reached the end of the corridor.
Another door stood there, with guards maintaining an ironclad defense in front of it as well.
At a glance from Daeju, they immediately withdrew to clear the way, and the two entered the room.
The door was about the same size, but the room inside was far smaller than the hall where the assembly had been held.
At the center of the room stood a cushion, enclosed in a glass case.
“There is a problem, but it is one I cannot resolve with my own power—”
Daeju had been walking toward it, explaining as he went, when he abruptly fell silent.
Rembrary pointed at the cushion with a finger.
“Is this the artifact of divine significance?”
“Certainly not.”
Daeju shook his head, his expression grave.
“There was a brush here.”
“A brush?”
“Yes. A brush that brushes away people's negative emotions. I was told that if used while observing a few precautions, its effects would be quite beneficial, but—”
“Where is this brush, then?”
“That's just it. I wonder if someone might have stolen it…”
Daeju trailed off, his expression growing even darker.
“Is there no CCTV here?”
“Not in this room.”
It must have been an extremely expensive item, Rembrary thought, and as he did, Daeju's face grew even gloomier.
But Daeju's darkening expression had nothing to do with the brush's price.
“As I mentioned, there is a slight problem with it.”
“A problem?”
“I hardly know whether to call it a side effect or a curse…”
“If you put it that way, I will understand nothing at all? What is this side effect you speak of?”
“I will explain as we search. The only entrance to this room is the one we came through, and no one has left — so it must have been stolen by one of the assembly's attendees.”
End of Chapter 143: Attending the Gathering (2)