One of the Three
Someone stole an item at the gathering?
Good heavens. Rembrary clicked his tongue. It was something his original believers would never even have imagined.
To dare lay hands on a priest's belongings—worse, to come to a gathering and steal them.
"You've been a bit too soft on them, haven't you? Sometimes fear is a necessary thing."
"Did you wield the whip and the carrot together, High Priest?"
"Well, no, nothing of the sort."
In the world Rembrary had lived in, everyone knew the gods existed, and so no one would touch a priest's possessions—if only out of unease.
But those who gathered here had been drawn less by complete faith in Redrin than by Daeju's abilities. Which meant, quite clearly, they were comparatively unafraid of divine punishment.
"Money aside, the item has severe side effects. It must be recovered at all costs."
Just in case, Daeju rummaged around the room here and there, and Rembrary trailed after him, pestering him with questions.
"Just what are these side effects of the brush that have you so worked up?"
"With excessive use, it doesn't merely erase negative emotions."
"And then?"
"It can erase all emotion entirely."
"Really now. What matter is it if one loses a few emotions?"
Daeju, who had been answering gravely, turned around with a look that said, what nonsense is this?
"I beg your pardon?"
"So long as the five senses remain, the world offers plenty to eat."
"What good is eating something delicious if it brings you no joy?"
"...Does it not?"
Perhaps not. While Rembrary was still chewing on that, Daeju continued in an even darker voice.
"And in time... the face disappears as well."
"You mean the head comes off?"
"The eyes, nose, and mouth gradually vanish, one must assume."
Rembrary, digging through the cushion the brush had rested upon, jolted in shock.
Emotions vanish, and then the eyes, nose, and mouth fade away until the face is gone?
The faceless demon sprang to mind at once.
But he quickly shook his head. It would be an entirely different youkai that merely resembled it in appearance.
Demons were not made that way to begin with, and though that demon seemed to have no face, it could manifest one when it pleased.
Just as Rembrary was settling on that understanding, Daeju added grimly,
"In other words, they become a youkai."
Rembrary then recalled his phone call with Sa Gam-jae.
Back when he had just been learning about Labrum, he had asked Sa Gam-jae about the 'faceless demon'.
And Sa Gam-jae had double-checked with him once—asking whether he really meant a 'demon', not a 'faceless youkai'.
At the time Rembrary had simply let it pass, but thinking about it now—didn't that mean such a youkai actually existed?
What if that youkai was the very kind created by this brush's side effects, or...
"Ah. Daeju."
"Yes."
"The culprit will not be Maeng Woo-shin. He was with me the whole time."
The moment the two of them stepped out of the room, the guards greeted them at once. The room was thoroughly soundproofed, and their expressions betrayed nothing.
"Did anyone enter this room at any point?"
"No, sir."
"No one even came near it."
"Were you ever away from your posts?"
"No, sir."
"The gathering has only just begun, so we haven't rotated shifts yet."
None of them showed the slightest tell of a lie.
But the guards' placid composure changed the moment Daeju began pressing them with pointed questions.
"Has something happened inside?"
One of them, sharp enough to read the room, asked, and Daeju answered honestly.
"Yes. ...Someone has stolen an item."
"Good heavens."
The guards murmured in shock, then unanimously insisted that truly no one had entered.
Daeju calmed them down and returned to the hall where the gathering was being held.
Rembrary stood with his hands behind his back, deep in thought.
The truth was, he had the power to uncover the truth. Just as he had with Hye-gyeol's school bullying rumors, he could use True Bet on the gathering's participants.
Tedious, but it would work.
The problem was that doing so would require baring his forehead entirely. And if he showed his face and started firing off strange questions, the participants—who had joined while covering their faces—would surely push back hard.
Above all, if he used his ability on every single participant here, it would look suspicious to anyone watching.
Daeju was a priest of another world chosen by the god Redrin, but the people gathered here were on dubious ground as Redrin's believers. They didn't believe in Redrin herself, so much as in what they took to be an angel.
And besides, hadn't it been said that non-believers were mixed in among them as well?
Revealing his power outright in front of people like that? Out of the question.
I must keep a low profile as much as possible.
In the end, Rembrary swept a long, serious gaze across the hall, none the wiser.
There is also a chance the culprit isn't human at all.
While he was at it, Maeng Woo-shin sidled up beside him and grumbled.
"What were you and Daeju talking about earlier?"
"Nothing much."
"If it was nothing much, then you can tell me what it was."
"Daeju wanted to try something, but—"
"But what?"
The instant he was about to say that someone had stolen something—
the MC, who had been tearing into a piece of bread in the corner of the stage, suddenly bellowed, "Time for recreation activities!"
Maeng Woo-shin flinched and asked cautiously.
"Daeju wants to do... recreation?"
His face was one of utter disbelief—and frankly, he had every right to be dumbfounded.
Recreation, out of nowhere, at a gathering held once a month in secret? It wasn't as if they were middle schoolers on some group retreat.
"Sunbae, what's 'recreation'?"
"How would I know? Group games and stuff, that kind of thing. Wait, no—you don't even know what recreation is? Where the hell did you go to school? Didn't your school do boot-camp retreats or anything?"
With no way of knowing which school Yeon-woo had attended, Rembrary dodged the question and instead studied the mood around them.
Everyone seemed just as flustered as Maeng Woo-shin by this out-of-nowhere recreation business.
"Ah, what the hell."
"Recreation? Where'd that come from?"
"No, seriously, I didn't come to a secret gathering to play group games."
One thing's certain—this was never part of the program before...
Glancing over at Daeju, Rembrary saw him locked in a serious conversation with the MC.
The recreation seems to be for the purpose of finding that lost item...
And sure enough. Having heard whatever Daeju had to say, the MC took the microphone and announced,
"Since items can be dropped or lost during the games, please place all of your belongings in the cabinets in the next room."
Maeng Woo-shin nearly had a fit.
"How intense are they planning for this to be?"
Most of the participants shared his reaction, but the great majority still stepped forward to take part. Only three people opted out, citing poor health.
The crowd filed out into the corridor wearing sour expressions.
When Rembrary followed to watch, he saw them entering a room adjacent to the hall. Tagging along, he found rows of neat cabinets lining the walls inside.
One by one, the people deposited everything they were carrying into the cabinets.
Rembrary became certain: Daeju had staged the recreation deliberately.
He wants everyone to empty their pockets.
There didn't seem to be any CCTV here either—but there had to be some other way. And Rembrary's guess proved correct.
This room, too, had no cameras—but it did have a master key.
So while the participants played the games, Daeju intended to inspect every item they had set down.
He had specifically asked that the recreation involve vigorous physical movement, so even if the thief hadn't left the brush here, it would become obvious at once.
Once the games began, Daeju, together with a few of his close aides, checked every single item in the cabinets.
The brush was nowhere to be found.
Back inside the hall, Daeju turned his gaze on the three people who had sat out the recreation on the sidelines.
At this point, the odds were high that one of those three was the culprit...
From a distance, Rembrary had been stealing sidelong glances at Daeju, and the moment the recreation ended, he strode over and asked,
"Did you find it?"
"We could not find the brush."
"And the three who didn't take part in the... what was it, earlier?"
"We couldn't search their persons. But given the circumstances, those three are the most suspicious."
Rembrary clicked his tongue. Fair enough. If Daeju started frisking people right there, it really would look bizarre.
"That is why, High Priest..."
"Why what?"
"I will give you those three names. Would you circulate among them and sound them out a little?"
"Me?"
"Yes. You are the only celebrity besides myself who knows about this matter. There's no need to dig for information in earnest—just brush past them now and then and drop a hint."
"And who are these three?"
"All three are celebrities."
"Understood. If I happen to cross paths with them, I shall ask."
"Ki Seung-min, Song Seo-young, and Jo Sa-yeon."
Daeju gave him the names, and Rembrary moved to acknowledge them—then froze.
One of the three names... Jo Sa-yeon.
He had the nagging sense he'd heard that one name somewhere before.
Where was it?
"At least memorize the names of your fellow cast members, okay? Hmm?"
The next day.
The members without schedules hadn't returned to the dorm yet, and only Jong-woo and Sa Gam-jae had come ahead on account of Rembrary's Dating Process shoot.
On the way there, Rembrary had asked Jong-woo in the car about 'Jo Sa-yeon' specifically.
He'd tried searching online, but judging by the man's face alone, Rembrary knew almost nothing about him. Plenty of information came up, of course—but reading through it all, it was hard to tell whether 'am I actually acquainted with this person?'
And yet he was supposedly a fellow cast member on the same program.
"I've never seen his face, though?"
"Obviously not. You're on the two-timing team, and he's on the transit team."
"Ah."
Come to think of it, that was right. At the start, he'd found the names in the script and memorized them—but since he'd never had occasion to meet the man, it had slipped his mind.
Still, Rembrary frowned, worried. Daeju had asked him to sound the three out as he circulated among them.
But judging by the broadcast patterns so far, Rembrary never had occasion to run into Jo Sa-yeon at all.
And then—what luck.
The VJ, who had been quietly listening in, lit up and exclaimed,
"Oh, right! We're filming with the transit team members today!"
Jong-woo jolted in surprise.
"With another team? Is that allowed?"
"We actually had a cross-episode planned from the start, pending audience response. The existing teams' colors are so distinct and their chemistry works so well that we were leaning toward not mixing them—but still."
Either way, it was welcome news for Rembrary. Just as Daeju had asked, he would now get to come face to face with the man.
"Ah, let me first explain how today will go."
The VJ, glancing back and forth between Rembrary—who smiled with a warmth that gave nothing away—and Jong-woo, who kept thinking 'will this really be okay?', laid out the day's concept.
"You know the transit team is three people too, right? Caitlin, the foreign star who's huge on variety shows, is dating top star Jo Sa-yeon—but Jo Sa-yeon's heart gradually turns toward Ju Min-seo, the devoted fan who's stayed by his side for years. That's their team concept."
"I know."
"Right, just in case you'd forgotten. Anyway, that's the setup, but so far the focus has been on Caitlin and Jo Sa-yeon's romance, you see? So now we'll be filming Jo Sa-yeon's heart beginning to waver as he watches Ju Min-seo grow close with another man. And that other man is you, Yeon-woo."
The VJ smiled and held out a printed sheet to Rembrary.
"Here, this is today's concept."
Rembrary took the paper and raised an eyebrow as he looked for the script.
"There's no script?"
"They said if you have a script, you act even weirder, so they left it out on purpose."
"?"
— End of Chapter 144: One of the Three —