80. Can I Go Back?
"Hold on—me, caught in the act? Gam-jae, what on earth do you mean?" Flustered, Rembrary cried out to Sa Gam-jae.
Sa Gam-jae answered flatly as he snapped the handcuffs around Rembrary's wrists. "It means exactly what it says."
"Did you think I pushed Lim Yu-han? Is that the misunderstanding here? No, I—"
"I know you saved her."
"You know? Then why am I the one being arrested? And what about him?"
When Rembrary jerked his chin toward the curtain, the bull-headed demon hiding behind it bolted out the window in a panic.
"That one falls under a different department. And if that one is caught, there will be no arrest or trial — it simply dies. I will explain the details once we are upstairs."
Rembrary stared at him, mouth agape, then let out a sigh and snapped the handcuffs clean off his wrists.
In an instant, the grim reapers standing about all tensed at once and closed in around him, wary. From who knew where they'd been concealing them, weapons of every kind sprang into view.
Sa Gam-jae looked down at the cuffs — severed clean through, as if sliced off by a child playing with clay — clicked his tongue, and asked, "Are you refusing to comply?"
Rembrary kicked the fallen cuffs aside. "And what exactly happens if I come along? If this means prison, I cannot follow. I grow stifled in narrow, barren places."
"Most people do. And there is a high probability you will not be going to prison."
"Then what? What will I be doing there?"
"You will be granted an audience with King Yeomra."
"Who is that?"
"A god."
At that, Rembrary hastily scooped the handcuffs back up, gripped one in each hand, and urged them onward. "Then let's go. Quickly."
Where were they taking him? Rembrary waited, brimming with anticipation.
As the great High Priest, he had conversed with gods often enough and exchanged offerings of fruit with them, yet even he had stood before a god precious few times in his life.
And now, a god of another world!
Was he finally about to find his way back to his original world? Rembrary was trembling with excitement.
"We're on our way to the Underworld, and you're delighted?"
"I did tell you he was a strange one."
Around him, the men in black suits either muttered among themselves or paid him no mind whatsoever.
"Faster, Gam-jae. I'm impatient. Hurry, hurry."
Sa Gam-jae sighed, removed his suit jacket, and dropped it over Rembrary's head.
"What are you doing?"
Scowling, Rembrary shoved the jacket off — and was genuinely startled. The instant it left his head, he had a sense of something sweeping past him, and before he knew it, the whole world had dissolved into pale white fog.
"Where is this?"
As he asked and looked around, he could make out, between the milky wisps of fog, shapeless things staggering to and fro.
"The riverside."
"The riverside?"
"Humans call it by many different names. Among ourselves, we simply call it the river."
The silhouette passing nearest them came into comparatively sharp focus, and Rembrary very nearly cried out in spite of himself.
It looked human, except that fingers sprouted thickly from every inch of its body, pointing every which way as they pleased. Worse, each individual finger was murmuring to itself — "Here?" "There?" "Here?" "Here?"
As Rembrary stood gaping at the thing, Sa Gam-jae settled the jacket back over his head with a word of caution.
"Keep the jacket on at all times."
With that, he started walking ahead.
In a place like this, whatever you are told not to do, you must not do. Rembrary meekly donned the jacket and followed.
How far had they gone? A smell of smoke drifted past, and then his ankles felt damp. He looked down to find them submerged in flame.
"Water?"
Rembrary kicked at the water a few times, then called ahead:
"There's water here, Gam-jae."
He assumed Sa Gam-jae must have taken a wrong turn. He had not. Sa Gam-jae and his colleagues kept walking, treading straight out across the water.
Am I to keep walking too? Clicking his tongue, Rembrary stepped out onto the fire and pressed on after them.
But as he followed, something struck him as odd. Not only Sa Gam-jae and the black-suited reapers — even the ferrymen poling their boats about the river were staring at Rembrary with faces of open horror.
"What is the matter?"
When a bewildered Rembrary asked, one of the black suits burst out, as though he'd witnessed something no one ought to see. "How are you just walking here?"
"Was I meant to take off my shoes?"
At Rembrary's baffled reply, the man's expression grew stranger still.
"On this river, every human grows heavy in exact proportion to the weight of their guilt. There is no human alive who feels no guilt — sinking is the norm. I half expected you to be flailing about as well, begging us to pull you across."
"I suppose that's what comes of living an honest life."
Sa Gam-jae murmured under his breath, I told you he was a strange one.
The party moved off again and reached the far bank. There, great trees spread their branches in every direction, and from those boughs hung garments of every conceivable kind, fluttering in the wind.
Rembrary registered that the fog, which had been lifting by degrees, had vanished entirely. From there they followed a path that looked like an ordinary walking trail and made easier going of it, passing through a beautiful flower garden before entering the great black-and-white castle.
Only after climbing to the castle's second floor did Sa Gam-jae stop and say, "Here we are."
The center of the second floor stood wide open on one side, wall-less, a long red carpet stretching down its length to an ornate chair at the far end.
And in that chair sat a figure draped — rather than dressed — in a scarlet ensemble thrown on haphazardly from head to toe, wearing the face of a man bored half to death.
Legs crossed, idly swinging one foot, listlessly flipping through the documents on his desk, the man lifted his gaze with visible annoyance as Sa Gam-jae's party entered. It was a look that said, quite plainly: I'm bored out of my mind — now what do you lot want.
The moment that gaze landed on Rembrary, a tiny spark of life returned to it.
Rembrary eyed the red garments and called softly to Sa Gam-jae.
"Who is the one dressed in those gaudy clothes, Gam-jae?"
The red-clad man rose and supplied the answer himself. "I am the King. And you would be the saint of the other world."
How could a god be so utterly lacking in presence...? Rembrary studied the King before him, marveling.
Nothing about the man seemed striking but his garments. His face, examined closely, was handsome enough — but at a glance it simply failed to register.
Less a god than a bit of ambient air?
The gods of the world he had come from were nothing of the sort — least of all the goddess he had served. Goddess Redrin was divine from afar and divine up close. A single word from her radiated presence; even her silence carried majesty. Was that not what a god was meant to be?
Perhaps not — but Rembrary had lived his whole life believing it, and belief had hardened into prejudice. It was why he had failed, earlier, to recognize that 'King' as a god at all.
But Rembrary was not the only one gazing at a strange sight. The 'King' seated across from him was studying Rembrary just as closely, sighing inwardly again and again.
When Sa Gam-jae had first reported that a fake saint had appeared, the King had thought nothing of it. When the report added that the man did not appear to be a mere impostor, he had honestly thought nothing of that either.
Only when he heard that an aura foreign to this world could be felt from the fake saint did the King begin, faintly, to take an interest.
That interest deepened when the opinion was raised that the man might be a saint of another world.
Rembrary didn't know it, but some time ago the gods of the Underworld had even gathered to wager on whether this otherworld saint would differ from their own or prove much the same.
The 'King' had been among those who predicted that a saint was a saint, in any world.
But the otherworld saint, seen in the flesh...
"Gam-jae. Coffee for me. Black. The strong stuff, if you would."
...was unmistakably a different breed from anything this world had to offer.
The King lamented inwardly, over and over. Were saints not meant to be humble and self-effacing, gentle souls who cherished the weak? Why did that otherworld saint so naturally order about his subordinates? Was he not the least bit afraid of a grim reaper?
"Goodness. Gam-jae. Isn't this a touch too strong?"
And why, on top of everything, was Sa Gam-jae indulging his every whim?
The King cocked his head, glancing back and forth between the two of them, then resolved to attend to business first. Yes. He had not summoned them here to be entertained. He had called them for a matter of some gravity.
He ordered the coffee Rembrary was so fixated on moved aside, then spoke.
"Drink your coffee later, saint of the other world. First, the serious matter. Do you know what you have done here?"
"I was wondering the same. I saved a person's life, and was promptly arrested."
"You have disturbed the Order."
"I heard it mentioned, but I don't understand what this 'Order' is."
"The Order is the order of our world. And the order of our world means concealing our power. The particulars are not for you to know, saint of the other world. You are no saint of this place."
"Then why summon me?"
"I don't know why you've come here, but you are to return to your original world."
Was that all he'd been summoned to hear? Rembrary arched an eyebrow.
Return, of all things. If that were possible, he would hardly be stuck here like this. It was precisely because it wasn't that he was enduring this place, swallowing his displeasure like so much bitter greens.
"I want to go back too."
Rembrary sighed and laid out his wretched circumstances.
The Demon King. The campaign to stop him. The way he had been abruptly flung out of it all. And how, upon waking, he had found himself inside the body of one 'Woo Yeon-woo,' an idol of this world.
"And to be told this world has neither magic nor divine power — you can imagine my bewilderment."
At the explanation, the King furrowed his brow.
"So you cannot return?"
Rembrary clasped his hands together and pleaded. "Send me back, and I shall go."
"And what is your god doing about it?"
"She sends me divine power, but she does not answer."
"Is that so?"
I wonder why. So saying, the King rose to his feet and declared with perfect confidence:
"In any case — if you say you will return once I send you, then I shall make contact for you. The moment the call goes through, you go straight home."
"Gladly."
Nodding, the King walked off somewhere with one hand clasped behind his back.
Rembrary rose to follow, quite naturally, but Sa Gam-jae held him back, and he returned to his seat and drank his coffee.
But the King, who had promised to return shortly, did not come back no matter how long they waited.
Rembrary drained two cups of coffee in succession and, finally bored out of his mind, called over Sa Gam-jae.
"Gam-jae. What is your role here?"
"Grim reaper."
"And what is that?"
"We bring in the dead."
"And what are the dead?"
"Souls. Souls of the deceased."
"You collect them personally? You? No — wait. In this world, souls must be fetched one by one, like that?"
"Is it not so in your world?"
"Goodness, of course not. Everyone crosses the bridge on their own two feet the moment they die — punctual as clockwork."
"Surely not."
"Truly. Do you know why?"
"?"
"In my world, the Underworld is a lovely place. Wonderfully appointed. But look at this one. Make the afterlife this terrifying, and naturally people flee in terror, don't they? Look at that river from earlier. Does it look like somewhere you'd want to go?"
"So you lot ought to renovate as well." Sa Gam-jae stared for a long moment at Rembrary as he doled out this preposterous advice, then shook his head. "Not within my authority."
By then, the King had returned from wherever he had gone, his face grave.
"Did the call go through?"
Rembrary shot to his feet at once, calling out. Could he finally return to his original world? His heart was pounding with hope.
"I did make the call."
But the tail of the answer was negative. Rembrary cried out in alarm.
"She will not answer?"
"No, she answers. She does answer, but—"
— End of Chapter 80 —