Chapter 21
Chapter 21
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: The Vessel Awakens
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I had thought this day might come someday.
That was why I had left the thing lurking around me alone.
“I’m sorry, Captain.”
Sloth’s voice.
“Of all times, while tracking the seed…”
She had taken an interest in Kim Se-hyun as well, but the timing had been too perfect.
Attention had focused on the incident that occurred while discovering the beast’s seed and pursuing it.
Then Yoon Seung-ah had made her move, so I thought that was the reason.
“Always.”
Go Yohan closed his eyes for a moment and said.
“It’s always like this.”
It had been the same in Travania.
People had said it in the face of timing that aligned too perfectly.
“This is the work of the gods!”
A curse that unless it was the gods’ scheme, unless she willed it, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.
But Go Yohan, Michael, thought differently.
Swoosh.
Demons.
Those damned things were always like this.
“Yohan.”
Kim Se-hyun, who had approached unnoticed, spoke with a bright smile.
It was the same smile as always, but now it seemed even more cloyingly seductive.
“Did you miss me?”
“……”
“You weren’t worried I was gone, right?”
Lee Jae-kyung stood rigidly frozen.
“Captain, what do we do? Kill her?”
Envy was urging Go Yohan.
“Huh, I thought I was really dying from the pain.”
Kim Se-hyun said with a slightly forlorn expression.
“But after going through that pain, everything… everything feels fine now, doesn’t it?”
She spun around with her hands behind her back, as if trying to earn praise like Envy.
“I feel refreshed. I won’t cause you any more trouble now.”
“……”
“Now.”
She grinned.
“I’ll protect you.”
“It hasn’t taken hold yet.”
“Hmm?”
Kim Se-hyun brought her face right up to his.
Go Yohan simply gazed quietly into her eyes, true to his name.
“But you know, Yohan, after the pain, I can see things I couldn’t before.”
Her fingertips.
Tremble.
“You…”
They quivered faintly.
“What the hell are you?”
“Go Yohan.”
Lee Jae-kyung spoke while looking at Go Yohan.
This was school.
Sacred Middle School was equipped with defensive facilities and systems rivaling headquarters due to its divine founding, but it couldn’t be called perfectly safe from incidents within.
Especially.
Tremble.
Lee Jae-kyung’s fingertips were shaking too.
Just as Kim Se-hyun looked at Go Yohan with fear, Lee Jae-kyung looked at Kim Se-hyun with fear.
He who had faced demons while conquering several black gates together.
“Captain!”
And then.
“Everyone, quiet.”
At Go Yohan’s words, the chaotic atmosphere fell silent in an instant.
“Kim Se-hyun.”
“…Yeah?”
“You should stay quiet until school ends.”
There wasn’t enough time to send her home early.
“I’ll check.”
The time for Sloth to move and check on Tae-han.
And.
“Don’t do anything foolish.”
As long as Go Yohan was by her side, he could restrain Kim Se-hyun.
“…You’re so mean.”
Kim Se-hyun said.
“You never look at me.”
For a moment, something seemed to boil in her teary eyes.
That was when.
“Stay still. Before I tear you apart.”
The moment Go Yohan’s voice reached something inside Kim Se-hyun.
Shhh.
Kim Se-hyun, whose eyes had flickered excitedly, soon calmed.
“Yeah. And sorry. Always. Thank you too.”
With her former smile, Kim Se-hyun trudged back to the classroom.
*
*
*
“What… what the hell is going on?”
Lee Jae-kyung said, breathing heavily with excitement.
Behind the school flower bed, Go Yohan gazed at the classroom where Kim Se-hyun was.
“Captain.”
Envy revealed herself too.
“Why did you say not to kill her?”
Envy seemed not to understand either.
From Envy’s perspective, Kim Se-hyun just looked like a demon.
And not just any.
“That thing is dangerous.”
It was enough to make even Envy tense.
It had to be.
“Ha, these damned things have made their move.”
Go Yohan said.
“An Archdemon.”
At the name Archdemon, Lee Jae-kyung and Envy fell silent.
The strongest demon Lee Jae-kyung had seen was the Triangular Demon.
That alone was a monster.
Estimated level 500 or higher.
But an Archdemon.
“We have to… kill it.”
Envy said, more tense than ever before.
“We have to kill it, Captain.”
Envy was even worse.
It, no, the Apostles had seen fragments of an Archdemon.
Children exposed to that power to become its vessel.
That was why they knew just how monstrous it was.
“Why! Why are you just standing there…”
Envy spoke as if she would move immediately without Go Yohan’s permission.
“They must have noticed the vessel was being taken. Even if they don’t know our affairs, they’re not fools.”
The Archdemons had noticed too.
Go Yohan’s existence, something thwarting their plans.
“They moved directly to claim the vessel.”
“Captain…”
Lee Jae-kyung said.
“Then shouldn’t we kill it?”
Even he, who rarely spoke lightly, was frightened.
He had held back because Kim Se-hyun was his student and had ties to Go Yohan.
Rumble.
He too had glimpsed the abyss.
“Why?”
Why not move.
“It’s different from before. And…”
Go Yohan said heavily.
Kim Se-hyun sat quietly in the classroom, pressing her thigh.
“She’s still resisting.”
That was the difference.
“Gong Cheolwoo or Choi Sinwoo types surrendered themselves, intoxicated by that power.”
The demons tempted, and they fell for it.
Even if not by their initial will, Go Yohan had no intention of sparing such people.
Those who sold their souls to demons.
And.
“Kim Se-hyun is different from you all.”
Go Yohan saw Kim Se-hyun as the same as the Apostles like Envy.
“You endured. You held out, protecting that purity unconsciously deep within.”
“……”
“That resolve is why I took you in.”
And Kim Se-hyun too.
“Then, you’ll take in Kim Se-hyun too?”
“Not yet.”
Go Yohan said.
“Kim Se-hyun is different from your case.”
If it had been a black gate, if she was simply being made into a vessel, it wouldn’t matter.
“It’s already too late. Sin and curse, and a part of the Archdemon have taken root.”
“The Archdemon will try to corrupt Kim Se-hyun, and if she endures, I’ll take her in.”
“What if she can’t endure?”
Envy said.
“Then we kill her.”
Envy and Lee Jae-kyung both nodded.
It was Go Yohan.
If Go Yohan said so, it was so; if not, it wasn’t.
“For now, we’ll end school early today.”
Lee Jae-kyung said.
“Captain.”
And just then, Sloth’s voice came through.
*
*
*
“Did you have a safe trip back?”
Taehan Group Chairman Kim Tae-hwan welcomed Kim Se-hyun more gladly than ever.
“Yeah.”
Kim Tae-hwan, beaming, grabbed Kim Se-hyun’s shoulder.
“I granted your request.”
The simple reason Kim Se-hyun could go to school today was that.
She had finally asked to go to school one last time now that the seed had sprouted.
Shiver.
Kim Se-hyun’s entire body trembled like an aspen leaf.
“Tch.”
Kim Tae-hwan clicked his tongue at the sight.
“What’s so regrettable that you can’t endure it?”
Kim Tae-hwan knew what was happening to Kim Se-hyun.
She was resisting a great power.
“Accept it.”
“D…Daddy…”
“And don’t forget.”
He grinned.
“That I’m the one who gave you that power.”
The power that bloomed in Kim Se-hyun was beyond even Kim Tae-hwan’s measure.
The researchers said the player system hadn’t activated yet, but already.
Rumble rumble rumble!
Her estimated level was over 400.
Perhaps far surpassing that.
“D…Daddy…”
Korea’s rank 1 was barely early 300s.
Over 400.
“Yes, yes. My daughter.”
A power that could swallow Korea single-handedly.
This was just the beginning.
“Daddy.”
Kim Se-hyun’s trembling voice stopped.
Kim Tae-hwan believed he could control Kim Se-hyun.
From childhood, she had never dared defy him.
“The Seed of the Evil Lord.”
With this item he possessed as the key, he could manipulate Kim Se-hyun.
And that was.
“Kill him!”
A delusion.
In Kim Se-hyun’s mind, a vicious voice roared.
“That’s the one! Kill that bastard!”
Boom! It sounded like an explosion striking her brain.
“The power you desired! He’s just your chain! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
It screamed.
“You can endure him only by doing so…!”
That voice somehow sounded terrified.
“Don’t you want to be confident?”
The seed rooted in her body stimulated Kim Se-hyun’s hidden inner thoughts.
“Don’t you want it?”
Go Yohan.
“Don’t you want to judge those who ignored you, those who looked at you with lecherous eyes?”
The countless gazes directed at her since childhood.
They weren’t looking at her.
“Taehan.”
The name Taehan.
“Looks.”
Her appearance.
And beyond that, they lusted after something surrounding her, not her.
To Kim Se-hyun’s eyes, it was all too clear.
Only one.
“Yohan.”
Only Go Yohan was different.
Somehow pitiful, somewhat bitter.
Pretending indifference while caring—that Go Yohan was different.
“Kill him, and it will all be yours. He… before he fully grows… now is the time.”
Only with Go Yohan.
“I’ll give him to you; he’ll be yours. You might never have another chance to have him. I’ll give you the power to remove all obstacles.”
The voice said.
“My name is Wrath.”
And.
“I know you have the wrath I desire—hide it no more.”
When the voice reached her.
“Daddy.”
Drip, drop.
From Kim Tae-hwan’s back.
No, precisely from his abdomen, blood poured from Kim Se-hyun’s hand that had pierced through.
“I’m sorry.”
Kim Se-hyun shed tears, smiling more brightly than ever.
“So it’s come to this after all.”
Then a voice came from behind.