035_Muwol Church (2)
Sizzle-crackle.
"Urgh...! Mmph! Mmmph...!"
Eight vertical lines carved across the man's face. His entire visage became a blood-soaked mess, and the blood-drenched scrap of his eyepatch tumbled to the ground after being sliced away by the cutter. Blood spraying from his face splattered onto mine and my clothes as well.
The remaining four, forced to listen helplessly to what was happening to the man beside them, cowered in terror, heads bowed low as their bodies trembled uncontrollably.
Even as the cutter dragged lines across his face, the man never opened his eyes—perhaps sensing the moment he looked at me that he wouldn't leave this place alive.
I'd killed before using drones, but I'd never tortured anyone like this. Seeing it up close was far more gruesome.
Normally, the executives would step up for any necessary torture, but I'd insisted on doing it myself. These people had killed monsters and humans alike on my orders before—and would do so again. I didn't need to get blood on my own hands, but as the head of this group, I didn't want it only on my subordinates' either.
So I'd taken charge of this interrogation.
I removed the bloodied gag from the man's mouth and asked again.
"The next one's going to be worse. If you think you don't have enough reason to betray them, say so now. If you think you do, answer my questions from here on out."
"H-heuk...! Heok!"
"Alright, let me change the question. From what you said about the elders earlier, it seems the Muwol Church has ranks. Tell me everything you know about it."
The man glared at me with bulging eyes and spat out his words.
"Even if you do this... nothing changes... Soon... no, someday!"
Sizzle-crackle.
"Gaaak!"
The plasma cutter pierced straight through the man's head, and he collapsed to the floor.
With shaking hands, I removed the second woman's blindfold and showed her the fresh corpse, then said, "Unfortunately, your brother martyr died. Your choice."
She glanced back and forth between the body and me before slamming her forehead to the floor and screaming, "I-I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"
"Good choice."
As she spoke, the believers beside her began thrashing against their bonds.
"Mmmph! Mmph!"
Probably furious at her betrayal.
I ordered the man's body dissolved with dissolving liquid projection come morning, then commanded surveillance on the remaining three before blindfolding the woman with Han Seol and taking her to the prison's basement level 2.
"No one can hear you here but me, so speak freely."
"If I tell you everything, w-will you let me live?!"
The woman was utterly gripped by fear of death.
"To cut to the chase: tell the full truth, and you'll walk out alive. But you'll live under Union surveillance without freedom for a while. Once we verify everything you say, we'll release you—so survive until then."
"Th-thank you! I'll tell you everything!"
The woman began spilling every scrap of Muwol Church knowledge she had. As a low-rank believer who wasn't even an awakener, it wasn't much—but enough to harden both mine and Han Seol's expressions.
The Muwol Church wasn't just some cult founded by a leader who could control monsters.
Eight months after joining, she'd earned the chance to attend the leader's worship service—and witnessed him riding atop a monster like it was a mount.
New believers who saw it firsthand were convinced the rumors of him taming monsters were true. Word was he was succeeding with ever-stronger ones.
When I asked where the monsters came from, she said followers spread as far as Gyeonggi Province would tip off the church when tamable monsters appeared, and the leader would go tame them personally.
"Haa..."
The Muwol Church likely already commanded a monster legion.
"That's everything I know about the church. Please! Honor your promise and let me live!"
"No, there are still other believers left. If your stories don't match, you die."
When I asked why she'd devoted herself to the church, she said in this hellish world, once the leader succeeded in his holy war, peace would return—and as a faithful helper, she'd enjoy power and wealth.
She wasn't right in the head.
Even betraying the church now, her face was filled with guilt.
I interrogated the remaining three: two clamped their mouths shut to the end and were executed on the spot; the last spilled everything he knew, matching her story exactly.
Both said contact came via occasional church emissaries assigning missions.
By now, the church had likely noticed these members' disappearance and realized they'd been captured alive.
Using them to trace the network was pointless.
The talk of taming ever-stronger monsters gnawed at me more with time.
For now, I locked up the two survivors and planned to hand them to the Union tomorrow.
"What now? They're too decentralized, and these grunts don't know much about the church itself. We can't find their base."
Han Seol replied, "For now, we have no choice but to order the Union's executives to investigate the Muwol Church and wait. If we aggressively hunt them now, they'll just go underground again."
"Yeah..."
The next morning, I contacted the Union, and a truck arrived promptly. I briefed them on what I'd learned and loaded the two believers aboard.
I commanded the Union's top executives to investigate the Muwol Church as quietly as possible.
The captured believers were headed to the Seonghun Merchant Association.
Han Seol told me that once there, the torture would make what I'd done look gentlemanly by comparison.
I'd promised to let them live, but I'd never intended to.
"Haa..."
"Do-hyun, are you worried?"
"No, it's not that... it's just..."
Every time I'd felt uneasy while staying here, some major incident had erupted soon after.
And right now, that exact feeling gripped me.
A week passed since assigning the Muwol Church investigation.
Still no real leads.
"Loyalty!"
"Yeah..."
The warlords who'd joined the Union periodically came to pay respects.
Before, Han Seol or her sister handled them, but now I met the leaders of sizable groups personally.
They pledged loyalty and hoped for rare gifts like fruit, dairy, meat, or seafood—just enough for a few to sample.
The reason was simple: take back impossible luxuries from modern Korea, show them off to subordinates, and boast that "the Union's Overlord favors me enough to send gifts," solidifying their power.
Knowing their intentions were harmless, I gave tiny amounts.
Im Jui's reinforcement finished, and Na Hye-won moved into our house.
Next up: Jeong Su-hwan.
He'd said he'd go after the Han sisters, but I chose him anyway—after all, he was the resident I'd known longest; it felt neglectful otherwise.
The sisters agreed.
Na Hye-won used her ability in the morning, recovered with four hours' sleep in the VIP room looking reborn, then spent the rest of her time at our place.
I gave her one of the spare first-floor rooms.
She bonded quickly with the Han sisters and got along great.
"Do-hyun, Vice Chairman Lee Seong-guk from the Seonghun Merchant Association is here."
I opened my eyes to find Han Seol and Han Byeol standing before me.
"What time is it...?"
The clock read 4 a.m.
"Don't tell me... Muwol Church news?"
"Yes."
"Hoo..."
I got out of bed, dressed, splashed water on my face, and went to greet Lee Seong-guk before heading to the bathhouse.
His expression was gravely serious.
Acting on Ham Seong-hoon's orders, he'd come alone to relay the message.
"Overlord."
"Yeah, take your time."
"Last night, we captured a high-ranking Muwol Church official operating inside our association."
"What?"
Lee Seong-guk dropped the bombshell: the president of a company that had been doing business in the Seonghun Merchant Association for over a year was actually a Muwol Church elder named O Tae-hoon.
Here's how it went down.
Late last night, loud noises came from O Tae-hoon's mansion, so the guards responded. He brushed it off as nothing and told them to leave.
Sensing something off in his demeanor, the guards insisted on checking inside—but his bodyguards suddenly turned hostile. The guards killed them on the spot, arrested O Tae-hoon, and while searching the house, found a door leading underground.
Down below: four dead men and one bound, bleeding survivor.
The guards arrested O Tae-hoon's family and treated the survivor to take his statement.
He and the four dead men were thieves. The quartet had broken into O Tae-hoon's place to rob it, found valuables, then spotted the basement door.
Convinced rare treasures lay below, they went down—only to be discovered by O Tae-hoon and his guards, sparking a fight.
But instead of calling reinforcements, O Tae-hoon and his men locked them up and started killing them one by one, demanding "Who sent you?" and such inexplicable questions.
After his four comrades died and it was his turn, the guards arrived—that was all he knew.
Obviously suspicious, Lee Seong-guk personally led a search of the house and basement.
He'd first suspected O Tae-hoon as a "Republic of Korea government spy," but finding a preserved corpse and documents covered in bizarre symbols clued him in to the Muwol Church connection.
Lee Seong-guk interrogated him immediately. At first, O Tae-hoon glared defiantly, ready for death—but when his subordinates brought an ax and started severing his daughter's fingers one by one before his eyes, he confessed everything.
He was a founding devotee from the church's early days, an elder.
"Tomorrow night, the Muwol Church leader himself will attend a worship service in Gangbuk. We've pinpointed the location from his testimony."
"Haa... this is insane. But why keep a preserved corpse?"
"It was his son, killed early in the crisis... The Muwol Church leader promised to revive him once he tamed a monster with resurrection powers in Incheon."
"..."
The scale was ballooning, and my head began to throb.
As I pinched my brow and groaned, Lee Seong-guk dropped an even bigger shock.
"And according to O Tae-hoon, the Muwol Church leader isn't the monster tamer. That's a separate Special Awakener."
"Who?"
"The elders know the identity but not the name... Rumors say it's a child."