Chapter 113
Chapter 113
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: The Priest's Final Feast
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Individual Undercity, luxury hotel.
With the guild ecosystem in Korea shifting after the massive conflict, the forces under the Slaughter King constellation had no choice but to adapt as well.
But before any of that, the first order of business was to pass judgment on Priest Lee, the one who had planned and orchestrated the entire fiasco.
Right now, on the hotel rooftop, Scavengers from other Undercities in Slaughter King territory along with Archdemon Beasts had all gathered, glaring daggers at him.
"Heh heh heh, I didn't expect this many guests."
[Prurruk! Priest Lee, looks like it's time for you to own up to the mess you made?]
"Ah~ Of course. When you fail, everyone has to take responsibility. I'm fully prepared to do so. Heh heh."
Flashing a saintly smile, Priest Lee calmly addressed the crowd glaring at him, but the atmosphere around them brimmed with killing intent, rage, and greed.
Unarmed and clad only in his blood-red priestly robes, he retreated to the large kitchen setup behind him and continued.
"But even if I'm going, I want to fulfill my final duty first. As I mourn the sacrifices of the great apostles Regkhorn, Lemlem, and Gotman, I wish to serve my last masterpiece to the remaining apostles."
[Grrr, Priest Lee did serve us some damn fine human dishes.]
[Kwak kwak. Fine, you said you'd take responsibility, so we'll allow it.]
It was absurd under normal circumstances, but the deep trust Priest Lee had built up with the Archdemon Beasts over time made them approve, leaving the Scavengers with no room to protest or refuse.
Priest Lee stood beside two massive boiling cauldrons and began introducing what would be the final masterpiece of his life.
"For my very last work, I've procured the most special ingredient possible. Today's main ingredient is an S-rank Hunter."
[Kwak kwak! Oh! An S-rank Hunter?]
[Prurrrrruk! That buff-giving guy?]
[S-rank Hunter cuisine! Ooooooh!]
At the words "S-rank Hunter dish," the Archdemon Beasts' eyes spun wildly with excitement.
S-rank Hunters were rare worldwide, incredibly powerful, and meticulously protected by humans, making capture a nightmare—let alone eating one. It was the stuff of fantasy, and now Priest Lee was serving it up. How could they not salivate?
"To prove the ingredient's freshness and S-rank status, I've brought his head and personal item here first. Please enjoy them at your leisure while the remaining cooking time ticks down."
"S-rank Hunter gear!"
"Charisma Robe—that's really Oh Kyung-hoon's item!"
"And the face matches perfectly!"
"Slurp! That's mine! Heh heh heh heh."
Even the Scavengers who had come to condemn Priest Lee's failure flipped out at the sight of Oh Kyung-hoon's head and items, their attention glued to them.
This bought Priest Lee the uninterrupted time he needed to finish his final dish.
"I'll brief you on the dish as I cook. S-rank Hunters are so rare that I only managed to prepare one, so a standard dish would mean too little to go around—you wouldn't get a proper taste. That's why I've gone with a soup-based recipe out of necessity."
[Soup, huh? Hmm...]
"Well, with such a small amount, no helping it.]
"Exactly. Excluding the head, I first filleted the meat and bones, gathered up all the non-meat parts like bones, brains, eyes, and so on, and boiled them down to maximize flavor. Now I've removed the bones from the broth, and the real cooking begins: adding yesterday's refrigerated meat and skin, sliced to bite-sized pieces, and simmering thoroughly."
Dumping unbled meat straight into the broth was odd from the start, but unlike human tastes, these Archdemon Beasts preferred intense blood and offal flavors, so deviating from standard methods was inevitable.
They skipped marinating, garlic, pepper, and all that de-fishing entirely, so the moment the cauldrons were uncovered, the heavy human broth stench and fishy reek spread everywhere—a torment for the Scavengers.
"...Fuckin' hell, that Priest Lee bastard is always a total psycho."
"Whoa, the smell is insane. Ugh!"
"But the apostles seem to love it?"
"Indeed, for his finale, he's showing us the pure essence of human cuisine. Kwak kwak."
[Kwang kwang! Already drooling over here?]
[This intense aroma... Prurrrrruk, it's making me want to forgive him on the spot. Prurruk!]
While the humans pinched their noses in agony, the Archdemon Beasts closed their eyes, flared their nostrils, and savored it.
As expected from the man who had mastered their palates for over a decade.
While the broth meat simmered, Priest Lee tossed the freshly extracted bones into the oven to dry them out completely, then started crushing them.
"In Korean soup dishes using broth like this, white rice is standard, but that's no good for Archdemon Beasts. So, I'm using the bones instead."
He pulled out a custom oversized blender, dumped in the crushed bones, and ground them fine.
They were meant to be fully dried into powder, but since they'd just come from the broth, out came moist bone meal.
He set that aside in a bowl, then retrieved something else from the fridge.
[Sniff sniff! That's blood?]
"Yes. His blood, to be precise—pre-made into blood pudding. We'll add it once the soup boils. Heh heh heh."
Not wasting a single drop of precious S-rank Hunter blood, Priest Lee had turned it into pudding.
Next, he mixed the ground bone meal with eggs, but it wouldn't bind, so he added a glob of transparent slime mucus from the fridge.
"Mucus extracted from dungeon slimes. Super sticky. Lets me dough up even unbindable bone meal like this. Then I drop it onto a pre-heated pan and press~"
The bone dough fell in rice-grain clumps, solidifying from the hot pan's heat.
Packed into a stainless steel rice bowl from a restaurant, the pale yellowish grains looked just like dried rice.
Add the fully simmered meat from the broth, plus blood pudding in a stone pot alongside, and it was a perfect bowl of gookbap.
"Actual gookbap."
"Fuck, making gookbap out of an S-rank Hunter? How many bowls of that could the ingredient cost? Puhahaha!"
"Better to just head to Seoul and buy a steaming bowl."
"Well, it's gookbap tailored to Archdemon Beast tastes, so it's different."
Ignoring the stunned Scavengers' chatter, Priest Lee's subordinate loaded the "gookbap" onto trays—one serving each—and delivered it to the Archdemon Beasts.
To humans, it was an inedible nightmare of thick offal stink and blood reek, but to the Archdemon Beasts, it was an extreme appetite assault.
And from the highest-grade human ingredient—an S-rank Hunter—no less. Pure bliss.
"Then, please dig in as much as you'd like, humble fare though it is."
[Grroowl!]
[Chomp chomp, slurp slurrrp! This is insane!]
[So damn good! Kwak kwak!]
And so the Archdemon Beasts tucked into Priest Lee's final masterpiece with gusto.
No instructions needed—they instinctively mixed the bone-meal rice into the soup and slurped it down.
Watching fondly, Priest Lee neatly prepared one final bowl as an offering to his constellation, the Slaughter King, and placed it on the altar.
"Great god, Slaughter King. This is the last tribute I offer you. Due to my shortcomings, I failed to turn the world into your pasture, and your great apostles—three of them—were lost. Now, to fulfill my responsibility, I offer everything I have to you."
With that prayer, he drew a dagger from his robes.
His final dish complete, he wasted no time stabbing it into his own heart to atone for losing S-rank Monster apostles.
"...Urk!"
For the SS-rank Demon who had shaken Korea's security, it was an utterly pathetic end.
Yet he had fought for his beliefs and owned his failure—a clean death.
Items spilled from his inventory, but they were just cooking tools for serving the apostles. His red priestly robes were flashy but held no enchantments whatsoever.
Though humanity's enemy, he had lived as a selfless priest, never pocketing even a single mana stone fragment for personal gain.
His only legacy was the human ranch, dedicated solely to the Slaughter King and Archdemon Beasts—not truly his.
[Prurruk, I told him to avoid the heart when stabbing... That's the best part. Prurruk!]
While they gorged oblivious, Przewalski noticed Priest Lee's prior departure and approached the corpse—not out of condolence, but to devour the body of a faithful Slaughter King devotee and recognized SS-rank Demon.
[Let's see. Rip out the heart... Prurruk? What's this?]
But as he neared, Przewalski spotted the altar's gookbap bowl—empty.
No Archdemon Beast would dare touch an offering to the Slaughter King, and no Scavenger could stomach that level of revolting slop.
[Prurruk! N-No way... The great, that one... H-He ate it Himself?]
Realizing the empty bowl's meaning, Przewalski trembled and backed away from the corpse.
The one these Archdemon Beasts called "the great one" needed no explanation: the constellation Slaughter King.
For the god from the celestial realm beyond the skies to descend here was the ultimate honor.
[...Ah, no!]
Then Priest Lee's corpse began to float slightly, cradled by "something" slowly revealing itself.
A humanoid form of clustered small red stars—that "thing"—gently lifted the body and gazed at Przewalski.
[Pru, prurruk! Everyone, th...]
[The constellation Slaughter King commands you not to interfere.]
Stunned by the god's personal descent, Przewalski tried alerting the other Archdemon Beasts, but the red star humanoid stared him down, spawning a status window before him and muting his voice like a TV on silent.
'You idiots!'
Mute, Przewalski scanned the surroundings.
The Archdemon Beasts slurped gookbap greedily, Scavengers squabbled over the S-rank Hunter's relics—none noticed the divine presence amid their self-interest.
'Or maybe... they weren't meant to notice! The great star... willed it so!'
Resigned, Przewalski quietly witnessed the miracle alone.
The red star humanoid turned to the dead Priest Lee's corpse and nodded—as if conversing with the deceased.
Knowing nothing was impossible for the great star, Przewalski reverently watched.
'Is this...? Ooooh...'
The "talk" soon ended. The red star humanoid stroked the corpse from head down.
Red light enveloped it, consuming the withered old body and birthing a new one in its place.
[...]
The frail human form vanished, replaced by a hulking body with tawny fur.
Vastly larger and bulkier, nearly five meters tall, with long horns curving from either side of its head.
Overall, a beastman based on Korea's ubiquitous Hanwoo cattle.
Having watched the transformation, Przewalski realized Priest Lee had been chosen by the Slaughter King, reborn as their brother.
'His devotion... recognized? Or does it mean the work isn't done? Either way, Priest Lee... certainly worthy.'
Kuuuung!
Moments later, the fully transformed Hanwoo beastman body settled back to the ground, topped by a shepherd's crook bent at the top.
The red star humanoid dispersed, vanishing completely as if its task was done.
Soon after, the Hanwoo beastman on the ground slowly opened its eyes. Surveying itself, it quickly grasped what had happened.
[Moooooh, indeed... The god says my work here isn't finished yet.]
Reborn in an Archdemon Beast body, Priest Lee knelt in gratitude for the divine blessing, clasping his hands in prayer to thank the Slaughter King.
Thanks to the constellation's mercy and grace, granted another chance, he gripped the staff and strode past the Archdemon Beasts toward the Scavengers fighting over Oh Kyung-hoon's relics.
"Huh? Wh-what? That thing! When did it show up?"
[Moooh heh heh, I atoned with death, but the great one granted me another chance. So put those down nicely. They have a purpose.]
"Th-that monster? Priest... Lee? N-no way."
[Believe it or not, this is reality before your eyes. Up to you to accept it. But mark my words: with the opportunity He gave me, I'll remake this world into His pasture—and this time, with flawless preparation, I won't fail.]
The other Archdemon Beasts, excluding Przewalski, realized the Slaughter King had come and gone unnoticed and gazed at him in awe.
The Scavengers, unsure if this Hanwoo beastman was truly Priest Lee but recognizing a new Archdemon Beast, meekly set down Oh Kyung-hoon's items, backed off, and showed respect.
And so, just over three minutes after his suicide, Priest Lee's resurrection spurred them to rise from failure and prepare anew for the Slaughter King's holy war.