Chapter 126
Chapter 126
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 126
Chapter Title: Unbeliever III
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Shin Noah
5.
It might sound redundant, but No Do-ha was a pragmatist.
She went beyond the black cat, white cat philosophy, to the extreme of believing that whether it was a black rat or a white rat, as long as it tasted good, that was all that mattered (in fact, rats were excellent nutrition in the apocalypse).
In short, No Do-ha specialized in wringing out maximum efficiency from anything, cult or otherwise, no matter what.
“Utilize them, you say? The Resurrection Church?”
“Yes. First, I’d like to consult the Awakener Undertaker’s esteemed ‘Regressor Wiki’... That Resurrection Church won’t last long, will it...?”
“Of course. The Resurrection Church will collapse by three years at the latest.”
That was right.
No matter how insanely they expanded, even if they set their sights on not just North Korea but Manchuria as well, there was no need to pay them any mind. They were doomed to fall soon enough anyway.
It was different from Udumbara’s Divine Buddhism.
Udumbara actually provided real “benefits” to virus-infected individuals. Divine Buddhists could regenerate endlessly even if their arms were severed, their heads half-destroyed, or their guts shredded. They could even thrive on photosynthesis alone without eating. If not for that minor drawback of having to offer their lives to the world tree upon maturity, I might have converted to Divine Buddhism myself.
The Resurrection Church, on the other hand?
“Mo Kwangseo, that monster, has no abilities whatsoever. Aside from sparkling upon resurrection, he truly has none.”
“Hmm...”
It had already been verified multiple times.
In one regression loop, they’d even kidnapped Mo Kwangseo and subjected him to vivisection. They’d zapped him with aura, fried him, burned him, tried every damn thing imaginable.
‘He still won’t die like this? Or this?’
They’d tormented him relentlessly with that mindset, but the results were lackluster. Mo Kwangseo resurrected every time.
One day, they’d tied him to the impact site of a falling Meteor Shower. Even the Meteor Shower, which turned the surrounding area into a gray wasteland, couldn’t kill Mo Kwangseo.
They’d even outsourced his assassination to a UFO. They’d timed it with the aliens crashing into the East Sea and sent him out on a fishing boat.
-Kyaeeeeeak!
-Kiyeak! Kyaeeeeeak!
The universe’s strongest combat species swarmed Mo Kwangseo.
Flash! Flash! Mo Kwangseo died dozens of times per second, blasting eyeball lasers in all directions. The East Sea instantly turned into the world’s hottest club.
Thirty minutes passed like that.
-Kiyaaaak....
-Kyak, kyaeeee....
The UFOs, designed to withstand space but apparently melt like salt in H₂O, sank.
The aliens, who’d poured everything into the club party, liquefied and flowed away. These bastards were just Ultramen whose time limit had extended from three minutes to thirty.
Pop-
As the aliens evolved into slimy goo, only Mo Kwangseo remained intact on the fishing boat, smiling serenely.
Truly wondrous vitality.
But... that was it.
The light Mo Kwangseo emitted held no holy blessings, not even a BPC-level fatigue recovery effect. It just dazzled the eyes.
Dazzled them quite a bit.
Beyond damaging human corneas, it truly had no, absolutely no meaning.
-Ooh! Mo Kwangseo Jesus Christ, returned from the heavens to save the earth!
-We believeeeeeek!
Yet for some reason, people fell head over heels for Mo Kwangseo. They worshiped as a god this being who offered nothing but sparkles and zero utility.
Why?
No idea. If I knew, I’d have rushed to Pyongyang and shouted “Amen, Mo Kwangseo” myself.
The ways of the world are truly mysterious.
“Whatever, no need to analyze why. Leave that to psychologists or sociologists. What matters to us is that the Resurrection Church has mobilization power and action...”
Returning to the main point, No Do-ha said.
“We just need to hold a few key strongholds anyway. Heh. If the Resurrection Church pulls even a bit of the anomalies’ aggro from the north in the meantime, isn’t that a win...?”
“Ah. You’re planning to turn the Resurrection Church into a meat shield, aren’t you?”
“Yes...”
Clang.
No Do-ha lightly hammered an ankle restraint brace. Even after becoming the National Highway Management Corps leader, she personally crafted or repaired braces whenever there were no urgent issues.
An everyday occurrence. The memo she’d attached to the brace bore the name Shin Soo-bin. One of the elders who still treated her as “Brace Engineer Teacher” rather than “Corps Leader Your Excellency.”
“Awakener Undertaker. Coldly speaking, the Resurrection Church isn’t bothering us much beyond their northward push. Entrusting the tanking role to those desperate to die— isn’t that the proper use of life...?”
“Hm.”
I rested my chin on my hand.
In previous loops, I hadn’t meddled with the Resurrection Church. Because I saw it as South Korea’s remnants slowly committing suicide at their own funeral.
Christianity. Korea’s most widespread religion. The Resurrection Church merely mimicked its language and grammar superficially.
Northward advance. Korea’s most entrenched ideology. The Resurrection Church borrowed its color and scent as well.
Cult of cults.
Parasite of parasites.
But when the host dies, the parasites can’t survive either. Civilization had collapsed. South Korea was dead.
On a corpse long since cold, only the parasites remained, wriggling through their final season.
I didn’t respect their lives, but I honored their deaths. People should have the right to choose their own demise. “Eastern Divine Holy Nation” and “Pyongyang Holy City” were graves and coffins they’d lain down in themselves.
“Let’s eat the brains of the Resurrection Church...”
And No Do-ha was the type to use even corpses if necessary.
Before the grim shadow in No Do-ha’s eyes, I set aside my personal sentiments for a moment.
It wasn’t hard. There was no need to ignore lives precious to me for lives I didn’t respect.
“You’re saying we take over the Eastern Divine Holy Nation’s leadership and play puppet master.”
“Yes...”
“It won’t be easy. The Eastern Divine Holy Nation isn’t a nation. Not even a single organization. It’s just cultists coalescing and splitting under the symbol of Mo Kwangseo. We’d need to pull all twelve so-called ‘apostles’ to our side, or pick one champion to crown as ‘Pope.’ Naturally, we’d have to funnel support covertly to keep the Eastern Divine Holy Nation afloat. Is it worth the effort?”
“No. It’s not worth that much...”
No Do-ha chuckled.
“But if we can control just that one Mo Kwangseo bastard, wouldn’t it be a huge profit...?”
“Pardon? How? For reference, using Cheon Yo-hwa’s brainwashing didn’t work—I tried it before. The brainwashing resets with every resurrection. Yo-hwa can’t go to Pyongyang every Sunday as a missionary.”
“No, not the Baekhwa Guild Leader. Don’t you have a slacker in your guild? Save him for making soup...?”
I blinked. Slacker?
“Oh.”
There was that option.
6
“G-Guild Leader? Why are you suddenly looking at me and, uh, saying that...?”
“No, not you, A-ryeon.”
“Huh?”
Our guild housed two slackers.
One was Sim A-ryeon, whose life goal was Quirrell’s tongue. The other was nestling in Sim A-ryeon’s arms, tilting its head.
It waved as our eyes met. Then the maid behind the sofa, connected by a translucent thread, spoke.
“Why?”
Puppeteer Lee Ha-yul.
Ha-yul rarely appeared in my tales, for a simple reason. She’d vanish without a word to anyone now and then.
She loved traveling, or so you could say. A wandering idler with the wanderlust of a horse trader. Ha-yul would spin just enough puppet thread for frontline use, then go roaming for half a month or a full one.
Occasionally, completely out of the blue.
‘I want to go to India this time, oppa.’
‘Uyuni Salt Flats. Let’s make onigiri at Uyuni. You make the rice, oppa.’
She’d even drag me to danger zones for trips.
As they say, those who enjoy defeat those who toil. That law applied mercilessly in the end times. Lee Ha-yul was savoring the apocalypse itself.
If Ha-yul became a spinoff protagonist, the genre would flip from survival to road trip movie in an instant.
Perhaps a backlash against the normal-state market suppressing her freedom since birth—I speculated.
Anyway, setting aside psychology, to No Do-ha, who believed humans should invest 25 hours 59 minutes of every 24 into labor, Ha-yul was naturally a slacker.
That slacker was currently lounging on the sofa, using Sim A-ryeon’s lap as a pillow, munching potato chips.
“Ha-yul.”
I tried my best to smile generously and kindly.
For the record, I too believed in investing at least 20 hours a day in work, if not quite as much as No Do-ha.
“Why?”
“You like puppets, right, Ha-yul? I found a nice one up north for you to play with. Interested?”
“...”
Blink, blink. The golden eyes of this slacker hitchhiker kid rhythmically stared blankly.
“Nope. Not interested.”
“Hmm... What would make our Ha-yul interested? Don’t you think it’s about time you started working?”
“Don’t need to. Thread, only I can make it. Patent. Other guild leaders beg to install it in their bases. Consulting fees alone let me slack forever.”
This gold-spooned ability-user bastard...
“I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms last time since oppa told me to. Gimme three years minimum no-work pass.”
“Hey. If you have any conscience, does that count as reading? If you’d read it properly, huh? How could anyone side with Wei?”
“Wu’s zero presence, invisible nation. Shu’s endless labor black company. Unless you’re from Ye in person, why not pick Wei?”
“...Help this time, or I’ll tell Seo-gyu to delete your SG Net account.”
“Guess I was from Ye in a past life. How do I help, oppa?”
A puppet thread highway stretched from Seoul to Pyongyang.
Ha-yul spent two years spinning out the 250km thread like a spider machine, but it was no big deal.
She’d buried it invisibly to others, and the thread itself was transparent. Hard to sever without aura.
I infiltrated Pyongyang Holy City.
“Hm? Just now...”
“What’s up?”
“No, felt like a breeze. Imagination?”
Mo Kwangseo’s Awakener guard detail was there, but dodging their eyes was child’s play. Thirty percent were opium addicts anyway.
Some even carried guns. Guns in this day and age. Amateurs who didn’t value their lives.
I erased my presence and sneaked into the “Mo Kwangseo Christ Cathedral.”
The former Kumsusan Palace of the Sun was haphazardly studded with spires and crosses, some collapsed from wind.
In its depths, the converted hall held Mo Kwangseo alone. No altar or tabernacle—just the cult leader’s presence sufficed—as he sat on a golden throne.
“...”
Not Mass time, only Mo Kwangseo, but worshipers could enter anytime. I swiftly attached puppet threads to various parts of his body.
“Saintess. All set.”
[Yes, passed it to Ha-yul... She says the distance is too far for full control.]
“Can’t manage it?”
[No. She says she can at least move the mouth.]
I nodded. For this, I’d drilled Ha-yul in aura training for two years.
“Tell her to test it with some random words.”
[Yes.]
A moment later.
“O-ppa.”
Goosebumps erupted all over. Mo Kwangseo’s ever-smiling lips were slowly moving.
“Can I, skip training now-?”
“...Yeah. Ha-yul. Just once a week on Mass days.”
“That Liu Bei, governor of Yi Province-, hypocrite bastard who betrayed Liu Zhang-. Guan Yu’s head dangling-, brothers, why won’t you come-, brother. Have you forgotten the Peach Garden Oath-? Come quick, bro-ther.”
Thud.
Mo Kwangseo’s mouth returned to normal.
“...”
Rage boiled in my heart, but I held it. Yeah. After two years of hell spinning thread nonstop, she deserved to vent that much stress.
I mentally downgraded Lee Ha-yul’s Awakener rank from 1,000m-class to 900m-class and slipped out.
The next day’s Sunday Mass showcased the Eastern Divine Holy Nation’s hypnotic app (backdoor installed).
“Soon, anomalies will swarm from the distant wastelands.”
Worshipers watching Mass were stunned.
“Th-the Chairman...?”
“Mo Kwangseo Christ has spoken!”
Murmurs rose.
The cultists gasped at their first words from the resurrected leader, who’d never spoken once. Some hotheads already knelt sobbing.
Mo Kwangseo spoke softly.
“You have made the kingdom pure through faith; now gird it with your bodies and blood in turn. When the demon hordes come this winter, build fortresses and ramparts at every pass to testify your faith.”
“A w-wall, you say...?”
“Your kingdom must endure so that lost sheep may arrive late. Protecting this place is safeguarding the path to heaven. My beloved children, prepare to fight the anomalies and demons. Oppress not my people, but build the barrier with your willing faith alone.”
“Ooooooh!”
Mo Kwangseo’s official first statement caused a massive ripple.
The crusaders, who’d pushed north as if lives were trash, halted to build fortresses. The leader’s command was inviolable.
Even if the forts couldn’t meaningfully damage anomalies, it beat pointless expansion. Anomalies descending from the north decreased immediately.
And that wasn’t all.
[‘Dawn Star of the Second Coming’ issues commands to faithful parishioners.]
They even made a Constellation mimicking Mo Kwangseo.
On non-Mass days, the Saintess sent “Constellation messages” as Mo Kwangseo to manipulate worshipers.
Self-proclaimed Second Coming Jesus. Mo Kwangseo’s name backward was “seogwang” (dawn light), hence Dawn Star.
Naturally, this Constellation was exclusive to Resurrection Church Awakeners.
[‘Dawn Star of the Second Coming’ prophesies the monster hordes’ approach.]
[‘Dawn Star of the Second Coming’ guides your path forward.]
[‘Dawn Star of the Second Coming’ orders not to antagonize the National Highway Management Corps, tool of God’s will.]
The malignant software Lee Ha-yul and the Saintess secretly installed in the Resurrection Church worked perfectly.
The Resurrection Church followers were now puppets at our whim.
“Excellent...”
No Do-ha, mastermind of this grand hacking project, seemed deeply satisfied. Confirming the backdoor’s function, the Corps leader smiled faintly.
“Now we can use them subtly as needed. Well done, Awakener Undertaker...”
“No big deal.”
From then on, our de facto domain included the north beyond the Han River.
Combining all loops, it took about 2,000 years to reach this point.
Probably the slowest territorial expansion in all genre and alternate history novels combined?
7
A brief epilogue.
Even with a straight puppet thread highway from Seoul to Pyongyang, maintenance was needed occasionally.
Every half-year, I’d infiltrate Pyongyang Holy City’s cathedral to tune the threads.
Finishing as usual and turning back, it happened.
“Enter through the narrow gate.”
I turned.
Mo Kwangseo’s unfocused eyes stared at the floor.
“For the gate that leads to destruction is wide and the road broad, and many enter through it.”
“...”
“But the gate that leads to life is narrow, the road difficult, and few find it. Scribe, enter through the narrow gate.”
Then Mo Kwangseo fell silent again.
The mood was slightly eerie, but I didn’t take it seriously. Just Ha-yul pranking me again.
Back in Seoul, I asked.
“Didn’t know you read the Bible too, Ha-yul.”
“Huh?”
“You quoted Matthew in Pyongyang earlier. But why call me ‘scribe’ of all things?”
“...?”
Lee Ha-yul tilted her head.
“Never read the Bible.”
“...”
“I’m atheist.”
...Whether Lee Ha-yul’s words are true or false, I’ll leave that to you to decide.
-Unbeliever. End.