Chapter 548: Mixed Fates (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 548: Mixed Fates (2)
My eyes open.
What I see as my vision clears is the ceiling of a temple, surrounded by silence and darkness.
And my wife.
No.
“…Gula.”
To be precise, a goddess who has arbitrarily taken and worn the face of my ex-wife.
“Huhu, you’ve finally awakened.”
Only then do I realize my position.
I’m lying with my head in the goddess’s lap.
I wonder if I should call this an honor.
An unreadable feeling washes over me as I drift into memory.
“I used to lie down like this often in the past.”
I remember.
Going to the Han River, lying in her lap, and looking up at the sky.
“You seem to miss it.”
“…It would be a lie to say I don’t.”
I don’t miss the Han Ju-hee of today one bit, but I do miss the Han Ju-hee from back then.
Don’t they say a man never forgets his first love, even on his deathbed?
To me, Han Ju-hee was more than just a first love.
Those memories we shared will probably have a place in the montage that flashes before my eyes right before I die.
“Tsk.”
I’ve gone and gotten myself worked up for nothing.
“Let’s stop talking about this… Why did you call me?”
Feeling awkward, I ask in a slightly blunt tone, but Gula just shakes her head.
“I did not call you for any particular reason. I merely held onto your soul to prevent it from leaving your body.”
“What does that… Ah.”
Right.
The battle with Viktor Vadim had left my body riddled with holes.
I’d managed to protect my vital spots somehow, but I figured I’d be in danger with so many wounds.
“…Is my condition serious?”
“It was. Until a little while ago.”
“Until a little while ago… you mean.”
Does that mean I’ve narrowly passed the critical stage?
“Han Ju-yeon… was it? While that child was holding onto your life, the Saintess arrived.”
“Ah.”
The Saintess came.
Those words alone put my mind at ease.
As long as I was still breathing, she would have been more than capable of healing me.
“In that case, shouldn’t I be getting up?”
Thinking this was no time to be lying around, I tried to sit up.
“Stay a little longer.”
Her hands hold my head and shoulder, stopping me from getting up.
“There is a place that even the Saintess cannot heal. Do you know what that is?”
“That would be…”
The answer isn’t difficult.
Healing magic is, at the end of the day, a power effective against physical wounds and some illnesses.
“The mind.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
When it comes to the mind, even she is powerless.
I’ve heard there’s a divine magic that can clear the mind for a time, but it’s only temporary.
I heard that’s why she sometimes experienced heartbreaking things.
She would go to the trouble of healing a broken body, only for the person’s mind to have already collapsed, and quite a few never fully recovered.
I heard she’s been researching a way to heal the mind as well since then… but seeing as there’s no news, she must not have made any progress yet.
“You’ve been through too much in a single day. So much that it wouldn’t be easy, even for you.”
“Well, that’s…”
There are things you never get used to, no matter how many decades you live through, no matter how worn down you become.
Sacrificing a comrade, or losing one.
This time, I experienced both at once.
I stabbed a comrade to survive, and he ended up in critical condition.
“Speaking of which, Francis is…”
“I would not know. What I can perceive is limited only to you.”
“I see.”
I hope he’s alive.
Though I suppose it’s shameless of me to hope for that, after stabbing him in the back.
Still, I was careful about how I stabbed him. I tried to avoid the fatal spots so as not to damage his organs, but… who knows.
“…I don’t know.”
I was worried, but I also didn’t want to think about it anymore.
After all, in a situation where I don’t know the outcome, dwelling on it will only bring stress.
Right.
Since it’s come to this… maybe I’ll rest for a bit.
“Have you decided to rest?”
“Uh… like you said, I’ve accumulated a lot of mental fatigue.”
I have a mountain of things to do. Taking a short break before that wouldn’t be so bad.
I shift my position.
Perhaps because of her soft thighs, I nuzzle deeper into them, like a child seeking comfort.
Gula lightly strokes my head.
“You’re quite bold, burrowing into such an embarrassing place.”
“Mmm… I don’t know.”
I didn’t mean to. But now that I’m aware of it, a strange, sensual feeling begins to stir.
My nose is buried near the deepest part of her groin.
As I twitch my nose and take a deep breath, a peculiar scent wafts over me.
A sweet floral fragrance.
And weaving through it, the alluring body scent of a woman.
It’s strange, isn’t it?
Men’s scents are so predictable, but how can women’s be so varied?
If a god created humans, this is clear gender discrimination.
“It is rather embarrassing… but I shall endure it. For you are my one and only Apostle.”
“……”
Her words penetrate my mind, which has grown hazy, captivated by the comfort.
Her one and only Apostle.
Right. By killing Viktor Vadim, I’m now the sole Apostle of Greed.
A question suddenly occurs to me.
“There’s something I’m curious about…”
“Speak.”
“Why… did you help me?”
“Help you? What do you mean?”
Don’t play dumb.
“You called out and awakened me right before I died.”
“If you mean that, as I’ve said before…”
“That you thought I’d lose even if you woke me? You think I’d believe a lie like that?”
“……”
It only takes a moment’s thought to know that’s a lie.
If she truly didn’t care who became the Apostle, as she claimed, she should have just left me alone.
Right?
No matter what you call it—the Apostle’s destiny or whatever—it’s ultimately a family squabble. What if things went wrong and one died, while the other lost an arm or a leg?
So, in the end.
“You wanted me to become the Apostle, didn’t you?”
That’s the only conclusion I can reach.
Which made me even more curious.
Honestly, if I were her, shouldn’t I have wanted Viktor Vadim—who was more greedy than anyone and even deferential to her—to become the Apostle?
“What was your reason for choosing me over that greedy and loyal fellow?”
When I pressed her again, basing my question on clear reasoning, she answered as if she had no choice.
“For once, I wanted to see it.”
“See what?”
“Greed, handled in a way completely different from before.”
My brow furrows unconsciously.
“…For a reason like that?”
“‘A reason like that,’ you say.”
Gula laughs emptily.
Her words continue.
“You would not know. How it felt for me, who has always been branded a sin.”
“……”
“It was truly laughable. To see those who grew and advanced because of their greedy hearts later try so hard to curse and distance themselves from me, just to pretend they were good people.”
Everyone has desire.
And that desire acts as the driving force that pushes a stagnant person forward.
To earn money, to seize power, to make a beautiful woman their lover.
Once they’ve obtained what they wanted to some extent, they hide their desire as if it never existed.
As if it were a shameful part of themselves, a weakness that must not be revealed.
Didn’t I do the same?
As soon as people started talking about me, I changed my entire attitude.
I cast aside the me from the days when I was rough and coveted money, and tried my best to act like a hero.
Even that was because of my desire.
A body with nothing to its name.
I wanted to at least use my social status to appear as a better son-in-law to my father- and mother-in-law, who disapproved of me.
“Through my words, you realized this. And you changed.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so’?”
Gula covers my eyes with her palm.
“I am simply curious.”
Just as the warmth spreading over my eyelids begins to lull me to sleep, her words continue.
“What path my Apostle will walk, he who has chosen harmony amongst people full of contradictions.”
Is… that so.
“And whether that heart of yours can last until the very end.”
Huhu-
A low laugh follows.
A strange emotion is conveyed.
A deep bitterness.
A desperate wish that you, at least, will not lose that heart.
“So sleep for now. You will have a mountain of things to do to achieve your desires.”
“Ughn…”
Drunk on her warm, gentle voice, I fall asleep just like that.
* * *
Kim Do-jin woke up a full four days after his battle with Viktor Vadim.
It was just around the time the women’s worries had begun to deepen.
“Unnie, is he really going to be okay?”
“I told you, he’s fine. The Saintess healed him completely.”
“Then why isn’t he waking up?”
“That’s…”
Han Ju-yeon’s expression darkens at Shin Yu-jeong’s demanding tone.
It wasn’t a lie.
The Saintess, who had arrived in the nick of time, had healed Kim Do-jin’s body perfectly.
Yes.
Only his body.
‘His physical condition is perfect. The fact that he still isn’t waking up means…’
There is only one reason for someone not to wake up even after their wounds have completely healed.
A mental problem.
The immense incidents he experienced one after another, and the wounds that brought him to the brink of death.
Perhaps they inflicted such great damage on his psyche that he doesn’t want to wake up.
If that’s the case, there’s nothing more that she or the Saintess can do.
All they can do is wait endlessly, hoping Kim Do-jin will wake up.
That was why she remained silent. She didn’t want to add to the worries of the girls who were already so concerned about him.
“This is driving me crazy.”
Shin Yu-jeong turns away, roughly messing up her hair.
She didn’t have to say it for them to understand.
They could tell she was hiding something for their sake.
And that they shouldn’t press her any further.
It’s just that she was angry.
Angry at being unable to properly support his precarious back every time.
‘If only I were a little stronger…’
She couldn’t shake the thought that his body wouldn’t have been torn to shreds like this.
After clenching her fist so tightly it felt like it would shatter, she was about to leave the hospital room when Elena asked.
“Yu-jeong… where are you going?”
“To go kill those vampire bastards.”
Shin Yu-jeong replies without turning around.
The True Ancestor is dead, and the Blood Sanctuary is gradually returning to its original color, but it’s not all over.
There are still vampires who were active within the Sanctuary.
And the operation to exterminate them is currently underway.
She’s going to lend a hand.
Of course, it’s purely to vent her anger on the vampires who did this to Kim Do-jin.
If she didn’t, she felt like she would truly explode.
“…I’m going with you.”
“I’ll go too.”
Elena and Son Seo-yeon soon join in.
Their expressions were calm, but their inner feelings were no different from Shin Yu-jeong’s.
After the three of them leave.
“Haa.”
Han Ju-yeon collapses into a chair, letting out a sigh of relief as if a weight has been lifted.
Her gaze turns to Kim Do-jin.
“…I understand, Brother-in-law.”
She knows.
How much he admired Francis Meyer.
They had talked about it from time to time. He’d said that unlike himself, who just pretended to be a hero, Francis was the real deal.
And he had stabbed that man.
Even if it was at Francis’s request, the mental shock must have been immense.
Clasping Kim Do-jin’s hand tightly, she murmured.
“It’s okay if it takes a little while. As long as you wake up… that’s all that matters.”
It was then, as she was praying with all her heart, that she felt it.
His finger, which she was holding so tightly, twitched.
So startled, her eyes widen and fly to Kim Do-jin’s face.
“B-Brother-in-law…?”
They’re trembling.
The eyelids that had been shut tight for days.
This was clear proof that his consciousness was returning.
“Brother-in-law, can you hear me? Brother-in-law!”
She cried out desperately.
To make sure he didn’t let go of the thread of consciousness he had just grasped.
As if her wish had been granted, his eyelids finally lifted.
His eyes, still hazy as if drunk on sleep, slowly move toward her.
“Ju-yeon…”
“Yes, Brother-in-law. It’s me. Are you okay? Does anywhere hurt, or are there any parts you can’t move…?!”
Kim Do-jin smiles at her flood of urgent questions.
“Calm down. I’m all right.”
“Brother-in-law…!”
Tears well up in an instant.
She was no different.
Those four days had felt like an eternity.
She’d said he would be fine, but she had worried hundreds, thousands of times a day about what she would do if he never woke up.
“I’m so, so glad. Really…!”
The sadness and sorrow she had barely held back burst forth.
Kim Do-jin silently patted her on the back, a quiet smile on his face at her deep, unwavering love for him.
“Are you a little calmer now?”
“Ughn… yes.”
After sobbing her heart out, Han Ju-yeon covers her face with both hands in embarrassment.
Around the time her seesawing emotions had settled down.
He asked.
“What about Francis?”
“……”
Her face stiffens.
She hesitated. Should she tell him the truth, now that he had just woken up, or should she hide it for a while?
Noticing this, he beat her to the punch.
“I’m really okay now, so you don’t have to hide it.”
Han Ju-yeon forces herself to speak.
“Francis… I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Kim Do-jin’s brow furrows.
“Not going to… make it?”
With a pained expression, she nods and continues.
“The Saintess… has given up on healing Francis.”
“……!”
The words, which were no different from a death sentence, shook Kim Do-jin to his core.