Cleaning Up the Mess

Fwoooosh...

"No, dammit, MY HOUSE!!!!"

Somehow, by sheer willpower and dragging feet, I made it home.

But the place had been half-destroyed in the aftermath of the terror attack before I even got there.

Wait. No. Maybe it's still intact.

My home is an apartment building. The part that got blown away was the top section — not the lower floor where I live.

Creeeeak.

"...It stinks of smoke in here, but it'll do."

The place I opened and stepped into was charred black here and there, the air thick with a burnt stench that tortured my lungs, but it was enough to get through the day.

I threw myself onto my bed without even bothering to undress.

If I could steal even one more minute of sleep, I could survive another tomorrow.

"I'll check it later..."

"...Haah."

And so, lulled by the endless bleating of my status window, I drifted off to sleep.

"Guild Master!!"

BANG!

A man kicked the door open and burst into the office, his face a picture of urgency.

Since his expression radiated the unmistakable air that something that should never have happened had just happened, even the Guild Master's face went stiff with alarm as she answered.

"...What is it?"

He was this guild's vice-master.

A man with a heart of steel who wouldn't so much as raise an eyebrow at most disasters — and now he was this rattled.

The Guild Master began doing her absolute best to predict what words would come out of his mouth.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Did an A-rank dungeon break occur somewhere?

Did a promising rookie die?

Or did some villain organization steal an artifact?

But the answer that left his lips was beyond anything she had imagined.

"The—the Cult! The 'Cthugha Cult' is on the move!"

Tok.

The shock hit her so hard, so suddenly, that the pen slipped right out of her hand.

The Cthugha Cult.

They claimed to worship some god, but nobody knew which — a mystery villain organization.

Led by an S-rank cult leader, backed by A-rank executives, with rank-and-file members at a minimum of B to C-rank.

Every single one of them was talent that would have carved out a place for themselves in society — and all of it had been poured, whole and undiluted, into devotion to some god, turning them into villains.

There were barely a handful of organizations in Korea with that kind of scale.

Worse, the sheer destructive power of their overwhelming fire-type skills was enough to make you forget what their ranks were supposed to be.

Wielding that power, they had razed entire regions to wasteland ten years ago before vanishing without a trace...

'Those people are moving again?'

"...Monitor the situation."

With a grave expression, the Guild Master strode toward him and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gave the order.

"...There's a more serious problem, though."

"What?"

Squeak.

The vice-master decided that showing was better than a hundred tellings, and switched on his tablet immediately to display the footage.

"Insane."

And the Guild Master, already shaken, found herself unable to close her mouth.

It was a monster.

A creature wailing with thousands of mouths, black sea-urchin-like tentacles twitching and flailing between them.

It hung there as if bound to some colossal pillar, writhing and screaming in its desperate struggle to break free of the thing that held it down.

-Khh, kkhaaaaagh!!-Our god, who art... khaaaagh!!

And the 'Cthugha Cult', unleashing their flames upon it.

But not a single wound appeared. The monster simply spewed out vicious tentacles and swallowed the faithful whole instead.

'At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠minimum, high A-rank.'

There wasn't a single executive-looking member in sight.

Which meant every one of them was a rank-and-file believer.

To slaughter that many B-to-C-rank believers so one-sidedly, it would have to be at least A-rank.

What on earth was that thing...

-KIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!

CRACK!

"Ugh!"

The moment it screamed, the tablet's speaker blew out, leaving the device dead.

"...Dispatch heroes, and get a team investigating ASAP!!"

"Y-yes, ma'am!"

The Guild Master roared at him, her face brimming with fear.

And for a long while after, she could not forget that scream — a wail carrying hatred for everything in the world.

"Look, all I'm saying is, the fireball was like, this big and—"

"Yes, yes, sir, we understand. A restoration-type hero will arrive to begin repairs within a day at the latest, so please bear with the inconvenience for the time being."

Morning came, and I was going through a headache of a debriefing.

Apparently, of all the units damaged in this apartment complex, the only one still standing intact was mine.

'Cthugha, you lunatic.'

Worse, the terror attack had left quite a few casualties.

I understand that human lives are like flies to the gods, but wasn't this going too far?

The one mercy was that everyone's condition had held long enough for Korea's greatest S-rank healer — known as the '0%' for her record — to save them all.

Her skill, the Holy Maiden's 'Declaration', I was told, temporarily grants her the power to raise the dead.

Thank god for that.

Honestly, if a lot of people had actually died, I wouldn't have been able to look at Cthugha the same way.

"I don't really care what you do to me, but leave other people out of it."

"..."

I knew the two of them didn't get along, but watching them go at it directly was enough to scatter my focus to the point where my SAN value felt insufficient.

"I'll be on my way now, then."

"Alright~ take care!"

The moment the case worker left, I pulled out my phone and checked my messages.

"..."

The closure period had a weekend tucked inside it.

It felt like a substitute public holiday landing on a weekend — meaning you got nothing extra at all.

But at least I had today off, so I honestly couldn't decide whether to count it as a win or not.

'Maybe I should train for the first time in a while?'

I hadn't really trained since giving up on promotion.

But.

'I've got possibilities now, don't I?'

Not Constellations, exactly — but I'd contracted with two beings who were close enough. It was time to aim for the tier above.

'And I got a new skill, too.'

The description was frustratingly vague, but to put it simply: it was exactly what it said — a fire that wouldn't go out.

And it was an A-rank skill, so the power had to be worth expecting.

'The problem is the SAN cost, though...'

As everyone knows, ever since my contract with Nyarlathotep, my mana stat had been replaced by this weird thing called a SAN value.

The problem was that it was the worst cost-efficiency stat in existence — burn just 20% of it and fatigue floods my whole body.

Every one of my skills was top-tier in performance; the body meant to power them was pathetically fragile.

Ring.

"...How the hell do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Status window!"

I closed her message mid-read and shouted.

"Level 21?"

Leveling was the way awakeners grew stronger apart from training.

Kill a monster or another awakener, earn experience points; stack enough of them and you level up, gaining a single stat point.

But the higher your stats, the more valuable each level becomes — which is why first-year academy cadets don't hunt monsters at all.

The efficient modern strategy was to max out your physical stats through training first, and only then start leveling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to invest the points.

"...Fair enough."

In my avatar form, I'd wielded combat power on par with Lü Bu himself.

Power that nothing could stop, regardless of stats.

"But I can't just walk around in that form, can I?"

The problem was that using it inside the Academy was, generally speaking, off the table.

Not only was it stomach-turning to look at, its sheer overwhelming power would draw far too much public attention.

"Tch. Fine, whatever."

One point of SAN per stat point, huh.

'What a rip-off.'

Would've been nice if each point gave a flat +10 or so.

Ding-dong!

—Is this Mr. Kim Hyunseong's residence?

Just then, someone pressed my doorbell.