Seong Gaeul (5)

Seong Gaeul (5) — 2nd Floor of the Hanmaum Guwon Cult, "The Believer's Room"

The soft rustling sound opened my eyes before I even willed them to. Across from me, Seong Gaeul — already showered, though I had no idea when she'd gotten up — was changing into her freshly laundered Awakened Believer's Robe.

"What, when did you wake up?"

"...An hour ago. Go back to sleep. Sleeping forever would be even better."

"Come here."

Muttering complaints, she drifted into my arms with an expression that had long since grown familiar. I pulled her in with telekinesis and moved to kiss her mouth as she settled against my chest, then paused for just a moment.

Hm. I should probably get to work soon, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠putting her in heat again would be a bit...

The debuff had been necessary when she was my enemy. The moment she became a clear ally, I found myself hesitating to inflict a certain amount of that surefire debuff on her.

"Ha... this is warm. I like it."

"It gets you clean faster. You smell."

Seong Gaeul, squeezed tight against me, smelled wonderful. As I kept stroking the back of her head and whispering that I loved her, her arms settled awkwardly around my back.

As expected, these were deficiencies that would never change. To push things further, I needed a different breakthrough.

"By the way, why are you naked? You want to go again?"

"Y-you insane bastard! You dragged me over while you were the one dressed!"

With a small, teasing "Oops~," I pulled the Awakened Believer's Robe off the floor where it had been abandoned, lifting it up with telekinesis. Whispering a little "sorry," I personally dressed her in the robe. My hands bustled here and there, deliberately grazing her chest and groin in the process, but she only lowered her head quietly and endured it.

Once she was fully changed, I hugged Seong Gaeul again.

Is she finally at the acceptance stage?

In moments like these, there was no need to rack my brain over it. I could just check the system.

Seong Gaeul's name had been added to the Believer Management window. But why ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can't I see a 'Proof of Faith'? No light of any kind emanated from her body.

Did that mean her faith in the Guwon Cult was so faint that even the Eyes of the Overman couldn't detect it? God, this really is a legendary woman in every possible way.

Wasn't it an unspoken rule of these things that the easy girls get placed at the start? Not that I was disparaging her, but compared to Yoon Ayoung, her difficulty was annoyingly, obscenely high. And on top of that — Yoon Ayoung was a bona fide Prospective Saintess, while Seong Gaeul was just a reasonably clever ordinary civilian.

"Well, with the first objective cleared, shall we shift focus to internal development?"

"...Is that 'first objective' by any chance me?"

"Yeah. Obviously?"

"You sick, pathetic loser."

After hearing so much abuse from her, this much I could accept as affection. I gave her a light laugh, then checked my Faith Points.

That was the result of spending three straight days doing nothing but screwing, pouring every last drop of Faith into the Liquid of Subordination.

"So, how do I spend this to make the whole neighborhood talk about what a genius I am?"

"...What are you talking about?"

Ah, right — I was still holding her the whole time, wasn't I? Seong Gaeul looked up at me from that position, her eyes brimming with curiosity. Hm. Do I tell her, or not?

Judging from how well she'd kept the camp fed and alive until now, her advice would definitely be useful. But handing over my trade secrets was another matter entirely.

"...If you don't want to say it, don't. Just stop looking at me like that."

"You read me fast as hell. Honestly, I've got no reason to tell you, do I? What if you run off clutching my trade secrets and snitch to Kang San?"

Of course, that would never happen. From the moment Seong Gaeul became my possession, if Kang San somehow survived and came before me again, all that awaited him was a crushing death under my telekinesis.

Seong Gaeul, who couldn't possibly be unaware of that fact, let out a hollow, exasperated laugh.

"This is exactly why you're a loser. If you've decided to trust someone once, you trust them to the end. God, you're so petty..."

"Well, if you offer your trust first, there's nothing I can't tell our lovely Gaeul. For instance — how I plan to win over the librarian who's still stubbornly holding out..."

The only person still resisting among the remaining members of the library camp was Librarian Kim Eunbyeol. She was holding out even longer than Seo Taesan — the one I'd assumed, from his image, would last the longest. And she was doing it against the Cult Leader Statue, my Holy Relic.

"I've got one. A way to put Eunbyeol-unni on her knees before your feet in one move."

"Yeah, yeah, you... Huh?"

Her macro response — the one waiting to blurt out 'I could never betray Eunbyeol-unni!' — cut off mid-sentence, replaced by a foolish little echo. What's this? Did this girl eat something bad?

"Stop staring at me like I'm a freak. Well, it's come to this, so if the group wants to function efficiently, this is just how it has to be. Eunbyeol-unni needs to bundle in with our group too."

Our group? Oh — right! A Level 20 skill wasn't some bottom-tier Awakened's toy, after all.

Maybe it was because it was a job skill rather than a regular one, but the cost structure ran a flat hundred points higher. The numbers demanded a kill count of a full 4,180 ordinary zombies. With the Sanctuary's buff active and hunting all day, I'd barely managed around a thousand. For ordinary Awakened who were still just coming to grips with the situation — less than a month into the outbreak — it was a kill count they couldn't even dream of.

In a word: reaching Skill Level 20 was no small feat even for me. And since the Sanctuary's effect doubled my skill efficiency, the gap between that growth rate and the required zombie count widened into something that was, frankly, exponential.

[Liquid of Subordination Lv.20].

Well, look at that — it actually put in the work, huh!

The moment I heard her words, whatever lingering desire I'd had to invest in Mimic Holy Body instead evaporated in an instant.

"What is it? This method of getting Kim Eunbyeol into our group?"

"Simple. Bring back Eunbyeol-unni's son, and even if you told her to drop dead, she'd probably thank you and offer you her life."

"Hmm. And where's this son of hers?"

Her finger pointed to the right, beyond the wall.

"Kkumnamu Daycare. Right next to City Hall."

"This story keeps getting weirder. That's practically within arm's reach — why hasn't anyone gone to get him?"

"Are you insane? The zombies aren't just in the streets — the buildings are swarming with them like ants."

Apparently, at Kim Eunbyeol's request, Kang San and Seo Taesan had already gone after her son, Park Himchan. But they'd been driven back by the zombies lurking in the darkness — and that was only the most recent attempt.

I chewed on the problem from every angle before asking in a flat, deflated tone. "So this is a complete fool's errand. A kid young enough to be in daycare surviving until now? Impossible. And I'm supposed to go out of my way to raid that place just to recruit one Kim Eunbyeol as a believer?"

On paper, this was a quest with abysmally poor efficiency. And I was a min-maxer who skipped story quests at the drop of a hat unless they were mandatory.

She just shrugged and brushed it off lightly. "I only mentioned the simplest option. Actually doing it is your job, Master."

It was, of course, possible. Even if that kid — Himchan or Him-notchan or whatever — was already a zombie, I now had the Zombie Cure, which I could casually flex at any time.

But the more I thought about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it: I already had Yoon Ayoung and Seong Gaeul. Was it really worth going this far for a low-tier woman like her? However I turned it over, it wasn't efficient.

As I was lightly starting to shake my head, Seong Gaeul wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight. Her breath washed over my chest, catching me off guard for an instant.

"The Guwon Cult isn't a product you can buy, you know? It's a truth you have to receive."

"I know things are very different now than they used to be. But the human heart also starts thinking about the 'reward' it gets for believing in a religion. Peace in the afterlife, healing from sickness, a comfortable world after death."

I quietly stared down at the crown of Seong Gaeul's head, pressed snugly against my body, for a few seconds. What was she trying to get at with this?

"Can't you still hear the zombies howling out there? This place is the one spot on earth completely liberated from that threat. And this place is a paradise no one can enter without my permission."

Wow, we've got some real 'you saved me from drowning, so now carry my bundle on your back' types over here.

Some noble guild from a distant memory flickered through my mind. Oh, hell no! My Guwon Cult shall permit no labor unions of any kind, you penniless freeloaders!

"And what about the people who are safe even without this barrier?"

"Well, for people like that, I suppose my telekinetic fist will be waiting."

"...Are you serious?"

My playful grin collided head-on with her dead-serious eyes. She was asking me with that look alone.

Awakened and ordinary people who could somehow carve out decent lives even without this barrier. Among them, there would inevitably be people I absolutely wanted. And then how, she was asking, would I bring people into a Guwon Cult that had lost its one great lure of safety?

Strap them to the statue and force them to pray until they broke? Or immerse them in a haze of sex, the way I had with her?

Ha, please. Even Seong Gaeul, soaked head to toe in the Liquid of Subordination, doesn't trust me properly. Fat chance of that.

If Awakened who were vastly superior, both physically and mentally, were to fall under my command — how?

Her words made me realize it all over again. What I wanted wasn't mere slaughter. I wanted dominion.

"...Actually, yeah, there might be something to that. So what's the conclusion?"

"We build a religion everyone wants to come to. A religion that makes people happy."

"Just so you don't forget, let me say it again. I am not the white-knight superman you were hoping for. I'm no Kantian philosopher. I'm going to act however the hell I please. Pretty women show up, I screw them. Anyone who pisses me off, I kill them."

"I know. You just make the happiness they'll feel from now on outweigh the misfortune. Make it big enough that all those little things stop mattering."

Come to think of it, Seong Gaeul had always been this kind of person.

A woman who, in pursuit of her own greater happiness, had stoked the conflict between Kang San and Kang Bada. A woman who, for the camp's safety, had been the fastest of anyone to swing the hammer of expulsion at the frightened, naive 'Pre-infected.' And into that fundamentally broken woman, my influence had seeped — in the form of a debuff she could never have escaped.

So that's it. It was never about the 10% that remained — it was about the 90% I'd already dyed.

Ah, the boy from the ethics textbook who shouted 'Half the glass is still full!' was right all along!

"So you're telling me I have to save Kim Eunbyeol's son. Because if her son is alive, that happiness will ultimately outweigh everything I do to her?"

"Exactly. People like that will pile up and pile up until they become your believers — and your toys."

"I appreciate that plans which were once vague are coming into sharp focus. Still feels like something's missing before I can act on it, though?"

Without a word of answer, Seong Gaeul let out a low, honeyed laugh and smiled a wicked little smile. Taking my hand carefully, she slipped my fingers into her own mouth of her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own accord.

"Mmmmh~... *chup*... *chup*... Mmmnh~..."

Her tongue traveled devotedly between my middle and index fingers, caressing every inch of them. After servicing my hand for a long while, she spoke.

"I'm going to become one of the prettiest toys in your collection. Whatever you do to me, I'll accept it with a smile. Because the happiness of the dreams you fulfill for me is bigger than all those little things combined."

I had misunderstood for far too long. Ordinary or Awakened, it made no difference.

She had already become the talent that the Hanmaum Guwon Cult truly needed.

I took her by the chin and held her gaze for a long moment. Her windows to the soul were brimming with a strange heat. In them I could see madness clinging, thick and viscous, to a happiness-logic twisted beyond all reason.

"From this day forward, Seong Gaeul is the Vice Cult Leader of the Hanmaum Guwon Cult."

At that quiet declaration, her eyes curved into crescent moons.