Noon of the Unbelievers (4)
― Noon of the Unbelievers (4) ― Star Light Church, 6th Floor, "Elder Moses's Office"
"S-Sergeant Kim! Stop standing there like an idiot! We need to run, I'm telling you!"
After the impact that shook the rooftop, the search team — already deep in panic — descended into outright pandemonium.
Sergeant Kim, who had been staring blankly at the ceiling, slowly walked toward them. He picked up one of the search team's bent rifles and began bringing its buttstock down on their backs.
Thwack! Thwaaack―! Thwack―!
At the savage sound of the beatings, Joo Joohye squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away.
Under the merciless punishment, the search team's crying quieted to a chilling whisper.
"How did Jinhyun die?"
"Ck, cough... That guy just... he, he got him in one move..."
"How did he die."
"The m-moment we approached him, his n-neck just tore apart!"
Joo Joohye pictured Kim Jinhyun's head separating from his body as she listened to their screaming answers.
That annoyingly flashy neon tracksuit, and those beady, lecherous eyes that had glared at every woman in sight.
She remembered how violently she'd trembled with rage watching the girls her age whose clothes — and underwear — that bastard had stolen from them.
"Nothing else unusual?"
"Right when we were about to r-retreat, he reached his hand out toward us, and suddenly my head hurt like crazy!"
"Died the moment they approached. Pain in the head as he reached out a hand..."
Sergeant Kim stroked his jaw, and his cold eyes gleamed.
"I get the picture. Seongcheol, go bring Yeongjin. While you're at it, grab every weapon we have."
"Y-yes? Yeongjin, he's..."
Cho Seongcheol, dressed in a black training uniform, wiped the blood trickling down his forehead and shot a sidelong glance at Joo Joohye.
Park Yeongjin, that bastard — the man guarding the armory, Sergeant Kim's greatest asset.
And that armory was also where Joo Joohye's family was being held hostage.
"You'll be fine. Move fast."
"Y-yes, sir! Sergeant!"
As Cho Seongcheol bolted out the door in a panicked scramble, the search team's eyes recovered some of their former fire.
Sergeant Kim nodded in satisfaction at the sight, then turned to Joo Joohye.
"You asked for a reward? Fine. I'll permit you a reunion with your family. Fleeing somewhere with them wouldn't be the worst outcome, either."
Why did it sound less like permission and more like an order to get lost?
"...That sounds a lot like telling me to run."
"Sharp as ever. Go run. If you're hiding somewhere else, it gives us somewhere to hide as well, doesn't it?"
Sergeant Kim intended to station her elsewhere and prepare for any eventuality.
But what if she betrayed him?
Betrayal, my ass.
A hollow laugh leaked out from inside Joo Joohye at her own question.
As if he'd heard the voice in her heart, Sergeant Kim continued.
"Even if you get any ideas, it doesn't matter. You've seen for yourself — in a world like this, people can't help leaving traces. And we are professionals at the hunt that follows those traces."
He wasn't wrong.
No matter how well people hid, they always left trails behind, and Sergeant Kim's search teams had grown their numbers by seizing the supplies of those very people.
Even with Kim Jinhyun dead, Park Yeongjin is still out there...
That gun-shaped finger he'd wagged while toying with anyone who defied him...
Every single person who had ever resisted him had eventually bent the knee to Sergeant Kim's blade.
And this time would probably be...
No different.
The light died in Joo Joohye's eyes, her flash of desperate defiance snuffed out.
Having forgotten both the fury of seeing the Elder fall and the hope that someone had come, Joo Joohye asked Sergeant Kim:
"What should I change the keyword to?"
At her words, Sergeant Kim quietly looked up at the ceiling. Gazing at the silence that had settled after the first shock, he said:
"Psuedo-cult hunting."
"Ah, it's not gonna collapse like a Lotte Mart, right?"
My "hero landing" had utterly wrecked the small lawn patch on the rooftop of Star Light Church.
The sunken grass and the thick clouds of dust rising into the air had me worried before anything else. Look, I'd come as fast as I possibly could, but... if the building collapses like this, I'm screwed either way.
"Tch. Somehow I don't think this is the impact Gaeul was talking about..."
'Gaeulmong's' nagging was tormenting my brain again.
'Hey! Why are you collapsing the building?! Are you on a demolition crew?!'
'No, it's not like I'd do it where there are people...'
'Not, my ass! Close your eyes and tell the truth! Say some punks mess with you, and then you find their hideout. What do you do?'
'What do you mean what? I just storm right in and—'
'See! See! Are you a human butcher?! You're a cult leader, a CULT LEADER! Remember this: people form most of their impression of you at the very first meeting. You hit them with an impact that makes them think, the instant they lay eyes on you — whoa, there is something seriously off about this bastard! Got it?!'
"Uuuuugh! Get out of my heeeead, Seong Gaeuuuul!!"
I'd listened to her nagging so much that her voice played in my head automatically now.
Still, Gaeul had a point.
I'd never once lost out by listening to Seong Gaeul.
So I swallowed, with the utmost sincerity, the urge to bring the whole building down in the name of divine punishment.
I hadn't come here to kill people. I had come to proselytize and preach.
Carrying the gentle heart of a man of faith as my burden, I looked up at the blue sky.
"Sky sure is clleeear today."
A short while later, with a crackle of static, the speakers on the rooftop floor came alive.
―Are you the one called the Cult Leader of Salvation?
Going by my expectations, it was the voice of a middle-aged man.
To this intruder brazenly questioning me through a loudspeaker in my own territory, I spat out a reply saturated with mana — a voice louder than the broadcast itself, shaking the entire building.
"I am. And are you the leader of the rabble that dared threaten the Sanctuary?"
―I don't know about any threat, but I am the one in charge here. Call me Sergeant Kim.
Sergeant Kim.
Was he literally a soldier, name and all?
That would explain why his goons had been swaggering around with firepower way above their station.
I fixed my gaze on the speaker blaring out Sergeant Kim's voice.
So they still have electricity left...
His mana-laden voice rolled through the building once more.
"Is there really any need to talk through speakers? Don't waste precious electricity — come out here and face me."
―...That's enough probing. You have trespassed into our territory without permission. I advise you to return to your own home at once.
A warning laced with a coldness that came through even over the speakers.
And at that warning, I laughed.
At the end of that deep laugh, a thunderous roar rang out again, reaching the building and everyone inside it.
"That I cannot do! For I have seen them! Those who suffer in this place! The pitiful souls who yearn for salvation!"
―Must have had a hell of a dream. This place is run very democratically, and we are overcoming this disaster together. It is not a space for a fraud like you to spread your gospel!
His voice was growing more and more agitated, like a rising gradient.
―What do you know, throwing around words like suffering and salvation! Have you ever tasted true hell? I am a living witness who crawled out of it! This one, that one — all of them whimpering for rations! Bastards no better than communists!
Is he insulting me? Or is he cursing out some other people that just popped into his head?
The man seemed to have forgotten his original purpose entirely, vomiting out everything he'd been keeping bottled up inside.
Hmm... surely this was enough by now?
―Pigs who don't realize that merely being alive inside the fence is a blessing...
"Wouldn't you say that's enough stalling?"
―...
The crackling electronic noise cut off, and the speaker fell silent.
Piercing through that brief quiet, a green object was hurled from the shadowed interior onto the rooftop floor.
Hissssssh―
Smoke.
Not bad.
These were people who'd seen my ability once before, so their counter was smooth.
Telekinesis was, in the end, the power to interfere with objects — and to interfere meant, at its core, to see.
Whether with my own eyes, or through the minimap that operated within the Sanctuary.
The smoke screen was a declaration of intent: they would blind my vision, and with it, my ability.
If they've limited my power, then it's time for their counterattack!
The instant that thought formed, I felt a pulse of mana from one side of the rooftop.
At my gesture, the white smoke in that spot parted.
A rat-faced bastard was taking a braced shooting stance, aiming at me as I floated in the air.
The strange thing was that his braced hands were gripping nothing at all.
A blue glow bloomed from his arm, tracing the outline of a rifle.
The blue light gathered at the barrel's tip, and his eyes flashed.
Ratatatatatata―
I reflexively threw my hand out toward the onrushing blue bullets.
My eyes whirled rapidly, identifying each and every round cleaving through the light.
...Shit!
Wham―! Whamwhamwhamwham―!
My first clean hit since awakening my ability.
The mana bullets seizing every direction rained down across my whole body.
The flashing bursts scrambled my thoughts mid-idea.
Arms crossed to shield my face, I moved on pure instinct.
My floating body dropped back down, and I tucked myself under the smoke.
"KHAHAHAHAHA! Fuck, you struck all your little poses, and now this small-fry bastard's puffing himself up!"
At that vile, rasping voice, I didn't bother answering.
Damage, yes. Lethal, no.
Quickly assessing my body's condition, I thinned the smoke screening my surroundings a little.
Thudathudathuda―
"Die, you crippled cult bastard!"
Blue mana was being fired along the ring spreading through the white smoke — at the one small gap he could see through. The rat-faced bastard's eyes glowed poison-bright in that narrow aperture.
"You will never die a peaceful death."
All they'd done was restrict my direct exercise of telekinesis.
The true essence of my power revealed itself in indirect interference.
Grgrgrgrind―!
Following the white light blooming across my body, Star Light Church screamed.
With the screech of rebar twisting apart, the building shook as if an earthquake had struck.
The concrete slabs that formed the roof rose up before me and absorbed the full impact of the mana bullets.
Whamwhamwhamwham―
Behind the pulverizing concrete, countless chunks of stone slowly began to float.
And then they spun.
Shhhiiiiish―!
Like planets adrift in a gravity-free void, the stones orbiting me accelerated faster and faster. The white smoke blanketing the roof was sucked into their formation.
Kagagagagagak―!
With my field of vision wide open and unobstructed, the rooftop floor tore apart with a merciless shriek.
A man-made gray hurricane began to carve up the rooftop of Star Light Church.
"F-fuuuuuuck!"
There was no way an awakened one couldn't feel that explosive surge of mana. Urgency crept into the rat-faced bastard's eyes, which had been wet with the thrill of slaughter.
He hastily dropped to one knee and mimed grabbing hold of something round.
"...Oh!"
Even without seeing the blue outline, I knew exactly what he was about to do.
"ALLAHU AKBAR, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!"
FWOOOOOOOOM―!
Allah's magic wand, conjured from mana, launched from the church rooftop toward the pseudo-cult leader.
A mana rocket incomparably larger than any bullet bored into the storm I had made.
Thudududududu―
The small stones, caught in my massive telekinetic current, hammered furiously against his rocket.
I could see his expression hardening as the blue mana projectile gradually deformed.
It was obviously an attack into which he'd invested a considerable amount of mana — and it couldn't so much as scratch me.
"You little—!"
As he scrambled back to his feet, I stretched out my arm.
The rebars sleeping beneath the rooftop floor shot toward him like serpents at my telekinetic command.
"GUHEOOOOOCK!"
The rebar bursting up through the floor bored into the rat-faced bastard's whole body.
And the harder his fingers clenched, the tighter the steel coiling around him began to squeeze.
"Guhheuuuuugh! F-fuuuuuck!"
Granted the only freedom of his mouth, the man screamed while his body was taxidermied before me. The more desperately he twisted and writhed, the deeper the rebar drove into his flesh.
"Grrrruuuuugh!"
Watching his face swell blood-red, about to burst, I extended my other hand.
At my gesture, the vortex — concrete and white smoke fused into a dirty gray — advanced slowly forward.
"N-nnngh! No! Get it away! Get it away from me!"
Tiny stone fragments, kicked up by the vortex as it scraped across the floor, whipped violently against his face. Pelted by the shards pouring into his flapping mouth, the rat-faced bastard gagged and wept.
"Nnnngh! P-please spare me! Fuck, fuck! I'm s-sorry! I'm sorryyyyy!"
"I have no use for believers with dirty hands, you little bastard."
"GUAAAAAAH!"
The gray vortex swallowed the rat-faced bastard whole.