Faith's Sword (5)
At my gesture, rifles and ammunition crates came tumbling out of my inventory and danced through the air.
Thock— Thock— Thock—
I opened a crate, and rounds slid smoothly into their magazines. Each loaded magazine clicked into a dust-colored rifle, which then drifted into the hands of the students who had been watching in a daze.
Click.
With the sound of selectors flicking to full auto, they had their weapons.
And yet not a single one of them looked happy about it.
"...Sir. Guns can't do anything."
These were the ones who had watched, with their own eyes, as the military's shelters collapsed. They had learned in the most bitter way possible that a gun could not protect them. And I already knew that.
"That is not a gun."
"...Excuse me?"
"That is a sword. Without the flame called faith, it merely stays silent."
The students' eyes chilled over. Faced with the deep disappointment radiating off them, I simply smiled brightly and went on.
"There are only two things you need to know."
I raised one finger and gave it a waggle.
"I am not a pastor. I am the Cult Leader of the Hanmaum Guwon Cult."
And the second.
"Just as I need you, so too will you come to need me."
They stared at me, utterly lost, so I said it again.
"I am looking for special people to share my power with."
"...Then you've got the wrong address. Jinheon—like I said earlier, he went to Yeongjongdo. And Haeil, he's like Jinheon, he..."
"You've misunderstood me. I'm telling you that I need *you*. You, who will become more special than anyone else in this world."
Special.
It was a sentence in perfect opposition to everything they were right now. And I had handed it to them like it was nothing.
What did I look like in their eyes at this moment? Was I truly radiating an aura all my own, the way Seong Gaeul had demanded? I couldn't say. But this much I did know now: only by believing in it myself first could I ever perform it.
I rose slowly from my seat, smiling at the students who were watching me. A smile different from anyone else's. Positive— and utterly wrong for this despairing world.
"I will prove your specialness to you."
With that, I strode quickly out of the classroom, smiling as the students trailed slowly after me. Curiosity was a flute, and like little mice they followed it at my heels. Leaving their nest behind, they soared through the air with me as we rose to the rooftop.
"Wh-whoaaaah—!"
"Wh-what the—! We're actually flying?!"
Flying for the first time in their lives, the students burst out in exclamations of awe. One startled boy grabbed his rifle and squeezed the trigger.
BANG—!
"Gwaaagh! You lunatic!"
Before the panicking students, the fired bullet slowed to a gentle drift and flew along beside them. The boy who'd pulled the trigger bowed his head over and over at the sight of me reaching a hand toward the round.
"I-I'm so sorryyy!"
I gave a faint smile as if it were nothing and kept flying.
No matter how advanced the internet became, no matter how far the era marched on, students were still students. Hamsters on a wheel between home and school, grades the be-all and end-all of their world. And...
"You idiot! Watch your damn gun!"
"I-I said I was sorry! The mister said it was fine!"
"You little shit, why would you say that here?!"
...children for whom the peer group was the most important relationship of all. Kids whose worlds were painfully, tragically small. And precisely because their worlds were so small...
"Wow—"
"What— what is that, sir?"
...they fell so easily into a new one. Their eyes sparkled at the mystery pouring off the orange barrier. A transgression they'd never have experienced even in the old, unbroken world. No—this *was* the adventure they had all dreamed of.
"Our home. And our paradise."
With that slippery answer, we passed through the barrier.
The new world hidden behind the orange glow unfurled before them. The students who had gawked at the Heavenly Barrier on the way in couldn't shut their mouths now. Perhaps that was only natural. This was a Sanctuary that Seong Gaeul and I had stayed up through the night designing, engineered to plant the maximum possible sense of mystery and awe in anyone setting foot inside for the first time.
The vibrant life force breathing from the Sanctuary's gardens. The sheer majesty of that great white tower, standing tall against the sky. The moment I spotted a single believer rushing inside to report my arrival, I turned to appraise the students.
Bodies frozen stiff before a new world, eyes darting every which way as they took in their surroundings. And yet, at the sight of the rifles they clutched to their chests like treasures, I smiled faintly.
"Lee Jeonguk."
"...Y-yes, sir!"
I called out the name of the boy who had fired by accident.
"What does this place look like to you?"
"...Uh, well... a home, and a paradise...?"
"Kim Haeil."
"...Yes, yes!"
"What does this place look like to you?"
"...You said it was a home and a paradise, sir."
I called the names of all ten students one by one and asked them the same question. Every single one gave the same answer.
A home and a paradise.
Honestly, the words probably didn't land with much weight for them yet. But Lee Jeonguk had answered first, and since I hadn't contradicted him, the rest simply followed his lead. His answer had looked like the correct one.
That was the ability school and society demanded and taught, and that was the power of the peer group: when your friend gives the right answer, everyone copies it.
While I was listening to ten identical answers, noise broke out behind us. At some point, every believer in the Guwon Cult had poured out of the building and was there to welcome us.
"Cult Leader."
Seong Gaeul bowed with impeccable formality, and I smiled back at her.
And so, all was ready for the rite of passage.
"Today! We have found ten children abandoned by the elders of a bygone age!"
At my cry, thick with mana, every gaze swung toward the students of Gongseong High.
"Welcome the seedlings of a new era, cast aside by a world that only ever demanded they parrot back the 'right answers' like trained birds!"
Clap— Clap— Clap—!
"WAAAAAH—! Welcome! Welcome, everyone!"
Buried under the applause and cheering that erupted the instant I finished, the students bowed their heads with dazed faces.
"They taught our seedlings nothing! Nothing of how to survive together in faith! Nothing of how to overcome together in faith!"
"AAAAH—!"
The believers groaned in lamentation while the students watched me in silence. I pumped my fist into the air and pleaded with the most anguish-filled voice I could summon.
"Seeing them left behind, never taught a single thing—I could barely keep my heart from breaking!"
"AAAAH— Cult Leeeeaderrr!"
At that grief-stricken cry, as the believers crumbled in their pews, I called out one of them.
"Believer Kim Cheolsu!"
"Yes! Cult Leader!"
Kim Cheolsu scrambled to his feet at my summons, and I pointed at him.
"I remember your noble efforts to protect your family, believer Kim Cheolsu. I know everything about you. I understand you. I love you!"
"AAAAH—!"
"And I know the heart you've buried in your deepest depths, believer Kim Cheolsu! Tell me—what emotion seized you, in every single moment you faced those zombies?!"
"AAAAH—!"
Kim Cheolsu's eyes trembled as the memory of that day washed over him. Then he shook his head and found his savior. At the gentle smile answering his salvation, he confessed through his tears.
"I was scared! It was so terrifying, so horrible!"
"Believer Kim Cheolsu had experience! He had wisdom, and he had a precious wife and daughter! He possessed all the countless things that make a human strong—and yet he broke!"
Even he, facing those zombies, had begged for salvation.
"But the broken man rose again! He came to understand the only true answer in this world! And what is that answer?!"
"FAITH!"
The believers' voices echoed off the walls of the Sanctuary.
"The true power the old age buried, and buried again! You who face the salvation born of faith and obedience!"
"Ah— we believe!"
"Even you groaned beneath the veil this world drew over your eyes! Only after the old age collapsed did you behold me with true eyes!"
"AAAAAH—!"
The Cult Leader raised his voice, pointing at the students.
"If even the adults were crushed like that, what of the children! Behold these seedlings, broken beneath the oppression of the old world! I will gather them into my embrace and shelter them as great trees of the Sanctuary!"
"We believe! We believe!"
The Cult Leader's body rose into the air. Watching the believers writhe and twist in their proof of faith, he spoke to the students gazing up at him from below.
"Kim Haeil!"
"Yes!"
"Lee Jeonguk!"
"Yes!"
......
The Cult Leader called each of the ten seedlings once. Their eyes, answering his call, had gone hazy—and burning hot. Meeting each of those fevered gazes in turn, the Cult Leader pointed beyond the Sanctuary's edge.
At zombies swarming the perimeter, clawing outward at the sight of the prey gathered inside.
"Here are the nightmares that tormented you! Here is the power you truly wished for!"
The rifles in their hands stood upright, lifted by an unseen force. Watching the barrels line up in perfect aim on the zombies outside, the Cult Leader spoke.
"You said it yourselves! That these are nothing but the discarded relics of the defeated!"
"KYEEEAAAARGH—!"
Their howling rolled across the field, like the day the shelters fell being replayed in sound.
"And I told you! That they are swords—your swords—needing only the flame of faith!"
There was power in his voice. A compulsion that made you listen to the end, made you hope, made you obey.
"Do you want power? Do you want to become special? Then take hold of the sword before you!"
The students' eyes turned to the rifles. The dust-colored weapons, every preparation complete. Relics of defeat, waiting only for a trigger pull to spit fire and steel. But he had called them swords. And so the students took hold of their swords.
As they crouched into clumsy firing stances, the Cult Leader's voice flowed out low and quiet.
"The nightmare that haunted you is coming. But then and now are not the same. Now you have me—and in your hands, you hold my sword."
I did tell you, didn't I. That I would prove your specialness.
With his final word, the barrier opened. The zombies, who had been clawing toward us without pause, realized a path had opened.
"KYEEEAAAARGH—!"
Jubilation and madness. Beginning with a howling that blended the two into something foul, they came charging.
A great wave surging toward ten thin lines of children. The grotesque, almost beautiful tide of human bodies—just like when the shelters fell. The nightmare of that day was closing in. The seed of despair that said we must flee again—
"...Faith!"
A single vibration spread through minds already drowning in terror. They pulled their triggers on pure reflex.
RATATATATATATAT—!
The rifles barked without a whisper of recoil. Flame flashed from the muzzles and the zombies went down. Rounds that should have scattered punched clean through their skulls instead. Not a single wasted shot—as if someone were watching over them.
Smiles spread across the students' faces. Like a scene out of a movie.
We were fighting. We were the heroes of this battle.
Tick— Tick—
The emptied magazines stripped away on their own, and the next ones floating at their shoulders clicked into place. And they pulled the triggers again.
RATATATATATATAT—
"KYEEEAAAARGH—!"
To them now, that howling was no longer the beginning of fear. It was the scream of the falling. I'm killing zombies. Me, who only ever ran away. Easier than the soldiers ever had it. Faster than Park Jinheon. Just squeeze the trigger, and they fall. The nightmare that stole my ordinary life, falling before my eyes.
Euphoria bloomed in their chests. Nothing but euphoria.
In a startlingly short time, a mountain of corpses had piled up. A silence fell in which neither the ear-splitting gunfire nor the zombies' howling could be heard at all. But their fingers stayed glued to the triggers. A longing they had never once imagined held their hands in place.
"Evil has been destroyed! By your hands! By your weapons!"
And by your faith!
At the Cult Leader's words, the seedlings released their triggers.
Hah— hah—
Perhaps it was because they'd been holding their breath the whole time, concentrating. Their hearts pounded and their breathing came ragged only now. The seedlings stared forward, sweat dripping down their foreheads. The mountain of carcasses massed like hills. A death they had made. A true victory they had won with their own hands.
"Didn't I tell you? Just as I need you, so will you need me."
At the Cult Leader's words, every one of them broke into a radiant smile. And with those smiles, their bodies—stripped of the grime of the old age—began to glow brilliant white.
"Today ten seedlings—no! Ten noble knights of the Guwon Cult defended us!"
The Cult Leader showed them what they must do.
"Let us all give thanks for their labor! Let us repay their devotion!"
And he showed them what true joy felt like.
"Thank you! Thank you for protecting us!"
"We will never forget this grace!"
"Thank you, truly!"
The knights of the Guwon Cult waved back in answer. And the swelling crowd response built and built until it fused into a single word.
"Salvation! Salvation! Salvation! Salvation!"
Their salvation—and the knights'.
"How noble, and noble again, are my knights!"
The knights' eyes turned to the heavens. The blazing sunlight made them squint, but they strained upward anyway, eyes brimming with tears.
The Cult Leader, radiant against the sun, asked:
"My faithful knight, Lee Jeonguk."
"Yes, Cult Leeeeaderrr!"
Lee Jeonguk answered with a shout that made the cords in his neck jump.
"What is it that you hold in your hand?"
At the question, Lee Jeonguk looked down at his own hand. The weapon of soldiers who had failed to protect them. But not anymore. Bursting with certainty, he roared.
"THE SWORD OF FAITH!"
"That is my power and my salvation, the power that shall make you special!"
"AAAAH—!"
With Lee Jeonguk trembling in rapture, the Cult Leader continued.
"My faithful knight, Kim Haeil."
"Yes, Cult Leader!"
"What is it that you hold in your hand?"
"THE SWORD OF FAITH!"
The Cult Leader smiled softly. When your friend gives the right answer, everyone follows it. He called each of the ten knights slowly, and every one cried out the answer.
"All of you, raise your swords! And name the only weapon you possess!"
"THE SWORD OF FAITH!"
The Cult Leader, the knights, and their swords. As a wave of white light burst from all of them at once, the Cult Leader cried out:
"The rite of passage is complete! The oath ceremony is complete! Obey in faith, and cut down your enemies in faith!"
"WAAAAAAAH—!"
You are my first sword, and my shield.
Watching them scream until the spit flew, the Cult Leader smiled. This was his answer to the first question Seong Gaeul had posed to him.