Chapter 314
Chapter 314
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 314
>Chapter Title: Years (3)
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While Il-mok stood there dumbfounded.
“But an indulgence? The Catholic Church in the Western world is truly absurd. Isn’t it just doing business with religion?”
“Don’t even get me started, Sixth Young Master. I don’t know about the old days, but lately the Vatican seems blinded by money.”
James and Jong-ri Chu continued their rather in-depth conversation.
Mixing English and the tongue of the Central Plains.
Il-mok, realizing this fact belatedly, asked with an even more flustered expression.
“…Sixth Senior Brother? When did you learn the Western tongue?”
“Hahaha. It’s all thanks to our little brother. Thanks to him, I’ve made a lot of foreign friends lately.”
“Ah, did you learn from the new foreign converts?”
Il-mok hadn’t expected Jong-ri Chu’s language acquisition skills to be this outstanding.
But for some reason, at Il-mok’s question, James and Jong-ri Chu exchanged strange smiles.
“Hahaha. Those friends too, but I have others as well. I picked up foreign languages while hanging out with them.”
With that, Jong-ri Chu suddenly began conversing with the empty air.
Even mixing in a different language each time.
While Il-mok stared at the bizarre scene with a slack-jawed face, Jong-ri Chu, who had been chattering while looking around the air, smiled brightly and spoke.
“Oh dear, let me get a grip on my senses. This is a good chance to introduce our little brother to my friends.”
With that, Jong-ri Chu urged Il-mok to greet them.
“Say hello. This is our little junior brother. Little brother, say hello too. These are my friends, like Edouard here.”
“…P-pleased to meet you.”
Bowing to the empty air where no one was, Il-mok thought.
‘…Looks like Sixth Senior Brother has reached the Extreme Demon realm.’
The symptoms of hallucinations and auditory hallucinations seemed even more severe.
‘Hmm? But can you really learn foreign languages from hallucinations and auditory hallucinations?’
The moment his thoughts reached that point, Il-mok felt a chill creep up his back for some reason.
* * *
After hastily greeting the empty air, Il-mok fled the Initiation Hall as if escaping.
The dizzying scene made him feel like the side effects of his vanished demonic arts might return.
The place Il-mok headed after escaping the Initiation Hall was the Church Affairs Hall.
It resembled a battlefield.
“How’s the progress on those teaching materials I mentioned last time!”
“With that many kids entering the intermediate school next year, what are we supposed to do if you haven’t even finished half!”
“Tell the laborers to work through the night! Or you stay up yourself!!”
People with dark circles under their eyes and bloodshot eyes screamed at each other, madly swinging brushes or running around frantically.
‘Whoa… This seems even worse than those Korean companies from my past life?’
While Il-mok surveyed the terrifying scene.
“Hahaha! Come on in, little brother!”
Wi Jin-hak, buried in papers at the head seat, finally noticed Il-mok and greeted him boisterously.
At the same time, every gaze in the Church Affairs Hall turned toward Il-mok in unison.
Each one filled with murderous intent and resentment around their eyes. It felt just like looking at the vengeful spirits trapped in the Ascension Sword.
‘I-it’s just my imagination, right?’
Il-mok decided their bloodshot eyes meant he was misunderstanding.
Oblivious to their stares—or perhaps just clueless—Wi Jin-hak boisterously opened his mouth again.
“Hahaha. I’ve been so swamped with work that I couldn’t visit you, so thank you for coming here.”
To Il-mok, those words sounded like thanks for walking into death on your own two feet.
After all, among the reasons they were suffering in this work hell, the proportion of former slaves he had thrown at them before fleeing wasn’t small.
But this was Il-mok’s misunderstanding.
“I had some things I wanted to discuss with our talented little brother anyway, so let’s talk now.”
Seeing his beaming eldest senior brother smile, Il-mok spotted a familiar shadow.
‘That looks like severe workaholic syndrome.’
Eyes bloodshot, skin and hair dry and lackluster, dark shadows under their eyes, yet their minds filled only with work.
Rare in the civil service world, but a face you’d often see living in modern Seoul.
Whether Il-mok worried about Wi Jin-hak or not, Wi Jin-hak kept talking.
“Il-mok, thanks to you, we have these new foreign devotees. As we discussed, I heard our Church Affairs Hall has started learning foreign languages through them. Did you hear?”
“…I stopped by the Initiation Hall today. Sixth Senior Brother’s foreign language skills seem quite impressive.”
“Hahaha. I didn’t know our brother had such talent. Anyway, don’t you think it’s time we prepare the next steps? How about creating teaching materials for foreign languages and adding them to the intermediate school curriculum alongside administration and medicine?”
“Are you planning to train diplomats—no, missionaries to operate abroad?”
“Hahaha. You got it right away.”
“…If we’re thinking about the future, it seems like an excellent idea.”
The problem was whether they could prepare that much when they were already on the verge of overload.
“You think so too, little brother? Hahaha. That’s a relief. Oh, and what about this? With recent trade, we’re frequently going back and forth to the north, right? I heard we’ve started proselytizing there too. So, how about sending more people trained in the nomads’ language to the north to accelerate missionary work…”
After that, Wi Jin-hak relentlessly rattled off all the plans he’d been devising over the past few months.
The longer Wi Jin-hak spoke, the more Il-mok’s eyes trembled anxiously.
Wi Jin-hak, addicted to work, didn’t notice, but Il-mok could see it.
“P-please…”
“S-save us…”
The Church Affairs Hall workers staring at him with eyes that looked ready to shed bloody tears and faint any second.
“W-with more work piling up here…?”
At that point, they were already half-dead.
It made him wonder why the Blood Cult bothered making jiangshi when they had scenes like this.
Even as the Church Affairs Hall people turned into living corpses in real time, Wi Jin-hak’s mouth danced without rest.
Grand plans spanning the next few decades poured endlessly from his lips.
“Aaah…”
“Kill! Kill meee~!!!”
Some demon cultivators who had fallen into Demonic Deviation suddenly began convulsing.
“Oh dear, it’s starting again.”
Wi Jin-hak, mid-ramble, finally closed his mouth and swung his sword toward those convulsing.
“Don’t let a single one get hurt, and make sure the documents don’t tear—subdue them carefully!”
At his command, the suffering Church Affairs Hall workers drew their weapons in unison and blocked the convulsing ones.
Focusing solely on defense to ensure the convulsing didn’t get hurt. More precisely, they were preventing them from touching documents or teaching materials.
In the meantime, Wi Jin-hak stepped forward to seal their demonic acupoints one by one, and Il-mok joined in.
With Wi Jin-hak and Il-mok, who had reached Human Sea Realm, intervening, the convulsing rebels were subdued in an instant.
“Phew. Thanks, little brother. Thanks to you, we subdued them this time without a single injury.”
Il-mok felt a strange sensation at Wi Jin-hak’s greeting.
‘Hmm. They’re still careful not to hurt each other, so they must care for one another in their own way.’
The other Church Affairs Hall people looked down at the subdued ones with eyes full of camaraderie.
“Where do you think you’re going alone to rest.”
“You’re not going alone. No way. Even in death, we die together.”
“…….”
Il-mok glanced at Wi Jin-hak at their eerie mutterings, which felt odd for camaraderie, and he boisterously laughed.
“Hahaha. Last time, I accidentally gave two of them serious injuries. With those two out, the rest had to pull even more all-nighters.”
“…….”
Il-mok realized.
This place was a hell on earth where they all held each other’s Achilles’ heels and wouldn’t let go.
* * *
Having escaped the ghost hell and now the work hell, Il-mok hurriedly headed somewhere.
‘I can’t let this continue.’
Realizing something was seriously wrong, the place Il-mok went was the Pure Heart Clinic.
A hospital specializing in mental illnesses, created for the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s lunatics.
When Il-mok visited the Pure Heart Clinic after a long time, the Demon Physician welcomed him.
“Heh heh heh. Welcome, Deputy Director.”
“Hahaha. Long time no see, Elder Demon Physician. It’s been years since I stepped down from Deputy Director—please just call me casually.”
After lightly exchanging greetings with the Demon Physician, Il-mok got to the point.
“Is Physician Seo Jae-pil inside, by any chance?”
“He should be working in that wing over there—go check.”
Il-mok headed to the wing the Demon Physician pointed out.
“Welcome, Eighth Young Master!”
As usual, Seo Jae-pil greeted Il-mok.
“How’s the research on foreigners coming along?”
Seo Jae-pil, who had gone with Il-mok to the north, had returned to headquarters and was continuing his studies on foreigners.
“The research on whether diseases manifest differently by race in type or severity hasn’t yielded major results yet.”
When Seo Jae-pil answered with a somewhat regretful expression, Il-mok soothed him.
“Still, as contact with foreigners increases, we might gain knowledge of Western or northern medical techniques, right?”
“Ah! Come to think of it, I heard the Church Affairs Hall has been studying foreign languages lately. Hearing your words, Young Master, it seems I should join them.”
“Hmm. Since the Church Affairs Hall is learning foreign languages anyway, how about chatting with Sixth Senior Brother?”
Il-mok subtly brought up the purpose of his visit.
“I stopped by today, and Sixth Senior Brother’s foreign language acquisition seems remarkably advanced.”
“Is that so? I rarely run into him, so I had no idea.”
“Actually, there was something odd related to this. He said he learned foreign languages from newly made ‘friends.’ Those friends from his side effects, you know.”
“You mean the symptoms where he sees and hears hallucinations?”
“That’s right. So, is it possible to learn foreign languages from hallucinations and auditory hallucinations? I started wondering if the side effects of the Mad Soul Sword Art are actually seeing ghosts.”
“Hmm. It’s probably not ghosts. Sixth Young Master has quite a few friends—if they were all real ghosts, it’d be strange if the An Clan or the Eight Trigrams Hall didn’t know about them.”
Answering thus, Seo Jae-pil’s eyes sparkled for some reason.
“More than that, learning foreign languages from hallucinations and auditory hallucinations. That’s fascinating. I’ll have to visit Sixth Young Master every day from now on. To learn the languages too. Killing two birds with one stone.”
“Hahaha. Please do. And just in case, it might be good to bring a shaman along occasionally.”
“Hahaha. Will do, Young Master.”
Having successfully assigned a physician to Sixth Senior Brother Jong-ri Chu, Il-mok handed over the next patient to Seo Jae-pil.
“Oh, and have you spoken with Eldest Senior Brother lately?”
“If it’s the Eldest Young Master, he’s already transcended to Transcending Demon, so he has no reason to visit the Pure Heart Clinic.”
At Seo Jae-pil’s response, Il-mok briefly explained Wi Jin-hak’s symptoms.
“I worry he might be too buried in work.”
But Seo Jae-pil showed an unexpected reaction.
“How is working hard and a lot a problem?”
“???”
“Isn’t it the perfect model for our Divine Cult?”
With that, Seo Jae-pil turned the question back on Il-mok.
“Oh, by the way, what about that thing you mentioned before? Are you still completely unmoved by killing people?”
Seeing Seo Jae-pil’s eyes gleaming with zeal for work, brush already in hand and ready to scribble notes, Il-mok realized a crucial fact.
‘Ah. This guy’s a workaholic too.’
The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was a land teeming with chronic workaholics.