Chapter 97
Chapter 97
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Lucifer Company
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“...”
Lying on the sofa, I recalled the information I'd just heard during the call.
[Lucifer Company are those who try to corrupt humans and harvest their souls. They're fundamentally different from us, but even so, they're one of the massive pillars overseeing the afterlife.]
Eastern Hell was aware of Lucifer Company.
[They've been steadily working to corrupt humans for ages. Sometimes we'd observe massive shifts in karmic flows here in the living world, and upon investigation, it always turned out to be their doing.]
Lucifer Company was always scheming to corrupt humanity.
[They really started making waves in the 13th century, right? They slithered around in Mongolia, sparking a massive war that dragged countless humans to their deaths. Naturally, laws and morals collapsed in the chaos, and corrupted souls sprouted like weeds.]
Some of humanity's great historical catastrophes bore the fingerprints of Lucifer Company's schemes.
[The Black Death in the Middle Ages, the Irish Potato Famine, China's Great Leap Forward—they were all meddled in by them. And lately, we've seen more villains dropping into hell than usual. So I checked the karmic flows in the living world through the Ledger of Karma, just in case. Sure enough, I spotted a massive convergence of evil karma!]
Events meddled in by Lucifer Company left traces behind.
[In the areas where the evil karma pooled, we faintly observed Lucifer Company's symbols: the inverted pentagram and inverted cross. They never show their faces directly, but they always leave their mark.]
The most recent plot they'd observed was unfolding in Australia.
[Please stop their scheme. Judging by the sheer volume of evil karma building up, it's on a scale that dwarfs anything they've done before! Who knows what'll happen to the living world if this keeps going! Hell isn't supposed to interfere in mortal affairs, but we can't stand by anymore! This is way off from our original contract! They broke it first, so we're breaking it too!]
They'd asked me to step in personally and crush their plot.
[If you help us, we'll wipe your accumulated evil karma clean! We can just replace it with an equal amount of good karma, right?]
[Doesn't transcendent intervention invalidate good karma?]
[...This time it's an exception!]
An earring if hung on the ear.
A nose ring if hung on the nose.
The Eastern underworld's rubber-band interpretations of doctrine weren't much different.
“A good deed for the world, so maybe it's a virtuous rubber band?”
I jotted a quick summary of the incident into Notebook in My Head.
[1. Lucifer Company, the Western underworld, corrupts humans.]
[2. They harvest the souls of the corrupted and drag them to hell.]
[3. If the Eastern underworld is like a courtroom and prison overseeing judgment, the Western underworld is a cursed land where the fallen live out their torment.]
[4. Demons indirectly intervene in the human world, sparking disasters that topple laws and morals.]
[5. Societal chaos makes humans easy to corrupt, and the demons reap the harvest.]
[6. Lucifer Company has steadily engineered these disasters over the past few centuries.]
[7. Their disasters leave traces: the inverted cross and inverted pentagram.]
[8. This upcoming disaster is no ordinary one.]
[9. The Eastern and Western hells have a mutual contract. They didn't say outright, but context suggests it's about handling sinners or interfering in the living world.]
“Summary complete.”
I read it through once, pondered it carefully, then read it again.
Then I added the questions that came to mind below it.
[1. Lucifer Company left this world after Jesus's death and only returned recently.]
[2. Therefore, everything the Eastern underworld said stems from a misunderstanding.]
[3. The inverted cross and pentagram are demonic symbols. But anyone can use a symbol.]
[4. So have all these past disasters been the work of impostor demons?]
[5. If it's beings other than demons, how did they evade Eastern Hell's notice?]
This was a problem that couldn't be easily solved.
“Hmm.”
And at the same time, one that could be solved quite easily.
“If only I had a demon's number...”
“Since the great upheaval of heaven and earth, this is the most absurd thing I've heard.”
“One more cola, please. My throat's parched after hearing such a ridiculous story.”
Baal, visiting the office after so long, chugged cola after cola.
“We've got french fries too—assorted varieties, so dig in.”
“Oh, heavens! Crinkle-cut, Tater Tots, wedges! A true feast!”
Over snacks, I asked Baal about the incident.
“Is it really not the work of Lucifer Company?”
“I swear on my true name. Lucifer Company hasn't unleashed a single disaster on this world in the past 2025 years.”
“2025 years—yep, that lines up.”
“Indeed, the year that carpenter from Nazareth was born.”
His eyes drooped like an old man's as he munched fries.
“You can't imagine the shock of what he did. Taking on all the world's original sin himself and vanishing with it—do you know how much effort we put into creating that? The chairman especially took over a thousand years to recover from the news.”
Baal reminisced like a weary elder.
“Those were the days. With original sin, every human belonged to us. Time passed, and our numbers dwindled under the contract with Eastern Hell, but still, so many were ours.”
“What was the contract?”
“Company confidential. We'll tell you if you join up.”
“Pass.”
“Anyway, that carpenter ruined it all.”
Like remnants haunting a bankrupt company's building, they'd left our dimension, tinkering elsewhere, quietly corrupting humans across various realms.
“Then we came here recently to resolve Mr. Isu-hun's complaint—no time for schemes like that.”
“What about the symbols?”
“Symbols are just symbols. Anyone can use them, not just us. Especially humans who follow us—or modern ones, who slap them on for style.”
“Convincing.”
In the end, all I learned was that Lucifer Company wasn't the culprit.
No clue who the real one was.
“Ah! It might be those guys.”
“Who?”
“Before we left this dimension, we handed out items to our followers. Unholy relics, symbols from corrupted faiths, prototypes the chairman whipped up. Maybe they're using those.”
After hearing my story, Baal pointed out one snag.
“Eastern Hell is a latecomer compared to us. Yet they became a powerhouse in the afterlife—that proves their capabilities, which even we acknowledge. For them to miss the culprits' identity and mistake us? Either it's an incredibly powerful entity at play, or they're using something so convincingly ours they can't help but think it's us.”
He held up two fingers.
“If it's an item tied to us, we still make them today—but everything crafted after we left this dimension has tracking coordinates embedded. We'd know if it was in use; no signs, so ruled out.”
He folded one finger.
“If it's convincing enough to fool them, it must be packed with a huge concentration of our power. We manage and track those ultra-potent ones meticulously. Unless...”
“Items made before we left the dimension.”
“Back then, we skipped quality control and customer management. Just crank out the strongest stuff possible, no regard for the user! That mindset ruled.”
“Did the group following you back then have a name?”
“No official one, but we called them this.”
Their name was still well-known in the modern world.
“Antichrist.”
Antichrist.
I looked up info on them online.
Antichrist.
Opponents of Christ, groups defying his teachings.
Beings who deceive with false miracles, masquerading as saviors for gain.
False prophets at the end times, the second beast bearing the symbol 666.
“They say it's a metaphor for con artists deceiving and profiting off others when the end times come.”
Unfortunately, the enemy we faced now was very likely real.
“Some interpretations call the first beast from Revelation—the blasphemous entity rising from the sea—the Antichrist.”
Either way, solid info was scarce.
[1. They possess entities crafted by Lucifer Company in their heyday.]
[2. These entities are potent enough to evade Eastern Hell's detection, fooling them into thinking it's Lucifer Company.]
[3. High chance they didn't end up in either Western or Eastern Hell after death. Otherwise, both sides would know of their existence.]
[4. They might have been alive continuously from back then until now.]
[5. Not the colloquial Antichrist, but one certified by real demons.]
Summary done, I booked a flight to Australia online.
‘But where exactly?’
Even Karma Call Center didn't know the precise location.
The evil karma overflowed so much that pinpointing was impossible.
“Like trying to find the source when stench wafts from everywhere.”
Looks like I'd be playing hide-and-seek for a while after arriving.
[Hello.]
At that moment, the wall-mounted TV flicked on.
[Your wall-mounted TV announcer, Announcer speaking.]
The wall-mounted TV activated after ages.
[Before the news, a special report: our biggest sponsor, Mr. Lee of Bucheon (26), is off on an overseas trip to Australia. So today's special is all about Australia!]
This was why I sponsored.
“Maybe they'll report something tied to this incident?”
I cracked open a 355ml Zero Pepsi and sank into the sofa.
“I wonder what news they've got this time?”
[First up! One month from now, in the barren desert heart of southern Australia, at Uluru—known as the Earth's navel...]
The announcer trailed off.
[Oh my god...]
He rallied his professionalism.
Shaking off the shock, he resumed broadcasting.
[One of the "Primordial Beings" is set to appear in the world.]