Chapter 167
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 167
Chapter Title: 167. Why Is That Guy Here?
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“Lost Ark here.”
Min Ju-ri widened her eyes in surprise beside him.
“Your nickname was Lost Ark?”
“Yeah.”
“First I’ve heard of it.”
With things having come to this, he decided to reveal his nickname.
He couldn’t hide it forever anyway.
‘Of course, even this isn’t my real nickname.’
It was still too soon to reveal he was Black Scythe.
There was no benefit to drawing unnecessary attention.
‘There might be people out there who harbor resentment toward Black Scythe, so revealing my identity would be dangerous.’
If things went wrong, his little sister could become a target.
There was zero upside to exposing himself.
‘So the later Black Scythe comes out, the better.’
Instead, he’d use the name Lost Ark.
Even if he revealed his nickname, no one in the otherworld could track him down.
‘They’d need to know my customized appearance to use tracking skills.’
It was a dead man’s nickname to begin with, so they couldn’t find it anyway.
“Democracy, Lost Ark. Welcome. Please, have a seat first. Let’s chat slowly before the other followers arrive.”
“More people are coming?”
“Of course. Plenty of folks have shown interest in our Reaper Church.”
The four of them sat on the mats and chatted idly.
“You live in Seoul?”
“Yeah. Took exactly an hour to get here.”
“I see. Thank you for making the trip. I assume both of you came all this way out of love and respect for Black Scythe?”
“Ah, love might be a bit much…”
The conversation was mostly between Heo Tae-seok and Min Ju-ri.
Ryu Min just listened quietly.
They hadn’t shown much interest in him from the start, and he had nothing to say anyway.
“There’s something I’ve been dying to ask ever since I first saw you, Democracy.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you… you know… involved with Black Scythe like that?”
“Wh-what???”
“‘Yes’?”
“N-no! Of course not!”
Min Ju-ri, who had shouted, glanced furtively at Ryu Min.
‘Why’s she checking my reaction?’
Heo Tae-seok scratched his head and asked again.
“Huh? You’re not?”
“No way!”
“You don’t even contact him in real life?”
“Nope, never. Black Scythe is someone I met in the otherworld.”
Only then did Heo Tae-seok, waving off her flustered denial, seem to believe her.
“Haha, sorry. You’ve been hanging around with him since we first met, so I thought you were a couple… Glad it was just a misunderstanding.”
At the word “glad,” Min Ju-ri’s expression turned subtly strange, but Heo Tae-seok didn’t notice.
“So the partner you went to Nigeria with wasn’t you, then?”
“I’ve never been to Nigeria in my life.”
“I see. That’s fortunate…”
“But why’s the place so rundown? I was expecting something grander for a church…”
Seemingly annoyed by “fortunate” again, Min Ju-ri picked at the building.
“This house belonged to my late grandmother. We knocked down some walls inside to make more space and did a bit of fixing up.”
“Oh… I see.”
Min Ju-ri, now embarrassed herself, was searching for words when people began trickling in one by one.
They were all unfamiliar faces, but their looks screamed players for sure.
Before long, the number surpassed ten.
Then a dozen more poured in at once.
It was Jo Yong-ho’s crew.
“Hello! We’re all here to join the Reaper Church!”
“Oh, welcome!”
With Jo Yong-ho’s group entering, the empty space suddenly felt cramped.
‘Jo Yong-ho’s real-life face is the same too, huh.’
As he thought that, he spotted an unexpected familiar face.
“Isn’t that the celebrity Seo Ah-rin?”
“Wow, I never thought I’d see Seo Ah-rin in person.”
Seo Ah-rin had arrived.
As a rising star lately, plenty of people recognized her right away.
“Oh, Seo Ah-rin! You made it.”
“NoPainNoGay?”
“That’s me. See? Face matches just like yours. You said you’d definitely come, and here you are! I believed in you!”
“A promise is a promise.”
Seo Ah-rin answered shyly, then her gaze suddenly turned this way.
“Huh? Pr… Prophet? I mean, Ryu Min?”
Ryu Min gave an awkward smile to Seo Ah-rin, who had hastily corrected herself from calling him Prophet.
“Haha… Hi.”
“What brings you here? You’re a fan of Black Scythe too, Ryu Min?”
“No, just stopping by to check it out.”
“Never imagined running into you here.”
“Same here.”
“But the lady next to you looks awfully familiar…”
As she muttered while looking at Min Ju-ri, Eom Jun-seok chimed in.
“That’s Democracy.”
“Democracy? She’s the buffer?”
“Yeah, I’m Democracy.”
“Oh, nice to meet you. Figures. She kinda looks like her otherworld self.”
Seo Ah-rin sidled up to Min Ju-ri and whispered.
“Um, I have a question…”
“Yeah?”
“Are you in contact with Black Scythe in real life too?”
“Nope. Never met him once.”
“Oh… okay.”
Seo Ah-rin’s face fell.
To change the mood, Ryu Min asked.
“Ah-rin, what about Manager Ahn and CEO Ma? Didn’t come with you?”
“I invited them, but they weren’t interested, so I came alone.”
Ryu Min nodded at her answer.
‘Makes sense. They see Black Scythe as a rival and stay wary of him.’
Just then, Min Ju-ri asked with wide eyes.
“You… how do you know actress Seo Ah-rin?”
“She’s my neighbor. Lives upstairs. Also an entertainer from the company I invested in.”
“Oh, really?”
Min Ju-ri stared at Seo Ah-rin silently for a while.
Reading her thoughts, he could tell she was subtly on guard.
‘Don’t worry, Ju-ri. I’m too old to date anyone else.’
Looking around, nearly thirty people had gathered and were chatting away.
‘Quite a crowd.’
No need to overthink the Reaper Church.
It was simply a social club for Black Scythe fans.
‘They set this up purely to draw in followers.’
Since it worshipped a man, not a god, thirty people could only really talk.
Tick-tock—
Checking the wall clock, the appointed time had long passed.
Feeling it was time, Heo Tae-seok stepped up onto the makeshift podium furniture.
“Ahem. Hello. I’m Heo Tae-seok, founder and leader of the Reaper Church. My nickname is NoPainNoGay, and I’m currently a level 45 dark warlock.”
As he began speaking, the murmurs died down into a silent hush.
“Thank you all for coming to the Reaper Church. As you know, we worship Black Scythe. To start, let me tell you how I came to admire him…”
His story dragged on, but no one looked away from Heo Tae-seok.
He went on at length about his family troubles and the bullying he endured in school, yet no one grew bored.
His voice had a captivating pull, laced with sincerity.
Ryu Min was inwardly impressed by this new side of Heo Tae-seok.
‘He’s surprisingly good at preaching.’
He’d pegged him as introverted, but no.
When it came to Black Scythe, words flowed like water, transforming him into another person.
“As you can see, Black Scythe has given me much enlightenment in life. I firmly believe he’s the savior who will end this world’s despair, the one true light. And I’ve learned many share my view. That’s why I founded the Reaper Church…”
That was when it happened.
Thud—thud—thud—
Amid the sermon, a grating sound drew eyes to a man hobbling in on crutches.
‘Huh? That guy…’
Ryu Min’s eyes widened at the unexpected arrival.
‘Joo Seong-tak?’
The serial killer vying for ranks 2 and 3 with Ma Kyung-rok—Joo Seong-tak.
The man, crippled without limbs, had shown up fitted with prosthetics.
‘Why is that guy here?’
Joo Seong-tak was a PleSeBa member, so he could’ve seen the promo post.
‘But he’s not the type to follow Black Scythe, is he?’
Suspicious of ulterior motives, Ryu Min read his thoughts.
Sure enough.
‘That bastard. He’s here for me.’
More precisely, for Hwang Yong-min.
To get revenge on the man who’d crippled him.
‘He figured he’d run into him at a player gathering, so he came all this way.’
Zero interest in Black Scythe.
“A new follower has arrived mid-service. Welcome. I’m Heo Tae-seok, leader of the Reaper Church.”
“…”
Joo Seong-tak scanned the crowd with cold eyes, not a word in reply.
One thought dominated his mind.
-That fucker who did this to me might be here.
Vengeance.
Joo Seong-tak’s rage was solely aimed at Hwang Yong-min.
“Follower, you okay? You look pale.”
Worried by the glaring around, Eom Jun-seok placed a gentle hand on his back.
Thud.
“Don’t touch me. Or I’ll kill you.”
Eom Jun-seok could only turn away with an awkward smile at the prickly response.
The crowd reacted variously.
Some clicked their tongues at his words, others pitied him.
Reading those gazes and the mood, Joo Seong-tak’s anger blazed like logs in a furnace.
-Fucking pricks looking at me like that? You think I’m pathetic? I’m already pissed—maybe I’ll just kill you all.
Fair enough to be mad.
Anyone pitied would feel that.
He might even want to kill in the heat of it.
‘The problem is he’s a serial killer who offs people easily.’
It might not stay as thoughts—he could act.
‘Corpse Explosion in this cramped space would cause massive casualties.’
Everyone could die if it came to that.
Corpse Explosion was that powerful.
‘This is getting dicey…’
Should he leave a ticking time bomb like that alone?
Or intervene?
He didn’t agonize long.
The man’s twisted thoughts reached him.
-Fuck, no luck. Checked every face—that fucker who crippled me isn’t here. Wasted trip. Should I just kill these worthless shits and bounce?
His tone rang true—he meant it.
‘Fighting inside would be dangerous.’
Feeling the need to lure him out, Ryu Min whispered to Min Ju-ri.
“Gonna hit the bathroom quick.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
Whether Ryu Min left or not, everyone stayed riveted on Heo Tae-seok’s sermon.
Clueless to Joo Seong-tak’s intentions.
‘Kill three quick to secure corpses, then use the enhanced Corpse Explosion with my new [Soul Storage] skill? I could wipe everyone here.’
Plenty of people, sure, but all around his level at best.
They’d have no chance against a sudden ambush.
‘If I play it right, I can clean house and slip away neat.’
Killing people gave Joo Seong-tak little gain.
Just store their souls, then no need to hunt separately for enhanced skills?
Risky with so many, but he was leaning toward slaughter.
All because he hated those pitying looks.
-Fucking nobodies not even on the rankings, mocking my state. Just watch. See what this cripple you look down on does. Heh heh.
Imagining their shocked faces post-Corpse Explosion brought a grin.
Sneering like that, he scanned for his first kill.
Then his face froze solid at what he spotted.
“You… you fucker!”
It was none other than the man he’d sought so desperately, standing at the door fully geared up.