The Arrival of the Calamity
It had been a peaceful time. At the very bottom of the Narak, there was nothing to do. There were no natural enemies, no predators. The parasite-humans born and raised here crawled aimlessly on the ground, scavenging the rotten flesh that poured out from the glorious orifices of the walls. After filling their bellies, they would engage in joyous orgies or tear into the flesh-walls to crawl inside and drift into sleep. They were days of such sloth that smiles came naturally. Occasionally, they found their greatest pleasure in hunting those who had fallen to the bottom of the Narak. Because their minds were connected, everyone’s happiness was my happiness, and my happiness was everyone’s happiness. The screams and painful struggles of beings whose minds were not connected were the ultimate stimulation—the most enjoyable pastime. Of course, that was only true when something worth playing with fell down here.
—THUD!! THUD!!!
“KREEEEEE!!!!!”
They were currently fleeing in terror. Mushroom monsters that had suddenly appeared were dragging parasite-humans out of the walls to tear them apart, catching those who tried to run and crushing them into pulp. There was nowhere to hide. The flesh-walls that had always held them warmly were being ripped apart indiscriminately by the hands of the mushroom-men, and the parasite-humans hiding within were dragged out and executed. Even when they tried to fight back, the mushroom-men healed their wounds instantly. Moreover, the mushroom-men, pushing forward with their massive, hulking bodies, were an insurmountable wall that the parasite-humans dared not challenge.
“KREEEEEE!!!!”
Thanks to the mushroom-men’s efforts, the eerie smiles of the parasite-humans that Lee Seon-jae and Lee Hoon had seen had completely vanished. It was not a situation where they could possibly smile.
“KREEEEEE!!!!”
The parasite-humans lacked the ability to communicate through sound. They communicated by emitting psychic waves containing simplified meanings. Therefore, they screamed with their mouths while broadcasting threats to their peers through psychic waves.
“KREEEEEE!!!!”
Psychic waves of compatriots dying in agony were erupting from all directions. Waves begging to be saved and waves begging for death crossed paths. Despair had arrived. A calamity had visited the peaceful Narak. Death was rampant. Could they escape? They didn't know. They had to run. The moment they stopped, they would die.
One parasite-human, running frantically, sent out psychic waves in all directions. It was a message to those compatriots who were so terrified that they couldn't even think to run and had frozen in place. 'I must live. I must save them... I must run away...' A simple but clear sequence of thoughts. Amidst the feast of death closing in from all sides, the parasite-human tried with all his might to sustain his life.
—SPLASH!!!
“GAAAAAA!!!!!!”
One whose arm had been ripped off let out a final death cry. His agonizing psychic waves erupted in all directions, and other nearby parasite-humans felt phantom pain. Due to their weakly shared senses, they tripped or rolled forward while running, and those who stopped were stripped of their lives by the predators following behind.
“Haa... haa... kree...” The parasite-human collapsed, gasping for air. Enemies were everywhere. It was also filled with the screams of dying compatriots. Corpses piled up. The enemies' corpses piled up, too. But the only ones decreasing were their own. Unknown roots stretched out into the corpses, and the number of enemies increased again. Insects laid eggs in the corpses, and larvae multiplied geometrically. Even though they were dwindling, the enemies showed no signs of decreasing no matter how many were killed. The enemies kept increasing. They stole the lives of the dead compatriots to grow their numbers. It was dangerous. At this rate, they would be exterminated.
The fallen parasite-human stood up again and ran. They couldn't all die like this. He had to devise a way to survive. 'Method, knowledge, wisdom. The oldest one...' The parasite-human went to find the one who had lived here the longest. Because he was the one who had lived here the longest, he knew the most, and unlike their slothful selves, he was incredibly wise because he practiced endlessly. He was a being who covered his face with a mask, and unlike them, he was a noble being with three pairs of arms. The parasite-human sought out the seeker of Narak who was in the midst of penance.
The parasite-human begged desperately. To be saved. To please help them. Just as they had been saved when the blue-light beasts crawled out after the trapped nest was opened, he asked him to reach out his hand this time, too. He begged and begged again. But the answer that returned was incredibly emotionless. The oldest one spoke with his three pairs of arms.
“Hwaaa...” At the seeker's answer, the parasite-human exhaled as if his energy had drained away and collapsed. He felt an indescribable sense of despair. He couldn't even feel anger at the death of his compatriots. Tears flowed down in despair.
—Scritch-scratch.
—Uooo...
Just then, he heard the sound of insects moving busily in his ears. He also heard the eerie groans emitted by unknown undead. “Ugh... ugh...” The parasite-human wept and wrapped his arms around his head. Jet-black beetles that had dyed one side of the corridor black were chewing and swallowing the fleeing parasite-humans as they approached him. Also, in the opposite corridor, skeletons with their flesh stripped away were being dominated by parasitic trees, searching for the living.
“Aaa..!” He had to run, but there was nowhere to go. Eventually, he squeezed his eyes shut. To escape into his inner self.
“Ah..?” But for some reason, the monsters could not cross the entrance to the room where the seeker was. As if a barrier had been cast, they swarmed the entrance but stared at the parasite-human without being able to cross the threshold.
When the panicked parasite-human tried to grasp the situation, the insects parted to the left and right like the Red Sea, and the largest insect he had ever seen revealed itself. “Kishashat...” The jet-black beetle confirmed the seeker. After confirming the location of the being that its master had told it not to approach, it quietly stepped back. The insects left. At the same time, the parasitic trees that had confirmed the seeker also stepped back and returned the way they had come.
“Aa...” The parasite-human realized he had barely survived. At the same time, he realized for some reason that they could not enter this room.
The parasite-human broadcast psychic waves toward the compatriots who might still be alive. To come here, because that was the only way to live. Those who heard his psychic waves gathered one by one into the room where the seeker was in penance, and the room became a kind of safe zone. And around that time, new beings entered the bottom of the Narak. They were the apostles of the calamity who would open a new era for the parasite-humans.
“Ugh... the smell...”
“Areum, are you okay?”
“A, no... no, how are you guys so fine, Oppa and Unnies?”
Han Areum retched several times at the foul, rotten stench as soon as she arrived in Narak. It was the same for the other visitors, and everyone was out of their minds due to the stench that was enough to make them lose their sanity.
“Well, as for me...” However, Jojun, as well as Cheshire, Merhere, Aila, and Han Aram were relatively fine. They were people who had already endured a similar level of stench in the Black Market, so it didn't bother them much.
“Huu...” Han Areum looked up at Jojun as if it were hard to understand. She would probably never understand it in her entire life. Because he was a little different from universal humans.
“Huu... it seems the performance of those mushroom-men is better than I thought.”
“That is true. I didn't expect them to clean things up this thoroughly...”
Jojun, admiring the situation just as much as Henry, who was hanging from his waist, looked around the bottom of the Narak. Just as Lee Seon-jae and Lee Hoon had said, it was filled with black-red entrails and flesh everywhere. Also, yellowish gastric juices were pouring out from various places on the walls, and in some places, minced flesh was pouring down.
'It really does look like entrails...' It felt like being inside the entrails of an unimaginably huge beast.
“It looks like the cleanup is mostly done...” Jojun had entered this place exactly 48 minutes later. It was less than an hour, but in Narak, two days had already passed. Thanks to that, the parasite-humans wandering the Crimson Zone had been massacred, and the place was filled with traces of battle. It was only natural; when the mushroom-men killed a few at first, the jet-black beetles that followed laid eggs in the corpses, and by the time the jet-black beetles began to multiply geometrically, the parasitic trees attached themselves to the corpses the insects had left behind, increasing their numbers again. For the parasite-humans, absurd things had happened one after another.
“Hmm. Is it that way? First, Sora, purify this place with the priests. Aila, please cast a barrier.”
“Understood, Oppa. I will clean it up nicely!!”
“Leave it to me.”
Because they had to clear the entrance in advance to receive supplies smoothly, Jojun told his party to clear the area around the entrance first. Then, he marked the location of the entrance where they had fallen using the Phase Designation Compass.
“Then... for now, everyone wait here, and only the support team move with me.”
“Yes! Yay! I'm going with Oppa!! Hwayoung, high five!”
“Oh yeah! Ugh... Eunji Unnie... something weird is on my hand.”
“What? Ugh, gross. It feels bad... Sora... please purify it...”
“Yes, Unnie.”
Jojun headed toward the place where the jet-black beetles were calling, taking only the lively Lee Eunji and Kang Hwayoung with him, even in Narak. The area around the entrance had been mapped to some extent by the jet-black beetles. The locations of the most important escape route and the room where the seeker was had all been revealed.
'Those jet-black beetles... they work too well...' Before becoming an insect, the jet-black beetle was a mage named Aquinas. As such, its intelligence was very high, and it accurately grasped what its master wanted.
'I want to give it a reward... but I don't know what it likes...' There had never been a failure when Jojun deployed the jet-black beetles until now. Perhaps that was why Jojun wanted to give the jet-black beetle some kind of special reward. The problem was that he didn't know what a beetle liked.
'Ah, Indikron-nim...' As Jojun was agonizing over what to give the jet-black beetle, Indikron spoke to him. Having recovered causality as much as the jet-black beetles had killed, she had recovered enough to speak to her apostle again.
'Yes? Is that possible?'
'Ah...' Indikron muttered divine words that Jojun couldn't follow even if he heard them.
'Th, thank you...' Jojun thanked Indikron as she departed again.
'Strengthening of power...? Let's check it after meeting the seeker first...' Jojun shook his head, trying to imagine how the jet-black beetle had changed. No matter how it changed, it was certain that its horrific appearance wouldn't have changed.
“Uh... what is this.”
As they approached the room where the seeker was, hundreds of parasite-humans were gathered, trembling. They looked up at Jojun with terrified, despairing faces. They had already lost their will to fight.
“Huu... why is it that things... are working out so easily...?”
Realizing that all of this was the work of the Evil Gods, he offered words of gratitude to the void. Then, he extended his tentacles and dragged out five of the parasite-humans who were trembling in fear.
“Kreeeee...” The parasite-humans wailed as if begging for their lives. Their power was higher than that of an Awakened. Their physical abilities were at an absurd level. But for some reason, they couldn't even think to fight back.
'What did they see in two days... Well... the jet-black beetles are pretty intense...' Thinking so, Jojun slit the throats of those he had dragged out with a ritual dagger.
“I offer them.”
Their yellowish blood soaked the floor, and sobbing, wailing sounds echoed from inside the room where the seeker was. At the same time, messages of submission continued endlessly.
'They said their minds were connected... does that mean they share the pain, too?' Jojun smiled and offered the parasite-humans one after another. Every time he killed one painfully, the screams grew louder.
Indikron praised Jojun. She was satisfied with the screams of the parasite-humans who had no choice but to watch their dying comrades while writhing in despair.
Kashnakas also let out a satisfied laugh. Along with the sound of chewing and swallowing the parasite-humans.
'The Evil Gods are reacting better than when I offered the mushroom-men...' Jojun smiled and felt shy at the Evil Gods' praise. He had been feeling sorry for not being able to offer proper sacrifices lately, and he thought he had found good feed.
“Then...” After offering about thirty parasite-humans, Jojun dragged out the rest and began branding them with slave marks on their foreheads. It was the moment a human farm was born in Narak.