No Reason at All
Mun Yo-seop approached the man with no weapon in hand, clutching only his fist. The man scoffed.
He jerked his chin toward the iron mace lying on the floor and spoke.
"Why'd you drop a perfectly good weapon on the ground? I can't wrap my head around it."
"Didn't need it," Mun Yo-seop replied.
The man backed away slowly, sidestepping Mun Yo-seop. For some reason, it felt like he had to. A strange aura emanated from Mun Yo-seop.
The man quickly scanned Mun Yo-seop's body with his eyes. Not a single superior feature—an utterly ordinary, inferior frame. Physically speaking, he was far below even Kim Jin-seo and Seong Ha-yeon behind him. No, he was even more inferior than your average cleric. A cursed body that wouldn't have qualified to become a cleric in the first place.
Yet, within that inferior physique burned a power that overcame it all.
"...Impressive. Did you forge your body like that through pure training alone?" the man asked.
Mun Yo-seop advanced on him with a rigidly set face. Then he asked,
"Why'd you kill my wife?"
Mun Yo-seop thought of his wife, torn to shreds. She had been an ordinary woman. No grudges against anyone, nothing outstanding enough to make her a Satan Cult target—just plain ordinary.
That's why, when she died, Mun Yo-seop had questioned it endlessly. Why did she have to die? What was the Satan Cult's purpose in killing her? He thought knowing that would ease the lump in his chest, even a little.
"Because she was inferior. If she'd been superior, she'd have survived. That's the natural order," the man said.
"So there was no reason."
Mun Yo-seop finally had his answer and nodded. His rigid face showed no trace of sorrow. Instead, he smiled faintly, wrinkles creasing around his mouth.
"I see."
In that instant, Mun Yo-seop vanished from the man's sight.
The man rolled his eyes, searching for him. In the space he'd created called the Banquet, he could track the positions of all superior specimens inside. Everyone who entered was in the palm of his hand.
The problem was that Mun Yo-seop wasn't superior—he was utterly inferior.
Too late, the man realized where Mun Yo-seop had gone.
Behind him.
Crunch!
Mun Yo-seop seized the man's head and slammed it into the floor. The man's skull cracked against the ground, his body shuddering.
Mun Yo-seop looked down at him and smiled.
"Thanks. That eases my mind a bit. I thought it was my fault."
Mun Yo-seop was the final successor of Nasil, a capable inquisitor. He'd often blamed himself for his wife's death. If he weren't Nasil's heir, if he weren't a cleric, she might still be alive.
Years had passed in self-recrimination and despair.
"No reason at all. None."
But it had all been a delusion. There was no reason for her death.
Mun Yo-seop almost felt relieved. His wife had died for no reason at all. Not because he was Nasil's successor. Not because he was a cleric. Just bad luck—she'd caught the eye of the Satan Cult and died.
A single tear rolled down Mun Yo-seop's cheek.
"...Doesn't exactly feel good, though. Can't quite accept it."
Riiip!
Mun Yo-seop grabbed the man's arm and tore it off. Black blood dripped from the stump.
He seized the other arm and ripped it away. It tore like paper.
As the man screamed and tried to rise, Mun Yo-seop grabbed his legs and shredded them too.
The essence of Nasil: abandoning all form, surrendering to rage, and ripping apart everything in reach. Its true power emerged the moment elegance was discarded.
"What the—...!"
The man, stunned by Mun Yo-seop's overwhelming strength, spat in disbelief and cast black magic. Hands from hell reattached his limbs.
He stood on his new arms and legs, then quickly retreated to put distance between them.
"Scared?"
But despite thinking he'd created space, Mun Yo-seop was right in front of him again when he blinked.
Terror twisted the man's face. He raised his hand desperately, planning something.
Mun Yo-seop gave him no chance. His callused hand was already gripping the man's head.
Snap.
The moment Mun Yo-seop tried to tear off the man's head, a finger-snapping sound echoed. The surrounding darkness lifted simultaneously.
Mun Yo-seop looked around. The scene hadn't changed much. Wounded clerics and corpses still littered the floor. But the demons, beasts, and the man were gone.
In their place loomed a massive black sphere in the cathedral's corner.
Ignoring the pleas from injured clerics, Mun Yo-seop approached it and prodded it with a finger.
Sizzle...
Smoke rose where his finger touched, the skin charring black. He pulled back.
"Hid inside this, huh."
Black magic pulsed strongly from the sphere. Different from the Banquet—that was an offensive spell inviting victims into a demon-infested space. This was defensive, isolating the caster for protection.
"All that talk of superiors and inferiors... In the end, you're the most inferior one," Mun Yo-seop muttered, clicking his tongue in disappointment before turning away.
He headed toward Kim Jin-seo and Seong Ha-yeon.
The two, mid-battle with demons in the Banquet, looked dazed at suddenly returning to the cathedral.
"You hurt?" Mun Yo-seop asked.
They shook their heads. They'd fought fiercely inside but emerged unscathed. Bolstered by Seong Ha-yeon's blessings, Kim Jin-seo had nearly overwhelmed a demon mimicking the Northern Holy Warrior captain. She regretted not finishing it off before the Banquet ended.
Then, figures approached the group: Seong Yu-da and Kim Chang-won.
They scanned around, spotted Kim Jin-seo and Seong Ha-yeon, and rushed over, eyes wide.
"Jin-seo!"
Kim Chang-won beamed at his unharmed daughter, bombarding her with worried questions: no injuries? What happened inside?
Kim Jin-seo answered each one. The long interrogation ended with his relieved, "At least you're safe."
Seong Yu-da and Seong Ha-yeon's reunion was chillier.
"...I'm fine."
"Good."
No drawn-out talk. Just a curt question and answer. Hard to believe they were father and daughter.
But Seong Yu-da did worry. His body trembled faintly at the sight of his daughter, tears welling precariously in his eyes.
Mun Yo-seop figured his concern matched Kim Chang-won's, even if unspoken.
Watching the two father-daughter pairs, Mun Yo-seop felt a strange bitterness.
He'd had a daughter too. Years since he'd seen her; he could barely recall her face.
"..."
Silent, he watched them a moment longer, then called the nearby Priest Order and hospital for corpse retrieval and treatment.
Seong Yu-da approached him then.
"Inquisitor Mun Yo-seop. Care to explain what happened inside?"
"As you see, the promotion ceremony was interrupted by a Satan Cult executive, 'Lust.' The damage speaks for itself."
"Executive?"
Seong Yu-da glanced around, repeating the word. He recalled the black mass enveloping the cathedral—black magic, but too weak for an executive. His hasty Purification Blessing had pierced it easily, more like a regular cultist's spell.
And too few casualties. Long ago, he'd fought the executive 'Greed'; an entire village vanished. Even with Mun Yo-seop present, this damage was too light for an executive.
Seong Yu-da had more doubts.
"...No sign of Do Seon-woo?"
Do Seon-woo, who'd entered with them, had vanished at some point.
Everyone looked around at the question. But the cathedral held only corpses and groaning clerics—no Do Seon-woo.
*
The man had barely survived Mun Yo-seop's killing blow with another black magic: Amniotic Shell, trapping himself in a black egg-like space.
"Damn it, damn it...!"
Inside, he pounded the ground in lament. It was bizarre. No cleric should outclass him. Mun Yo-seop had seemed hopelessly inferior.
Yet he'd nearly died to that inferior wretch. He couldn't accept it.
Then, he sensed movement. In the Amniotic Shell, impenetrable to anyone but him, demons, and beasts, something alien stirred.
He looked up. A boyish youth approached.
Somehow familiar.
"..."
Ah, from the photo Gu Jun-hyeok had shown—the one he warned not to touch, the male.
Didn't notice in the photo, but up close, the boy's gaze was unsettling.
How he'd entered the Amniotic Shell was a mystery. Regular Romanica clerics would melt touching its magic. Probably a casting error let him slip in.
"Tough luck. Poor kid."
The man smirked at the boy. No time to honor promises to Gu Jun-hyeok now. He rose, seeking an outlet for his rage.
"No one's here to help you. This space is made solely for me."
"Bosu."
The boy cut him off mid-sentence. Goosebumps prickled the man's skin. An immeasurable superiority radiated from the unremarkable youth.
Thrust!
In a blink, the boy's hand pierced the man's heart.
Clutching his chest, the man stared at his own still-beating heart in the boy's hand.
The boy examined it with a dissatisfied frown.
"Hm... 0.3 Gu Jun-hyeok."
"Wha—...!"
"No, you're..."
Crunch!
The boy clenched his fist. The weakly pulsing heart burst.
Despair filled the man's eyes.
The boy continued,
"Not on Gu Jun-hyeok's level."
Do Seon-woo looked down at the collapsing man.
He realized this wasn't a true Satan Cult executive—just a pretender.
"The real executive..."
Do Seon-woo murmured, looking up. Against the pitch-black sky, enormous eyes leered down at him lewdly.
(To be continued next time)