The Conditions of a Believer (4)
The day had come to fill the vacant seat among the Twelve Apostles.
After a brief interview at Unique Temple, the Cheonyang-ji headquarters, I entered the main test grounds.
There were only four applicants, myself included. Compared with Dio Guild’s rookie selection, that was a paltry number. Then again, there probably weren’t many people applying in the first place. Even among those few, they’d no doubt already picked out only the Awakened.
A breeze ran through the grove, sending bright blue leaves fluttering through the air. This was a bamboo forest—the private woodland behind Unique Temple, owned by Cheonyang-ji.
Grand Elder Hwang Min-su adjusted his rimless glasses and stepped in front of the four of us.
“Today is the day of reckoning. Let’s see which of you will end up tied to our great Cheonyang-ji.”
All the applicants wore white masks.
One of the hallmarks of the Twelve Apostles was that their identities were absolutely protected, even from one another.
The masks meant none of us could see anyone else’s face.
All the better.
Because of that, they had no idea I was the hunter known as the Hero of Gangnam.
There was also a white-masked man standing beside Hwang Min-su.
I couldn’t tell who he was.
But the fact that he stood there with a longsword resting in his hand told me everything I needed to know.
One of the Twelve Apostles, then.
Hwang Min-su raised his voice.
“We already talked enough before coming here, so you should all know one another by now, right? Heh heh.”
The interview we’d had at Unique Temple had been simple, but it had still been intense in its own way.
It was called The Time of Repentance.
We’d sat in a circle and confessed our sins exactly as they were.
And thanks to that, I’d learned quite a bit about the applicants.
First up—
“I prayed to the Cheonyang Leader every single day. Then one day, I heard a voice. It said that my sins were forgiven.”
The young-sounding man was a rapist with eight prior convictions.
“The Leader also ordered me like this: apply to become one of the Twelve Apostles. If you go there, you shall be saved!”
He spoke in the tone of some shameless testimony, but his real reason for being here was obvious.
He wants something else.
Faith was just an excuse.
The electronic ankle monitor strapped to his leg stood out to me.
“Oh, right. Grand Elder. Is that true? I heard that if you join the Twelve Apostles, you get the Leader’s mercy once a month.”
He grinned as he said it.
The Twelve Apostles received a very high salary.
And, on top of carrying out their duties, they were allowed to receive a special gift from the Cult Leader once a month.
Hwang Min-su said, “Of course. If it can be obtained within Cheonyang-ji, then anything is possible.”
“Oh?”
The rapist’s eyes lit up.
“I heard there are women who quietly serve only the Leader. Would it be possible to meet the ones who’re retiring?”
“I’ll pass the request along to the Leader—if you become one of the Twelve Apostles.”
“Yes!”
The rapist openly revealed the filth in his head and clenched his fist in delight.
“I-I’m so cold. And the ground’s shaking, too.”
The second applicant swayed unsteadily on his feet.
His neck had gone pale, and his whole body trembled as if he really were freezing.
Now and then, he also spat out strings of sticky saliva from under the mask.
He was a drug addict.
Apparently, he’d once been a fairly popular kendo instructor at a respected dojo. After falling into alcohol and gambling, he’d eventually reached for something he never should have touched.
After getting caught offering drugs to his own students and being kicked out, he’d ended up here.
“G-Grand Elder. You’re sure that mercy thing includes the kind of powder I want, right?”
“Of course. Let me say it again: if it can be obtained within Cheonyang-ji, it doesn’t matter what it is. Illegal or otherwise.”
I’d wondered why they went through an unnecessary process like this so-called Time of Repentance.
Now I see.
Fanatics weren’t born in an instant.
They were made through constant brainwashing and by aligning everyone’s interests.
The Cult Leader gained twelve hunting dogs, and in return, he supplied them with what they needed.
Because they could get what they wanted so easily, the Apostles could never easily leave the Cult Leader’s side.
“Heh heh. They’re all out of their damn minds. I love it. Perfect.”
The last one.
The tall, gaunt man was a serial killer who had murdered twenty-four people.
He’d been caught by the police, then swallowed a spoon in the holding cell, got transferred to a hospital, and escaped.
According to the rumors, he’d killed seven police officers while running.
He was a wanted fugitive with a 300 million won bounty on his head.
“Life as a fugitive was getting rough, so this worked out nicely. Just perfect.”
An obscure cult was the perfect place for a wanted man to hide.
The Twelve Apostles were guaranteed absolute anonymity alongside the Cult Leader, and Unique Temple and Paradise Garden were sacred grounds where police investigations couldn’t reach.
“I don’t need anything else. As long as I can kill people, that’s enough for me.”
Cheonyang-ji’s doctrine even contained a saying like this: those whom the Cult Leader permits may be killed.
To my surprise, it was written right there in the scripture Cheonyang-ji had produced for itself.
Cheonyang-ji allowed murder if it was by the Cult Leader’s command.
The Twelve Apostles were the Cult Leader’s swords.
There could hardly have been a better justification for a serial killer than that.
Hwang Min-su approached me.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t heard what you want. Is there something you’d like from the Leader’s mercy?”
For a moment, I became curious.
What had Nike asked the Cult Leader for?
The goals of the people gathered here were obvious.
Women, drugs, pleasure, murder.
I stood at the opposite end of that spectrum.
I just need to wipe out trash like you.
I kept my real thoughts hidden and opened my mouth.
“I want to take Nike’s place.”
Hwang Min-su tilted his head. “What do you mean by that?”
The Twelve Apostles followed the Cult Leader like shadows.
They could only act outside once the Cult Leader gave them orders.
Nike had infiltrated Dio Guild and faithfully carried out the Cult Leader’s commands.
“I’ll bring Ha Se-na in. No, for the Cult Leader, I’ll kidnap any woman at all.”
Of course, that was a lie.
I made it up on the spot without even blinking.
“Mm. That answer is a little off. I asked what you want from the Leader.”
Hwang Min-su asked again.
I didn’t panic.
That much, I could improvise easily.
“I want to become the heir to Ganro-ryu.”
Ganro meant shield.
The sword technique a man known as the master swordsman had devoted his entire life to creating for the Cult Leader.
If you were one of the Twelve Apostles, learning Ganro-ryu was practically mandatory if you wanted to protect the Cult Leader.
However, only a tiny handful of the Twelve Apostles were ever taught the secret techniques of Ganro-ryu.
The white-masked man who had been standing quietly beside Hwang Min-su lifted his head.
His gaze, hidden behind the mask, settled on me.
If I mastered the secrets of Ganro-ryu, I would become even stronger.
That was why the Twelve Apostles competed for the chance to inherit those techniques.
Of course, not everyone was interested.
“What? An heir?”
“W-why the hell would anyone want that?”
“Heh heh. I’m curious about this guy’s real identity now. Makes me want to rip that mask off and see.”
The three criminals laughed at me.
Hwang Min-su took charge of the situation.
“Very well. We’ll leave everyone’s personal circumstances at that. Now, let’s move to the bamboo forest.”
I came back to myself.
As if by natural order, Hwang Min-su fell back, and the masked man standing beside him stepped forward.
“Eighth Disciple among the Twelve Apostles. Peter.”
He was doing nothing more than standing there, but the aura rising from his body was anything but ordinary.
“Take one each.”
What Peter handed out was a practice sword.
A so-called slime sword.
It was made by hardening slime into a long rod, then reinforcing it with bamboo.
It looked stiff enough at a glance, but if you pressed on it, it still felt a little soft.
The biggest trait was the loud crash it made when the blades collided.
“What is this? A slime sword?”
“I-I’d rather use a real blade.”
“Tch. What is this, child’s play?”
While the criminals grumbled, I wrapped my hand around the slime sword.
After all the practice I’d done with the Great Sword, it felt like I was holding a piece of plastic.
Peter said, “You will spar at the same time and knock your opponent down. However, there will be no killing without the Cult Leader’s permission.”
They’d suddenly thrown us into a fight.
My surprise lasted only a moment.
Then I accepted it.
Well, if you want to judge swordsmanship, there’s nothing better than a real fight.
Watching someone subdue an opponent with a sword firsthand was the most efficient way to assess them.
However—
All at once?
Peter’s voice rang out.
“I will choose only one person. Now then.”
Tension drifted through the air.
“Begin!”
The test started in an instant, and all the applicants immediately spread out.
Everyone hesitated, watching one another, and no one moved first.
Even if it was a slime sword, it was still a sword.
Because it was sturdier than a wooden sword, one wrong hit could still break bones.
Whoooosh.
The wind blew through the bamboo grove.
This wasn’t a one-on-one fight.
It was a four-way battle.
It seemed the applicants were thinking the same thing.
If I attack carelessly, someone will steal my back.
If things kept spiraling, the remaining man could win as the beneficiary of a lucky break.
Strategy mattered just as much as skill here when it came to deciding the winner.
“Hey, how about this,” the rapist said, breaking the silence.
“Let’s split into pairs, fair and square. Then the winners fight each other again. How’s that? Clean and simple.”
The bastard’s suggestion was basically a tournament bracket.
“I-I’m in favor. Fight me.”
The drug addict lifted his slime sword.
Just like that, I got matched with him.
“Then am I your prey?” the serial killer said, baring his yellowed teeth in a grin.
...
I just stared at Peter.
He leaned on his longsword with both hands like a staff and watched us.
This selection process is absurdly simple-minded.
Was Peter really planning to choose the final survivor by brute force alone?
Then I remembered my conversation with Na Sang-min.
“You’re saying they’re selecting based on swordsmanship? That’s nonsense.”
“Why?”
“A sword isn’t a circus act. The important thing is—”
Na Sang-min had grinned as he said it.
“Whether or not you can really cut. In other words, your mindset.”
I couldn’t yet gauge Peter’s abilities.
But even without checking, I could tell he was a strong man.
And yet—
He isn’t stronger than Na Sang-min.
I’d seen him wield Heoksikdo with my own eyes, so I was confident of that.
“What’s wrong? Scared? Then I’ll go first.”
The serial killer lifted his slime sword.
“Hold on. I changed my mind.”
“R-right. Let’s do it together.”
At that moment, the rapist and the drug addict joined hands.
“Come to think of it, this guy’s the only one acting weird. Talking nonsense about heirs and all that crap.”
“H-he doesn’t even have a record. That’s not fair!”
Did evil recognize its own kind and band together?
The serial killer’s lips curled upward.
“I agree. He does seem kind of perversely righteous, doesn’t he? Gives off a smell that’s different from ours.”
The lie had been perfect, but it seemed the sense of wrongness surrounding me was harder to hide.
Strangely enough, that made me feel relieved.
...Right.
A hero can’t imitate a villain.
The three criminals all frowned.
“What did you say?”
“You crazy bastard.”
“Hey, ally. Let’s get this over with.”
The three evils, now joined in alliance, rushed me together.
On the surface, I had failed at strategy.
I’d been lynched.
Crushed into the defensive.
...That was probably what they thought.
Don’t make me laugh.
This, too, had been part of the plan.
If it turned into a three-on-one battle—
Then, right in front of Peter’s eyes—
I’d show them overwhelming strength!
With the slime sword in hand, I activated Judgment of the Superhuman.
I brought it down on the rapist’s head from above.
“What are you doing? That’s such an obvious atta—”
Crack!
The slime sword shattered, and the top of his skull split open.
“Ghk!”
Blood burst up like a fountain, and the bastard rolled his eyes back and collapsed.
By then, my own slime sword had already broken in half.
One down.
This time, I didn’t use my skill. I drove the broken edge of the slime sword into the drug addict’s eye.
The severed tip sank in deep with a sickening sound.
“Aaaagh!!!”
The drug addict clutched his face and rolled across the ground.
The last one.
I quickly snatched up the slime sword he’d dropped.
The serial killer flinched and backed away.
I didn’t let him escape. I charged in, spun halfway around, and kicked him in the side.
I could feel the bones in his ribs crunch beneath the sole of my foot.
“Gah!”
From there, I used the slime sword to smash his knee to pieces.
Once wasn’t enough.
I struck him again and again with relentless, savage force.
The serial killer tried to defend himself with both hands, but it was useless.
Thud! Thwack!!!
His fingers bent in the wrong direction, and his cheekbone caved in.
“W-wait! Please, stop! Please!”
The criminals’ screams echoed through the bamboo forest.
I stood up with the slime sword dripping blood.
“Do you want more?”
“...”
What I’d shown them was closer to hand-to-hand combat than swordsmanship.
But I’d still followed Na Sang-min’s teaching faithfully.
The kind meant for actual combat.
Peter’s voice came from behind the mask.
“Good. You pass. Come to Unique Cathedral tomorrow. I’ll have you meet the Cult Leader. If you please the Cult Leader, you’ll become the 6th Disciple of the Twelve Apostles, Iscariot.”
You could call it ironic.
Iscariot was the famous figure said to have betrayed Jesus.
In other words, Judas.
In the end, Nike had become a ghost and brought back the traitor who would help bring down Cheonyang-ji.
At last, I was about to make contact with the Cult Leader.
This is going to be interesting.
Watching Peter’s back disappear into the bamboo grove, I tossed aside the blood-soaked slime sword.