Rejecting God's Grace

"Bullshit!"

"You do not believe in God, I see?"

If I had believed in God, I wouldn't be standing here in the first place. The god I once had was my enemy—and the angels who served him were enemies too.

"Do you believe in God?"

The moment the angel realized I didn't believe, he shifted the question to Park Sunjin.

Park Sunjin pondered for a moment before answering. "I don't believe."

"Then do you believe in God?"

The angel went around asking the same question to everyone else.

About three out of ten said yes.

"Then, from this moment on, I shall bestow upon you the gift of God."

As the angel spoke, the sky around us began to glow.

And then the bell toll I'd heard earlier rang out again.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Every time the bell tolled, my head spun dizzier.

And then came the voices.

'Believe in God!'

'Then He will deliver you from that yoke!'

'Devote yourself to God and embrace true happiness!'

'His name is—'

"Shut up!"

At my shout, the voices flooding my mind fell silent.

Devote yourself to God? What lunacy.

'If this were back before my regression, I probably would've accepted on the spot.'

Back then, I tried my hardest and nothing came of it. The people around me grew more and more disappointed. My spirit wore down, my body fell apart. If he'd made this offer to me at that point in my life, I would have accepted without a second's hesitation.

"You bastard angel, quit your sleight of hand."

The second-rank hunters around me were all clutching their heads, collapsed on the ground. They were probably hearing the same voices I had.

Hwanmu Footwork.

Cheongbo.

The moment I stepped into the footwork, the divine-looking light flowing around us shattered and began to vanish.

As the light disappeared, the people who'd been crying out in pain collapsed one by one.

"To reject God's grace... I never imagined there existed such a heretic as you."

"God's grace? Don't you mean a slave contract?"

"What did you just say!"

At my words, the angel's face flushed red and purple by turns. He clearly hated what I'd said.

"Maybe you didn't hear me, so I'll say it again—that's a slave contract, not God's grace!"

"How dare a heretic like you blaspheme against Him!"

The angel's face turned scarlet. I could see his fury boiling all the way to the tips of his hair.

'Just a little more provocation should do it.'

A tiny bit more and he'd lose his reason and come charging at me. Nothing is easier to fight than an opponent who's lost his mind.

"Hey, angel. Don't tell me you actually fell for that and signed the slave contract yourself?"

"Ugh...!"

"Surely there's no angel in this world stupid enough to fall for such a fraudulent contract?"

One more push and he'd tip over. The angel's face twisted viciously.

Just a little more scratching and he'd break.

"If an angel like that really existed, I'd imagine it would be downright humiliating."

"..."

"If I were him, I'd want to die on the spot."

"..."

The face that had been burning red until just moments ago suddenly went calm. That meant he was right on the verge of exploding—like a volcano taking one last breath before it blows.

"And if it's such an exploitative contract, you'd think you'd tear it up right away. I don't suppose there's any idiot still keeping it, is there?"

"Shut up..."

At last, the silent angel opened his mouth. And I knew for certain.

The angel had just lost his reason.

"Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup!"

Having lost his mind, the angel repeated the same word over and over like a madman. Though honestly, he'd been a madman ever since he made his pact with God in the first ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠place.

"You trash—I'm going to kill you!"

"Oh, look, he's finally speaking properly."

He'd stopped spewing 'shut up' like a lunatic and was finally forming actual sentences. And I couldn't resist poking him one more time.

"I was starting to think you'd lost the ability to speak along with your brain."

Thud!

I thought I heard something like that snap in my ears.

With his reason cleanly severed, the angel charged at me with zero thought behind his attacks.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Figures an angel's stats would be absurdly high. The angel had no weapon and simply flailed his arms wildly. He'd probably left his armament behind, never feeling the need for it.

"Aaaaaargh!"

The angel screamed as he threw himself at me. His stats were close to an insurmountable wall, which made fighting him anything but easy.

'Still, he's lost his reason, so he can't handle his stats at all.'

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Instead of hitting me, he was just demolishing the innocent ground around us.

"Shall we start wrapping this up?"

I put a bit of distance between us and stepped into my footwork.

Mumyeong Footwork.

Ilbo Pacheon—Heaven-Shattering Step.

With a single step, the sky itself splits apart.

I didn't aim for the angel's main body. I aimed for his wings.

I knew this from killing a low-ranking angel of Pride before my regression: once you strip an angel of its wings, it's no longer an angel. The wings are one massive mana organ, and an angel without them is nothing more than a human with slightly elevated stats.

"Kieeeek!"

When the shards struck his wings, the angel let out a horrible scream. Because the wings were such a vital organ, the pain was that much more severe.

'Still not enough, though.'

The agony was intense. But agony alone wouldn't tear the wings off. What I was after was pinning the angel's feet to the ground.

"Kieeeek!"

I closed in on the screaming angel and swung my dagger.

Clang!

First attempt, a failure. Not that I'd ever expected to succeed on the first try.

This time, I loaded the dagger full of mana. Shuhalim was immune to mana, but angels weren't.

"I'll be taking those wings of yours."

I gripped the dagger in reverse and sliced upward along the joint where wing met back.

Shrrk!

The wing separated from his body far too easily.

My reason for severing the wings wasn't only to neutralize the angel—the wings themselves were excellent crafting material. But they only revealed their true value when harvested from a living angel.

'There's no artisan who can work with this yet, but it'll come in handy to have.'

I stuffed the severed wing into my inventory and turned to look at the angel who had been glowing so brightly just moments before.

"M-my wings!"

The angel wailed, groping at the spot where his wings had been. He was so flustered that tears were streaming down his face.

"Well, congratulations. You're not an angel anymore."

"No, I... that is, I..."

Hearing my words, the angel stammered and turned his head away. The loss of his wings had apparently stripped away every ounce of the confidence he'd been radiating just before.

"I'll deal with you later."

With that, I opened a gate and shoved the angel inside.

"Contractor? You're back early."

"Oppa!"

The moment I opened the gate, Cheongun and Cheong-ah noticed me and came running. I greeted them—it had only been two days, so it was quick, but not that quick.

"Oppa? Who's this?"

"Uh, um, I'm..."

"A repulsive smell of chicken wings hangs about..."

Cheong-ah tilted her head at the angel, while Cheongun recognized what he was and glared daggers at him.

"Hiiiek!"

Caught in Cheongun's gaze, the angel let out a terrified squeak, all of his earlier bravado gone without a trace.

"Mind watching the kid while I'm out?"

"Being around chicken wings leaves a foul taste in my mouth..."

Cheongun muttered, looking distinctly displeased. So I dangled something I knew would tempt him.

"Cheong-ah will be happy to have a brand-new playmate, won't you?"

"Huh? My friend? Someone to play with?"

Cheongun caught my meaning instantly. He'd no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠longer have to be Cheong-ah's plaything. That alone was more than enough justification for him to accept the angel.

"Ahem! Now that I think of it, keeping him around seems perfectly fine."

Cheongun cleared his throat and abruptly changed his tune. I answered him with a look alone.

'His wings are gone, so he's the same as any human now.'

'True, the smell lingers, but the wings are gone. Did you do that, Contractor?'

'Yep.'

After that brief exchange of glances, I stepped out of the gate. Cheong-ah was so absorbed in the angel that she didn't even notice me leave.

"Right then. Time to wake everyone up."

Some time had passed since the mental attack, but nobody was showing any signs of stirring. I woke them one by one, patient and methodical.

They all started awake in a haze of half-sleep, then gradually came back to their senses.

"How much do you remember?"

"We found the temple, and then an angel descended from the sky... and after that, I heard strange voices."

"You were hit by a mental attack. As for the angel—I killed him. Consider the situation resolved."

At my brisk explanation, everyone just blinked blankly at first—but when I started heading toward the temple, they grabbed hold of me.

"How did you kill that angel?!"

"I was just good, I guess?"

"And how did you break through the mental attack?!"

"Also just good, I guess?"

More questions followed, but I answered every single one with the same "just good, I guess." Once the team members realized I had no intention of giving real answers, they stopped asking.

"Then let's go explore the temple."

"Yes..."

They'd clearly exhausted themselves with all that questioning. I led my drained teammates toward the temple.

What lay inside the temple was an ability to gather every Shuhalim scattered across the entire gate zone into one place—and using that ability, we managed to close the gate ahead of schedule.

The gate closed, and I gained a full eight levels. I unfortunately didn't hit 199, but eight levels was still a hefty gain.

'I need to reach level 200 as soon as possible.'

Level 100 was the first threshold, and clearing it had granted me an artifact item. Clearing level 200 would yield something even more special. There was a special reward at every 100-level mark, which was why hunters were sorted into tiers every hundred levels.

'And I'd been covering the gap with raw stats instead.'

If my stats hadn't been what they were, an awakened one ranked higher than me or leveled higher than me? I could never have beaten them.

'Looking back like this, I'm actually grateful for these stats.'

While I was lost in my own thoughts, everyone filed out of the gate, and it sealed shut behind us.

"Great work, everyone. We'll call it here for today."

At Park Sunjin's words, everyone hurried off toward home. Apart from the five days we'd slept after meeting the angel, we'd been hunting in shifts without pause. Of course we were exhausted.

"Good work out there, Awakened Han Jin."

"Good work to you too, Awakened Park Sunjin."

We didn't exchange anything beyond that. Both of us were worn to the bone.

"I'll be heading home as well."

After bidding Park Sunjin farewell, I slipped into a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nearby alley. Getting home mattered, sure—but right now, I had a long-awaited conversation to hold with an angel.