Three Days of Rest
“Come on, move it already!”
Canteas had summoned his skeletons and set them to clearing the surroundings. Do-ha’s Mokhon-sura-gong had flooded everything for miles around, but Canteas had already banished the water with magic. The area was still a wasteland, yet the difference between a flooded ruin and a dry one was night and day.
A dullahan heaved a massive chunk of building debris.
Whoosh.
Crash!
“Hey, you bastard! I told you to set it down gently!”
Canteas bellowed at the dullahan. That damned thing… The larger fragments had to be lowered carefully or they shattered into even more pieces, making the cleanup twice as annoying.
The dullahan scratched at the empty space where its head should have been.
“You’re headless, so what the hell are you scratching?!”
The dullahan’s shoulders slumped. The other skeletons nearby patted its bony back in consolation.
“Anyway, how high did they go?”
Canteas stepped forward and peered up at the sky. After trading a few words with the Cardinal, Do-ha had shot up to a height where even Canteas’s eyes couldn’t follow.
In that instant—
Screeeeeech!
KRA-BOOOOM!
Something plummeted toward the earth at terrifying speed.
“Just now…”
A howling wind tore past as the object slammed into the ground. Canteas waved a hand and blew the dust cloud away with magic.
“Ugh… So it ended like this after all.”
He shook his head at the Cardinal’s corpse—so thoroughly pulverized that its original form was unrecognizable.
Whoosh.
Thud.
“Do-ha!”
The moment the Cardinal hit the ground, Do-ha descended right after him. Canteas hurried over.
Do-ha glanced around, then looked at Canteas.
“The water around here. You cleared it?”
His own water technique had turned the entire area into a temporary sea.
“Yeah. The second you shot into the sky I wiped it all out. The way you dragged the Cardinal back up, I had a feeling this was how it would end.”
“Good work.”
Do-ha smiled and nodded. He had planned to erase the water right before impact, but Canteas had already handled it with perfect timing.
“Heh. Like this is the first or second day I’ve spent with you.”
Canteas grinned back at the smile on Do-ha’s face.
“By the way—if this guy dies like that, what happens to all the abilities he stole?”
“Look over there.”
Do-ha pointed at the Cardinal’s remains.
A soft shimmer rose from the mangled corpse. Tiny motes of light, each no bigger than a thumbnail, began to drift free—like a swarm of fireflies.
“Those are all abilities?”
“That’s right.”
Half of the glowing motes streamed straight into Do-ha’s body. Canteas’s jaw dropped.
“Whoa… How many is that?”
It looked like several hundred at the very least.
“I don’t know whether to be amazed that he had so many abilities… or that you still beat him after he stole that many from you…”
Every time Canteas saw it, Do-ha remained an existence beyond all standards. If it hadn’t been Do-ha, that Cardinal would have become a truly catastrophic threat. Canteas himself would have lost the moment his key techniques vanished.
“I overheard a bit of your conversation earlier. Something about Anubis…”
“Yeah. According to him, the Pope is moving again to summon Anubis.”
“They failed last time, so they’ll be desperate to succeed this round.”
“Most likely.”
“Why would a god like Anubis help the cult in the first place?”
“He didn’t know either. Neither do I.”
Do-ha folded his arms and frowned. Even while the Cardinal was falling, he had racked his brain, yet he still couldn’t see what Anubis stood to gain by aiding the cult. Helping the Demon God brought Anubis no obvious benefit.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Find them and stop it. Problem is, I have no idea when or where they plan to perform the summoning.”
After the previous attempt had been interrupted, the Pope had stopped sharing information even with his own Cardinals. This time he was determined to succeed, so security was airtight.
“I should at least warn Al Hashir.”
Al Hashir—rank two of the Cheon-oe-cheon and Saudi Arabia’s top hunter. He had already suffered at the cult’s hands, so a warning would put him on high alert. Still, it was unlikely they would attempt the summoning in the same country again.
“I’ve got a brilliant idea.”
“What?”
“We go to Egypt and blow up every single ruin. Make the summoning itself impossible!”
Do-ha’s brow furrowed. He genuinely did not know where to begin listing the problems with that plan.
“First—even if you level every ruin in Egypt, they can still summon him. Why? Because a specific residual power still lingers in that region.”
“Ah…?”
“And second…”
“Second?”
“If I blow up Egypt, we get an international incident, you absolute idiot!”
Smack!
They needed every nation’s fighting strength intact if they were going to face the cult. Destroying one of them would only be cutting off their own limbs. Wiping two countries off the map would be easy enough—but the cult’s power would surge the moment he did.
“Guh… I was joking…”
Canteas clutched his skull and rolled on the ground. He had only meant it as a joke, yet he had nearly gotten his cranium cracked open.
“Ah! How about I look for another method?”
“No.”
Do-ha shook his head firmly as Canteas sprang back up. This damn skeleton had just been talking about erasing an entire country, and now he wanted to “look for a method”?
“I’m not joking this time.”
“Neither am I. Stay put and don’t cause trouble.”
“Tch… I was thinking of pulling the Cardinal’s soul out.”
“Oh?”
Do-ha let out a small sound of genuine admiration. Canteas had actually come up with something useful?
“But high-ranking cultists are almost impossible to extract, right?”
More precisely, the more demonic energy a person carried, the harder soul extraction became. Whether it was the Demon God’s influence or something else, high-ranking cult members dropped straight into hell the instant they died. Even if you managed to call the soul back, its memories were already gone—leaving only a screaming, tormented spirit.
“He hasn’t been dead ten minutes yet. We might still be able to yank him out somehow.”
“He claimed he had no other information, though.”
“Could have been a lie. Or there might be something he doesn’t realize he knows.”
“Hmm… All right. Let’s try it.”
“Keheheh. I knew you’d say that, so I already drew the magic circle.”
Whoosh.
Canteas spun his staff with a flourish. Light began to pour from Germa’s pulverized remains.
A translucent soul slowly opened its eyes. A different landscape came into view. Moments earlier a nightmarish hell had stretched before it; now it found itself in a strangely familiar place.
“Whoa, Canteas. You actually pulled it off?”
“Keheheheh! See that?! That’s me for you.”
“Baek… Do-ha?”
The hazy soul—Germa—stared at the smiling Do-ha. Why was this man standing in front of him? More importantly, how had he been summoned back to the surface at all?
“Hey. I’ve got a few questions, so answer them properly.”
“You summoned me just to ask questions?”
“That’s right. The information you gave me earlier was far too thin.”
“Earlier…?”
Did that mean he had only been dead a short while? He was certain he had spent decades in hell…
“How’s hell treating you? Nice and noisy, right?”
Germa’s soul shuddered violently at Do-ha’s playful tone. Unspeakable agony had swirled around him like a maelstrom, devouring him whole. The pain had been absolute, and he had felt every one of those decades.
“That’s the final destination for everyone who worships the Demon God. Starting to understand what kind of madness you signed up for? The cult always claims the Demon God will grant salvation.”
Germa remained silent for a long moment. Every word was true; there was nothing he could say in rebuttal. Even if there had been, arguing here would change nothing.
“…Did you summon me just to tell me that? To gloat that I got what I deserved?”
“Hardly.”
Do-ha shrugged. He would never waste the effort of dragging a soul out of hell merely for mockery. Canteas had made it look easy, but calling a soul from the underworld was never simple. The drain on stamina and mana was enormous. Doing it just to sneer would be pure loss.
“Like I said a moment ago—I called you because the information you gave me was too sparse.”
“The information I gave… What did I even say?”
“Canteas. Did you bring the right soul back?”
When the Cardinal failed to recall properly, Do-ha shot Canteas a look. The spirit’s speech was sluggish, and its condition looked poor.
“That’s because he was in hell. Down here only a few minutes have passed, but to him it feels like decades have gone by.”
“Damn. Hell’s performance is rock-solid.”
“Hey. The Pope is summoning Anubis, right?”
“Ah… So that’s what you meant.”
Only then did Germa nod.
“But just as I told you, the Pope truly told me—and the other Cardinals—nothing at all.”
“Think harder. Even if he never said a word, something this important would have left traces.”
“Traces, you say…”
“If you give me something valuable, I’ll repay you.”
“Repay…? Heh heh… Baek Do-ha. Look at me. I’m already dead and in this state. What could you possibly give me?”
“A brief rest.”
“What?”
“Canteas. How long can a summoned soul stay?”
“Hmm… An ordinary soul can last about a week, but this one came from hell, so three days at most.”
“You heard him. Three days of rest.”
“…”
“Opportunities like this don’t come often. Most of the bastards who fall into hell would kill for even a single moment free of pain.”
While the two spoke, Canteas sent a telepathic message.
Do-ha.
What?
If we ask Metatron, we can transfer this soul to the ordinary Underworld.
I know.
Then offer him that. He’ll talk a lot easier, won’t he?
I’m not handing a ticket to the Underworld to scum like him.
They had only pulled him out because they needed him. This man—no, every single being who belonged to the cult—deserved to fall straight into hell. Cultists slaughtered humans without mercy. They offered people as sacrifices and, if a village merely got in the way of a ritual, wiped the entire settlement from existence. Germa had almost certainly done the same. Giving such a creature a free pass to the ordinary Underworld was more than he deserved; he was not even qualified.
“If you’re going to keep dithering, I’ll just send you back to hell. Canteas, put him back—”
“No matter how hard I think, he never told us anything. However… there were a few places he visited far more often than others.”
Germa spoke before Do-ha could finish.
“Where?”
“Three places in total. Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. He occasionally went to Denmark or Finland as well, but those three were the main ones.”
Do-ha fell silent, turning the information over. Taken together, the Pope had been making repeated trips through Northern Europe. But why the North? Anubis was no Norse deity.
“Then where are the cult’s bases in Northern Europe?”
“Once your existence became known, the Pope relocated every single branch. And every location was classified. Only the Pope himself knows where the other branches are.”
“Insects, the lot of them.”
Do-ha shrugged and shook his head. They could hide all they liked; sooner or later every last one of them would be found. Why bother with such tedious precautions?
“Anything else?”
“Nothing.”
“Fine. As promised, you get three days of rest. Canteas, send him back after three days.”
“Got it.”
“I’m heading out first. Clean up the rest and catch up.”
“Don’t you dare eat without me!”
“Ugh, fine.”
Do-ha waved a hand dismissively and vanished in a teleport.