Saints in Plain Sight
The plan came together quickly once I was inside the Yahweh's Paradise novel. With so many tools at my disposal, that was only natural. Surprisingly, the Chamdokchung and the girl had quite a bit of freedom to move around. As long as one of them stayed on the island, the other could leave and request whatever we needed. All three of us already knew exactly what we could get from the church faction. Since things had turned out this way, I intended to squeeze every last advantage out of them.
From what I'd heard, the people here treated the Saintesses fairly well. Anyone deeply immersed in Yahweh's Paradise would naturally be friendly toward them. Even those who didn't believe in the cult still liked the Saintesses because they handled most of the fighting. If that was the case, we could use it to escape. Luckily, they had no real way to track us once we ran.
I slowly explained everything to the two girls, who still looked dazed.
“You two probably don’t know this, but our hair and eyes don’t show up to normal people.”
“…What?”
“You’ve got blonde hair and red eyes right now, right? If you asked someone on the street, they’d say you have ordinary black hair and black eyes.”
“How do you know that?”
“The author told me. Apparently it only shows in special situations. Most of the time, it stays hidden.”
“R-right… No one’s ever commented on my hair or eyes before.”
“See?”
I grinned triumphantly. The nerd probably hadn’t accounted for every possibility. She’d only considered the scenarios she could think of. She might know that our hair and eyes looked normal to regular people, but she clearly hadn’t factored it into her plans properly.
“Once we mix with the crowd, they won’t find us unless they send out the other Saintesses to search.”
“Oh.”
“Telling people to look for blonde, red-eyed Saintesses won’t do them any good. That’s not the real problem, though.”
“…Hunters,” the girl added.
“The Prophet has dozens of evolved zombies specialized in tracking. None of us can shake a Hunter on our own.”
“Then what about those bounty hunters you killed last time?”
“…That only worked because Suhyeon had the Elder’s holy water. We used Baron’s pheromone command to create confusion.”
“…Why are you two so weak?”
Even so, this was ridiculous. I’d assumed they were at least on Kim Yeonhua or Lee Ayoung’s level. Or maybe Kim Kijun or Kim Daehan. Turns out these two had been fighting sloppily the whole time. They were basically mid-to-low tier back at the campus.
I couldn’t help sounding exasperated. “They probably forced you to fight without pheromones, didn’t they?”
“…”
“…”
While the two of them stayed silent, I kept grumbling. I was the sturdiest one here, so it made sense for me to take the front line, but that didn’t mean I wanted to handle every single zombie by myself. Still, it looked like I’d have to. At least they could both fight to some degree, so they could handle any Hunters I missed. From our last fight, I figured they could manage that much. They wouldn’t be able to kill the Hunters, but they could stall until I finished the job.
Once I reached that point, the plan started falling into place. Now it was time to prepare.
“Is there a blacksmith here?”
“Yes. Her name is Kim Hayoung. She works at the forge with her father.”
“Does she carry an iron club on her waist?”
“…Ah!”
The Chamdokchung let out a short gasp as she finally understood. I was relieved things were going smoothly. Kim Hayoung had probably been the one who saved me. Originally, she was supposed to carry two clubs on her waist—one for me, and one for herself.
“I want her to repair that club. As for the blade…”
Buddha’s Right Arm wasn’t made of metal, so taking it to a blacksmith wouldn’t help much. Still, I wanted it cleaned up enough to be usable. I thought for a moment.
“Could we just ask someone with good hands to make a handle for it?”
“That’s doable. I’ll take care of it. I know an Elder with skilled hands.”
“Good.”
I smiled. This was already satisfying enough. Our equipment was decent, so now we just needed food. Jeokto had some supplies, but not enough for three people. And we had to account for being chased, which meant we were seriously short on rations.
I felt a bit disappointed. If I could, I would’ve collapsed this entire community. Becoming the queen bee wouldn’t have been a problem for me at all. In this kind of situation, strength mattered more than brains. Killing monsters would earn me more respect than whatever the Prophet was doing with the Saintesses. And since I was prettier, I could rack up even more points.
“It’s a shame we can’t do that.”
The reason we couldn’t was guns. According to the nerd, a pistol probably wouldn’t be an issue for me. But shotguns or rifles would be. They definitely had shotguns, and while I wasn’t sure about rifles, I didn’t want to gamble on it. Begging for my life was one thing—I’d do whatever it took to survive. But I refused to bow my head to that bitch. So the best option was to grab what we could and get out.
I shifted my posture and looked at the two of them.
“Should we at least introduce ourselves?”
“…Cha Suhyeon.”
“Shin. Kang Shin.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Lee Yeji. Shame I can’t shake your hands.”
I put on the brightest smile I could manage. From now on, I couldn’t afford any careless thoughts. These two were only cooperating because they had no other choice. They just thought running was better than staying. But if the person who had to play the key role in our escape seemed unreliable, they’d choose to stay instead. And then I’d be even more tightly bound.
I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes. I wasn’t particularly sleepy, but resting seemed like the smart move. Thankfully, neither of them bothered me. Instead, they started bustling around, preparing for our escape.
Time crawled by. That was to be expected. All I could do was sit there. Meals came regularly, and I could use the bathroom if I needed to, but that was about it. Actually, doing nothing at all was probably for the best.
The nerd came to check on me periodically, inspecting the shackles and spouting empty pleasantries. Whenever her eyes landed on the ring finger of my left hand, she’d lash out violently. It didn’t hurt much, but it left me feeling filthy. She acted like she was Noh Changhun’s closest friend. She’d never even seen his face or heard his voice, yet she had the nerve to act that way. It pissed me off.
On top of that, she seemed annoyed that I supposedly had a good relationship with him, so she occasionally used tools when she hit me. Honestly, it was absurd. I was Noh Changhun’s closest friend. Whether he had other friends or not, at least in this world, I was the one. How dare someone who’d never heard his voice or seen his face claim to be close to him? Especially when we were even wearing matching rings. No one else could make that claim.
Who the hell was whose friend, anyway?
…Because of her, only Suhyeon and Kang Shin suffered. Their wounds healed quickly, but the blood and bodily fluids didn’t disappear on their own. So the two of them had to take care of me like nurses. And since the nerd still didn’t trust me, the restraints stayed on, making everything several times harder.
Still, things weren’t completely hopeless. The restraints they’d attached could all be broken if I got properly angry. So in reality, I wasn’t truly bound. And over the past few days, I’d gotten a feel for it—I thought I could attack the nerd now. Breaking moral rules wasn’t much of a constraint for me. If I’d had any conscience to begin with, I wouldn’t have doxxed Noh Changhun and gotten him killed. So morality was basically nonexistent here.
Everything else was ready. Now we just had to finish preparing to run. Thanks to the two of them working hard, there weren’t any major issues. Suhyeon and Kang Shin acted like model Saintesses, determined to escape this hell, and brought back all sorts of supplies. Everything went neatly packed into Jeokto. Even Suhyeon, who’d brought Jeokto here, had no idea what was inside it. When she heard it was a bicycle, she was shocked and kept asking questions. When I told her engineering students had been sacrificed to upgrade it, she just accepted it without question.
Two things remained. Testing whether I could actually withstand a pistol. And receiving the upgraded Beopbong and blade. Once those were done, there’d be no reason not to escape.