Nun Route (1)

"Gasp...!"

"Ah!"

Suddenly, I held my breath and grabbed my throat, startling the madam in front of me, who reached out a hand.

My neck had just been cleanly severed.

By Salhyeong, whom I trusted, no less.

"Are you all right?"

"Ah... I'm fine."

I came to my senses immediately.

It was my first time being beheaded, too, but it wasn't as if I'd only died once or twice. Besides, the sword strike had been so clean that I barely felt any pain. There had been a mental shock, though.

"Something briefly got caught in my throat."

"Is that so?"

"Could I have some water?"

"Just a moment."

I immediately assessed the situation.

The regression point seemed to be right after I'd received the Black Stone. Apparently, receiving an item also updated the regression point. Fortunately, this was the moment before I took out the grimoire.

One ironclad rule.

Never take out the grimoire within Salhyeong's domain.

A grimoire was, in the end, a book containing evil knowledge.

There was no way Salhyeong, a clergyman, would leave it alone.

He had already established a domain around the Itaewon temple where he resided, and he was so thoroughly prepared that the moment a grimoire was detected, he would immediately summon its owner to a place called Mecca.

He clearly intended to slaughter any mage, no matter what.

Seeing the preparations someone like Salhyeong, a highest-ranking holy warrior, had made... this grimoire must be far more dangerous than I'd imagined. The odds were high that it possessed equally tremendous power.

It was an item that surpassed my expectations by an overwhelming margin.

I thought back to Mecca, which I'd just seen.

Hundreds of millions of warriors from the Islamic world. They stood waiting, armed in all sorts of ways from ancient times to the modern day. There were Mamluk cavalrymen, of course, as well as thoroughly modern terrorists.

Could every warrior who had ever existed in Islamic history have become a spirit and gathered in Mecca? Even behind them stood a gigantic figure of a god made of the Black Stone. Perhaps it was the form of Allah... Did gods truly exist, and did all their followers become spirits?

"..."

I could feel an utterly immense religious awe.

No matter how evil a being was, it could never survive being transported to Mecca. How could anyone defeat hundreds of millions of spirits and their god?

But a question arose.

If Salhyeong possessed such overwhelming power, why hadn't he been able to use it during the Giant Incident? If he summoned the spirits of hundreds of millions of Islamic warriors, it seemed like he could bring down a mere Giant.

Besides, if a god truly existed, he could have gone toe-to-toe with the Giant, but nothing like that had happened.

Could the army of gods and spirits exist only in the special world known as Mecca?

Ah.

Come to think of it.

There was something he'd said back then.

Salhyeong had said that his connection to Mecca had been severed. Perhaps the Giant had cut off that connection, suppressing Salhyeong's power.

In any case, it had been an overwhelming sight.

ㅡThump-thump.

My heart pounded at the grandeur of it all.

I didn't particularly resent Salhyeong. He was one of the people protecting the world, and as such, it was only natural that he wanted to punish an evil mage. I was the one who had carelessly taken out the grimoire.

Still... now that I had become the grimoire's owner, I simply had to be careful. Originally, I'd planned to consult Salhyeong and convert to Islam, but now that the grimoire's danger had been proven, I couldn't act rashly.

Even if I was the owner of the Black Stone, if he discovered that I was also the grimoire's owner, he might fly into a rage, claiming that an evil mage had obtained the Black Stone through a conspiracy.

For now, I would keep my distance and be careful.

"Madam. Then, farewell."

"Yes. May blessings accompany our benefactor on their path."

And so I left the mansion.

In fact, I could have told the madam about the existence of Cheongak Mary Hospital and Teacher Kim Seonghan's condition.

But I gave up because I felt that telling her would cause a very serious problem.

For now, as far as I could tell, the madam was either Arab royalty or someone of exceedingly high status. The fact that she owned a fragment of the Black Stone said it all.

Naturally, she was highly likely to have connections to the Itaewon temple. If Kim Seonghan's location were identified, she would probably ask Salhyeong for help through the temple and try to go there.

I couldn't imagine anything good coming from Islamic holy warriors storming into Cheongak Mary Hospital... An army of translucent terrorists charging into a hospital? That would be a complete disaster.

So I gave up.

* * *

Unfortunately, being beheaded by Salhyeong had made me lose my sense of direction yet again. The Islamic holy warrior Muhammad Kim Geunhong route, armed with an AK-47 and Allah's magic wand, had become difficult to pursue.

Then what should I do?

"..."

The moment I thought I'd lost my direction, depressing feelings came flooding in.

The pain in my soul, which I could still feel, gnawed away at my mind.

Maybe being beheaded by Salhyeong itself was a form of divine punishment. It could have been a whipping meant to punish a foolish regressor.

No.

Thinking this way would get me nowhere.

Something...

I had to do something to erase these thoughts.

"Struggle."

In other words, I needed to struggle.

But I was afraid that this struggle would once again produce the worst possible result. I was terribly afraid. I was so afraid that I wanted to collapse right there and scream.

So.

Should I try doing nothing and simply live as though I didn't exist? Should I avoid causing even the slightest butterfly effect and quietly live like a dead mouse?

"..."

I didn't think that would be... the right route.

I had a strange status window and a bizarre regression ability. And this enormous something had multiple endings. If I stayed still, everything would merely repeat.

While I wavered, unable to do one thing or the other, my body became drenched in cold sweat.

I needed something to focus on.

I decided that learning about the grimoire was important, at least for now. But I couldn't carelessly take it out. If I did so within a certain radius, I would be summoned to Mecca the moment I took it out. I would have to take it out and study it only somewhere outside Salhyeong's domain.

In any case, I was a man being pursued by vampires. I was in Seoul now, but before long, I would have to flee somewhere far away. Yes. I was being chased. I could escape Salhyeong's domain whenever I wanted.

"Vampires, after all."

I had decided what to do.

While living on the run from vampires, I would hunt some vampires on the side and study the grimoire.

"That's right. That's it."

Besides, there was one very important matter.

The vampire angel Ghanak.

Would that thing appear this time, too?

I had to find out.

Therefore, there was only one faction that could help me.

"Sister."

Blaret, the Vatican's special-grade nun.

I would try to make contact with her.

* * *

I went straight out to buy a cross.

As I recalled, there were two employees at that Christian shop. One was middle-aged, and the other was the nun. If I went there and found only the middle-aged man, I'd have to reset.

I went there thinking that.

Fortunately, a blonde woman was standing behind the counter.

Perfect.

With this, I could make contact with her right away.

Before going in, I checked my character setup one last time. I wasn't Kim Geunhong, who had been through every conceivable hardship. I was a rookie who had only just started being tormented by vampires and was on the verge of going insane. That was who I was.

After finishing my check, I entered the shop.

"Welcome."

The nun greeted me.

This was the most important point.

I walked stiffly, glancing around as though plagued by anxiety, and gave an awkward little nod instead of a proper greeting.

"..."

I could feel the nun growing wary.

I did look like a criminal.

Once I was inside the store, I looked around and started shoving crosses into a basket. I played it as though I were suffering from paranoia, as if something terrible would happen if I didn't buy them.

Then, when I tried to pay...

The nun, who had been staring intently at me, spoke.

"Are you buying this many crosses?"

"What?"

"Did a vampire show up somewhere?"

The conversation I remembered.

I'd brushed it off casually back then, but this time, I pretended to flinch at the word "vampire," hyperventilate, and nervously watch the nun's reaction.

"This is going to sound completely insane, but... um. If vampires really exist in this world, do you think these crosses would work?"

It was very easy for me to play a madman. My vivid performance immediately turned the nun's expression serious.

"Why? Did you really encounter a vampire?"

"..."

"Tell me. You have some trouble you can't talk about, don't you? As a religious person, I'll listen."

Bingo.

"Can I really tell you? It'll sound completely crazy..."

"I'm used to people in distress telling strange stories. Did you encounter a vampire?"

"..."

I watched her reaction, then slowly nodded.

"Y-yes... I-I met something like a vampire."

"So you did encounter one. Good. Let's talk."

The nun nodded and went to the door.

Then she lowered the shutter as if closing the shop for business.

The nun had been dispatched to Korea because of vampire-related matters. Naturally, she wouldn't simply ignore a witness like me. Still, I didn't think she'd harm a witness. If a nun went around killing people, she'd be a witch, not a nun.

Anyway.

Even in this situation, I didn't forget to act.

I spoke suspiciously.

"Wait a moment. You. What are you? You're just going to believe in vampires and things like that?"

"Of course I believe you."

"What?"

"Because I'm someone who hunts them."

"You hunt them?"

"Sit down. Let's talk."

I sat down as instructed.

"Wait a moment. I'll bring you something to drink."

"Yes..."

After waiting a little, the nun brought out some tea.

"Then shall we hear your story? Tell me what happened."

"All right. I'll tell you."

I recited the scenario I'd prepared.

The basic story was the same. I'd encountered a vampire on the subway, and when I'd fallen under its hypnosis, I'd initially thought I'd been possessed by a ghost. But after seeing its fangs, I'd decided it must have been something like a vampire.

"Hypnosis... How did you survive while you were hypnotized?"

"Well, when I thought I was going to die like that, tears welled up and my stomach started churning."

"What?"

"So I just..."

I put my hand to my mouth and made a gesture as if spraying something.

"The vampire hit by it screamed, then turned into black smoke and disappeared. I didn't understand it at the time, but when I got home and thought about it, I realized I'd eaten a lot of garlic with my meat right beforehand. I figured garlic was a vampire's weakness, so it must have worked."

"Hmm... That's a shocking story. But it could happen. It's true that they're weak to garlic. Now, I'll show you some photographs. Can you identify that vampire here?"

"Photographs?"

The nun brought over a bag.

She took out some photographs.

An old man, a man, a child, a woman... and Secriem.

"This one! It's this bastard! This fucking bastard!"

"Hmm. It's definitely him. So it was this one after all."

The nun nodded, touching her lips.

"Good. Now that it's certain you came into contact with a vampire, I'll reveal my identity."

The moment she opened her palm...

ㅡBzzzz!

One cross was summoned in a flash of light!

"W-what?!"

"Nice to meet you. I'm Blaret, a special-grade nun with the Vatican. I've been dispatched to Korea to exterminate vampires."

"No, what was that cross?! Are you some kind of magician?!"

I put on a genuinely shocked expression.

"Phew, I'm not a magician. It's simply a sacred ability. Ah, would you like to see something fun?"

"Something fun...?"

"Click."

The moment the nun said "click," sacred rays burst from both her eyes!

"This woman just shot beams from her eyes!"

This was my first time seeing eye beams, too.

"They're not eye beams, but radiance. Anyway, it's a kind of superpower. Do you know what urban fantasy is? You've seen vampires, so you know that things like that really exist in this world."

"That can't be...! Han Segun was a real person?!"

"That's going too far."

She wouldn't play along with that.

Who am I supposed to talk to about Wolya Hwandam?

"Yes... Anyway, what happens to me now?"

"That's what we're going to decide now."

The nun gave me a wide grin.

Good.

With this, I'd gotten the conversation going.

Let's try blazing a nun route.