Chapter 92
A shot was fired without hesitation, and the bullet, tearing through the air, struck the villagers' bodies dead on.
Blood sprayed. The villager who couldn't withstand the impact toppled backward. The woman with a hole drilled through her brow twitched and pitched forward.
But they soon got back up. With blood-soaked faces, still muttering incomprehensible words, they kept advancing. The villagers crushed by Kim Yul's magic also dragged their ruined bodies along the floor.
They didn't regenerate. The shattered bodies kept moving in their broken state, scattering blood and bone fragments all the while.
So it seemed they were immortal, but without any regenerative ability.
“It doesn't seem like they're physically immune...! Hoo...! More importantly, I don't know why they're suddenly acting so hostile....”
Lee Min-su hissed as he clutched his shoulder with one hand. Ian frowned.
“Is that really what's important right now? Curiosity is fine, but use your head in a way that helps the situation at least. Once they're hostile, talking is pointless.”
“Mm, fair point... My apologies.”
Lee Min-su let out a bitter smile and exhaled slowly. The pain starting from his shoulder felt as if it were searing his brain, but that very pain was what kept him focused. Fragments of scraped bone jabbed wildly into his muscles every time his joints moved.
Kim Mi-ryeo's situation wasn't any different. But without so much as a hint of pain, she drew the Japanese sword hanging at her waist and lowered her stance.
Her aura sharpened as if she might charge at any moment. Ian stared at the back of her head for a moment before turning to the villagers.
He'd said that, but Ian had also been harboring some curiosity about them.
A sudden mental attack? Nothing strange about that. Hadn't he already heard that both Monkey's Paw and Buddha were entities capable of mental attacks? It was unexpected that even Agency agents and mages could be bewitched in an instant, but now that they were free of it, that was all that mattered.
What Ian was interested in was their trait of 'immortality.'
Immortality without regeneration. Those who had acquired an ability that was practically a curse—could they still move normally even if their heads were blown apart?
From a thoroughly magical perspective, a human is usually defined by the head.
More precisely, the 'brain.' If the brain alone remains intact, and if it can be taken over, a mage believes they can live forever.
That wasn't a far-fetched tale. In fact, one grimoire even recorded a spell that would turn you into a maggot, take over someone else's brain, and let you live forever. There were quite a few similar spells. Magic that involved carving out someone's brain and transplanting your own in its place was fairly famous in magical circles.
The accusation that this was a betrayal of human decency didn't apply to mages in the first place. Human decency was merely an obstacle to the development of magic; it was never a springboard for it. It wasn't for nothing that most magic developed on battlefields.
Anyway.
If not magic, then where was the basis of their immortality, gained through mystery? The heart? Or the brain? Which one had to be destroyed to sever that immortality?
Was the reason they didn't die even after being pierced through the brow because the heart was what mattered? Or because the brain hadn't been completely destroyed?
He wanted to find out. There was no reason not to.
Ian slipped the pistol into the holster and began chanting as he opened the grimoire. Black seawater swirled around him.
“I, as the master of the sea and consort of that being, command you. O sea, wield the blade that will cut them down.”
The instant the incantation ended, the surging seawater engulfed the villagers. The compressed water cutter sliced straight through their bodies. Their flesh, torn into chunks, thudded to the ground, and blood flowed like a river.
At first glance, it seemed the situation was over, but the group held their breath and stayed on guard.
And then, just as expected, and also in a slightly different form than expected, the shattered villagers stood back up.
[Ahahaha!!]
Faces bloomed from the split flesh. The things gaping open like red spider lilies burst into laughter at the same time, laughing loud enough to shake the whole village.
“Khaak!”
“Ugh...! Bwaaark!”
“...!”
Everyone who heard it collapsed to the ground and trembled all over. Expressions that looked half like laughter and half like tears were etched onto their faces. Kim I-seo was the only one still relatively intact, but even she didn't look normal. The grotesquely torn corners of her mouth kept rising without end, slowly ripping her skin apart.
“......”
Ian quietly tapped the grimoire while looking at those sights.
Unlike the four who had lost their minds, he was in the same state as when he first stepped into this place, with no particular mental damage. Laughter? It was laughter, plain and simple. Noisy and grotesque, but not enough to drive him insane just by hearing it.
It was hard to say he was fine simply because his mental defenses were thick. He seemed to be immune to mental attacks themselves, though he couldn't quite guess why.
Maybe the grimoire was helping his mental defenses.
Whatever the case, it was a beneficial situation for Ian. He stared at the villagers approaching even as they became chunks of meat, calmly sorting through his thoughts.
‘Seeing as they haven't launched any particular physical attacks even after all this time face-to-face, it seems they don't have any special means of attack.’
The knives and axes the villagers were holding. Though the blades were fairly threatening, they didn't seem able to do things like extend tentacles or stick out their tongues and use them as spears, the way the captain of the cruise ship had.
Most likely, it was because this type of anomaly was specialized in mental attacks from the start.
For Ian, that was good news. He let out a breath and walked toward the villagers in return.
“Shin, Ian-nim...!”
Kim I-seo, who had been crying and laughing, called his name. Ian ignored it and looked up at the sky.
By then, the rising sun was shining brightly on the ground. Sunlight penetrating all the way into the dark interior of the mountain drew a faint halo of light and replaced the darkness that had been there. Beneath it, the spider lilies and the villagers still wriggled and crawled closer, smiles on their faces.
“Show me.”
Ian murmured in a low voice as he looked down at them.
Magic is heavily influenced by the environment to begin with. Naturally, atmosphere, attitude, appearance, and outward form are also important. To use grand magic, you have to don the proper mask and clothing. Reality is different from fiction; unlike an archmage, you can't simply hurl lightning and scatter flames without any preparation.
That is why a trigger phrase suited to the situation is necessary. However, the magic of the foreign god did not require such things.
Even so, chanting the trigger phrase was simply to increase the spell's power.
And to make the environment work in his favor.
“How deep original sin runs.”
Ian murmured as he opened the grimoire.
At that moment, blood flowed from the grimoire's cover and dripped to the ground. The grimoire's blood, swimming like red fish, touched the villagers' blood and began to devour it in return.
“Since all the original sins of this world began in the sea, how could that sin not be mine?”
[Ahahaha!!]
“Our original sin can never be washed away; it can only melt away. Thus, the Mother of the Sea molds that sin and creates anew, and we have chosen to call that love.”
[Aha—!]
“Then what is love? Ah, love is us devouring our own sins, so in the end we are fated to kill one another forever.”
[Ah.]
“In such acts, there are no gods, no Buddhas, and no humans. We must love each other by killing, and kill each other by loving. Truly, what a beautiful sight. You will be no exception. But...”
As the incantation continued, the laughter faded. The sound of running water took its place.
“As that being's proxy and consort, I am so free from the laws.”
Rain.
It rained.
From below to above.
The reverse-flowing rainwater pooled on the ground and streamed up into the sky. A phenomenon that blatantly denied the laws of physics. The villagers' laughter was drowned out by the rain and sank away; the bloodwater was covered over by blood and died away. The spider lilies withered, and the sweet scent of flowers was buried beneath a thick stench of fish and blood.
“Kheuk... haaah...!”
“...This is absurd.”
As the laughter faded, the group's minds also snapped back to clarity. Seeing Ian standing directly before the villagers, the backward rain, and the rippling black seawater, they each showed different reactions. But soon they came to their senses and moved closer to him.
“...Are you all right?”
Kim I-seo asked. Instead of answering, Ian placed his hand on the grimoire.
“As I said, original sin runs deep.”
“......”
“You have no right to preach the Buddha's will. You have no faith to cry out God's name. You, who gained happiness by making a wish to a mere creature, are unworthy of happiness.”
“Shh.”
Noticing that Ian was chanting, Kim Yul covered Kim I-seo's mouth with her hand and smiled faintly. Then she looked Ian over, her eyes sparkling.
Ian noticed her gaze, but paid it no mind and voiced the final incantation.
“Then I shall take it back.”
[Ah.]
“The sea remembers, so I shall melt your original sin once more and take it away.”
[Aah…….]
“Before the Mother of Love, be absolved of your sins.”
[Aaaaaa!!!]
The villagers screamed and began shuffling back to their homes. But once the ground was covered in black seawater, they could do nothing but flail on the surface. The backward rain battered their bodies, drilling holes through them.
By contrast, it had no effect on the group. The rain that slipped past the others clung to Ian alone and wriggled as if it were trying to act cute.
Thanks to that, he ended up looking like a drowned rat, but Ian closed the grimoire and brushed his hair back. Then, with a slightly tired expression, he turned to the group and said.
“I'll leave the rest to you. I'm a little tired...”
Fortunately, no one refused his request.