Chapter 77
They began going to the church one by one, saying they must trust the one they called “Father.”
At first it was the children on the street.
From them it spread to the innkeeper, the gatekeeper of the sacred place, the knights…
In the end even the village lord — my parents — began to bring “Father” into the house.
“Your parents are fanatics, but you actually seem pretty sane,” Siena said in surprise while listening to Lucas.
“Of course I am. That place is a crazy cult!” Lucas ground his teeth as if he couldn’t even say the leader’s name.
“Every time I meet that so-called pastor I get the creeps… ugh. I don’t want to marry the girl the pastor chooses for me! Never!” he ranted, lamenting his situation and rubbing his face with both hands.
That was it.
The reason Lucas had been hitting on one woman after another was because he didn’t want to marry the girl chosen by the Gwangmyeongdan.
But even if he tried to avoid it, the villagers were all of the Gwangmyeongdan.
Whoever he got involved with, they were still crazy people.
When priests from outside came, he tried to cling to them in hope, but even that failed.
Then he saw Siena, the new priest, and took that as the last chance to leave.
“So you approached me because of that?” Siena asked.
“He clung to the priest, thinking you could help him leave…” Lucas said, shrinking under the cold stares of Noah and Heraice.
“I’m sorry…” he muttered.
“I don’t get it. Why not just refuse to marry?” Noah asked.
Perhaps expecting that question, Lucas gave a watery smile and shook his head.
“If you refuse, they kill you.”
“They kill you?” Siena frowned. That was so extreme.
“Do you know how the pastor turned my parents and the villagers into followers?” Lucas asked.
“How did he do it?”
He tapped his own head.
“They brainwashed them. So everyone accepted the Gwangmyeongdan without resistance.”
Lucas, who had been dragged to the cult’s worship services by his parents, had watched people fall under the brainwashing with his own eyes.
“I was one of the few who didn’t get brainwashed.”
“Looks like there were others besides you,” Noah said.
“Yes. Not a large number, but there were people. Until they were disposed of.”
Lucas had seen the fate of those who resisted, and to survive he had pretended to be a believer in the Gwangmyeongdan until now.
“Poor guy…” Siena patted his shoulder with a hand full of sympathy. She withdrew her hand quickly when Heraice shot her a terrifying look.
“The reason the villagers let even the priests enter the forest was because they wanted them dead. As you know, the Gwangmyeongdan hate the Grand Temple,” Lucas continued. He explained that the cult had been watching since the Grand Temple’s clergy first came to town.
“They never intended to purify the lake anyway. A group that denies the gods wouldn’t like the God’s Lake. They were happy simply because they got to soak their hands in the blood of heretics.”
Ethan’s stern expression didn’t soften one bit at Lucas’s explanation.
Of course — they had learned the cult was planning horrific acts to kill people while slandering the Grand Temple as heretics.
‘And I thought they were just a shabby gang with no power — but they actually seem pretty influential,’ Siena thought.
Suddenly she realized the others had gone quiet.
“Wait, where did everyone go? Did they vanish into the fog?” she asked.
“No, they just stood still — and then moved?” Heraice frowned, checking the scene. He realized the priests and knights had scattered while she had been distracted.
Only seven remained here now.
Siena and Heraice, Noah and Rina, Ban, Ethan — and Lucas.
From the situation, it seemed only the people who happened to be listening to Lucas nearby had survived.
“Heraice, will you go look for them?”
“No. If we dispel the black magic it will naturally reveal the path, so take care of that first,” Heraice said, firmly shaking his head, then pushed Lucas from behind. “First, let’s go to that damned church.”
Following Lucas’s guide, Siena’s group entered the forest.
Lucas, who had had the bracelet returned by Noah, kept searching without rest.
With Heraice, Noah, and my gaze glaring at him from behind, he couldn’t even take a break.
“Hah, whew, we’re here!” he panted.
Finally the fog cleared and a very dilapidated building came into view.
I rubbed my eyes while looking at the sign hanging on the building’s outer wall.
【Church of the Doomed People】
“What kind of name is that?” Heraice clicked his tongue.
“Tch, their self-awareness is intact, I guess,” Noah snorted.
“They lived up to that ugly name,” Ethan added.
When Noah and Ethan joined in the sarcastic remarks, Lucas opened his mouth tentatively.
“Well… it used to be the Church of the Righteous. Until the typhoon last year…”
At his words, I looked again at the sign and could see traces that the original name had been “Righteous.”
“How conveniently placed,” Heraice muttered. “No matter how it fell, it landed right there.”
“Heaven knows — ‘Righteous’ is too good a name for those scum,” Noah said.
“If the ‘righteous’ had remained, I would have torn it off myself,” Ethan said.
“The gods wouldn’t permit such a name being used by the wicked,” Heraice added.
They traded barbs. Lucas, sweating, interjected into their conversation.
“Um… can we just go in now?”
“Yeah, let’s go. We can’t stay at the entrance forever,” Noah said.
Following Lucas into the building, I was surprised.
Unlike the ruined exterior, the interior was spacious and clean like a newly built place.
More than that—
“It looks a lot like the Grand Temple in structure,” Noah observed.
Indeed, the Gwangmyeongdan’s church’s layout was almost identical to the Grand Temple’s.
Ethan’s anger flared at the sight.
“Have you ever seen such lunatics? This is insane. They’ve completely gone off the deep end.”
“To deny the gods but imitate the Grand Temple — who else but a cult,” someone snorted.
I clicked my tongue and rubbed my arm. The eerie atmosphere made the hairs on my neck stand up.
No matter how grand they built the interior to mimic the Grand Temple, they couldn’t copy the warmth and vitality.
Where the Grand Temple had a cozy, life-filled air, this place was gloomy and cold.
“…It’s quiet,” I murmured.
“Today isn’t a service day. Do you think I’d bring you all here when there were dozens of followers?” Lucas said in a frightened voice. That would be suicide.
“There may be priests here, but if we avoid them we won’t meet them. Even if we do, they’re ordinary folks — the young viscount can handle them,” Lucas added quietly after surveying the area.
“As long as we don’t run into the pastor…,” he finished, his fear evident.
But I wasn’t worried. With my brother and Heraice at my side, what was there to fear?
“So where is Father?” I asked.
“I don’t know that much… I just watched in secret when they took people that day,” Lucas answered. In short, we’d have to search the church thoroughly.
At that moment Ban, who had been curled in my arms, twitched his nose.
“Sniff, sniff. I smell something.”
“What smell?”
“Smell of blood.”
Unlike humans, Ban’s sense of smell was keen. He looked around, sniffing for the source.
“Ban, can you find it?”
Ban leaped from my arms, spread his wings, and clenched his tiny fist.
“Just trust me!”
We followed Ban as he flew ahead.
“Sniff, sniff. This way!”
The scent of blood grew stronger and Ban landed at a door. Lucas turned pale and opened his mouth.
“This is…”
Noah asked, “What kind of room is it?”
“It’s the prayer room reserved for priests. Ordinary followers are strictly forbidden to enter.”
Noah turned the doorknob, but as expected, the door was locked.
Noah balled his fist and broke the knob without hesitation.
“Figures — just like the son of a pastor to have to break in…” someone muttered.
“Don’t copy him. You’ll hurt your hand.”
“He won’t listen even if you tell him not to.”
I shook my head at the crude strength that never changed.
“Open it.”
One, two, three.
When the door swung wide, the first thing that greeted us was a terrible stench. The foul smell made my stomach churn.
