Chapter 80
Chapter 80
“I wonder if their conversation is going well.”
[The Lord of Chaos gives a thumbs up, saying things will work out somehow]
“I guess so. They’re both good kids. Huh?”
At the same time, Lude slipped out the back door of the awards venue under perception dampening and ran into Min Jaeyoon, who happened to be walking the corridor.
A red jacket with the White Night emblem, a white opal and a red ruby pinned at the chest. He clearly wore formal attire for the ceremony, yet he strode quickly through the hallway checking things in a rush.
“What is this about?”
His face looked strangely tense, so Lude strode up, tapped his shoulder, and dropped the dampening.
“Uh, who… ack!”
“What are you doing here?”
“Ah!! Don’t go walking around like a ghost! Lude!!”
Pressing a hand to his pounding heart, Min Jaeyoon let out a long sigh. He folded the memo he had been checking. Lude glimpsed the page in passing, which had a floor plan of the building.
“What is this?”
“Ah, nothing much. Just~”
Min Jaeyoon scratched his head in embarrassment. After a small cough, he spoke while gauging Lude’s mood.
“I feel better if I check whether the safety systems work when I enter a building for the first time. I was doing a sweep. The guildmaster said I should do that whenever I feel uneasy.”
Lude looked over the corridor where Min Jaeyoon stood. The mana stone lockers and the safe zone prepared for erosion types glowed with a faint green light.
“They look like they work?”
“Of course! I was not going to come unless it was that kind of place. Still, you never know.”
Saying he had tested everything anyway, Min Jaeyoon tucked the memo back into his pocket. Only then did he take a deep breath and look at Lude.
“What about you? Why are you outside?”
“I came out for some air. I had a bit of a headache.”
He also wanted to give the two some time to talk alone, yet the crowd and the cameras made his head throb, so he had stepped out.
“I gave you a corner seat near a movable partition. Are you feeling that bad?”
“Oh, you were the one who got that seat for me? Thanks. That helped a bit.”
“It is mobile, so you can pull it out all the way. Do whatever you like.”
“Yeah. If it gets rough I will.”
Saying it was nearly time for the ceremony to start, Min Jaeyoon checked his wristwatch and quickened his pace. Perhaps because of trauma, he felt a little edgier than usual.
Watching him, Lude spoke up.
“Something is going on with Baek Jangmi, right?”
“…”
There was no answer. Lude pressed on.
“White Night felt a little off.”
Pause. That made Min Jaeyoon halt.
After Kang Ihyun’s look into them, he had told Lude about White Night. There were a few things that did not sit right.
“They say the cause of death for the first guildmaster is not certain.”
White Night had been a major guild ten years ago alongside the Sanctuary. Baek Jangmi’s father, Baek Jiwon, ruled as an S-rank Hunter and guildmaster, yet he did not appear at the gate that day.
After the incident, when people asked why an S-rank like Baek Jiwon had not deployed for a grade 1 gate, White Night’s representative said this.
‘He died thirty minutes before the gate opened.’
He died, so what could anyone do? His daughter, Baek Jangmi, naturally inherited White Night. However, one odd thing was…
“And… do Constellations normally pass down?”
The most suspicious point was that the daughter and father were thought to share the same Constellation. Neither Baek Jangmi nor Baek Jiwon had named theirs, but their traits looked similar.
Many experts said the two shared the same Constellation or at least the same lineage.
And the guildmaster of White Night had traditionally been a Hunter rather than an Awakened. That felt subtly strange.
“Lude, do not spin weird theories.”
His teeth clicked audibly. Lude glanced over. Min Jaeyoon glared at him with a deep frown.
Only then did Lude realize he could be heard as doubting Baek Jangmi’s ability, so he hurried to explain.
“No, I’m not suspicious. I am worried. You kept everything bottled up last time too and it blew up.”
Flinching, Min Jaeyoon looked down to the side as if he had lost his words for a moment.
“I will help as much as I can. You helped me too. I pay back what I receive.”
He still stayed on campus. He needed a deep breath whenever he entered a new building. If the safety systems were unchecked, he could not stand the anxiety.
He no longer wanted to shoulder everything alone. He felt that keeping secrets had helped drag the school into that state.
Yet if only he could always say everything exactly as it was.
“This is guild business, so I cannot tell you. Still… Can I ask something? You might know.”
“What is it?”
Running a finger over his forehead once, Min Jaeyoon hesitated, then finally got the words out. Lest anyone overhear, his voice was very small.
“…Do you know much about dual contracts?”
“Dual contract?”
He had never heard the term. Right on cue, the Lord of Chaos sent an indirect message.
[The Lord of Chaos explains that it is one Incarnation contracting with two Constellations at the same time]
‘…That is possible?’
Normally a Constellation could have many Incarnations, but not the other way around. One Constellation per Incarnation. That was the unspoken rule. Another indirect message came.
[The Lord of Chaos shrugs and says it is possible if a pile of conditions are met, although there are many strict constraints]
‘Oh, so it is just hard because the constraints are brutal. Surely it can’t be that hard. If I could satisfy them, I would use it freely.’
[The Lord of Chaos snorts and asks what that means, then says no sane Constellation would ever accept such a contract!]
If the constraints were met, two Constellations could contract one Incarnation. That would make the Incarnation stronger. It should benefit the Constellations too, so why would no one ever accept it?
Lude was about to ask again, curious, when Min Jaeyoon let out a sharp sigh.
“If you don’t know, that is fine. And no, I am not saying our guildmaster is a dual contractor. I have just had a lot of interest in that lately.”
As Min Jaeyoon kept offering excuses and Lude sank into thought, both men stopped and looked up at the same time. Silence fell.
“What is this.”
“…”
Something out of spec had appeared inside the hotel.
Ordinary people would miss it, yet Hunters sensitive to the flow of energy could sense the presence clearly.
A wet fog formed along the corridor. Something was spreading its power through the hotel.
Gooseflesh rose on the nape of the neck and Min Jaeyoon froze on the spot. Strangely, the alarms did not trigger.
“Lude. Are you alright?! What is happening right now…!”
[Status ailment :: PTSD activates!]
Min Jaeyoon clapped his hands over his ears again. His old affliction came back to torment him. The screams from that time struck his ears and he could do nothing but sink to the floor.
Shaking helplessly, he pressed his hands tighter to his ears, when golden sacred fire tinged with blue raced along the corridor walls.
[Status ailment :: PTSD eases!]
“…Ah.”
A warm force pressed the fog down. Realizing this was Kang Ihyun’s sacred fire, Min Jaeyoon finally came to his senses and looked ahead.
At some point Lude had drawn his black scissors and was scowling.
“I will go take a look. Hold this position.”
A hum. He opened a rift in space and vanished.
* * *
The first to sense the anomaly were the Priests. Before the ceremony began, while they enjoyed themselves, a system window surfaced before them without any one person leading the way.
[Priest Basic Skill :: Identify activates!]
Smiling faces turned to sacred fire and ready weapons without thinking. It was a reflex. Kang Ihyun was no different.
“B-But if you say that, I get flustered and…”
“I-Ihyun? Your hand…”
“Huh?”
Kang Ihyun discovered his palm pressed against the wall.
Without realizing it, he had pricked his hand on the knife before him and bled a great deal. His traits began to activate on their own.
[Incarnation Exclusive Trait :: God’s Holy Medicine activates!]
[The Scales of Tiferet moves.]
[Seeking leave of Hesed and Gebura. Please wait.]
[Archangel Zadkiel agrees with Tiferet.]
[Archangel Kamael agrees with Tiferet.]
[Divine Mercy :: Hesed activates!]
“Kgh…!”
“Ihyun?! Are you alright?!”
Whoosh. Blue sacred fire burst from his hand, climbed the wall, and spread rapidly. It was no small amount. Apparently his sacred fire meant to blanket the entire building.
Even with a gift for drawing in the strength of nature, encasing the whole structure was a stretch. Strained to the limit, his power forced cold sweat from his brow.
Sensing that the Priests around him were in a similar state, Kang Ihyun shouted to Jeong Suho.
“Mr. Suho!! Go outside!!”
“W-What?!”
“There is a presence trying to attack us. Please assess the situation! I cannot move from here!”
“Got it!”
Grasping the situation quickly, Jeong Suho pulled a cloak from his inventory. Other Hunters dashed for the exits as if spurred by him, and Jeong Suho raised his voice.
“From now on this is our base camp. We will go out and assess, so until reports return, combat Hunters form squads and prepare here. Prefer one melee with two ranged if you can. Healing Hunters do not join squads and remain here. This is a disaster situation. Remember that the top priority is to protect civilians.”
He shouted orders and sprinted outside. Hunters who had been in confusion finally calmed down and moved with purpose.
Healers gathered to compare remaining potions and measure their divine power. Other Hunters began to form teams. Civilians hid behind the movable partitions.
For someone specialized in battlefield command, he showed charisma utterly different from the bashful smile he wore around Kang Ihyun. With a sliver of room to think, Kang Ihyun took a deep breath and reviewed the scene.
“What is this? What kind of… situation is this?”
Priests had fallen into combat stances without meaning to. There was only one kind of situation that caused that. Yet the chance of that was extremely low.
There had been no harbinger either. Cold sweat trickled as he bit his lip.
“Right? Angel.”
[The Constellation Staff of Purification cannot hide their tension and nods.]
“…Can that really happen?”
[The Constellation Staff of Purification says they will go verify the situation and steps away.]
“Yes, I’ll leave it to you.”
Can we win? Kang Ihyun gave a hollow laugh. What they had to face from now on was not a gate.
It was a being every Priest instinctively sought to stop.
The Beast of the Apocalypse, number 666, had manifested here.