Chapter 46. Settled for Now
In the middle of the street, after the civilians had finished evacuating, the possessed demons were facing off against ESP forces, including Jungon.
After the mirror disappeared, no new demons appeared. Their numbers only continued to fall.
One demon, repeatedly forced to retreat after being pushed onto the defensive, finally lost its patience and charged at Jungon.
“Sir! Be careful!”
Several ESP agents shouted warnings in surprise, but Jungon completely ignored them.
He tightened the muscles in his forearm and took his stance.
“Hup! Where do you think you’re crawling out to?!”
Jungon slightly lowered his upper body and drove his fist into the charging demon’s abdomen.
BOOM!
The impact made a thunderous sound that was hard to believe had come from a simple punch.
At some point, Jungon had grabbed the demon by the back to stop it from flying away.
“Guuuuh….”
A deflated sound escaped from the demon’s mouth.
Grab!
A huge hand, rough enough to be mistaken for a bear’s paw, grabbed the demon by the head and lifted it.
Jungon stared directly into the demon’s eyes and asked,
“Demon, do you believe in God?”
“Graaah! Let me go!”
“That doesn’t sound like an answer.”
Aura began forming around Jungon’s hand.
The demon, seemingly giving up, glared at Jungon and gave a twisted grin.
“God? If he exists, I’d happily use him as my toy. Hehehehe!”
The demon desperately struggled to escape Jungon’s grip while spitting out blasphemous insults.
But such words, which even heretics would hesitate to say, only made Jungon’s anger explode.
“YOU BASTARD!!!! God has declared that you already know your own sins! Amen!”
Jungon tightened the fingers gripping the demon’s head.
The aura released through his anger seemed to clash with the demon inside the possessed body.
CRUUUNCH!
“AAAAAAAGH!! Guh!”
His grip was so powerful that clear finger marks appeared on the demon’s head.
The demon screamed once and collapsed.
Whether it had been purified by aura or simply knocked unconscious by brute force was difficult to tell.
“W, why is that human looking at us like that?”
“How would I know?! H, hey, why is he coming this way?”
Jungon, searching for his next target, walked toward the remaining demons with fire in his eyes.
The ESP agents were left speechless by Jungon’s continued acts of purification.
They had finally realized something.
When Jungon approached a demon, what they were seeing was not a priest facing a demon.
It was a predator approaching prey.
“Even the Virgin Mary would shake her head if she saw you! Amen!”
One demon was purified while having its mouth forcibly covered.
“God says you would look better as powder! Amen!”
Another was purified while trapped in a headlock.
“G, God is g, great! Guh!”
“Silence! Do not speak of God with that filthy mouth! Amen!”
“KIEEEEEK!”
One demon became so terrified of Jungon that it tried lying to him.
It did not work.
“Meow!”
“Woof!”
With animal carriers hanging from both his front and back while he beat demons senseless, Jungon looked nothing like the priests they were familiar with.
It was confusing.
“Didn’t all of you come here to work?”
After dealing with several demons, Jungon dusted off his hands and glanced at the ESP agents.
“Huh? Ah, y, yes! Combat teams, suppress the demons and block every escape route! Fathers, perform exorcisms on the restrained demons!”
The ESP staff who had been standing there dumbfounded immediately moved in perfect order after receiving their superior’s command.
Jungon had deliberately purified only the demons that looked too dangerous for ESP to handle.
Now, he could no longer sense any especially dangerous ones.
He left the cleanup to them and quietly offered a short prayer for the unfortunate victims caught in the disaster.
“…Please do not let us forget their sacrifice. Amen.”
After finishing his prayer, Jungon gently tapped Jeomrye’s nose, who was hanging in the carrier in front of him, then rubbed noses with her.
“Hmm, you little ones really are fascinating.”
“Meooow.”
“You amplify aura. So that’s what it means for animals to accompany an Apostle?”
The strange power that had suddenly wrapped around Jungon earlier, an orange-colored energy coming from Samsik and Jeomrye, had the effect of amplifying aura.
Thanks to that, dealing with the mid-ranking demons had been much easier.
More importantly, he had been able to use aura without loudly reciting entire prayers.
“I suppose this is my next stage.”
“Woof! Woof!”
As Jungon opened and closed his fist, Samsik pushed his head forward, demanding attention too.
When Heesong first left the Divine Beasts with him, Jungon had assumed something had happened between her and Michael.
Of course, it did not concern him enough to interfere.
However,
Hmm. Is this connected to what happened today?
Coincidentally, the disaster began not long after he started taking care of the Divine Beasts.
Jungon turned toward downtown.
He had clearly felt the demonic energy of a high-ranking demon there.
He had also sensed a holy aura unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life.
When that holy aura spread, even the Divine Beasts had thrashed around and cried loudly.
The high-ranking demon’s demonic energy had disappeared shortly afterward.
Still, there was no way of knowing whether some other threat remained.
“I hope nothing happened to our Sia….”
At least Michael was supposed to be assigned to her, so they were probably together.
That reassured him.
At the same time, it made him nervous.
“His skill at beating demons is outstanding, but… considering the things he’s done to Sia, I should probably check myself.”
No matter how powerful Michael was, Jungon could not calm his anxiety as an overprotective father.
He stroked the Divine Beasts under their chins.
“If your owner does something stupid, you’ll help me beat him too, right?”
“Woof!”
“Meow!”
After hearing their cute responses, Jungon started toward downtown.
Then his phone rang inside his pocket.
Ring, ring, ring!
The caller was Heesong.
Jungon slid the answer button.
“Old man, you’re taking good care of the kids, right?”
Was carrying them on his front and back while beating demons really considered taking good care of them?
Jungon thought about it for a moment, then reached an agreement with himself.
“Mm. Don’t worry. Neither of them is hurt. They’re having plenty of ‘fun’ with me.”
They had been wandering around while dealing with demons without encountering much danger.
If he thought of it as playing or taking a walk, it was fine.
“But what happened in the city? Can you contact Sia?”
