Chapter 41, Major Faction, The Order
A bullet was faster than the sound of the gunshot.
What did that mean?
Suppose a man had a gun pointed at him.
If he noticed the sound of the gun being fired, it was already too late.
By the time he heard the sound, the bullet had already been fired at him.
Bang!
The gunshot struck the apartment complex like lightning.
A person's visual reaction speed was around 0.1 seconds slower than their reaction to sound.
The hundreds of believers gathered in the park saw the statue being destroyed before they even heard the gunshot.
They refused to believe what their eyes were telling them, that the statue they worshiped had been pierced by a bullet.
Then the delayed gunshot forced them to accept what had happened.
A deathly silence followed.
With trembling expressions, they stared at the statue, whose head area had disappeared.
The two hands that had once looked like they were supporting the sky were gone as well.
They had probably melted from the friction heat.
Unable to believe it, the believers looked around.
Hundreds of other believers were doing exactly the same thing.
Only then did they finally accept it.
The idol they had worshiped had been destroyed.
Their lost eyes wandered around before settling on a man using crutches.
An unbelievably handsome man.
He had pale white skin that almost looked sickly, and handsome features made even more striking by his tired eyes.
Half of his left foot was missing, forcing him to use crutches.
Yet even that didn't make his appearance worse.
Instead, combined with his face, it gave him a strangely decadent charm that made people want to take care of him.
The glove worn only on his right hand, and the flames wrapped around that glove, added a mysterious feeling to him.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”
But instead of focusing on those features, the believers stared at the handgun in the man's right hand.
Smoke was still rising from it.
It looked like it had just been fired.
Their idol had been destroyed only moments ago.
Judging from the gunshot, a bullet had been responsible.
And now there was a man holding a gun right in front of them.
Their conclusion was simple.
The fanaticism that had already seeped deep into their minds pushed aside every other thought and led them toward a single answer.
Kill him.
Immediately, more than a hundred pairs of arms reached toward the man.
I fired once more at the statue when it started glowing again.
Then I gestured toward Arlin.
Arlin took one step backward.
I stepped forward.
Hundreds of hands came toward me, trying to grab me and tear me apart.
I raised my hand.
Blue flames bloomed from it and wrapped around my body.
It felt warm, like lying under a thick blanket with the heater turned on during winter.
After that, I didn't swing the flames.
Nor did I attack the people approaching me with killing intent.
I simply stood there.
Flames surrounded my entire body like an angel's halo.
They wrapped around me like the radiance of a god descending into the human world.
I stood still while holding the mysterious flame that somehow felt even more sacred than sunlight.
That alone was enough to influence the believers.
“...That is...”
“...My God.”
“Hallelujah...”
Those who had fallen into nihilism suddenly gained a new faith while looking at me, something they had previously believed was meaningless and worthless.
Nihilism.
Everything was meaningless.
Even though they believed the value of everything in existence was zero, they had now given value to the new faith growing inside their hearts.
Everything in the world was meaningless, but faith was not.
That meant faith had more value than everything else.
That was how they had fallen into fanaticism.
That had been the belief they possessed while worshiping the statue.
Now that the statue had been destroyed, that fanaticism searched for a new master.
And it turned toward me.
The believers lowered their heads and showed their submission.
It was the result created by the combination of nihilism and a mysterious sacred flame.
“...Yuhyeon. Did you plan this?”
“To some extent.”
The Church of Nihility was a new religion.
Its teachings claimed that everything else was meaningless, but their own idol was not.
Other than its incredible ability to spread, it didn't really cause direct harm to other people.
It simply made its own believers depressed.
It was a religion of self-destruction.
Killing hundreds of innocent believers simply because they had fallen for such a religion made me uncomfortable.
I'm not some kind of mass murderer. Why would I do that?
That was why I had decided to personally disperse them instead.
That was the reason I acted this way.
Still...
I had thought the effect would disappear when the statue was destroyed.
Apparently not.
Or was the effect already gone, and they were still acting like this anyway?
I looked at the believers bowing deeply toward me.
Then I asked one of them who seemed to possess particularly strong faith.
“I heard the Church of Nihility came to this apartment complex a few days ago. Were they the ones who gave you that statue?”
An elderly man looked at me with an expression of pure ecstasy.
He was so happy that tears were flowing from his eyes.
Was this how someone would react if the god of their religion appeared before them?
After calming himself, the old man answered.
“No... The people who came to the apartment complex did give us the statue, but they were not from the Church of Nihility.”
“Then who were they?”
“They called themselves the Order. After that, they left the statue behind and immediately departed.”
They left after simply dropping off the statue?
That felt extremely suspicious.
I repeated the name Order several times inside my mind.
While I was thinking deeply about it, Arlin reacted to the name.
“The Order... the Order?”
“Do you know what the Order is?”
Arlin nodded with a slightly wary expression.
“The Order is... a major faction.”
“Like the Company?”
“Yes. However, there is one major difference. The Company uses technology as its weapon, while the Order uses Mysteries.”
“Mysteries.”
“Yes, Mysteries. And... they are a major faction that possesses five Mysteries from the 900-series.”
“Wait. 900-series Mysteries? Do the Mystery numbers actually have meaning?”
The question escaped my mouth without me realizing it.
Judging by the way Arlin spoke, she clearly treated the numbers of Mysteries as meaningful.
Every Mystery had a number written in the form Scq-nnn.
Until now, I had assumed those numbers were simply meaningless labels.
Had I been wrong?
Hearing the shock in my voice, Arlin tilted her head.
Then she suddenly exclaimed.
“Ah! Come to think of it, Yuhyeon was originally an ordinary person. The things you've shown until now made me forget.”
She opened her eyes wide, as though she still couldn't quite believe it.
I immediately asked her another question.
“Can you explain what the numbers mean?”
“Yes. Of course.”
She began explaining the meaning of the numbers.
To summarize it simply, the first digit determined the category of the Mystery.
If the first digit was 1, it was an object-type Mystery.
If it was 2, it was an animal-type Mystery.
If it was 3, it was a human-type Mystery.
And so on.
If the first digit was 9, it meant the Mystery was related to mythology.
Because of that, all 900-series Mysteries were overwhelmingly powerful.
Thinking about it carefully, I had encountered three Mysteries from the 900-series until now.
The Flame of Human Sacrifice.
The Dragon.
And Regression, Possession, Reincarnation.
There was no need to even explain how absurd Regression, Possession, Reincarnation was.
As for the first two, they had displayed overwhelming power despite only being Imitation Mysteries.
Only now did I fully understand how significant the concept of a 900-series Mystery was.
“Then what about Mysteries whose first digit is zero?”
“A zero? Are you talking about two-digit Mysteries?”
“Yes. Things like the Regression, Possession, Reincarnation Gallery, mana, and divine power.”
“That... I don't know.”
Arlin shook her head.
“Understood. Well, I'm sure we'll find out someday if we keep living.”
I ended the conversation there and looked at the believers in front of me.
What should I do with them now?
Killing them wasn't even an option.
If possible, I wanted to remove their fanaticism.
But after thinking about it a little more, I decided not to interfere.
I simply told them to go home.
Belief and faith could help people endure extreme situations.
It would be a different story if that belief was nihilism, but they currently held faith in me.
In that sense, they were now slightly closer to followers of an ordinary religion.
They obediently returned home after hearing my words.
This should be enough.
Arlin and I checked the area for anything else, then I picked up one of the broken fragments of the statue.
“Feels ominous.”
I pushed the fragments into the blazing fire.
They quickly turned into worthless ash.
With the cleanup finished, Arlin spoke to me while we walked home.
“By the way, Yuhyeon. What are you going to do about the Order? It seems they were trying something inside the apartment complex.”
“For now... let's leave them alone. We already solved this problem, and it hasn't even been three days since we fought the Company. I really don't want to start fighting another major faction already.”
“Understood. An excellent decision. The Order is filled with insane fanatics. Avoiding involvement with them is the best choice.”
I felt an indescribable exhaustion at the realization that I had become connected to another major faction.
We had only survived the last journey because extraordinary luck had been on our side.
There was no guarantee that kind of luck would follow us next time.
I wanted to spend my life lying around at home while browsing the Gallery.
Once we returned home, we only told the others that the Order had been responsible for what happened.
Then we collapsed.
We had solved the biggest incident inside the apartment complex.
The other problem had something to do with raiders, right?
Ah, whatever. I'll deal with that later.
After thinking about it a little more...
Maybe dealing with it now would actually be better.
