Chapter 45, Raiders (3)
The first thing I did was observe the raiders' reactions.
Every one of them reacted differently.
Some simply stood there blinking, as if they still couldn't understand what had just happened.
Some narrowed their eyes and carefully searched the surroundings, wondering if there had been some kind of trick.
Others simply stared blankly at Epsilon.
Most of them stood there in a daze, but there were also quite a few who looked at the man on the second floor with admiration.
The flashlights shining on him from all directions were so bright that it was hard to even see his face properly.
A man whose face was hidden by light had just been shot at, yet the one who fell was the person who fired the gun.
That mysterious phenomenon overlapped perfectly with the mysterious man everyone here already looked up to.
Humans naturally searched for answers.
When faced with something strange that they couldn't explain, they often used something equally strange as the explanation.
Ancient people had once looked at things they couldn't understand, such as lightning or lunar eclipses, and thought of gods.
This was no different.
“...Was that some carefully planned show?”
“A miracle...”
“Epsilon, he will become the leader who guides us through these collapsing times!”
A mysterious phenomenon.
And standing there at just the right moment was a mysterious man wrapped in light, the same man who had created the raider group chat that once had as many as 1,300 members.
The raiders connected those two related facts.
They came to one conclusion.
Epsilon used a mysterious miracle to judge the assassin.
That thought naturally turned into worship.
The desire to rely on him and believe in him began growing inside their hearts.
Of course, all of that could have been wrong.
It could have been a performance planned in advance.
Epsilon might have been nothing more than an ordinary person.
But the truth didn't matter to the raiders.
Recently, their companions had been dying one after another for unknown reasons, so everyone had been feeling anxious.
Their minds were already weakened.
Then they received an invitation to this gathering and came here as if making a desperate gamble.
People drowning in anxiety needed someone they could rely on.
An unbreakable iron man.
A heaven-sent visionary.
A great person capable of leading them.
Epsilon perfectly matched what they wanted.
He had created a raider organization in the form of a group chat, and that organization had grown to a huge size.
And after witnessing the miracle just now, what more needed to be said?
The feelings inside them, almost like religious faith, fed on their desire to believe in Epsilon and rapidly grew.
Those who were moved by him lowered their heads to show their feelings.
“...The Order.”
Watching them, I thought of the Order.
I also remembered the Church of Nihility they had planted inside the apartment complex.
The raider group was completely different in structure and form from the Church of Nihility.
So why did looking at them remind me of it?
I frowned as I stared at the words [The Order] written inside Lucy.
I wanted to kill that man called Epsilon immediately.
But I crushed down the violence trying to burst free from inside me and waited a little longer.
I was curious about what Epsilon would do after gaining the faith of so many raiders.
Conveniently, he was just about to act.
From the second floor, he stared silently at the corpse with a hole through its head.
Then he opened his mouth.
“Someone has died.”
“...”
“Yes, someone died. It's unfortunate, but it couldn't be helped. He tried to kill me.”
“...”
“Everyone who commits a sin must eventually pay a fitting price. And murder is a serious sin. A very serious one.”
“...”
“So I hope none of you will commit murder. Just like this man, you never know when you might be forced to pay the price.”
It was an extremely unexpected thing to say.
If this weren't an abandoned factory...
If he weren't the creator of a raider group chat...
I might have mistaken him for a religious man, maybe even a pastor.
After calmly expressing his thoughts, he raised his hand.
Because I was watching closely, I noticed a glow gathering around it.
The flashlights shining on him made me notice it a little late, but a strangely heavy light seemed to wrap around his hand.
It was warm.
It felt sacred.
And strangely familiar.
I narrowed my eyes and searched through my memories.
Then I realized what the light was.
Divine power.
The light around Epsilon felt exactly the same as Lee Yeonhee's divine power.
While controlling that divine power, he spoke to the corpse.
“You tried to kill me, and that was clearly a sin. Even so, I forgive you. May you be blessed.”
Epsilon waved his hand.
For a moment, the glow became stronger.
The hole in the corpse's head closed.
I wondered if the dead man was actually going to come back to life.
But that didn't happen.
It seemed to be nothing more than a performance.
Still, he seemed better at using divine power than Lee Yeonhee.
That was about the extent of my reaction.
The raiders were different.
They lowered their heads.
Heavy thump, thump sounds echoed from different places.
To people who didn't know divine power existed, Epsilon probably looked like the second coming of Jesus.
With that single performance, he made nearly thirty percent of the hundreds of raiders deeply submit to him.
Is Epsilon's goal to make them worship him?
If so, one thing didn't make sense.
Why was he using the flashlights to hide the glow of his divine power?
Being wrapped in sacred light would have been an incredible visual performance.
Why deliberately hide it behind flashlights?
I couldn't find the answer.
So I decided to ask him directly.
