Chapter 49, Lee Yeonhee (3)
The Order.
Hunting.
I truly never imagined those two words would come out of his mouth together.
For now, I didn't interrupt him and simply listened.
The old man continued.
“They used that statue to control us and made us dare point our blades at the Flame, so we prepared a trap and hunted them. By any chance... was that something the Flame did not wish for?”
“No, well... you did a good job.”
“Thank you. To continue, after we hunted them, we tried to remove their hearts, but instead of hearts, those fragments were inside their chests.”
“Wait.”
The fact that they had deliberately tried to remove the hearts from the corpses was shocking.
The fact that the followers of the Order had fragments inside the places where their hearts should have been was also shocking.
I couldn't help having questions.
Why did they kill them and then try to remove their hearts?
When I asked myself that question, I unexpectedly realized the answer.
Hadn't they kept talking about offerings this whole time?
They had planned to offer me the hearts of the people they hunted!
It was insanely horrifying.
And yet, for some reason, I felt like that was probably the correct answer.
I thought I had accidentally created a cult.
But apparently, I had created a primitive religion instead.
Was the visual impact of the flame really that powerful?
Powerful enough to turn depressed and helpless nihilists into insane fanatics in an instant?
I was about to say something to them, then closed my mouth.
Thinking about it, the result itself had been nothing but beneficial.
The followers of the Order were dead.
And I had received some fragments that I didn't understand, but that clearly seemed useful.
The Order might try to trace the cause of their followers' deaths.
But what kind of world was this?
It was an apocalypse filled with Mysteries.
In a world where people dying wasn't anything unusual, I doubted they would go out of their way to investigate just because a few followers had died.
After thinking it through, I ended up praising the old man in front of me.
“You did well.”
“Thank you...!”
At my praise, he burst into tears and slammed his head to the ground.
He hit it hard enough that his forehead split and blood began pouring out.
I wrapped a bandage around his head using the supplies I had, then sent him away.
Before leaving, he handed me five more fragments.
And just like that, he left.
Standing in the hallway, I rolled the fragments around in my hand.
The small pieces moved around here and there.
Strangely, none of them ever collided with each other.
Like transparent holograms, they overlapped or passed straight through one another without any impact, as though the others didn't exist.
They definitely had mass since I could hold them in my hand.
Interesting.
I played with the fragments for a little longer, then turned around.
When I opened the door and went back inside, my companions gathered in front of me.
Their eyes sparkled as they focused on my hand.
All of their attention was directed toward the fragments.
Every one of them stared at what I was holding.
None of them asked me what the fragments were.
Each of them had long since left the realm of ordinary humans, so they had already heard the entire conversation outside.
“So these are byproducts that came out after killing members of the Order. I've never heard of anything like this before. Could it be a new Mystery?”
“It's not exactly common to cut open a corpse and remove its heart. But I don't think it's a new Mystery. This... feels familiar somehow.”
“Dad! Isn't this that thing?! That glowing thing!”
Arlin and Hwa-ryeon had been staring at the fragments uncertainly.
The moment Confirmation Bias spoke, they both seemed to realize something.
They shouted almost in unison.
“That's it! Divine power!”
“Divine power!”
I nodded at their words.
Since I could immediately check Lucy whenever a new Mystery was added, I had already guessed that the fragments were related to divine power.
There was no way I wouldn't notice after simply holding one made the symptoms of the virus improve.
After realizing what the fragments were, Arlin began touching one of them with a rare look of excitement in her eyes.
“A fragment of divine power condensed enough to be touched by hand... I never imagined something like this could exist.”
“Come to think of it, the cat stopped crying just now. Could this be the good fortune the cat was talking about?”
“This certainly qualifies as good fortune. If divine power is condensed to this degree, then perhaps...”
“Perhaps?”
“Just perhaps, if you continue carrying these around, Yuhyeon may be able to overcome the virus even without Lee Yeonhee's treatment.”
Arlin's words sounded reasonable.
My head had definitely felt clearer ever since I received the fragments.
But whether that meant I could be completely cured was another matter.
It certainly made me feel better.
But it didn't seem quite strong enough to completely cure me.
That was about how powerful the six fragments felt.
“If we increase the number of fragments...”
“Then we'd have to kill members of the Order. That's a bit of a gamble. This only happened because they came to the apartment complex first.”
If I wanted more fragments than this, I would have to actively search for the Order.
And that meant I would become directly involved with them.
