The Cult Leader in the Clergy Academy

Chapter 312

When I came out of my room, the underground chapel seemed brighter than I had thought. Or perhaps my room had been darker than I had thought. It was hard to tell.

Either way, I finally managed to leave my room and eat the rice gruel that Ji-Ah had made for me. I couldn't taste anything, but eating something made me feel a bit more energized.

Soo-Yeong's older brother was already awake. I approached him, who was with Soo-Yeong, and asked for his name.

As soon as he saw me, he kneeled down and asked, "Cult Leader, is that you?"

I nodded without answering.

"I am Ha Soo-Hyun."

I nodded again without answering.

Ha Soo-Hyun. His name was similar to Soo-Yeong's, so I probably wouldn’t forget it. But I could also get it confused with Soo-Yeong's name since it was so similar.

Soo-Yeong stared at me blankly. Normally, she would have said something to me, but it seemed like she wasn’t saying anything for some reason. It felt as if she found it difficult to talk to me.

"What is it?" I asked.

Soo-Yeong flinched. "No, it’s just..."

"Relax," I said to Soo-Yeong and smiled softly.

Only then did Soo-Yeong seem to somewhat relax.

Uncle was cleaning the underground chapel, and I was helping him. We didn't say anything to each other. Uncle didn't speak to me first, and I didn't speak to Uncle first.

There was a brief period of silence. The silence felt comfortable to me and probably to him too. We silently cleaned up the messy underground chapel. While we were doing so, Ji-Ah tried to clean my room.

I stopped her and said, "I'll do it."

"I'll do it. Am I not better at cleaning than the Cult Leader?"

"I want to clean it."

"..."

Ji-Ah didn't say anything more and stepped aside. After roughly organizing the underground chapel, I returned to my room and cleaned up the scattered blood and flesh.

A terrible stench emanated from the room, similar to the stench in the underground prison. It could roughly be described as the smell of corpses.

Even after clearing the room and spraying air freshener, the smell persisted. I thought that it was because the smell had stained the room, but that wasn’t the case.

The smell was coming from me. I had not yet healed the wounds I had inflicted on myself while I was trapped in the room. Some wounds had healed and left scars, some had festered and rotted, but most of the wounds were left untreated, neither healing nor rotting.

I washed my body first, which helped reduce the smell a bit. Then I looked in the mirror. There were many wounds. Fortunately, the wounds on my face had not festered yet, so I could heal them without leaving scars if I used a restoration spell.

I gradually erased the wounds on my body with restoration spells. Some scars remained, but the foul smell dissipated.

After everything was cleaned up, the underground chapel was the same as usual. Over the next few days, Uncle, Ji-Ah, Soo-Yeong, and Anna all returned to normal.

Anna asked, "How are you feeling?"

She seemed to be looking at me with an extremely pitiful expression. It was the type of gaze that I hated the most.

For a moment, it felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I managed to force a smile.

"The same as usual," I replied curtly.

Right after the end of the Holy War, I thought my mother had died. I only discovered that she was alive and imprisoned in the underground prison much later.

Therefore, there was no reason for me to despair over my mother's death. If I just thought about it like I was returning to that period of time when I believed that my mother was dead, then I would be fine.

I could be with everyone in the underground chapel—Uncle, Ji-Ah, Soo-Yeong, Anna, and the others—and everything would be the same as before. I deceived many students at Florence Academy and many Romanican clergymen. When necessary, I even deceived members of the Voodoo Cult, and sometimes I even lied to the Loa.

Lying and deceiving others was something that I was all too familiar with. Even if the target of that deception was myself, it was no different.

***

Sung Yu-Da was in the research lab, waiting for something. While sitting in his chair, he continuously shook his leg, closed his eyes tightly and then opened them again, and aimlessly tapped his desk with his fingers. He was anxious.

Buzz―!

Sung Yu-Da’s phone vibrated, and he quickly picked it up. Sun-Woo was calling. The call he had been waiting for finally came. He swallowed his saliva and answered the phone.

"Is that so?" He quietly replied to Sun-Woo's voice coming from the other end of the phone.

Sun-Woo continued to speak. Sung Yu-Da nodded his head and listened closely. He had nothing to say. He could not say anything. Just listening to Sun-Woo's words was all he could do. He felt powerless, and the powerlessness he felt was excruciating.

"I understand."

Beep.

After replying to Sun-Woo, Sung Yu-Da hung up the phone. He stood up abruptly from his seat where he had been aimlessly sitting. Then he sat back down. And then he stood back up again. He continued to repeat this action.

He would stand up to walk, but then he would sit back down again. All of his actions were meaningless.

"Ah, aah...!"

Sung Yu-Da finally sat down and began to wail. His wailing was also meaningless.

Sung Yu-Da shed tears. His tears were also pointless. Sung Yu-Da could no longer do anything. All his actions had lost any meaning.

He had no more method to repent left. There was also no way for him to reach salvation. He could neither repent nor be saved now.

There was only one path left for him now. No, that path was not left for him but given to him.

***

Seeing how her friends suddenly went silent when Sun-Woo was mentioned, In-Ah pretended to be nonchalant and said, "What’s the problem? I’m fine."

She really was fine. Sun-Woo hadn’t even contacted her once recently, and he had suddenly disappeared without a word as if he had died, but In-Ah was fine.

It was because Sun-Woo was frequently like that. He always disappeared without a word. But even so, he would eventually come back, so In-Ah was fine. As long as she just waited, he would come back someday.

That was just the type of person Sun-Woo was.

"Really? Then we’ll just talk about Sun-Woo, alright? Can we gossip about him too?"

"No, that's not allowed. You can’t do that to my friend―!"

Thud!

At that moment, a large person suddenly appeared in front of In-Ah and her friends who were walking and chatting absentmindedly. In-Ah and her friends were all overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of the giant figure.

"Oh, sorry! I didn't see you there."

However, upon realizing that the person was Dae-Man, everyone relaxed. Despite his imposing stature, Dae-Man had a very gentle personality. He was famous for not getting angry about most things.

"Are you okay? It's fortunate that I bumped into you lightly!"

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine but..."

"Ah, it was a light bump, but you could still have been hurt. It was only a light bump from my perspective... Anyway, I’m sorry!” Dae-Man apologized a few more times before going on his way.

Dae-Man was with Su-Ryeon. The two of them talked affectionately as if they were lovers.

"Right, Dae-Man. When you came out of the gym last time, you were with a girl. Who was she?"

"A girl? Oh... I was in the same class with a girl named Ha-Rin last year. We often exercise together."

“Oh, often... Are you crazy? Do you want to die?"

"No? What’s the problem? I seriously only exercised with Ha-Rin. I didn't do anything else with her."

“You can exercise by yourself. Why do you have to do it with her?!” Su-Ryeon said before kicking Dae-Man.

Su-Ryeon hit Dae-Man, but he just smiled as if he was fine with it.

In-Ah and her friends watched quietly and then burst into laughter. Recently, there were rumors circulating in school that Dae-Man and Su-Ryeon were dating. They denied it themselves, but the rumors were clearly true from the way they interacted and stuck together at school.

Dae-Man had a large build but seemed dull while Su-Ryeon was small but quick. They matched each other very well, complemented each other's weaknesses, and highlighted each other's strengths.

In-Ah and her friends also met Min-Seo while walking. Min-Seo used to hang out with Su-Ryeon all the time, but after Su-Ryeon and Dae-Man became a thing, she hung out alone. However, Min-Seo seemed comfortable being alone. When she was alone, she seemed at ease and rather uncomfortable with others.

"Min-Seo, I heard your personality has improved lately," one of In-Ah's friends said to Min-Seo.

In reality, Min-Seo's personality hadn't improved. She just lived quietly without causing any trouble, and as a result, the students were now saying that her personality had improved. Her reputation had automatically improved despite doing absolutely nothing.

"Jin-Seo is always at the sacred training ground. Isn't she tired?"

When Jin-Seo was at school, she spent all day in training sessions at the sacred training ground. Many juniors found that cool and copied her.

"Hey, did you see the banner? Ha-Yeon really lives diligently. I can't live like that."

Ha-Yeon conducted research at the Central Priesthood, inventing and discovering various blessings and miracles. Just like Sung Yu-Da, who left his mark on history with various achievements, Ha-Yeon was steadily moving toward the top of her field.

"..."

Through her friends, In-Ah heard about the various news and events at Florence Academy. She heard that someone dropped out of Florence Academy and joined a mercenary corps, and another person received disciplinary action for causing an accident.

In-Ah didn't pay much attention because the news felt too distant for her. It wasn’t news about her or someone she knew, but about some other person who she didn’t know.

As she listened to the pointless stories, In-Ah felt that everything was the same as usual.

Certain things had changed, like Su-Ryeon and Dae-Man's relationship, Min-Seo's personality, Yu-Hyun, Jin-Seo, and a few other things. However, she felt that everything had only changed a little and that nothing had changed significantly. It was a sudden thought that had come to her mind.

In-Ah looked up at the sky. Summer was approaching, and the sunlight was gradually getting warmer.

"Hey."

In-Ah turned her head toward the voice—it was Sun-Woo.

"Hey, you..."

In-Ah was about to say something to Sun-Woo, but she closed her mouth.

Florence Academy was still the same as usual, and In-Ah was the same too. In this unchanged space, only Sun-Woo seemed different. He had changed, but she couldn’t exactly tell what had changed.

"What’s wrong with you?" In-Ah asked.

Sun-Woo did not respond. He just stood there, looking at In-Ah with a strange and vague expression, neither smiling nor frowning.