Scratch, scratch.
Only the sound of a ballpoint pen scraping across paper filled the quiet pension living room. But even that didn’t last long.
Ian closed the notebook that had been resting on his lap. The afterglow of the modest bucket list he’d been giggling while writing down still lingered at his fingertips. But Ian’s expression as he closed the notebook had sunk to a degree that was calm to the point of being cold.
‘I can rest peacefully like this for now, but.’
He knew better than anyone that life—especially the fate of one who wore the heavy yoke of being a ‘Saint’—wasn’t so easy. The beautiful mountain range of Gangwon-do visible through the window was fiercely peaceful, but Ian felt it instinctively. This stillness was nothing but the suffocating silence right before a storm.
Gates would open again, people would get hurt, and the world would once again seek a savior. When that time came, this sweet rest would end too.
“I’ll pass on that.”
Ian shook his head and buried himself deep into the sofa.
To complete a truly ‘sweet life,’ simply running away wasn’t enough. He needed to change the system itself.
‘The problem is that only Vermouth and I are clergy.’
The supply was two, but the demand was 7 billion people worldwide. Of course it would be overloaded. Then the solution was simple. Increase the supply.
Ian closed his eyes and delved into his inner world out of habit. He sank his consciousness inward, into a deeper abyss.
Earth’s Awakeners created an organ called a ‘core’ near their heart to store magic power from the atmosphere. But Ian’s body had a core that received and released holy power. Right now, that core was as empty and hollow as a dried-up well, but within that emptiness, Ian found a very faint sensation.
Zing— ziing—
Like a morse code sent from far away, he felt a ticklish vibration from the empty circuit.
‘…As I thought.’
His intuition wasn’t wrong. An existence he’d shared souls with for five years. The goddess’s voice, which he’d thought had been disconnected when crossing dimensions, was still reaching him through a passage like a very thin crack.
‘Regnasia.’
Ian called that name inwardly. His holy power was at rock bottom, so he couldn’t immediately manifest the goddess or open the window of conversation wide like before. But he could be certain. This passage wasn’t closed. It had just narrowed temporarily.
‘If I can reach Regnasia even here on Earth.’
Ian’s mind spun rapidly.
Earth was overflowing with Awakeners who used magic power, but there were absolutely no clergy who handled holy power. What if he found those with aptitude, mediated their connection with the goddess, and made them use holy power?
But there was one problem. The source of holy power was ‘faith.’
‘Should I exploit desperate people? Families of terminally ill patients, or people driven to the edge. People like that would have the most blind faith.’
Ian thought for a moment, then shook his head vigorously.
“No, that’s not right.”
Forcing faith with others’ misfortune as collateral wasn’t something he felt was right to do even as a person, let alone as a Saint. Ian didn’t want to forcibly impose on others the heavy sense of duty he’d experienced for five years, nor did he want to exploit their suffering.
‘What I want are comrades who will share the burden with me.’
Then there was only one method.
Show them that this power wasn’t the exclusive property of someone special, but something ‘you can do too if you set your mind to it.’
“I need to show them. A definitive performance.”
Ian opened his notebook again. He turned past the front page with the bucket list and pressed his pen firmly onto the blank back page.
[ Future Plan: National Healer Training Project (Subtitle: You Can Do It Too) ]
The corners of Ian’s mouth curved up gently.
“First… I need to set up a big stage.”
He began humming and writing down detailed strategies in his notebook.
- Target:
People who wanted to help someone but were frustrated by their lack of power. (Ordinary people who failed the magic aptitude test, or those who failed to awaken. Show them new possibilities.)
- Strategy:
Large-scale performance. Proclaim: ‘This is not a miracle. This is reality that your faith can create.’
- Church Name:
Church of Regnasia?
Ian’s hand hesitated mid-writing.
He stared at the five syllables ‘Regnasia’ intently, then scratched his head vigorously.
“…Ah, but the goddess’s name is a bit of a problem.”
It was a noble and sacred name on the Lancia continent, but this was South Korea.
Someone on the street asking “Do you know the Way?” or someone asking “Do you believe in Regnasia-nim?”—in ordinary people’s eyes, it was all the same, or maybe it could even look more suspicious because of how it sounded.
“It kind of sounds like the name of a multi-level marketing training camp hiding in a Gangnam officetel.”
Ian frowned. No matter how good the contents were, if the packaging was bad, it wouldn’t sell.
“But I can’t exactly change the goddess’s name either. Should I call it ‘Church of the Goddess of Light’? No, that sounds even more like a cult. Should I just make it in English to make it look sophisticated?”
Ian giggled to himself and shook his head. If the goddess heard this, she’d strike him down with lightning for blasphemy, but what could he do? Localization was basic for local adaptation.
“I’ll worry about the name again later.”
Ian grinned and filled in the next line.
- Helpers:
For this grand show, money and force were needed.
– Funding & Planning: My hyungs.
– Security & Hype Man: Holy Knight Vermouth. (Just standing him next to me increases credibility. And he’s living proof who can testify that what I say is true.)
“Good, I just need to ask my hyungs and Vermouth to help.”
Ian closed the notebook with a satisfied face.
Even if the name was a bit cult-like, its purpose was in the right place. Increase the clergy to increase the people who could respond to the demon race.
Ian’s eyes sparkled as he planned the perfect future where he could rest.
***
Same time. The adjacent building in the pension complex, ‘Pine Breeze Building.’
In the dark living room with the lights off, Choi Jaeheon was pressed against the window. In his hand was a military-grade high-performance telescope, and his gaze was fixed on the living room window of the main building where Ian was staying.
“…Hey, Vermouth. You’re watching too, right?”
Choi Jaeheon’s voice trembled.
“Yes, I’m watching.”
Vermouth, standing like a shadow in a corner of the room in the darkness, answered in a low voice.
“Ian smiled. While writing something in his notebook, he smiled with a very satisfied and determined expression. Did he add more things he wants to eat? Does he want a late-night snack? Ah, I’m going crazy. I want to go ask him right now.”
Choi Jaeheon stomped his feet anxiously. The Guild Master of Stigma, South Korea’s largest guild, hiding like a stray cat in a Gangwon-do mountain pension worrying about his little brother’s snack menu—what a sight. Moreover, as this kind of life continued, he seemed to have grown closer to Vermouth than at first. It probably stemmed from their shared feeling of not being able to keep Ian by their side right now.
“Calm down. If we move rashly now and Ian-nim catches us, we’re finished.”
Vermouth pointed out coldly. But he wasn’t entirely calm either. Vermouth’s blue eyes stared piercingly in Ian’s direction. The knight’s keen senses were seeing things Choi Jaeheon couldn’t see.
‘Just now, for just a fleeting moment….’
That brief moment when Ian opened his notebook and closed his eyes. The air around the main building twisted strangely. A wave completely different from magic power, far more transcendent and holy, spread out as if washing over the space before disappearing.
‘That’s holy power. They said he couldn’t use his powers, so how?’
Vermouth’s brow narrowed. Ian didn’t seem to be simply resting. Something—he was definitely drawing a grand picture in that small head of his.
The two men were putting their heads together fiercely for Ian’s perfect vacation. But contrary to their wishes, this peace was fated not to last long.
***
The other side of the Earth, the middle of the Nevada desert in the United States.
In the wasteland where hot sandy winds whirled, stood one large-framed man.
Alexander, Guild Master of America’s strongest guild, ‘Empire Guild.’
On his shoulder rested a massive and heavy black hammer so large that even two adult men would struggle to lift it, yet it sat there lightly. The Lord of Destruction who pulverized battlefields based on overwhelming physical abilities. That was Alexander’s epithet.
“…Nothing here.”
Alexander muttered as he took off his sunglasses. In front of him was nothing but empty desert.
Recently, strange reports had been coming in succession from areas under Empire Guild’s jurisdiction. When they responded to the scene after Gate occurrence signs were detected, the Gate had already disappeared without a trace.
‘Gates don’t close naturally.’
Either a dungeon break occurred and monsters poured out, or hunters went in and killed the boss—it had to be one of the two. A Gate that opened and closed without a sound—it was theoretically impossible.
Alexander had been personally visiting sites for days now, chasing this ghost-like phenomenon. This coordinate was the same. A B-rank scale Gate wave had definitely been detected, but the site was clean. As if someone had erased it with an eraser.
