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Chapter 311

On the first day back, I did nothing. I just rested. Since I always spent my time doing something, I found it difficult to do nothing.

I tried to do something, anything. What could I do?

My mother had died in the underground prison, and I hadn\'t been able to do anything. I hadn’t been able to save my mother, nor mourn in front of her dead body. As the Cult Leader of the Voodoo Cult hiding within the Romanican Church, I could not even feely express my own emotions.

Although I might appear competent and free to the Romanicans, it was all a lie, a mere illusion of a free soul.

[Have you made your decision?]

Baron Samedi came. He was smoking a cigar, fogging up the room with thick smoke. Perhaps it was due to his deep-set silk hat resting deep on his head, but his red eyes were not visible.

Had I made a decision? Upon listening to his question, I recalled what he had said, how a day would come when I must choose.

"A decision."

[Yes, a choice.]

"Do I have one?"

[You do. For now,] Baron Samedi said calmly.

I hated seeing him so calm.

I got up from my seat and approached Baron Samedi. I shoved my face into his silk hat. His hidden red eyes appeared and gazed fiercely back at me, but I was not afraid.

"Why are you here? Are you here to implant meaningless anxiousness within me with riddles I won\'t understand?"

[Don\'t direct your anger toward me.]

"Then who should I be angry with?"

I stared through his red gaze, visible under the silk hat. Baron Samedi exhaled smoke onto my face.

I didn\'t close my eyes—it wouldn\'t hurt anyway. Baron Samedi took a step back and distanced himself from me. I glared at his faintly glowing red eyes.

"You could have saved my mom."

[That wasn’t possible.]

"Why? If you\'re going to talk about some shit causation rule or whatever, I\'ll smash that skull of yours right now."

[...]

"Honestly, you could have saved her. No, even now. Maybe you could revive her..."

I stopped talking. As the Prophet, I knew Baron Samedi couldn’t return the dead. Even so, I hoped he could save my mother. I wished for her to come back to life through a miracle, coincidence, fate, luck, anything. I wished for it, even though I knew it was impossible.

[There was a way to save her. But she gave it up herself.]

"..."

[All to save you.]

After the Holy War ended and my father and mother disappeared, I fell ill. I was supposed to die back then. My mother saved me by paying the price with the Contract of the Dead and sent all the Loa to me. It kept me alive and the reason my mother was dead. That was also why the Crossroads felt so familiar to me. I had been there when I went to the Crossroads for the Contract of the Dead.

One Prophet could potentially use the Contract of the Dead three times. However, I’d already used it twice: once when I was sick and another after the battle with Jun-Hyuk. So, I could only use the Contract of the Dead once more.

"Then, with the Contract of the Dead, I’ll bring back Moth..."

I momentarily thought I could save my mother using the Contract of the Dead.

[The Contract of the Dead cannot bring back the dead.]

Of course, that was impossible.

"Did my mother also sacrifice her sense of touch like I did?" I finally asked Baron Samedi.

My last hope was that my mom had at least not felt any pain while enduring the brutal torture. I prayed that she didn’t feel the excruciating pain when they burned her flesh, pulled out her nails, slashed her tendons, and scrapped her flesh from her bones. I prayed that she naturally passed away without even realizing that death had been brought onto her.

[That was not the case.]

Of course, the reality was always different from my hopes.

"Why?"

[Because you were unlucky with your dice roll.]

Bang!

I pushed Baron Samedi against the wall and grabbed his throat. His silk hat, which he always wore, came off, and the cigar he smoked fell to the ground. As they fell off his body, they turned into a purple mist and disappeared as if they had never been there in the first place.

"Are you here to mock me?" I asked Baron Samedi casually, even as I held his throat.

Baron Samedi did not respond. He silently stared at me for a moment, then melted into a purple mist, as if he had never been there in the first place. As he vanished, everything seemed like it had just been my imagination.

Everything I had been holding onto disappeared as if it had never existed, as if it had all been a figment of my imagination.

I had been chasing the past. My desires had been stuck in the time when my father died in the Holy War eight years ago, and my mother was imprisoned underground. The only purpose of my life had been to save my mother. What was there to live for, and what should I move forward for?

I could not even dwell on the past. I tried to rise above the pain of the past by saving my mother, but I realized that I now had no ground to stand on. There was no reason to live and no reason to move forward anymore.

Had I ever truly been alive, to begin with?

"..."

Krrch, krrrrch.

I clawed at my skin. My whole body felt hot and itchy. However, no matter how much I scratched my skin, I couldn\'t feel anything, and I couldn\'t feel pain at all. It was because I had been unlucky with my dice.

I tried to escape from the endless itchiness and burning sensation. I tore the flesh and blood from my body. I only fell further in my desperate struggle to escape the crumbling. I had lived every day with the help of a mere handful of hope. Now that that handful was gone, I had to face the despair I had been avoiding.

"..."

I didn\'t go anywhere or eat anything. I stayed locked in my room. On the first day, I heard Uncle Jin-Sung screaming beyond the door and Anna and Soo-Yeong sobbing. From the second day on, I didn\'t even hear those voices. Uncle hadn’t stopped screaming, nor had Anna and Soo-Yeong stopped crying. They still screamed and cried, but their voices didn’t reach me. When their voices no longer reached me, I was alone in the underground chapel.

On the third day, I felt hallucinations of ants crawling on my body. The ants were crawling inside me, and I had no choice but to scratch my skin to get them out.

On the fourth day, I couldn\'t even tell if it was night or day. Was it really the fourth day?

On the fifth day, the blood and flesh I had scattered in the room began to rot. From then on, I couldn\'t walk. The ground sank deeply every time I took a step.

On the sixth day, I heard a Loa\'s voice. It was not clear; it was jumbled and mixed up, and I couldn\'t understand what anyone was saying.

On the seventh day, I closed my eyes. The darkness in front of my eyes turned black and white repeatedly. As time passed, the monotonous and dreadful repetition didn\'t even was no longer boring to me anymore. I couldn’t see anything. There was only darkness.

Knock, knock.

A few minutes, hours, or maybe days had passed. Someone knocked on my door.

The door opened. Light poured in through the crack in the door.

"Cult Leader."

Ji-Ah looked at me expressionlessly. She didn\'t look sad, nor did she look like she pitied me. Seeing how indifferent she was to me when I was the most changed made me sad.

She was holding a container with food inside. It seemed like she had brought it to feed me.

"You have to eat something."

Beyond the open door, I could see the food she had left behind. She seemed to have left food in front of my door every day. Beyond the door, I could see Uncle, Anna, and Soo-Yeong.

Uncle was cleaning up the mess in the underground chapel. Anna wasn\'t crying anymore, and Soo-Yeong was talking with the older brother I rescued from the underground prison. This wasn\'t a distorted past or a fanciful future. It was the reality and present. My present.

I stood up.

*

"I’m going to open it, okay?"

After finishing lunch, In-Ah went outside to sit with her friends. Today was the last day of the midterm exams, and report cards were distributed to everyone. Upon receiving her report card, In-Ah immediately folded it without opening it. She decided to check her grades together with her friends.

"O-okay. I’m going to open it, alright?" In-Ah said to her friends with a trembling voice.

Her friends frowned as if they were impatient. "Oh, check it already! It\'s not a big deal. Making a fuss over a written test report card."

"You\'ll probably be in first place anyway."

"What do you mean, probably first place? I don\'t think I did that well on this test...."

Snap!

In-Ah no longer delayed and unfolded the report card to check her score. As soon as she unfolded it, the words \'1st place\' caught her eye.

The words were written crisply and clearly as if congratulating In-Ah on her work. In-Ah\'s friends laughed as if they had expected that.

"What’d I say? I told you she got first place."

"Wow, to go through all that just for her to get first place... Let\'s just get out of here and hang out without In-Ah."

"Wait, what? Don’t leave me behind! Hey, wait for me!"

In-Ah chased after her friends who were leaving without her. At first, they seemed to be running away from In-Ah, but later, they walked side by side with her, matching her pace. In-Ah and her friends walked around F.A. until the next class and chatted.

They shared meaningless stories that weren\'t interesting but made them laugh.

"I\'m glad I got first place. I was worried about what would happen if I didn\'t," In-Ah suddenly said as if she had just remembered something.

Her friends nodded in agreement. "Right, I’m glad you got first place. But who else would get first place if not you? Sun-Woo and Yu-Hyun, they’re..."

"Hey, hey."

Before the friend could say anything, another friend hastily interrupted them. Darkness fell over In-Ah\'s face, even though she had been innocently smiling just a moment ago.

Sun-Woo had not been attending school recently or for quite some time. Yu-Hyun was the same, but he was not at school to prepare for the papal conclave. However, no one knew why Sun-Woo wasn\'t coming to school.