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Audit Team of the Union (3)

The darkness whispered.

When I opened my eyes, nothing greeted me but pure darkness. In the shadows that passed thickly through my surroundings, I faced a landscape that felt oddly familiar.

‘In that place… is where the god must be!’

It was our second encounter with each other. Its shape was more apparent than the first time I saw it. Flesh bloomed in the dark. Seven thin, pale arms wavered like it was dancing along with the silent melody of the abyss. I knew the gaze I felt coming from its bare face covered with flesh wasn’t an illusion. Tenacious and curious eyes looked at the cut eighth arm and me alternately. I recognized the deity.

‘Igras-Sho.’

The darkness whispered.

We meet again.

The terrible toxicity flowing from the cut section of its body tightened all over my entirety. I held on to my consciousness with all my might against the suffocating scent of jasmine. Like last time, a foreign presence tried to penetrate my mind, but…

– … Th_e_Su_c_ce_ssor’_s_E_ye_s resists to [?????? (Rank: ?????)]. The resistance effect is not perfect because of the overwhelmin_g_p_ow_e_r…

Still, [The Successor’s Eyes] barely managed to keep it out of my head. The darkness giggled in fascination.

‘Although it’s just by a little bit, it has definitely become denser than the last time we met. I see your soul is still as strong as ever. How long must you have spent refining it? How many times did you honed and hammered yourself to become this hard? If you’re a mortal, even if you don’t remember, it should have been enough for you to go mad…’

The god murmured again somewhere near, yet it remained far away.

‘I see. Is that why you can receive my glance and hold on in my presence? That’s what makes you even more qualified. Now then, say it with those lips. What do you want from me?’

The divine being encouraged me to speak of my wish out loud. I desperately tried to recall my memory amid the pressure that made me feel like my existence itself was about to collapse. Still, amid the torrent of my reeling self, I remembered what I talked about with Adam.

‘I have to specify the content of the wish as detailed as possible!’

Contrary to what my reason told me, my instinct to get out of that situation right away gave me the strong urge to simply say my wish in the simplest form. To ‘save me from this situation,’ or ‘keep me safe from Albanos.’ But I knew I shouldn’t do that.

‘Into what form do you think it would materialize if you wish it to keep you safe? Interpreting it literally, it could turn you into a being so transcendent that even the Union could never lay their hands on you ever again, much less the members of Albanos.’

Adam’s words kept passing through my head.

‘But on the contrary, that would mean no Albanos can ever remain hostile against you… You can even force their species to go extinct in every universe. Whatever form of the two is implemented, the size of the wish is too vast. It will reach a point where it would be too dangerous!’

The grander the wish was, the more impossible it became to measure the strength of the recoil that would return when all three had been used. Hence, I desperately suppressed the instinct that was telling me to flee. Instead, I prayed to the god of magic, using my memory as a guide.

“The Albanos… I want all of the Albanos that exist at this very moment… to fear me…”

The words ‘this very moment’ were necessarily added because I was worried that it would touch even the spirits of Albanos that existed in the past, twisting the passages of time.

“… In such a way that they can never dare express their hostility towards me ever again!”

I barely got to finish my sentence.

“That is what I desire!”

Then I felt a terrible pain in my fingers. Beyond the distant heat, the deity replied.

‘Yes, I will help you.’

And it closed our conversation up with a phrase.

‘From this point on, you only have two left—my child.’

*

The three Albanos, who surrounded Seo Jin-Wook, were baffled by the strange and drastic change in the situation.

“What… is that?”

It was an unusual sight even for them.

Until just recently, they had completely suppressed Seo Jin-Wook and were on the verge of successfully kidnapping him. They weren’t sure since when the Albanos began to antagonize the successor. Looking back on their history, whenever they were intertwined with the beings suspected to be the successor, their territories were reduced. That was because the species they were using as slaves were liberated one by one.

As a result of the multiple repetitions of such incidents, the Albanos’ status shrunk and became shabby enough to reach the point where it was hard to find the glory of their past.

“He must… definitely be the successor!”

The descendants of Albanos succeeded in identifying the existence of the successor. After that, if they found the successor, the value that the successor had to pay back for the defeat and disgrace of their ancestors had been settled as if it was a given.

And in that generation, success was just around the corner. The Albanos had reached the closest they had ever been to capturing the successor, and they were never going to let him go after they had imprisoned him. At least that was the case until an unexpected event occurred.

Zoom!

Darkness was flowing and wobbling endlessly from Seo Jin-Wook’s body.

The Albanos that held the metal whip looked down at his empty hand. It had been there since Jin-Wook jumped, but it was no longer anywhere to be seen. The artifact that caused terrible pain by gripping Seo Jin-Wook’s ankle disappeared without a trace. There was neither a flash of light nor a flutter of air in the process.

He felt like he was possessed. No, it would have been better if he had actually become a ghost.

“No way!”

They looked at their colleague that acted as the leader among the three.

“Hurry up and give us instructions! What should we do now?” “How… How should I know?!”

And ‘it’ opened its eyes.

Beeeeep!

The warning alarm went off in unison from the artifacts that the Albanos members were equipped with. It was called by as a sacred force detector if described only through its pure function. It suddenly screamed like a roar when it didn’t even respond when Seo Jin-Wook moved his sacred item inside the restaurant and shed blood from his fingers.

“No!”

Albanos suffered several disastrous defeats and despair during their long history, which not only included disgraces where the successor was involved but also several disasters that occurred because of divine beings. It was due to them that their species was fully aware of how dangerous a deity was.

“R-run away!”

It was too late. The one that borrowed Seo Jin-Wook’s looks, but who wasn’t Seo Jin-Wook, spoke.

‘Even though you already heard the truth with your own ears and confirmed it with your own eyes, but you did not believe it because your idiocy has already poisoned your mind.’

Trembling, the three Albanos knelt down. They realized, due to despair, what would happen from that point on, causing them to instantly regret their actions. Seo Jin-Wook, who they tried to kidnap that day, was not only just a successor.

“P-please forgive us for our foolishness! We believe the truth now! We acknowledge that the one in front of us is a servant who carries your glorious will!”

As Seo Jin-Wook claimed, he was indeed a being that the god of magic chose. They had no choice but to believe in his words, for in front of them… a great being had revealed itself to declare its will! They shouted desperately and urgently, but it was useless. The darkness whispered.

‘Bugs.’

“Please!”

‘You still refused to believe it after hearing it and refused to acknowledge after seeing. In such a case, where is the use for thee?’

At that moment, the focus disappeared from the eyes of Albanos that grabbed Seo Jin-Wook’s ankle. He raised his pointed finger, then… Stab! Rip! The other two had no choice but to watch the scene, in sheer fear and hopelessness, where their fellow being’s own hands slowly tore off his ears and eyes. The Albanos collapsed and died in the very same ground where his green blood had scattered. The anger of the divine being did not stop there.

‘Bugs. ’

“Forgive… Please forgive us!”

How dare you desire the one to be sacrificed to me and lay your hands on him?

“N-n-no!”

‘Why should I leave your impertinent hands alone without punishing them?’

At that moment, another unusual occurrence happened around the hands of the Albanos.

“…!”

Starting from the tip of his sharp nails, his hands slowly became a cloud of black dust and disappeared. Even though his hands were being scattered in the air, he did not feel pain. It was as if his senses had become numb. Instead, the unrealistic feeling gave him a more profound fear. In a state where he couldn’t feel anything, he kept screaming desperately. When his limbs had disappeared entirely, the gray lines spread to the chest, and his lungs melted into the air. No longer capable of breathing in or creating even the faintest sound, his mouth only puffed. Still, he did not die immediately. He lost his life only after his head turned entirely into ashes.

‘Bug.’

There was only one left.

“Huff! Huff! Gasp!”

To the Albanos, who tried to catch his breath in extreme fear, the darkness in Seo Jin-Wook spoke.

‘Look at me.’

Then, the Albanos saw something that was invisible to him. In his imagery, something was visualized that the mortal could not see, embedding it into his mind. Around Seo Jin-Wook, spider webs made of shadows became densely intertwined. Each one of them stretched all over the place, carved the space into thousands of pieces, and crawled like hairline fractures. Seo Jin-Wook’s left index finger was the thickest intertwined with the infinite number of strands. The last remaining Albanos remembered him having three scars on that finger.

‘You shall return to your world and spread what you saw to your fellow kindred.’

“Yes! Yes! Yes! All right! I’ll spread it as you desire!”

And you will need to get rid of your foolishness.

The Albanos thought. Spiders often tied their prey to spider webs and left them uneaten for a while. But they were never meant to be left unattended until they could escape or be thrown away. But how would it react if someone touched it, like an inferior being that couldn’t be compared to the spider?

“I will never… hurt anyone you have chosen again!”

Then the shadow replied satisfactorily.

‘Go forth and keep your words.’

***

When I opened my eyes again, pale LED lights were shining. It was heavy, as if I had weights all over my body. I spit out a dry cough.

“Cough!”

I heard a reaction around me right away.

“Oh, he’s awake!” “Guild Master!” “Jin-Wook!”

Where was I? It didn’t feel like the body was mine. It took time for my blurred vision to become apparent and to find focus again.

“Ah…”

I could see the faces of those who exclaimed relieved words one after the other. I thought I was lying on a bed. Beside me were Secretary Kim and Nate with tearful faces. One step back, Adam stood with a stiff look with his arms crossed. Next to him was Hibiki, whose face was red and whose hands were shaking.

“You’re conscious again!” “Where am I?” “You’re in the hospital!”

It was only after the medical staff gathered and did some tests that I managed to have more time to talk to the people around me.

“While you were unconscious, they have been putting in Potions, Elixirs, and all sorts of recovery skills, but none of them worked at all.”

As he wiped away his tears, Secretary Kim explained what had happened. When I was confronting the Albanos, chaos must have overtaken our vicinity. He showed me the scene of the terrifying darkness that covered the sky, and the moment I saw it, I recognized that it was the same material that flowed from the detached portion of ‘Igras-Sho.’

‘The god… had come that close?’

Secretary Kim, who knew I was there, immediately contacted the government and received authorization to send Nate, Hibiki, and other Celestial Dragons hunters to the scene. However, by the time they arrived, the darkness had disappeared like it was all an illusion.

‘The timing must have been right.’

They found me collapsed in the dining room and some employees who didn’t evacuate from the perimeter. It was as if their rationality had been paralyzed and were stiffened up from within.

“Was there anyone else?”

What about the Albanos?

“None at all.”

The manipulated employees were said to be under investigation by the Hunter Management Department, but no particular clues were readily available.

‘That aside, I lived.’

I looked at my finger. The memory of wishing in the dark must not have been a fantasy, seeing that the holy scars on it were reduced by one. The closing remarks of the deity lingered in my ears.

‘From this point on, you only have two left—my child.’

What happened to the three Albanos?

“Ehem.”

Then Adam cleared his throat. The Union could not prove his charges, so he seemed to have been allowed to enter back into Earth.

“If it’s alright, can I have a word with you alone?”

After asking for their understanding and being left alone in the hospital room with him, Adam told the story he had been putting aside.

“First of all, in conclusion, the Albanos will never bother you again.”

Why did the story go that way all of a sudden? Adam told me everything, causing my eyes to widen since I didn’t know anything that what was going on at the time. It was the result of espionage he did himself, using Yuncan’s information network. The Albanos species thought they got the completely wrong person. That as they were trying to catch the successor, they accidentally touched the soon-to-be incarnation of the ‘Igras-Sho.’ It was said that one survivor returned and testified all about it. Eventually, at least due to their fear of receiving wrath from the god of magic, they would never bare their fangs at me again.

‘If it only applied up to that point, then weren’t my wishes granted in a sufficient form?’

I promised to never trust the fortune from the [Random Card of Fate]. If that was the ‘adequate luck’ that I experienced that time… how terrible was it going to be if the fortunes below that level were granted to me? Adam continued.

“In the end, you did avoid the worst-case scenario.”

But there were two awkward parts left. First, one was…

“They said that there was no mortal that could bear the three holy wounds?” “Yeah, that’s why the bleeding show didn’t work.”

Then Adam made a serious face.

“The Albanos bastards do have a much higher level understanding of theology than we do… I don’t think they would have lied.”

Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Whatever the theory may be, isn’t there a live example here that contradicts it? You’re alive and not dead, aren’t you? That’s good enough.” “But…”

There was also the other one.

“Somehow, Igra-”

Adam seemed reluctant to put the deity’s name on his tongue, perhaps because he was afraid that I would unconsciously copy the pronunciation or he simply felt uncomfortable to say it.

“… The god of magic seems to be quite serious towards you.” “…” “Could it be that he is really trying to make you his reincarnation?”

The reasoning I sued to bluff against the Albanos felt like it was slowly turning into reality at that rate.