Chi-Woo suddenly felt a strong spell of dizziness. He closed his eyes and pressed his temples hard.
‘Hm.’ After organizing his thoughts for a while, he nodded. ‘I don’t get anything.’
He didn’t know what was happening, or why this girl was calling him oppa. In situations like this, he needed to untangle things one by one. Thus, he opened his eyes again and said, “Why am I your oppa?”
“Huh?” The black-haired girl titled her head.
“I am the youngest in my family. I never heard of having a younger sister,” Chi-Woo said.
“Ah…that’s true, but I didn’t mean it in a purely biological sense.”
“Then what?”
“Well, that’s—”
Chi-Woo craned his ears for an answer but didn’t get one no matter how long he waited. Taking a closer look, he realized it wasn’t that the girl wasn’t speaking, but she couldn’t. Although she was moving her mouth, Chi-Woo couldn’t hear what she was saying at all. Seemingly coming to the same realization, the black-haired girl scowled.
“Fuck! This shit again?” the girl cursed.
‘Shouldn’t this part be censored instead?’ Chi-Woo thought but decided to drop the issue. And since the girl seemed unable to answer him for some unknowable reason, he decided to move on to the next question.
“Who are you?”
“Me?” The black-haired girl glanced at the white-haired girl. “Or us?”
“Both.”
“Well, who do you think we are?”
Chi-Woo furrowed his eyebrows. As if Chi-Woo’s expression pleased her, the black-haired girl snickered like a mischievous child.
“Well, fine, there’s no reason to keep it from you. If you’re asking for my name, I’m Kabal. And my future vessel is Balal.”
“Vessel?”
“Yeah, what about it?” The black-haired girl smiled sweetly. It was then Philip spoke up.
—You are an ancient god, a forgotten one at that.
For some reason, the girl named Kabal didn’t agree or deny Philip’s words, but she narrowed her eyes at Philip with a hardened face.
“Watch your mouth, kid,” she warned after relaxing again. “Addressing me as ‘you’? Do you not care for anything just because you are dead?”
Philip looked baffled.
—Damn it, I knew it. Kabal? No denomination kept in the shadows was ever decent.
“That’s harsh. I’m at least not a demon worshiper.”
—But you are still evil.
“Heh,” Kabal simply laughed at Philip’s bold claim. She continued leisurely, “Alive or dead, humans are always the same. So unbelievably arrogant. Not only do they differentiate between what’s good and evil by themselves, but they also make judgments. On what authority? How dare they come up with their own standards?” Kabal turned to Chi-Woo and asked, “What do you think about this, oppa?”
Chi-Woo’s vision suddenly turned dark at that moment.
“Come on, tell me. Is it dark or bright?” He heard a mischievous voice inside the darkness.
“…It’s dark.”
“Really? Isn’t it simply less bright?”
Before Chi-Woo could answer, he felt his body heat up.
“Hot? Or cold?”
“It’s hot.”
“No, you should say it’s less cold.”
Chi-Woo looked stunned. His body temperature had returned to normal before he realized it. Then Kabal spoke again, “But that spirit next to you would say that’s all nonsense. He would say that just like how the moon sets when the sun rises, or how water flows from higher to lower levels, there’s darkness because of light. And it’s the same for evil and good. One wouldn’t call kindness the lesser evil or vice versa. While the two are polar opposites, however, they are also relative to each other. And thus, they become complete with their union.”
Kabal continued after a short pause, “I want to crack the fools who divide what’s good and evil on their own and check what’s inside their heads.” She hummed pensively. “That’s why I like neutrality, especially complete neutrality.”
Philip didn’t say anything; all he did was glare at her. Then he sighed.
—Those stupid later generations…
Philip realized then why they had found the white-haired girl named ‘Balal’ at the academy. In the beginning, Liber was a world close to gods. Gods descended upon the middle world and lived among humans. There was a time like that for Earth, too. Humans from the early days were very weak and needed help to survive. Thus, gods granted the miracles they prayed for and received merits in return. But as time progressed, there came a clear distinction between Liber and Earth: the direction in which they developed. With technological innovations and progress in science, humans on Earth no longer requested help from supernatural beings. They solved most problems by themselves, and thus, besides a few gods, the rest of the gods lost their places on Earth and left.
In contrast, Liber developed with the gods’ powers at the center of their progress, and even as time passed, they prayed for and desired powers from supernatural beings. In response to these prayers, countless gods were born. But even on Liber, not all gods were immortal. There were many reasons for this: their existences was no longer necessary, religious wars breaking out, and so on. Thus, there were also many denominations that had been forgotten or erased from history. Kabal was one such denomination. It didn’t completely disappear, but it was barely maintaining its existence through secret teachings.
Humans weren’t the only ones who wanted to keep living once they were born. Gods were the same, and thus, Kabal pondered deeply. She wondered what else she needed to prevent herself from disappearing. The fact that she needed something meant that she did indeed lack something, and she must make up for what she was lacking to remain as a god. This was when the Salem Academy came into the picture. The academy was a long-term project intended to make the Salem empire strong enough to fight its powerful neighbors. And in the academy, there were all sorts of research on the dark, mysterious phenomena in the world, including the possibility of weaponizing a god.
Thus, a cult with the purpose of helping a god who wanted to be reborn was formed. It was hard to tell who approached whom first, but both the Salem Empire and said god had something to gain from each other.
—….So
After a pause, Philip said in a low voice.
—Like it was written outside, are you planning to become ‘chaos’? Going so far as to create artificial life?”
As soon as Evelyn saw the white-haired girl, she said the girl wasn’t human. It was true. The white-haired girl wasn’t born but created to help make Kabal into ‘chaos’.
“It bothers me that you say I’m trying to ‘become’ something.” Kabal shrugged. “I’m only trying to return things to how it was before—the beginning of creation.”
—With this method? How is that possible—
“Again with your arrogance.” Kabal clicked her tongue. “No one knows what will happen—even the gods. That’s what chaos is.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Chi-Woo, who had been quietly listening, spoke up in shock. “How can they bring about the rebirth of a god who already exists through artificial means… I’ve never heard of such a thing.” He shook his head and repeated himself, “It can’t happen.”
Philip nodded vehemently in agreement. He had wanted to say the same thing as Chi-Woo. In response, Kabal stared intently at Chi-Woo.
“W-what?” Chi-Woo mumbled, taken aback.
“Uh…” Kabal snorted like she was very displeased by him. “I can understand such sentiment coming from that spirit…but it’s pretty ridiculous when you of all people say that.”
“?”
“Am I wrong? Don’t you see the irony of you saying that can’t happen? In terms of unbelievable occurrences, aren’t you hundreds of millions of times more of an impossible existence?” Kabal frowned mid-sentence. Like earlier, she was muted. She looked extremely annoyed by the unexpected interference.
Soon after, Kabal said with a crooked smile, “…The world really seems to have changed a lot. How dare they step into the divine territory?”
Chi-Woo looked up at Philip reflexively. He could only think of one faction when it came to uninvited guests. Chi-Woo complained to Philip, ‘You said it was safe.’
—I didn’t know this could happen, either.
Philip said calmly.
—They either followed your tracks without making a single misstep, or there’s someone who knows how to break down the spatial boundaries. The former is better than the latter of the two possibilities, but we have to wait and see.
—What are you planning to do now?
Philip wasn’t saying this to Chi-Woo.
“Me?” Kabal’s eyes widened.
She was a god who had been forgotten until a recent unexpected accident revived her. On top of that, Chi-Woo didn’t know how far the research to reborn a god had progressed, but the results had remained intact.
“Well—” Kabal’s gaze lingered on the white-haired girl for a while, and then the corners of her mouth slowly curled into a smile.
* * *
“!” Chi-Woo opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He felt dizzy like he had come out of a sauna after staying there for a long time. When he looked around, he realized that he was back in the center hall.
‘Just now…?’ Chi-Woo tried to recall what just happened and flinched when Balal began squirming. Balal slowly raised her head and moved her gaze. When she saw Chi-Woo, she opened her mouth and smiled brightly.
“Ah!” She got to her feet and ran over to Chi-Woo, wrapping her arms around his waist. Chi-Woo was flustered and taken aback. She seemed like an innocent girl when she acted like this. The gap between Kabal and Balal was huge. Anyway, he didn’t know what had happened, but she seemed to be Balal rather than Kabal right now.
–Hey.
It was then that Philip called out to Chi-Woo.
–I think you should get out.
He sounded serious. Chi-Woo quickly opened the door and went outside. As soon as he went down the stairs, he froze. He could tell from a glance that the figure on the other side was a monster from the Indigenous Monster Alliance. Since they were in different spaces, the monster seemed unable to see Chi-Woo even though he was right in front of it. Chi-Woo’s eyes snapped to the monster as it passed by.
Even though there didn’t seem to be much difference between the space Chi-Woo was in and the outside, he felt as if he was looking at the world outside through a mirror. Anyway, this told him one thing—he could see the outside from where he was, but those outside couldn’t see him. Moreover, it seemed the different spaces couldn’t exert influence on each other. It was too early to relax, though; there were many beings roaming around the temple. Some of them were moving while cautiously observing the floor. They spun around like Chi-Woo had done when he first came in and moved closer to him.
“Wait…!” Chi-Woo saw a shocking sight from a distance. One monster was pulling a woman’s hair and pushing a knife to her neck. It then looked around and seemed to be yelling something, but he couldn’t hear what the monster was saying.
—Come. On. Out.
Philip read the monster’s lips and relayed it to Chi-Woo.
—It seems like the monster is going to kill her if you don’t come out quickly.
Chi-Woo really didn’t want to hear that, but he could make a rough guess about what had happened; after all, the woman who was being threatened was Shadia. Shadia looked extremely disheveled and in serious condition; it also seemed like she had been cut by a sword, and she was missing an arm.
Chi-Woo didn’t know what exactly happened to her, but it was clear that she had gone through something really bad. However, it wasn’t only her that was suffering. Around the place where Chi-Woo had disappeared, dozens of people were forced to kneel and were getting threatened with their lives on the line.
‘So that’s why. I see…’ Chi-Woo suddenly realized why his Insight into the Unknown had told him that the way out was the front and not the back. The only future awaiting the rescue team returning to the capital was a bloodbath. Chi-Woo bit into his bottom lip. There was another mountain after surmounting a mountain, and another hurdle after overcoming a hurdle. Chi-Woo thought that he had safely resolved a crisis, but a bigger crisis awaited him.
—What are you going to do?
Philip asked.
‘…Give me a moment.’ Chi-Woo let out a long sigh. He mustn’t act rashly. He returned to the temple for now and closed the door before slumping down. He turned on the device just in case and saw a notification—it was Ru Amuh’s message. The message contained a concise description of what had happened so far.
‘So that’s what happened. They too…’ Chi-Woo learned what the situation was like over there, and how they had successfully met up with the eighth recruits. ‘Wait a minute.’ Chi-Woo finished reading the message and fell into thought.
‘Let’s organize the information at hand.’ The rest of the rescue team had failed to escape. Chi-Woo didn’t know exactly what happened, but they were all caught. Moreover, the Indigenous Monsters Alliance was tightly surrounding this area. In addition, some of the captured rescue members were being threatened to get him out. These were the facts he knew at the moment.
‘But why?’ Chi-Woo found the current situation strange. The reaction of the Indigenous Monsters Alliance was a bit too intense, considering that they were trying to catch only one person. It seemed to be overkill—unless they had a different goal in mind. Chi-Woo closed his eyes. He tapped the floor with his index finger and nibbled his lower lip. He didn’t have much time. Chi-Woo quickly opened his eyes and rose from his seat.
“Pweh.” He took a deep breath in. “Ms. Balal.” He looked down at the girl crouching beside him. “I have a favor to ask you.”