“Head…?”
Hee-jun groaned as he opened his eyes. Through his blurry vision, he could see the ceiling of a cave with stalactites hanging down.
It was an extremely strange sight. Why did I wake up in a place like this?
As he puzzled over it while trying to sit up, Hee-jun quickly fell back down. No, his arms and legs were bound with rope, preventing him from getting up.
“What is this?”
Waking up in a cave and being bound up like a Christmas turkey.
Rather than fear, he felt utterly bewildered. Had he been kidnapped?
As he lay there, trying to piece together the situation, a deep, resonant voice suddenly echoed from somewhere.
“You’re awake.”
Hee-jun glanced at the source of the voice, his discomfort lingering. A large old man was leaning against the wall nearby.
“…Ah.”
The moment Hee-jun saw the old man, memories of what had happened flooded back, prompting him to quickly speak up.
“I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”
He had to apologize unconditionally. That crazy old man showed no mercy, even toward minors.
Hee-jun felt a divine pain like never before.
It felt as if an angel had pinched him all over with great care. Just being held by the nape of his neck and infused with holy energy was beyond anything he could have imagined.
Endure that again? It might be better to just die.
The fear was so overwhelming that Hee-jun began to plead. Until the old man opened his mouth.
“First, let’s calm down.”
Archbishop Kelaout raised a hand, and just like that, the Hee-jun who had been writhing in agony fell silent.
Having immediately shifted to a more obedient demeanor, he recognized the vast differences in their standing.
Then Kelaout spoke again.
“It seems you’ve lost a bit of your memory due to the intense pain.”
“…What?”
“You already asked me for forgiveness, and I denied it. So, I’ve interrogated you twice.”
Hee-jun, for a moment, couldn’t comprehend the grandfatherly tone as he became horrified.
“Twice? You mean two times?”
“Exactly. Despite your suffering, you steadfastly refused to betray your ‘lord’ and divulge any information. You didn’t even let me free you.”
“…”
To be honest, even Hee-jun felt a bit baffled. Was he truly able to maintain silence even after all that pain?
Objectively assessing himself, he knew he wasn’t the type to overflow with loyalty or camaraderie.
In fact, if given a chance to survive, he would grasp it with everything he had. That was why he had survived until now.
Feeling a sudden sense of unease, Hee-jun furrowed his brow and started to speak again.
“I… am a…”
But then.
His mouth and tongue suddenly froze. His brain sent the command to speak, but his body wouldn’t budge.
“Just as I thought.”
Meanwhile, the archbishop nodded, as if coming to a realization.
“What’s going on?”
“Simply put, it’s a ‘golden rule’. It prevents you from saying certain things to someone.”
Kelaout explained gently, his expression slightly contorting.
Then he poked Hee-jun’s forehead with a finger, and instantly, the ropes binding his limbs vanished.
While watching the ropes dissolve into a pink light, the archbishop’s voice continued.
“Presumably, it was done by your ‘lord’. They’ve meddled with your mind so you can’t speak or act against them.”
Could they really have done something like that? Hee-jun, uncertain, attempted to share information.
“My colleagues and I are returnees, and we…”
Again, as he spoke, his lips froze in silence. Experiencing it confirmed there was indeed an external force at work.
He tried to release the ‘spatial isolation’, but just like before, his hands would not move against his will.
“…Shit.”
“It seems I was right.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the principle behind this space? I attempted escape earlier, but couldn’t find a clue.”
“I don’t know about that. I just know how to use it.”
While dutifully answering, Hee-jun simmered inside.
“How ridiculous it is to be trapped by my own abilities.”
It was his first time feeling this humiliating. He hated the thought of the man who seemed ready to abandon him in a worst-case scenario.
What infuriated him more was the grim fact that he couldn’t resist that man at all.
“Damn…”
Trying to calm his boiling anger, Kelaout stroked his beard and asked.
“May I ask you one thing? The Pope said there was only one ‘returnee’ in this country. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Why have you been hiding your identity until now?”
“…It’s not hiding; I was ordered not to reveal my identity. If I resist, I’ll be killed. It wasn’t just me; other returnees were like that too.”
There had been Korean returnees even before ‘Pope’ Clitia Eluke.
But no one could reveal their existence. Because then they would die.
Hee-jun sighed deeply, feeling the stress he had been holding in bubble to the surface.
“We have no choice but to follow orders. That person…”
While speaking, the golden rule activated again, blocking his words.
After hesitating for a moment, Hee-jun raised his fingers to his forehead, grimacing.
It was a description clear enough to distinguish anyone from another world, causing Kelaout to mumble seriously.
“A demon. Your lord is a demon.”
Not a metaphorical expression.
“It’s not referring to someone with a bad personality; it’s the real deal.”
Korean returnees were under the dominion of demons.
*
10 PM.
At this point, it was time to refer to anyone brought to the evening as ‘night.’ The moment of confrontation was near.
I sent a telepathic message to the other two.
-(Pope): Is everyone ready? How is it over there?
Everyone seemed focused in preparation for the enemy’s attack, as responses came promptly.
-(Guardian Dragon): Here, I’m a genius dragon with multidimensional explosive magical talent on the 3rd floor. Everything is perfect, but nothing is happening, so I’m bored to death.
Though filled with unnecessary words, the message relayed that everything was indeed ready.
Shortly after, the highest-ranking Holy Knight’s chat popped up.
-(Worst): I’m the extraordinary beauty Zhang Yao on the 1st floor. I finished preparing way before the Evil Dragon.
-(Guardian Dragon): Ha! You’ve got some pride, but you’re lying. I finished way before you and have been resting since a while ago.
-(Worst): Your face is the butt of a joke.
-(Guardian Dragon): You little brat!!!
…This time they started a meaningless bickering, but at least it seemed like there weren’t any real problems.
I sighed in relief, knowing that even these troublesome kids were at least following my orders.
It turned out that everyone around me, despite their many issues, adhered to my control. On the flip side, if I were to step away, it would be chaos.
“I should prepare for when I’m not around.”
Though I didn’t want to think about such a scenario, life was amusing because you never knew what might happen.
By ‘amusing,’ I meant it’d be more fitting to swap it with ‘freaking ridiculous.’
Life was a relentless chain of unexpected misfortunes; it was a sort of statistical conclusion derived from numerous experiences in that other world.
‘…Was I too pessimistic?’
As I drowned in those negative thoughts, I suddenly received a message.
-(Guardian Dragon): They’re here.
The Young Dragon, who had established detection magic, informed us of the enemy’s arrival. It was the news we had been waiting for.
-(Pope): Good. Yao, please play what we prepared earlier.
-(Worst): I already got it ready. Check it out.
It was nice that they were quick during crucial moments.
With a satisfied heart, I checked my smartphone. Notifications had come through the tribe app.
It was my broadcast.
[Intruder Education :]
-Pope (elluke1002)
As I tapped into the broadcast, a dark building entrance came into view, illuminated by my Sacred Spell ‘Blue Light of the Sky.’
What started as an amusement turned out to have excellent quality, even better than expected. Quite splendid.
Not long after the broadcast started, viewers began pouring in, voicing their confusion.
-Pope?
-?? What?
-Why are you back again?
-What’s with this “education”?
-What’s going on?
I attempted to communicate through chat.
First, to build up anticipation.
[(☆)Pope: It’s about to start!]
Then I simply explained the situation.
[(☆)Pope: To the viewers I mentioned last night, get ready, because they’re really going to invade.]
[(☆)Pope: But I don’t know if they’ll even come themselves. I’ll show you the entire process of finding out.]
From now on, we were going to live broadcast the enemies struggling terribly.
[(☆)Pope: Haha, this will be the world’s first intruder repulsion content.]
Giggling while chatting, I realized once I checked people’s responses that there had been a bit of misunderstanding.
-That’s already been done by Sister Cat.
-Not the first.
-Slow on the trends, are you, Pope…
-Sister Cat has probably uploaded over ten of this type, right?
-It’s the first in Korea, though, lol.
…It wasn’t the first.
Sister Cat was the owner of the channel that Seo-yoon had shown me back when I first got into internet broadcasting.
Honestly, it was a little disappointing, but I tried to keep the lively chat going.
[(☆)Pope: Well, please enjoy it as much as possible.]
[(☆)Pope: By the way, who said saying “meanwhile” makes me seem older? Want to see how the archbishop tastes again?]
The suspicious figure that appeared on the broadcast screen was in response to the chat saying “broadcasting with the archbishop must be hard for him.”
‘Finally….’
I straightaway sent a telepathic message to the Young Dragon to turn on the lights. Then, not long after, the dark broadcast screen brightened.
The figure on the screen was a man.
Dressed head to toe in sleek, activity-appropriate black gear, he had the typical look of an intruder.
That alone was striking, but one peculiar detail stood out.
‘An elf?’
His long ears were sticking out of his mask. Given their black color, he seemed to be a Dark Elf.
If it was a Dark Elf… could it be that he was a summoner type returnee? Or perhaps an assassin type?
But honestly, whatever powers he had didn’t matter much. I grinned as I typed in the chat.
[(☆)Pope: We will now begin the screening of the movie [Chaotic Tower of Hell Adventures].]
Of course, it was an illegal viewing without the lead actor’s consent.
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