Chapter 224

Chapter 224

"Get lost."

"Why? Let me go out too!" Soo-Yeong complained.

"Feel free to leave. Just don’t come back."

"No, that's not what I mean. I just want to breathe some fresh air outside!"

I thought Soo-Yeong would go away if I firmly asked her to leave, but she was more persistent than I thought.

Apparently, she hadn’t gone outside ever since she arrived at the underground chapel. The reason for this was that Ji-Ah had told her to never leave the underground chapel alone. It seemed like she needed to get my permission first if she wanted to go outside.

"Nuna’s words are right. Don't go outside, just stay here."

"I've been stuck underground for days. It's suffocating."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have run away from home in the first place. Anyway, you’re not allowed to go outside."

"Why?"

"Because it's dangerous."

Soo-Yeong came up to me and whined and complained, but I didn’t give her permission to go outside. At the very least, I couldn’t take her to the Paladin Order.

There would be many clergymen in the Paladin Order, and I might not be the only one who had received a call from the Eastern Paladin Order.

If I brought Soo-Yeong along and ran into Yu-Hyun, that would be a huge problem. The first problem would be that Yu-Hyun would be able to identify her and vice versa. To Soo-Yeong, Yu-Hyun was nothing less than an enemy that she needed to get revenge on for the sake of her mother and her older brother. If she encountered Yu-Hyun, there was no telling what she would do after getting consumed by rage.

"What's so dangerous? It’s not like I’ll get lost.”

“Ah, when I tell you nicely, you should...!”

[Kid.]

I was about to get angry and lose my temper, but suddenly I heard Damballa's voice and closed my mouth. At some point in time, Damballa had climbed up onto a shoe rack and was currently coiled up. She flicked her tongue and said, [What if we just take her with us?]

"...No, we can't."

[Seems like you're worried about the sharp-eyed kid.]

The sharp-eyed kid. I could tell that it was a term that referred to Yu-Hyun. He possessed a unique blessing that allowed him to draw a circle around his eyes by using divine power. I nodded.

Damballa climbed up my arm and said, [If you’re worried about that, then don’t worry. I already gave him a warning.]

"..."

[Trust me.]

I didn’t understand what she meant by ‘I already gave him a warning,’ but based on her words, it seemed like Damballa had taken some sort of preemptive action.

If Damballa was right and I really didn’t need to worry about Yu-Hyun, then it wouldn’t be a problem even if I brought along Soo-Yeong to the Paladin Order. If I encountered a situation where I had to introduce Soo-Yeong, I could simply say that she was my younger sister or cousin, and no one would suspect anything.

I hesitated for a moment as I looked at Soo-Yeong's face. She was looking at me so desperately that it felt pitiful.

"...Just this once," I said with a reluctant nod.

Soo-Yeong smiled brightly. Then, as if she had been waiting to go outside, she quickly took out her shoes from the shoe cabinet.

"Are we going right now? Why did you drag things out if you were going to allow me to go anyway? What a waste of time,” Soo-Yeong babbled excitedly.

"Wait, just one more thing." Yôur favorite stories at novelhall.com

I unleashed Voodoo magic in front of Soo-Yeong.

“Do you really think I don’t have a way to forcefully send you home? Don’t annoy me.”

"...Do-don’t misunderstand. What I’m trying to say is that I’m grateful that you’re letting me go outside.”

"Alright."

Reluctantly, I took Soo-Yeong along with me and went outside. As we stepped out, Soo-Yeong exhaled deeply and looked up at the sky with a grateful expression.

The chapel was located underground, and it had no windows, so staying there longer than a few days felt suffocating.

Although I had begrudgingly brought Soo-Yeong out with me, seeing how much happier she was after coming out made me think that I had made the right decision. Of course, I still didn't like the idea of Soo-Yeong staying in the underground chapel after she had run away from home. But as Legba and Damballa had mentioned, since it turned out like this, maybe it was best to think about this situation positively.

I watched her stretch. Soo-Yeong gazed up into the sky and enjoyed the blowing breeze, then briefly glanced at me.

"Yo, whatcha looking at?" she said.

"...No matter how I think about it, I don't think you should go with me."

As I unleashed Voodoo magic again, Soo-Yeong stumbled backward and said, "Huh, huh? No, I was just kidding!"

"Ah... I see."

Based on what he had said just now, I could tell that Ha-Yeon had arrived at the Paladin Order beforehand and had given her testimony. If that was the case, then it was possible that they had interrogated not only Ha-Yeon but also the other students beforehand.

Paladin Order had definitely taken measures to prevent us from contacting each other in advance. Ultimately, their purpose was to investigate if any of us were Voodoo Cult or Satanist collaborators.

Since I had figured out their exact motive, coming up with appropriate responses to their questions was no longer a challenge.

"I heard that you fought alongside Director Han Dae-Ho. That was very brave of you. How did you come up with the idea to fight together with him?"

“I thought it wouldn’t be okay if I didn’t fight.”

"I see... Well, then, finally..." the paladin said while tossing the questionnaire on the desk.

Then, he leaned forward and looked intently into my eyes. I stared back at him.

"Can you describe the scenery you saw right before the men in black left the museum?"

I imagined how a Romanican would describe the Crossroads and answered, "There was an old man with a cane in a strange space."

"Was there a Voodoo Cultist there?" I asked.

"..."

When I asked in return, the paladin dumbfoundedly blinked his eyes. Instead of answering, he glanced at Joseph sitting next to him. His gaze seemed to want to ask if it was okay to answer honestly.

Joseph closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again and turned his head toward me.

"Yeah. We suspect there was a Voodoo Cultist. Where did you hear about it?" he asked.

"I heard it from the other students. Ha-Yeon said that if it's the Crossroads, then it's probably related to the Voodoo Cult."

"You hit the nail on the head."

Tap, tap.

Joseph tapped the desk with his finger. The dry sound rang out rhythmically within the silence. As if contemplating, he lowered his gaze while keeping his mouth shut. He then took a deep breath and exhaled before looking at me. His eyes were terrifyingly empty.

He stared at me for a while with a frighteningly vacant gaze and then said, "The truth is, I suspect that there might have been an accomplice of the Voodoo Cult or the Satanists among the Romanicans in the museum. No, I believe without a doubt that there must be an accomplice from the Voodoo Cult."

"..."

Joseph was expressionless as he asked, "Who do you think it could be?"

I couldn’t understand the exact intention behind that question.

* * *

Soo-Yeong sat in a cafe and sipped on a sweet drink to pass the time. She played random videos on her phone or mindlessly surfed the web.

But even that had become tiresome, so she watched people passing by outside the window to kill time.

Sun-Woo said he would be back soon, but he had already been gone for an hour. As much as she wanted to leave Sun-Woo behind and wander around as she pleased, she felt like she would be forcibly brought back home if she did that.

It wasn’t because she was scared of Sun-Woo. No, well, technically, she was scared of him but...

Ring—!

At that moment, someone entered the cafe. Thinking it was Sun-Woo, Soo-Yeong turned her head around, but it wasn't him. However, she recognized the person.

"One Americano, and..."

It was Ha-Yeon.

One of the main culprits of the Holy War was Sung Yu-Da, and Sung Ha-Yeon was his only child. Soo-Yeong knew about Ha-Yeon to some extent.

She had been personally investigating the Holy War and the Romanican Church for a while. After hearing that Sun-Woo attended Florence Academy, she also researched the famous people attending Florence Academy.

After ordering a drink and a cake, Ha-Yeon took a seat and started reading a book. The title was in English, so Soo-Yeong didn’t know what kind of book it was. When her drink and cake arrived, Ha-Yeon closed the book and opened her laptop instead. Then, she started busily typing something on the keyboard.

Soo-Yeong wondered what she was doing. It was simple curiosity. However, due to the angle, she couldn't see the laptop screen. Soo-Yeong pretended to go to the bathroom and tried to sneak a peek at Ha-Yeon's laptop screen.

"..."

At that moment, she made eye contact with Ha-Yeon. Soo-Yeong quickly averted her gaze and hurriedly went into the bathroom. Her heart was beating fast.

Soo-Yeong stayed in the bathroom for a few minutes, then unnecessarily washed her hands and came back out. Making eye contact with her was not something she had anticipated, but she figured that nothing would happen if she naturally returned to her seat.

"Whoa, w-what the—!"

However, as soon as she opened the door, Soo-Yeong screamed and took a step back. She almost fell over.

Her heart, which had already been beating fast, was now pounding so hard that it felt like it would burst. It was because Ha-Yeon was standing in front of the bathroom while furrowing her eyebrows.

Ha-Yeon crossed her arms, looked Soo-Yeong up and down, and said, "What is it?"