WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 31: Annihilation

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When I defeated an anomaly, its soul was absorbed into the brass ring.

The souls of the anomalies I had “defeated” were “absorbed.”

I had misunderstood the question of just how far that extended.

First, demons counted too.

I had absorbed Decarabia, so there was no reason dream demons couldn't be absorbed as well.

That had been an understandable mistake born of inexperience.

"All of those..."

Just how far did “how far” go?

Did it work anywhere, even if they weren't near me?

Souls flew toward me.

To be absorbed by me.

I instinctively knew those countless souls belonged to dream demons.

The dream demons had drawn in quite a few others, and now their souls were being pulled in from every direction.

"Gari Bodhisattva? What's wrong?"

"Uh... Just a moment."

The souls of dream demons embroidered the night sky like fireflies.

Starting with the closest, they arrived one after another and were absorbed into the brass ring.

The sheer amount was incredible.

I could tell with a rough estimate alone.

It was on a completely different scale from every soul I had absorbed so far combined.

If I absorbed this many souls and converted them into demonic power... No, spiritual power, what could I do with it all?

"Let's get out of here. The police are starting to swarm the place."

"More police cars are moving around than I expected. Maybe because this is Itaewon."

One police car stopped in front of the club we had just left.

Someone had died, so of course there had been a report.

But other police cars drove past the club and continued elsewhere.

"What? They weren't going to the club?"

"They seem to be heading toward other clubs."

"That place has an accident every other day, honestly."

"..."

Well, the police were probably busy because of me.

"Let's head back. Gari Bodhisattva, and... beautiful lady."

"Oh my."

Gagaram gave Wolryeong Bodhisattva a handsome smile and winked.

No, you idiot.

She's not that kind of lady.

* * *

The Mystic Association was a public institution that handled all sorts of work related to the occult.

Its most important duties included taking requests for occult incidents occurring across the country, assigning them out, and verifying the results.

It was also important to confirm whether the exorcists who accepted those requests had done their jobs properly and had not filed false reports.

That was only possible thanks to the powerful network of government agencies connected to the police, prosecution, and military.

The agents responsible for all this work belonged to the Review Division.

It was broad daylight, but people were still moving around inside the club.

Police officers had set up a cordon and busily kept outsiders from entering.

"Who are you?"

"We're from higher up."

The police blocked their way, then nearly fainted when they saw the identification the agents presented.

"N-National Intelligence Service!"

"We need to look around inside."

"Y-Yes, sir...!"

There was no department in South Korea as secretive as the National Intelligence Service, or as capable of openly declaring that nobody should dare mess with them.

That was why Mystic Association agents generally handled their work by presenting identification belonging to NIS agents.

Naturally, this was done in cooperation with the National Intelligence Service.

"We need to inspect this separately, so could you clear out?"

"Ah... W-Well..."

"You don't think it's under our jurisdiction? Call your precinct chief. The handover should already be complete."

"I'll... confirm that."

The officers really had received orders from their chief to cooperate fully.

Though cooperation, in this case, meant all they could do was leave.

"Good, the police are out. Let's get to work."

"Yes, Team Leader."

The Mystic Association Review Division agents quickly surveyed the scene.

They had two jobs.

First, they had to erase traces of the occult.

Concealing the occult and maintaining secrecy.

It was one of the Mystic Association's founding principles, and a duty carried out by similar organizations around the world.

Second, they had to assess whether the exorcist had handled the job properly.

There were plenty of people who fabricated requests or filed false reports just to collect the payment, so examining and evaluating the scene had naturally become part of their job.

"Let's see. Hmm, the corpses here are intact."

"Most of them are. There was only one place where they melted."

"Cause of death... shock? Demons dying with blood running from all seven orifices, seriously..."

And it had happened simultaneously across Itaewon... no, across Seoul.

It was a bizarre phenomenon that could never be a coincidence.

As soon as the reports came in at dawn, the Mystic Association had dispatched reviewers to investigate.

"Could it have been sorcery? Maybe someone sent a powerful killing curse and killed them all at once."

"What kind of lunatic sends a killing curse at a hundred targets at once?"

Sending a killing curse meant it would rebound on the caster if it failed.

There was a reason people said that if you wanted to curse someone, you should dig two graves.

And yet someone had sent a curse that could kill its caster if it failed, against a hundred demons at once?

If even one of them had repelled it, the caster would have died.

Yet they had killed every last one without failing even once?

It wasn't magic. It was a contradiction.

Something beyond even the most basic rules that anomalies followed.

Either way, whoever had wiped out a whole swarm of dream demons had to be beyond anything they could imagine.

"How are we supposed to assess this?"

"The request was to find traces of dream demons and report them. A reward of two hundred million won was promised if the extermination succeeded."

"..."

"..."

It was a Grade 2 request, the kind normally given only to a Black Knot.

Yet the actual result far exceeded it.

"We didn't specify how many, right?"

"No. We expected one or two at most."

But far more dream demons than they had imagined had been operating throughout Seoul, and the confirmed number already stood at a hundred.

Were they supposed to settle this for a few hundred million won?

There was no contractual issue, but the other party was a Black Knot.

At minimum, a near-Grade 1 exorcist.

Given the results, calling him Grade 1 or higher would not be an exaggeration. He might even be classified as Special Grade.

What would happen if they tried to lowball someone that skilled with wordplay?

"No, this won't do. Call the division chief and tell them to somehow secure more compensation."

"At least twenty billion won..."

The kind of sum that would make the Review Division chief scream.

* * *

The Mystic Association erupted after receiving the reports from the Review Division agents dispatched to Itaewon.

"Does this make any sense?! Over a hundred dream demons were operating in Seoul, South Korea, and we had no idea?!"

At Baek Ganghyeon's furious roar, the heads of every division silently kept their mouths shut.

The appearance of demons was nothing new.

Ever since the brass vessels Solomon had sealed were opened by human hands, demons had lurked in the human world for a long time.

From the Vatican in Rome to monks in India, from local folk beliefs to shamans everywhere.

The history of exorcism had always included desperate battles against demons.

The schemes of demons could threaten the very existence of a nation, so they had always been hunted down and exterminated.

"The problem is that dream demons can easily blend into society. Managing the shadow sector isn't easy, either."

"Yongsan Precinct and Gangnam Precinct. Those bastards took money from the clubs where the dream demons worked, didn't they? This is what happens when people are happy to worship even demons as long as they get paid!"

Of course, they probably had not known they were taking money from actual demons.

This was a problem with capitalist society... with human society.

Demons always tempted humans and provoked their desires, so there were always people who fell for it.

"Still, the old days were better. If there were people like that, we could catch them and bury them where no one would ever find them."

'This isn't the old days. How could we do that...?'

The Investigation Division chief clicked their tongue at the association president's extreme words.

The president noticed and narrowed his eyes.

"Hey, Manager Oh from Investigation. Didn't your division inspect the Itaewon clubs once? Then why didn't you know dream demons were there?"

"N-No, sir. We found traces of dream demons and reported..."

"Didn't you tell me there were one or two at most?"

Under the president's sharp gaze, the Investigation Division chief clamped their mouth shut and bowed their head.

"You're all the same. What have you bastards eating government money been doing this whole time?! No wonder the Five Great Lineages look down on you as government workers every damn day!"

How long would the hot-tempered president keep raging today?

The division heads were carefully wondering if this incident was more serious than usual when someone spoke.

"President Baek, that's enough."

What lunatic would say something like that to the president while he was furious?

Ah. There was only one person in the association who could speak casually to President Baek Ganghyeon.

"Manager Park, what did you just say?"

Park Bokrye, head of the Abnormal Ability Response Special Task Division.

The old woman, who had seemed to be dozing throughout the meeting, opened her eyes and answered in a calm voice.

"The deed's already done. We just need to make a plan. Anyway, more than a hundred demons are dead. That's something to celebrate."

"...This is a matter of organizational discipline."

President Baek's anger visibly subsided.

He outranked her by position, but even President Baek had to be careful before one of the world's unofficial strongest fighters.

A Special Grade exorcist.

"Deal with that when I'm not around. That young person who wiped out all those dream demons. I recommended him."

"You did, Mrs. Park?"

As President Baek frowned, Team Leader Kang Gihan stepped forward from behind her.

"Yes! He's the exorcist who exterminated several urban legends released by the Japanese ghost story smuggler last time, along with the mutated Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost."

"...That young person who exterminated a Grade 1 urban legend. Didn't Mrs. Park help him with that?"

"I only gave a little help."

"..."

If that was true, it meant the appearance of a massive new talent.

And that young exorcist had exterminated the Eight-Foot-Tall Ghost.

Gari Bodhisattva, was it?

According to the report, wasn't he also the person suspected of exterminating Kim Mun-ryong, Decarabia's contractor, and his underlings?

"Isn't this the first time you've taken an interest in a rookie, Mrs. Park?"

"He's got promise, that young one."

"Hmm... Sounds like there's something else you want to say."

President Baek knew Mrs. Park well.

She was not someone who praised another person like this.

It meant she was truly interested.

A young person who had caught the attention of Park Bokrye, an elder held in great regard in this field.

'The first since Pastor Kim, perhaps.'

He had once pounded the ground in regret, saying they should have brought Pastor Kim into the Mystic Association no matter what.

He had said he envied that Pastor Park fellow for finding a genius whose spiritual sight had awakened during a college general education class.

"So? If you have something to say, say it."

"Since he slaughtered a hundred dream demons, we'll have to reward him handsomely... I'd like to choose the reward myself."

"What do you want?"

At President Baek's tacit approval, Park Bokrye slowly opened her eyes.

"Give him one item from the Pastor Kim Collection."

* * *

The association contacted me and asked me to visit.

They said the assessment for the dream demon extermination had been completed.

I was a little surprised when they called to confirm it. How had they found out that more than a hundred dream demons had died in one night?

The Mystic Association really had impressive access to information.

After setting a meeting date, I went to Seoul Station and visited the Mystic Association.

"W-Welcome!"

The moment I said I was a Black Knot, I got a free pass again.

The association employee I was meeting waited at the request counter.

"Welcome, Gari Bodhisattva. We've met before, haven't we?"

"Huh? Team Leader Joo Seoyul?"

Wasn't Joo Seoyul the Team 5 leader in the Special Task Division who had directed the exorcists during the urban legend tracking request?

I was glad to see a familiar face for a moment, but Joo Seoyul gave me a respectful bow and led me to a seat.

"It is hot out, so thank you for coming all this way. Please, have a seat."

Once I sat down, Joo Seoyul began the usual confirmation procedure.

"We confirmed that 111 dream demons died, primarily around Yongsan and Gangnam."

That many?

They had tried to mess with me in my dreams and ended up getting wiped out in a group.

I didn't feel particularly sorry for them.

"May we interpret this as Gari Bodhisattva exterminating those dream demons all at once?"

"Yes, probably."

Joo Seoyul looked as though they couldn't believe it.

"Phew... Could you perhaps tell me how you did it..."

"That..."

"No, never mind. That was an extremely rude question. I hope I haven't offended you."

I had been wondering what excuse I could make, but Joo Seoyul withdrew the question without any prompting.

It seemed probing into someone's methods was taboo in this line of work.

Gagaram and Wolryeong Bodhisattva had both seemed to hold back from asking too.

"First, you perfectly completed the Grade 2 request and personally dealt with two dream demon entities. Including the performance bonus, we will deposit a success fee of five hundred million won."

Five hundred million!

It had been two hundred million per demon, so they must have added a bonus.

Good for me, but I wondered whether it was all right for a government institution funded by taxes to be this generous.

Where did the Mystic Association get all its money?

They even dealt with tax evasion, so maybe asking that was strange.

"Of course, we have no intention of considering Gari Bodhisattva's achievements settled with such a small amount."

Huh? There was more?

Were they going to recognize the other dream demons as my achievement too?

It had been unclear because there was no proof that I had done it.

"After careful consideration by our divisions, we determined that your achievement was far too great to compensate with cash alone. Therefore, we would like to offer a reward worthy of it."

Joo Seoyul then unpacked the bundle they had brought.

"This is..."

Inside the bundle Joo Seoyul opened was a rather familiar object.

An old thing, somewhat worn, but wrapped in metal binding that covered its outer cover.

"A book?"

"Yes. Item No. 37 of the Pastor Kim Collection's European History series."

Wait, why was Pastor Kim here?

"A Catholic anti-demon secret weapon: the Gutenberg Bible, Seventh Edition."

"..."

So... this was something that should be in a museum, right?

Then why was it part of Pastor Kim's “European History” “Collection” “No. 37”?

Footnotes:

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