WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 59: God's Throne (2)

──────

The soul of the demon Martim was forcibly separated and devoured.

More precisely, I’d found out the demon’s name and commanded it with the Holy Spirit, which freed the man. Gari hadn’t missed the opening created when the man’s soul and the demon’s soul split apart.

“To force a separation within a demon’s domain...”

Pastor Go muttered to himself as if he couldn’t believe it.

I corrected his misunderstanding.

“It’s not a demon’s domain anymore. It’s a sanctuary now.”

Since I had declared this place the Father’s House, it could no longer be a demon’s domain.

“I’m glad it was handled well. To think it had been sitting on a dragon node, building up its strength.”

Demon Martim must have been here for a long time.

“Normally, demons can’t exercise their authority unless they descend into the world. But on land where it had accumulated the energy of the earth veins for so long and corrupted the dragon node into a Ghost Vein... it must have been able to use its power.”

It was probably only possible here at Yurim Hotel.

When I declared it a sanctuary, the demon’s domain had changed into a sanctuary.

“But why did that suddenly happen? It didn’t have this effect before.”

“Because the triangle was completed, I suppose.”

“The triangle?”

“The triangle has long been a symbol in the Christian worldview. You know about the Trinity, right?”

Ah.

The Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Come to think of it, I’d heard that the Trinity, or the triangle, held an important meaning.

“The triangle symbolizes eternity, perfection, and stability. For a long time, it has been used in cathedral stained glass and altars as a shape representing God’s presence.”

Presence.

It meant that He descended among people and dwelled with them.

If activating three sanctuaries had completed the triangle, then it wasn’t impossible for an angel, God’s representative, to descend.

“The air has cleared up too... That unpleasant energy that used to cling to us is gone.”

“You can definitely feel how fresh the air is, right? Even the sauna’s color is back.”

The water in the hot bath, which had been filled with blood, had returned to normal.

I hadn’t drained any bloody water, so was that a magical effect of the demon too?

Still, now that the water was clear, all the rat bones at the bottom were visible.

“A Declaration of the Holy Realm... Ha ha. I never thought a person capable of something like that could exist.”

Pastor Go muttered again, still unable to believe it.

“No, Pastor, what happened to your arm?!”

Snapping out of it at my words, Pastor Go looked at the blood flowing from the back of his hand.

“Ah...”

It was a wound that looked like it had been stabbed with a knife. Not the sort of injury that could be left alone.

Despite being seriously injured, Pastor Go turned to Taoist Cheongmyeong.

“Um... Taoist Cheongmyeong.”

“Ah, yes...”

“I’m sorry. I wavered for a moment.”

“...”

I didn’t know what he meant, but Taoist Cheongmyeong lightly touched his own throat.

His neck, still marked clearly with finger-shaped bruises...

Then he looked at the wound on Pastor Go’s hand.

“If it had been me... I couldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have been able to.”

“...Thank you for saying that.”

After that, the two silently supported the man Martim had possessed.

I ended up following behind them, and I could roughly guess what had happened.

Even though I hadn’t asked, Pastor Go answered on his own.

“People are so weak. So easily shaken. I still have a long way to go.”

“But you didn’t do it. I think that’s enough.”

“Yeah... Thank you for saying that.”

Clack, clack!

Gari seemed to be in a good mood too.

Things must have worked out somehow.

* * *

High above the sky.

There was a heavenly being looking down over Seoul.

Its gaze was vast and oppressive.

The owner of countless eyes that poured down and covered every corner of the sanctuary without a gap.

Throne Angel.

God’s Throne.

Under its gaze, the King of the Sanctuary stepped onto the earth.

【...】

This was now God’s land.

It was the sanctuary proclaimed by the king, and the energy flowing through the earth veins would become the force that allowed the Throne to keep watch.

No one could threaten the king within this sanctuary now.

This was the kingdom of God.

But.

【────】

It felt their gazes.

The beings of the abyss watching the vast heavens.

The great evils that had descended upon this land long ago, hiding in the shadows of the human world as they carried out their schemes, watched its existence.

It was an age when evil ran rampant.

An age when people chose evil easily and flaunted their wickedness.

They had noticed its existence.

They had noticed that the king had been anointed.

There was no turning back now.

Dark clouds soon gathered, and the massive angel’s true form gradually faded away.

* * *

Scratch, scratch.

The sound of a ballpoint pen moving across paper echoed through the office.

“You’ve signed everything. The one-billion-won transfer has also... Yes, it’s confirmed.”

The office of the Great Unification Church Leader.

Moon Hakjeong looked down at the contract in front of him and smiled faintly.

After all, he had made a major deal by handing over a thirty-billion-won hotel for ten billion won.

“With this, Yurim Hotel belongs to its new owner, Mr. Baek Yohan.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve received it.”

As Pastor Go and I stood up, Leader Moon spoke.

“The being inside the hotel. How did you defeat it?”

He had called it a “being,” not an “evil spirit.”

That meant the Great Unification Church Leader had known.

He knew that the being controlling Yurim Hotel was a demon.

This guy really wasn’t trustworthy.

Setting aside the double contract, hiding information that important was basically pushing me into a death trap.

I gave him an answer designed to annoy him.

“It wasn’t much. I one-shot it.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie, so I had no reason to feel guilty.

“Right. I should return this now.”

When I held out the Favor-Debt Token, the Great Unification Church Leader waved a hand.

“Keep it. We hired support personnel because we couldn’t trust you, after all.”

So that was what he called support personnel.

Quite a few people besides those three had entered the hotel.

They had cursed when they learned the situation had already been resolved, then left.

“I look forward to the day you face our church without prejudice, Mr. Yohan.”

“Ah, sure.”

Looks like he hadn’t given up.

Still, thanks to him, I’d gotten a hundred-billion-won hotel for cheap. Good was good, I guess.

...

...

...

After Yohan and Pastor Go left, Moon Hakjeong stared silently at the place where Yohan had been.

“...”

“...”

Suppressed rage simmered beneath the surface. No one dared to speak as the executives watched the church leader’s expression.

Crash!

Leader Moon swept his arm across the desk, sending everything flying.

“L-Leader...”

The executives looked at him with frightened eyes as he openly vented his rage.

Only after pouring out his anger did Moon Hakjeong seem to calm down enough to sit again.

“All we did was waste money.”

“I-I’m sorry! We can make up for this through the believers, more than enough...!”

“Losing him is more regrettable than that. Isn’t he an exceptional talent? He exterminated a demon in a single night.”

That wasn’t something Leader Moon, who had sent Yohan to die at the demon’s hands, should have been saying.

“So? What happened to the witnesses?”

The moment they heard that Yohan had purified Yurim Hotel, they had dragged in the exorcists who had been there.

It had been half forced, but they couldn’t resist a major force from one of the Five Great Lineages.

“Hyeun and Yeonhwa escaped midway through, so we couldn’t get any important testimony from them. And Taoist Cheongmyeong...”

“Did that person not see anything either?”

“Yes... He said he passed out midway through, and when he woke up, everything had already been resolved.”

“Given the injury to the back of his head and the strangulation marks on his neck, it doesn’t seem like he was lying about passing out.”

“So in the end... no one knows anything.”

Crunch!

As Leader Moon ground his teeth, the executives watched him even more carefully.

Taoist Cheongmyeong hadn’t lied about passing out.

But he had seen it.

He had seen the demon separate at Yohan’s command.

He had witnessed more than enough information to satisfy the Great Unification Church Leader, but he had said nothing.

It was a small repayment to the person who had saved his life.

* * *

Incidents involving demons had to be reported to the Mystic Association.

Exorcists in Korea and overseas did not always follow that rule, but Gangnam Holy Temple Church actively cooperated with the Association and the other Five Great Lineages in matters like these.

The demon extermination at Yurim Hotel was also reported to the Association, and many Review Division agents were dispatched.

“It hasn’t even been that long since the Decarabia summoning incident, and now there’s another demon?”

“Apparently this demon had been hiding in the hotel for quite a long time.”

The Review Division team leader clicked their tongue at the subordinate’s report.

“This place... was originally a building owned by the Great Unification Church, right? And they didn’t know?”

“That’s what the Great Unification Church claims.”

“Unbelievable.”

There was no way they could have failed to notice a major threat like a demon hiding there.

They must have spent a fortune buying the problematic hotel, trying to solve it.

It looked like they had realized a demon was living there and given up, but concealing it from the Association was an even bigger problem.

Even so, the Association probably could not impose any meaningful sanctions on the Great Unification Church.

Too many high-ranking government officials were taking their money.

The reason Gangnam Holy Temple Church could not do much against the heretical Great Unification Church was that, unlike them, Gangnam Holy Temple Church did not bribe people.

‘Pastor Kim kept them in check fairly well when he was still around.’

Pastor Park was an experienced veteran, but only when it came to exorcism.

In politics and business, the presence of his dead successor had been too great.

“Still, doesn’t this feel strange?”

“You felt it too, Team Leader?”

“This was land where a demon lived. I heard it even turned the dragon node into a Ghost Vein and settled down there... So why can’t I sense any ghostly energy at all?”

Demons naturally had the power to draw evil beings toward them.

Corrupted, wicked beings instinctively worshipped and submitted to the pinnacle of evil.

Evil spirits naturally gathered wherever a demon dwelled, yet there was not a single wicked presence around here.

Not even yokai.

“Isn’t it because it’s close to Gangnam Holy Temple Church? Their exorcists clear out this area.”

“It’s still a little far from there.”

The Review Division agents began investigating the hotel’s interior.

Yurim Hotel was a complete mess.

There had been so many swarms of insects and rats raised by the demon, along with piles of rat bones it had devoured indiscriminately to keep the possessed human alive.

But when they reached the underground sauna where the demon had lived, it felt as though their noses had been thoroughly washed clean.

“This is...”

“Near the dragon node... right?”

It was widely known that Yurim Hotel stood where dragon nodes gathered.

The hot spring water bubbling up from beneath the land had been so effective because of that.

Simply soaking in the baths allowed people to absorb the energy of the dragon vein.

But while the demon lived there, the dragon node had been corrupted into a Ghost Vein.

Even if the demon had been exterminated, the polluted dragon node should have remained unless a large-scale purification ritual had been performed.

“This is insane.”

The energy welling up from the ground was not merely clear. It was sacred.

The veins of earth energy winding through this land must have contained majestic spiritual energy.

A node was where a land’s energy gathered.

If all that energy was converging into one point, there was no reason to judge it any other way.

Only then did the Review Division agents understand why there was not a single evil spirit in the area.

This place was...

“An auspicious site.”

* * *

After finalizing the contract with the Great Unification Church Leader, I got some proper rest at home.

One of the church members who worked in interior design came over and remodeled the bathroom until it sparkled. That person also called in cleaners, who got rid of the construction waste and mold we hadn’t been able to deal with.

Wouldn’t it be perfect once I filled the place with furniture like a mattress and TV?

I was thinking of visiting the furniture district soon, but there was something more important first.

“Whew. Gari, you have four ‘eyes’ now too.”

The brass ring rotating around Gari.

There were now two pairs of eyes inside it.

One belonged to Decarabia, the sixty-ninth.

The other belonged to Martim, the eighteenth.

“Okay, Slave Number Eighteen. What kind of magic do you have?”

Footnotes:

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