Vol 2. Chapter 428: One Man, Two Roles, and Chaos in the Demon World (3)

Flap, flap.

“Human, why did you suddenly tell them to hold a festival in the village?”

Raon tilted his head and flapped his wings.

Standing on the rise overlooking the village, Cale looked down below.

Excuse me?

When Cale had said they should hold a festival, Aurora had failed to hide her confusion at first.

A festival?

A feast would be enough.

Then he had added,

We need it.

And Cale was not the type to stop at words alone.

Rustle.

He pulled a jewel from his robe and handed it over.

!

It was worth far more than enough to pay for a village feast.

Aurora instantly seized the jewel.

I think we can have it prepared by around evening!

After leaving the work in Aurora’s grimly determined hands, Cale climbed the hill and stood with Raon, looking down at the village.

“Cale.”

But at the voice from behind him, Cale flinched.

Clopeh.

Choi Han, the Heavenly Demon, On, and Hong too.

The others were also passing the time in relative ease.

As for finding the point where contact with Choi Jung Soo had been cut off.

And finding the last location from which Team Leader Sui Khan had contacted them.

Cale intended to go in person.

I need to know how Choi Jung Soo and Team Leader work.

More precisely, he needed to know how our team worked.

Only then could he find the markers and follow the trail.

Hmm.

Of course, Cale was not the only one who could do it.

Glance.

Cale’s gaze shifted to the side.

Choi Han was sitting quietly, looking down at the village.

Choi Han knows too.

Because Choi Han had Choi Jung Soo’s memories.

He had looked into his life, and inherited his power.

Choi Jung Soo’s White Dragon.

Choi Han’s Black Dragon.

Choi Han would know how Choi Jung Soo worked in their team—especially his methods—just as well as Cale did.

“Choi Han.”

“Yes.”

“I’m leaving Choi Jung Soo’s side to you.”

“Yes.”

Choi Han answered without hesitation, wearing the face of someone who had already known he would be given that task.

I’ll go after Team Leader.

Team Leader Sui Khan.

No, Lee Soo Hyuk.

He had to catch up to that man before he did something reckless.

Maybe—

And maybe, even if Choi Han and Cale split into separate teams to search for Team Leader and Choi Jung Soo, they would still end up heading for the same place in the end.

The Order of the God of Chaos.

Because all the answers were there.

A grave look settled over Cale’s face.

“Cale.”

Oh, right.

This bastard was here too.

Cale’s gaze moved.

“Uh, ah?”

He looked at Clopeh Sekka with a rather dubious expression.

What is he trying to ask?

What was this lunatic about to say now?

Is he going to ask about the purification ritual? Or about Choi Jung Soo and Team Leader?

A needless sense of tension came over him.

Smile.

Clopeh Sekka drew a gentle smile.

Dressed in white priestly robes, he pointed down below.

“May I go help prepare for the village feast?”

Hm?

That is a remarkably—extremely—

solid question?

“Well, uh. Sure. That would be good.”

“Then I’ll be off.”

At Cale’s permission, Clopeh looked purely delighted.

“Human, I want to help too! Preparing for a feast sounds fun!”

“I want to too! I want to!”

And then On spoke after Raon and Hong.

“I’ll make sure they help properly without causing trouble.”

Cale looked at On and said,

“Go help, as long as you don’t get in the way.”

Nod.

At On’s reliable manner, a satisfied smile slipped onto Cale’s face before he knew it.

Because On’s gaze had briefly landed on Clopeh.

Without causing trouble.

That was probably directed less at Raon and Hong than at Clopeh Sekka.

As expected, she’s smart.

On was the smartest one.

Why was this kid so smart and wise?

That really was amazing.

“Two-hundred-seventy-degree Clopeh Sekka! Let’s go together!”

“Yes, Raon.”

Nyaaaow!

Raon, Clopeh, and Hong quickly headed down into the village, while On followed after them at an easy pace.

Cale watched them go, then heard Choi Han’s voice.

“It’s a ritual of the God of Chaos. Does it need a feast?”

The one who answered that question was not Cale.

“Why not?”

It was the Heavenly Demon.

“You think the Order of the God of Chaos wouldn’t hold feasts like that? Back in Primordial Night too, when they were offering sacrifices, the whole place felt like a festival.”

“There was a sacrifice there. It was closer to indulgence than a festival.”

Choi Han countered with a frown.

At that, the Heavenly Demon let out a short laugh.

“The Demonic Cult holds feasts too.”

Strength.

Even the Demonic Cult, which pursued that alone, held feasts and festivals.

“......”

At those words, Choi Han fell silent.

Feeling the mood of the village as it bustled with preparations and quiet excitement, the Heavenly Demon opened his mouth.

“It had felt strange all along.”

As the king and god who ruled the Demonic Cult,

the Heavenly Demon had harbored many doubts as he watched the Order of the God of Chaos.

“Why would chaos contain only negative things like fear and corruption?”

Perhaps it felt that way because they had encountered chaos as an enemy.

In truth, many different things existed within the Order of the God of Chaos.

“Then I saw pleasure. And now I see a feast of purification.”

The Heavenly Demon nodded.

“Yes. That is what chaos should be.”

A thing in which anything could exist, and for that very reason drag others into confusion.

Was that not chaos itself?

“If there were only suffering and fear, there is no way so many would follow that god.”

Choi Han sank into thought for a moment, then asked Cale,

“What about the purification ritual?”

Inside that question were both curiosity about the ritual and concern for Choi Jung Gun.

“Hmm.”

Cale thought for a moment, then said exactly what he knew and felt.

“It won’t be painful.”

Choi Jung Gun would not suffer.

“And it’ll be beautiful.”

If the ritual unfolded the way Cale knew it would, the sight would be quite beautiful.

“Human!”

After some time had passed, Raon came over to Cale.

“They said all the preparations for the feast are done!”

Cale headed toward the village.

His gaze briefly lifted to the sky.

It was almost time for sunset.

Not bad timing.

*****

“Grandpa, what day is it today?”

The old man paused at the words his granddaughter threw at him.

“Wow, can we really eat all of this?”

Then he saw his granddaughter staring at the food laid out on the tables in the open square at the center of the village, drool almost running from her mouth, and a laugh escaped him before he knew it.

What on earth is happening?

But the smile at the corner of his mouth gradually turned bitter.

His hometown village, where he had lived all his life.

The Sixth Army of the Demon King had suddenly raided it.

The village had been destroyed by them, and in the end they had been forced to flee in a panic just to survive.

Perhaps he ought to count himself lucky that he had managed to escape with nothing but a single portrait of his late wife.

To think the current Demon King is abducting demons—

Though he had survived, it grieved him that he had learned part of the truth, and that so long as the current Demon King existed, they would have to keep living in hiding.

Not that I have long to live anyway.

His son and daughter. Their families.

“Grandpa, Grandpa! When do we eat? Can’t we eat now?”

What would become of their lives from now on?

Would they have to attach themselves to the mediator group and, in the end, fight the current Demon King?

For an old man who had lived only hoping for a peaceful, comfortable life, the situation he had been thrown into was itself a heavy burden.

“Father. Are you all right?”

“Hm? Ah, I’m fine.”

At his daughter’s worried question, he hurriedly put on a smile.

“That’s good. If anything hurts, please tell me.”

His daughter’s expression was a little brighter today.

Well, of course it would be.

A feast, appearing all at once.

He did not know the reason, but Aurora, the village chief here and the head of the mediator group, had covered the cost of the feast and handed out money to each household as wages—though it was far more than wages should have been.

Thanks to that, both his daughter and son looked brighter.

They were probably trying, at least for now, not to think about the battle looming ahead—or the possibility that they might have to run again.

Yes. But an old man like me can’t sit around looking gloomy.

The old man forced himself to smile.

That was when—

“May I sit here?”

“Ah, yes......!”

The old man answered respectfully.

A priest...!

The outsiders who had visited the village with Village Chief Aurora.

They were not demons.

But once he heard that they were the ones who had stopped the Sixth Army and Baron Deshuran, warmth and gratitude rose naturally in him toward them.

He feels different.

Moreover, the white-haired, green-eyed priest who sat beside him had not hesitated to do the dirty work while helping prepare the feast.

Well, if people like this are the ones holding the feast, then nothing strange should happen.

He had heard that it was being held for a ritual to heal someone who had been gravely injured because of an order that worshiped some god.

“Um, Priest.”

The old man asked cautiously.

“Are you the one performing the ritual?”

At the north side of the village square,

there was an altar.

“No.”

The old man froze for a moment at the priest’s firm reply.

Smile.

Then the priest gave a gentle smile. It was a holy-looking smile, one that perfectly suited a priest.

“The one I serve will perform it.”

“Ah.”

A sound of realization escaped him.

So it would be the superior of this priest?

Priest. Order.

For an old man accustomed only to waiting for the demon god who would appear one day, those words felt oddly unfamiliar, but at the same time a little intriguing.

“They’re coming.”

It happened then.

From the northern side of the village—the place Aurora had been particularly strict about securing—

several people were approaching.

“Ugh!”

His granddaughter hurriedly pinched her nose shut.

“It stinks!”

Even the old man, whose senses had dulled with age, could smell the foul stench, and his brow furrowed without him meaning to.

The smell was so vile that he could barely even see the food before him.

Urk.

Someone gagged.

And the smell came closer.

People realized that it was coming from a coffin-like box.

Mm.

The old man understood that there was a person inside, and that this person was the one meant to be healed.

The coffin was covered in all kinds of magic circles.

Thud.

The coffin was set down on top of the altar.

The ones carrying it were demon mages.

They opened the lid, manipulated the coffin, and lifted away everything but the bottom.

“Mm.”

The old man let out a low groan.

He could see a person covered in white cloth.

One hand stuck out from where the cloth did not cover it.

“Mm.”

Without thinking, he covered his granddaughter’s eyes.

Good heavens.

What was that hideous thing?

The skin stained gray was oozing, and the stench of rot was overpowering.

On top of that, the veins were bulging so grotesquely it looked as if the arm might burst at any moment.

A corpse.

Yes. That body was so hideous that a corpse would almost have been better. It looked as though it were rotting in real time.

The smell was that awful.

At the same time, an inexplicable fear welled up inside him.

It isn’t contagious, is it?

Because the fear came that it might be contagious.

Step.

At that moment, one person stepped up onto the altar and stood before the white cloth covering the figure that lay there like a corpse.

“That is him.”

The priest spoke quietly, and the old man looked at the man.

Hm?

And then he felt puzzled.

...A priest?

For a priest, the man before him gave off a very strange atmosphere.

Rather, he carried the air of the Demon King of Ennui—loose, languid, and weary.

But the old man was too old to be deceived by appearances alone.

Clear.

Dark reddish-brown eyes.

Those eyes were astonishingly clear.

That kind of clarity showed the years a person had lived.

Priest.

Compared to the strangely bizarre gaze of the priest at his side, that man’s eyes were like transparent water.

And with those transparent eyes, Cale looked down at Choi Jung Gun on the altar.

This is bad.

They had brought Choi Jung Gun here inside a box etched with a temporary magic circle, but

the moment he had left the building protected by the magic circle, Choi Jung Gun’s body had started to corrupt at a rapid pace.

Huff, huff—

His faint breathing had begun growing ragged.

That was not a good sign.

The smell of rot, more oozing fluid.

A body that seemed not merely stained gray, but rotting gray.

Cale did not waste time.

He closed his eyes.

Purification of Chaos.

What it required.

The place.

And the caster.

The place had to be somewhere a festival was unfolding.

Someone might ask what a festival had to do with a ritual of purification.

Here, something on the scale of a feast would be enough.

It simply had to be

a place where joyful chaos could remain.

Chaos did not have to be only negative.

Sometimes, when people took part in a festival, they felt overwhelmed and disordered, yet at the same time they felt joy and happiness within it.

Joyful chaos could exist.

“......”

Cale looked around.

Even as people clutched their noses against the stench of rot, joy and anticipation still lingered here.

The anticipation created by the preparations for a feast—one that let them forget the exhaustion of the past few months.

That was a considerable joy.

–Cale, should I step in a little?

The dominating aura cut in with an absurdly pompous voice, but Cale ignored it completely.

Instead, he drew back the white cloth.

“Gasp!”

“Ugh!”

The horrific sight of Choi Jung Gun.

The people could not hide their shock.

“!”

“!!”

And when Cale unhesitatingly placed his hand on Choi Jung Gun’s body—on his forehead—they froze.

“Huh?”

“Mm?”

“What?”

Then the people felt something.

The sky was turning red as the sun set.

It was still the hour when no lamps had yet been lit in the village, when everything was simply red.

Whoosh—

They heard the sound of wind.

“No.”

The old man shook his head.

“It’s a forest.”

This was the sound of wind blowing through a forest.

Why would that sound be heard in the village?

But that was not all.

“It’s waves.”

It sounded like waves too.

A wind carrying a sound whose nature they could not identify swept over them,

then headed for the altar.

Their eyes naturally turned in that direction.

“Ah.”

The old man let out a breath.

Wind.

And through that sound, he heard it.

“...Wife.”

He heard her voice.

Once, sometime in the past.

Yes.

I’m glad I married you.

Those were words she had surely once said to him.

He could hear them now.

A fragment of a memory he had forgotten in the exhaustion of life—just one tiny fragment—came rushing back.

What is this?

What am I experiencing right now?

Then he saw a scene in what had been fixed on the altar.

A gray light.

Neither white

nor black.

Yes.

A gray light far too familiar to those who lived in the Demon World.

The mana of the Demon World existed as gray.

Unlike the gray that covered the person rotting so terribly, a red-haired man was giving off shining gray light, like a faint mist.

That mist wrapped around the old man.

It was warm.

The feeling he had felt when he heard those words from his wife—when it had seemed as if he owned the whole world, one of the happiest moments of his life without question—embraced him once again.

Yes.

This was comfort.

Tears slipped from the old man’s eyes before he knew it.

But there was no sorrow in them.

Remembering a forgotten memory, his heart was comforted, and the weariness of reality was soothed.

“Ah.”

He could no longer smell the rot.

He did not hear his wife’s voice again.

He could not tell whether it had scattered like a mirage, or whether he himself had simply recalled that memory for a moment.

But it still remained vividly in his heart.

Because the gray mist that made him feel the joy of that time was still holding him gently.

“Heehee!”

He heard his granddaughter laughing.

“Grandpa! I remembered when Mom praised me!”

At his little granddaughter’s words, a smile came to the old man’s face on its own.

Yes. So memories were surfacing.

“Ah.”

He breathed out again.

Within the gray mist, tiny gray particles of light were rising.

From the old man too.

From his granddaughter too.

And yet the old man felt no pain, nothing at all.

He was only happy.

Whoosh—

The wind blew again.

Those tiny gray lights, like fireflies, flew along with the wind.

And headed toward the red-haired man.

Wrapped in countless little lights, he stood beneath the crimson sunset, his hair even more vivid than the sky, stirred by the wind as he stretched out a hand.

Following his hand, the tiny lights moved like fireflies.

Cale laid that hand over the one already resting against Choi Jung Gun’s forehead.

The little gray lights followed his hand and covered Choi Jung Gun’s forehead—

and his body.

The fear chaos had brought until now had filled people’s ears with agonized screams and forced terrible memories of the past to return.

But Purification of Chaos was different.

It brought joy to mind.

And that power became strength for Cale, the one performing the purification.

Whoosh—

The sound of wind, as though it were coming from a forest or from the sea.

“As expected.”

Watching Cale, Clopeh thought of waves when he heard that sound.

The God of Chaos. He had once tried to drown Cale beneath gray waves like a storm tide.

Clopeh had heard of that sight, and had seen it too.

The power of the God of Chaos resembles the sea.

That was what Clopeh thought.

The ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) sea could be beautiful, or frightening, or horrific.

Or calm.

It could become all things.

Was that not chaos?

But—

the sea had rules of its own.

That was what made it different from chaos.

And did not the sea also cradle countless lives?

And—

Cale is different from the God of Chaos.

Yes.

Cale is the one who resembles the sea.

Like the sea, where chaos and order mingled together.

Like the sea, where life and death were all mixed together.

Cale’s life had dealt with and broken through all of it as needed, each moment in its proper way.

And he had carried all lives within it, trying to save them.

To do so, he used both chaos and order as freely as he pleased.

That was truly—

“Harmonious.”

And that was why it was beautiful.

“...Harmony.”

The old man standing beside Clopeh unconsciously repeated the word that had lodged in his ear.

Harmony. Harmony...

Why did that word stir his heart so deeply?

He fixed his eyes on the red-haired man.

The warm gray mist.

A color like the mana of the Demon World.

This soft power wrapping around demons.

A thought suddenly came to him.

Where had this power come from?

Could it be the demon god—

He started in shock and cut the thought off.

Because an absurd idea had flooded his mind.

Whoosh—

Even then, Cale looked down at Choi Jung Gun and thought to himself,

This is the last part.

The moment the gray motes of light wrapped around Choi Jung Gun,

Cale removed his hand from his body and closed both eyes.

Purification that would drive out the corruption.

And then the final stage unfolded.