Chapter 52

I struggled to understand what I had just heard.

But I couldn’t.

It wasn’t something that could be understood in the first place.

‘Everyone in Morneveil received treatment from Dominic?’

No, could that even be called treatment? Was that really the right word to use?

Even if it was just a small rural city, every single citizen of the city…

From Dominic…

Thinking it was an exaggerated expression, I turned my eyes away.

Dominic was looking at me.

When our gazes met, he gave me a faint smile.

I reflexively smiled back. Edel continued chattering beside me.

“Ah, right. I should introduce our apostles to you.”

Her eyes, which had regained their focus at some point, turned toward the apostles standing silently like ghosts.

There were twelve apostles in total, but perhaps the others had been dispatched elsewhere for different duties. Only six were here, including Edel.

Young and beautiful men and women walked over without making a sound.

‘Please, put on some clothes.’

Unable to even close my eyes, I was forced to stare at them wearing their apostle outfits.

“Should you have anything you need done, please command us. We will serve you with all our hearts.”

“Yes… There isn’t really anything…”

When my reaction was lukewarm, Edel glared at the apostles.

Her gaze toward those useless things was sharp.

The apostles retreated silently, just as they had appeared.

‘The Twelfth Apostle isn’t here.’

Originally, the order was to undo the brainwashing of ordinary believers and recruit them as companions afterward.

But since I had skipped so many steps already, it seemed fine to recruit apostles directly.

The problem was that I needed Doctor Dominic to undo the Twelfth Apostle’s brainwashing…

‘The problem is that Dominic is acting strange right now.’

I had no idea whether he would properly remove the brainwashing.

Judging from the current situation, I would be lucky if he didn’t simply place new brainwashing on them.

Just as I was lost in thought, Edel gently placed a hand on me.

“Little Lamb. Is there anything I can help you with? I am capable of many things.”

She smiled meaningfully.

“For Little Lamb, I can do anything.”

Ding.

A system window appeared.

Wait.

A companion recruitment option appeared here?

I looked at the system window in surprise.

Originally, in the reporter route, Edel could not be recruited as a companion.

Even in the cult leader route, I had only managed to recruit Edel as a companion once.

‘That playthrough where I quit because of a game bug… the one that was probably the true ending.’

Because of trauma from childhood abuse, she had an extreme hatred of adult men.

The sacrifices offered by the Apostles of the Void were all adult men because of this.

Her greatest pleasure was dissecting the offerings alive on the altar and enjoying their horrible screams.

Even during gameplay, when she acted as though she had completely opened her heart, she actually hadn’t.

It required an enormous amount of effort to gain enough trust from her to recruit her as a companion.

And yet, she had given her trust to some nobody reporter who came from London after only half a day.

It seemed to be because of my resurrection, but I wondered if things were really supposed to be this easy.

‘Isn’t it fine?’

Honestly, using resurrection during the reporter route was already far outside normal gameplay.

Adding Edel as a companion now felt like borrowing another hundred thousand won when I already owed one hundred million.

Besides, I was curious.

‘How convenient would Edel be as a companion?’

In the end, I couldn’t resist the temptation and chose a life of debt totaling 100,100,000 won.

“Lady Edel. Please become my companion.”

“I would gladly do so, Little Lamb.”

Immediately after the companion recruitment notification, another system window appeared.

The windows appeared alternately as if the system were broken.

Eventually, only one remained.

The final option felt like it was becoming more and more specific.

Of course, I ignored it and chose the third option.

“However, Lady Edel. There is no need for you to do anything for me. Just stay by my side.”

Edel’s eyes widened slightly.

Her red pupils, surrounded by white eyelashes, quietly reflected me.

It seemed my answer was not what she expected.

Soon, she whispered.

“Then… there was no need to accept me as a companion, was there?”

“I simply wanted to become closer to you, Lady Edel.”

“…You could have just ordered me to become close to you.”

“I didn’t want to give such an order.”

“……”

Edel bit her lip.

I smiled slightly at her, then asked a completely unrelated question as though nothing had happened.

“Ah, right. I would like to look around inside the cult. Would it be possible for me to tour it together with Dominic-ssi?”

“Of course! I’ll prepare everything right away!”

“No. Lady Edel must be busy, so please assign another believer to accompany me. You still need to prepare for tomorrow’s ritual, don’t you?”

“But…”

“I am looking forward to the ritual that Lady Edel will personally oversee.”

Edel’s eyes drooped downward.

She sighed repeatedly as though she truly disliked the idea, but she really was busy preparing the ritual.

She had probably already lost time preparing today’s banquet for me, making things even more rushed.

The apostles who were not currently visible were most likely out searching for sacrifices for the ritual.

After seeming to weigh the matter internally for quite some time, Edel eventually gave up and decided to assign me a believer.

“I’ll give you the most capable believer among them. They won’t be lacking in serving Little Lamb.”

Thus, I left the banquet hall and began exploring the inside of the cult with Dominic and one believer.

Such unrestricted exploration.

The authority of a cult leader was sweet.

The believer Edel assigned had an extremely loyal expression.

He looked like he would do anything for Dominic and me.

While the believer wasn’t looking, I tapped Dominic lightly.

I gestured for him to deal with the believer leading us, then hurriedly added:

“Don’t kill him.”

The guiding believer turned around and asked:

“Hm? Did I not hear you properly—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence.

The moment Dominic lightly touched him with the tip of his finger, he stiffened like a wooden plank and collapsed unconscious.

“Thank you, Dominic-ssi.”

I dragged the unconscious believer away and threw him into a secluded corner before taking a camera out of my inventory.

“From now on, I’m going to collect evidence.”

Dominic looked down at what I was doing and asked:

“Do you know the way?”

“Of course. Just follow me.”

In the reporter route, there were thirteen pieces of evidence that could be used for the exposé.

You had to collect a mixture of decisive evidence and ordinary evidence. If you filled all thirteen slots with only ordinary evidence, the exposé would fail.

Finding all the decisive evidence was the most important thing.

Excluding evidence that could only be collected on specific dates and evidence that had to be found in other locations, there were eight pieces of evidence that could be gathered from the cult right now.

Some of them could only be discovered after recruiting believers as companions, but since I had somehow recruited the cult leader herself as a companion, there was no need to worry.

‘I’ll collect all eight today.’

With a solemn determination, I began raiding the cult.

All the evidence inside the cult building was located on the third floor.

The first and second floors, as well as the basement, were a trick designed to make players waste time searching every corner, thinking there must be something hidden there.

Having already done all kinds of pointless things inside the game, I took Dominic and went straight to the third floor.

Unlike the lower floors, the third floor was not complicated like a maze.

A long hallway had five rooms facing each other diagonally.

The events that occurred and the items that appeared changed depending on the order in which the rooms were entered.

Entering them randomly would prevent you from obtaining what you wanted.

As soon as the system window appeared asking me which of the five rooms I wanted to enter, I immediately chose.

And then I began moving quickly with maximum efficiency and the shortest possible route.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary study, but if you pressed the books on the shelves in the correct order…

“Dominic-ssi. Could you press the book on the very top row over there?”

The bookshelf opened, revealing a hidden space behind it.

It was a relic storage room.

The tools the cult used during their human sacrifice rituals were stored here.

In this place packed full of countless objects, I quickly found only the things I needed and took photographs.

If you took the pictures incorrectly, there were cases where they would not be accepted as evidence later.

For a safe playthrough, it was better to take several pictures.

But I knew exactly what angle produced a clean evidence shot, so one press of the shutter was enough.

While photographing the Eyes of the Sacrificed, I noticed something unusual.

Every eyeball inside the formalin jar was blue.

It was a color I had never seen in the game.

“……”

For now, I pressed the shutter.

I had obtained everything worth taking from the relic storage room.

“Alright, let’s move to the next location.”

The moment we entered, a dazzling space appeared.

The most extravagant room in this building was none other than the cult leader’s room.

The entire interior was decorated in gold and red, making it painful to look at for too long.

It felt strange to say this, but it seemed like this room reflected Edel’s mental world exactly.

I searched the hidden key inside the cult leader’s room and opened the similarly hidden chest.

I placed one bottle of Breath of Mist separately into my inventory.

The reason an item marked with a star was still recorded as ordinary evidence was because the information was incomplete.

If I had the ingredients analyzed and attached the results, it would be upgraded into decisive evidence.

Watching what I was doing, Dominic asked with curious eyes:

“Roasted Chestnut, you seem to know everything. How do you know all of this?”

“That is… similar to why stagnant water eventually rots. Let’s move on.”

And so, after repeatedly moving and collecting items, I gathered two decisive pieces of evidence, one backup decisive piece of evidence, and four ordinary pieces of evidence.

Now, only one final piece of decisive evidence remained.

I stood at the end of the hallway and ran my hand along the wall that appeared to be completely blocked.

‘It should be around here.’

Dominic brought the lantern closer to the wall for me.

After feeling around for a while, my fingertips caught on a tiny uneven section.

‘This is it.’

When I pressed the uneven spot, the wall silently opened, revealing a hidden space.

I entered the secret area together with Dominic.

However, there was one problem I had failed to anticipate.

“Roasted Chestnut…”

The ceiling of the secret room was low.

Dominic, completely hunched over, looked at me.

I felt as though I had committed an extremely disrespectful act.

If the butlers had witnessed this sight, they definitely would have fired lasers at me.

At this point, I couldn’t help but ask.

“Um… Dominic-ssi. I apologize for the incredibly rude question, but… would it be possible for you to reduce your height?”

If it had been anyone else, I would never have asked something like this.

But this was Dominic.

I looked up at him with hope.

For some reason, the moment Dominic heard my question, he immediately laughed.

“I tried doing that once before, but it didn’t work.”

“Is that so?”

I nodded sadly.

Then, I continued forward through the narrow space with the hunched-over Dominic.

This place was unusual—not only was the ceiling low, but the sides were narrow as well.

It had been built specifically to seal away a special object.

At the center of the space sat a strange metal box.

The black metal box looked as if it had been carved from a single chunk of metal, and a large eye symbol was engraved on its surface.

I crouched down on the floor, and Dominic followed me, bending his knees to sit beside me.

The metal box I picked up was not cold.

It carried warmth, like a living creature.

The box containing the cult’s most important relic could not be opened by just anyone.

Normally, it required successfully completing five complicated mini-games that made players’ insides twist with frustration without failing even once in order to open it…

Click.

“…?”

The moment I placed my hand on it, the box opened immediately.

As if someone had already opened it beforehand.

The object with an impossible geometric shape was wrapped in black velvet and emitted an ominous glow.

I stared at it blankly as strange waves of light surrounded the object.

Then suddenly, I turned my head as if someone had grabbed my attention.

Dominic was staring at the Shining Scalene Polyhedron.

“This is…”

His blue eyes shone brilliantly, holding an even more sinister aura than the bizarre item itself.

“Something I have seen before in the past.”

Ding!

With a cheerful notification sound, a selection window appeared.