You Didn't Tell Me the Start of My Transmigration Was a Gate

Chapter 25 Part 1: Rescue

This was one crazy woman. And not just her. This entire cult was even crazier than I thought. I was already creeped out by the idea of them rounding up children and torturing them. How the hell did she come up with such an idea…

“Do you still think this is a lie?”

Hyewon-Unnie and I remained silent. I could sense an energy seeping out of the saintess’ voice and it was hard to explain. My hand holding the karambit was sweaty.

“I am the proof…”

As soon as she finished speaking, a faint glow began to emanate from her body. Not knowing what she was about to do, I quickly stepped back. Taking advantage of that gap, the captain of the paladins tried to approach her, but the saintess shook her head.

“The Fragment of God that was implanted in this soul was… the «Sacred Scales».”

I know that item. The Sacred Scale was an item that offered a reward for placing a gold coin or an item on one side.

Wooosh. A mysterious sound rang out. A bright light suddenly emanated from the saintess’ body, and behind her back, a cluster of lights converged to form the image of a… scale. It resembled the sacred scales I knew. As the shards of light converged, the scales finally revealed itself from the bottom. It climbed up the luxuriously patterned pillars, branching off to the left and right…

Coo-hop.

A red glow was seen through the white ball of light. The saintess coughed up a mouthful of blood.

“Saintess!”

The scales that had begun to form on the saint’s back immediately shattered. It eventually vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed in the first place. I could see the paladins fidgeting and looking worriedly at her. She collapsed to the ground, unable to contain herself. I blocked the paladins’ attempts to run away, and with the saintess behind my back, I confronted them. “Just now…” beside me, Hyewon said something in a daze.

“What did I just see…?”

I wanted to ask, what that thing I saw just now, what was it? That fullness, that powerful divine power. It was ten times darker than Jo Yeon-Ho…

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“That crazy doctrine was really true?”

‘Humans… tend to grow with pain, and when they pass through a near-death experience, they become more noble.’

The saintess’ expression was immediately distraught.

Crazy saintess! Crazy order! and the craziest thing was this damn gate! To be able to implant an item into a human body and make them nearly as powerful as the Pope.

「Artificial healers」, what a fascinating word. Professions like mages and healers, which cannot be acquired, were people of high value. If you say that they can be acquired artificially, how many people outside will be drooling?

“Maybe they won’t even care whether the whole process is inhumane. After all, most of what goes on inside this gate is kept a secret, and if they can get a single healer of this caliber by doing a lot of human experimentation inside it, they might think that it’s good enough… ‘Of course, they’ll have to see if it works outside of this staged gate but… it’s dangerous in more ways than one.’

I swallowed hard.

「Notice: 143/148 goals achieved.」

Just then, a notification rang into my head, bringing me back to reality. I snapped my head around and looked at the door. Kim Ki-Taek was carrying a child outside, he was sweating profusely. I turned my head again to look at the buildings. They were burning brightly. It was hard to imagine that there were any people left in there.

“All that’s left is one person…!”

The goal was ‘less than five‘. Now that there were only five of us left, if we could just get one person out of there, we would have achieved our goal… However, I still got a very ominous feeling.

“Seoha-ya!”

I ran out the door, ignoring Hyewon-Unnie’s call. I quickly scanned through the crowd of kids. Not here. Nothing. Not a strand of faded golden hair in sight.

“No Dahlia!”

I looked at the building again. A roaring fire caught my eye. Damn it. I don’t want to do this. I mean, I really don’t want to do this… Those vivid green eyes stared back at me. How could I not see the regret in them, how could I not recognize it, how could I not look away from her?

“I.. I’ll go in.”

“What? You?”

Kim Ki-tack looked at me puzzled.

“Instead of me, please go to the saintess side. I’ll go in there. You know my unique skill, I can get out.”

“It’s dangerous. The movement of the priests were strange, a fire like that, and not a single one of them came out.”

“We still have to go. I’ll go.”

I was uncharacteristically stubborn. I could do it. It was a very selfish thing to say but if there’s only one person that can be saved it should be Dahlia. I know I’m being unreasonable but if I could only get one person out of there, wouldn’t it be easier if it was someone I knew…?

Kim Ki-taek looked at me with wary eyes. It is a face that weighs the reason why I am suddenly acting like this maybe… Maybe… As I feared the most, I’m feeling overly invested as Ritch. Can I say that this feeling of excitement and exhilaration, with my heart pounding and my hands and feet shaking, is normal?