Chapter 126 - The Unbeliever III

5.

It bears repeating that Noh Doha was a pragmatist.

She went beyond the principle that it didn't matter whether a cat was black or white: she was an extremist who believed it didn't matter whether a rat was black or white, either, so long as it tasted good. (Rats really were a good source of nutrients in the apocalypse.)

In short, she specialized in squeezing out the utmost efficiency, whether she was dealing with a cult or anything else.

“You want to use them? The Church of Resurrection?”

“Yees. First, I'd like to consult that ‘Regressor Wiki’ of yours, Awakened Undertaker... That Church of Resurrection doesn't last long, does it...?”

“Of course not. It collapses within three years at the latest.”

That's right.

No matter how insanely fast the Church of Resurrection expanded, even if it set its sights not only on North Korea but on all of Manchuria, there was no particular reason to worry about it. It was going to fall soon enough anyway.

It was different from Udumbara's New Buddha faith.

Udumbara actually guaranteed ‘benefits’ to those infected with its virus. Followers of the New Buddha faith could regenerate endlessly, even with severed arms, half their heads destroyed, or their innards ground to pieces. They could even live perfectly well on photosynthesis without eating. Had it not been for the minor drawback of having to sacrifice your life to the World Tree when your overdue payment came due, I would have converted myself.

And the Church of Resurrection?

“The anomaly called Mo Gwangseo has no abilities whatsoever. Apart from sparkling every time it resurrects, it really can't do anything.”

“Hmm...”

This had already been verified several times.

In one run, I even kidnapped Mo Gwangseo and performed experiments on him. I seared him with aura, fried him, burned him—I tried every damn thing.

‘This won't kill you either? Not even this?’

I worked hard at fucking him up in that spirit, but the results were disappointing. Mo Gwangseo resurrected every time.

One day, I tied him down at Meteor Strike's impact site. Even Meteor Strike, which reduced the entire surrounding area to an ash-gray wasteland, couldn't kill him.

I once commissioned the UFO to murder him, too. I sent him out on a fishing boat, timing it to coincide with the aliens falling into the East Sea.

“Skreeeeee!”

“Kreee! Skreeee!”

The universe's strongest warrior race lunged at Mo Gwangseo.

Flash! Flash! Dying dozens of times a second, Mo Gwangseo blasted eye-searing light in every direction. In an instant, the East Sea became the hottest nightclub in the world.

Thirty minutes passed like that.

“Kreeee...”

“Skree, skreeee...”

The miraculous UFO, designed to withstand outer space yet somehow dissolve like salt in H₂O, sank.

The aliens, having poured all their energy into the club party, liquefied and oozed away as well. These fuckers were just Ultraman with the time limit extended from three minutes to thirty.

A bright smile.

While the aliens evolved into slippery slime, Mo Gwangseo alone stood unharmed on the fishing boat, smiling.

Truly astonishing vitality.

But... that was all.

Far from offering any holy blessing, the light Mo Gwangseo emitted didn't even relieve fatigue as well as a bottle of Bacchus. It was simply dazzling.

Very dazzling.

Other than damaging human corneas, it had absolutely, utterly, no significance whatsoever.

“O Mo Gwangseo Jesus Christ, returned from heaven to save the earth!”

“We belieeeeeve!”

Yet somehow, people fell head over heels for him. They exalted and worshipped as a god a being with no use whatsoever beyond sparkling.

Why on earth?

I couldn't say. If I knew, I would have run to Pyongyang and shouted, “Mo Gwangseo, amen!” myself.

Isn't the world a curious place?

“Well, there's no need to analyze why they do it. Leave that sort of thing to psychologists or sociologists. What matters to us is that the Church of Resurrection can mobilize people and take action...”

Noh Doha brought us back to the matter at hand.

“We only need to hold a few strongholds anyway. Heh. If the Church of Resurrection draws even a little of the anomalies' aggro up north in the meantime, wouldn't that be to our benefit...?”

“Ah. Are you planning to turn the church into a human shield?”

“Yees...”

CLANG.

Noh Doha lightly tapped an ankle brace with a hammer. Even after becoming commander of the National Road Management Corps, she personally made or repaired assistive devices whenever there were no particularly urgent matters to attend to.

An everyday occurrence. The note she had attached to the brace bore the name Sin Subin. He was one of the elderly people who still treated her as their trusted assistive-device technician, rather than ‘Her Excellency, Commander of the National Road Management Corps.’

“Awakened Undertaker. If we look at it objectively, the Church of Resurrection doesn't really cause us trouble apart from marching north. Wouldn't assigning meat-shield duty to people who can't wait to die be precisely the proper way to put those lives to use...?”

“Hmm.”

I rested a hand on my chin.

In previous runs, I hadn't particularly interfered with the Church of Resurrection. That was because I saw it as a funeral in which the remnants of South Korea were slowly committing suicide.

Christianity. The religion with the most widespread roots in Korea. The Church of Resurrection mimicked its language and grammar on the surface alone.

The march north. The ideology with the longest-standing roots in Korea. The church borrowed its colors and scent as well.

A cult among cults.

A parasite among parasites.

But when the host dies, its parasites cannot survive either. Civilization had fallen. South Korea was dead.

Only parasites remained on a corpse that had long since breathed its last, writhing through their final season.

I did not admire their lives, but I respected their deaths. Shouldn't people have the right to choose their own deaths? The ‘Holy State of the East’ and the ‘Holy City of Pyongyang’ were the grave and coffin they had willingly lain down in.

“Let's eat our way into the Church of Resurrection's brain...”

And Noh Doha was someone who would use even a corpse if necessary.

Confronted with the gloomy shadows in her eyes, I set my personal sentiments aside for a moment.

It wasn't difficult. There was no need to disregard the opinion of someone whose life I cherished for the sake of lives I did not admire.

“You're suggesting we seize control of the Holy State of the East's leadership and play at being the masterminds behind the scenes.”

“Yees...”

“It won't be easy. The Holy State of the East isn't a nation. It isn't even a single group. It's nothing more than cult factions gathering and scattering under the symbol of Mo Gwangseo. We'd have to bring all twelve executives—the so-called ‘apostles’—over to our side, or choose one of them as our champion and make them ‘pope.’ Naturally, we'd also have to funnel our support to them secretly to keep the Holy State of the East afloat. Would it be worth that much effort?”

“No. It wouldn't be worth that much...”

Noh Doha chuckled.

“But wouldn't it be a profitable venture if we only had to control Mo Gwangseo himself...?”

“What? How? For the record, if you're thinking of using Cheon Yohwa's brainwashing ability, I've already tried it. The brainwashing resets whenever he resurrects, so it doesn't work. And Yohwa can't go up to Pyongyang every Sunday to play evangelist.”

“No, not Hundred Flowers' guild leader. Don't you have a little layabout in your guild? What are you saving that one for, soup...?”

I blinked. A layabout?

“Ah.”

So that was an option.

6

“G-Guild Leader? Why are you suddenly l-looking at m-me like that...?”

“No, not you, Aryeon.”

“Huh?”

Two layabouts lived in our guild.

One was Sim Aryeon, whose dream job was Professor Quirrell's tongue. The other was nestled in Aryeon's arms, tilting her head.

When our eyes met, the layabout waved a hand. At that, the housekeeper behind the sofa, connected to her by transparent strings, opened her mouth.

“What?”

Puppeteer Lee Hayul.

Hayul seldom appeared in my stories, for a simple reason. Every now and then, she would up and leave without telling anyone.

You could say she liked traveling. Calling her an idler afflicted with wanderlust would be just as fair. Once she had spun exactly enough puppet strings to serve as transmission lines, she would wander off somewhere for a fortnight or a month.

Sometimes—occasionally, completely out of the blue—she would even pester me into traveling to dangerous regions.

["I want to visit India this time, big brother."]

["Lake Uyuni. Let's make rice balls and eat them at Lake Uyuni. You make the rice, big brother."]

They say someone who works hard can't beat someone who enjoys what they do. That law applied just as thoroughly at the end of the world. Lee Hayul was reveling in apocalypse life itself.

If Hayul ever became the protagonist of a spin-off, its genre would instantly shift from survival fiction to a travelogue road movie.

Perhaps it was a reaction to having her freedom suppressed by Mayor Jeong Sang-guk from birth—or so I suspected.

Well, psychological causes aside, Noh Doha believed humans ought to devote twenty-five hours and fifty-nine minutes of every twenty-four-hour day to labor. Naturally, from her perspective, Lee Hayul was a ‘layabout.’

That esteemed layabout was currently lying on the sofa with her head in Sim Aryeon's lap, munching and crunching potato chips.

“Hayul.”

I tried to put on the most generous, benevolent smile I could.

For the record, although I wasn't quite as extreme as Noh Doha, I too believed people should devote twenty hours to labor.

“What?”

“You like dolls, don't you, Hayul? Dolls? I've found one up north that would be lovely for you to play with. What do you think? Interested?”

“...”

Blink, blink. The golden eyes of this little layabout hitchhiker Hayul brat moved rhythmically, without a trace of emotion.

“No. Not interested.”

“Hmm... What would get our Hayul interested? I think it's about time you started working.”

“Don't need to work. Only I can make transmission lines. Patent rights. Other guild leaders beg me to install them in their hideouts, too. Consulting fees alone make it easy as hell to laze around for life.”

This silver-spoon ability-user little shit...

“Finished Romance of the Three Kingdoms because you told me to last time, too. Requesting at least three years' immunity from criticism.”

“Hey. If you have a conscience, can you call that reading it properly? If you actually read it, huh? How can a person side with Wei?”

“Wu: invisible nation with zero presence. Shu: sweatshop nation with endless labor. Unless you're from Xu Province yourself, why wouldn't you choose Wei?”

“... If you don't help me with this, I'm telling Seo Gyu to delete your SG Net account.”

“Guess I was from Xu Province in a past life. How can I help, big brother?”

Puppet strings were laid like a highway from Seoul to Pyongyang.

Hayul had to spend two full years as a web-spinning machine to produce roughly 250 kilometers of string, but there were no major problems.

We buried the strings out of sight, and the strings themselves were transparent. They were also difficult to sever without aura.

I sneaked into the Holy City of Pyongyang.

“Huh? Just now...”

“What is it?”

“No, I thought I felt a breeze. Was I imagining it?”

Mo Gwangseo had a unit of awakened bodyguards around him, but slipping past their eyes was effortless. Thirty percent of them were opium addicts anyway.

Some of the guards even carried firearms. Guns, in this day and age. Amateurs who didn't value their own lives, wouldn't you say?

Concealing my presence, I infiltrated ‘Mo Gwangseo Christ Cathedral.’

Formerly called the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the building had been haphazardly remodeled with spires and crosses everywhere, some of which had snapped in the wind and collapsed.

Deep inside, in a hall converted into a church, Mo Gwangseo sat alone. He occupied a golden throne, as though the cult leader's presence alone sufficed, with no altar or tabernacle.

“...”

It wasn't time for Mass, so only Mo Gwangseo was there, but a believer could enter at any moment. I quickly attached puppet strings to various points on his body.

“Saintess. Everything's installed.”

[“Yes, I've told Hayul. ... She says he's too far away to control easily.”]

“Does she say she can't do it?”

[“No. She says she can still manage to move his mouth.”]

I nodded. For this task, I had subjected Hayul to intensive aura training over the past two years.

“Tell her to try saying anything as a test.”

[“All right.”]

A moment later.

“Biiig brotherrr.”

Goosebumps rose all over my body. Mo Gwangseo's lips, which had always done nothing but smile, were slowly moving.

“Can Iii take a break from traaaining now?”

“... Yes, Hayul. Just put in the work once a week on the day of Mass.”

“Your Liu Bei, that hypocritical baaastard who betrayed Liu Zhaaang's regional regime in Yiii Province. Zhang Fei's head swings and swaaays. Guan Yu's head rattles and rooocks. Elder brooother, why won't you cooome? Elder brooother. Have you forgotten our oath in the Peach Gaaarden? Hurry and join us, elder brooother.”

TAP.

Mo Gwangseo's mouth returned to its original position.

“...”

Rage flared in my chest, but I held it in. Fine. The kid had spent two years endlessly spinning puppet strings while enduring hellish training. She could let off that much steam.

I mentally adjusted Lee Hayul's awakened rating slightly, from the 1,000-meter class to the 900-meter class, and slipped away.

At Sunday Mass the very next day, the Holy State of the East's hypnosis app (backdoor installation complete) demonstrated its capabilities.

“Soon, anomalies shall descend from the distant frozen lands.”

The believers attending Mass were startled.

“Th-the Chairman...?”

“Mo Gwangseo Christ has spoken!”

Murmurs rippled through the congregation.

The cult's believers were astonished to hear words from their leader, who hadn't uttered a single one since his resurrection. A few impatient souls had already fallen to both knees and begun sobbing.

Mo Gwangseo spoke softly.

“Through faith, ye have conquered a kingdom. Now is the time to gird it with walls of your flesh and blood. When winter comes, the armies of devils shall surge upon you. Build fortresses and ramparts at every passage, and bear witness to your faith.”

“W-walls, my Lord...?”

“Your kingdom must endure, that even the lost sheep who come late may reach it. To protect this place is to guard the path of ascension to heaven. My beloved children. Prepare to fight the armies of anomalies and devils. Yet persecute not my people, and raise your barriers only through your freely given faith.”

“Ooooooh!”

Mo Gwangseo's first official words caused enormous ripples.

The crusaders, who had repeatedly marched north as though lives were best tossed away by the roadside, halted and began building fortresses. Their leader's command was sacrosanct.

Even with fortresses built, they would struggle to inflict meaningful damage on anomalies, but it was far better than pointless expansion of the faith. The number of anomalies coming down from the northern regions immediately decreased, too.

And that wasn't all.

[The ‘Morning Star of the Second Coming’ issues orders to the faithful.]

We even created a constellation impersonating Mo Gwangseo.

On days without Mass, the Saintess pretended to be him and sent ‘constellation messages’ to control his believers.

The Second Coming because he claimed to be Jesus returned. Morning because his name, Gwangseo, reversed to Seogwang, meant ‘dawn light.’ Thus, the Morning Star of the Second Coming.

Naturally, this new constellation was created exclusively for awakened followers of the Church of Resurrection.

[The ‘Morning Star of the Second Coming’ prophesies that armies of monsters will soon approach.]

[The ‘Morning Star of the Second Coming’ guides you along the path you must take.]

[The ‘Morning Star of the Second Coming’ instructs believers not to show hostility toward the National Road Management Corps, for it is an instrument of God's will.]

The malware Lee Hayul and the Saintess had secretly installed in the Church of Resurrection worked perfectly.

Now its believers were effectively puppets we could control as we pleased.

“Excellent...”

Noh Doha, the very person who had ordered this grand hacking project, seemed thoroughly satisfied. Having confirmed that the backdoor worked properly, the commander of the National Road Management Corps smiled faintly.

“Now we can discreetly use them whenever we need to. Thank you for all your hard work, Awakened Undertaker...”

“It was nothing.”

From that point on, the territory we effectively controlled included not only the lands south of the Han River, but those to its north as well.

Adding up all my runs, it had taken roughly two thousand years to get this far.

Perhaps this was the slowest territorial expansion in all genre fiction and alternate-history fiction?

7

There's a short epilogue.

Even with a direct puppet-string highway running from Seoul to Pyongyang, occasional maintenance was necessary.

About once every six months, I infiltrated the cathedral in the Holy City of Pyongyang to service the strings.

It happened when I finished the usual adjustments and turned away.

“Enter through the narrow gate.”

I looked back.

Mo Gwangseo's unfocused eyes were gazing down at the floor.

“Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many pass through it.”

“...”

“Small is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few find it. Scribe. Enter through the narrow gate.”

Then Mo Gwangseo fell silent again.

The atmosphere felt a little strange, but I didn't take it particularly seriously. I figured Hayul was teasing me again.

When I returned to Seoul, I asked her.

“I didn't know you'd read the Bible, too, Hayul.”

“Huh?”

“You quoted the Gospel of Matthew back in Pyongyang. Why did you choose to call me a scribe, though?”

“...?”

Lee Hayul tilted her head.

“Never read the Bible.”

“...”

“I'm not religious.”

... I think I'll leave it to you to judge whether Lee Hayul was telling the truth or lying.

-The Unbeliever. End.