EFME 135

An endless darkness stretches out.

Sunyul was lying there. Even when he tried not to think about anything, thoughts would drift into his mind now and then. The problem was that he no longer had any thoughts he wanted to think.

An overly monotonous life had robbed Sunyul of his thoughts. There was nothing to think about. Nothing to rejoice over, nothing to be sad about, nothing to be angry at—there was absolutely nothing. Because here, there was only darkness.

Now, even his shining past was faint. He couldn’t remember it. Things he had surely loved so agonizingly in his heart, things he had cherished enough to devote everything to, no longer warmed his heart.

Sunyul was, just….

Exhausted.

He wanted to die.

He wanted all of this to end.

Sunyul raised his hand and wrapped it around his own neck. And just like that, he applied pressure. As he squeezed quite fiercely, his breath was choked out. The corners of his mouth, which had been drooping down the entire time, curled upward. If his breath stopped just like this, it would be even more ecstatic.

‘….’

Sunyul bit the flesh inside his mouth hard. And then, he used a skill on his own body. A magic bullet slammed into Sunyul’s body and exploded right there. Sunyul curled his body, twisting in agony.

“Ugh….”

Only when he felt the pain did he finally come to his senses.

He wouldn’t die from just this much.

He must not die.

He couldn’t die just yet.

‘Everyone is alive….’

As long as Sunyul was stopping it here, everyone would be fine. So he had to find the strength, from now on and continuously.

Continuously….

“….”

For a moment, light had returned to Sunyul’s eyes, but they grew hazy once again.

Sunyul was far too exhausted to burn with enthusiasm.

But all of this must not end.

It couldn’t end in vain.

It had to continue.

On and on.

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

“Gasp….”

Sunyul woke up from his sleep, startled out of his wits. His entire body was drenched in cold sweat. Sunyul clutched his throbbing head.

A dream….

That was a dream of the past.

Sunyul now knew that the memory of being unable to escape from the darkness was his own memory.

Feeling inexplicably suffocated, Sunyul scratched his neck for no reason. The despair of desperately wanting to die felt so vividly real that it made him feel strange.

Sunyul got out of bed and headed toward Muyoung’s room. However, he sensed someone’s presence inside Muyoung’s room. The sound of water was coming from the bathroom area, as if he was washing up. When he fell asleep, Muyoung hadn’t been home… It seemed he had returned from a dungeon.

He had originally just planned to sleep in Muyoung’s bed, but this was perfect. Sunyul quickly sat down on Muyoung’s bed.

After waiting for a short while, Muyoung came out of the bathroom. The moment he saw Sunyul’s face, Muyoung scowled.

“Did something happen?”

“No?”

“Your complexion looks bad.”

Does it show that much? Well, unless he used that mask item, he really couldn’t hide his expressions. It was bound to show. Sunyul looked at Muyoung. For some reason, his throat felt parched.

Among the things the past Sunyul had forgotten, Muyoung was included as well.

He remembered with his head. He still loved him. But because he couldn’t realistically feel what kind of emotion that love was, or how it had knocked on his heart….

The weight of a vast stretch of time had robbed Sunyul of his precious things one by one in that manner. Not only the good things, but even the bad things. Everything that Sunyul could feel stimulation from.

Since his heart had died, Sunyul ultimately had no choice but to stimulate his body to realize that he was alive.

“Just… I had a nightmare.”

“What kind of nightmare?”

“In the dream, I wanted to die.”

Muyoung paused. Seeing his grave face, Sunyul laughed lightly.

“It’s just a dream.”

Muyoung leaned forward slightly and cupped Sunyul’s cheeks.

“You don’t feel that way now, right?”

“….”

“Lim Sunyul.”

At the gentle voice that seemed to soothe him, Sunyul slowly shook his head.

“I don’t…. I don’t feel that way, but the dream was so vivid. I feel a bit strange right now.”

“It’s only a dream.”

“…Right.”

“Right now, this place is reality.”

Sunyul nodded. Muyoung was right. That was a day that had passed… and the reality Sunyul stood in was right here, right now. A warm and comfortable place.

‘But what should I do if the dream is so big that it casts a shadow even over reality?’

Sunyul tightly held back the words he wanted to ask.

He had no intention of throwing a tantrum to Muyoung, saying that he had suffered this much… It was just too heavy a story to whine about, and he felt like Muyoung would be crushed by it as well.

Because Sunyul liked Muyoung, he didn’t want to burden Muyoung with anything.

“If you have something you want to say, tell me anytime.”

“…Yes.”

“Because I’m always on your side.”

Sunyul nodded. On his side. Just that alone gave him considerable strength.

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

A little over a month had passed since their first meeting. During that time, they had held a total of five regular meetings, and today, they revealed to Sunyul that this gathering consisted of believers from the Church of Doom.

The reason they revealed it sooner than expected was likely due to the situation where the Church of Doom was gaining power. Sunyul’s positive response regarding the Church of Doom must have also played a part.

Dungeon damages were gradually escalating.

Particularly overseas, several high-grade dungeons had emerged, resulting in many casualties. The domestic side wasn’t without damage either. Even though the domestic defense was holding up reasonably well, people were extremely anxious.

The number of missing persons, who would often disappear suddenly as if evaporating, was also steadily increasing. A significant portion was discovered in dungeons, but the number of people who failed to return also grew.

As the dead and the missing increased, the social atmosphere naturally turned grim. There were more than just a few people who linked this phenomenon to the Rift Incident. People were just that desperate.

The difference was that while the Rift had swept everything away all at once, this situation was slowly and gradually raising the stakes. Because of that, people actually gained the opportunity to be soaked in anxiety.

In such an atmosphere, the Church of Doom exerted its efforts into proselytizing. They didn’t just blindly tell people to believe. They threw out tempting words, saying that if you believed in the Church of Doom, the order would support you. Quite a few low-rank hunters were hooked by those words.

The same offer came to ‘Lee Sunwoo’ as well.

“It’s totally fine even if you don’t believe in the Church of Doom.”

…Along with all kinds of sweet-talking and subtle pressure that started with those half-hearted words.

Saying things like they hoped he would keep coming to their meetings even if he didn’t believe, that they truly thought of him as a great friend….

Listening to that long-winded explanation, Sunyul raised his hand and cut them off.

“Actually, I’m already interested.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I heard there are many hunters in the Church of Doom. Since I’m a free hunter, I think I’ll get a lot of hunter connections if I join the Church of Doom…. Um, is this kind of reason a bit improper?”

“No, everyone starts attending for reasons like that before building up their faith.”

“That’s right. If you try attending, it’ll be really great. Faith is something that sets a person’s mind at ease, you know.”

Well, having an object of belief is nice because it gives you a place to lean your heart on. It’s just that the direction is completely terrible when that object happens to be a cult.

Sunyul tucked away his honest thoughts and laughed out loud, “Ha ha.”

“If you truly intend to believe in the Church of Doom, right now is the perfect time. There’s a baptism ceremony coming up soon.”

“A baptism ceremony?”

“Yeah.”

Sunyul asked the question while knowing everything but pretending to be ignorant.

The baptism ceremony was a fairly large event within the Church of Doom, and since people who received baptism reportedly came to believe in the Church of Doom even more… the baptism ceremony had the highest probability of being an event where one could meet the influential figures of the Church of Doom.

“Then can I receive baptism too?”

“Of course. Do you want to receive it?”

“It sounds fascinating.”

“You’ll be satisfied.”

Lee Kiwon, who had been listening from the side, said with absolute confidence. Lee Kiwon was the leader who led this gathering. He always had a confident attitude, so it wasn’t strange for him to speak that way this time either.

“Everyone else has already received it. You and I will be receiving it together this time.”

The one who said that was Choi Eunyoung, who had become quite close with Sunyul. Sunyul had no intention of receiving any baptism, but he nodded his head, pretending to agree.

The headquarters of the Church of Doom was located near Seoul. Distance wasn’t much of an issue for Sunyul, who possessed [Warp], but either way, it seemed like it would be easy for outside support to arrive if a problem occurred.

Worried that Sunyul might just talk big and run away, the members of the gathering said this and that to him before Sunyul finally parted ways with them and returned home.

Muyoung wasn’t at home because he was busy. Sunyul had also used his single day off out of the week for this, so he didn’t know if they would even be able to meet during this week.

Sunyul, who was debating whether he should tell Muyoung about the fact that he was infiltrating the baptism ceremony of the Church of Doom, chose to keep his mouth shut.

He didn’t want to add to the things Muyoung had to needlessly worry about. Fundamentally, Muyoung tended to trust Sunyul no matter what he did… but lately, his worries seemed to have strangely increased.

[The ‘Traveler of the Eternal Night’ says that a child should get permission from their guardian first.]

“….”

What on earth is it talking about.

In any case, Sunyul was necessary for this plan.

If the person rumored to be the influential figure of the Church of Doom was an S-rank, it was better for Sunyul, who was an EX-rank, to face them. Because if the difference in power was large, it became that much more difficult to cast brainwashing.

It was hard enough even against the same rank, but if the rank differed by one level above… the probability of a skill landing properly dropped exponentially. In many ways, it was stable for Sunyul to step up.