I knew it would turn out .
I looked around at the mad scene.
This was indeed a ghost story under the Church of the Luminous Unknown. But it wasn’t a place that had ever taught the true doctrine properly.
‘They must have been ’experimenting’, making this village perform a clumsy ritual so it would develop its own unique ghost story.’
To understand the process in detail, I needed Baek Saheon’s help.
I had to figure out exactly how the ritual worked, and what teachings they served.
It was only possible because Baek Saheon manipulated another villager who had drawn a golden stick, giving me enough time through the night to hear and analyze all of this.
I didn’t care to take it back anymore.
It was pointless anyway.
At any rate, I was able to clearly identify their errors……
And since all my knowledge of the Church of the Luminous Unknown was real, the villagers were even more easily swayed.
As for me, since I already knew what that so-called ‘truth of the world’ meant, I wasn’t affected at all…
Of course, all of it was information I’d already read on the wiki.
‘From now on, the villagers of Jisan will all argue over what’s right, each believing what they want, fighting amongst themselves.’
If a split occurs, their unity will weaken, and a vulnerability will appear, so the Disaster Management Bureau should be able to take action before next year’s festival.
So, before this commotion settles, I should slip away too.
The festival is over.
The village has rejected me as the raffle winner.
So, probably… I’ll be safe even if I leave the village.
I tried to walk out of the shrine.
A ripple of golden liquid spread from my step.
This must be the golden rooster.
From the color, it seemed that the round wooden base beneath it hadn’t melted, so it was probably still on the floor.
‘Only the gold melted…’
I stopped in my tracks.
The ground was shaking. No.
It split open, and the golden liquid poured down below.
I threw myself out of the shrine, barely escaping the collapsing floor in time.
And between the cracks in the round wooden base…
A transparent liquid surged up.
‘The golden rooster statue was a weight stone.’
And the round wooden board wasn’t its base at all…
That golden statue had been pressing down something buried beneath the shrine, preventing it from surfacing.
A gigantic jar of liquor.
And inside, something had been sleeping, bound.
It awoke upon hearing my ‘true’ doctrine.
The sound of countless legs dragging across the floor.
A long body burst out from the transparent liquid.
A thing writhing, covered in countless legs.
A massive centipede that had been inside the liquor jar.
But all those legs were human arms.
Palms pressed together.
The face, with flat features resembling a human’s, moved its holes as if mimicking a face.
It resembled the depraved, heretical monks from old folktales.
……These were characteristics I could recognize.
A ghost story that transmits the teachings of the Church of the Luminous Unknown. It is said that, upon being recognized by a certain clergy member who was inspired by the power of stories inhabiting lowly creatures, this entity began to foster mutated followers throughout the world.
But now, its body was already half-rotten.
The arms protruding outside the shrine were corroded by liquor, by the liquid.
There is a folktale that, in a rural village, the teachings of this being were misunderstood, leading to its capture and confinement within a liquor jar, with the villagers using the resulting liquor for their rituals.
This was the entity that had brought the doctrine here.
To appease it, they placed chicken symbols—its favorite prey—around the village.
But apparently, it hadn’t done any good.
That thing, having fallen deep into the doctrine of the Church of the Luminous Unknown, cannot be reasoned with or communicated with.
It only delivers doctrinal teachings and enlightenment.
Truths that cannot be described, violently.
There is no nirvana, no liberation.
This is the truth of the world. Eternal liberation approaches. At the end of the degenerate era, offer up your pain, loss, and madness, spit out your bones, and you will gain eternal life. That is the true form of the Way, and it is the law with priceless worth.
‘Do I really have to?’
I don’t even know how many times this has happened.
How long do I have to keep doing this?
In my head, I tell myself I just have to hold out for one month, just win my wish, but…
As I listen to that centipede’s horrific preaching, a part of me is crushed by the thought: does it really matter?
Would it really matter if my body was crushed?
A large hand gripped my shoulder.
A determined face, shining eyes.
Agent Bronze was there.
“I’ve come back on time, just as promised. …And I told you.”
“I’ll come back with a way to save you.”
He squeezed my shoulder.
“According to the rules.”
“In this kind of supernatural disaster, two agents are always dispatched to rescue the requester.”
Agent Choi’s blade drove down through the shrine’s roof, and dokkaebi fire erupted ferociously.