The Church of Outsiders (3)

Fortunately, the people of the church had hidden themselves and taken cover.

This was because multiple life signals had been detected from the church's basement.

The reason the faithful had not gathered today despite it being the weekend was, most likely, that someone had sensed the upcoming danger and made a public announcement that there would be no events today.

'A wise decision.'

And it seemed that there was a passage in the basement known only to them.

Even I, who had frequented the church since elementary school, could only find it by using 'Observer'.

This was proof that they were not ordinary religious people.

Who could have guessed that the church I'd attended since childhood was actually some kind of secret base?

"Seongjin! I knocked them all out."

"Good job. Now, practical combat shouldn't pose any problem."

"It's all thanks to you, Seongjin."

The ones that Sang-ah had defeated were sprawled out flat on the grass.

Two were B-rank, six were C-rank, and ten were D-rank.

They weren't particularly renowned Hunters, but considering that Sang-ah was only fourteen years old, it was impressive.

Middle schoolers in other Hands barely reached D-rank, while Sang-ah easily took down two B-ranks alone.

Moreover, she achieved this without relying on berserk mode, so this was a remarkable advancement.

"Thank you so much, Seongjin."

"No need to thank me. The training will only get tougher now."

"Ugh..."

The training was anything but easy.

Aiming for S-rank meant there were high hurdles.

Before long, she might have to endure training that tested human limits.

"Anyway, what should we do about these people?"

Sang-ah pointed to the collapsed Hunters.

All of them had been slashed by dragon claws or charred black.

And those who had their strength absorbed by the A-rank Hunter still hadn't regained consciousness.

"I'll take care of everything here, so you go inside the church first and check if anyone's there."

"Take care of them?"

"Yeah."

"... Alright."

Sensing roughly what I was planning, Sang-ah's voice dropped.

She hurriedly entered the church as if to take refuge.

"Well then..."

First, I gathered all the collapsed ones into one place.

Luckily, they were completely knocked out and did nothing but moan in pain—no resistance at all.

It made me realize anew just how much stronger Sang-ah had become.

After stacking them up like a mountain, I said,

"I'll at least let you go without any pain."

Normally, I would just erase their memories and let them go, as I had done before.

But now that I knew they were related to Mewzealand, I saw no need to spare them.

Besides, even if one of them survived, their ideology could corrupt Earth just as it had Mewzealand.

〈Consume〉

The moment I placed my hand on their bodies, they started turning to dust.

Stacked up like a mountain, none of them could even scream; they simply dissolved into floating dust in the air.

I absorbed it all into my body as nourishment.

[You have absorbed 39 magic power.][Karma has increased.][Level has risen.][As a level-up reward, abilities have been enhanced.]

Even trash can be useful at times.

****

Sang-ah, who had entered the church first, found that no matter how hard she searched, she couldn't find where the others were hiding.

Even with her good hearing, she couldn't detect any human presence.

That meant the soundproofing was well-done.

Because that place was a sealed space made with magic power.

"Is this the right place? I already checked here earlier."

As I entered the basement storage room, Sang-ah spoke as if it was pointless.

〈X-ray Vision〉

Although I couldn't hear any sound, I could see it with my eyes.

I could see that there was a hidden space beyond this wall, and that several souls were detected inside.

Even if I broke down the wall, the space probably wouldn't appear.

If so, I just needed to neutralize the barrier blocking that space.

Crackle-!

The moment I placed my hand on the wall, a huge crack formed.

As the crack widened, the wall glowed with violet magic power and completely collapsed.

Inside, there were several priests and nuns.

Thinking we were the enemy, they all held weapons like spears and swords.

"Who are you people?!"

"Everyone, please calm down. We took care of the people who were attacking the church."

"How can we believe that?!"

"Pastor, don't you recognize me?"

"Huh?"

A pastor looked at me with a strange expression.

He stopped being wary and stared intently at me.

"Could you be... Student Seongjin?"

"You recognize me, don't you?"

Of course he would recognize me.

I'd stood out by dropping by each weekend to greet the pastors.

Judging by the scale of the barrier they'd created, it was clear they were also from Mewzealand.

However, it seemed they were relying on the power of a magic tool, not their own strength.

In short, they were ordinary people.

Once they realized we weren't the enemy, they immediately calmed down.

They escorted us to the pastor's office and served us tea.

They wore expressions full of questions as they looked at me.

A normal boy who came each weekend for worship had just shattered their barrier.

It wouldn't be strange if some wariness remained.

But we had a key item that could instantly break through that wariness.

"By any chance, do you know what this is?"

Sang-ah carefully placed her mother's bracelet on the table.

At first, everyone wondered what it was. But when they saw the mark engraved on the bracelet, they all gasped in shock.

"No way...! Why is this in your hands?!"

"Where did you get this?"

The nuns and priests questioned Sang-ah in a rush, and she was a little flustered.

But she managed to answer soon enough.

"It's my mother's."

"What?"

"Your mother's?"

Upon hearing this answer, the nun and priest stared intently at Sang-ah.

Her horned head, her hair color.

Their faces grew ever more serious as they confirmed these features.

"No way..."

"The princess's..."

Having confirmed whose child Sang-ah was, they began reacting with emotion.

They hugged Sang-ah tightly and fussed over her, causing her to feel considerable pressure.

After listening to their story, it turned out Sang-ah's mother had been a princess of the dragonkin race.

My vague suspicions had proven correct.

'But I thought the dragonkin I knew had already been annihilated.'

The dragonkin of Mewzealand had been, without question, the strongest race.

Until I became Demon King, no power rivaled them.

At least, until they challenged the Reveli Empire.

After declaring war on the Empire and launching their campaign... the dragonkin were destroyed.

The hero played a part, but there was an unknown force supporting the Empire they could not oppose.

Afterward, I'd heard there was a manhunt for dragonkin survivors.

Even among demons, the dragonkin survivors became targets—rumors spread that their horns were valuable medicinal ingredients.

That's all the information I had...

'Could that survivor be...?'

They were referring to Sang-ah's mother.

She must have come to this Earth for some reason in order to escape her pursuers.

And that recalled the memory Guildmaster Kwon Yongha once shared—

When he'd first met her inside an S-rank gate.

'Then, the ones who pursued Sang-ah's mother at the time...'

They were mercenaries, following those rumors.

They pursued her in hopes of taking the horn of a dragonborn.

If only Kwon Yongha hadn't stopped at "To be continued!", I could have learned more in detail.

'Next time I see him, I'll pluck his armpit hairs and not just his head hairs.'

I was starting to understand the gist of how Sang-ah's mother ended up in this world.

But the issue now was with the people of this church.

How had they come to this world?

"I remember this church being established about fifteen years ago."

"Yes, we told you that before, student."

Fifteen years—it matched the time Sang-ah's mother had crossed over.

And it matched Sang-ah's current age.

"Our family owed a great debt to the dragonkin king. To repay that favor, we served the dragonkin."

"Doing something like that, wouldn't the Empire have come after you?"

"Of course we did it in secret. We even passed information from the shadows to help the dragonkin one day overthrow the Reveli Empire."

Even though they were human, they did not discriminate against other races.

But that wasn't so strange.

Even among my Demon King's army, there had been those who started out as humans.

"At last, the final battle arrived."

"Leading the strongest force we could muster based on our intel, the dragonkin charged toward the Empire."

"But..."

There should have been no issues with the plan.

Yet, despite their reputation as the strongest force, the dragonkin fell mercilessly.

The great dragon wings were torn by mysterious attacks, massive flashes like lightning struck the dragons and erased them.

"It was unbelievable. As if 'God' was on the side of the Empire."

"After that... you can guess the rest."

The princess—only surviving dragonkin—became a fugitive, and those who aided her met the same fate.

"After that... we wandered, only to be discovered by mercenaries. We tried to protect the last surviving princess."

"But in the course of fleeing, we were attacked. A crack appeared on the princess's horn."

Cornered in a dead-end, they thought it was the end.

No way out and a cliff at their backs.

But then a fissure appeared in that cliff.

"A dimensional rift?"

"Yes. At first, we didn't know what it was... but saving our lives took priority."

They threw themselves into the rift with the princess.Inside there...

"A whole different world was spread out before us."

Buildings towering higher than trees.

Towers made of concrete.

Wheeled vehicles running faster than horses.

They marveled at the first steps they took on Earth's soil.

Yet, there was no time for sentimentality.

"We became separated from the princess at that point."

They were the only ones to emerge from the rift.

The princess was nowhere to be found.

Maybe only they had landed in this space, and the princess had been sent somewhere else.

'These people landed in downtown, while Sang-ah's mother ended up in an S-rank gate?'

So the pursuers must also have gone into the S-rank gate.

Which was how Guildmaster Kwon Yongha met her.

"We haven't slept peacefully since, thinking we had lost her."

"When we established the church... we engraved that mark everywhere so we wouldn't forget her."

"We thought she must have passed away..."

Suddenly, they started hugging Sang-ah and crying out loud.

"Um, excuse me..."

"We're so glad you're alive, Princess!"

"And you even have such a cute daughter!"

"Oh hohohoho!"

"Okay, I get it... could you let go, please!"

Sang-ah was overwhelmed by their excessive affection.

Who wouldn't feel suffocated when being hugged and having faces rubbed against them?

'But something seems off.'

Immediately after the fall of the dragonkin, I had founded the Demon King's Army.

If the army had been around at that time, I could have protected them.

Then, neither the threat from the Empire nor the pursuit for their horns would have happened.

"Wasn't there any group you could ask for help at the time?"

"A group?"

"Yes, like the Demon King's Army..."

"Demon King's Army?"

The pastor tilted his head in confusion.

"What's that?"

"Excuse me?"

They genuinely had no idea.

I was shocked.

The Demon King's Army was founded right after the dragonkin were destroyed.

It was so famous that even local kids would know about it.

And yet...

"You don't know it?"

"No. What is it?"

All the pastors and nuns looked clueless.

If they had lived in Mewzealand up until fifteen years ago, there's no way they wouldn't know.

Fifteen years ago would be one year before I returned to Earth. I'm fourteen now, Ma Seongjin.

If they'd been in Mewzealand during that period, they should know about the Demon King's Army...

Wait. Timing?

"Excuse me, but may I ask one thing?"

"What is it?"

"What date did you cross over from Mewzealand to Earth?"

"By Earth's calendar?"

"No, by Mewzealand's calendar."

The day I founded the Demon King's Army was Holy Year 765.

The day the dragonkin were annihilated was Holy Year 760.

"Let's see... that was..."

I wondered if my hunch was right...

"It was Holy Year 760."

As I expected.

These were people who escaped to Earth right after the destruction of the dragonkin, before the Demon King's Army had even been founded.

In short—

'The timelines are different?'

There must be other people from Mewzealand who came to Earth.

But it meant I had no idea from what point in time they came.

There's no way of knowing which 'Holy Year' they departed in or which 'year' they arrived in.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

"So, how did you learn about us, student?"

"Indeed. Did you take care of all those intruders single-handedly?"

Of course I seemed unusual to them.

Just the fact that I knew about Mewzealand, which only they knew of, made it so.

"To be honest... I could be considered a native of your world, just like all of you."

"...?"

They looked as if it was unbelievable.

But it was me who'd brought Sang-ah to this church, and me who'd found their concealed barrier.

It must have felt decidedly unordinary.

"That doesn't mean you need to be on guard."

To ease their curiosity, I revealed my true appearance.

When they saw the horns sprouting from my head, they were shocked.

"I am also a demon."

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=Damn, seongjun really ruthless against people related to Mewzealand...【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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