"Phew."
I let out a sigh of relief as we left the alley. My heart was still beating like crazy.
I knew Bae Seong-hyeon's personality wasn't that great, but I didn't know he was such an unhinged guy.
[Bosu is tired. Tired, tired... So tired... Offerings, offerings!]
Thinking a fight might break out, I had preemptively used Bosu's power.
But as you can see, Bosu's condition was too poor, so Bosu's power didn't activate except when shaking hands.
If we had actually fought, it really would have been a disaster.
No, come to think of it, it's ridiculous that I'm even worrying about this. I couldn't understand how a scoundrel like Bae Seong-hyeon was selected as a freshman representative in the first place.
There was a kind of conspiracy theory circulating that "Florence values ability and wealth over faith or character."
At the time, I believed it was just a false rumor and didn't think much of it, but seeing Bae Seong-hyeon, it seemed like that might be true.
"Wow, that was cool. 'Childish and pathetic. That's all.' Ooh, I got goosebumps at that part."
"Ah, don't imitate me."
"This is cool too. 'Don't imitate me.' Nice."
Right after leaving the alley, Gu Jun-hyeok teased me by imitating my way of speaking. No matter how much I told him to stop, he wouldn't listen.
I eventually gave up. While we were fooling around and walking, Jeong In-ah was walking with her head down as if deep in thought about something.
"Jeong In-ah."
"...Ah! Huh? What?"
When I called her, she was startled and looked up.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, just... That kid who was collapsed earlier. I'm a bit worried about him."
She seemed to be thinking about the boy who was being bullied by Bae Seong-hyeon's gang. She seemed to feel some guilt about not being able to help him.
"If we had helped him, he would have gotten beaten up more later. In situations like this, it's right to just stay quiet."
Gu Jun-hyeok, who had been imitating my speech, said this as if it was no big deal. For something Gu Jun-hyeok said, it was reasonable.
"...I guess so."
Bitterness seeped through Jeong In-ah's tone.
After walking for a while, we reached Jeong In-ah's house. Her house was a two-story house with a yard and attic.
She didn't seem satisfied with her house, but it was much better than my situation living alone in a shabby villa.
"See you tomorrow!"
Jeong In-ah said that and went into her house.
Gu Jun-hyeok and I walked while having various pointless conversations. After walking for about 5 minutes, the villa where I live appeared.
Just as I was about to enter the villa, a question suddenly occurred to me.
"Gu Jun-hyeok."
"Yeah?"
"Where do you live?"
Gu Jun-hyeok scratched his head as if troubled.
"Well, just around here."
Then he smiled awkwardly.
Well, he probably has circumstances that are hard to talk about. Everyone has secrets. Just like me.
I thought nothing of it and went into my studio apartment.
* * *
Two days passed without incident, and soon the weekend arrived. The morning of a weekend after a long time was sweet. The sunlight streaming through the window was pleasantly warm, and the breeze was cool.
It was perfect weather for going on a date with a girlfriend. I don't have a girlfriend to date, but you get the idea.
Anyway, I got up around 9 o'clock, packed my mask and clothes, and went outside. Uncle Lee Jin-seong's car was parked in front of the villa.
Beep beep!
As I approached the car, Uncle Lee Jin-seong honked the horn as if happy to see me. I got in the passenger seat and fastened my seatbelt. Uncle Lee Jin-seong set the destination on the navigation and opened his mouth.
"Hey, did you bring that thing? That thing?"
Uncle has recently been trying to explain everything with the pronoun "that thing." Maybe it's because he's getting older.
"What thing?"
"That thing. That, ah! The mask. Did you bring the mask?"
"Oh, I brought it. It's in my bag."
I tapped my bag with my fingertips. A dry rattling sound came from inside the bag.
"Okay. Let's go."
Uncle was also skilled at driving. He really was a person who couldn't do nothing.
I quietly watched the world flowing rapidly past the car window. My heart was anxious.
[What's there to be anxious about? Trust me.]
"Ah, yes."
Legba spoke confidently, but my anxious feelings wouldn't go away.
Right now we're heading to the dBP Corporation affiliated hospital. We're going there to wake up the dBP Corporation chairman's wife who is lying in a coma.
With the altar gone and Loa's powers greatly weakened, I wondered if I could actually accomplish this task.
"Your phone keeps ringing. Is it a friend?"
Uncle asked casually while driving. I picked up my phone to check the accumulated messages.
There were several messages from Jeong In-ah, several from Gu Jun-hyeok, and dozens of spam messages.
"Yeah, friends."
Since there were messages from Jeong In-ah and Gu Jun-hyeok, I explained them as friends.
"It seems like you're adapting well. Already making friends. How are the kids?"
"They're all nice. Maybe it's because it's a clergy school."
"Really? Then there shouldn't be any problems at school either. In the old days, there were many kids who went around bullying friends. Well, I guess there wouldn't be kids like that at Florence."
Bae Seong-hyeon immediately came to mind when I heard that, but I didn't bother to mention it.
"Right, Uncle."
"Yeah, what?"
"Did you also buy dBP Corporation stock?"
Uncle thought for a moment while holding the steering wheel.
"Yeah. I bought a little before. It's a blue-chip stock."
"Sell that in about a week."
"Huh, why?"
"I think it's going to drop soon."
Uncle tilted his head at my words.
"Why? Is there a reason?"
"There is a reason, but for now it's just a feeling."
"What kind of feeling makes you play with stocks? Never mind."
Uncle listened to my words with one ear and let them out the other. Since he said he wouldn't sell, I couldn't force him. The regret would be his own.
I turned my gaze back to the world flowing past the car window.
Then I closed my eyes briefly and when I opened them, the car had already arrived at its destination.
A huge building standing right in the middle of downtown. dBP Corporation affiliated hospital, abbreviated as dBP Hospital.
We got out of the car and immediately got on the VIP elevator. I took out my mask from my bag and put it on my face.
Ding!
Soon with a cheerful sound, the elevator reached the top floor. When the door opened, two large men blocked our path as if they had been waiting.
"What is your name?"
"If you tell them Kim Seong-jin, the chairman will know."
"Please wait here for a moment."
The two men moved swiftly and disappeared somewhere, then returned here in less than a few seconds.
"We apologize. Please come inside."
The men began to guide us. We followed them. After passing through a corridor lined with luxury fish tanks and flower pots, we finally arrived at a room.
The room vibrated with the characteristic disinfectant smell of hospitals, and the lighting was dark and gloomy.
In the middle of that room, someone presumed to be the dBP Corporation chairman was sitting.
"You two go out."
When the chairman spoke, the two large men bowed politely and left the room.
The chairman weakly got up from his seat and walked toward us unsteadily. Then he extended a handshake with his gaunt hand.
"I'm Bae Jeong-hwan who made the request. You said Kim Seong-jin?"
"Yes, I'm that Kim Seong-jin."
Uncle Lee Jin-seong straightened his back and accepted the handshake.
'Kim Seong-jin' was the alias Uncle Lee Jin-seong used when taking requests.
"But who is the person next to you?"
After finishing the handshake, Bae Jeong-hwan turned his gaze toward me. He seemed to find it strange that I was standing silently wearing a skull mask.
"This is the leader I mentioned last time. All rituals will be conducted through this person."
"Ah, the leader. Yes, I understand what you mean."
Bae Jeong-hwan slowly nodded. I didn't need to say anything.
It was decided in advance that Uncle Lee Jin-seong would speak for me.
"Well then, Chairman. Shall we get straight to the point? Or shall we have some tea and chat?"
"Let's get to the point."
"Then may I turn on the lights? It's so dark that I can't properly see the patient's condition."
"Do as you wish."
When Uncle flipped the switch, with a 'click' sound the lights came on.
Bae Jeong-hwan's wrinkled face became clear in the light. Along with that, security guards in black clothes who had been hiding throughout the room revealed themselves.
"Oh my goodness. Chairman, what's this? This is a bit different from what we discussed beforehand."
Uncle spoke as if frightened upon seeing the guards.
"Don't mind them. I just had them on standby just in case. There are so many scammers trying to suck my money."
"Ah. Then what happened to those scammers?"
"Didn't you see the fish tank on your way in? That huge fish tank."
Bae Jeong-hwan smiled coldly.
"I fed them to the fish there. Ground up."
"Ah. Cough, ugh. Haha. Well, we're not scammers like that, so don't worry. We'll definitely save your wife."
"Of course, you should. For both our sakes. Right?"
"Yes, haha."
Uncle took out a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the sweat that had formed on his temples.
It made me even more nervous. The complacent mindset that it would be okay to fail had long since disappeared.
If we failed, we would die. We absolutely had to succeed.
I walked slowly toward the patient lying on the hospital bed. The patient's complexion was pale, and her breathing was weak. Her arms were so gaunt they looked just like dry tree branches. The patient monitoring device made regular beeping sounds.
After directly seeing the patient's condition with my own eyes, my trembling heart finally calmed down.
[Her condition is better than I thought?]
As Legba said, her condition wasn't bad. At this level, we probably wouldn't become fish food.
I placed my hand on the patient's forehead to perform the ritual. Then Bae Jeong-hwan, who had been watching me from behind, flinched and got up from his seat.
"What are you doing?"
"It's part of the ritual. Don't worry."
"Hmm."
Bae Jeong-hwan chewed his lips anxiously. He seemed to distrust us quite a bit.
I ignored Bae Jeong-hwan and focused all my attention on performing the ritual.
I emitted Voodoo magic power and drew five spell circles in the air. Legba's voice was echoing in my head.
[──! ───! ──.]
I couldn't understand the exact meaning, but it seemed to be sentences containing words like death and life. Soon Legba's voice got faster and faster.
Soul, afterlife, resurrection, circulation... The sentences gradually got longer, and the use of difficult words increased.
When the ritual finally reached its climax.
Swooooosh!
Purple bandages poured out from the spell circles I had drawn. More precisely, it was "something in the form of bandages." The bandages wrapped around the body of the patient lying on the hospital bed without any gaps.
Beep... Beep...
At the same time, the heart monitor sound from the patient monitoring device began to slow down. The patient's breathing also gradually became thinner. A precarious sound as if her breath would stop at any moment.
Bae Jeong-hwan was chewing his lips and even biting his nails until his fingers bled.
[───, ───! ──.]
And finally, when Legba's voice stopped.
Beeeeeep────
The heart monitor sound also stopped accordingly. It meant the patient had reached a state of cardiac arrest.
And silence flowed.
"Ha, haha. Hahahaha. Ha... hoo."
It was Bae Jeong-hwan who broke the silence. He laughed like he had lost his mind for a while, then.
"Catch them."
With a hard and cold tone, he ordered the security guards who had been lying in ambush.
"W-wait a moment. 30 seconds. No, just 1 minute...!"
"Shut up. It's my fault for trusting scammers like you. My fault. My big fault..."
The guards grabbed and squeezed Uncle Lee Jin-seong's body as he tried to escape. After roughly binding Uncle's wrists and ankles with cable ties they had prepared in advance, they finally walked toward me with big steps.
I quickly rolled my eyes looking for an escape route. But it was futile. There was no escape route.
[Did we make a mistake during the process? No, right? The ritual was perfect, right? What is this? I can't understand.]
"That's why I said I was anxious!"
Even in this situation, Legba was calm.
I resented Legba while emitting Voodoo magic power from my fingertips. I couldn't die like this. I planned to attempt resistance somehow.
So, when I was halfway through drawing a supreme illusion spell circle in the air.
"Honey, what's this?"
A clear voice from the hospital bed calmed the chaos.
Bae Jeong-hwan's wife had awakened from her coma.
"Uh, my head. How long did I sleep? Where is this place again?"
"H-honey."
Color returned to Bae Jeong-hwan's face, which had been immersed in anger and despair. No, complex emotions too insufficient to be described as just color appeared on his face.
Joy, sadness, emotion, surprise, relief.
All those emotions that had been pressed down inside Bae Jeong-hwan became tears that flowed down his cheeks.
"Oh my, what are all these people? So what time is it now? I feel like I slept for a really long time."
"It hasn't been long. Just, you took a brief nap and woke up... Think of it that way."
"Why is this person suddenly crying and making a fuss? Why did you age so much overnight? You."
Everyone in the room was quietly watching that touching reunion with bated breath. It was a scene that couldn't be watched without tears.
I'm someone who doesn't cry easily, so maybe that's why I didn't cry. I felt relief first at the thought that I had survived.
Well, there were ups and downs, but anyway, the ritual was a success.
"Excuse me, Leader. Could you please untie this? Quickly."
Meanwhile, Uncle was wriggling like a caterpillar with his hands and ankles bound by cable ties. I untied the restraints with the saw a guard was holding.
Come to think of it, why was the guard holding a saw? Were they planning to cut up our bodies with this?
It was creepy for no reason.
"I thought I was going to die. Phew."
Anyway, after I untied the restraints, Uncle jumped up from his seat and straightened his clothes. Then he glared at the guards around him and walked toward Bae Jeong-hwan.
"Chairman. I understand your joy, but don't we have something left to discuss?"
"Ah, yes! That's right. I was rude. I made a fool of myself in front of guests."
Bae Jeong-hwan said while wiping his tears with a handkerchief. Unlike earlier when he was openly disrespectful, now he was showing extreme respect.
Bae Jeong-hwan hastily finished his emotional reunion with his wife, then guided us to the VIP room. Even while guiding us, Bae Jeong-hwan kept bowing to us and didn't spare words of gratitude.
My feelings watching such Bae Jeong-hwan were somewhat complex.
[Well, he is a friend's father.]
Though it's ambiguous to call them friends, well, anyway.
Bae Jeong-hwan is the chairman of dBP Corporation. And at the same time, a devoted husband who cherishes his wife dearly.
And he was Bae Seong-hyeon's biological father.