Chapter 135.1
The Crossroads was the kingdom of souls, with Legba and Kalfu as the owners. Legba led the Loa in the Crossroads to the material kingdom, or the secular world, to communicate with humans. Kalfu led humans in the secular world to the Crossroads to communicate with the Loa. Because of this, Kalfu was sometimes depicted as Legba’s other half or his incarnation.
Kalfu led me to the Crossroads on the threshold of death. No, it would be more accurate to say that the entrance opened due to the contract I made with Baron Samedi, and I had entered through the said entrance, thus arriving at the Crossroads.
Baron Samedi sat in the air with his legs crossed, smoking a cigar with his left hand. He then grimaced as if he was uncomfortable.
"Being right-handed is tough."
Szzzz...
Baron Samedi extinguished the cigar by rubbing it into the ground and angrily put the remaining cigar in his pocket. His voice didn't resonate in my head like usual but came in through my ears normally. I looked at Baron Samedi's missing right hand.
"Where is your hand?"
"I left it in the secular world. Didn't I tell you yesterday?" Baron Samedi chuckled.
When Baron Samedi's hand came to me yesterday to deliver his prophecy, I asked where he had left his body, to which he replied by saying that he had left it back at the Crossroads. I thought it was just a usual trivial joke, but it seemed like he had been telling the truth.
"Let's start walking, and we can talk while we’re at it. By the way, can you walk?"
"I couldn't walk earlier, but now I can."
"Sounds right. If you wanted to walk, you would be able to."
Baron Samedi and I walked. The Crossroads seemed so close, almost right in front of us, but no matter how much we walked, it didn't get any closer.
When we arrived at the Crossroads, my immobile leg began to move, but the immobile left hand that I had sacrificed to Kalfu remained crushed, not budging at all.
“I guess my hands won't heal?"
“Of course not. You sacrificed your finger for the spell. Your lung wouldn’t have healed as well. Isn’t it hard to breathe?”
"...”
Hearing that, it suddenly felt like it was harder to breathe. I would have done better without knowing that piece of information.
Baron Samedi looked at me and laughed in a low voice.
"Losing a hand or a lung won't hinder your life. And they will get better someday."
"Will my lung get better too?"
"It might take longer than your hand, but it will eventually heal as well. Well..." New novel chapters are published on
Baron Samedi frowned and exaggeratedly laughed.
"They're not my lungs, so it's not my concern, right? Haha. Just kidding."
"...”
"Just kidding, just kidding. What I said about them eventually healing is true. Kalfu's spell may be a bit extreme, but it's not cruel enough to completely destroy and take away the caster's body forever," Baron Samedi said and looked at the sky.
I also looked up at the sky. The round moon was gradually fading away. It was the sight of Kalfu laughing.
The Crossroads was filled with darkness, and the only source of light was the red moonlight emitted by Kalfu. When the moon faded, the Crossroads became dark, and when it rose, the Crossroads was bright.
"...Oh, look over there. There seems to be an old man who seems to have lost his cane."
The Crossroads seemed distant, but in the blink of an eye, it seemed to be right in front of us. An old man stood in the center of the Crossroads like a signpost. The old man had a limp, wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, and held a pipe in his right hand. It was the manifestation of Legba.
"Sir, you seem to have difficulty moving. Is it because you don't have a cane?" Baron Samedi pretended to be polite and took off his silk hat.
Legba frowned and glared at Baron Samedi with displeasure.
"Samedi, you can go now. The Prophet and I have important matters to discuss," said the old man.
"Ah, so no one is allowed if they’re not the owner of the Crossroads?"
"If you want to listen, you can, but I plan to say something, and it won’t benefit you in any way."
"Oh, is that so?" Baron Samedi stroked his chin, pretending to contemplate.
Then he approached me and placed his hand on my shoulder. His gaze, looking down at me, was unusually red.
"I'll be waiting for you over the yonder. Fè yon chwa ou pap regrèt!"
With those words, Baron Samedi disappeared. He wasn’t gone with a puff of smoke. In the blink of an eye, he vanished as if he had never been here in the first place. It wasn't surprising. Anything could happen at the Crossroads, and nothing was out of the ordinary. This was a world where anything could happen.
Legba approached me, limping on one foot.
"What, are you surprised by my appearance?"
His appearance did not surprise me. After all, I knew why he had a limp. His left foot was in the material realm, the realm of matter, while his right foot was in the Crossroads, the realm of souls. With each foot in a different world, he always had a limp, whether in the material realm or the Crossroads.
"It's a bit uncomfortable to interact with you like I did before."
However, now that it sunk in that Legba was an old man, it felt a bit awkward to interact with him like before. Legba chuckled as if he found it amusing.
"Just treat me with ease. Whether in the form of a voice or physically, I am me."
"Ease... Why don’t I talk to you like a friend then?"[1]
"Don’t go too far," Legba said, laughing at my joke.
Although it was my first time coming to the Crossroads, it felt familiar and comfortable, as if it wasn't my first time here. The air I breathed felt cozy and warm, as if this was where I was supposed to be. It had been a long time since I felt such genuine comfort.
"...You shed more blood than necessary," Legba said, putting a pipe in his mouth.
The spherical smoke rising from the pipe overlapped with the round moon. I couldn't understand why Baron Samedi or Legba were so addicted to smoking.
I coughed and said, "Smoking in front of a student like that..."
"Deal with it. You’re worried about smoke entering your lungs when a sword pierced through your stomach?"
"Maybe it's because I only have one lung now, but it hurts a bit."
“Ah, right. Then I shall only smoke half of this as well." Legba laughed and blew out the smoke.
The smoke formed a semicircle. Legba limped toward the middle of the Crossroads and suddenly looked at me with a cold and stern expression.
"There was no need for such an ignorant headfirst approach."
"What do you mean?" I asked, not immediately understanding the meaning behind his words.
“I rushed to conclusions. To go back a bit, you vaguely knew that Jun-Hyuk was a Satanist, right?"
"Vaguely... yes."
I did know. Vaguely, and so I wasn’t completely sure. There wasn't enough evidence to convince me that Jun-Hyuk was a Satanist. Even my suspicion was vague, and I had almost no confirmation.
"No, you had enough reason to be convinced," Legba muttered, talking through his half-closed mouth, still biting on his pipe. The smoke he breathed created a semicircle, and the moon matched it by waning into a half-moon.
"During the pursuit with the Satanists, you saw his physique and the tattoo on the back of his neck. The Satanist was fast at running away, and so was Jun-Hyuk. Wasn't that enough?"
"It... wasn't enough."
"Jun-Hyuk even mentioned the lucky charm before the Holy Name of Charity re-election test. That was a word that Romanicans shouldn’t have known, or if they did, shouldn’t ever speak about. Isn't this enough?"
"Aren't you looking back too much in hindsight? How can you suspect someone just based on that?"
Legba listened quietly as he took a long drag. His words seemed to intimidate me, but his expression and tone were calm and understanding.
Looking at the smoke dissipating in the red moonlight, Legba added, "Well, today, a taxidermied creature that resembled In-Ah embraced you. The taxidermied creature left behind some hair when it died."
"Yes."
"Do you have any idea where that hair came from?"
Jun-Hyuk often played pranks by pulling out In-Ah's hair. Jin-Seo's hair could have been obtained on the day the bird demonic beast appeared at Eiden Hill. Or it could have been obtained during sparring when they were together in the training center. Ha-Yeon's hair could have been obtained during the group projects. There were no taxidermied creatures from Yu-Hyun or Dae-Man, who had little contact with Jun-Hyuk.
However, this was a deduction based on hindsight. It was only possible to think this way because we now knew that Jun-Hyuk was a Satanist.
"Anyone can obtain the hair of others with a little effort. To be certain with just that..."
"The incidents always happened around you. The slip of his tongue. Unnatural behavior. The hideout beneath the training center. The person who had been keeping tabs on your close friends. And that’s not all."
It felt like my remaining lung was slowly constricting on me.
"Each clue was meager and crude. But when you gather them all, you can see that they all point to one person. Need I say more?"
"Yes. I needed confirmation, not a conclusion based on suspicion alone."
"Based on that suspicion, you guessed that Jun-Hyuk was a Satanist. However, you didn't actively interrogate him. That's because you secretly doubted yourself and hoped Jun-Hyuk wasn't a Satanist."
"That's because you said my deduction was weak...!"
"Your first deduction was weak, and the evidence was not valid. You should have interrogated him or created a situation to push him to his psychological limits in order to gain concrete evidence to build a sound deduction. You shouldn’t have just sat around and waited for the case to unfold."
Legba's voice was calm and collected.
I took a moment to catch my breath. This wasn’t something I should be worked up about. Legba is simply guiding me down a path, I thought, trying to calm my agitated state of mind.
"...Interrogation. If, by any chance, I had interrogated him and found out that Jun-Hyuk wasn't a Satanist, it would have ruined my relationship with a good friend."
"If he wasn't a Satanist, then he would have been a faithful Romanican Church member at F.A. Either way, he couldn't have been your friend."
"...According to the rules, the antidote should be given to the elder."
"W-what are you saying..." Jin-Seo stammered and walked toward Do-Jin. Not only were her steps weak, but her whole body seemed to lack strength. She was short of breath and had a headache. Her mouth was so dry that she couldn't swallow properly.
Swish.
The liquid inside the vial shook violently. Jin-Seo held onto Do-Jin's wrist and didn't let go.
"...Don't do this."
Do-Jin's held hand trembled. He couldn't bring himself to push her hand away. Maybe it was because of Jin-Seo’s unexpected strength, or maybe it was because of Do-Jin’s lack of strength due to his injuries.
"S-Sun-Woo is the one who defeated the Satanist."
"..."
"If we save him, he’ll be able to climb through the ranks of the church. So, in the end...saving Sun-Woo would be the right choice. Or, or! We can split the medicine in half. If we split it in half, we can save both..."
"Bull shit. Do you think you're Solomon or something... Huh, huhuhu...” Min-Seo let out a laugh.
Jin-Seo stared at Min-Seo with empty eyes.
"You shut up for a moment...."
“You shut up... you fucking...”
"Stop."
Do-Jin spoke slowly, intervening between the two. He shook his head from side to side.
"....First of all, we can't give each of them half of the vial’s contents. There's a high possibility that neither of them will survive. There’s a reason why there’s only so much of the antidote in the first place."
"But...!"
"Jin-Seo, let go. If you continue to stop me, I'll have no choice but to use force against you."
"Yes, we have to save him. Gabriel... We have to save Gabriel. So don't get in the way, you bastard...!" Min-Seo screamed maliciously.
Jin-Seo stared at her, the gaze in her eyes looking like she was prepared to kill Min-Seo at any moment. Min-Seo didn't back down and returned the gaze with a crazed look in her eyes.
The two locked eyes. The air turned cold, and raindrops lightly tapped their heads.
"Oh? You guys are all here. Good. Hey!"
It was Yu-Hyun. He had belatedly followed Min-Seo, and he unintentionally ended up mediating the fight between the two. Following behind him at a slow pace was Ha-Yeon.
The two seemed visibly flustered. Ha-Yeon had just handed her friend Ra-Hee, who had almost died from being pounded by a taxidermied creature, over to the Paladin Order rescue team. She then unexpectedly met Yu-Hyun and made her way here. She was not in a place to organize her thoughts.
The same could be said for Yu-Hyun, who couldn’t escape the shock he felt from witnessing Min-Seo curse while covered head to toe in blood. Yu-Hyun and Ha-Yeon belatedly grasped the situation and asked questions with worried expressions.
"Hey, there's no priest nearby, only paladins... So, in the meantime, I brought Ha-Yeon with me for now. Um..."
"...What's going on here?"
Do-Jin had a vial in his hand, and Jin-Seo was grabbing onto Do-Jin's wrist with enough force to break it. Min-Seo also looked like she was in bad shape, and Gabriel and Sun-Woo were decaying, engulfed in black flames. They understood the current situation, but they didn’t want to accept it. Ha-Yeon pointed her trembling fingers at the burning Sun-Woo.
"Um, that... that is a... taxidermied creature? It's a taxidermied creature, right?"
"...What?"
"No, just a moment ago, he was fine, right? And he isn’t someone who’d suddenly end up like this, right...?"
Ha-Yeon first thought that the person on the floor was merely a taxidermied copy of Sun-Woo, as she had seen him replicating a miracle before. The real Sun-Woo wasn't so weak that he would die so easily. However, instead of sawdust and cotton, vivid red blood flowed from his body. The Sun-Woo on the ground was a taxidermied creature. It had to be.
Yu-Hyun drew a circle with divine power around his eyes, just in case. Beyond the circle, he saw the dying Sun-Woo.
Carefully, very carefully, he saw the flow running through Sun-Woo’s body. Yu-Hyun lowered her head, his face filled with a mixture of confusion and discomfort.
"It doesn't seem like a taxidermied creature—"
"Taxidermy... right. This is a taxidermied creature..."
Jin-Seo interrupted Yu-Hyun's devastated murmuring. She looked down at Sun-Woo with a devastated gaze and smiled. The being dying right in front of her was a taxidermied creature that had taken the form of Sun-Woo.
But something was off. If so, where was the real Sun-Woo? Was the person she had met while walking around F.A. the real Sun-Woo? Ah, right. That would have been the real him.
"Huh...?"
As Jin-Seo thought that, her mind came to a halt. That Sun-Woo was dead. No, he wasn’t just dead. She had killed him with her own hands. The taxidermied creature had not bled, but the Sun-Woo in front of her was bleeding. He was bleeding a lot. So, the Sun-Woo she had met earlier was the taxidermied creature.
Then, who was the Sun-Woo in front of her now? Wait, if the one she killed earlier wasn't real... Huh. Then who was the one she had killed...
"Yu-Hyun... Stop, stop that bitch—!"
Taking advantage of Jin-Seo’s body relaxing from the confusion, Min-Seo shouted at Yu-Hyun. He vaguely understood Min-Seo's intention, and he rushed in to restrain Jin-Seo.
"Ugh, why... Why is she so strong...!"
However, Yu-Hyun's strength was far from enough to restrain Jin-Seo. She glared at Yu-Hyun with eyes full of killing intent and muttered under her breath, "Let go. Before I end you..."
"Oh, oof...!"
Frightened by Jin-Seo's threat, Yu-Hyun took a step back. Min-Seo looked at Yu-Hyun as if he was pathetic.
"You idiot... If you're going to restrain her, do it properly...!"
"Wha-what do you want me to do? I-I don’t even understand what’s going on!"
"Just shut up and stop her. Please...!"
Min-Seo's plea sounded too desperate not to do as she said. However, Jin-Seo's gaze was too intimidating and cold to stop her. Yu-Hyun couldn't do anything but stand around, caught up in the middle between Min-Seo and Jin-Seo. It had only been a few days since he came to school, and he didn’t expect to be in such a situation. Oh, why had he come to school?
Bite.
Ha-Yeon finished assessing the situation. She bit her finger, drew blood, and unleashed her divine power. She drew the blessing array of regeneration and all the healing arrays she could use. Finally, she drew the blessing of purification and added her blood to it.
"It's not that serious, everyone. We can just get rid of black magic and be done with it—"
Flare!
"Ah...!"
Black flames flared up. Startled, Ha-Yeon took a step back. Even Ha-Yeon thought that the blessing of purification she had just drawn was perfect. However, the fire clinging to Sun-Woo's body couldn’t be put out. Instead, it burned even more fiercely, engulfing his body.
"Huh? Why isn't it going away? Is there not enough blood?"
Corruption was the most notorious among black magic. Rather than being manifested through a Pentagram, it was conjured by making a contract with a devil. It was so infamous to the point that there was a rumor that even members of the purification clan couldn't escape death if they fell victim to Corruption. It was impossible for even the blessing of purification to cleanse Corruption completely. This was why, among the numerous black magic spells out there, clergymen especially feared and stood guard against Corruption.
"...Jin-Seo."
Do-Jin stared at Jin-Seo with eyes filled with resignation. He didn't have the strength to push her away now. No, honestly, he didn't even want to push her away. Do-Jin didn't wish for Sun-Woo's death. What was this damn elder even worth?
Hierarchy, principles, what good were they when they forced him, an adult and a teacher, to calculate the ranks and stop him from saving a dying student in front of his eyes?
‘The principles were flawed from the start,’ Do-Jin thought.
"Giving Gabriel the potion is the way that would allow us to at least save one person for sure."
"..."
"There's no guarantee that Sun-Woo will survive even if he takes the medicine. No, he will die even if he takes it. So please, let it go now. I beg of you..."
However, even if he disregarded the hierarchy and principles, giving Gabriel the potion was the rational choice. Sun-Woo had a high chance of dying from reasons other than black magic. By giving Gabriel the medicine, he could save at least one person.
"Why are you saying he's dead?"
"..."
"He's still alive. Why are you already treating him like he's dead...."
While she spoke, Do-Jin stared sadly at Sun-Woo, his eyes filled with despair.
Jin-Seo stopped speaking and looked at Sun-Woo, confirming his condition once again. While struggling with the potion, Sun-Woo's breath seemed to thin out as if it could be cut off at any moment.
Even with Ha-Yeon’s purification spell, the flames of black magic held on, and recovery spells could not fill up the holes riddled across his body.
"..."
She slowly released Do-Jin's wrist. Sun-Woo was truly in a state that was as good as dead. She was only deluding him that Sun-Woo was alive because she wanted him to be so.
‘If only I had come a little sooner, would the outcome have been different? No, if only I had gone to the principal's office together from the beginning...’
In front of the burning and decaying Sun-Woo, she kneeled down and sank to her knees. She was familiar and indifferent to everything, but she could never get used to this pain. It was a pain that she never wanted to get used to in the first place. She swallowed her breath and scratched and tore at the flesh of her arm with her nails. Her head hurt, yet no tears flowed. Her arm didn't hurt, yet blood flowed easily from her injuries.
"This is crazy..." Yu-Hyun muttered as he scratched the back of his head.
Do-Jin tilted the vial and fed Gabriel the medicine. There was no time to waste.
Jin-Seo stared blankly at the sight with eyes filled with despair. On one side, the light flowing from the blessing of purification enveloped Sun-Woo's body, and Ha-Yeon's blood dripped onto his decaying flesh.
Min-Seo exhaled as she let out a laugh that seemed to belong to a crazy person.
Yu-Hyun looked up at the sky. The moon was big and red. The moonlight pouring down was ominous.
Flicker.
At that moment, the fire clinging to Sun-Woo's body went out.
1. Sun-Woo uses a formal tone in Korean to address Legba. The literal translation of Sun-Woo’s words is, “Why don’t I talk to you in an informal tone then?” Which is a very impolite thing to say to one’s elders. ?