The Heretic of Cleric Academy-Chapter 27

At first, he had cheered. He thought someone had come to save him. But that wasn’t the case.

The one who stopped Bae Seong-hyeon was Do Seon-woo. No different from the perpetrators who had bullied him in middle school, and no different from Bae Seong-hyeon who was now slapping his cheeks.

From Oh Byeong-hun’s perspective as prey, it was simply one more predator added to the mix.

"Well, well, who do we have here? Isn’t this Do Seon-woo?"

Bae Seong-hyeon acted friendly as if pleased to see him. As expected, Do Seon-woo and Bae Seong-hyeon were close friends.

Oh Byeong-hun sank into even deeper despair. With Do Seon-woo’s arrival, even his corner for escape had disappeared. Though he had neither the thought nor strength to escape in the first place.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean what? Just playing around. Childishly and pathetically."

Bae Seong-hyeon shrugged his shoulders. His tone was mocking. Even so, Do Seon-woo’s face showed not even the slightest movement. He maintained the same eerie expressionless look.

"It’s not at a childish level. It’s at a level worse than vermin."

"Vermin, you say. But from what I read in that post, you’re no joke either, right? Something about committing school violence in middle school. At least I’ve never committed school violence."

"I never did that. And you just never got caught."

"If you didn’t get caught, it’s the same as not doing it. Don’t you think?"

At Bae Seong-hyeon’s question, his gang members nodded their heads.

Oh Byeong-hun quietly listened to their conversation. Somehow the atmosphere felt strange. At least he could tell that Do Seon-woo and Bae Seong-hyeon weren’t close friends.

"Anyway, don’t try to act virtuous now to whitewash your past. Just come play with us. Let’s get along nicely."

"Yeah, from what I saw last time, you seem pretty strong and have good guts too. Let’s be friends."

"Right. You seem to have money too."

The gang members crowded around, pretending to be friendly while placing their hands on Do Seon-woo’s shoulders. Do Seon-woo brushed off their touch as if disgusted.

His expressionless face seemed to deepen. It was an even more dry and eerie expressionless look than before.

"Want a cigarette? School’s been hell lately, hasn’t it? Because of that post."

Bae Seong-hyeon took out a cigarette and brought it to Do Seon-woo’s mouth.

Smack.

Do Seon-woo slapped Bae Seong-hyeon’s hand away. The dropped cigarette rolled on the ground.

Bae Seong-hyeon’s face twisted for a moment, then soon his hypocritical smile returned. It was expression management bordering on miraculous.

Still, it couldn’t compare to Do Seon-woo. He remained expressionless. Not even a twitch.

"If you don’t like it, just say you don’t like it. Why knock it down? What a waste of a good cigarette."

"Ooh, Seong-hyeon. Can I have this?"

One of the gang members picked up the fallen cigarette excitedly. Then he blew on it to dust it off.

"Go ahead."

Bae Seong-hyeon looked at him as if he were pathetic.

"Well anyway. So you don’t like cigarettes then? Do whatever you want. You’ll end up smoking them anyway once you hang around with us."

"Why would I hang around with you guys?"

"Why? It’s good to have lots of friends. Right? Just hang out with us. Then I’ll clean up those rumors for you too."

"Clean up the rumors? How?"

"There are ways. I have quite a bit of money. And Go Jun-min is dead now, so there are plenty of ways to cover things up."

Bae Seong-hyeon spoke triumphantly.

A smile suddenly appeared on Do Seon-woo’s face. It was a twisted, distorted smile. His mouth was smiling but the corners of his eyes were moist as if about to shed tears. In a different way from the expressionless look he’d shown until now, it was eerie and grotesque.

Oh Byeong-hun unconsciously swallowed his saliva.

"What does Go Jun-min being dead have to do with the rumors?"

"Obviously, ah."

Bae Seong-hyeon seemed to belatedly realize his mistake and swallowed his words.

Do Seon-woo was smiling.

"Was it you?"

Do Seon-woo continued making sounds that could have been laughing or crying for quite a while in that state.

It was impossible to guess whether he was happy or sad.

* * *

Memories flashed through my mind like a panorama.

The hatred and contempt in the eyes of the children looking at me. Kim Jin-seo trembling and breathing heavily as if even walking was difficult. Me slowly dying covered by black flesh. The tears I shed when trauma revived at the sight of flames.

All of it was Bae Seong-hyeon’s scheme. Or the ripple effects, the butterfly effect it created.

The moment I realized this, my heart was strangely calm.

[Always stay composed. Never lose your reason.]

I didn’t even need to hear Legba’s advice. Right now, I was more composed than ever.

"Why?"

The first thing I needed to do was ask the mastermind of all this, Bae Seong-hyeon, about his intentions. What exactly he did such things for. What exactly made him so desperate to torment me.

"Why what? I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Bae Seong-hyeon backed away nervously. His tone and face clearly showed his panic. He had no choice.

"Did you tell Go Jun-min to write that post?"

"Hey, hey. What are you talking about? I’m not that bad of a person."

Bae Seong-hyeon belatedly denied his wrongdoing. But it was too late. The fact that the name ’Go Jun-min’ came from his mouth meant he was the mastermind behind this incident.

Even if not the mastermind, it at least meant he was deeply involved in this incident.

Either he told Go Jun-min to write the post, or he encouraged Go Jun-min to write it. One of the two. Or possibly both. Otherwise, there was no reason for Go Jun-min’s name to come from his mouth.

Because everyone except Kim Jin-seo and me didn’t know that Go Jun-min had written the post.

Thud.

Bae Seong-hyeon’s back hit the wall as he backed away. There was no more space to retreat. Cold sweat was flowing from his forehead. It was a rare sight of him panicking.

But the panic didn’t last long.

"Ah, fuck. Now that I think about it, this pisses me off."

Cornered Bae Seong-hyeon finally revealed his true colors. His panicked face was nowhere to be seen. With a shameless expression, Bae Seong-hyeon looked down at me and,

Ptooey.

Spat. Yellow saliva stuck to my shoe.

"I told Go Jun-min to write that attack post. So what now? Should I grovel and apologize?"

"Why?"

"What’s with the ’why’ again? Don’t you know any other words besides ’why’?"

"I’m asking why you did it."

At the repeated question, Bae Seong-hyeon tilted his head and pondered. No, he was pretending to ponder.

"Who knows."

Bae Seong-hyeon smiled coldly. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Grades, money, looks, talent. Having grown up lacking nothing, what exactly made him commit such acts?

Was he abused by his parents? Maybe he experienced a major accident when he was young. For instance, the car flipping during a family trip and someone dying...

[Even if that were the case, it wouldn’t justify what he did.]

I had no intention of justifying it. I just hoped there was a reason. I hoped there was at least some understandable reason for tormenting me so cruelly.

"I didn’t like you and Kim Jin-seo. And it seemed like it would be fun. Something like that?"

But none of it was comprehensible. Because it seemed fun - that was all there was to it.

It was almost fortunate.

Bae Seong-hyeon chuckled and continued.

"I really didn’t know Go Jun-min was a demon race though. That’s the truth. Though it made things more interesting."

I looked around. There were no CCTVs. No dashcams either.

"Kim Jin-seo almost died because of that."

I almost died too.

"Really? But she didn’t die. She even got a commendation."

"Don’t you feel sorry?"

"Why should I feel sorry? She should be grateful to me. She got a commendation after all."

Bae Seong-hyeon seemed to have no awareness that he had done anything wrong. I was so dumbfounded that I let out a hollow laugh.

"Your thinking is completely different. Is it a problem with your upbringing?"

"Hey."

One of the gang members interrupted me with a threatening tone.

"This bastard has no limits to what he’ll say. What are you relying on to act so cocky?"

"Shut up. We’re talking."

"What? Ha, is this bastard crazy?"

The gang members let out hollow laughs and surrounded me.

Having seen something somewhere, they cracked their knuckles and warmed up. It wasn’t threatening. It was nothing but empty bravado.

"Fucking little shit. This is unbelievable..."

Finally cursing, one threw a punch.

However, the punch didn’t connect.

Thud.

In an instant, the gang members lost consciousness and collapsed. The gang members who fainted with their eyes open were trembling while foaming at the mouth.

"Much better."

I muttered my assessment quietly while looking around.

Not only the gang members, but also the child crouched on the ground trembling and Oh Byeong-hun had lost consciousness. Unlike the gang members, they weren’t foaming at the mouth.

Only Bae Seong-hyeon and I remained conscious. That was all.

"Huh? What is this?"

Bae Seong-hyeon voiced his disbelief at the scene unfolding before his eyes.

He had no choice. This was his first time directly witnessing Voodoo sorcery with his own eyes.

Intermediate illusion, unconsciousness.

Advanced illusion, nightmare.

A combination of two sorceries. Those affected by this would immediately faint and experience unimaginably horrific nightmares.

Even after waking up, they would have difficulty maintaining their sanity for a while. The nightmares would ravage their brains, making it impossible to come to their senses.

Of course, I only used the unconsciousness sorcery on the child and Oh Byeong-hun. It was simply to eliminate witnesses.

The reason I went to the trouble of putting them to sleep to eliminate witnesses was because of ’that sorcery’ I would use to create the finale for Bae Seong-hyeon.

Bae Seong-hyeon stared blankly into space for quite a while, then finally spoke with a trembling voice.

"You, what did you do? This isn’t divine power...!"

"It’s sorcery. You won’t remember anyway."

"Sorcery? You, you bastard, don’t tell me!"

Bae Seong-hyeon hastily drew blessing circles in the air. Intermediate strength enhancement blessing. Plus various other blessings related to physical enhancement. He even used the blessing of monstrous strength.

The current Bae Seong-hyeon possessed tremendous power capable of easily killing an ordinary person with a single punch.

Still, nothing changed.

"Voodoo? Ha, no wonder everything you did looked disgusting. It’s because you’re a cult bastard. Ha, ha. If I kill you, will I get a commendation like Kim Jin-seo? Huh?"

Bae Seong-hyeon laughed intermittently while speaking. Fake laughter to hide his fear.

"Not a commendation, the country would give me a medal. I’m not small fry - I’m a cult leader."

However, the smile I wore now was genuine laughter without a trace of falsehood.

"What? What’s that..."

Clang...!

A sharp, crude sound like metal clashing filled the alley.

"Uh...?"

With a single scream, Bae Seong-hyeon collapsed.

It was sorcery.

Intermediate illusion, pain.

Advanced illusion, contagion.

And supreme illusion, memory fragmentation.

"Ah, ugh. You, this is, what...!"

Bae Seong-hyeon rolled on the ground clutching his hair.

The pain would start from his head. A tremendous headache as if his skull might crack at any moment.

This would soon spread throughout his body through contagion. First stomach pain. Then arms and legs, even to his fingertips and toes - there would be no place that didn’t hurt.

And those memories would be fragmented. The pain would be forgotten the moment it was felt. Then pain would come again. Without even a chance to get used to it, unfamiliar pain would cover his entire body every moment.

The memories of pain would split and fragment and finally be pulverized into powder without even fragments remaining.

[Bae Seong-hyeon will forget all memories of this moment, but the powder of finely fragmented memories will seep into his blood and be imprinted as fear. That fear will revive every time he sees you.]

Legba whispered in an ominous voice.

Even after the sorcery ended, it would be difficult to live with a sound mind. He would encounter this moment as a nightmare every night.

But when morning came, the nightmare would be forgotten, leaving only vague pain and fear. Therefore, Bae Seong-hyeon would suffer from pain for his entire life, while being unable to remember that I was the cause of that pain.

"Ah, ugh. Guh, gyaaaaahhh...!"

Only metallic sounds flowed from his throat that had gone hoarse from screaming.

He repeated countless times: trembling in pain, then suddenly forgetting the pain, then screaming again at the pain that came rushing back. Bloody tears flowed from his rolled-back pupils, and foam rose from his mouth that wouldn’t close.

I casually placed something on top of Bae Seong-hyeon’s head and left the alley.

[You’re thorough only at times like this.]

Legba said quietly. While leaving the alley, Bae Seong-hyeon’s screams continued to echo in my ears.

But I had no intention of ending things at this level. The real nightmare would begin tomorrow.

No, rather, he would want to believe it was a nightmare.