Resurrection Chapter 129 - He Didn’t Lie

After a brief moment of dizziness, I finally stepped onto the hard stone slab. I knew I was standing tall on the altar. I could see monsters surging toward me like waves from all directions. Their bizarre faces, craving my blood and flesh. The colossal shadows of the catastrophic beasts themselves.

It was as if I were standing in the middle of hell. The moment I thought that I couldn’t bear it without going mad if a place like this was truly Ulfheðinn’s world, an intense light shot up from beneath my feet.

It was a brilliant beam of light that pierced the darkness, incomparable to the light of the level up that had flickered above my head. In my urgency, I shouted loudly.

“O, Ulfheðinn!”

「You called me?」

A response finally came, and his unwelcoming voice was so deeply moving that I was filled with emotion. I was delighted, but I couldn’t help but be aware of the monsters swarming around me.

However, the monsters couldn’t break through the light pouring around me. They sensed Ulfheðinn’s great power within the light and did not dare to approach. Thanks to that, I could continue speaking with peace of mind.

“Thank you for answering my call.”

「What brings the Golden Emperor’s first and only apostle here?」

Hearing him play dumb as if he didn’t know, the anger that had been forgotten in my delight slowly began to rise. I had to try hard not to speak in a disrespectful tone.

“You, Ulfheðinn, should know better than anyone why I came all this way, shouldn’t you?”

「Is there any reason I should know that?」

“Because the reason I had to risk my life to come here is because of you, Ulfheðinn! I asked you several times not to possess Heesoo hyung, but you ignored my request as his partner!”

「I do not know what you are talking about.」

I was dumbfounded by his non-answer of a question.

“It’s no use playing dumb. What is the reason you possessed Heesoo hyung without permission, and even pretended to be him to deceive me? No, I don’t want to hear the reason. What on earth will it take for you to stop the act of possessing Heesoo hyung and chipping away at his lifespan? If you can’t stop, then please just leave Heesoo hyung!”

Ulfheðinn, who had been listening to my words, answered.

「I have never possessed my first and only apostle.」

I forgot my resolve not to be disrespectful. I snorted loudly, “Ha!” then pointed my finger at the invisible Ulfheðinn and shouted.

“Don’t be ridiculous! I saw you possessing him with my own two eyes! If you didn’t possess him, then why on earth would Heesoo hyung…!”

As I was speaking, I suddenly felt a strange sensation. It was an inexplicable sense of foreboding.

As I abruptly stopped talking as if I had frozen, Ulfheðinn spoke in a suppressed tone, as if his patience was reaching its limit.

「I will say it again, I have never possessed my first and only apostle.」

My lips moved without a sound. Belatedly, I realized that the way Ulfheðinn was speaking now was unfamiliar. The arrogant tone coming from within the light was extremely befitting of an Overlord. It was a godlike attitude that showed not a shred of interest in the likes of me, regarding humans as worthless.

「There is only one reason I take an interest in that filthy world swarming with insects like you. It is because of the Black King.」

That fact pointed to one thing.

My body began to tremble.

“…Is that really, really true? That you’ve never… possessed him….”

「That is correct.」

“Can you really, truly be held responsible for those words?”

At my doubtful words, Ulfheðinn showed his anger.

「To come to my altar, summon me, and then doubt my words. Do you need to be torn into ten thousand pieces to come to your senses?」

“I-I’m sorry. But I can’t believe it… I can’t believe it…”

All the things that had happened when Ulfheðinn possessed him flashed through my mind. His way of speaking and acting, which was not like Heesoo hyung at all. The way he showed an affection that could only be described as an obsession with me. I had even started to think that something might genuinely go wrong with him and he might destroy the world.

To think that all those things that made me anxious were not because of the possession.

Then does that mean that all of those things were done by Heesoo hyung?

It felt as if my head had been shattered all at once. An emotion that could only be described as betrayal froze my body.

Ulfheðinn’s voice came down from above my head, which was seized with shock.

「There is not a single lie in my words.」

If Ulfheðinn isn’t lying, then did Heesoo hyung lie to me?

He deceived me?

As if sensing my feelings, Ulfheðinn added.

「The same goes for my first and only apostle. He did not lie.」

A passion that could be called fury erupted from within my frozen self. I shuddered and shouted.

“If it’s not a lie, then why on earth would he say that you, Ulfheðinn, had possessed him…!”

「Insignificant one, the being you believed to be Ulfheðinn is a part of Seo Heesoo that even he himself does not know. You do not think that I chose him as my first and only apostle simply because he was the first to enter my sanctuary, do you?」

I was so confused that I couldn’t understand everything he was saying. It was as if my mind had broken. My thoughts were turning upside down, and I didn’t know what to ask or how.

Just as I was about to ask another question, Ulfheðinn spoke first.

「There is no more time for arguments. Go back. Go and tell Seo Heesoo, my first and only apostle. That the time for the decisive battle is near. And that is when he will truly face me.」

No sooner had his words ended than my body floated up. I realized that gravity was acting in reverse.

I was falling toward the sky, the opposite of when I fell. The unfamiliar phenomenon turned my stomach. It was even more so because my mind was in extreme turmoil. Knowing that closing my eyes would make me dizzier, I had no choice but to close them.

👑

After making a confession that wasn’t quite a confession to Heesoo hyung, my heart felt strangely lighter. It was as if Heesoo hyung had taken the guilt I had been carrying.

While I felt relieved, I also felt indebted to Heesoo hyung. I was grateful and sorry to him, and I wanted to be of help somehow, but with my unremarkable skills, there was no way I could help him. All I could do was send words of encouragement to the email address written on the signed paper he had given me.

The signed paper, which I had carried around preciously, was lost at some point, and I never got a reply to my emails. But I consistently sent emails there. I didn’t even know if the person opening the emails was Heesoo hyung or not, so it was purely for my own satisfaction. But for me, that was the only connection I had with Heesoo hyung.

News about Heesoo hyung was reported almost daily through all sorts of media. He became the nation’s hero as the Holy Warrior of the White Goddess and was revered as the patron saint of porters. As his fame grew day by day, I strangely felt a sense of urgency.

In the end, I quit being Park Gyu’s subordinate, which had at least provided a decent income. I leveled up by going from one dungeon to another, not just to make money, but to build up my skills. It was because I wanted to get stronger as quickly as possible and catch up to him, who was becoming someone increasingly out of reach.

Of course, it was absurd to think that I, who was nothing more than a jack-of-all-trades, could stand side by side with him no matter how strong I got. I knew well myself that it was a vain ambition, but I desperately raised my level, accumulated wealth, and built up my own achievements. In the midst of that, the expedition to Dungeon 666 began, and a few months later, news came that Heesoo hyung was isolated there.

I naturally thought that the Church of the White Goddess would organize a rescue team. I even cleared my entire schedule, intending to participate if they recruited volunteers. It stung to pay the penalty for breaking my contracts, but absurdly, the Church of the White Goddess said nothing about rescuing Heesoo hyung. On the contrary, they even drew a line, saying that he was no longer a Holy Warrior and not a member of the church, so there was no reason to go rescue him.

It was around that time that rumors began to circulate that Heesoo hyung had been corrupted and abandoned by the White Goddess. A few people with good intentions stepped up to go rescue Heesoo hyung, but since the place he was trapped in was a den of demons, the plans were repeatedly thwarted.

I vowed that I would go rescue him by myself, but that was just a lie. With my skills at the time, which were only B-rank, it was clear that I would become a corpse the moment I set foot in the dungeon, let alone rescue him.

Just as I was frustrated, unable to find a way to rescue him, Resurrection came into my hands.

It was truly as sudden as when I became an Awakened.

One day, a skill book suddenly fell from the sky.

I was hit on the head by the corner of the book and was extremely bewildered. I would have been bewildered even if I had been hit by a normal book while walking down the street, but a skill book, of all things.

In any case, since it fell on my head, I opened it. And when I saw that the skill written inside was resurrection, I thought something was wrong. I even suspected it might be a new kind of scam.

It was an established theory that resurrection skills did not exist in the Awakened system. It was hard to believe that it had suddenly appeared before me as a skill book one day. Even if I did believe it, I didn’t dare to acquire it.

As much as it performed the miracle of bringing the dead back to life, Resurrection was not free. The risks I had to bear were burdensome, so even after I was convinced that the skill book was real, I didn’t think of acquiring it. On the contrary, I felt as anxious as if I had a bomb strapped to my body. It was clear that if people found out that I had the skill book for Resurrection, there would be more than a few who would target my life to take it from me.

I decided to sell the skill book for a reasonable price, but my prediction came true without a single deviation. Instead of paying a price, I had to fight for my life against assailants who flocked to kill me.