Resurrection Chapter 79 - Not That One

Park Sigyeong trembled with intense emotion. He could be certain that his choice to defend Mr. Heesoo to the end, even while being criticized by other apostles, had been the right one. The divine message continued to him.

—The White Goddess urges you to make every effort to help Seo Heesoo and enable him to become an apostle of the Goddess once more. She promises that if you can make Seo Heesoo a holy knight again, it is you who will become the fourth First Apostle.

Park Sigyeong snapped his head up as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt. Although all he could see before him was the inside of the tent, it seemed to him as if he could see a stairway to heaven.

A First Apostle of the White Goddess!

Wasn’t that the best way to return Mr. Heesoo to his place of glory and, at the same time, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him as his comrade?

Park Sigyeong bowed his head so low it was as if he were about to slam his forehead into the ground and said aloud.

“Of course! By any means necessary, I will return Mr. Heesoo to the White Goddess’s embrace!”

That was the end of the message. Park Sigyeong remained with his head bowed for a long time, not even realizing the message had ended. It was only when his neck began to ache that he raised his head and realized it was over. Even then, he sat there blankly for a moment, replaying what had just happened in his mind.

‘I see. So it was true that Mr. Heesoo rejected the White Goddess.’

He had passed the story on to Kim Yitae, but even Park Sigyeong himself hadn’t been certain. It wasn’t something the person in question had said, but a story from an apostle who had entered the demon’s den with him, so he couldn’t be 100% sure it was true.

It was just that it was the complete opposite of what the other apostles were saying, and he couldn’t believe the words that Mr. Heesoo had committed evil acts and fallen, so he had considered it more credible.

But seeing as the White Goddess still wanted Mr. Heesoo, it was clear that it hadn’t been her will to leave him.

To want him back even after he began to serve another god and became a berserker. He knew that the White Goddess particularly favored Mr. Heesoo, but he never knew it was to this extent.

It was just a story circulating among the apostles, but they said the reason Mr. Heesoo had remained in the Lv. 50 range for so long was also due to the Goddess’s immense favor. If Mr. Heesoo officially surpassed Lv. 60 and became S-class, the likelihood of him being tasked with more dangerous jobs was high.

In reality, there were a total of seven S-class Awakened in South Korea, but only five of them were active. The other two had failed to recover from fatal injuries sustained while fighting monsters and were in a comatose state.

Even now, whenever a monster break occurred, S-class hunters had to go to the most dangerous places. Since fighting monsters was the mission of Awakened with superpowers, it was only natural to become more endangered as one became stronger.

They said the White Goddess was dissuading Mr. Heesoo from getting stronger precisely to prevent such things. In fact, in the case of the divine power user Moon Yiseon, who became the First Apostle after Mr. Heesoo, he had surpassed Seo Heesoo at a very fast pace, going beyond Lv. 60 to become an S-class Awakened.

There was even a rumor that the White Goddess had made him the First Apostle to put him forward in place of Seo Heesoo, so it was no exaggeration to say that her favor towards him was mixed with an obsession that went beyond affection.

‘I did say I’d try, but can I persuade Mr. Heesoo?’

Park Sigyeong, too, did not know what had happened in the demon’s den. It felt impossible to persuade him to return without knowing the reason why he had kicked the White Goddess to the curb.

Park Sigyeong remained on his knees, lost in thought about what to do. Then, he was startled by the tent entrance suddenly flying open and pitched forward.

“Ugh.”

As he came to his senses in surprise, his leg was painfully asleep. Kim Yitae, who had entered the tent, raised an eyebrow at the sight of him tumbling alone on the dirt floor.

“What are you doing?”

“Ouch, my leg… Shouldn’t you ask for permission before entering someone else’s tent?”

“I called you several times, but you didn’t answer.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“What’s up is, I came to get you to help with dinner. We can’t let Heesoo hyung handle the meals all the time, can we?”

After entering the safe house and setting up base camp, Seo Heesoo had always prepared the meals. That was because he was the only one of the three who could cook anything resembling a proper meal.

At the suggestion to come outside, as it wouldn’t be right to do the same this time, Park Sigyeong clumsily got to his feet. Then, he followed Kim Yitae, who was leading the way, with a limp. But Kim Yitae suddenly glanced back at him and asked.

“Just curious.”

“About what?”

“Can’t any of the Apostles of the White Goddess date?”

So that’s what he was getting at.

Park Sigyeong sighed at the silly question.

“We can. Why wouldn’t we be able to? Among the Third and Fourth Apostles, there are many who are married. But it’s better not to if you want to receive the White Goddess’s favor. Because the White Goddess likes people who are chaste.”

“You’re a Second Apostle. Have you never dated, then?”

“Not really, I’m not interested in that kind of thing…”

“You’re still young, what’s wrong with you?”

“How do you know my age?”

“You’re from the new generation, right? Then you’re young.”

Park Sigyeong snorted at Kim Yitae’s words, which were accompanied by a grin.

The old generation would often act like condescending old farts, going on and on about how things were before the new era. It was true that humanity had adapted to monsters because of them, but the new generation mostly disliked the old generation. Because as long as they existed, the new generation could never escape the status of latecomers. They had no reason to like the old generation, who had preempted opportunities just by being born first.

He was bracing himself, ready to not stand by if he tried to pull rank based on age, but Kim Yitae threw a startling question at him.

“Then are you a virgin too?”

“What?”

Feeling the hair on his head stand on end, his face flushed crimson, and Kim Yitae continued, with what looked like a thoughtless expression.

“Dating aside, you do it on your own, right?”

At the embarrassing question, Park Sigyeong felt like his whole body would explode. He clenched his fists as if he were about to hit Kim Yitae and yelled.

“Are you crazy? Why are you asking that? Do you know this is sexual harassment? What were you thinking, asking me a question like that…!”

Kim Yitae’s expression turned to one of realization. He apologized with an embarrassed look, saying, “Sorry, sorry,” but it seemed insincere. Instead of soothing his feelings, it only fueled his anger.

Park Sigyeong was so annoyed by his rudeness, insensitivity, and shamelessness that he forgot he was on his way to make dinner with him and spun around. As he turned his back and walked away, Kim Yitae apologized loudly, looking flustered.

“Sorry, my bad! I won’t ask stuff like that again!”

Park Sigyeong didn’t even reply. He just scrubbed at his ears as if to rub them off and stewed over his dislike for Kim Yitae.

👑

“Arrrgh!”

Min Gongchan let out a monstrous scream and punched a crystal pillar. The hard crystal monster, which could chip the blade of a sword, cracked with a crack, then crumbled with a crash.

Shards flew in all directions, and though he was cut all over his skin, he couldn’t feel the pain. The pain from the outside couldn’t even be called pain. Because the pain surging from within was tearing his organs apart and crushing his soul.

The pain a human endures when transforming into a vampire was beyond imagination. It was only natural for it to be painful when one’s own body, every single cell, was completely changing into something else.

The vampire transformation in particular was known to be painful, and there was a theory that this was why vampires found it difficult to resist the urge to drink blood. Having become a bloodsucker through excessive pain, they could not be satisfied by anything unless they drank blood.

This was completely different from the cannibalistic urges of a lycanthrope. Werewolves and werebears could control their appetites with drugs. This meant that with timely administration and management of a cure, they wouldn’t find themselves drooling at the sight of people at all hours.

But the thirst of vampires could not be controlled by any drug. Since they had to rely solely on their own willpower, most vampires were divided into two types. Those who became addicted to all other harmful things in order to endure the urge to drink blood, and those who castrated all their desires along with the urge to drink blood.

Even if one transformed into a vampire, they had to bear enormous risks that could hardly be called a simple handicap. That was why, when people chose to transform out of necessity, many became lycanthropes, not vampires.

Unless one was a pure-blood, the quality of a vampire’s abilities was low, and there was too much to endure. As a result, the number of people infected with the vampire virus was decreasing day by day, but that did not mean the influence of the vampire guilds was diminishing.

The vampire guilds invested heavily in the bio-industry, and most were achieving good results. Cellchemic, a company famous for being under a vampire’s umbrella, for instance, was the first to succeed in the mass production of healing potions. Since they were reinvesting the wealth earned this way into developing various dungeon resources, they could be said to have grasped an inexhaustible source of wealth.

At the pinnacle of this were the Noble Vampires.

If he could just make them submit, he would gain immense power. A power that might be able to reverse the already determined catastrophe.

To obtain it, he had drunk the blood of a Royal Vampire before. But in the end, he couldn’t overcome the pain of transformation and became a monster.

In order not to repeat the same mistake as last time, Min Gongchan desperately held onto his reason.