Chapter 126
The woman’s name was Ayoung.
As she introduced herself, Ayoung also revealed that they were members of the Sacred Flame Cult.
The members of the Inspection Squad were startled when they heard Ayoung’s words. They knew there was friction between the Pleasure Pavilion and the Sacred Flame Cult, but they apparently never imagined they would encounter the Sacred Flame Cult here.
Well, could I have known either? If I had known beforehand, I wouldn’t have led them all the way here…
“Brother Dan, were you acquainted with them from before?”
I gave the answer I had prepared.
“I told you before that I stayed in Jinhae for a few days and met some religious people, right? I ended up relying on these people for a few days and got some meals from them.”
“Ah…”
At my answer, Ayoung naturally joined the conversation.
“I’m relieved to see that you seem to be doing well. I was quite worried after seeing Brother off like that. I wondered if perhaps you were going to join our faith because you had nowhere else to go.”
“Haha… Yes?”
“If you ever change your mind, please tell me anytime. The Sacred Flame Cult welcomes anyone whose beliefs align with ours.”
As she smiled brightly, cold sweat suddenly trickled down my back. Several members of the Inspection Squad were giving me suspicious looks at the words ‘going to join our faith.’
N-No! If this continues, they’ll find out that my original goal was to join the Sacred Flame Cult…!
I hurriedly came up with an invincible excuse.
“She’s pretty.”
“……”
…Although all their gazes changed as though they were looking at garbage.
Still, since Ayoung was objectively quite beautiful, they didn’t seem to suspect me any further. I secretly breathed a sigh of relief before speaking.
“I’m truly grateful that you would take such an interest in this insignificant one. Indeed, you are as beautiful in heart as you are in appearance.”
“You flatter me.”
“No, I mean it. I cannot tell you how delighted I am to see you again, Miss. However…”
I subtly brought up the main point.
“I simply cannot understand how you came to be here… Did you perhaps happen to be passing nearby, see the fire, and come here?”
This was what I really wanted to ask.
Why had they appeared at the Pleasure Pavilion’s headquarters?
If things hadn’t become so tangled up like this, I would have simply pretended not to know anything or made up some excuse for their sake. But now that we were involved with one another like this, avoiding the matter wouldn’t work.
It would be better to learn about the relationship between these people and the Pleasure Pavilion and respond accordingly. That might even make the Inspection Squad less suspicious.
However, Ayoung didn’t answer my question. She merely smiled sweetly.
“You’re also pursuing the Pleasure Pavilion, aren’t you?”
At those words, not only I but the members of the Inspection Squad stiffened. But Ayoung’s words did not end there.
“That doesn’t mean we’re trying to uncover your identities. But seeing as you rescued these people, you seem to be people who understand benevolence and righteousness. In that case, I thought you would want to oppose the Pleasure Pavilion just as our Sacred Flame Cult does.”
“What? What do you mean…?”
“The Pleasure Pavilion are people who have abandoned all human decency.”
Ayoung suddenly pointed toward one side.
More precisely, she was pointing at the people we had rescued from the Pleasure Pavilion’s headquarters… the people who still hadn’t come to their senses and were sitting there blankly.
“Do you know why these people are like this?”
“……”
“Yeollak Pills.”
“What?”
Ayoung calmly began to explain.
“They’re a type of drug similar to the Ecstasy Pill.”
“The Ecstasy Pill?”
“Yes. They say that even taking a single pill provides the ultimate pleasure. It shows you hallucinations detached from reality, and within them, you experience an immense sense of happiness.”
My mouth fell open.
I felt like I had heard about those effects somewhere before.
“The problem, however, is the side effects. Once the drug wears off, you feel as though you’ve been thrown straight down to the bottom in an instant. They say the disparity is enormous.”
“……”
“Eventually, you have no choice but to take the drug again to feel happy, and as you develop a tolerance, you start seeking out more and more of it.”
“……”
“Those who become addicted to the drug eventually become unable to feel any emotions at all, just like those people. Normally, they lie there as though dead, and only regain their vitality after taking the drug. They’re practically living corpses…”
Suddenly, what had happened earlier came back to me.
The hallucination I saw after inhaling the smoke when we entered the village, and the people lying there blankly, trapped inside those cages.
So that was why…
“That is the truth the Pleasure Pavilion has been hiding. These Yeollak Pills are precisely the means that allowed them to seize enormous power in such a short time.”
So it’s drugs.
‘Damn, they have drugs here too?’
I let out a hollow laugh. It made me think that humans were the same no matter where they went, even if the era was different.
Ayoung sighed deeply before continuing.
“The Pleasure Pavilion secretly established a settlement here and was producing Yeollak Pills there. They grew the flowers and medicinal ingredients necessary to manufacture the pills, then had their manufacturers combine the ingredients to produce them.”
“Then those people…?”
“They’re test subjects. They wanted to create stronger, longer-lasting Yeollak Pills. So they directly administered the combined medicines to people and observed them.”
“……”
The members of the Inspection Squad’s expressions darkened at Ayoung’s words.
They had looked shocked from the very beginning of the story, but as it progressed, their faces gradually hardened, giving the entire group a grave atmosphere.
The members of the Inspection Squad exchanged meaningful glances. Dang-hee asked in a lowered voice,
“Seems pretty certain, right?”
“It would be nice if we had evidence… but circumstantially, this is more than enough.”
They seemed convinced that the Pleasure Pavilion was definitely connected to the Demonic Cult.
‘Not exactly.’
Still, the fact that they were producing drugs alone made it seem like they were no ordinary evil organization. At that moment, Liyeon, who had been silently listening, suddenly asked,
“How does the Sacred Flame Cult know all of that?”
Ayoung could have been flustered by his interrogative tone, but she merely smiled bitterly.
“We had no choice but to find out. The people we had been helping gradually started changing.”
Daoist Woohak chimed in from beside her.
“Could you tell us in a little more detail?”
“Of course. Originally, our Sacred Flame Cult would travel around the coastal villages in northeastern Zhejiang Province and perform charitable work. The more firewood we stack by helping people, the closer we can come to the Sacred Flame.”
“Firewood…?”
Master Unhak looked so bewildered that I almost laughed. Well, I had been surprised too when I first heard their doctrine.
“When you spend a long time doing volunteer work, you naturally become acquainted with the people you see often. You even become close enough to exchange greetings and ask how they’re doing. But one day, those people started changing.”
“Changing?”
“Yes. They increasingly stopped responding properly when we called them and simply stared blankly into space. At first, they could at least say a few words, but at some point, they couldn’t speak at all.”
“……”
“As it turned out, the Pleasure Pavilion had been distributing drugs to poor people living on the outskirts. They gave them the drugs to test their effects. We caught them in the act.”
“Ah…”
Venerable Heo let out a sigh. Ayoung nodded as though she understood.
“Of course, there was friction between them and us. They tried to subdue us by force, but we didn’t simply stand by either. Eventually, when the losses on both sides were about to become too great, the Pleasure Pavilion withdrew first and went into hiding.”
“I see.”
“After that, we began investigating the Pleasure Pavilion in earnest, and discovered that the drug they had been distributing was the Yeollak Pill. They were sacrificing poor people in order to perfect the Yeollak Pill.”
At Ayoung’s explanation, the members of the Inspection Squad nodded.
Judging from the fact that there wasn’t much difference between the information they already knew and what she had told them, they seemed to believe there was no longer any reason to doubt her.
Ayoung continued.
“We wanted to find and stop the Pleasure Pavilion, but it was difficult even to locate their headquarters. And by then, their influence had grown so rapidly that there was little we could do.”
“……”
“In the end, the only thing we could do was create a cure and restore at least the people on the outskirts to their original state. Fortunately, there were several people in our Sacred Flame Cult who were skilled in medicine.”
“Did you succeed?”
At Master Unhak’s question, Ayoung could not bring herself to continue speaking. But from her silence, we could already guess the answer.
Ayoung murmured gloomily,
“No… We still haven’t been able to create a proper cure. There’s a limit to what we can determine from the medicinal properties in the blood of those who are addicted. If we could obtain the actual drug and analyze its ingredients, there might be a chance…”
Then, suddenly, she jerked her head up.
We flinched. At some point, a small flame had appeared in Ayoung’s eyes. She looked at us earnestly and said,
“Please. If you are also pursuing the Pleasure Pavilion, if you are people who understand benevolence and righteousness, please help us!”
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