Serhithran (4)
They’ve found another inn on the south side of Serhithran.
After getting a new room, Han-bin and his party moved the woman they had caught in it.
Looking down at her unconscious body, Han-bin felt puzzled.
“How do we interrogate her?”
If it were a normal situation, he would wake her up and let her slowly throw up the information.
“But what if the Banned spell activated again? It would be all over.”
“I suppose so.”
In reply, Artis dropped a small Mana on Grace’s head.
He didn’t know what it exactly was, but at least it was clear that something was cast into her.
“I’m sure it’s a mental spell… It’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“I can feel Prana, Mana, Force all at once.”
If he waked her up recklessly, there was a high possibility that she would vomit blood and die like Maxwell.
Kibie stepped up to see Han-bin in trouble.
“I’ll try.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to cast a shadow-reading. I can’t just interrogate her myself, but I can get some information.”
“Shadow-reading?”
Ryu Han-bin, Artis, and Effir were curious about the term they heard for the first time.
Kibie explained calmly.
“It’s the art of detecting the remnants of memories and collecting information from the past. It’s one of the powers of incarnation.”
The Goddesses didn’t overburden themselves with combat skills when making incarnations.
The goal was to live the same as mortals and understand them.
Language-communication and information-acquisition skills were far more essential.
“You have such a convenient ability? Goddesses are amazing.”
Ryu Han-bin, who nodded in surprise, suddenly asked.
“Oh, can you read what I’m thinking?”
He asked, thinking it was in the same form as the telepathy he saw in movies, but Kibie shook her head.
“It’s too much. Shadow-reading is about reading fixed past, not about changing the consciousness of the living in real-time.”
To be exact, she could read it, but it was impossible to decipher it.
Human consciousness was not just at the level of voice information.
It was the result of a complex mixture of visual, olfactory, tactile, emotional, and superficial consciousness, deep unconscious, and reflective notions of behavior.
“We can’t process that much information with the limits of a mortal’s brain. It was possible only when I was a Goddess.”
Gaining only certain information from the opponent and selecting and interpreting the opponent’s comprehensive information at random were different levels of difficulty.
Therefore, although there was brainwashing and mental control among spiritual arts or magic spells, no mind-reading skills came to mind.
“If there’s such a Spiritual skill in the first place, Alien interrogators wouldn’t have been having such a hard time figuring out the identities of Aliens. They could’ve just read the minds of the Aliens.”
Moreover, even reading a fixed past wasn’t easy.
At least for a few minutes, the caster must remain immobile with unwavering focus, and it’s limited to being able to read the large stems of the past roughly.
It was impossible to dig up the opponent’s information during a battle.
“That’s why you asked my name when you first met me, Kibie. I got it.”
Han-bin was inwardly relieved.
‘At least no one’s going to be able to read my mind.’
After the explanation, Kibie put her hand on the unconscious Grace.
“Then, I’ll start.”
A faint black air flowed from Kibie’s fingertips and seeped through Grace’s platinum hair.
* * *
Grace O’Connell. Born in Minnesota in the United States.
She was 22 years old when she left Earth.
She was on her way home from work when she met a robber and got shot.
Then she woke up again after she had died.
She met the angel of the demon Omphalos, got a second chance, and was given a task.
It was a noble mission to save the world, the Latna Continent, from the six fake goddesses.
* * *
Ryu Han-bin tilted his head while listening to Kibie’s explanation.
“Six fake goddesses?”
Kibie snorted.
“Omphalos is brainwashing these people. These people believe that the world is ending and that we Goddesses are the cause of it. Omphalos is the true god of Latna, and we took his place?”
“I can’t believe that’s what the Earthlings knew all along.”
It was understandable why other people, unlike Han-bin, didn’t resist the Devil’s temptations.
From Han-bin’s point of view, the Devil was just a kidnapper who threw him into hell, but to other Earthlings, he was a benefactor who gave them a second chance at life.
“Hold on, so we’re supposed to have died before being summoned to this world? Then why did they kidnap me?”
Kibie grinned as Ryu Han-bin grumbled.
“That can’t be true. I don’t think the Earthlings actually died.”
No Earthling could get a Guideline planted in that case.
They must have passed the qualifications.
“After finding qualified people, they waited for a long time until the person died before summoning them? Why would they go through so much?”
It was much simpler to kidnap them and then plant fake memories.
“… Have you all been fooled?”
Ryu Han-bin clicked his tongue.
Kibie shrugged her shoulders.
“The problem is that the brainwashing of a demon is so well-done that people would continue to believe that even after hearing the truth.”
* * *
It was a truly religious and ecstatic experience.
In the Holy Land, Grace became a great warrior of God.
After receiving the Guideline, Loha Latna developed its strength at a similar level.
She reached level 20 and moved to Latna.
That happened 15 years ago.
At that time, the Latnains were still eagerly hunting down Aliens.
However, there was no systematic establishment to detect Aliens yet.
She got Latna’s identification after registering as a Hunter without any problem.
Working as a Hunter, she steadily raised her level.
She could stay quiet for a few years.
She met precious colleagues, formed relationships, and even fell in love with a good man.
But eventually, she got busted.
When they realized that she was an Alien, goodwill, affection, and consideration turned into malice, hatred, and greed.
Everything she had accumulated disappeared like a bubble.
She ran away as she got chased.
Countless blood spilled.
Even the man Grace loved bled.
Those who saved her from desperation were the same Earthlings, who called themselves Followers intoxicated by the world.
She couldn’t find stability even after she became a Follower.
She lived on the run and in hiding.
She gradually changed.
She no longer felt repulsed by killing people.
She had already massacred far too many individuals to feel remorse.
As she murdered those who tried to catch her, her level kept going up.
Level 30, level 40…
After level 50, the Guideline promised a new reward.
[Reducing the number of intelligent bodies on the Latna continent is a noble act to save the world. It will exhaust the influence of the six goddesses. If you are strong enough, you are obliged to kill Latnians.]
The reward was truly remarkable.
It was pleasure sent directly into her brain.
She couldn’t dare compare it to marijuana or amphetamine that she had tried briefly in high school. It was pure joy without any side effects!
The pleasure was so intense for Grace, who was struggling.
The same went for the other Earthlings.
The higher the level, the more often Latnains were killed.
* * *
Ryu Han-bin’s jaw opened.
“What the hell is that about?”
Kibie also had a similar reaction.
“That’s something I didn’t know…”
In other words, the demon omphalos forced high-level Earthlings to become junkies and to confront the Latnians.
Artis looked convinced.
“That’s how you get Latnains killed.”
If she killed a dungeon monster, she would only gain experience, but if Grace killed Latnains, she would get additional rewards.
Han-bin finally understood why most Aliens had become such terrible murderers.
“Omphalos, you bastard…”
Han-bin gritted his teeth.
If the Guideline hadn’t been broken, he would have been the same as they were.
Kibie continued her shadow-reading with a firm complexion.
* * *
She killed people nonstop.
She brought death upon men, women, the elderly, and children.
She didn’t care who they were. She took every chance to kill she could get.
Grace herself knew in the back of her mind.
She felt that something was wrong with it. It was inhumane.
But it didn’t matter.
She could only gain that pleasure when she killed Latnains.
She had to choose between Latnains’ lives or her pleasure.
One would make her a kind-hearted but depressed lady, while the other option would turn her evil but contented.
Like most people on Earth, she chose the latter.
She frequently moved to hide her identity, raised her level, and committed murder repeatedly.
The pitcher went so often to the well that it was broken at last. That adage of the Earth was not much different in Latna.
Finally, she got busted.
Six denominations had solved the questionnaire.
High-level Hunters in the middle of the continent also joined forces to wipe out the heretics as partners of the church.
She was chased ceaselessly.
In the midst of all that, whenever she had the chance, she killed people.
She had already fallen to the ground.
Eventually, a catastrophe came.
She and the Devil Followers became rats in a large siege by the Thunder King Garhan.
More than half of them were killed, and those that remained were taken as prisoners.
Grace cried for help.
Even though she had taken countless lives, her life was still precious.
Fortunately, she survived.
She was soon transferred to a hellish place: Thunder King Garhan’s prison, Akhtarun.
It was built by remodeling a dungeon at Tower Mountain Rufus, one of the Four Prohibited Areas.
The largest prison on Latna, sealed by the Thunder King’s mighty power, had already held numerous Earthlings captive.
Even the Great Earth, the worst Alien group to go against the Goddesses, was held there.
* * *
“Garhan, that guy…”
In anger, Kibie gritted her teeth.
“He said he killed them all, but he took them away?”
Due to the Omphalos area called Dungeon, it became possible to hide from the Goddesses’ omniscient eyes.
Although it was described as omnipotent, the six Goddesses had limitations.
Effir tilted her head.
“But why do they have to keep the Earthlings alive? That’s just dangerous.”
They were difficult to manage and conciliate.
It was also against the orders of the Goddesses.
“I don’t think the Thunder King is kind enough to keep the Earthlings alive even with that many risks…”
The answer soon revealed itself.
* * *
Later, Grace and the survivors became slaves to the mine.
She was just one of the hundreds of Earthlings trapped in Akhtarun.
The only difference from other mines was not the mineral, but the miner who dug up the ‘Spirit Stones.’
Only then did Grace realize why she wasn’t killed.
If they hunted the monsters that appeared in Akhtarun continuously and gave their captors the monsters’ Spirit Stones, they would be given daily necessities in return.
But the cost of those necessities was far beyond imagination.
High-ranking Spirit Stones were only worth half a loaf of bread in Akhtarun, while they were comparable to gold in the outer world.
Dozens of Spirit Stones had to be collected before they could afford rags.
Indeed, they were raising geese that laid golden eggs.
In terms of scale, it would not be too much to say that they were building a goose farm.
The amount of Spirit Stones that hundreds of powerful Earthlings offered to live was enormous.
It brought endless wealth and power to three of the strongest beings.
Their kingdoms also became known as the strongest nations, beating all of the other countries.
For more than a decade, Grace continued to wander through hell, unable to escape.
However, she was soon given an opportunity.
The door of Akhtarun opened, and the voice of the Thunder King rang.
-Find the incarnation of the Goddess.
-Then bring her to me.
-Then I’ll send you back to Earth. It’s a promise I make in the name of Thunder King.”
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