Chapter 67 – Expulsion (1)

He sent out even the awakened one who was guarding him, then took us to the museum basement.

Like other museums, this museum’s basement was also a warehouse storing artifacts.

Walking ahead, he pointed at various Joseon era artifacts and items close to miscellaneous goods piled up.

“Since this university was a religious university, this museum has many artifacts from religious people who were persecuted in this country, along with traditional artifacts. There are items from foreign pastors and priests, and for some reason, even relics of a deceased monk.”

He continued speaking while going deeper into the basement.

“The problem is that both the people who left these artifacts here and the university that kept them thought of them as mere souvenirs.

Ridiculous. What reason would there be to keep mere souvenirs? The reason these artifacts were preserved is because they’re all items left by God to show divine power in times like these.”

Following behind and listening to his words, there were numerous points I wanted to dispute.

“But I should understand such people. I too had a time when I didn’t properly understand.

However, it’s a serious problem that some still think that way even now when divine power has descended.”

Perhaps because of the terrorist attack?

The Apostle’s words were much harsher than a few days ago.

“Their inability to change their thinking must be jealousy that I, who replaced them, received God’s choice. Or maybe they want to regain their meaningless worldly positions.

Either way, they chose wrong. God is merciful but equally just.”

Where he stopped his passionate speech was in front of a large safe at the very back of the basement.

Even before reaching the safe, we could tell the artifact was inside.

Because immense holy power was emanating from within the safe.

“Though no one but me should dare touch it, just in case…”

The Apostle opened the safe and carefully took out what was inside.

What he took out was a dark red wooden cross.

Holding the cross on his hand, he spoke to us.

“This item was found on a cleric who was martyred in the late Joseon period. They say it turned this dark red color because it was stained with the cleric’s blood as he held it during martyrdom.

Actually, it was neglected in storage because it wasn’t very believable. Looking at it, it’s just a roughly carved wooden cross.

But when I was chosen by God and came down here, I immediately knew this cross held tremendous power.

I also knew I could draw power from this cross to protect people. God revealed it all to me.”

After rambling on in self-absorption, he stood before Yerim holding the cross.

“Now, let’s see if Yerim has the power given to me too. Here, hold the cross and try to feel and draw out its power.”

At his words, Yerim grabbed the cross with a frightened face.

As he said, she tried various ways to move the holy power emanating from the cross.

She tried releasing holy power, praying while holding the cross, and even stroking it.

But the holy power flowing from the cross remained unchanged.

“It’s not working. I guess I can’t do it.”

Though it didn’t work, Yerim’s expression wasn’t bad. Rather, she looked relieved.

As she returned the cross, the Apostle spoke in a regretful tone.

“How unfortunate. I guess only I can do it.”

Though he said that, he didn’t look regretful at all. Rather, his expression clearly showed relief.

Then he sent us out with a smile on his face.

“Well, now that we’ve confirmed, Yerim and all of you can go back and rest. Thank you Yerim for healing me. And I’m sorry for taking up your time after you returned from your hard work.”

It was an ordinary expression of gratitude, but what made it seem otherwise were his following words.

“Since I couldn’t do my work because I was injured, now I should do what I’ve been putting off.”

Until we parted, I couldn’t ask what work he had been putting off.

I didn’t need to ask because I seemed to know.

Afterwards, we returned straight to our quarters.

Though there were still matters with the attacked Apostle and the people from the government complex, those were now out of my hands.

Our work was done, so it was time to settle accounts and rest.

We each washed up in the washroom, had meals with coupons in the cafeteria, and gathered in my room in casual dress.

It was a party meeting to review today’s work and prepare for tomorrow.

If we were camping outside, we wouldn’t need to gather to talk like this, but since we had separate rooms here, we needed to make time.

Yerim, who lived in another building, also attended today’s meeting.

When we worried it might be too late to return, Yerim hugged Zahina’s arm.

“It’s okay. I’m staying with sister Zahina tonight.”

Hoffman and I looked at Zahina with surprised faces.

An elf inviting a non-elf to their room…

Unless it was unavoidable camping, we’d never heard of such a thing.

While Yerim was amazing for always befriending people like a capybara, Zahina was also very un-elf-like.

When I first saw her, she was better than other elves, but not to this extent.

Clearly, Zahina was changing more and more as time passed.

Anyway, I welcomed Yerim.

“That’s good. We needed someone to check the documents.”

“What? You don’t mean those documents?”

“We need to check what we need before throwing them to the higher-ups later.”

At my words, not just Yerim but other party members’ expressions soured.

“Ugh, I came to the wrong place. I’ll just go back today.”

Yerim even tried to release Zahina’s arm and get up.

I took out documents from my pouch and said to Yerim.

“No, you can’t go. I was planning to have you stay with us until things calm down anyway.”

Yerim sat down with a gloomy face at my words.

“Hiing. I ran away because I hate dealing with people and paperwork, but is there no paradise even where I ran to?”

However, unlike the other two, when documents were placed in front of her, she immediately took a working posture.

“What should I look for?”

I told her truthfully at her question.

“Places likely to have weapons like military bases, police stations, reserve forces, warehouses with remaining materials and supplies. Lastly, find jewelry stores and precious metal shops.”

At my words, Hoffman’s eyes lit up as he was looking at the documents with a troubled face.

“Could it be you’re giving us a chance too?”

“You probably figured it out anyway?”

Party members couldn’t have missed me collecting jewelry while traveling together.

Though Zahina seemed uninterested, Hoffman wasn’t.

I had roughly figured out the party members’ personalities by now.

Though a potion addict, the experienced mountain soldier Hoffman was trustworthy, and so was Zahina despite being an elf.

I could probably tell them my secret that they’d already somewhat noticed.

And before that, I needed to share my side job.

“Haha, even if we noticed, we couldn’t show it in front of Sir Knight. So can we join in on the heist?”

“We’ll just stop by if our routes overlap.”

Despite my limitation, Hoffman didn’t mind.

“That’s enough. Can we use some of that pouch?”

I nodded at Hoffman’s words.

After all, this wouldn’t be possible without the space expansion pouch.

“Of course. How else would we carry things? But I never thought two space expansion pouches would still lack capacity. Yet we can’t remove things like food.”

We couldn’t throw away the mages’ requested belongings or the collected belongings of the fallen.

“This really sounds like a rich person’s complaint, but I wish some space expansion pouches would just fall from somewhere.”

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t happen.

Without mages, there couldn’t be anyone who could make space expansion pouches.

“Damn, if I knew this would happen, I should have studied this world’s writing hard. Need to be able to read something…”

Hoffman, who had enthusiastically jumped into the documents, immediately surrendered.

The Korean documents were too difficult for him who hadn’t even mastered Hangul.

Zahina, looking at documents beside him, agreed with Hoffman’s words.

“Being official documents, they’re hard to understand even if you know the letters. Without Yerim, I wouldn’t have known what they meant either.”

But Yerim pouted at Zahina’s words.

“No, sister shouldn’t say that. You learned Hangul less than a month ago, but you’re reading documents smoothly after asking me just a few times.”

Though grumbling, Yerim diligently checked the documents.

I asked Yerim, who was working harder than expected.

“Are you okay with this? What we’re doing could be considered stealing.”

Yerim looked at me with a puzzled face.

“Huh? The world’s ended. Everyone’s dead, so this isn’t stealing, it’s farming.”

“Farming?”

Indeed, Zahina’s magic translation wasn’t perfect.

Words that didn’t exist in our world sounded strange. I heard both “farming” and “agriculture” simultaneously.

“Ah, it’s a game term. Oh, uncle, do you not know what games are?”

“Games are things like poker, right?”

“No, rather than that… How should I explain it?”

“Just think of it as playing hero with fantasy magic.”

“Oh? That’s right. It’s different but similar. But Sir Knight knows well. Ah, right. Is that possible with fantasy magic there?”

There seemed to be a question I should answer, but it was buried under the following words.

“Is it something like this?”

At Yerim’s question, Zahina showed an image made of light in front of her.

It showed a party walking along a path.

Though it included an elf, the composition was different from our party, so it seemed to be the recently annihilated hero party.

“Wow, real magic! Yes, games are about directly controlling people inside like this and fighting monsters.”

I wanted to say there were many more different types of games, but I kept quiet pretending not to know.

Following Yerim’s words, the party members in the floating image began fighting undead.

“After fighting like this, picking up items from fallen monsters is called farming.”

Hoffman asked Yerim, who was explaining excitedly.

“So farming means skinning or taking out gall bladders and livers?”

“No. Items aren’t like that… Anyway, farming is like that.”

“Ah, I see. Because fighting people produces spoils. I understand. So what we bring back are items too.”

“Ah… That’s not wrong but… Yes, that’s right.”

I found it hard to hold back laughter listening to their conversation.

“Anyway, it’s natural for me to help with the party’s farming preparation.”

Watching Yerim chattering excitedly, one speculation occurred to me.

“Could it be you joined our party because of that game?”

Certainly, confirming her father’s death wasn’t enough reason for her to join our party.

I thought there must be another reason, and now I seemed to understand it.

At my words, Yerim patted her reddened face and said.

“Haha, honestly, I loved games. I mostly played healers, but I was almost addicted to gaming.

But then the world ended. Like others, I was left alone, and though I survived by luckily entering the sanctuary, there was nothing to do in this world except survive.

At night, I just cried from loneliness and fear.”

Yerim raised her hand pointing at me after saying that.

“Then suddenly Sir Knight appeared before me! That’s why I joined this party.”

I thought there would be some other reason, but her reason for joining our party was simpler than expected.

So we continued checking documents while chatting enthusiastically.

Usually, it would have been a quiet and boring time, but thanks to Yerim joining us, we could check documents without noticing time passing.

That day, while we had a fairly enjoyable time except for suffering through documents, others didn’t.

The next morning, the Apostle, looking pale as if he’d struggled all night, issued expulsion orders to several people.