"Wh-what?"
"I asked whether you were the one who sent people to take my property without permission."
Geon-mu asked once more, but instead of answering the High Priest said something else.
"How did you find this place? Surely......!"
The High Priest looked at Lumia.
It was not part of the plan either, so Lumia could only be bewildered.
Geon-mu waved a hand and answered obligingly.
"She's the one who drove me to the entrance, but what told me this place was the sword."
"The sword......?"
"That shard of the sword draws me to it."
Hearing that, Lumia looked again at the fragment the High Priest was holding.
It was different from the sword Geon-mu had broken.
Lumia, who had assumed he would obviously give her a fake and so had not looked closely, felt as though she had been struck from behind.
"Nonsense!!"
The High Priest shouted, trembling.
"Th-this place is an independent space where all flows are severed. Not even the energy of mana or spirit can be felt! Planting a tracking spell would be useless......!?"
"That's true if it's only at the level of a tracking spell or spirits."
What Geon-mu possessed was the soul of a dragon.
The pull between one dragon and another transcends dimensions.
There was no way a mere High Priest would know of such a concept.
"What are you doing, Lumia!? Attack at once! Stop the intruder!"
"That lady can't move anyway. I've sealed her acupoints, so even drawing the string is beyond her."
"Ggguuuh! You useless bitch!"
The High Priest glared at Lumia like an insect.
Geon-mu drew the New Moon and walked toward the High Priest.
'Either way, anyone who could break through B-Grade Awakened to get here is no ordinary talent.'
In that case there was nothing for it but to strike at an opening and subdue him quickly with miracle magic.
Under the pressure, the High Priest waved both hands to signal surrender.
"Wait, let us settle this with words! There is no need to swing a sword at a powerless old man!"
"Talking is fine. Having an opponent you can reason with makes things a little less troublesome."
Geon-mu showed a favorable attitude.
While he did, the High Priest covertly moved into a combat stance.
'Now!'
When he stretched a hand into empty air, a staff mounted on the wall came flying toward the High Priest's hand.
If he took the staff and used the miracle spell <Holy Sanctuary>, he could bind Geon-mu's movements.
It was a tactic that made victory all but certain.
[<Phantom Speed Dragon> stirs.]
But as always, things did not go according to plan.
An unaccounted-for movement intercepted the staff flying toward the High Priest.
"What......?"
"It's written all over your face."
Having suffered ambushes for over a hundred years, Geon-mu could pick out an assassin's ambush easily enough.
Still more so when it was not even an assassin; from the moment the High Priest asked to talk, he had seen through the little scheme to catch him off guard.
Geon-mu was already five moves ahead.
Before there was even time to be startled, the High Priest's field of vision flipped.
Geon-mu's ankle hooked the High Priest's neck like a hoe and drove him into the floor.
"Kuh!"
His nose broke and blood ran freely.
It was not a fatal blow, but it was enough to keep him from chanting an incantation.
While he was writhing in pain, Geon-mu's sword cut his tendons with dazzling skill.
"Gaaah...... nnngh!!"
The High Priest's agonized scream was cut off.
Geon-mu had stopped his mouth with a scrap of robe cloth he had cut in advance.
Lumia looked at Geon-mu, who had burst in so suddenly, with a dazed expression.
Feeling Lumia's gaze, Geon-mu glanced up at her and asked.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Did you not say you would wait?"
"I'm rather hopeless at leaving things to other people. Waiting turned out to be far more boring than I expected."
"......."
At the claim that it was simple caprice, Lumia wore a look of exasperation.
"The two of us are going to talk for a while, so if you have business, go and see to it."
"Is that allowed?"
"If it's awkward, you can stay here."
"No. I will go."
With Geon-mu's permission, Lumia moved off somewhere.
"Right, now that it's just the two of us, shall we exchange names?"
"Nnngh! Ngh!"
Geon-mu began rummaging through the subdued High Priest's belongings.
In the process he happened to notice a tattoo on the back of his neck.
The tattoo looked like a symbol resembling the sun.
Geon-mu recognized what it was at once.
"An archpriest of the Church of Light? I'm seeing a tattoo again that's hard to find in this world."
"Nnngh! Ngh!?"
The High Priest's eyes went round.
He seemed to be asking how, so Geon-mu answered him.
"Well, from the moment you were pulling schemes with the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword I figured you knew roughly that much, so it wasn't surprising."
Geon-mu released the pressure holding the High Priest down.
The High Priest tried to move in that gap to draw at least a magic circle, but with his tendons cut he could not so much as twitch a finger.
Geon-mu grabbed him by the hair, lifted him, and met his eyes.
"From now on the questions are yes and no only. Answering aloud is out, of course; we'll do it with blinks. Blink once for yes, twice for no. Understood?"
"......."
"The questions start now. You should answer."
The mood had passed entirely to Cha Geon-mu.
The High Priest breathed roughly, then reluctantly blinked once.
"Did you know the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword would manifest in a dungeon?"
Blink.
"And where it will appear next as well?"
Blink. Blink.
THUD—!
Geon-mu slammed the High Priest's head down hard.
His forehead split and blood ran down.
"Nnngh! Nnngh!!"
"You would do well not to even think about lying."
"Nghhhhh......."
The High Priest made a whimpering sound and blinked.
He repeated the answer that he did not know.
"Is there a separate informant who tells you that?"
Blink.
"And where is he?"
His eyes tilted to the right.
When Geon-mu shifted his gaze, there was a door hidden in the white wall.
That hidden door was currently open.
Lumia had certainly gone in there.
"How many have been found so far?"
He blinked twice.
"Two, including the one Lumia found?"
Blink.
"And the other one is here?"
Blink, blink.
Damn it.
Geon-mu clicked his tongue.
Still, hoping to salvage some fortune from the misfortune, he asked again.
"Is it the sword's hilt, by any chance?"
Blink.
"Fuck."
Geon-mu let out a long sigh.
You could gather sword fragments until the end of time; without the hilt, the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword was an unfinished thing.
Conversely, with only the hilt, the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword could be made one way or another.
The hilt was effectively everything.
"You know who has it, don't you?"
The High Priest blinked.
The answer after that was not one that could be given as yes or no, so Geon-mu pulled the scrap of cloth out of his mouth.
The High Priest answered with a face full of terror.
"The Chairman! The Chairman who played the decisive role in organizing this Heavenly Dragon Society has it!!"
"And where is the Chairman?"
"Th-that I do not know. The Chairman always sends a message without warning and comes, so unless he sends a message......."
"Is that so? His name?"
"I do not kno— Gaaaah!"
Geon-mu drove the sword down through his palm.
Blood poured out in gouts.
"He does not reveal his identity! He always asks to be called only Chairman, so I never asked!! So please......!"
"Hmm......"
Geon-mu pulled out the embedded sword and worked out his plan going forward.
'If the hilt isn't here, should I wait here until he's summoned?'
That was effectively impossible.
If it blew up into a large disturbance, Geon-mu would have more work on his hands.
"H-have you not obtained everything you wanted? Please, spare my life at least. Sir, I beg you."
Even hearing the High Priest's pleading, Geon-mu answered with an indifferent expression.
"I haven't the slightest intention of sparing you, though."
"S-sorry?"
"You know perfectly well what punishment falls on one who has sworn to the Precepts of Light and then walked a crooked path, don't you? An archpriest like you especially couldn't fail to know."
"H-how do you know that?!!"
The High Priest looked up at Geon-mu with his eyes wide.
The Precepts of Light were strict rules passed down in secret, unknowable unless one was as deeply involved as a believer of the Light, and among them an archpriest.
"Yes, I know it well. Living in this world, no less."
Geon-mu grinned and struck his back with a finger.
"Kuurgh......!!"
The High Priest went rigid and straight, like a fish that had taken a shock.
Before long his body went limp and the strength drained from his eyes.
His body slowly took on a yellow hue.
Geon-mu knew what would happen next.
In about an hour his body would be wrapped in light as bright as sunlight, and it would burn away just like that.
Geon-mu looked down at him and murmured as though reciting a prayer.
"Atone according to the Precepts of Light."
Having confirmed the High Priest was dead, Geon-mu walked in the direction the High Priest had indicated.
It was the space the High Priest had used as an office.
Files that had been kept in order were scattered in disarray, and at the center of it stood Lumia.
"It's here. It must be, somewhere here......."
She was searching desperately for something.
Geon-mu left Lumia to it and opened the inside of the desk.
The High Priest's smartphone was in it.
"That phone!!"
Lumia moved to take it.
Reading her movement as she went to snatch it, he drew back the hand holding the smartphone.
"Back off."
"There is something I have to find. Once I find it, that is all I....... Kuh!"
Geon-mu did not wait for her.
He seized the throat of the woman trying to resist and subdued her.
"I'm telling you this because you seem to be under some misapprehension. In this cooperative relationship of ours, I am unconditionally the one in charge. When I say back off, you back off."
"Nngh...... ngh......."
Seeing her thrash, he let go as though tossing her aside.
Lumia did not resist any further.
Since he had watched Lumia's own heavily secured phone over her shoulder, he could unlock this one easily.
Another function hidden inside the application launched.
Unlike Lumia's phone, which had about five, this contact list held only three.
-Chairman
-Oracle
-Enforcer Chief
"So the High Priest wasn't the highest position in the Heavenly Dragon Society."
He was a conspirator, but not the ringleader.
He looked first at the Chairman's messages.
Chairman: Today, 19:00
Chairman: Tomorrow, 2:00
Just as the High Priest had said, they were curt, with nothing that looked usable.
Messages had been exchanged at intervals of nearly two weeks, and that was all.
The rest had certainly been conveyed verbally.
'Then what about the conversation with this Oracle?'
Geon-mu opened the chat with Oracle.
Me: I am the High Priest, Kim Chun-sik, who has been given overall charge of this plan.
Me: Has it been confirmed how many pieces the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword was divided into?
Oracle: Seven in total. I will inform you of the locations as they emerge.
Me: Understood. I shall remain on standby at all times.
Me: The Chairman asks after your situation. He asks why you have not come forward for a month.
Me: Has a location emerged?
Me: Oracle, the Chairman is pressing.
Oracle: Please recover number N-383125.
Oracle: It must be recovered quietly.
"N-383125 is here too. You people came to that place on the High Priest's instructions, didn't you?"
At Geon-mu's question, Lumia nodded.
Beyond the chat the Oracle's whereabouts were unclear, but that information network at least seemed trustworthy.
Geon-mu could not take his eyes off one spot, and clicked his tongue.
"He could at least have made himself a proper name. Kim Chun-sik, honestly?"
He understood that someone from another world would use it as a false identity, but there was far too little effort put into the name.
"Doesn't look like there's any other usable information."
The exchange with the Enforcer Chief was useless, repeating the same content as the Chairman and the Oracle.
Geon-mu glanced at Lumia.
Even with that desperate look on her face, she was waiting quietly for Geon-mu's business to finish.
"Here, it's yours now."
When Geon-mu tossed her the phone, she began working it again.
She operated it several times, pressed back, and repeated it.
She repeated the same words aloud as well.
"It isn't here....... It isn't here....... Why......."
Lumia kept trying to search with a face fallen into despair, but what was inside the application was all Geon-mu had seen.
"That can't be...... I was told the High Priest oversaw everything......."
"The High Priest may oversee everything in the rites, but there are cases where only one person knows the truly important information."
"How can that be......."
Lumia clutched at her own head.
She despaired.
She trembled like a puppy soaked through in a downpour.
She was pitiful enough to make him want to shelter her, but Geon-mu did not try to play that role.
"My business is done, so I'll be going."
Leaving her to her despair, he moved off with the High Priest's smartphone.
It was then.
"Wait."
CREAAK—
Geon-mu heard a sound he should not have heard.
It was the sound that rings when a bowstring is drawn.
"You would do well...... not to move any further."
Geon-mu stopped and warned Lumia.
She was drawing the bowstring.
Geon-mu scratched his head as he spoke.
"I've told so many lies that you must think that one was a lie too, but sealing your acupoints was real. If you force them open, every muscle will snap and your organs will burst. You'll do it anyway?"
Lumia forced words out through trembling lips.
"I...... I cannot let you go like this."
"So you'll shoot an arrow that can't even damage me and die for it? That would be nothing but a dog's death."
"Then it would be better to die along with these people."
Lumia trembled violently and forced the string back.
"I have something I must protect."
FWIP!
The arrow flew.
The forcibly drawn arrow flew straight and true toward Geon-mu.
At the same moment, the sound of things snapping rang out all over Lumia's body at once.
SNAP-SNAP-SNAP—!
"Kuh!"
With the sound of things tearing throughout her body, Lumia vomited blood.
It was an arrow as clumsy as one from a Level 1 novice archer, but it lodged precisely in Geon-mu's shoulder.
Had he wished, Geon-mu could have snatched that arrow out of the air.
Geon-mu chose to take the arrow himself.
Why?
'It felt as though it would be rude not to take it.'
Yes, it was a pull of feeling rather than reason.
Because her appeal to that desperate emotion until the very last moment had bored into Geon-mu's heart.
"Hmm......"
Geon-mu pulled the arrow lodged in his shoulder free and let out a breath.
The wound was not deep, so it closed quickly.
Geon-mu looked down at Lumia, who had collapsed and was bleeding.
Left like this, she would die of her internal injuries.
"You pass, for now."
Geon-mu hoisted her over his shoulder and left Yuseong Foods.