Lucifer

Though it was a creature with such regenerative power that it could instantly recover from burns caused by Surtr’s flames and injuries from Shooting Star, for some reason, it couldn’t regenerate the hole Bruce had made.

No, beyond being unable to regenerate, the flesh around the hole was turning black and necrotizing.

Looking at the hole pierced through its chest, the creature muttered in a hollow voice.

“…To directly strike at the essence. How is this possible without being a transcendent?”

“There’s no reason to tell someone who’s about to die.”

“Heh, hehehe… Me? I’m going to die? The brightest shining star, the one who rules over all demons?”

The space around the creature began to distort.

Bruce hurriedly shot his sword, but perhaps due to exhausting his power with the previous strike, its speed had slowed enough that even Yuseong could track it with his eyes.

And the moment the sword touched the creature’s body, the creature vanished.

Thud!

Where the creature had been, only fragments of an angel’s ring, a halo, and a piece of a demon’s horn had fallen.

“Hmm.”

The halo fragment and horn piece floated up gently and landed in Bruce’s hand.

After examining the items with what seemed like an expectant expression, Bruce gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

“Well, if it still had divinity, it wouldn’t have gone down so easily.”

“Um…”

Turning toward the voice behind him, Bruce found Yuseong wearing an indescribable expression and tilted his head.

“Is there a problem?”

“That one just now. Wasn’t it a dangerous being? It definitely said something about being the brightest shining star and ruling over all demons…”

The brightest shining star.

The one who rules over all demons.

As far as Yuseong knew, there was only one being that matched these two descriptors.

“Wasn’t that Lucifer?”

Lucifer.

A once great and beautiful angel called the Morning Star who rebelled against God and fell to Hell as a fallen angel.

Bruce nodded casually.

“No reason to lie, and with both a halo and horns, it was probably Lucifer.”

“And we can be this calm about it?”

“It would have been dangerous if it were a transcendent. But it had lost its divinity and fallen to become mortal. We should be cautious, but it’s not an enemy to be so afraid of.”

‘Divinity?’

He could roughly guess what mortal and transcendent meant.

The only thing he couldn’t understand was divinity.

Though it was clearly the first time hearing the word, it felt strangely familiar, and as Yuseong searched his memories, he recalled the message Bruce had sent when he first used the community.

‘He said he would pay any price if I found an item called Divine Fragment and sold it to him.’

Divinity and Divine Fragment.

And combining Bruce’s words about Lucifer losing its divinity and becoming mortal after being transcendent, one conclusion naturally emerged.

‘Does having divinity, or a Divine Fragment, allow a mortal to become transcendent?’

“Han Yuseong?”

Lost in thought, Yuseong barely returned to reality at Bruce’s voice.

“Yes?”

“I called several times but you didn’t answer… Are you really alright?”

“I just had something to think about. There’s no problem, so don’t worry.”

After staring with suspicious eyes, Bruce soon held out his hand toward Yuseong.

“Take it.”

“Why are you giving this to me?”

“Compensation for letting Lucifer escape earlier.”

It seemed Bruce had misunderstood his silence in a strange way.

Of course, Yuseong had no intention of correcting that misunderstanding.

“Thank you.”

The halo fragment and horn piece.

Being items dropped by Lucifer, they were surely not ordinary items.

‘Though it’s disappointing it wasn’t OneLifeOneShot, this level of reward is…’

Weeeeeooooo!

The sound of sirens in the distance.

Exchanging silent glances, Yuseong and Bruce fled the scene without needing to discuss it.

Shortly after, the debris of the collapsed building stirred and Kang Changseok emerged.

“Damn it, when I asked for help everyone was busy with… Huh?”

Police cars and fire trucks surrounding the building.

And even helicopters flying overhead.

“…Those bastards.”

Having finally grasped the situation, sincere cursing erupted from Kang Changseok’s mouth.

* * *

A major incident with over a thousand casualties.

Of course, it was impossible to sweep such an incident under the rug.

Even before emergency broadcasts could air, people worldwide learned what had happened at Salvation Religion through videos uploaded to NewTube.

However, what followed was somewhat different.

┖I heard those guys were behind the recent terrorist incidents in Korea?

┖Really? Got proof?

┖They say all the terrorists confessed and they found evidence linking them to the terrorism.

┖Am I the only one who thinks it’s strange to kill so many people without trial in the 21st century, not the ancient times?

┖Don’t you know the Contractors Association has authority for summary punishment of Contractors who commit crimes?

┖I know. But there’s a limit, right? One or two people might be understandable, but with casualties reaching a thousand in one night, this definitely isn’t something that should be overlooked.

┖Breaking news. Apparently they died fighting among themselves. The Contractors Association just asked them to surrender, but they split between those who wanted to fight and those who wanted to surrender, and all died fighting each other.

┖That’s religious fanatics for you.

As if someone was manipulating public opinion, evidence favorable to the Contractors Association and unfavorable to Salvation Religion kept pouring out without pause.

Public opinion split in two and major confusion arose.

However, that confusion didn’t last long.

-Contractor rank system officially introduced! Six ranks from E to S exist, with only 6 S-rank Contractors known worldwide…

-The International Contractors Association officially launched today. As a primary measure against the growing monster threat, the International Contractors Association announced the creation of Contractor special forces capable of emergency deployment worldwide and joint training between Contractors and military…

-The much-discussed Academy opens next week. The Academy will teach basic strategy and tactics, monster information, contractor-related laws, handling various weapons, and most notably includes a curriculum for teaching abilities to ordinary people, drawing great interest…

News significant enough to make the Salvation Religion mass death incident seem trivial hit the world.

Every time stories about the Contractor rank system, International Contractors Association, Academy, and mass production of new equipment broke, interest in Salvation Religion waned.

And before long, Salvation Religion was pushed completely out of people’s attention.

“This gets buried this easily?”

Checking the news on his smartphone, Yuseong let out a hollow laugh.

Articles about Salvation Religion couldn’t be found anywhere.

Though they occasionally appeared on NewTube or SNS, they received so little attention that they couldn’t be found unless specifically searching for them.

“…Easy? Did you just say it was easy?”

Veins popped up on Kang Changseok’s forehead.

It might look easy from a third party’s perspective, but the money and effort spent to cover up the Salvation Religion incident was beyond imagination.

Yet here was someone who not only ran away leaving him behind but dumped all the aftermath cleanup on him, talking about how easy it was.

Something surged up in his chest.

Whether knowing this fact or not, Yuseong muttered with a casual expression while focusing on his smartphone.

“Teaching abilities to ordinary people? Is that possible?”

It was a question with multiple implied meanings.

Kang Changseok, who had been contemplating whether to say something to Yuseong, sighed and opened his mouth.

“Of course it’s possible. We can bring over not just skills but things like secret manuals and spellbooks, so why wouldn’t we be able to teach?”

“No, then why haven’t you taught until now?”

“Because there was no point in teaching. Take martial arts and magic, which are popular abilities. Users might learn martial arts or magic instantly with just karma points, but ordinary people can’t learn that easily.”

Unless born with heaven-given talent or having treasures like elixirs.

Just sensing the existence of ki, or mana as it’s also called, takes dozens of days of effort even for talented people.

Refining and processing ki into internal energy or magic power that humans can use takes another dozens of days, and accumulating enough to use in actual combat takes several more months.

“Plus a martial artist needs at least four martial arts – one weapon technique, one internal energy technique, one footwork technique, and one body technique. Mages need to study various magical principles and formulas. To turn an ordinary person into someone capable of performing in actual combat takes at least several years minimum. But monsters are rampaging right now. What’s the point of teaching abilities in this situation?”

“Like planting an apple tree today when the world ends tomorrow. So teaching abilities now means Earth is safe enough not to end tomorrow?”

“Why ask when you already know?”

Though gruff, his voice had somewhat calmed.

Though it seemed like he was knowingly playing along, at least the conversation had started flowing.

Compared to the past few days when he had been letting Yuseong’s words go in one ear and out the other, this was major progress.

“How’s Bruce?”

“He went back.”

“Leaving Lucifer behind?”

“What could I do when he said he needed to protect his country? He said he’d come help right away if we asked, which is more than we could ask for.”

Though he said this, his expression was full of worry and concern.

Given Lucifer’s abilities, that was understandable.

Power that could easily erase a small city.

The ability to mass produce powered individuals surpassing Contractors.

And even the intelligence to establish and operate a religious order.

Though Bruce said he would come help right away if asked, by the time they could ask for help it would already be too late.

‘We were lucky to end this with minimal damage this time, but next time will be different.’

Having experienced failure once, Lucifer would surely plan things much more secretly and cunningly than before.

The problem was that unless he acted actively like this time, there was no way to distinguish between Lucifer hiding in the shadows and the powered individuals he would create.

‘Just gathering forces quietly then suddenly striking social infrastructure like power plants, dams, or roads would be enough to bring down a country. If a nuclear power plant were to explode…’

Goosebumps rose all over his body.

As if having similar thoughts, Kang Changseok’s complexion had also turned pale.

‘…Wait.’

As Yuseong pondered how to handle this situation, an idea occurred to him.

Though he couldn’t be certain it would work, it seemed much better than doing nothing.

“Hey, interested in hiring a watcher?”

“What nonsense is this all of a sudden?”

“Whoa, calm down and hear me out first.”

Yuseong’s eyes glowed faintly golden as he looked at Kang Changseok.