‘He’ stepped back a few paces hesitantly and looked around with anxious eyes. Stained glass in arched windows, a black altar with a red cross structure on top, long candles surrounding it below. It looked like a church.

“Is our little sacrifice scared?”

The blond boy, who had closed the distance again as much as ‘he’ had retreated, asked with a bright smile. The presumed shapeshifting ability, the heavily religious setting, and even being called a sacrifice. Suddenly, the existence of the cult flashed through ‘his’ mind.

As soon as he felt the red-hot sense of danger, ‘he’ tried to activate the ability he had seen in the status window a few days ago. Until now, he had refused because he couldn’t trust Choi Gang-hu at all, but faced with an even greater threat, he couldn’t just stubbornly resist.

No matter how much ‘he’ considered Choi Gang-hu untrustworthy, he had only read about his criminal acts. On the other hand, he had been directly kidnapped by the Four Apostles. The scales of judgment couldn’t help but tip easily.

“…?”

But no matter how strongly he recited it in his mind, the [Sanctification] trait didn’t activate. Startled, ‘he’ felt his neck with his fingertips. It was because he saw a black choker reflected in the shiny red cross.

“Haha, surprised? Come on, did you think I’d be stupid enough to leave you without putting on a mana control device?”

The blond boy continued with a satisfied expression.

“No matter how amazing you are, Mr. Sacrifice, you can’t just cut your own throat, right?”

The boy, smiling broadly, pulled out a large syringe with a rustling sound. Then, at a speed too fast to react, the long needle plunged into ‘his’ nape. Consciousness quickly faded.

When he opened his eyes again, Ryu Seo-ha’s body was wrapped tightly in a long red cloth and fixed to a cross. His eyes furrowed as he recalled the foolish actions of the past few days with his memories fully returned.

‘How stupid…’

He could only blame his own stubborn personality for complicating things. Why did he always seem to make custom-made blunders when problems arose? It would have been better if the situations had been reversed depending on the location.

If he had no memories of his current life in Jeju Island, he wouldn’t have easily drunk the water offered by an acquaintance, and if he had regained his memories in Hannam-dong, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use his abilities due to suspicion of Choi Gang-hu.

But what’s done is done. Regrets and what-ifs were useless now. What mattered was how to resolve the problem, that is, finding a way to escape the kidnapping situation.

Status: Remaining lifespan 96 days 5 hours 38 minutes

First, he gauged the passage of time. He hadn’t been unconscious for long. It seemed his consciousness had only briefly flickered out from the shock of his memories returning.

As he lowered his gaze, he saw cult members wearing skull masks busily moving about below the altar. Some were carrying materials while others were drawing lines on the floor.

Looking closely, they were in the process of drawing a magic circle that could only be seen in occult books. It was quite different from the preparations for extracting mana that had appeared in the original work.

“Oh, you’re awake?”

A man who had been examining the machine connected to the red cross noticed that Ryu Seo-ha had opened his eyes and leapt onto the altar, approaching closely.

It was the Four Apostles, transformed into the appearance of a handsome middle-aged man he had encountered right after the Hunter exam. The syringe in his hand greatly fueled the sense of unease.

“…Since when?” 

Ryu Seo-ha expressed his doubt in a low voice. It was a question with the intention of buying time. Because it seemed like the unknown drug would be injected into his veins at any moment.

“Since when what?”

“Since you started posing as the red bird.”

It was also something he was genuinely curious about. At first, it clearly wasn’t the Four Apostles. Ryu Seo-ha had directly witnessed its birth in the flower garden. He hadn’t felt any major sense of discomfort since then.

“There were plenty of opportunities to switch. You left it alone with the caretaker quite often, didn’t you?”

It sounded like he was blaming him, saying if he had gotten a pet, he should have taken it everywhere. As expected, it seems he had been hiding in a transformed state, waiting for an opportunity to kidnap him.

“…Where is it?”

“What? The real bird?”

“You didn’t kill it, did you?”

As he asked about Ruby’s life or death, trying hard to hide his anxiety, the Four Apostles made a subtle expression.

“Is this really the time to worry about a bird?”

At the incredulous question implying he wasn’t grasping the situation, Ryu Seo-ha chewed the inside of his cheek.

“What you want from me, it’s related to blood infused with mana, right?”

“Huh? What, you knew?”

He had only been guessing. No matter how special a high-grade healer’s ingredients might be, it didn’t seem likely they would go to such lengths for kidnapping just for mana extraction. Especially when Kitlova, another S-grade healer, was still alive.

“You’d probably want to experiment with other bodily fluids too.”

“Wow! You really do know something?”

This too was mere speculation. He had deduced a possible reason for the consecutive kidnapping attempts by combining the reason why the cult’s apostles considered Choi Gang-hu important in the original work and the recently revealed secret of bodily fluids.

“That’s right. First, we’ll do confirmation experiments with bodily fluids, then expose the purified body to their mana.”

The Four Apostles, easily caught by the casually thrown bait and spilling information to assess the situation, looked no different from when they first met on Sakhalin Island.

‘They’. That must mean the higher beings of the Black Wings. Ryu Seo-ha’s expression slightly hardened as he recalled being exposed to that mana during the IHL closing ceremony.

“I’ll cooperate with anything, so please release the bird. And the hunters including Kwon Se-jeong, and my sister Min-ji.”

“Come on, do you think I’m stupid? What if that monster of a man uses mental skills to look into their minds and track us down?”

The Four Apostles shook his head, speaking as if whining in response to what seemed like a proposal for a deal. He couldn’t guarantee that wouldn’t happen. When he committed serial arson in Russian cities, he had gone on a rampage, and this time he would be no less frenzied, if not more so.

Normally, he would have refrained from actions that would destroy everyone’s minds for Ryu Seo-ha’s sake, but his lover had been kidnapped right before his eyes. Given Choi Gang-hu’s possessive nature, there was a high probability he would lose his reason and resort to any means necessary.

“Then…”

“Hmm. I’d like to talk more with you too, Mr. Sacrifice… but we don’t have much time right now. Shall we start with the purification?”

The Four Apostles, who had been twirling the syringe in his hand all along, smiled regretfully.

“For now, let’s have you take a good nap and talk again when you wake up.”

With this brief greeting, the needle plunged deep into the arm of Ryu Seo-ha, bound to the cross. His consciousness quickly faded.

❖ ❖ ❖

As consciousness slowly returned, it first registered the trembling state of the body. The cold that had penetrated deep under the skin seemed to be causing chills.

His throat was unbearably dry. It felt like his throat was twisted and parched like a drought-stricken rice paddy. Hot, raspy breaths escaped involuntarily.

Ryu Seo-ha forcibly pushed open his heavy eyelids. Cold sweat that had gathered at the tips of his long eyelashes fell down like tears, drop by drop.

In his vision that alternated between blurry and clear, the back of someone humming and fiddling with a complex machine wavered hazily.

“Haa…”

An unbearable moan escaped due to the feverish feeling that seemed to touch each cell one by one. The face of the man who turned at that sound was familiar. More splendid than anything in the world…

“…Crazy bastard.”

Ryu Seo-ha spat out a low curse between his teeth. It was because the man who had stepped up to the altar, leaving the machine he was manipulating, had Choi Gang-hu’s face.

“Cursing as soon as you see me.”

He roughly twisted his shoulders despite his restrained body, trying to shake off the subtle touch that caressed his upper body through the fabric tied to the cross.

“That’s not very polite to someone who came to rescue you.”

The Four Apostles, who had stolen Choi Gang-hu’s face, wearing a charming smile, scolded Ryu Seo-ha’s habit of speech. It was a well-imitated tone, but the certainty that he was the Four Apostles taking Choi Gang-hu’s form deepened.

The real Choi Gang-hu wouldn’t start with scolding words in this situation. Even if he were to get angry, he wouldn’t express it like this.

“Act sweet like you usually do.”

The Four Apostles, who had given this ridiculous order, caressed Ryu Seo-ha’s finely trembling chin with his large hand. When he tried to immediately bite it, baring his teeth, the way he quickly avoided it was also far from Choi Gang-hu.

“…Stop it. It’s disgusting.”

Ryu Seo-ha, who warned while glaring at the Four Apostles with unfocused eyes, furrowed his brow at the panting that mixed into the end of each of his words. He felt stifled.

It was because the mana that lay thick like a haze all around caused severe dizziness. The red cloths restraining his entire body added to the suffocation.

“How can you look pretty even with that expression?”

The Four Apostles, who had been staring at his face, suddenly started evaluating his appearance. It was a tone that had given up imitating Choi Gang-hu, as per his rebuke.

“I can see why that monster of a man fell for you so madly.”

He no longer had the strength to counter these unpredictable words. The mana belonging to the Black Wings was choking him more and more strongly as time passed.

“Feeling suffocated? That’s because our little sacrifice is holding the treasure of evil forces inside his body.”

As always, the Four Apostles just said what he wanted to say, grinning.

“I’ll extract it for you right away.”

The touch that caressed the red cloth tightly wrapped around his body made him feel chills.