Those who came back (3)
– Even when I cross the dark valley, I am not afraid, because I know that He guides me.
Each person’s voice was different, but they memorized one prayer.
There was a faint scent of incense spreading along with the sounds of prayers recited by Orthodox priests.
There was only one incense stick in the censer, but the smoke it produced was thick and was still filling up the area around the bed where Vlad and Jean were lying.
As if trying to push away the fog that filled the surroundings.
“…!”
At that moment, Günter, who had been memorizing the prayer for a while, opened his closed eyes.
‘This!’
An ominous feeling that cannot be described in words.
Before I knew it, downy hair was standing up on the back of my hand as I held it tightly for prayer.
It was a warning issued by the instincts I had built up throughout my life.
“……Captain!”
Günther’s adjutant approached, shouting softly, piercing the neat sounds of prayer.
He, who had decided to stay outside the door for the ceremony, was now looking at Gunter with a very anxious face.
“It’s unusual outside. “I think you should come out right now.”
“…….”
The adjutant always treated the situation calmly, but now the end of his words was trembling.
It was as if I had seen something I couldn’t handle.
“……I get it.”
To put it simply, Gunter was not the only one who heard the adjutant’s report.
Justia, who was praying right next to him, was looking at Günther who was trying to stand up with a puzzled expression.
“Do it for me. “The only person who can replace me now is you.”
There was a starlight that followed Vlad to Jean’s dream.
It was a signpost that showed people not to lose their way and a string that should not be let go, but now that starlight was shaking little by little.
The fog in the city of Moshiam was getting thicker.
With small shadows suddenly pouring out from inside the carriage the woman was riding in.
-Go find it. To your house.
The children who jumped out of the carriage were happy to see Moshiam for the first time in a long time.
This was the children’s hometown and a place they longed for.
※※※※
Kuuuung-!
“Tsk!”
Vlad stumbled from the sudden vibration.
“What is it?”
[It landed.]
Quijano, who was blocking the door of the chapel with his back, started clicking his tongue as he looked at the funny falling stone dust.
“What’s going down?”
[You saw it earlier too. [A tree floating in the air.]
Jean’s dream was slowly being eroded, and the tree of Yeokcheon, the subject of the curse, was floating above it.
And the tree’s branches, which were all upside down, somehow reached Jean’s dream.
“I said it would be okay for 3 days?”
[Not everything in this world is calculated.]
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Vlad wanted to utter a word of complaint at the sudden worsening of the situation, but he had to grit his teeth again when he heard a sound coming from behind him.
“How many people were inside!”
[Even though physical numbers have no meaning.]
It sounds like hail falling.
Countless small palms were still knocking on the door of the chapel.
To get out or to snatch two people.
“If I get out of here, I will definitely kill the bastard who created this curse.”
[……Anger can sometimes be a great motivator.]
I knew that even if I wasn’t skilled in curses.
The children must have died as loud as the sound of palms reaching my ears.
Vlad’s gaze became increasingly fierce as he felt each vibration echoing from his back.
[First of all, the subtitle you are looking for was not there. If so, where is it?]
“…….”
However, burning anger will only be effective if it is unleashed at the right time.
In response to Quijano’s question, which pointed out the essence of the situation, Vlad hurriedly turned his head and looked everywhere he could.
However, unlike the first floor or the basement, Vlad had never been to any other areas of the church, so he couldn’t say where they were.
[The current subtitle Jean is so scary and difficult. If you were that child, where would you go?]
Quijano already knew who to look for, but the one connected to Jean now was Vlad.
In order to find the young deacon in his pathless dream, he had to think of the strings that connected them.
“…If it were me, it would be Andrea.”
[Good.]
And Vlad remembered well why he was standing here.
In Jean’s twisted dream, there will be only one person who is where he should be.
“But I don’t know where he is…”
[You already thought of it, so the deacon’s dream will tell you the rest.]
“Yes?”
Quijano’s fingertips were pointing at Vlad’s chest.
“uh?”
The place I looked down along Quijano’s fingers.
There was something in Vlad’s chest that was suddenly shining a little light.
[Vlad of Shoara. Follow your name.]
A precious name given by a true priest and witnessed by a young deacon.
In this place where everything was distorted, Vlad’s identity card was shining brightly.
It was a name that I kept deep in my heart as it was precious.
※※※※
“Bring out all the torches and torches! “The fog must be driven away!”
With a loud voice echoing through the fog, the church in Moshiam began to glow like a fire.
Inside the torch, which burned louder than its original firepower, was a divinity created by priests as a congratulatory symbol.
‘Holy shit!’
Günter is one of only two knights in the Northern Orthodox Church.
However, what he was seeing now was a wave of malice that he had never experienced in his entire life.
-Dad mom! I’m here!
-Open the door! mom! it’s me!
There were pitch black shadows wandering through the thick fog.
Although they were small and faint, they still had the energy to knock on the door and were staying in the doorway following their memories from when they were alive.
Waiting for parents to open the door.
Hoping for someone to hug them while they were curled up.
“Pure malice… these damn bastards.”
I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it.
The sound of parents rushing to open the door at the sound of their children’s voices.
As the doors opened one by one, the lights shining through the fog began to fade one by one.
“You finally crawled out.”
Günther, who had his left eye closed with a fierce expression, saw a strange shape rising from beyond the fog.
The thing that came to mind, writhing, was a tree split exactly in half.
A tree of reverse heaven, completely upside down, as if ignoring all the laws of this world.
Just like in Jean’s dream, the tip of the tree’s branches slowly began to fall below the city.
As what was supposed to reach into the sky sank to the ground, the laughter of children finally finding their parents began to spread.
※※※※
As time passed, Jean’s dream became more and more distorted, increasingly disorganizing the church in Varna.
The chandelier, which should have been on the ceiling, was rising from the floor, and the stairs, which were supposed to be quietly attached to the wall, were writhing like live snakes.
“I think I’m going to get motion sick!”
[They say physical things have no meaning!] Vlad
had never felt seasick even on the black sea, but the staircase that wriggled like a snake’s back was an exception.
Even Quijano, who said that physical things are meaningless, looked just like Vlad in his stumbling form.
“How many floors do I have to go up to?”
[Don’t shout! Because my bone hurts!]
Vlad and Quihano, who followed the golden thread indicated by the identification badge in their hands, went up and found the hallway in front of them. Only then were they able to jump from the top of the stairs.
“Wow… Mr.”
[…I guess I’m getting old. It wasn’t like this in the past.]
Vlad shook his head and looked down at the first floor where he had been just a moment ago.
Although he had clearly climbed the stairs for a long time, he was close enough to see the children looking up at him from below.
“Keuok.”
Vlad swallowed the sour liquid that had filled his esophagus and looked at the hallway in front of him.
“It’s fine here again.”
[It hasn’t been eroded yet.]
But
as soon as Quijano could speak, black cracks began to appear on the walls of the hallway.
“…….”
[…….]
The two looked at each other with pale blue complexions and, without even thinking about who would go first, started running towards the direction indicated by the golden thread.
“You have a free mouth, really!”
[……The moment I said it was just unfortunate.]
Damn it!
The crack in the wall was widening, as if a maw was widening.
Nestled between the pitch-black cracks were tree branches that had suddenly dug into Jean’s dreams.
Strange leaves began to bloom from the branches that fell from the sky.
[There it is!]
A small door began to appear in front of the two who were running to avoid the crack.
Above the shiny door with golden threads, there was a nameplate that said Priest Andrea.
“If the door doesn’t open this time…!”
Vlad, remembering what happened underground, hurriedly closed his left eye.
As Vlad’s world drifted from Jean’s dream, the cracks that followed began to slow down little by little.
[Wait!]
But this time was different.
The door in the basement was the door that blocked Jean’s fear.
-Come in!
And the door in front of me now was the door where the true priest was.
When the small door opened, there was an old priest in pure white robes.
As always, he was beckoning Vlad to come in.
“profit!”
A gold and white figure that looked exactly like him began rushing towards the small door opened by the priest at the end of the hallway.
The black crack that followed tried its best to spread its branches, but in the end, it was unable to capture the unexpected things that could see through the battlefield.
The golden color entered first into the arms opened by the priest.
[Inhale!]
When the white one that had followed behind as if protecting him came in, the old priest locked the small door as if he had been waiting.
Kwaaang-!
The shock was so great that it was difficult for the small door to withstand it.
But as Quijano said, physical things were of no use here.
-Okay. are you okay.
A memory of Andrea hugging a trembling Jean.
It was small, but sturdy, and did an excellent job of protecting the young deacon’s last stronghold.
It was such a warmth that even the black cracks that crashed like waves could not easily break it.
-You came this far.
Vlad, who had slipped in and was still sprawled on the floor, saw Andrea smiling at him.
Wearing pure white robes rather than bishop’s clothes, he looked the same as he did when he handed out white wheat bread on a cold winter day.
“I told you I would protect you.”
Andrea smiled at Vlad’s answer.
Behind him, Jean could be seen holding on to a pure white robe.
The young deacon, who seemed a little younger for some reason, smiled slightly as he looked at the knight who had returned for him. It was there.
I finally found it.
My young deacon who had been asked to do it.
The knights who returned in the dream for young Jean, who had potential, were smiling faintly.
※※※※
Corpses were scattered here and there at the gate of Moshiam.
As if they would stick together if they were attached even now. The sharply split cross section of the corpse still showed writhing internal organs.
The man quietly lowered his head in front of the corpses.
There was not even a single drop of blood on the tip of the sword, which was made with skill rather than skill.
“….. “There is a dragon.”
There is something in front of me that needs to be killed.
“There are spirits….”
There is something to protect next to him.
The man who had been standing as if lost in a place full of fog began to walk slowly as he saw the lights of the church burning brilliantly in front of him.
And the knights started to follow him.
Headless men.
A woman with hair that started out green but ended up black was looking at them and clasping her hands as if praying. “If
there’s anything I can’t finish, I’ll have to come back.”
Like a tree floating in the fog, a man with white hair and a headless knight were walking down an inverted path.
To finish unfinished work or correct something they regret.
“You guys deserve to go back.”
An unknown woman was smiling as she heard the sound of children playing all over the city.
A fog-filled city where pure beings free from the pain and agony of life and death play freely.
She had been dreaming of a world like this.
This is not a town that burned bright red like the tip of a match under God’s will.
