The Second Coming of Gluttony Chapter 307:
Chapter 307 . Going Round and Round (2)
It seemed that looking for the white headband girl was the right choice .
Adam Galaev must have recognized her uniqueness and asked for help . In that case, the story was simple . Seol Jihu just had to ask for her cooperation and use the girl as the pathfinder to enter the region with the so-called warped space .
The spring that led to the Spirit Realm must be there .
“I have a request . ”
Seol Jihu cut to the chase .
Shortly afterward…
“So what you’re telling me is…”
The girl’s eyes twinkled after listening to the story of the Federation’s visit to Eva with interest .
“Your ultimate goal is to save the Spirit Realm . ”
“Exactly . ”
“Right, it would be great if you can revive the World Tree before the upcoming war…”
The girl displayed a dreamy expression as if she just heard something amazing .
“That is why I need your help . ”
The girl in front of him was the key to this entire thing . If she refused to help, rescuing the Spirit Realm would become an impossible dream . And so, as Seol Jihu was about to make a careful request…
“Okay . ”
“Huh?”
“I’ll help you . ”
The girl answered yes in a quiet, yet energetic voice .
“W-Will you really?”
“Yes!”
“But why…”
Seol Jihu couldn’t help but ask . He was preparing a long speech in his head to convince her . At the very least, he thought she would ask for something in return .
“Mmm, if you’re asking why, I actually have three reasons…”
The girl raised her index, middle, and ring finger before folding the ring finger .
“First, you’re trying to do something good . By helping you, I will be getting myself good karma, so that’s already a plus . ”
After a reply that made her sound like a shaman, she folded her **** .
“Second, you saved my life and my older brother’s life at the Banquet . It’s only proper that I help my benefactor . And finally…”
With a sweet smile, she wiggled her index finger up and down .
“I’m kind . ”
Then she poked her cheek with it again and smile bashfully .
Seol Jihu became lost for words for a moment but smiled back quickly .
‘I’m glad . I’m glad . ’
Seol Jihu sighed in relief hearing the girl’s unexpectedly easy agreement to help . Next, he turned his gaze . The burly man was still maintaining his silence . Seol Jihu expected him to cut in at least once, but he kept quiet .
“That’s okay, right, Oppa?”
When the girl asked, the burly man raised his head and finally opened his tightly shut mouth .
“You’d probably go even if I said no . ”
“Yep . ”
“Well… I guess it doesn’t matter . We were planning to try it once anyway . The only difference is the time . ”
Seol Jihu’s complexion brightened . However, the burly man wasn’t done talking .
“But, I want to add a few conditions . ”
“Oppa . ”
“Listen until the end . Since he’s making the same request as that Magician, I plan to give him the same conditions . ”
“It’s fine . Go ahead . ”
Seol Jihu nodded his head . This was easier for him as well .
The burly man turned and faced him .
“I’ll be frank . I have two conditions . ”
“Yes . ”
“First, given what your ultimate goal is, I assume you’re going to bring a formidable team with you . ”
That went without saying . The burly man seemed to want a powerful team since the trip could be considered an expedition .
“Of course, I plan to form the strongest expedition team that I can, even if I have to ask for outside help . ”
“I’ll trust that you’ll keep your word . Then for the second…”
The burly man fell silent even though he said he would be frank . After staring fixedly at Seol Jihu who was blankly staring back at him, he spoke quietly .
“…Please protect us . ”
Seol Jihu’s eyes widened at the abrupt request .
“I heard about your accomplishments . You became the Eva Royal Family’s partner organization, no?” The burly man continued, “I’m asking if you can protect me and my little sister with your strength . Without asking anything . ”
Seol Jihu wanted to ask what he meant by that, but upon hearing him say ‘without asking anything,’ Seol Jihu swallowed his words .
“Could you be on a Red Notice…?”
“No . We aren’t criminals . ”
Seol Jihu still asked just to be sure, and the burly man denied it strongly .
“Then can you at least tell me who your enemies are?”
“There’s more than just one or two people . ”
“The name of the organization will do . ”
“We don’t know . ”
The burly man replied brusquely .
“I know it sounds strange, but we don’t know who they are exactly . We can’t even figure out what they want from us . All we know is that there are people in this world who do not like us and that they are making things inconvenient for us . That’s all I can tell you . ”
Seol Jihu’s expression turned stiff . It was because it didn’t sound strange . After all, he had experienced something similar in Haramark .
‘Come to think of it . ’
He suddenly remembered Stage 3 of the Banquet . At the time, Ira, the God of Wrath, had called the burly man ‘Heaven-Slaughtering Star’ and said he was an enemy who must be killed .
And back then, Seol Jihu had refused .
Though this was certainly something he should look into, he wanted to focus on the matter at hand for now . It didn’t seem like a bad idea to watch over them until then .
“Got it . ”
Seol Jihu spoke after organizing his thoughts .
“I will have to listen to the details later, but I promise that as long as we are working together, Valhalla will protect you and your sister under its name . ”
“…Good . ”
The burly man took his back off the wall once Seol Jihu gave his word . Standing straight, he looked tall enough to touch the ceiling .
“Vlad Halep . ”
“?”
“I’m Oana Halep . ”
The girl also chimed in as she waved her hand . It was then that Seol Jihu realized they were introducing themselves .
“I’m Seol Jihu . ”
The girl, no, Oana Halep clapped as if to congratulate the deal being made .
Seol Jihu smoothed down his chest . He finally came this far . There was only one thing left now…
“So just where is this place?”
The claps suddenly stopped . The eyes of the smiling Oana Halep widened .
Seol Jihu suddenly had a bad feeling .
“I don’t know the place either…”
And his bad feeling quickly became a reality . Seol Jihu barely held himself back from coughing .
“You don’t know?”
“No, I thought you knew, Oppa . ”
The girl spoke while shaking her head .
“I wasn’t told where it was . It didn’t sound like Sir Adam Galaev knew it either . ”
‘What?’
Seol Jihu’s breath stopped . Until now, he thought Adam Galaev went missing in that place . But what Oana just told him overturned that hypothesis .
In that case, was there another reason that the Magician went missing?
“It’s true that he came to see us, and it’s also true that we accepted his request . But we never got to work together . We couldn’t just sit around and wait for him when we didn’t even know where he was, and we weren’t in a good situation at the time…”
Oana Halep trailed off .
“Most importantly, Adam Galaev failed to keep his side of the deal . ”
Vlad Halep clarified .
“The support of the Eva Royal Family and the Evangeline organization that he spoke of never arrived . So there was no reason for us to risk danger and carry out our side of the deal . ”
Seol Jihu went ‘Ah’ .
Was that why he was so desperate to get Evangeline Rose’s help in the letters?
“Then… . ”
Seol Jihu had to work hard to control his legs from shaking . An indescribable frustration flooded in like a tsunami .
Even though he was so close…!
‘Wait . ’
Suddenly, a question arose in his mind .
If Adam Galaev didn’t know where this place was, why did he think there was a warped space there?
“Hold on, does that mean there’s someone else who knows this place?”
“Yes . He didn’t give a definite answer, but that was the gist of what he said . ”
Oana Halep continued .
“I told you before, right? That Oppa and I helped him out once while we were in Eva . ”
Seol Jihu dazedly nodded his head .
“I’m not sure you know because it happened long ago, but in the past, there was a huge incident in Eva . ”
Seol Jihu’s eyes narrowed . The contents of Adam Galaev’s letters suddenly crossed his mind .
“It happened like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky . A Level 6 Archer suddenly started an indiscriminate massacre in Eva, not differentiating between Paradisians and Earthlings . ”
[To tell you what I have been up to, I am still investigating the past incident . ]
“I was there during that incident, and she was thoroughly possessed by something . I asked the lustful spirit and helped her get it out . It was quite simple, really . ”
[I found the Priest girl from the Temple of Invidia who solved the incident back then . ]
“Sir Adam Galaev came to see me after that incident, so he must have observed my ability carefully back then . He said he found something to support his plan while investigating that incident . ”
“And that something is—”
“Well, we have no way to know for sure . ”
Oana spoke while twirling the ends of her white hair .
“But since he mentioned that incident, wouldn’t he have investigated the perpetrator? You know, the woman who got locked up in the Eva prison afterward . ”
Seol Jihu’s eyes lit up . He would have to look into the matter more, but he was starting to understand the last line in Adam Galaev’s third letter .
[We need her help . ]
The last missing piece of the puzzle was found .
And thus, Seol Jihu returned to Eva after going round and round . With the Halep brother and sister, of course .
After leaving Marcel Ghionea to guide them, he took Kim Hannah and headed to Eva’s prison . Seeing the worn-down building, he was filled with an unknown sense of bitterness . Perhaps the Saintes Mesures of Sidus wasn’t pointing to Jung Sua from the beginning, but to the perpetrator of the indiscriminate massacre, ‘Hoshino Urara’ .
However, Seol Jihu shook his head in the next moment . Even if that was the case, Oana Halep was someone he needed, so the trip wasn’t made in vain .
Hoping this to be the end, Seol Jihu opened the door . The warden expressed his bewilderment at Seol Jihu’s revisit but didn’t stop him in any way . Opening the steel bars leading to the basement floors, he only warned him to be careful .
Kim Hannah knew the way there . Apparently she had talked to Hoshino Urara out of curiosity during one of her previous visits .
“This is it . ”
They arrived at a cell that was no different than where Jung Sua was imprisoned . The only difference was that there was no wastewater and trash .
“… . ”
The inside of the cell was dead silent . After looking inside through the peephole in the steel door, Seol Jihu furrowed his brows slightly .
He could see someone sitting in the corner of the cell . It was the back of a woman with bleached, bob-cut hair . She had a smaller physique than what Seol Jihu expected, and she was staring vacantly into the wall .
But there was one thing Seol Jihu couldn’t understand . It was that she was naked when every prisoner was given a prison garb .
Seol Jihu let out a dry cough, then knocked on the steel door . Because they were in an enclosed space, his thumps echoed out .
“Miss Hoshino Urara?”
Her shoulders jolted, clearly having heard his voice .
“Can we talk?”
The woman got up while swaying side to side .
“This voice—”
A husky, slightly hoarse voice flowed out . As she was still looking at the wall, Seol Jihu was about to talk to her again when—
Kwang! The steel door suddenly shook violently .
Kim Hannah drew a heavy breath and shrunk back, while Seol Jihu also backed off in surprise .
The peephole filled up with a smeared neck before they noticed . Hoshino Urara had moved from the corner of the cell to the door at a terrifying speed . With backsteps to boot .
“This voice~~”
A hum flowed out .
“It’s not the warden’s voice~”
Then the woman slowly turned back . Soon, a pair of round eyes furtively looked up at Seol Jihu . They were filled with curiosity and an undecipherable expectation .
“Uw—oah! It’s real! A man I’ve never seen before!”
The woman hopped like a frog before gluing her eyes to the hole . She then stuck out her tongue with a silly smile, like a war refugee suffering from starvation who just found food and water .
“Oppa, Oppa~ Can you let me get out?”
“… . ”
“Let me out, hmm?”
Hoshino Urara . Her name clearly indicated that she was Japanese, but she had a weird accent where the tone of her speech went up at the end .
“If you let me out, I can do whatever you want~ Whateeeever~”
She winked and licked her lips, most likely trying to look seductive . Seol Jihu cleared his throat .
“There’s something I’d like to ask . ”
“Oho . Will you let me out if I answer?”
“Do you know a spring?”
“Spring? Like the season? Or do you mean the bouncy piece of metal?”
“No, I’m talking about the body of water . ”
“Oh, well, there you go . It’s a body of water . I answered your question, so now let me out . Hurry!”
She was quite a scatterbrain . Seol Jihu shook his head to focus .
“I’m not talking about the dictionary definition . ”
“Huh?”
She tilted her head before giving a sidelong glance .
“Then did you mean it metaphorically? Like water that comes out of Oppa’s you-know-what . ”
“I’m not joking here . ”
“Sorry . You must have meant water that comes out of my lower hole . ”
Seol Jihu scrunched his face . Hoshino Urara cackled and slammed on the door .
“God! I’ve never seen anyone so crazy! Coming to see me and suddenly blabbering on about some spring . Are you one of those crazy people?”
Seol Jihu wanted to return those words right back at her, but he endured it and continued .
“A place with warped space . ”
The laughter ceased .
“You must know Adam Galaev . ”
Hearing this, Hoshino Urara’s face changed colors . She put on a slightly more serious expression .
“…What, he sent you here?”
“No, Adam Galaev is currently missing . ”
“Misssiing? Then what, he didn’t betray me? Or wait, maybe he did . ”
She rambled to herself .
“Miss Hoshino Urara, you know where that place is?”
“Yeah, I do . ”
Seol Jihu clenched his fists . He finally got the answer he wanted .
“It’s because I went there that…”
Hoshino Urara was about to say something but suddenly shut her mouth .
“…Wait, wait, wait . I have a question . The fact that you’re asking me this…”
She sent a suspicious gaze . Then, she grinned and exclaimed, “Ah!” Her smile made her look like a clown .
“…Oppa . ”
Hoshino Urara lowered her voice by several notches and whispered .
“You know what I’m gonna say, right?”
“… . ”
“Okay . One, two . ”
On the count of three, she lied down and then shouted .
“I’ll tell ya if you release me~!”