The Heretic of Cleric Academy-Chapter 73

The examinees for the second gateway were me and Gu Jun-hyeok. However, no matter how much I looked around, there was no sign of Gu Jun-hyeok.

The content of the exam that Gu Jun-hyeok and I were taking wouldn’t be different. If the content were different, questions about fairness would naturally arise.

In the Charity Holy Name re-election exam where fairness upon fairness wouldn’t be enough, Florence wouldn’t commit such a foolish mistake.

Thud.

At that moment, something fell from the sky. It was a note. A note that suddenly appeared from empty air. I immediately unfolded the note.

muš: snake

Aushk: love

nuru: light

....

"...A dictionary?"

The note contained characters that looked like English but weren’t English, with their meanings written beside them.

A format like a dictionary or vocabulary list. I suddenly remembered studying English vocabulary for entrance exams and got PTSD.

I turned pages and carefully examined the words written in the note. However, there wasn’t a single thing that could serve as a clue. Only endless listings of words from some unknown language and their meanings written beside them.

Thud.

I closed the note and looked at the construction site visible in the distance. Supervisors were wielding whips to drive workers, and workers were sweating profusely while carrying stones.

All evaluation criteria were undisclosed. The note I had expected to contain hints only had endless listings of useless words. I didn’t even know where Gu Jun-hyeok was.

There was too little information to deduce anything. It seemed like there was nothing to gain from just wracking my brain while sitting still.

"Sigh."

In that case, it would be best to dive in and try.

I moved toward the construction site.

* * *

Eventually arriving at the construction site.

"───!"

"──, ────!"

The site was filled with noise. The sound of supervisors shouting roughly. The sound of workers grunting as they moved stones. There were also work songs being sung. However, I couldn’t understand what their words meant. They were conversing in their own language, neither Korean nor English.

[Hmm. I’m uncertain what language this is. I’ve definitely heard it somewhere before...]

Legba let out a contemplative sound. Even Legba, who was proficient in linguistics, didn’t know what language they were using. It seemed to be a unique language used by the ’natives of the ark.’

If language didn’t work, the situation became more complicated. If language worked, I could at least try persuasion with the eloquence I had honed as a cult leader. But if language didn’t work, there wasn’t even room for persuasion.

Whatever I said, they wouldn’t understand my words, and I wouldn’t understand theirs either.

Crack!

While I was blankly approaching the construction site, a whip flew from somewhere and barely grazed past my feet.

When I turned my head, a supervisor was looking at me with a fierce face, hands on his hips.

"───?"

The supervisor said something. Naturally, I couldn’t understand it.

"───. ───!!"

As I stared blankly at the supervisor’s face, he shouted with an even more crumpled face. I unconsciously stepped back, overwhelmed by his presence. His voice was really loud.

The supervisor seemed puzzled as he wiggled his eyebrows, then called another supervisor and they whispered among themselves.

After finishing their whispering, they raised their heads in unison and looked at me with wary eyes as they opened their mouths.

"───? ────!"

"No, I don’t know what you’re saying..."

"...? ──? ───! ───!!"

"Uh, wait a minute. Why are you suddenly like this."

The moment I opened my mouth, the atmosphere suddenly became hostile. The supervisors approached me step by step with threatening postures, as if they would strike my body with whips at any moment.

Even the workers who had been carrying stones felt uneasy about the unwelcome visitor’s arrival, glancing at me with fearful eyes.

"───! ────!"

Crack!

"Huh? Wait, no."

At that moment, along with the supervisor’s shout, a whip came rushing threateningly. I slowly stepped backward, and the supervisors slowly but threateningly approached me in step with my movement.

There was a method of using divine power to eliminate all the supervisors, but the two undisclosed evaluation conditions bothered me.

There might be a condition like ’don’t kill the ark’s natives,’ so I couldn’t rashly kill the supervisors. Naturally, there was also guilt.

In that case, there was one method.

Dash!

"...! ──! ────!!"

"────!!!"

Running away.

The supervisors weren’t very fast at running, so it was possible to shake them off without using Bosu’s divine power. When I glanced back, the supervisors were pursuing me while threateningly wielding whips.

How many minutes had I run? At some point, the sound of whips stopped. The pursuing supervisors had also returned to the construction site.

"Huff, gasp... Ha, ah. What am I supposed to do about this."

I barely hid myself in a sandstone cave near the construction site and slowly caught my breath. It was already pitiful that language didn’t work, but the supervisors were hostile toward me. Not only could I not stop construction, I wasn’t even allowed to approach the construction site.

There would surely be ways to infiltrate while avoiding the supervisors’ eyes, but even if I infiltrated, it didn’t seem like there would be a way to stop construction.

[Oh my.]

When my wildly beating heart gradually regained composure, Legba muttered.

"Why?"

[...Open the note.]

I didn’t know why he was suddenly acting like this, but I opened the note as instructed. The sound of Legba contemplating in my head continued for quite a while. Eventually, Legba cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

[As I thought. The language they use is Sumerian. All the words written in the note are also Sumerian.]

"Sume, what?"

[Sumerian.]

Legba said.

The sun was now just beginning to set, descending toward the horizon, and thanks to that, sunlight was seeping even into the cave.

I crouched in the darkness of the cave, using the seeping sunlight as a lamp to examine the note. The note contained thousands of words and hundreds of grammatical systems organized.

I’m quite confident in my language acquisition abilities. If I put my mind to studying Sumerian, I could probably reach a level where simple conversation was possible within a few days.

"...Time."

The problem was that I only had 1 hour. Learning a completely unfamiliar language in just 1 hour was impossible. If Legba happened to know Sumerian, things would be much easier, but...

[It’s a language that disappeared thousands of years ago, so my memory isn’t complete. I can vaguely infer the meaning of what they’re saying, but I can’t construct sentences to persuade them.]

"Inference?"

[I can listen to a few words I understand and roughly grasp the meaning.]

Unfortunately, even Legba wasn’t completely fluent in Sumerian. Just roughly grasping the meaning wouldn’t be enough to persuade them.

"..."

Such a hopeless situation. When my thoughts began to flow negatively, I shook my head. The core of persuasion isn’t language proficiency. The most important factor in persuasion is naturally persuasiveness and appeal. A professional persuader should be able to move the other person’s heart with just a few words.

Clatter.

I took it out from my chest. The ’Fourth Angel’s Trumpet’ I had received from Bae Jeong-hwan. A holy item with the ability to temporarily obscure the vision of those who hear its sound.

...There was a way.

* * *

Whoooo....

On the way to the construction site, wind blew across the desolate desert plain. I turned my head to look back. Footprints left in the sand were being blown away by the wind, crumbling and soon disappearing. The sun had already set, and the only light source was the faint glow emitted by the celestial bodies.

Rumble rumble rumble...!

When I eventually reached near the construction site, the sound of building the tower echoed majestically. Even the grains of sand seemed startled and trembling at that enormous sound. The desert night was cold and harsh, but construction continued even then. I carefully approached the site while avoiding the supervisors’ eyes.

"───!"

"──, ────!"

"───? ───?!"

Whether there was a conflict during construction, workers and supervisors were arguing. It was rather fortunate for me.

I took advantage of that commotion to cleverly blend among them and infiltrate the site. Sharp-eyed workers looked at me with puzzled expressions and tilted their heads, but that was all. They didn’t report me to the supervisors.

"As expected."

Though I had expected it, the workers and supervisors didn’t seem to get along very well. While workers were sweating profusely and diligently carrying stones, supervisors were crossing their arms and shouting roughly. There was no way workers would think well of supervisors.

In that case, it was rather good. I took out the trumpet from my chest. And I infused a small amount of divine power into it. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Boooo....

A weak trumpet sound like air leaking from a balloon. Some natives who heard the sound rubbed their eyes and looked around. They seemed to think dust or something had gotten in their eyes.

However, no matter how much they rubbed around their eyes, the darkness before them wouldn’t clear. The natives who soon realized they had completely lost their sight sat down and began screaming.

"───! ───?"

"──! ───! ───!!"

Bizarre screams and wails that seemed to be somewhere on the border between human and beast. Supervisors came running in panic when they heard the sounds. Even when supervisors angrily wielded whips and shouted roughly, the workers never got up. They just sat there screaming until their throats were raw.

The site was instantly filled with screams and chaos. Now the workers’ screams and supervisors’ rough shouts were louder than the sounds of carrying stones and building the tower.

However, my plan didn’t end here.

Booooooo...!!

Another trumpet sound followed. This time I injected as much divine power as possible into the trumpet. A much louder and more majestic sound than before.

The natives who heard it, workers and supervisors alike, all sat down and began screaming.

"────!!!"

"───! ────!!!"

Blindness spreading like an epidemic. The chaos grew larger. Since not only workers but also supervisors lost their sight, construction naturally stopped here.

However, construction hadn’t been ’completely’ stopped yet. The Fourth Angel’s Trumpet ’temporarily’ takes away the sight of those who hear the sound. As time passed, their sight would return, and construction would resume.

I had to drive in the wedge before that.

"...Bosu."

I looked at the Tower of Babel that rose high enough to touch the sky and called upon Bosu. To stop construction, I first had to climb that tower.

Thud.

I embedded the Fourth Angel’s Trumpet into the wall like a pickaxe, then climbed the tower like rock climbing.

* * *

The workers who lost their sight screamed. Not all of them, but several supervisors had also lost their sight and were screaming. Blindness spread like an epidemic. The construction site was filled with chaos, fear, and terror.

"──? ───?! ───!!!"

When everyone was screaming in anguish or trembling with fear. Someone carefully caressed their own eyes and slowly rose from their position.

The one who had lost sight before anyone else was shedding tears of joy as he regained sight before anyone else.

"...! ───!!"

"───? ──? ───!!"

Starting with the first recovery, the workers’ sight returned one after another. The supervisors’ sight also returned in succession. Those who regained their sight, whether workers or supervisors, shed tears of joy and embraced each other.

Rumble rumble rumble....

However, an ominous sound was heard before they could be immersed in joy. The natives immediately knelt down and bowed their heads the moment they heard that sound. That sound was surely the sound of heaven’s anger.

Flash.

Eventually, lightning fell from the sky. The lightning struck precisely at the center of the tower, the waist area. Thick and ominous black smoke rose around where the lightning struck. While the natives bowed their heads praying for heaven’s mercy, there were also those who raised their heads to witness heaven’s wrath.

"...──?"

Then, someone who raised their head voiced a question. Near where the lightning struck, someone was standing there. From that someone’s fingertips, a pure fire unlike any they had ever seen was shooting up.

Whoosh!

The spark that gradually grew in size soon became a pillar of fire. The pillar of fire descended before the eyes of the kneeling natives. Sweat was flowing like a flood from the natives’ bodies. It wasn’t just because the heat from the pillar of fire was too hot.

It was because they felt indescribable fear from witnessing God’s wrath and miracles before their eyes.

Whoooo...

And wind blew. The pillar of fire that had been blazing as if it would devour the natives’ bodies at any moment was blown away by the wind and disappeared. Along with that, someone on the tower opened their mouth.

"──."

I.

The one on the tower said that.

The natives assumed he must be God, or an angel who received God’s command, or a prophet. He continued speaking in an appropriate voice that contained vitality but was never excessive.

"──, ──, ───, ──."

Light, blasphemy, anger, punishment.

It wasn’t speech. It was merely a listing of words. Nevertheless, the natives understood his will and pressed their heads to the ground in reverence.

The word ’I’ indicated ’I am that I am, the self-existing one.’ Words announcing that God or someone equivalent had descended.

The listing of words ’light, blasphemy, anger, punishment’ was his warning that he was angry at the blasphemy of light and would therefore bring punishment.

I have come to punish those who blasphemed the light.

God was saying that.

The natives just crouched and trembled. Some rolled their eyes and had seizures from excessive fear. The natives thought that too was punishment sent by God.

Whoosh!

Then, the one on the tower created fire. The fire he created drove away the harsh darkness and cold of the desert. Along with that, he opened his mouth again.

"─."

End, or last.

I couldn’t guess exactly what he meant by those words. However, I could vaguely guess that construction should stop right now. The natives bowed their heads and trembled with endless fear.

The fire he created swelled again to become a pillar of fire, and that pillar of fire didn’t descend to earth but consumed his body. He became one with the fire and disappeared as if ascending to heaven.

"───..."

"──? ───!"

"───..."

The natives who witnessed God’s miracle before their eyes cheered with faces that were laughing, crying, or still filled with terror. In their hearts, any will to resume construction had long since disappeared.

And behind the tower they were looking at. Where darkness had fallen, in a blind spot not visible to the natives’ eyes.

"Phew... I don’t know if it went well."

The one who appeared with lightning and disappeared with a pillar of fire. Do Seon-woo, who had impersonated God, angel, and prophet, sighed deeply and hung his head.