The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 147

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 147. A Dreamlike Night (2)

Where the trail of blood abruptly ended, a white hem of fabric caught his eye.
‘Clothing?’
He jerked his gaze upward in alarm, and his breath caught short in his throat.
A woman stood motionless in the center of the dark corridor, turned away from him. By the vestments, she had to be the Priest.
But her posture was odd.
Head bowed deeply, leaning at an angle, she radiated an unsettling wrongness. She wasn’t leaning against the wall, yet there was no way a person could stand so tilted.
‘Wait.’
Seol Jihoo’s eyes narrowed.
Her feet weren’t touching the floor—they were suspended slightly above it.
[Her neck.]
At Floné’s voice, Seol Jihoo finally grasped what had seemed so wrong.
The darkness had obscured it, but a rope hung from the ceiling, wound around the Priest’s neck.
That was why she was tilted.
Seol Jihoo gripped the Ice Spear tighter.
‘How could this be.’
They’d only climbed one floor, and the atmosphere had shifted so completely.
An eerie silence, where even breathing seemed to disappear, hung in the air.
The dangling corpse suddenly began to sway.
Like a broken marionette, flailing limbs and jerking half a rotation, the figure struggled with a creak, creak to lift its head.
And then,
“!”
Seeing the hollow, black eye sockets, Seol Jihoo clenched his teeth.
Instead of crying out, he immediately took his stance. The spear blade blazed with cyan flame, and a tremendous force gathered in his left hand, forming a blue spear.
The instant he was about to hurl the Mana Spear, Floné caught his arm.
[Wait, wait.]
“What is it?”
[Look closely.]
Seol Jihoo turned his gaze.
The vestments on the small-framed girl looked cleaner than expected. Given that a corpse remained, she was likely one of the Expedition members.
Most of all, the way her mouth gaped and fluttered, like a fish—it almost seemed….
“She’s not alive, is she?”
[She’s dead.]
Floné stated it flatly.
[But she harbors no malice. She simply seems desperate to speak.]
Seol Jihoo doubted his ears.
When an Earthian dies in Paradise, they revive on Earth with their memory wiped.
There were exceptions, but if this was one, then this place fell into that category.
Croak, croak.
Her vocal cords strained, producing only sounds like labored gasps.
The Priest, gurgling, trembled as she raised an arm and forced her index finger open with effort. The quivering digit pointed diagonally toward a room visible in that direction.
[Poi… sac….]
‘Poi, sac?’
[She’s asking for help.]
Seol Jihoo frowned, but Floné seemed to understand perfectly.
“Could it be a trap?”
[I’m not sure. But her telepathy is extremely desperate.]
Floné, murmuring to herself, tilted her head.
[She seems… worried.]
Seol Jihoo asked without taking his eyes away.
“Not about that thing from a moment ago?”
[No. That one is hidden, I sense nothing. This spirit is far too weak—squeeze a little harder and she’d scatter. And….]
Floné hesitated, her voice uncertain as she continued.
[She seems deliberately refusing to leave.]
“What?”
[Ascension, if you will? It feels somewhat different, but the spirit is strongly resisting the act of departing this place.]
“Why? Why is she?”
I don’t know. Telepathy just keeps repeating the same pleas—help me, save me, please…
Seol Jihoo’s expression grew complicated. Now that he thought about it, he seemed to recall hearing that Lee Seol-ah had tried to help Lee Seongjin when she became a spirit.
What it amounted to was that not all the dead were the same.
“…I understand.”
Shortly after, he moved forward with the spear still raised. The moment he arrived at the indicated room, the Priest’s arm went limp and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, as if the string had been cut.
Floné must have done that.
Seol Jihoo, observing the lifeless corpse that no longer stirred, cautiously entered the room. The instant he took in the interior, an uncanny sense of déjà vu washed over him.
A woman lay in the room, trembling intermittently, suspended from the ceiling with a rope around her neck, just like the scene he’d witnessed in the corridor moments before.
“Ah.”
Upon identifying the woman, Seol Jihoo—despite his steeled resolve—let out a cry of genuine surprise.
“Pisora?”
Because he understood now why he’d felt that strange sense of familiarity.
A shabby, decrepit space.
An overturned chair lying in the center of the room.
Pisora, laughing grotesquely as she hanged herself.
The images he’d witnessed during his visit to the White Rose flashed across his mind in succession.
[Ah, now I understand.]
Floné clapped her hands.
[I was wondering what you were so worried about, but she wanted you to save that woman.]
“…….”
[She looks like she’s about to die any moment… Do you know her?]
“…….”
[What’s wrong? Are you all right?]
Watching Pisora’s fingers and toes twitch faintly, Seol Jihoo barely gathered his wits.
“…Yes. Ah, yes. I know her.”
In his flustered state, he answered almost without thinking, and Floné swiftly flew through the air. The rope snapped, and Pisora plummeted.
Seol Jihoo rushed forward, but—
‘Huh?’
The moment he stepped inside, an indescribable sensation assaulted his back. It was a strange, heavy feeling he couldn’t put into words.
Seol Jihoo straightened his waist, which had been bent halfway.
Why was this happening suddenly? Everything had been fine just moments ago.
Despite his will, his body wouldn’t obey him and began to tremble.
As he glanced around the room almost unconsciously, a dark shape huddled in one corner gradually rose to its feet.
He knew it couldn’t be—yet the illusion was so overwhelming it felt as though a massive mountain were rising before him.
Disaster had arrived. He needed to either flee or fight, but he couldn’t muster the certainty to choose either.
“…Floné.”
He murmured it softly, but heard no reply.
She hadn’t disappeared. Floné stood right beside him, staring intently at the dark form that was slowly, gradually rising.
Only then did Seol Jihoo turn to face the swaying figure directly. Merely by looking at it, he felt a terrible, overwhelming presence that seemed to fill his entire being.
When he’d carried her up, the figure hadn’t been visible, and the Nine Eyes hadn’t reacted either.
‘Where did it suddenly emerge from….’
He’d thought it wasn’t particularly visible on the first, second, and third floors, but there were so many gathered on the fourth floor.
As Seol Jihoo stepped back cautiously, eyeing the door, he suddenly tilted his head.
It appeared the dark shape had become aware of him and Floné. Though eyes, nose, and mouth were not visible, a murky gaze still reached him.
Yet it showed no other movement. It was as if it were simply standing in place, staring fixedly.
It began slowly raising what looked like an arm.
‘Is it telling me to leave?’
He harbored that vain hope, but regrettably, the arm wasn’t pointing toward the door—it was aimed directly ahead, straight at him.
[That….]
An aged, trembling voice poured out haltingly in an instant. Seol Jihoo concentrated his attention on his ears.
[Neck… how….]
‘Neck?’
Seol Jihoo glanced down at the necklace, and in that moment, it struck him.
“Floné! Could it be—”
[Flo…né…?]
As if grasping at straws, he called out the name, and the figure reacted.
Only then did Floné, who had been rigid as a stone monument, finally find her voice.
[…Grandfather?]
As she asked, uncertain and hesitant, the figure trembled.
[Oh… oh….]
A heavy, resonant hum echoed through the air, as if someone had struck a piano key with deliberate force.
[It’s… me. Floné. Your granddaughter. Floné Ruziyang la Roshshuar.]
[Ooooooh….]
[Grandfather… is it really you?]
[Ooooooooooh…!]
A wavering voice and a sound like a sigh wove together into an eerie harmony.
[How… how…!]
[Grandfather!]
Floné rushed forward. When Seol Jihoo saw the spectral arms gently enfold her face, the tension that had gripped his body released all at once.
His mind blazed as if he’d been miraculously saved from the brink of death.
‘Destiny…?’
He’d confirmed that spirits from the same era could exist, but he’d still harbored doubts.
‘So it really was true….’
A moment later.
Seol Jihoo lowered the window and watched the grandfather and granddaughter’s reunion. The disorientation still hadn’t faded.
If they’d miraculously reunited while living, it would have been moving—but since both were spirits, ones bordering on malevolent, it was simply unsettling.
Yet the two paid it little mind, holding each other’s hands and facing one another as they spoke in animated conversation.
Well, centuries had passed; it was natural to have assumed the other dead.
[That worthless… bastard…!]
[Yes. That’s why I….]
Fragments of dialogue reached him, though they came in disjointed bursts.
From the way Floné kept nodding without pause, it seemed they were rapidly exchanging consciousness through what they called Telepathy.
As Seol Jihoo reflected that life certainly threw all sorts of things at you, he found his gaze drifting to Pisora, whom he’d nearly forgotten.
Her eyes were rolled back, showing only whites, and pale foam trickled from her mouth, dampening her neck.
Her breathing was so faint she seemed on the very edge of death.
In other words, she was still alive.
Watching Pisora’s labored gasping, a thought about Destiny suddenly surfaced.
‘Has something changed?’
Pisora was supposed to have died here with her neck in a noose. When Destiny had shown him the vision, he’d clearly witnessed her death.
Yet somehow she’d ended up at the villa with Floné, and as a result, he’d saved her.
If that were the case, could he say that Pisora had been granted a different fate in this very moment?
‘That easily?’
Lost in thought, Seol Jihoo blinked.
Somehow—no, Floné’s Grandfather—had drawn right in front of him.
Overjoyed at meeting family after centuries, Floné glistened with tears and beamed with a simpering smile, pressing herself against his side.
[Grandfather. This is the person. If it weren’t for him, I would have….]
Floné’s formal tone was awkward, but Seol Jihoo instinctively straightened to attention.
…How should he put it? Now it was less fear and more an inexplicable difficulty he felt.
[That….]
“Um… hello….”
[What Floné said… is true….]
“Yes, yes. That’s correct.”
Though he hadn’t understood a word, Seol Jihoo decided to affirm first and sort it out later.
A piercing gaze raked slowly up and down his form.
[Truly… grateful….]
“?”
[Request… necklace… covenant… change….]
When the word “change” emerged, the pendant gave off a faint glow before it vanished—and Seol Jihoo missed it entirely, his attention fixed forward.
Still, he’d caught the words “necklace” and “covenant.”
“Um… what is this necklace?”
He asked carefully, observing the utmost courtesy, and the figure fell silent for a moment.
[The necklace….]
Several seconds passed before the rasping voice resumed.
[One of the Seven Seals—a pact of ‘Restraint’… that is… equivalent to the Emperor’s Oath….]
Then it happened.
The voice, which had been halting and fractured, cut off abruptly—as though slashed by a blade.
The figure swiveled toward the door.
[Grandfather? What’s wrong?]
The instant Floné tilted her head in confusion,
[They come…?]
Seol Jihoo felt a murmuring noise suddenly flood his eardrums.
It sounded like dozens of wasps beating their wings in unison, or like the whispers of hundreds of people crowded together.
[Why is he…?]
There was no warning, no sign.
Yet one thing was unmistakable: an enormous force was pressing toward him with terrible clarity—something even Seol Jihoo could sense with crystal-sharp awareness.
An malice so absurd that Floné’s resentment seemed trivial by comparison.
[Go….]
The shadowy form suddenly shoved Floné away.
[Grandfather?]
Floné’s expression was one of bewilderment.
[If it’s now… we might still have time….]
[W-what’s happening? What in the world is going on here…!]
[Hurry…!]
The shadow looked desperately pressed for time.
That was when words he’d heard on Stage 3 flashed suddenly through Seol Jihoo’s mind as he stood frozen.
[This planet’s orbit rarely deviates from its course. No matter what interference schemes arise, it keeps steadily moving toward its ordained destiny.]
[You said Lara Wolf didn’t die, but someone else did instead? That’s a corrective action—a star that drifted even slightly from its path trying to return to its original orbit by any means necessary. This is why futures don’t change easily.]
Just as Ira had said, a star whose destiny had veered even slightly would strain and struggle to return to its original orbit.
If that were the case.
‘Could it be.’
That what was now entering this room was a backlash from saving Pisora.
The moment that thought reached him, Seol Jihoo stopped thinking and moved into action instead.
Having risked his life in flight more than once, his body moved with practiced instinct.
Yet he hesitated when he saw Pisora, still unable to regain her senses.
In that frozen instant, countless thoughts collided. A choice thrust upon him without warning.
The image of her being warm toward Jang Maldong haunted him, as did the sight of the Priest pleading in the corridor.
“Damn it.”
In the end, he scooped Pisora into his arms,
Bang, bang, bang!
and activated the Festina Earring in triple succession.
As Floné continued to hesitate, the shadowy form swelled to an enormous size.
[Go now… or you won’t make it…!]
“Floné! Move!”
Thunderous roar followed by Seol Jihoo’s shout—and Floné finally moved.
[Go, go…!]
As Seol Jihoo burst from the room and sprinted frantically down the corridor, he suddenly felt his body lift sharply upward.
Looking up, he saw Floné above him, her lips pressed tightly together.
The moment they cleared the corridor, he saw a mass of golden light rushing toward them from a distance.
‘Golden light?’
Seol Jihoo tucked Pisora against his side and quickly raised the Ice Spear, but as the distance closed in an instant, he realized the golden light was the Priest he’d seen in the corridor.
And the Priest passed right by them.
[Please…!]
‘What?’
At the sound that rushed past, Seol Jihoo spun reflexively, and his expression darkened.
The black shadowy form—presumably Floné’s Grandfather—was holding back with all his might against an encroaching darkness that filled the corridor.
Yet struggling alone seemed to be failing, as he was steadily pushed back. Then, as if from nowhere,
about a dozen corpses, including the Priest who had just passed, began rushing to aid the shadow.
Many of them were incomplete—some with severed necks, others with their lower halves torn away—yet it was clear they were all desperately fighting to hold back the incomprehensible darkness at all costs.
Moments later, a sensation of sudden weightlessness came over him, and his vision shifted violently.
And thus.
In a single breath, he descended from the 4th Floor to the 1st Floor and successfully broke free from the Mansion Entrance.
Crooooooooooaaaaaahhhhh!
A harrowing scream, as if wracked with unbearable anguish, echoed through the grounds surrounding the Mansion.

(Continued in the next installment)

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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