The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 182

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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 182. The Whole Story

‘Hagh… hagh…’
The moment his eyes opened, breath caught in his throat like a cork.
He tried instinctively to expel it, but his mouth wouldn’t open. The trapped air clawed at his uvula, shrieking for escape, and just before his chest could burst, it forced its way out through his nostrils.
Wheeze… wheeeeze…
Breathing in and out through his nose to the limit of his capacity, his chest finally eased.
Only then did the spinning world come into focus.
The dizziness was so severe he wanted to shake his head hard, but a splitting skull-pain came crashing down, and he abandoned the idea at once.
If the pain was this intense, moving his head would surely shake his brain as well.
In the end, Seol Jihoo closed his eyes again, barely pried open.
The sight of the world revolving in high-speed spirals brought a violent vertigo coupled with nausea rising in his throat.
Only once the throbbing at his temples faded somewhat and the roiling in his stomach settled did he gather the courage to open his eyes again.
As the rotation ceased, an unfamiliar ceiling came into view. His focus sharpened gradually, but his vision was far from normal.
Hazy was the word for it.
The ceiling undulated gently before him, rippling like viewing the world from beneath water’s surface. Everything wavered like waves on the sea.
‘What… happened…?’
He wanted to look left and right, but his neck felt frozen solid—not even a millimeter of movement would come.
Unable to turn his head, he rolled his eyes around desperately, and suddenly a familiar figure caught his gaze.
It was Seo Yoo-hee.
‘Sister…?’
Seol Jihoo closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again.
‘Did I… survive…?’
The memories after his Future Sense activated were hazy as a dream, but by the feel of things, he’d thought he was dying.
How this came to pass, he had no idea yet.
At the very least, seeing Seo Yoo-hee there brought him some comfort, and he tried to call out to her.
Well. He tried to.
‘…….’
But no sound came out.
‘What… why won’t my body…?’
In alarm, he tried to signal with his eyes, but Seo Yoo-hee wasn’t looking his way.
Looking more closely, she seemed angry, her mouth moving ceaselessly as if she were in the middle of an argument.
Rolling his eyes to their limit, a new figure came into view at the edge of his peripheral vision.
A woman he’d never seen before.
An East Asian woman in a white long robe.
She too was opening and closing her mouth in turn, her eyes narrowed at the outer corners.
So they were definitely quarreling.
‘Why are they fighting…?’
Even in his bewilderment, Seol Jihoo rolled his eyes back and forth, examining the two women in turn.
‘Please don’t fight….’
Shortly after, the woman holding the Jade-Green Spear opened the door with an angry air and left.
Seo Yoo-hee stood glowering at the slowly closing door with clear displeasure, then turned her body around.
She soon leaned down with anxious eyes, reaching out her hand carefully.
Seol Jihoo’s pupils trembled ever so slightly.
He could clearly see Seo Yoo-hee’s palm caressing his cheek.
Yet he felt no softness, no sensation—not even the touch of a fingernail.
Only then did Seol Jihoo grasp his own condition.

After regaining consciousness, Seol Jihoo first focused on understanding his situation.
And soon enough, he cautiously concluded that he had ‘not died.’
Looking around the room, though he couldn’t fathom how, it appeared he had been moved to the intensive care chamber of Lushulea Temple.
But discerning anything beyond that proved impossible.
For from the moment his eyes opened, his body refused to obey his will.
‘This can’t be real.’
No matter how hard he tried, his limbs wouldn’t budge. Even moving his mouth open and closed was a struggle.
It felt as though his body slept while his mind alone remained awake.
But that wasn’t all. His paralyzed body had lost all sensation except sight.
Even when Seo Yoo-hee or priests he didn’t recognize came to check on him, he could barely hear their voices.
Her lips were moving—clearly saying something—but his ears caught nothing, a frustration mounting toward the edge of madness.
At first, there was only confusion.
When the confusion faded, pain arrived.
‘Damn it.’
Lying motionless as a plant, passing each day with nothing but blinking eyes, was agony beyond words.
So always, before sleep claimed him, he prayed desperately.
‘Let this be a dream.’
But no matter how many times he woke, the view before his eyes never changed.
Day after day, he’d flutter with hope just before closing his eyes, then open them only to face despair.
Unable even to thrash against this wretched reality, Seol Jihoo descended into endless hopelessness.

Though it’s often joked about, there’s a saying that people typically pass through five stages when accepting death.
The initial denial—that this couldn’t possibly be—soon gave way to inexplicable rage.
When anger changed nothing, he began to bargain with himself.
He sought out deities, and was willing to surrender his entire wealth—Seonak, stigmata, everything—to anyone who could simply restore movement to his body.
When that vain hope withered away, fear came upon him at last.
Would he lie here like this until death?
Never even returning to Earth?
Only then did the horror truly strike him—the state between death and life, the very thing most feared and guarded against in Paradise.
As more time passed and even fear began to dull into familiarity,
Seol Jihoo finally accepted it.
A blessing amid the curse was that he hadn’t fallen into absolute despair—hadn’t thought ‘I want to die’—but instead settled on ‘Perhaps things will work out somehow.’
His mind halted there entirely because of visits from an acquaintance.
While his eyes remained open, Seol Jihoo saw countless people.
Beyond the members of the Carpe Diem Team, including Jang Maldong, there were Agnes, O Ra-hee, Teresa, Pi Sora, and more.
Nearly everyone he knew appeared before him, unharmed.
Cheonji and Ha-O Win came as well, and he even saw Kim Hanna and Yoon Seora, though they were in other cities.
Watching Yoon Seora with the bridge of her nose reddened, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, Seol Jihoo felt both embarrassed and grateful for her concern.
Floné appeared occasionally too. She showed herself only when no one else was around, and at a glance, she seemed depleted of energy.
In the Tomb, thoughts seemed to transmit as actions.
But no matter how hard he thought, Floné showed no response.
She simply drooped, drifting aimlessly around the bed before gathering herself against his side, curling up.
It was like watching a kitten waiting for its master in the rain, and it weighed on Seol Jihoo’s heart too.
Uriel Maria was alive as well.
The golden-haired girl arrived touchingly, carrying a basket heaped with flowers.
She stared down at it for a time with dull eyes before suddenly flinging the basket away in irritation.
Then she raised both hands and opened and closed her mouth in what looked like fervent speech, her expression fierce.
‘Stocks? My stocks?’
As Seol Jihoo read the shapes of her lips and guessed at her words,
she clutched her head and rolled across the floor.
And then even began shedding crystalline tears.
She didn’t look as though she was crying from worry. Still, whatever she was doing resembled watching a pantomime, and Seol Jihoo found himself laughing silently.
When those he’d thought dead all showed up alive to visit him, Seol Jihoo could finally harbor hope.
Though it seemed nearly everyone would eventually come, the visitors never stopped arriving.
Each person didn’t just visit once—some came two, three times, even ten, twenty or more times over.
‘She’s here again.’
A woman in a white robe entered through the door.
Seeing the Jade-Green Spear held diagonally, it was clearly the woman he’d quarreled with on the first day his eyes opened—with Seo Yoo-hee.
‘How many times is this now?’
Each time he saw the mysterious woman who bore an austere expression and emanated an ethereal aura, Seol Jihoo felt a curious sensation.
He didn’t know who she was, but it seemed he’d seen her more than ten times by now.
As for visitor rankings so far, Seo Yoo-hee overwhelmingly dominated first place, though the Temple was practically her home.
Considering this is an expedition, the woman before him was no lightweight.
Beyond Cho Hong and Hugo, she visited nearly as often as Lee Seol-ah and Lee Seongjin—the siblings who came at every opportunity.
Notably, each visit found her keeping her lips sealed entirely, only watching with steady eyes.
She could only be seen sighing quietly, and only very occasionally at that.
Yet in her gaze burned an unmistakable emotion—concern.
‘Just who could she possibly be….’
Today too, Seol Jihoo watched endlessly before seeing the woman turn quietly and leave, his eyes blinking at her departing form.

How much time had passed?
He’d stopped counting the cycles of day and night long ago, but he could hazard a guess that considerable time had elapsed.
Despite the weeks that had gone by, Seol Jihoo clung to hope because his body had begun—however subtly—to change.
– This is absolutely ridiculous, right?
Sound began to return to him.
Not crisp and clear, but muffled as though someone were speaking directly into a microphone—murmuring, indistinct—yet what did that matter.
His body remained utterly still, incapable of the slightest movement, but the mere fact that his ears had opened flooded his chest with a sense of release, as though a tight knot had finally come undone.
More than anything, the return of hearing signaled that his body was, however slowly, beginning to mend.
Though the wait stretched on without end in sight, there came a glimmer of possibility that other senses might follow.
And with that possibility came hope.
– Maria, you know? The moment she got kicked, she started chanting a Healing Spell like her life depended on it. So she stopped the bleeding first, then crawled into that pile of corpses and just kept her eyes shut. That’s how she managed to survive, or so she says. Good grief.
‘That sounds like Maria.’
Seol Jihoo replied silently to himself as he listened to Cho Hong’s voice.
– Hey. But don’t think too badly of it all. Even so, when Undying Diligence confirmed your identity and said he’d spare you, you went ahead and drove Mjolnir straight through his face, didn’t you?
‘Really? I can’t believe it.’
– And now that I think about it, Gio is hilarious too. Marcel—where’d this bastard disappear to in the middle of everything? Turns out he was being held prisoner.
‘What?’
– Depraved Purity had the succubi keeping him captive, apparently. I swear.
‘Hey. That doesn’t sound funny to me.’
Cho Hong giggled anyway, then stretched as hard as she could.
– So anyway—the war’s over, those who lived lived, and the aftermath is winding down and things are starting to feel stable and all that… why are you still lying here? Just lounging around by yourself.
‘Yeah, seriously.’
– You bastard. Get up and pull some prank already. Like you used to. I’ll let you off the hook just this once. I really will.
‘Deal. The second I’m up, we’re filming the most hilarious prank ever together.’
– You don’t even know how Paradise is running these days, do you?
‘Are you mocking me?’
Seol Jihoo grumbled to himself.
– I’m so frustrated these days.
I’m dying.
‘The war’s over and you still can’t be happy about it.’
– …Maybe I’m the one who’s twisted. But watching the whole city wrapped up in festival celebrations—talking about how we won, our first great victory, all that—it just rubs me the wrong way.
‘Why?’
– Those bastards. Who actually did the suffering? Who was it thanks to that we could even win? And they’re just going around having fun like it’s their own achievement…
Cho Hong’s voice grew quieter and quieter.
Then it stopped altogether.
Seol Jihoo, who had been gazing out the bright window, sensed something amiss and looked for Cho Hong.
He glanced sideways.
– You know what?
Her voice returned.
– Our office looks like a temple these days. Never in my life have I seen the old man so listless.
‘……’
– How much longer do we have to wait?
Somehow, without his noticing, she had drawn near.
Cho Hong, who had been rambling away from the foot of the bed, now stood beside him, looking down at him.
– When are you going to wake up?
Seeing Cho Hong’s reddened eyes, Seol Jihoo’s own heart grew heavy.
‘Why are you crying… again…’
He wanted to tell her it was fine, that he’d come to, that he was recovering bit by bit.
At least he wanted to say something, anything, to make her stop crying.
But his body wouldn’t obey, and Seol Jihoo felt the frustration rise in him for the first time in what felt like ages.
‘…Should I try?’
He had given up on moving his body long ago.
The effort drained him for nothing, and the despair that followed when he failed was unbearable.
‘But still.’
Maybe now he could at least produce sound.
Even if it were nothing but meaningless groans—an ‘uh’ or an ‘ah’—could he not manage that?
With that thought, Seol Jihoo steeled himself, breathing deeply through his nose.
He drew in a long, full breath, and at the very moment he was about to release it—
‘Huh?’
His vision suddenly blurred.
He could see no more than an inch ahead, as if walking through fog.
Then, his body—which had felt nothing but heavy—suddenly flooded with the sensation of rising rapidly through water, and the feeling swept across his entire frame.
‘What—’
As if a massive weight that had been holding him down had suddenly released, his eyes shut without his consent.
And the moment he opened them again.
Seol Jihoo could see it clearly.
The ceiling, now even sharper and more vivid than before.
“Phoooooo!”
Like someone breaking through the surface of water, Seol Jihoo expelled the breath he’d been holding.
Through both his nose and mouth.
His vision came into perfect focus. The world was no longer rippling like waves; everything appeared clear and vibrant before his eyes.
Seol Jihoo, still gasping for breath, turned his gaze about uncertainly.
His neck was slightly stiff when he turned it, but it rotated with a faint creak.
The room was dark. The lights were off, and through the window hung the absolute black of deep night.
Seol Jihoo blinked rapidly.
He’d been talking to Cho Hong just a moment ago.
Brilliant sunlight had been streaming in through the window.
Soon, he grasped his senses and opened his mouth blankly.
“What… what’s happened…?”
He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening.
‘My voice…’
Now that he thought about it, his head turned freely.
His body felt warm all over, as if he’d just stepped out of a sauna.
What mattered was that sensation had returned.
“Ow.”
As Seol Jihoo raised his hand to touch his face, he grimaced.
A sharp pain radiated across his face.
At this moment, even this pain was deeply welcome.
Looking at his hand, Seol Jihoo’s expression shifted to surprise once more.
“What is this…”
Across the back of his hand, Golden Acupuncture Needles were embedded in rows.
Not just his hand, either.
His forearms, chest and abdomen, thighs and calves, and even the tips of his feet—he could see dozens, hundreds of needles bristling across his entire body like a porcupine’s quills.
All he’d done was close his eyes and open them again.
Yet reality was drastically different from the scene he’d been witnessing.
Every instinct urged him to bolt upright and move, but Seol Jihoo held back with superhuman restraint.
There was surely a reason the needles had been left in place.
If he touched them carelessly and something went wrong, there’d be no one to blame but himself.
So, lying still and turning his head side to side, he spotted someone kneeling on the bed with their face buried in the mattress, sleeping soundly.
It was Lee Seol-ah.
Apparently she’d been keeping vigil through the early morning hours, ready to attend to him should anything arise.
“Seol-ah…”
Seol Jihoo called to her quietly.
His voice came out hoarse and reedy, like that of a gravely ill patient—nothing like his own.
Perhaps because he had so little strength, even after calling several times, Lee Seol-ah showed no sign of waking.
Seol Jihoo considered pricking her with one of the needles embedded in his hand, then pushed strength into his throat instead.
“Seol-ah…”
Flinch.
Lee Seol-ah’s small shoulders tensed.
“Seol-ah…!”
When he called again, her eyes finally fluttered open.
The instant their gazes met, Lee Seol-ah’s jaw rose slowly.
“Oh… oh, you’re awake?”
She mumbled in a thick, sleep-laden voice, not even thinking to wipe the saliva from the corner of her mouth.
Then, seeing Seol Jihoo staring at her intently, shock suddenly flooded her face.
“You… you’ve come to!?”
She whipped her head up and practically bounced off the bed.
Her mouth gaped so wide it looked ready to scream, so Seol Jihoo hurried to stop her.
“Wait. Seol-ah. Just a moment. Stay still.”
Lee Seol-ah, bouncing toward the door, froze.
I understand how you feel. For now, just take a breath, okay?
Lee Seol-ah’s face crumpled.
She was on the verge of collapsing in shock.
Yet the person in question remained perfectly composed.
Then again, since she didn’t know that Seol Jihoo had regained consciousness long ago, she could hardly help but be flustered.
“First… is it okay to take these needles out?”
When Seol Jihoo glanced at the Golden Acupuncture Needles adorning his body and asked, Lee Seol-ah shook her head vigorously.
“N-no, I’m not sure. Grandfather placed them there, so… I’ll go get him!”
“No. It’s fine. Just wait a moment.”
Seol Jihoo waved his head back.
He was already dizzy enough to die; if several people came rushing in, he didn’t have the confidence to handle it.
He needed to hear at least some explanation first, or everything would be even more chaotic.
“Are you really… truly awake?”
As Seol Jihoo worked through his thoughts one by one, Lee Seol-ah asked in a peculiar voice.
“Yes. Why?”
“You’re being so calm…”
Seol Jihoo smiled bitterly.
Lee Seol-ah made a sound as she sniffled hard.
“Can I cry?”
“No. You can’t.”
“Why? The tears are coming anyway.”
“You’ve already cried plenty.”
“I-I haven’t cried that much, though?”
Lee Seol-ah jumped, startled by his assertion.
“That’s a lie. You cried the second most.”
At Seol Jihoo’s firm statement, Lee Seol-ah’s expression turned reluctant.
Still, she kept lifting and lowering her feet alternately.
It looked like she wanted to rush out and tell everyone this news, so Seol Jihoo asked hurriedly.
“This isn’t a dream, is it?”
“No. It’s not. Absolutely not.”
It was meant as a joking way to calm her down, but Lee Seol-ah answered in a slightly tearful yet firm voice.
“Thank goodness. Really… so many people worked so hard, but there was no sign of you waking up…”
“…Is that so?”
“Yes. Especially that Lushulea Temple daughter, your sister. She suffered terribly. I heard she almost died…”
Her throat bobbed as she choked back rising sobs.
At the same time, Seol Jihoo’s brows narrowed sharply.
“What?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Fortunately, she recovered in time.”
Lee Seol-ah waved her hands frantically.
But Seol Jihoo caught the discrepancy between what he had seen when he was conscious and what Lee Seol-ah was now saying.
Though it was only memory in his mind, Seo Yoo-hee had visited him more than anyone else—so often it would be fair to say constantly—and had cared for him with utmost devotion.
He had detected no sign of her being unwell.
What was going on?
It was only then that Seol Jihoo realized he hadn’t asked the most important question.
“Seol-ah. How long have I been unconscious?”
“That would be…”
Lee Seol-ah counted on her fingers one by one, then opened her mouth.
“About five weeks…”
Five weeks. Just over a month.
He had guessed roughly three or four weeks had passed, so he wasn’t greatly surprised.
“In Earth time.”
“What… what did you say?”
But the moment he heard what came next, Seol Jihoo’s eyes widened like lanterns.
“Five weeks in Earth time? That means three months and three weeks have passed in Paradise time?”
“…Y-yes…”
When he asked again in shock, Lee Seol-ah nodded cautiously.
‘That’s impossible.’
Three months and three weeks had elapsed in Paradise time.
Faced with a gap beyond imagination, Seol Jihoo couldn’t hide his bewilderment.
“Could you tell me what happened while I was gone? How I survived. Why all this time has passed.”
Lee Seol-ah lingered for a moment, her gaze drifting back to the door, but she turned away without protest.
Then she began to speak, slowly and carefully.
“Here’s what happened….”

(To be 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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