Chapter 135 – LV.Twelve Priest Seo Yun – [One]

Yesterday and today, the Sun Ship sailed through the Ash Cloud.

It was truly a voyage through pitch-black darkness. Since they couldn’t see directly whether the ship was progressing properly, they often steered in the wrong direction. The only reason they didn’t run aground was that there was no risk of colliding with anything.

Therefore, before the Sun Ship set sail, it was customary for the Sun Ship’s High Priests to pray to the Sun God, asking Him to show them the way to go. It wasn’t to actually receive divine guidance through prayer, but merely a habit as clergy.

Today, High Priest Padups didn’t skip the sailing prayer either. And as he mumbled the prayer with his eyes closed, light exploded in his pitch-dark mind.

It was a baptism of sunlight, so bright it was almost blinding.

After trembling for a while, Padups opened his eyes and found the apprentice priests looking at him with concern.

“Are you all right?”

He didn’t ask them for a Healing Spell or anything. Padups, filled with religious ecstasy, simply shouted.

“An Oracle has descended!”

“Huh?”

“It’s an Oracle from the Sun God! He has told us what we must do, where we must go!”

The apprentice priests thought the High Priest had gone mad. Given the High Priest’s age and emaciated body, it wasn’t far-fetched for him to be hallucinating during arduous ascetic practices.

However, right now, the clergy claiming to have received an Oracle inside the ship wasn’t just Padups.

“An Oracle!”

Paladins, usually with solemn faces, were running around with flushed expressions, shouting that they had received an Oracle. That during prayer, the God had given them instructions.

The Sun Ship’s crew, praying with half-doubtful hearts, also received the so-called ‘Oracle.’ And like those before them, they were swept up in religious rapture.

The Sun God had answered their prayers. And He had even told them what to do!

After being moved to tears for a while, the next moment, they wondered why they were so moved.

Of course, it was an extremely grateful thing for God to guide His humble servants, but the rapture felt at this moment was utterly incomprehensible.

Wasn’t receiving an Oracle a common occurrence? Was there really a reason for everyone to be this happy over just one command-like Oracle…

After pondering deeply, the Sun Ship’s crew soon realized that such an Oracle from the Sun God hadn’t descended for years, and even though they had been practically neglected by God all those years, no one had found that fact strange until now.

So, the Sun God had returned to them after years.

When they realized even that fact, it was not at all difficult to understand why the emotions of all the Sun Ship’s clergy welled up.

When Seo Yun returned, Happy Village was in a half-funeral atmosphere.

It was a funeral mourning the vanished Chief. There was no need to argue whether Oh Haengbok was still alive or not. Wasn’t Oh Haengbok now in a state worse than death?

And the point where this current atmosphere differed from an actual funeral was that, unlike a funeral where mourners sometimes chat and later hold a raucous drinking party, everyone in Happy Village was making long faces as if they themselves were the chief mourners.

Seo Yun understood why they were acting like that.

Until now, Oh Haengbok had been an absolute presence in Happy Village. When Oh Haengbok bravely led the charge hunting monsters, the people of Happy Village followed behind him energetically, and when Oh Haengbok suffered from anger management issues, the people were always tense and plagued by anxiety.

Whether in a positive or negative sense, the people of Happy Village were always under that Orc’s influence.

Then, now that Oh Haengbok was gone? Everyone was acting as if they had lost a part of their own bodies. Their dazed expressions and listless gestures looked like the struggles of a patient bleeding from lost limbs or the post-mortem spasms of a headless torso.

Seo Yun, who had just seen off a real person, was worried she herself might get swept up in that atmosphere. Without mingling with the people, she quickened her steps and met Oh Haengun.

The Mage, who should have gone to a psychiatrist for counseling immediately, greeted Seo Yun.

“Are you back? You worked hard… Tell me what happened later, rest for now.”

“I will.”

“And today, we decided to have a meeting after dinner. If you’re not too tired then…”

“Why would I be tired with 11 Health?”

Seo Yun answered cheerfully on purpose and strode through the village. Then, upon encountering Park Taeyang, she flinched.

‘Why is that bastard like that?’

Wasn’t Park Taeyang kneeling before the Small Sun he had created and praying? As Seo Yun passed by and listened, the guy was muttering like this:

“Great Sun God, please bring the Chief back. Please…”

It was a ridiculous prayer. Shouldn’t Priest Players usually treat the god they supposedly serve like a cheap Buddha statue sold at a souvenir shop? That bastard Park Taeyang shouldn’t be an exception, so why?

Seo Yun was about to snap, asking why he was praying like that when the Sun God detested Vampires, but she stopped.

‘Not anymore. That Troll who became the Sun God this time didn’t seem to particularly loathe Vampires. He might hold a personal grudge against that Orc Vampire for almost dying once in a fight, but…’

Seo Yun stopped and looked down at Park Taeyang.

The area around Park Taeyang’s closed eyes was swollen, and he kept his eyes shut, perhaps seriously praying.

No matter how much of a sworn enemy he was, seeing him like that made it painful to keep watching.

So when Park Taeyang opened his eyes and met her gaze, Seo Yun spoke a word, if only for courtesy’s sake.

“Are you okay?”

“No…”

Looking at Park Taeyang, who really didn’t seem okay, Seo Yun thought. Come to think of it, after Oh Haengbok’s Spirit stabilized, hadn’t that guy and Oh Haengbok gotten along quite amicably?

So from that guy’s perspective, it was as if his stepfather, with whom he had just barely repaired their relationship, had been kidnapped.

“I roughly get why, but cheer up, man. A kid suddenly doing things he never did…”

When Seo Yun approached and patted his shoulder, Park Taeyang flinched. Then he muttered as if confessing.

“I, I let the Chief run out.”

“What?”

“I did nothing and just trembled when the Chief ran out.”

“How is that your fault? Who can stop that man when he runs out angry?”When Seo Yun asked in disbelief, Park Taeyang muttered.

“Jeon Sangguk was giving me a hard time about that…”

“What nonsense is that bastard spouting?”

“He said, ‘You’re a Sun Priest, so one blinding spell could have stopped the Chief from running off, but you just stood there and watched…'”

Seo Yun squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them. Then she spoke.

“Tell that bastard Jeon Sangguk that if he spouts that kind of bullshit again, he’ll get a pickaxe to the leg from me.”

Park Taeyang, who had been sniffling, stopped and looked at Seo Yun. His eyes went wide. He seemed surprised by the very situation of Seo Yun taking his side.

Seo Yun walked past Park Taeyang, who seemed to be pondering what to say.

From behind her came a small “Thank…” or something, but she ignored it. Seo Yun didn’t really want to side with that guy either, but she had no choice but to speak up.

Anyway, you’d have to be saying something utterly insane for her to just let it slide.

How on earth could that bastard Park Taeyang have stopped an enraged Orc Vampire? Whether it was a Sun Priest spell or anything else, that was an impossible task.

A few hours later, Seo Yun attended the village meeting.

Oh Haengun, still with a gloomy face, and the village Players with similar expressions had gathered.

Oh Haengun, who had unintentionally inherited the Chief’s position, opened his mouth.

“What should we do now?”

It didn’t sound like a question to start a discussion, but more like he genuinely didn’t know himself.

After a period of silence, one Player raised a hand and spoke.

“You all know most of the Dawn Corps grunts ran off during that day’s battle, right?”

Oh Haengun nodded.

“I know. It’s summer, so they won’t freeze to death; they’re probably scattered all over the place.”

“Those scattered deserters are gathering somewhere. Even if we leave them be, they’ll obviously go around looting, so they’re dangerous. If they form a single group…”

“It seems we have to do something since we can’t just leave them. But what exactly should we do?”

“Either go and prevent them from uniting by beating them all up, or go and try to negotiate, right? Something like, ‘We’ll share some provisions with you from now on, so fight alongside the Centaurs,’ or at the very least, ‘Don’t invade us,’ that kind of negotiation.”

“There looked to be over a thousand of those bastards. How are we supposed to share provisions?”

“We can’t share enough, we have to share just the right amount.”

“If we give them provisions, it’ll look like we’re yielding. They might think we’re desperate and become even more arrogant.”

“You used to do that kind of diplomacy often too, Chief, right? Giving away a few crates of potatoes and saying ‘Let’s be friends’…”

Oh Haengun sighed.

“When the Chief did it, it didn’t feel servile at all. With that build, wearing that armor, and putting down a few crates of potatoes while saying ‘Let’s get along’—anyone would see it as a high-ranking person bestowing gifts, right? But if we do it, it’ll look like tribute, not a bestowal…”

The mention of Oh Haengbok came out of nowhere, and sighs flowed from here and there.

Unable to bear it any longer, Seo Yun spoke.

“Anyway, we need to make contact with the Dawn Corps soldiers, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I’ll go.”

“You, Seo Yun?”

“I know a lot of people in the Dawn Corps. There’s also someone I need to meet separately.”

“Who do you need to meet…”

“There’s one person. And regarding when the Centaurs invade again, we can’t get help from the Troll anymore.”

“Why? Did he say he won’t help anymore?”

“That’s not it.”

When Seo Yun announced the Troll’s Ascension, everyone present just blinked. The idea of that Troll becoming a god or leaving the Mortal Realm seemed utterly unrealistic to them.

“Anyway, the Troll is no longer in the Mortal Realm, right?”

At Oh Haengun’s question, Seo Yun nodded.

“Yes. So he said to seek help from the Crusaders instead.”

“From the Crusaders? I doubt they’ll help. Didn’t they get a rough time fighting us last time? Why would they have any intention of helping us…”

“He clearly said they would help.”

Seo Yun only mentioned that the Troll had Ascended to godhood; she did not reveal that he had become the Sun God.

The fact that a qualified someone could challenge the position of the three Chief Gods had to remain a secret. The thought of that fact becoming widely known, and then some Epic Level Vampire NPC Ascending to become the Goddess of Beauty and commanding Undead Legions across the world, was terrifying just to imagine…

Anyway, with the guarantee of the Troll who had even become a god, an alliance with the Crusaders was elevated to something worth attempting.

While discussing how to contact the Crusaders, this comment came up.

“That French Village, wasn’t it ruled by Sir William? If we want to contact the Crusaders, we probably need to go there through the Dimensional Gate. Let’s see, who was closest to that friend William?”

“Miss Seo Yun.”

As everyone looked her way, Oh Haengun also began to gauge her reaction.

Seo Yun asked.

“Then, should I handle that as well?”

“Would you?”

Seo Yun, who had suddenly been entrusted with two major village affairs, groaned inwardly.

After discussing various other things, Seo Yun left the tent.

The largest tent she had just exited was the Chief’s tent. It was where Oh Haengbok had stayed, and even though it was still full of people, it felt strangely empty.