LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 41
“Thanks to the Next Shinto Priest, I am living a satisfactory life.”
“This is all thanks to the Next Shinto Priest.”
The two men showed great respect as they referred to Jinseong as the Next Shinto Priest.
It was a bizarre sight for a middle-aged wealthy man, clearly wearing clothes worth hundreds of millions, to bow to a young man dressed in an utterly ordinary suit. Yet, neither Jinseong nor the two men found anything strange about this situation.
“By breaking free from the drugs that ruin your body, you can be fruitful and multiply, filling the land. How could this not be a good thing?”
Jinseong said with a smile.
“And such good things should not be kept to oneself. Sharing and being together is surely a way to double the joy.”
Jinseong’s brightly smiling face resembled that of a cute animal. However, even amidst that bright smile, his unchanging eyes were as deep and calm as a pond with not a hint of wind, imbued with a dark light that seemed to swallow all light.
“Of course!”
“That’s very wise!”
The two men dared not meet Jinseong’s eyes and could only nod and bow repeatedly. This reaction stemmed from a fear instilled by Jinseong, as well as an appropriate loyalty to their master who held the reins of vitality and pleasure.
“Here comes another person to receive a blessing!”
They humbly presented a carrier to Jinseong, as if offering a tribute to a god. As he awkwardly unlocked the carrier, a man crumpled and gasping for breath leaped out, sounding raspy as if he had swallowed sharp rocks. The man fell to the ground and lay there, eyes closed, gasping painfully due to the muzzle in his mouth and sweating profusely.
“Hehehe. This guy was also our companion.”
“He was just a phencyclidine addict. A fitting one to receive the ‘blessing’ bestowed by the Next Shinto Priest.”
“And on top of that, this guy is the head of a bodyguard company and a patron of the Shiheng Style. If we use him, the safety of the Next Shinto Priest will be perfectly secured.”
“I can guarantee the capabilities of his bodyguards. If you entrust them, they will be absolutely safe!”
The two men fawned over Jinseong, as if competing for his favor. Observing their antics, Jinseong approached with a meaningful smile, aware of what they desired. He placed a hand on each of their heads and began to chant an invocation.
“Once a body has left, it does not forget its roots. Move as my will commands and fulfill my desires.”
At that moment, mysterious lines began to appear on the heads of the two men. The lines, slightly thicker than hair and dark in color, looked like a child had scribbled on their scalps with a pen. As if eating something, the lines gradually grew longer, filling the scalps and writhing as if alive, fading into nothingness as they sank deeper into their veins.
“Here it comes, here it comes!”
“Whoa!”
Ignoring the bizarre scene, the two men cheered with pleasure, their excitement growing from the prospects of future delights.
Crack!
Crackle!
Their bodies transformed rapidly. As if enhanced by a physical augmentation spell, their muscles became defined, their pallid faces glowing with color. Their previously dull eyes sparkled with energy, and unlike before, they stood straight, brimming with vigor.
However, the fronts of their pants began to bulge in a concerning manner, threatening to tear.
“Thank you! Thank you!”
“Hehehe!”
Jinseong, delighted by the two men’s rising lust, granted them permission to leave, and with beaming smiles, they bowed to him and exited.
Left behind were Jinseong and the man bound and unconscious.
Jinseong approached the bound man and examined his eyelids.
“Looks like your eyes are fried from all the drugs. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
With a click of his tongue, Jinseong grabbed the man’s hair and began to drag him off. He headed to a secluded building and lifted the man, tossing him through a square hole in the wall.
Just like tossing trash down a dust chute or into a sewage drain, the man was discarded. Yet, despite that rough handling, he fell slow as a feather and landed softly on a plush bed below, unharmed.
“Morita! It’s Morita!”
He was shoved into a situation where he inhaled the incense smoke from Kenji’s hand and had headphones playing cyber drugs placed over his ears.
“Hahahahahaha!”
It was a daily spectacle.
“Hahahahahaha!”
Rise squeezed her eyes shut at the sounds coming from the underground.
“Father….”
Kenji’s voice was filled with madness. It was a voice that barely resembled the father who had once been strict yet loving.
“This isn’t how he used to be…”
Rise closed her eyes, recalling her father from the past.
She remembered how he had shown affection toward her mother and daughter. Her father was a man capable of love for his wife, never inflicting pain on others and, while strict, not overdoing the discipline. However, his high standards had left her breathless, though love was undoubtedly at its core.
“Morita! You’re going to end up just like me! We’ll have a proper thank-you later!”
He was never a lunatic like this.
Delighting in others’ misfortune and abducting people to make them suffer the same way.
He was not such a madman!
“Everyone is going mad…”
Gradually, they were losing their minds.
As Kenji dragged in another person, that person, too, transformed and began dragging in others just like himself. The number of those being dragged in multiplied exponentially.
Slowly, drug addicts were brought forth, becoming unable to take drugs anymore; instead, they were enthralled by the allure of immeasurable vitality and sexual pleasures—a honey trap that turned them into zealots.
Thus… madness was spreading.
“Madness… Did my father become infected with that madness? No, no…”
Rise had briefly blamed the shaman who had appeared before her but quickly discarded that blame, recalling that Kenji had been using drugs for a long time.
“My father started to go mad after my mother died…”
She understood how a father, who had struggled with the death of his mother, could come to take drugs and medicate himself to escape the pain.
She realized it.
“Mother…”
After her mother passed away, Rise’s father became half a shell of a man. He performed the rituals at the shrine with sheer inertia, abandoning everything else as he drank and searched for his lost wife.
His condition worsened over time until he became so intoxicated he sometimes skipped meals.
“One day, he suddenly returned to being himself…”
Little Rise had taken that as a good thing.
She had thought perhaps her deceased mother disapproved of her father’s condition and chastised him in his dreams.
But she understood now.
Surely, Kenji must have begun using hallucinogens back then.
“Father…”
At first, he must have turned to drugs to escape a harsh reality.
Just as one might avoid reality with alcohol or lost in haze of cigarette smoke.
He likely used them merely as a temporary escape.
But the effects were beyond imagination, leading to addiction, and progressing into total dependency…
“In the end, it would lead to doom.”
She researched the substances her father had used. Each one was horrible, and she could comprehend the reasons for her father’s heavy usage of phencyclidine.
“Once you start, there’s no stopping.”
The documentary she had watched about phencyclidine turned out to be horrifying.
It featured a woman whose life had been ruined by drugs.
She had led a life selling her body, but the drugs ruined her brain until she became unable to survive without a man. Seeing her thrash in a shelter, pleading for a man, was terrifying enough to haunt her dreams.
There was a man who had been a drug dealer, who had become disabled after a gang altercation. To fend off his despair, he indulged in the very drugs he had hoarded to sell, quickly becoming addicted. He squandered all his wealth and sold off his family, eventually paving the way toward selling his own organs.
“Sell off the family…”
Rise thought of her father’s image, begging the shaman for mercy.
And she remembered the voice that suggested she use her beauty to gain leverage for herself.
“I came to grant all of you blessings.”
This could be a blessing.
Perhaps a lesser evil is better than the worst one.
Madness might be preferable to annihilation.
But can what was broken in pursuit of an almost dangling happiness truly be called a blessing?
Would Kenji and Rise even want it, and could they truly find happiness again?
Rise felt her mind whirl.
“You claimed you would give me a blessing.”
Blessing is something good.
Blessing means fortune.
Blessing means happiness.
So, had she truly received a blessing?
Had she received something good?
She had.
Had she received fortune?
She had.
Had she received happiness?
“I still am not happy.”
Rise looked at Seitani with unfocused eyes. Seitani was grinning wide, seemingly delighted, as she clung to the Slime, who, although annoyed, moved lightly in response.
That scene seemed so blissful.
“I’m happy! I’m happy! Morita, wake up quickly!”
Rise could hear Kenji’s voice ringing from the underground, linked to the main hall. Though filled with madness, there was, beneath it all, certainly base joy, and her father must be smiling broadly.
Her father must be happy.
“Please make me happy.”
Rise murmured as she shut her eyes. She cast away all the thoughts swirling in her mind, leaving only her faith behind.
“I’ll believe… that you will make me happy, I will believe.”
Rise kneeled in gratitude, as if Jinseong were right in front of her.