For the record.

"..."

Giovanni had seen scenes rather like this a few times before.

'Didn't the people supposedly possessed by demons look something like this?'

Jio looked up at the ceiling. The marble that had gleamed like cold, shining silver was nowhere to be seen. In its place were nothing but dark red clots of blood and writhing lumps of flesh. Through the vast hollow that had opened beyond them, he could see something enormous.

"... Hmm..."

"Don't look."

The bishop accompanying him warned him, keeping her eyes lowered.

"It could damage your mind."

"Aha."

So this really was some Cthulhu stuff.

'The details feel a little different, but the broad strokes are quite similar.'

Jio had remarkably broad tastes, and the media he enjoyed spanned a wide variety of genres. Among them was "cosmic horror," which, put simply, dealt with stories of humans overwhelmed by something vast beyond their capacity to bear, breaking down in grotesque ways... That sort of thing.

'I suppose Divinities themselves must feel that way to people who lack the aptitude...'

Seo Jio had never experienced anything like that to begin with. Arjio was an evil god himself and found it hard to be objective, while Giovanni's vessel had always been so large that nothing he put in it caused problems. It didn't really hit home for any of them.

Only Giovanni, who had witnessed various mysteries while human, had even a vague sense of the gravity of the situation.

'So the Moon Cult has been raising a little calamity that will devour the world someday.'

How adorable.

"It's all right."

"... Are you sure?"

"You may step outside."

"I didn't bring you here expecting you to resolve anything immediately, Hunter Seo Jio."

For some reason, the bishop spoke as though urging him not to overexert himself.

"I couldn't face Collector if something happened to you. Why not simply assess her condition?"

"It's all right, Bishop."

She would be hard-pressed to find anyone on Earth with as much expertise as he had.

"I believe I can be of help, so I'll take a closer look."

"... Then I'll stay near the door."

"You're not leaving?"

"We cannot leave an outsider unattended."

"I understand."

She made it sound as though she couldn't leave an outsider alone inside the temple, but in truth, she was probably worried about the safety of Collector's treasured guest. These damned priests really couldn't say anything plainly.

'It's curious how that trait appears across dimensions. Are they following the example of divine speech, which sounds so vague to humans? The way parents and children resemble each other in little ways...'

Ending that brief digression, Jio looked around again. The space where the saintess resided was badly warped. Blood so black it looked like ink had drawn a rather convincing pattern on the floor, and the pattern occasionally writhed like a living creature.

"...?"

Oh, come to think of it, wasn't that the Moon Cult's emblem?

'It looks so revolting that it took me a moment to recognize it.'

Fingers resembling the saintess's sprouted around the edges of the emblem. Jio decided to stop describing it there, to spare those enjoying his story any further psychological assaults.

'Still, taken as a whole...'

Looking at the entire room.

'... Does it resemble the cosmos?'

It felt as though he had stepped inside a moon floating through the void of space. Weren't there stories like that? Those intriguing conspiracy theories about aliens living inside the moon, endlessly conducting all manner of cruel experiments.

'Or that the moon itself is actually a gigantic living creature.'

That was how it felt.

'It's probably not an inaccurate impression.'

Ultimately, all of this originated with the "Moon" they served.

This seemed to have been a bedroom. Long stretches of something's muscles and blood vessels radiated from the bed like spiderwebs, or arched bridges.

The marble pillars that had once decorated the room stretched in spirals, as though modeling DNA. Red as if soaked in blood, they had become quite translucent and emitted a beautiful, crystalline glow. Paintings, candlesticks, and other objects that would once have been perfectly ordinary decorations also writhed as though they had come alive.

'A cosmos with blood flowing through it...'

It felt as though he were looking at a cosmos of blood and flesh. Apparently, a being that didn't understand humans very well had wanted to decorate its little child's room.

'It's a bit much, though.'

The intentions didn't seem bad.

"..."

Ju-hyeon would have objected to that thought, too. Jio found himself thinking of his friend.

'In a sense, I think Ju-hyeon is right.'

Divinities ought to attend public-speaking classes or receive a basic education if they wanted to live on Earth. Jio was an exception, of course. He seemed to be doing perfectly well on his own already.

"..."

"Hweh, ha, haha. Hahahaha... ha..."

"You look tired."

Her hair, bleached pure white, was more than merely disheveled: it had grown long enough to fill the room. A human could hardly have grown it to that length naturally. Surely the Moon Cult's saintess hadn't gone her entire life without a haircut, so this, too, seemed to be the Moon's influence.

Her nails were long, too. He touched them gently, careful not to startle her with a stranger's touch, and they crumbled away like plaster. Then they grew back again.

"So brittle..."

The girl's entire body was covered in blood.

'It doesn't look as though she's hurt herself.'

Blood seeped from every opening in her body. Even her pores seemed to ooze viscous blood, leaving the backs of her hands sticky. It was enough to make him wonder whether she was suffering from severe blood loss, but she showed no signs of it.

'Hmm.'

Where had the all-ages rating gone?

'This is awkward.'

It seemed best to get the situation under control before my feel-good story made a full-fledged attempt to change genres. Jio called Honey, who was hiding in his hood as usual.

"Honey."

"Gurrrgle."

"Let's help her."

"Gurr."

Ju-hyeon was always telling him.

'Stop throwing miracles around all by yourself.'

Borrow the power of his children, who were known as contracted beasts, and tools that looked magnificent to anyone who saw them. That way, whatever Jio did, they could at least come up with an excuse.

Faithfully following that advice, today Jio had brought Honey, Dana, and the golden-bough staff Iser had returned before leaving. With a lineup like this, it would be difficult to suspect Jio himself.

"Excuse me."

Jio looked at the bishop.

"May I begin treating her?"

"... You can treat her?"

Wait, wasn't that what she'd called him here for?

"..."

He wanted to ask what on earth she had invited him to do, then, but realization soon dawned. With matters having reached this state, the Moon Cult must have turned to him, an outsider, out of sheer desperation.

'Perhaps even their highest hopes amounted to a little advice from a more experienced saint. When mysteries are involved, sometimes a single word can miraculously solve everything...'

At any rate, reading a response of "That's actually possible? But it can't be!" in her reaction, Jio gently changed tack.

"I think there are a few things I could try. As you know, Bishop, this involves your teacher, the Moon, rather than an evil mystery, so it cannot be purified."

"Yes. That's why we've reached the point where we can only watch, with no way to intervene. It would have been better if an unholy mystery were involved instead..."

"However, with my children and some fine tools, I believe I can offer at least a little help. This seems to have happened because she's become precariously stuck between human and mystery. I can bring her back toward the human side."

"Would that... truly be possible for you?"

Huh.

'Even that's impossible?'

Jio read "contradiction" in her response. But just how far was he supposed to hold back?

Deeply troubled beneath his composed expression, he once again thought, 'Oh, they really did call me hoping for a miracle with no idea of the odds.' Their expectations of him seemed lower than he had imagined.

Granted, reversing a situation this far gone in an instant wasn't exactly an everyday feat.

'But if I don't do at least this much right now, this child's life will genuinely be in danger...?'

Which mattered more: concealing his identity or the poor saintess's safety? Obviously the latter; there was nothing to debate. It didn't seem like anything his divinity and acting skills couldn't smooth over, so Jio decided to go ahead and deal with the consequences later.

He gave his usual, unchanging smile.

"Let me help."

"..."

"Will you give me a chance?"

"... I don't know you very well, Hunter Seo Jio."

"So you lack faith in me."

"But as things stand, we haven't been able to accomplish anything."

It had reached the point where the deeply insular Moon Cult had taken the unprecedented step of asking Collector for help. They had tried everything they could internally, and Hunter Seo Jio was the best option they had been able to secure.

The bishop stared at the man with the picture-perfect smile.

'The man they also call Black Cloak's saint.'

If he truly was a saint...

'There is no one we can rely on more, at least in South Korea.'

Time was of the essence. The mystery had become so tangled that it was twisting the saintess's entire body and encroaching on the space around her. Unless they did something, this calamitous mystery was on the verge of spreading to the other priests as well.

After turning it over dozens, hundreds of times, the bishop nodded.

"I will put my trust in you. If anything goes wrong, the responsibility is now mine. But if you succeed, I will honor you as the Moon Cult's benefactor and welcome you as our brother in discipleship."

"Is that so?"

"If that prospect moves you, then please, I ask for your help."

"Thank you for your considerate words."

Hunter Seo Jio made a show of looking around before speaking.

"Would you close your eyes?"

"... Very well."

"Thank you."

With this, I am making an attempt at concealment.

'Besides, seeing it wouldn't do her any good.'

Giovanni's vessel was so vast that he would have no trouble, but the bishop's didn't even measure up to that of the collapsed saintess. The sight might prove too much for her to bear. Jio tapped the shadow of his cloak.

"Meow."

"That's right."

Having spat out the souls and shrunk to the size of an adolescent cat, Dana sprang out.

"There's something we need to do."

"Meow."

"You seem to understand."

These little ones were his cover for the aftermath.

Jio met the girl's eyes, stained entirely dark red and holding a scarlet cosmos within them. Her pupils and irises were no longer distinguishable, but he had no trouble catching her gaze. Looking into those eyes, he smiled gently.

"Can you see me?"

"..."

"Then first..."

He slowly closed her eyes for her.

"Shall we practice sleeping?"

He seemed to be helping strangers with their rehabilitation rather often lately.

* * *

And so, Jio succeeded in reclaiming his genre.

"... Thank you."

"You're very welcome."

The bishop's voice still trembled as though she could hardly believe it. And that was despite his having merely let the girl fall asleep for now, since fixing everything at once would surely arouse suspicion.

'I'll have to let them see gradual progress from here.'

It was easier than turning Ater, who had spent thousands of years as meat mush, back into a human. But it wouldn't look that way to the people around him.

He had restored the saintess's body, which had been twisted as grotesquely as a certain Mr. Cockroach crawled up from hell, to normal. She was still asleep, though. Sleep would let her recover from her accumulated exhaustion and gradually return to the human path, so that was all for the best.

"I recommend moving her to another room. The space she occupied has already been warped by mystery... If she stays there, she'll probably stray prematurely onto the path of mystery again."

"I'll have another room prepared for her to sleep in. We wanted to do that before, but feared the mystery might spread or cause some other anomaly. Is there anything else we should be careful about?"

"You needn't worry about meals. Until all the mystery accumulated in her body has drained away, anything she eats would seem to do more harm than good. She won't need IV fluids or anything of that sort, either."

"Ah, as for meals..."

After hesitating, the bishop spoke.

"She rarely ate even before this."

"..."

Jio was silent for a moment before asking,

"... Is there a reason?"

"As you said, she had drawn closer to mystery. Of course, she hadn't reached the point where eating would poison her, but she felt no appetite and made no attempt to eat."

"Aha."

'Skipping meals...?'

Unforgivable.

'So another pig is about to join the ranks... O Sun, forgive this greedy priest.'

I really did want to respect everyone's lifestyles and ways of thinking. But if they kept provoking him like this while leaving themselves so unguarded, he had no choice but to become an old witch.

Feeling bitter about his inescapable fate, Jio smiled.

"If she skips meals, she'll find herself on the path of mystery again."

"I would rather she commit to that path entirely. Does that seem difficult?"

"For the time being, yes."

Her gifts really left her in an awkward middle ground.

"As you said, her vessel is large, but her mind remains human."

By that measure, though, Jio was practically her senior. He was no less a case of a human mind in a body of mystery. He felt he could help her in that regard.

He smiled.

"She probably won't wake for some time. Her body and mind are having their wavelengths brought into alignment and gradually stabilizing, so you needn't worry too much."

"Yes. Thank you."

"And..."

"..."

"Ahem."

COUGH.

"Keh, khh...!"

"H-Hunter Seo Jio."

"Cough!!"

Jio coughed up blood.

Horrified to see her guest coughing blood, the bishop dismissed most of the priests in the reception room. The few who remained seemed to be people she trusted, but Jio stopped them before they could even approach to help.

"I-I'm all right."

"But you're..."

"I seem to have overexerted myself for a moment."

"... Ah..."

"It's not as serious as you think."

Jio forced a smile, breaking out in a cold sweat.

"If it's all right... could I have somewhere to rest for a moment?"

"Of course. You'll need treatment. Let's get you to the infirmary at once..."

"I'm sorry, but I'd prefer to be alone."

"..."

The bishop fell silent for a moment, thinking who knew what, then nodded.

"... As you wish."

"Thank you."

And so, under the Moon Cult priests' solicitous care, Jio found somewhere to rest. The bishop asked several times whether he would accept treatment, but he continued to refuse. Eventually, every priest left the room.

"..."

Alone at last, Jio thought,

'The con was a success.'

With this, he had eliminated most of the grounds Ju-hyeon might have for scolding him.

Truly, one of the benefits of becoming a portrait was that he could "do anything."

(To be continued)