Jinseong, who created a base by sending Narumi away, had now secluded himself in the Divine Storehouse as if all urgent matters had been resolved.
This was driven by Jinseong’s desire to focus on magic and divine objects, but there was another reason behind it.
That reason was the cost.
The cost of the ‘Sakea Human Sacrifice Ritual’ had arrived.
“Tsk.”
The magic Jinseong performed was derived from the human sacrifice rituals of ancient Babylon.
The festival, called Sakea or Sakaea, began on the 16th of the Low Moon and lasted for five days, during which one of the servants would switch places with the master and act like the master, ruling the household for five days. Not only were they a master, but they also dressed up as a king, using the title Zoganes while doing so.
The royal palace participated in the festival as well.
They would select one death row inmate to elevate to the position of king for five days, allowing him to enjoy all the privileges of the king. During this time, the inmate was given the same title of Zoganes and treated like royalty. However, after the five days, the pleasures and feasts bestowed upon the inmate would vanish, and the false king would be dragged out, stripped of his clothes and accessories, severely beaten but left alive, before being ultimately hanged or stabbed to death.
This festival arose from the ancient concept of a king not merely being a figure of absolute power but a representative of the gods, a bridge connecting gods and humans, and a sacrificial vessel meant to receive worship in place of the deity and bear the deity’s wrath.
However, the essence of a king was too significant to be treated as just a sacrifice every year, and thus a value was placed upon it.
Hence, Sakea came into being.
By elevating a death row inmate to the position of king during a specific period, they symbolically granted authority to someone who would later be sacrificed.
Thus, the execution of the inmate was viewed as that ‘king’ absorbing all the misfortunes of the country and being ‘offered’ to the gods, allowing the peace, tranquility, and divine grace to fill the void left by the misfortune.
However, as time passed, this human sacrifice transformed into a mere festival, losing its ritualistic significance, and eventually, as Babylon fell and its power waned, even the remnants of that ritual slowly faded away. Furthermore, the line of magic that had managed to continue was later supplanted by the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, which was presumed to have been created under the influence of the Sakea festival, causing the practitioners of the Sakea human sacrifice ritual to disappear.
But the disappearance of practitioners meant that one could now use this ritual by paying an appropriate cost.
Thus, Jinseong chose this magic to draw strength from the head of Yatadoarangkryu, Hiramoto Michisige.
Of course, a significant factor in choosing the Sakea human sacrifice ritual was Michisige’s disposition.
To properly utilize the Sakea human sacrifice ritual, the target needed to be a ‘death row inmate’ or a wicked individual fully deserving of such a label to maximize its effects, and Michisige fit that description perfectly.
He had killed people, committed crimes, and felt no guilt.
Moreover, he was the kind of morally bankrupt individual who would kidnap people to perform human sacrifices without hesitation in the event of a third world war. Additionally, he wasn’t working for anyone nor had any clear goals, rendering him unworthy of contributing to society.
The trajectory of Michisige’s life, the sins he would commit in the future, all indicated he was a fitting sacrifice.
Therefore, Jinseong offered him up.
He was a sacrifice worthy of the ‘death row inmate’ status that could maximize the effects of the forgotten ritual.
A person who entered his field of vision without proving their worth to live.
Instead of a future where he would merely disappear after a meaningless death filled with evil deeds, Jinseong aimed to give him the opportunity to contribute to the world by extracting mana and life force.
In this process, Jinseong made sure that most people viewed Michisige as a ‘murderer’ to amplify the symbolism of him being a death row inmate. To counter the increased effectiveness with a lighter cost, he utilized divine objects received from those who bestowed blessings.
And the lightened cost was exactly…
“My muscles are moving of their own accord.”
It was the erratic movement of his own muscles.
His limbs twitched as if hit by electricity, shaking and jerking uncontrollably.
On top of that, it felt like an enormous cramp struck him, and his facial muscles twisted, making him unable to face others.
“If this is how much I reduced it, I might have been paralyzed for a while under normal circumstances.”
Thus, Jinseong left all interactions with people to Rise, opting instead to communicate via video call while wearing a mask if absolutely necessary. He secluded himself in the Divine Storehouse, indulging in the plethora of collected items.
“Quite a bit of magic and divine objects have accumulated.”
The Divine Storehouse amassed even more relics than Jinseong had previously seen during video calls.
Thanks to the efforts of Saigo Kenji and Kishimoto Yoshiaki, who sought to bring those who had tried drugs over and put them in the same predicament, the number of blessed individuals had greatly increased, and the voluntarily offered divine objects and rituals piled up along with it.
“The documented magic items haven’t seen much growth, though…”
Among the first things he examined were the records of magic inscribed on various objects.
Some were written in oracle bone script, others in medieval Japanese, and some were even items written in code that Japan used during World War II. There were also items related to folklore, and some were filled with metaphors so dense that they would be incomprehensible without doing scholarly research.
However, Jinseong examined them all with joy.
There was no joy greater than learning magic.
There was no pleasure quite like understanding and mastering it.
Thus, Jinseong repeatedly felt the urge to not only learn magic but to want to use it in practice, muttering inwardly to calm himself down each time.
“Tsk. If I had a perfect body, I could use this magic freely.”
This was a means to soothe the disappointment of being unable to use magic directly, as well as a way to remind himself not to forget the goals he needed to pursue.
And this complaint proved effective, inspiring a clearer sense of purpose of “I need to complete my body soon,” instead of disappointment over not being able to use magic and transforming the thirst born from not being able to use unknown spells into a clearer desire to move forward.
Yet, even amidst this restraint, there certainly were items that looked useful.
“Let’s see. There are magic spells here I’ve never heard of in my lifetime. If they have little documented history, they must be forgotten spells. I should be able to use them without issue.”
There were spells that seemed completely buried in the passage of time, forgotten in people’s memories.
“Let’s see. This spell written in oracle bone script, I’ve never seen it before… It must have either been forgotten in time or lost during the Cultural Revolution. Or maybe it was severed during the Japanese military’s pillaging.”
There were spells whose lines had been severed by certain incidents.
“Let’s see. A spell received from Joseon’s diplomatic envoys? To elevate and extol the king’s authority inherited from the Three Han… Hmm.”
Some were spells likely to have vanished due to political reasons.
Jinseong indulged in all those magic spells, and before long, he succeeded in storing all the spells into his mind.
Having memorized every spell within the warehouse, Jinseong began to inspect the divine objects.
“Why are all the items coming in all related to curses?”
The items piled in the Divine Storehouse were quite diverse.
There were dilapidated wooden ladles presumed to be used in the past, worn-out chopsticks, pictures featuring gold coins used during the Edo period, Western paintings depicting beings that could be either human or monsters, a well-maintained bike that appeared to be from the early stages of release, an old but well-maintained microwave oven, a beautifully glossy box that looked like it had been lacquered, and so on.
From ancient times to the modern day.
What were in there were items closer to antiques rather than divine objects.
However, these seemingly common items boasted a horrific past and power.
Much like a beast disguising itself to snatch its prey.
The worn ladle induced a feeling of instant freezing upon contact, a divine object capable of causing death even in the sweltering heat of summer, while the beautifully glossy box was a curse-ridden object crafted from a fetus and umbilical cord by a special method, and the bike that seemed fit for a museum was a divine object that led its users to their demise due to the malevolent spirits reminiscent of water ghosts.
The painting featuring gold coins, simply hung to decorate a wall, would increase the house’s negative energy and summon ghosts, while the Western painting, if gazed at for too long, would affect one’s sanity.
“So many useful tools, indeed.”
Every single item in the Divine Storehouse shared this nature.
Just getting close enough would ruin the membranes, causing nosebleeds, distort vision, make balance go haywire, and sometimes guide someone to wrong paths. There were even divine objects that increased the chances of giving birth to deformed children if possessed by women, and even those that could cause infertility when kept for a long time.
It was truly a horrific portrayal resulting from the embodiment of human malice manifested into objects.
However, Jinseong seemed to revel in this hellscape as he began to examine each divine object, speculating on the spells applied to them while passing the time.
And while he was spending a considerable amount of time doing just that, a message arrived for him.
『 It’s about to be a new year, where on earth are you wandering? Get back here. 』
It was a text from Lee Yang-hoon.
