Chapter 338 – Seoul (22)
“That’s too bad.”
The mantis, who was quietly eating food, muttered during the uproar.
Hochi had no choice but to ask it a question.
Was there anything regrettable about the current situation?
“What do you mean?”
“I could have eaten him.”
Hochi had to think about it for a while before he realized that what the mantis said was about Lim Seong-hyun who was eaten by Lee Ho-jae.
“Come on, you’ll get a stomachache.”
The reason Lim Seong-hyun was eaten is simple.
He gained faith by selling Lee Ho-jae’s name.
And the amount of faith he acc.u.mulated was quite large.
Regardless of the severity of the sin, Lim Seong-hyun was destined to be eaten when he met Lee Ho-jae.
And Lee Ho-jae is not someone who would hesitate to eat his own kind.
Lee Ho-jae wasn’t the type to get entangled in negative relationships in any way.
Hochi, an experienced man, knew better than anyone.
“Let’s get out of here.”
The believers were still waiting for him even though Hochi had nothing more for them.
But he still had to strengthen and build trust with the members who were still confused and anxious.
It was for the religion, not for them.
“Can’t I just wait here?”
The mantis who was eating rice puffed its mouth.
“No.”
The mantis also had work to do here.
It was able to change appearance freely.
It can play the role of the church’s mascot, or it can blend in among the congregation and get a glimpse of their atmosphere.
It was useful in many ways.
“I told you that if you work hard, you will be free again later.”
“I don’t want to. I want to live with my master forever.”
Here, the master meant Yong-Yong.
Hochi thought seriously.
Shouldn’t we force that insect away from Yong-yong?
There was only one reason why the mantis liked Yongyong, calling him it’s master.
It’s because he gave it food.
Food that was nutritious enough to be incomparable to that of humans.
After giving it some thought, Hochi decided to leave it to Yong-yong.
Hochi thought he would do well on his own.
* * *
“… you want me to go too?”
Again, she spoke informally.
As soon as Park Jung-ah heard me, her mood changed.
“Yeah.”
Park Jung-ah’s eyes sparkled even more sharply at my answer.
Wow, isn’t that a skill at that point?
I asked Park Jung-ah to go to the new tutorial I made with the other challengers.
The challengers were a valuable resource.
Over the past decades, G.o.ds have mined the power of the source from Earth.
As a result, the planet’s sources are almost exhausted.
Once the earth’s sources run out, the earth will slowly begin to fall.
Environmental deterioration and resource depletion.
The earth has already been ill with environmental pollution caused by technological advances.
I’m not even sure how long it could last.
Kirikiri said that the source also affects the development and creation of planetary civilization.
Considering that, it would be wise to move the Earthlings to another planet as soon as possible.
I haven’t decided whether it would be a blank s.p.a.ce in the Tutorial stage or another dimension connected by a dimensional gate, but it was true that a lot of work was required in the process.
And those challengers will be in charge of that effort.
Challengers were essential since I couldn’t do everything by myself.
And in order for them to be of use, that much training was also necessary.
“I… To be honest, I don’t want to manage people and do anything like that anymore.”
Park Jung-ah said.
Of course, I was trying to send her with the challengers because she could be trusted, and also because she had a long history of leading and managing people.
“To be more honest, I just want to go back to Earth and rest. Can’t you just leave me out of it?”
“No.”
Park Jung-ah’s face fell.
My words would sound disappointing enough at her who lost interest in vigilante work and was just waiting to come out.
“Can you explain why?”
Of course I could explain.
“You need training too.”
Although there was no difference in strength between Park Jung-ah and me in the past.
I flew too hard now.
Park Jung-ah was a challenger of easy difficulty, and she didn’t even try to develop strength unless it was for self-defense.
Compared to that, I…
“Honestly, it’s difficult to control your strength.”
Really.
It’s not that I’m just giving her a hug and doing nothing since it’s been a while.
If you move hastily, you may have a terrible accident.
“It’s okay to give a little hug or hold hands like now. But we… we can really only hold hands if we were to sleep.”
“… I will go.”
Park Jung-ah put her hand on her forehead and replied with a long sigh.
Actually, she said this was a problem she was expecting to some extent.
Perhaps that is why she gave up quickly.
So, the challengers, including Park Jung-ah, were moved to the tutorial.
Just before the move, Lee Yeon-hee gave a nasty smile to Park Jung-ah from behind my back, but she didn’t go any further.
The new tutorial the challengers were moved to was inside Yongyong’s Tower.
It was so s.p.a.cious that it was enough to use some of it as a training place.
Yong-yong decided to take care of the training process and the challengers.
Yong-Yong completed my education from start to finish, and since he is such a sweet child, I thought he would be suitable for tutorial management.
Yong-yong liked it because he thought it would be fun.
Yong-yong will probably do it better than me.
* * *
Time pa.s.sed quickly.
Looking back now, the days on the 60th floor have pa.s.sed really slowly.
Hochi, who had never done anything ambitious in his life, felt that the days of managing the church were really flying by.
The church was quickly normalized.
Even Hochi himself was surprised.
People were more careful of their actions.
Public value was a really comprehensive concept.
People who knew about their behavior, the atmosphere within the church, and rumors were also affected, always tried to say good words and do good things.
He wondered if it would be a little hypocritical atmosphere.
As the church was founded by a group of pseudo scammers, Hochi thought that such an atmosphere was also needed for a while.
Contrary to Lee Ho-jae’s wishes, the priests who were former scammers were no longer available.
What Lee Ho-jae overlooked was the fundamental difference between Hochi and the priests.
Hochi was able to endure the pain from the curse stigma behind his neck and grew.
However, the priests could not bear the pain.
They just struggled and died.
But they didn’t really die.
The power contained in the curse will automatically heal when the subject suffers serious damage.
Because of the healing, their senses were always clear and even their minds remained intact.
Eventually, the priests were suffering endless pain without dying or losing their senses.
While slowly paying off their negative public value.
Their presence was a warning to the people of the church.
You can end up just like them, so don’t act rashly.
As a result of their suffering, they were earning the church’s merit value little by little and canceling their negative scores.
It was expected that within half a year all the priests would be free from suffering.
Of course, even if you were free from pain, there was a high possibility of going crazy or becoming crippled.
Hochi would not worry about that until after the punishment of the criminals.
As all the priests who were in charge of management were out of power, Hochi couldn’t leave the church and was forced to sit tight.
No matter how much time pa.s.sed, it was natural that the work he had to do would increase rather than decrease.
The church was expanding rapidly.
Apparently, Hochi’s method was peculiar.
Instead of a mystical and great G.o.d, it made people believe in a clearly visible reward.
Maybe the believers worship Hochi’s rewards more than Lee Ho-jae.
But as a result, they came to worship Lee Ho-jae, the owner of the reward.
In order to reward him, he began to suggest to himself to increase his faith.
In fact, the faith of believers compiled through the faith window was increasing explosively.
It was not only the faith, but also the merit value of the church.
Whenever they had time, they visited hospitals or nursing homes, gathered people, presented potions obtained as rewards to patients, and advertised the church.
Although using rewards for others could have been considered a loss.
That action resulted in more public value.
Each time, dozens or hundreds of new members were created.
In fact, the easiest way to get public value was to buy them with money.
The believers who had the money to spare from their own a.s.sets, gave a large donation to the church and established denomination branches across the country.
Thus, the church spread rapidly throughout the country.
“We need more publicity.”
“But there are no places in the country that have not already been disseminated with church leaflets. There are limitations in general promotion.”
It was safe to a.s.sume that there was no place in Korea where church leaflets were not spread because of the believers who compet.i.tively spread leaflets even if no one told them to.
Probably, the whole nation at least once received a leaflet from the church or saw a leaflet that fell on the street.
“In fact, with this level of publicity, more people should have turned to the church. But I think that’s not the case because of our church’s bad image.”
People were active in the meeting.
They have no choice but to be.
Just giving a good opinion at a meeting increases your merit value.
Everyone wanted to attend this conference.
If they couldn’t partic.i.p.ate, they even asked the other partic.i.p.ant to give their opinion on their behalf.
Hochi felt satisfied and proud.
The idea he came up with was great.
‘Am I a genius or what?’
Hochi, sitting at the head of the conference hall, was happy with such thoughts.
“I think it’s time to change people’s perceptions about us rather than letting more people know about our faith.”
The meeting ended with a goal to change the public perception of the Lee Ho Jae Faith, who had a negative image of pseudo, scamming, and multi-level marketing.
* * *
Recently, similar comments were also seen on the web.
-Believe in the Lee Ho-Jae Faith!
-Believe in the Lee Ho-Jae Faith!
-Weight loss pills, hair growth pills, height growth pills, panacea, you can have anything you want! … …
No matter what news comment window you see, the best comment that always received the most recommendations were comments about the Lee Ho Jae Faith.
It was a systematic comment work by the members of Lee Ho Jae Faith, who learned that even if they constantly commented, the public value was gradually rising.
Of course, there were many people who didn’t like those comments.
In fact, there were far more people who looked down on it than those who didn’t.
└Those Ho-Jae b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are here too.
└I don’t want to see them, really.
└ Wherever you go, those guys are everywhere. I just have to ban all IPs.
└Do not go on the link to their address by any chance. It will catch the LAN line virus.
Days later, a briefing session was held on the dimension gate under the joint leadership of Kim Minhyuk and the Korean government. Its purpose was for Kim Minhyuk to explain exactly what a dimension gate was.
It was an event to inform the public about the expeditions between dimensions that will be possible in the future due to the dimension gate and the enormous benefits that the expedition will bring.
High-ranking officials of the Korean government as well as foreign governments sent agents to express their interest.
A large number of high-ranking Awakened were also invited.
The event was broadcast live on TV and on the Internet.
It was supposed to be known only as an article, but it was due to the Korean government’s insistence that they should inform more people about the Dimension Gate and deliver hopeful stories to the people quickly.
Recently, the issues related to the Awakened were treated like entertainment, so it was not that awkward.
In an unusual move, Lee Ho-jae also partic.i.p.ated in the event and showed up.
Kim Minhyuk was in charge of all the explanations, but just having his face on the TV screen was significant.
“It’s still annoying.”
It’s still annoying to be bothered like this.
Lee Ho-jae frowned while breathing the air inside the cloudy event hall.
“You should come and see us. This is also important. Do you know how much the church is looking forward to this?”
Hochi carefully persuaded Lee Ho-jae.
In fact, the biggest reason Lee Ho-jae attended the presentation today was because Hochi asked him to.
Lee Ho-jae couldn’t refuse Hochi’s request, who was really pa.s.sionate about the church work.
Originally, the appearance of a G.o.d on TV itself would degrade the mystery and damage the authority.
On TV, Lee Ho-jae will look just like a normal human being.
However, thanks to the way Hochi operated the church, there was no need to adhere to mysticism anymore.
People will probably pray and devote their faith to Lee Ho-jae even if he appears on comedy programs.
“Hey, look over there. All those holding up placards are our members.”
The general public was also invited to the presentation.
Since Hochi also asked Kim Min-hyun to invite them, the general public audience present were all members of the Lee Ho Jae Faith.
“Ahhhhhh!”
“Ho-jae looked here!”
“Lee Ho-jae! Lee Ho-jae! Lee Ho-jae!”
It was a mess.
The people who were preparing for the event looked back in surprise at the screams and shouts from the crowd.
Even the invitees who were entering the room glanced at them, wondering what was going on.
Lee Ho Jae naturally turned his back as if he had never heard the uproar.
He called Hochi.
“Hey.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s embarra.s.sing, so please tell them not to do that.”