75
As soon as he saw the broken horn, a memory struck Yeon Ji-ho’s head.
That horn wasn’t broken, but forged.
A horn forged with fully bloomed red flowers would divide the verdant meadow.
A horn, a man born with horns on his head. One who refused to live as a human and had no intention of prolonging his own life…
Baal.
“… Is that… Baal?”
“…”
In the darkness, the man’s yellow eyes looked down at Yeon Ji-ho. Those eyes, devoid of any emotion and merely inorganic, were fixed precisely on Yeon Ji-ho.
“Um, ah, well, about who I am…”
He was so flustered that the words wouldn’t come out properly. Moreover, he remembered Set warning him that proper conversation with Baal would be impossible.
Baal just looked down at Yeon Ji-ho with unreadable eyes. Of course, with his mouth restrained, he couldn’t speak, but from his gaze alone, it was clear he had no intention of communicating.
“I… traveled with Set.”
“…”
“Um, and I also met Apophis, Isquis, Shango, and Chronos.”
Yeon Ji-ho, holding his forehead, tried to explain as best he could. He was usually confident in speaking coherently, but under the pressure of the other’s presence, even words that normally came easily were stumbling out.
Suddenly, Yeon Ji-ho’s ears perked up. He heard footsteps coming from the stairway he had descended earlier.
“Ah, I’m bored. Life is boring.”
“Why don’t you be a bit more alert? The one locked up here is the famous ‘Baal’, you know.”
It seemed to be the voices he had heard just before entering this tower. Like Yeon Ji-ho, they were slowly descending the stairs, apparently headed for this underground prison.
At the same time, Yeon Ji-ho began to stamp his feet nervously. There was nowhere to hide in the tower’s basement, and the only place was the underground prison. And that’s where Baal was confined.
Baal, right in front of him, didn’t seem to have any intention of cooperating with Yeon Ji-ho. Of course, even if he were to cooperate, someone confined in a prison with their limbs restrained couldn’t hide him anyway.
A hiding place, he needed to find a hiding place.
Yeon Ji-ho’s eyes darted around, scanning the underground prison. Finally, he spotted what looked like a rusty feeding slot. If he could somehow squeeze his body through…
His body moved before his thoughts could finish. However, the feeding slot was only big enough for a small child to pass through, far too small for Yeon Ji-ho. Just as the voices from the stairs approached within earshot:
Bang!
Yeon Ji-ho’s head snapped up. He saw Baal, confined in the prison, smashing his head against the wall. Bang, boom, crash! He kept hitting his head so hard that blood was splattering.
“Why, why…”
Before he could finish speaking, the footsteps from the stairs suddenly stopped. Then, he heard them talking among themselves.
“Damn, looks like this bastard’s gone crazy again.”
“What? Shit. Let’s not go down there and risk getting caught up in this. We’d better come back later. It’s better to come when he’s asleep.”
The muttering voices gradually faded away. Coinciding with this, Baal’s head-banging against the wall also ceased.
Yeon Ji-ho, still pressing down on his pounding heart, looked inside. His eyes met Baal’s, who was staring back at him with blood trickling down his brow.
Did he… help me?
“Uh, um…”
Before Yeon Ji-ho could finish his sentence, Baal started banging his head against the wall again, as if his pause had been mere coincidence. He hit so hard that blood could be seen splattering on the black wall.
Bang, bang, boom.
He continued to smash his head, and Yeon Ji-ho, unable to see any way to resolve this situation, tugged at his own hair. After pondering for a while, and sensing no more presence of others, he finally spoke up.
“The, the horn!”
As if by magic, Baal’s head stopped abruptly. His yellow eyes fixed on Yeon Ji-ho.
Yeon Ji-ho rolled his tongue around his mouth, fumbling for words. He needed to say something that would interest Baal, something that could divert his attention even for a moment.
“Uh, when you were young and your horn broke.”
“…”
“That’s when Set found the broken horn and brought it back to you, right?”
It was because of their fateful connection that Baal, who had been a mindless beast, was reborn as a Gorgon’s beast. After all, Set Gorgon had retrieved his horn, which was called the devil’s horn.
However, Baal didn’t accept that horn. To him, his horn was less significant than even a tooth. The reason he decided to become a Gorgon’s beast was…
“That horn… Set kept it for a long time.”
“…”
“I’m not sure if he still has it now that the Duke’s castle has burned down, but it’s true.”
Would Baal really be interested in this story? In the epic “The Star of Hadad,” Baal’s part was actually quite small, maybe ten pages at most. He was just a villain who appeared near the end.
This was a story he had barely managed to recall from his memories. Yeon Ji-ho, who liked Set, found it interesting that Set, despite being a villain, had carefully kept the horn of his subordinate, Baal.
“Grk…”
Baal’s throat moved slightly. Yeon Ji-ho took a deep breath and hesitantly asked.
“…Should I tell you more?”
Baal blinked. Just as Yeon Ji-ho was about to exhale deeply, thinking Baal had calmed down significantly:
Baal’s chest deflated for a moment and then swelled greatly. And at that moment.
Crack! Boom!
With a loud noise, Yeon Ji-ho’s vision was filled with a hazy dust. As he waved his hand in front of his face, coughing continuously, the dust began to settle, and the scene before him started to become visible.
“…”
Baal’s body, which had been firmly bound to the wall with chains on all four limbs, had detached from the wall. He was now right in front of the prison bars, with only parts of the dust-covered chains still on his wrists and ankles.
At the same time, Yeon Ji-ho, who had been standing in front of the prison, suddenly found himself face to face with him. Everything had happened in an instant.
“Ah, um, well…”
“…”
“…Why were you imprisoned?”
It was an unavoidable question when someone who had been firmly restrained had so easily broken free from the chains and approached. However, Baal, ignoring Yeon Ji-ho’s voice, quietly crouched down in front of the prison door.
Then he moved his throat once.
“Grk.”
Although he had easily broken the chains restraining his limbs, removing the restraint on his mouth wasn’t so simple. Moreover, the person in question seemed too lazy to remove the muzzle himself, just scratching the back of his neck.
Now able to see Baal up close, Yeon Ji-ho could clearly see the seams of the restraint on his mouth. As he looked carefully, somehow…
“Should I remove this for you?”
“…”
“Then, please stay still for a moment.”
After some hesitation, Yeon Ji-ho thrust his hand through the iron bars. Surprised, Baal jerked his head back.
“I can’t reach if you do that.”
“…”
“Just a moment, here, let me…”
Yeon Ji-ho now pressed his body fully against the iron bars and began to feel around Baal’s head, mouth, and neck. It was so dark that some parts were hard to see, so he had to fumble with his fingertips to find the right spot to unfasten it.
“Hmm…”
Yeon Ji-ho spent quite some time exploring various parts of Baal’s face. At first, he was clearly scared, but as he continued touching, at some point he started moving his fingers without fear.
This was possible because Baal remained still. He was behaving so uncharacteristically docile that other beasts would have been shocked to see him like this.
Finally, with a light click, the restraint covering his mouth came loose and fell down.
“Ah, it’s done. Now you can speak, right?”
During all this, Baal, who had patiently endured Yeon Ji-ho’s touch, simply rolled his eyes as the muzzle was removed. Yeon Ji-ho had already pulled his hand back from between the iron bars.
Yeon Ji-ho looked at Baal, whose mouth was now free, with an expression full of expectation. What would he say?
Baal, with his mouth now free, blinked and touched his liberated mouth. He lightly brushed his jaw, cheeks, and lips, then raised his head again to look at Yeon Ji-ho.
Staring blankly at Yeon Ji-ho, Baal suddenly spoke.
“You…”
“Yes?”
“Can I eat you?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
