I couldn’t understand.
According to the Wiki, after making eye contact with The Portrait of a Mad Woman, the hallucinations had to last for at least three minutes before the Crawling Background would attempt to escape from the painting.
Squirm.
Squirm, squirm.
Then why—why were the writhing tentacles already trying to break free just 30 seconds in?
This scene contradicted the information in the Wiki.
In other words.
This was a blasphemy against the Omnia Archive Wiki.
A hallucination.
Hmm, looks like the hallucinations have started.
So all I have to do now is hold on for five minutes without losing my mind, right?
Sounds easy enough.
My mind is still clear, and both the auditory and visual hallucinations seem tolerable so far.
“Look at me, look at me, look, look, look at me, at me, look, look at me, meet my eyes, and then, death, death, death, the abyss, darkness, look at me, look at me—”
Squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm.
I take it back.
This is not easy.
I already feel like I’m about to lose it.
Who said I was the crazy one?
The real lunatic is right there—inside that damned painting.
And seriously, why does this insane woman have so much to say?
The sheer volume of her voice was enough to make my eardrums feel like they were going to burst.
But even worse.
The Crawling Background was pure, unfiltered nightmare fuel.
It was so grotesque that I would have preferred to be subjected to a nuclear meme dump on the internet instead.
The tentacles were covered in hundreds—no, thousands—of bloodshot eyes.
And from those countless eyes, tears of every imaginable color dripped down.
Red.
Blue.
Sky blue.
What was this, a rainbow?
WHIP!
WHIP!
The tentacles lashed out like whips.
Each time they struck the ground, the earth caved in.
Even though I knew this was a hallucination, the fear was still very real.
No matter how tough my body is, if I take a hit from that, I’m not walking away unscathed.
The whips were getting closer.
I hurriedly turned to Yui Seul.
“How much time has passed?!”
“72 seconds. Not even three minutes yet. I don’t know what you’re seeing, but it’s a hallucination. Focus.”
Squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm, squirm.
WHIP!
WHIP!
WHIP!
“The Woman of the Stony Gaze shall become a sinner of her own accord and meet my eyes. So come forth, O woman, and face judgment for your sins! Accept your fate! Meet my eyes with humility and repent—”
“Ah, shit! What the hell is this lunatic even saying?!”
This wasn’t a prayer.
This was cultist gibberish.
And if she can pray—so can I.
“O almighty Beachy Mutbyeol, if you have any sense of justice, please refute this madwoman’s nonsense with pure logic, stab those damn tentacles she summoned, and—”
Come to think of it.
Maybe because I was kneeling on the dirt, praying with genuine devotion.
I felt a strange sense of peace.
However, even after my prayer, the hallucinations did not disappear.
The tentacles continued inching closer.
Was it thanks to the grace of Beachy Mutbyeol that my mind felt clearer after praying?
Or had my racial trait as a Devoted Follower—one who must endlessly seek knowledge—manifested without me realizing it?
My brain was working at full speed.
Hallucinations.
Must be countered with hallucinations.
“Beachy Mutbyeol Shield!”
I had just blurted out some nonsense.
Yet, the Beachy Mutbyeol Shield, which had existed only in my imagination, suddenly materialized before my eyes, standing firm against the writhing tentacle whips and blocking them completely.
This was real.
It had to be the grace of Beachy Mutbyeol.
***
Until the Crawling Background appeared, Yui Seul had nothing to do.
Literally nothing except wait in silence.
What a waste of time.
For the three minutes it took for the Crawling Background to manifest, Yui Seul simply listened to the girl’s prayer as background noise.
“O Beachy Mutbyeol, please judge this insane woman, and also…”
With that prayer playing in the background, Yui Seul fell into thought.
She had confidently told Lee Jiah earlier, “Even if your mind completely breaks, it can be fixed.”
But in truth, restoring a broken mind was not an easy feat—even with the help of the Awakened Association’s artifacts and psychic healers.
Yui Seul was a veteran among veterans, now entering her tenth year as an Awakened One.
In that decade, she had met countless fellow Awakened.
And among them.
There were those whose minds had been utterly shattered by anomalous phenomena.
She could estimate at least a dozen.
Of course, Yui Seul wasn’t lying just to comfort Jiah.
Artifacts that could restore a broken mind did exist.
Psychics who could heal mental damage also existed.
In fact, all of those dozen or so Awakened who had lost their sanity.
Had their minds completely restored within, at most, three months, thanks to those very artifacts and abilities.
Yui Seul was a lone wolf by nature, a cold and detached individual who rarely cared about others.
So there was a chance her knowledge could be flawed.
“Jeong-hwan went completely insane once, too. But he recovered. That means fixing a broken mind is possible.”
This wasn’t hearsay.
She had seen it herself.
Yui Seul had witnessed Jeong-hwan’s mind collapse in real-time.
And after about a month.
She had seen him return to his normal self.
So if one were to ask whether restoring a shattered mind was possible or impossible.
The answer was clear.
It was possible.
And based on every past case she knew of,It was 100% possible.
The real problem—Was that rude, pink-haired, big-breasted brat.
Lee Ji-ah’s complicated circumstances.
Yui Seul was one of the very few people who knew the truth about her situation.
Jiah had to start a livestream at least once a day.
She had to investigate at least one Anomalous Phenomenon or Item per month.
If she failed to meet these obligations.
She would die.
Well, not die, exactly—she’d be “disposed of.”
But that was just a matter of semantics.
Kim Jung-hwan, a psychic investigator who could discern truth from lies, had verified this as an undeniable fact.
For most people, recovering from mental collapse took at least a month.
Sometimes as long as three months.
“That old monster took exactly one month to get his mind back… so I should assume it’ll take at least two months for Jiah.”
This was a problem.
The livestream requirement could be dealt with.
Jiah wasn’t a facecam streamer—she was a VTuber who streamed using an avatar.
If necessary, Yui Seul could just log into Jiah’s account and start a stream on her behalf.
Even if she started the stream and shut it down within a minute, it would still count, right?
Whether Jiah’s god would accept such a shoddy loophole was another matter entirely.
But hey, it was better than doing nothing.
The real issue.
Was the requirement to use her ability on an Anomalous Phenomenon or Item at least once a month.
There was no workaround for that.
So, let’s sum it up.
1. Lee Jiah’s mental breakdown was already a certainty.
Her Wiki never lied.
2. If she didn’t recover within two months, she would die.
Not one month—two months.
Since she had just fulfilled her obligation for this month, that gave them a little breathing room.
Two months.
If Yui Seul mobilized every connection she had, this could still be a winnable fight.
Though, she didn’t exactly have connections.
But she did have power.
She could use that power to pressure Jeong-hwan and the Awakened Association.
To mobilize every available psychic healer and every mind-restoring artifact.
They would fix Jiah within two months.
And if they couldn’t?
Then they’d just have to make it work.
That was Yui Seul’s motto.
It was a reckless and dangerous way of thinking.
But it was precisely this mindset that had made her the strongest Awakened One.
And so.
For the first time in a long while, Yui Seul felt anxious.
It was an unfamiliar emotion.
She couldn’t even remember the last time she had felt nervous because of someone else.
But then.
Something unexpected happened.
According to Jiah’s Wiki—Lee Jiah’s mind should have started crumbling by now.
“Shining Multistar Shield! Holy Barrier! Power of the Mirror! Reflect! Rainbow Reflect! Uh… Super Elementary-Schooler Reflect!”
But why was her mind still completely intact?
* * *
At the three-minute mark.
Yui Seul, as if she had been waiting for this exact moment, began slicing through the tentacles one by one with her dazzling swordplay.
This wasn’t an illusion—this was real.
By the time four minutes and thirty seconds had passed.
“Look… at… me… Look at…”
The hallucinated voice had noticeably weakened.
The Shining Multistar Shield I had summoned had also become so faint that it was barely visible.
That meant the hallucinations were weakening as well.
In other words—The tentacles that Yui Seul was cutting down weren’t illusions.
They were real.
At the five-minute mark.
“JIIIAAAAH!”
I let out a scream.
And for good reason.
“Tentacle! A massive freaking tentacle just appeared!”
A tentacle, so absurdly massive it defied all reason, had burst out from the painting.
It was so big that it covered the sky, completely blocking out the moonlight.
Was this its final desperate struggle?
“T-This isn’t a hallucination… right?”
I knew it wasn’t a hallucination.
But I really wanted to believe it was.
That’s how terrifyingly enormous it was.
The tentacle reached toward me with its monstrous grasp.
“Ah.”
And then— I heard Yui Seul’s response.
A sharp slicing sound.
*SHHK!*
That impossibly massive tentacle—larger than an entire building.
Was sliced cleanly in half.
Yui Seul calmly sheathed her sword, Iron Sword No. 3, and spoke in her usual flat tone.
“Not a hallucination.”
…
…
…
After the final massive tentacle.
No more of the Crawling Background escaped from the painting.
Just as the Wiki had described.
The Portrait of a Madwoman had transformed into a beautiful woman’s portrait.
And with that.
The Anomalous Phenomenon was resolved.
Not permanently—just temporarily.
But it was resolved nonetheless.
The Awakened Association’s building was about a 20-minute walk from here.
If we ran, we could make it in 8 minutes.
The time limit was 30 minutes.
Plenty of time.
According to Yui Seul, the Awakened Association had an abundance of opaque cloths lying around.
We decided to put retrieving an item on hold and focus on securing the painting first before heading back to the Association.
Ah.
But before that.
“…What are you doing?”
“A gratitude prayer.”
Gotta do what needs to be done.
Doubt not.
Actually, no.
To be honest, I did have my doubts.
But just for today.
It really did feel like I had received some genuine divine grace.
I was truly grateful.
Multmen.