Part 1, Chapter 7 (3)

3 PM, Yuseong Hotel Penthouse, Busan.

“Did you win?”

“What are you talking about?”

Eun Yuha chuckled, looking at Seok Harang’s message that arrived on her smartwatch.

“I don’t know what it was, but it seems like they had a showdown with Phoenix-ssi. They said they won.”

“Of course they had to win. Whose daughter are they, anyway?”

Heo Yun-hwan drank straight from the vodka bottle, blowing into it. Yuha tapped the table, feeling an inexplicable sense of injustice.

“…Father-nim, I’m sorry, but I’m working right now. Could you perhaps go somewhere else to drink?”

“Work? What work?”

Yuha seriously began to consider whether she should really hand this defective product back to its original owner. Somehow, he hadn’t properly paid for the alcohol he’d consumed so far, and after going to support the commotion in Busan, he’d only caused an even bigger incident.

Yuha pointed to the screen she had brought up. On it were Yuseong’s X-roid employees, busy deleting videos.

“Father-nim, they’re still taking down all the videos you appeared in.”

“…I exercised too conspicuously at dawn, it seems.”

Yun-hwan stroked his chin and infused mana into his other hand. A reddish-orange sword suddenly protruded from the end of the vodka bottle.

“I was trying to hide my identity completely, but did I get exposed instead?”

“That’s about it. They say martial artists each have their own unique martial arts forms, don’t they? It seems like yours was analyzed.”

“I’ve lived by brawling without a separate master.”

“…It’s been reborn as practical martial arts.”

Yuha showed him the related videos. In the videos, countless self-proclaimed experts poured out reasons for speculating that the Black Knight’s identity was Gwanggeom, like a never-ending spring.

Among them, the most impressive was, of course, the statement, ‘He uses a sword of light, so he must be Gwanggeom.’ Yun-hwan let out a hearty laugh.

“I don’t think that’s something the president should say.”

“They wouldn’t have blurted it out without certainty. If that’s the case, then they’re truly amazing at overcoming crises.”

“I was born for that kind of thing. Haha, this fellow has written a whole novel about me.”

“Huh?”

Yun-hwan briefly summarized the content he referred to as a novel and recited it to Yuha.

“Gwanggeom actually faked his death and hid himself, and during that time, he moved behind the scenes to instigate wars in Japan and China. Although Japan failed because of Moby Dick, the heroes in China rose up as expected. This is Gwanggeom’s grand scheme to give Seolhwa Princess a trial and awaken her to the same SS rank as himself….”

“That’s bullshit.”

“But trash said it himself?”

“That’s a pretty plausible hypothesis. Wait, trash?”

Yuha, startled, stopped what she was doing and rushed over to Yun-hwan. Yun-hwan pointed to the owner of the SNS account who had written that content.

“Isn’t that you?”

“……Father-nim, this is a fake. It’s a counterfeit.”

Yuha inwardly patted her startled chest. She was truly terrified that he might have actually created an account.

“Anyone can create a fake account on this SNS, I mean, Blue-Bird.”

“So, you’re saying there could be imposters of me too?”

“Of course. I have them too.”

Yuha showed him all her fake accounts. They were full of all sorts of curses and unspeakable profanity, so Yun-hwan subtly averted his gaze.

“See here? The marked one. That’s the real official account of the person in question. The real one, authenticated by BB headquarters.”

“…It’s complicated.”

“Take a look. It should be suitable for passing the time.”

Yun-hwan scratched his head and began to engross himself in SNS. Yuha, having silenced the noisy drunkard, took a breath and quenched her thirst with coffee.

The pungent aroma of coffee beans filled her mouth. Yuha, with a relaxed hand, was instructing the deletion of videos when her finger paused.

“Now that I think about it….”

Yuha quickly dragged her finger across the screen to pull up the cruise’s CCTV footage. The timeframe was from the moment the cruise departed until the very end.

“It definitely wasn’t naturally broken….”

She had been too busy deleting and getting rid of Gwanggeom’s data and the Azure Syndicate’s data to pay attention. In the end, Yuha, who had only heard that all the strawberries were in a state where they had to be discarded, decided to find the culprit, even if it was late.

“…Huh?”

Yuha checked the CCTV footage again. The data didn’t exist.

“Why?”

Yuha’s expression hardened. After Moby Dick’s appearance, the CCTV footage was noisy in places or completely blacked out.

“…Could it be because of Harang?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing.”

Could it be that Seolhwa Princess’s mana and Moby Dick’s internal organs caused even electronic equipment like CCTV to malfunction? Cold sweat ran down Yuha’s back.

‘No, this was deleted. It was cut out.’

Goosebumps rose all over Yuha’s body. Even the Machine Dolls that were receiving Yuha’s commands seemed to get the chills, experiencing a temporary error.

“…Ugh, seriously!”

Suddenly, nothing was going right. The government and the association had shamelessly taken all of Anisakiasis’s Core, and Yuseong was left to pay for all the repair costs for the broken cruise, as well as the collapsed buildings and parks.

‘They should at least give me about 100 of them!’

Even though she hadn’t expected much from the government in the first place, she hadn’t imagined the association would act this way. When Kang Soyeon was the team leader, things passed smoothly, but the new male team leader was incredibly strict.

‘Annoying. Seriously.’

She needed a sanctuary for her mind. Yuha wanted to rewrite the contract with her beloved client as soon as possible.

‘Should I sell Gwanggeom and ask for a Mini Phoenix instead?’

Yuha seriously began comparing the two entities.

“Oh, it’s been created. The name is… Bitnari….”

Yun-hwan, unaware of what his superior was thinking, began to immerse himself deeply in SNS.

* * *

At the same time, in a suite at the same hotel.

“Hehehehe.”

Himeji Hikari typed on her keyboard under the covers. Only the light from the screen flickered in the darkness.

“I can’t let anything that could incriminate my Seung-hyung oppa remain….”

Hikari had already figured out the name of the prince who saved her.

Lee Seung-hyung. Age 26. Korea’s S-rank ability user, ‘Fire Fist’. A flower boy who also worked as an actor when he was A-rank. A paragon of this era, so responsible that he even served as chief mourner, grieving the death of his co-star actress, Cheon Gaeul. The nephew of the current president, Seonui Cheol.

“Awesome. What is this, a prince from a fairy tale? There’s a limit to how amazing one’s specs can be.”

“What are you chattering about under the covers?!”

Himeji Hayate grabbed the blanket and rolled it over. Hikari rolled off the bed and fell to the floor from the unexpected blow.

“That hurts, doesn’t it?!”

“You’ll ruin your eyes! Are you doing something bad? Committing a crime? What are you hiding and doing?”

“……Ehehehe.”

Hikari didn’t hide her thoughts. A murderous glint appeared in Hayate’s eyes when he saw Lee Seung-hyung on the screen.

“That punk who saved you.”

“Punk? Watch your words. He’s S-rank, just like you, oppa.”

“It’s already been several years since I became S-rank, and that punk only became one about two months ago. Isn’t that right?”

Hikari, feeling a surge of emotion, immediately brought up a video. It was that legendary video that every hero absolutely had to watch at least once: ‘Killing a Fire Dragon in One Strike.avi’.

“Have you ever killed a Fire Dragon in one hit, oppa?! You haven’t! You just went out there and scattered roundworms all over the sea for no reason!”

“…Hey, no one knew that. If I had known, I wouldn’t have sliced it!”

“Shut up! The community is already cursing you out, oppa, and it’s a mess! They’re calling it an international disgrace, polluting another country’s sea!”

“……Aren’t you the same?”

At Hayate’s words, Hikari flinched. Hayate, with a sly expression, brought up his own screen and counterattacked. On it was a black-haired girl with her face covered by a mask. Hayate struck a pose as similar as possible to the girl in the video and said,

“Hello, this is Hitka from Tenshi TV! Ttush Ttush! Hahahahaha!”

“Die! Die! Just go out and die!”

Hikari smacked Hayate with a pillow. Hayate gracefully dodged the pillow swinging in three directions and jumped onto the bed.

“But how did you know it was Gwanggeom? Is that old man still alive, then?”

“……Every ability user has their own unique mana pattern, right? It has seven colors of patterns, like a spectrum, you ignorant fool.”

“It’s just like a Core. Right, so?”

“…Gwanggeom Heo Yun-hwan and this masked knight, their patterns are all identical except for one.”

Hayate pointed to the pattern Hikari showed him with a questioning gaze. The two graphs were identical when overlaid, but only the part Hikari highlighted in red showed a particularly large difference.

“This one’s graph is longer than Heo Yun-hwan’s?”

“That’s right. One side converges to almost 0, and the other is close to 100. This is just my theory, but….”

Hikari manipulated the screen to display someone’s photo. Hayate’s eyes lit up with interest.

“Ah, her story came up at the Round Table anyway.”

“Right. Beast Tamer. This girl….”

Hikari whispered very carefully into Hayate’s ear.

“Could she be a necromancer who can control monsters and even human corpses?”

* * *

4 PM. Azure Syndicate Hideout, Yeouido.

“Hoo, hoho! I won! I won! Praetor-nim, I won!”

Kang Soyeon let out a cheer. Ryu Cheon-seong stood there with an awkward expression, and beside him stood Cheon Gaeul with a fed-up look.

“You called me all the way here just for that bet?”

“…No, ‘just’? How important was this match?”

“Shut up. …Anyway, you’re amazing too. Here, stockings.”

Soyeon received the stockings from Gaeul and took off her shoes. For Soyeon, changing stockings in front of others was no longer shameful.

Chak. Soyeon threw the changed stockings onto the floor.

“Because it’s a matter of Gwanak’s pride.”

“…Are you from S University?”

“……Hey, you too?”

A rare common ground formed between the two women. As they stood awkwardly in mutual embarrassment, unable to say anything, a man subtly approached Yooishin, who was watching them. The man unfolded the sketchbook he was holding.

[Let’s talk for a moment.]

“Yes.”

Yooishin answered obediently and followed him. There was a faint hint of annoyance in the man’s striding footsteps.

Outside the hotel, the man led Yooishin into a shabby alleyway. Besides the man, there were others there. All of them had feather-shaped tattoos on their necks.

[You’ve come, Robin.]

The man, who appeared to be the representative, flipped the sketchbook. Yooishin barely suppressed a laugh and nodded.

“Yes, Cheolpyo. But please correct yourself. I am now ‘Bow Saint’. I received this epithet from God.”

The man, Cheolpyo Park Seong-tae, tried to say something but couldn’t. His head hadn’t grown back yet. In the end, he had no choice but to flip the prepared sketchbook.

[Do you truly intend to follow the monster who killed us?]

Yooishin nodded without any hesitation.

“Of course. God has given us the power to resurrect even if we die-“

[Where did that great Robin go, the one who wanted to start a rebellion against Cheongsong?]

Yooishin’s words stopped. His expression hardened coldly. The corner of his mouth subtly curled up.

“……Why? Are you going to tell?”

[It’s not too late. Escape from here-]

“Don’t bullshit me. There’s nowhere left to run from here.”

Yooishin pointed to the feather emblem on his neck.

“It’s our fate to live like this now. There are no other options. Either we show our usefulness and gain favor, or we become obsolete without usefulness and perish. It’s one or the other. Since we were in the same situation, I’ll tell you clearly.”

Yooishin took a breath.

“…I’m going to live like this. There’s no need to say anything more.”

Yooishin immediately turned his body. Since they were headless beings in the first place, there was no way they could hear him calling. Instead, they tried to attack Yooishin. Yooishin sighed inwardly and was about to pull out the dagger from his pocket.

Grrrr.

The roar of a dragon was heard. Yooishin’s face lit up, and he turned around.

“Leader-nim.”

A vertically slit reptilian eye appeared between the alleyways. The feathers froze, unable to do anything, and Yooishin ignored them, kicking off the ground and leaping onto the rooftop.

“I apologize for causing you trouble. But please understand. They haven’t yet gained faith….”

[There’s no need to specifically conform to me.]

Yooishin had never been more shocked in his life. The voice, imbued with mana, directly transmitted into Yooishin’s mind, was clearly that man from Mapo Bridge.

“Leader-nim, you can talk…. I thought….”

[Of course, I was human, so why wouldn’t I be able to talk?]

The Black Flame Dragon raised its head. Young children were playing on the membrane it had lowered to the ground, sliding down it. Beside them, the lowest-ranking members of the Azure Syndicate were looking after the children.

“Ahahahaha!”

The Black Flame Dragon gently flapped its wings. The child, surprised yet joyfully playing, disappeared. The Black Flame Dragon turned its head and conveyed its thoughts to Yooishin.

[I was going to tell you sometime, but it ended up being like this. Anyway, there’s no need to specifically follow me and do that.]

“Then, even calling you God all this time….”

[It means I’m in a similar situation as you.]

Yooishin felt embarrassed.

“Th-Then why did you go that far?! I really misunderstood!”

[……God is subtly burdened by me calling them God.]

Yooishin nodded. That’s why, until he became a Fire Dragon, he was ostracized among the executives and ended up serving as the gatekeeper guarding Mapo Bridge.

[I consider the power given to me a lifelong blessing. However….]

The Black Flame Dragon grinned, Yooishin was certain.

[It’s just too amusing to see them get flustered every time I elevate them to the status of a Sun God.]

Ah, this human(?) isn’t normal either. Yooishin felt his vision blur.