Part 1 Chapter 8 10

Director’s Office of the Central Party’s Monster Management Countermeasure Bureau.

Sitting alone on the sofa in the director’s office, Director Mao Zeping couldn’t hide his anxiety. He repeatedly opened and closed his feature phone once every second, waiting for something.

Knock, knock.

A knock sounded.

“Come in.”

Mao Zeping gave the order without even looking to see who it was. For him, who sat in a position second only to one and above all others, no one superior to him would ever have reason to visit this director’s office.

“Father-nim!”

Fortunately, the man who entered was his subordinate. Mao Zeping frowned and corrected the man’s address.

“Director.”

“…Director-nim.”

The man bowed his head, looking haggard. His eyes were bloodshot, and dirt was caked in various places on his body, as if he hadn’t properly washed himself in days. But Mao Zeping didn’t bat an eye and got straight to the point.

“Their whereabouts? Did you recover the bodies?”

“We mobilized every available Dongchang member. However, within a 10km radius, there were no traces of escape, let alone bodies.”

The man pulled out a photo. It was the spot where the target had jumped from the plane and crashed. The weeds there were flattened as if a plane had flown low over them.

“Munhwa.”

“Yes.”

The man, Munhwa, bowed 90 degrees at the waist. Mao Zeping clicked his tongue and put a pipe in his mouth.

“It seems I gave you too grand an epithet.”

“……!”

Munhwa immediately understood Mao Zeping’s meaning. He was criticizing Munhwa’s incompetence by comparing him to the original owner of the epithet, implying that he should perform in a way that matched the epithet.

“There were no traces even within 5km. So, following your suggestion, I expanded the radius to 10km. But is it an easily understandable answer that there’s no trace of escape, let alone a body? If your mouth is open, answer me.”

Mao Zeping exhaled cigarette smoke and wrinkled his nose.

“Did the monster pilot sink into the ground, or did they soar into the sky?”

“……I’m looking into it. But please believe me, Director-nim. I will put in as much effort as the epithet you bestowed upon me-“

“Tsk.”

Mao Zeping clicked his tongue and flicked off cigarette ash. Munhwa clenched his fists, suppressing his indignation.

“Right. That bald bodyguard who came with the monster pilot. He might be an ability user who transcends Dongchang’s common sense. Like a secret weapon of Joseon or the Association.”

“……Are you referring to that SS-class monstrous human, Phoenix, who appeared in Dandong?”

“Munhwa.”

Mao Zeping shook his head with genuine regret.

“Bonghyo wouldn’t have asked that again; he would have immediately stated his opinion. For example, ‘That monstrous human might have rescued the monster pilot right before the fall and escaped by means beyond our comprehension.’ Something like that.”

“……I apologize.”

Munhwa could only say that much. When the admiral, who had been in charge, suddenly went missing, Munhwa hastily became the head of Dongchang.

Just as Mao Zeping directly compared the two and pointed out Munhwa’s incompetence, the current Dongchang was, in many ways, not performing at 100% efficiency compared to before.

“Right. Have you found out where the vanished heroes of Dongchang disappeared to?”

“……We are searching the entire region. We haven’t found their location yet, but-“

As Mao Zeping clenched his fist, Munhwa hurriedly raised his voice and continued.

“No one else will go missing! We’ve thoroughly organized all Dongchang personnel into groups of three, and ordered that if even one person disappears, the others must report it immediately!”

“Right. At least we have to stop more forces from disappearing. Even though 30% have already gone missing.”

Mao Zeping sneered, mocking Munhwa. Munhwa’s chest tightened with injustice, but he had to endure Mao Zeping’s-his father’s-continuous taunts.

“Bonghyo would have been different.”

“……I will try my best.”

Mao Zeping constantly compared Munhwa to his half-brother, Bonghyo. He had many illegitimate children and was confident that competition among them would produce better individuals.

“Among my sons, Bonghyo, and among my daughters, Unjang, were the most outstanding, but now both have disappeared. Munhwa.”

“Yes.”

“Bring them both back. That is your first mission as Dongchang Admiral, and it might also be your last.”

“Understood.”

Munhwa bowed his head and left the director’s office. The report he had been looking forward to was a bust, and anxiety began to gnaw at him again.

“…If only Bonghyo were here.”

Among the many illegitimate children he had fathered, unfortunately, there was no son as capable as Bonghyo. Mao Zeping seriously considered revoking Munhwa’s epithet, given that Munhwa was at least somewhat intelligent.

“Since I’m changing it anyway, someone of C-class-“

“Father-nim?!”

The door to the director’s office burst open, and Munhwa entered without knocking. Mao Zeping was about to scold his son for rudely barging into his office, but he flinched, seeing the smile on Munhwa’s face.

“I found them! It’s those Hwangonjeok bastards!”

“……That’s why you just barged into my room-“

“The missing Dongchang heroes were Hwangonjeok!”

Mao Zeping dropped his tobacco pipe.

* * *

“Did you gather them all?”

I called Deokbae to the stone chamber. The Phantom Flame Spirits, to whom I had already given command, followed closely behind Deokbae.

“Yeah. Here.”

Deokbae threw a bundle at me. Although he threw a bundle weighing well over a sack of rice at me, I caught it in mid-air with mana and gently placed it on the floor.

“Hmm… there are roughly five hundred usable ones.”

“What are you talking about? I gathered almost three thousand.”

Deokbae argued back angrily. The Phantom Flame Spirits standing by behind him also showed strong signs of dissatisfaction.

“No, you worked hard to gather them. It’s just that among these, I only plan to use about five hundred right now.”

“??”

Deokbae frowned, looking momentarily confused. I pointed to the Phantom Flame Spirits behind him and curled up the corners of my lips.

“Those Hwangonjeok, can you tell me their characteristics first?”

“Oh, yeah. …Uh, so….”

Deokbae seemed very flustered by the webpage full of Chinese characters. I remained silent, and one of the Phantom Flame Spirits behind him came closer to Deokbae.

“May I read it for you?”

“Oh, yes. Please do.”

Deokbae held out the screen, and the Phantom Flame Spirit, with practiced movements, tapped the screen and found the information I wanted to know.

“They are ability users who primarily possess gray mana, emitting gray light from their pupils. They usually maintain a physical form but can also become ghosts, and all individuals discovered so far are male.”

“……Then aren’t they the same as these guys? Except for the gender.”

Deokbae pointed to the pupils of the Phantom Flame Spirits. Born from cores of the phantom attribute imbued with my mana, they had gray hair and blue eyes.

“Subordinate No. 2, your intuition is good today. That’s right.”

I affirmed Deokbae’s guess and asked the Phantom Flame Spirit about the rest of the information.

“What about their ranks? Most of them should be C-class to A-class.”

“……That’s correct. Most individuals are C-class, but occasionally there are A-class ones.”

“Damn it.”

A hypothesis that had formed in my mind was already turning into a certainty. I sighed once, then briefly explained to Deokbae and the Phantom Flame Spirits.

“It seems certain that the Chaos Phantom Dragon has awakened from its slumber. I don’t know who awakened it, or if someone awakened it. But the situation is dire right now. Those guys called Hwangonjeok, they were originally Dongchang members.”

“…Those eunuchs? Wait a minute. Dongchang are Mao Zeping’s subordinates, aren’t they?”

“Yes. It seems the Chaos Phantom Dragon has already begun its activities.”

My teeth gnashed involuntarily. Just as I had started my activities five years earlier than the original story, it seemed the world had also sped up time by five years, awakening its executives one by one.

Surely Mao Zeping didn’t awaken it. My whole body trembled at the worst-case scenario that popped into my head.

“Damn it. This isn’t the time to be playing around. Alright, Deokbae and Phantom Flame Spirits. I’m giving you an order.”

I unfolded the bundle they had brought. The mana-infused bundle formed corners, becoming a large box, and Deokbae and the Phantom Flame Spirits’ expressions became slightly uncomfortable.

“……Five hundred out of three thousand. Hey, no way.”

“Yes. Let’s do it.”

I rolled up my sleeves and stretched my hands.

“Let’s separate only the C-class cores, not the D-class ones.”

Unfortunately, it required manual labor. First, I sat down on my butt in front of the bundle and began pulling out the C-class cores.

“Hey. Do we have to do this in the 21st century, the age of civilization? Can’t you automate the sorting? You said this isn’t the time to be playing around, so what is this?”

“Deokbae-ssi. Just shut up and sit down. You guys help too.”

The Phantom Flame Spirits also gathered around and began pulling out the C-class cores. Deokbae grumbled as he sat down on his butt and sorted the cores. I picked out ten suitable ones and stood up.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to pull them out quickly?”

“I have something else to do.”

I scattered the ten cores around the perimeter and then turned them back into monstrous humans. Ten Phantom Flame Spirits were born, and I gave them an order.

“Sort the cores.”

“Yes.”

As the monstrous humans sitting around sorted out the C-class cores, I created more monstrous humans with them. It was nothing more than simple grunt work, but as time passed, the number of monstrous humans increased, and the work speed accelerated.

“How long do we have to do this?”

“It’s boring just doing it; can’t we talk?”

The Phantom Flame Spirits, tired of the repetitive work, spoke up. The gazes of the Phantom Flame Spirits, who had increased to about thirty, were fixed on me.

“……Alright.”

Though I was in a hurry, if I suppressed them too much, the work speed would actually slow down. I allowed them to chat.

“Oh my, oh my, how generous. Thank you. My mouth was itching because all that came out was ‘kyaaaak’ all the time.”

“Right? I wanted to talk, but only screams came out, it was driving me crazy. Ah, I really feel alive. It was so annoying that I couldn’t even speak when I was dead, you know?”

“Oh ho ho, thankfully, our understanding master resurrected us, so that’s a relief. Hahahaha!”

And then the chatter began. I considered making the monstrous humans shut up, but the situation was already out of control.

“Hey unnie, how did you die?”

“Me? I was eaten by a monster. How did you die, dongsaeng?”

“Me? I was trying to escape when a dimensional gate opened, and I got trampled to death by people. How did you die, young man?”

“That guy burned me to death.”

Deokbae, who had somehow joined the Phantom Flame Spirits, pointed at me and growled. The Phantom Flame Spirits looked back and forth between Deokbae and me, then comforted Deokbae with sympathetic voices.

“Oh dear. Died young, that’s a shame. But you came back to life, didn’t you?”

“Young man. Think positively. Anyway, there’s no order to when life ends. With monsters rampant everywhere, dying early was fate, fate.”

“…….”

I suddenly felt sorry for the corpse lying peacefully in the coffin. If my guess was correct, he was probably a being who commanded the continent, but I had inadvertently created a chaotic market right in front of his eyes.

The problem was that, strangely, the more they chattered, the better the work efficiency became. I tightly closed my ears and picked up the cores they sorted.

“Miss. How did you die?”

“I was escaping before a monster ate me… and then I fell from the rooftop. How about you, unnie?”

“Oh dear. I was eaten by a monster. Hohoho. You know, back when the Black Scorpion was rampaging.”

“Oh! I also died while escaping from the Black Scorpion!”

“Oh my, oh my. Then are we death sisters-in-law?! Hahahaha!”

Perhaps it was because they had all died once and been resurrected. They were reacting quite cheerfully to their own deaths. I picked up a core, then approached the coffin, firmly closed the lid, and prayed.

“I apologize for the noise.”

“You’ve been doing something with that coffin for a while….”

Deokbae subtly got up from his spot and approached me. It seemed he had noticed the existence of the coffin.

“……This isn’t that, is it?”

“It probably is? Why, the elaborate decoration on top is for grave robbery prevention. But I can’t be sure either.”

“Then why don’t we resurrect him? To see if it’s really him.”

“……Crazy bastard.”

A curse word popped out of me involuntarily.

“Are you suggesting we desecrate the dead?”

“Isn’t that your specialty?”

“No, but this is a bit too much….”

What if it really was him? I picked up a D-class core rolling on the floor.

“……Subordinate No. 2. If we’re going to resurrect him, wouldn’t it be better to use a higher-grade core?”

“That’s a good idea. You were secretly a little tempted too, weren’t you?”

“More than just tempted….”

I opened the coffin lid. Deokbae was startled by the mummy inside the coffin.

“Ugh, fuck?!”

“I prepared it beforehand.”

I took out the Mini Phoenix I had hidden in the coffin. It seemed Deokbae had fallen on his butt, startled not by the mummy, but by the Mini Phoenix.

-Are you going to resurrect me already, it is?

“……No. Not right now.”

Although I was quite concerned now that I knew the truth, the Mini Phoenix in front of me was not the real one.

As it said, it was a demanding person who would only meet me when I brought back the Cube, a fragment of the Otherworld God. So, the Mini Phoenix talking to me now was merely a fragment derived from its consciousness.

“Check the entire continent with the birds in the nest. If an S-class monster appears, fly straight to me and report it.”

-Understood, it is.

The Mini Phoenix gracefully flew through the air and exited the stone chamber. I created another Mini Phoenix and placed it on top of the coffin lid.

“Why did you make another one?”

“It’s a marking for quick travel. When would I ever come all the way down here again? I need to teleport. Just listen.”

I briefly explained my plan to Deokbae.

“The moment an S-class monster is found, I’ll teleport there immediately, kill it, and extract its core. Then, I’ll use that core to resurrect this person here.”

“So, you’re replenishing your forces locally. Not bad. Hey, in that case…”

Deokbae made a rather tempting suggestion.

“How about setting up a temporary base right here? Logically, would Hwangonjeok or Mao Zeping come all the way down here? Smashing all the cultural relics like someone else?”

“…….”

I looked back and forth between the mummy in the coffin and Deokbae for a long time before answering.

“After we get the owner’s permission.”

The presumed owner was still sleeping peacefully in the coffin.