Ch.7070. Chosen by the Dragon God (2)

One way or another, Bahamut’s promise would be fulfilled.

A new Dragon Priestess to oversee Pohang had been born, and with that as proof, Bahamut would now protect Pohang as well.

After concluding their meeting with Bahamut, Baek Seol-hwa and Son Sang-hui returned to the main hall of the Balhut Cult.

“Well then, Sang-hui. Let’s return to Pohang.”

“Yes, Lady Seol-hwa.”

Dressed in the ceremonial robes prepared for the Dragon Priestess at the cult’s main hall, Baek Seol-hwa returned to Pohang with Son Sang-hui.

“She’s… more impressive than I expected.”

“Yes. It seems the contract with Lord Bahamut is quite special.”

“What do you mean by that?”

On their way back, Baek Seol-hwa received reverent gazes from many executives belonging to the Balhut Cult.

Park Cheol-gon in particular, who had known Baek Seol-hwa’s disfigured appearance before her contract with Bahamut, expressed his astonishment and noted how special the contract with Bahamut truly was.

After all, a blind girl who until moments ago couldn’t move without someone’s help had suddenly gained both her eyes and legs, and was now demonstrating tremendous power.

“It seems miracles do exist.”

“Hah. Isn’t the word ‘miracle’ quite common in these apocalyptic times?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

It was a miraculous scene that inspired awe whether one wanted to feel it or not.

Hwang Geun-chul, who had now become a comrade, shared his thoughts with Park Cheol-gon as they quietly bid farewell to Baek Seol-hwa departing for Pohang.

“So I’m now the mayor of Pohang and the Dragon Priestess serving Lord Bahamut?”

“Yes, that’s right. In terms of the cult’s internal hierarchy, you’d be right below Lady Choi Yu-na.”

“Hmm! It’s a bit scary. I never dreamed I’d be in a position responsible for everything in Pohang!”

While driving to Pohang on the road, Baek Seol-hwa asked Son Sang-hui if she was now the mayor of Pohang.

Son Sang-hui shared all the information she knew, and Baek Seol-hwa responded that it was a bit frightening, as she never expected to be in a position responsible for everything in Pohang.

To this, Son Sang-hui smiled bitterly and said:

“Still, you’ll be at the mercy of Pohang’s Three Major Camps. From their perspective, they’ve put you up as a puppet to avoid civil war.”

“Haha. That can’t be helped. To them, I’m still just a pathetic blind girl.”

She worried that Baek Seol-hwa would be manipulated by the intentions of Pohang’s Three Major Camps.

Baek Seol-hwa said it couldn’t be helped, evaluating herself as still just a helpless girl in their eyes.

“So, I should show them now! What it means to have a contract with the Dragon God.”

“Pardon?”

“When we arrive, please summon the Three Major Camps of Pohang!”

“Ah. Yes.”

She declared that she would clearly show the Three Major Camps of Pohang what it meant to have a contract with Bahamut.

Though startled by this bold statement, Son Sang-hui faithfully carried out Baek Seol-hwa’s wishes, and the Three Major Camps promptly responded to the mayor’s summons.

“Hmm. She said she’d arrive in Pohang today? And she’s meeting with us before that. It seems our mayor is quite troubled. Having lost her legs, face, eyes, and even her voice. We should assist her well.”

While questioning the sudden summons, Ha Jin-woo, the representative of Pohang’s Three Major Camps, told Seo Un-jae that he was satisfied with this meeting and mentioned the mayor they would be serving.

However, his words conveyed less respect and more of a treatment like a useful tool.

Ha Jin-woo blatantly mentioned Baek Seol-hwa’s physical condition, saying they should assist her well, implying they would make her a puppet of Pohang’s Three Major Camps.

“I know this, but I absolutely cannot concede. Everyone here knows that our Marine Division suffered the most losses in this meeting.”

While Ha Jin-woo might have been satisfied, Kim Tae-sik, the commander of the 1st Marine Division, was full of complaints.

Kim Tae-sik could acknowledge the Balhut Cult’s governance itself.

After all, the Balhut Cult had become the main player in recapturing Pohang, while his forces had merely assisted.

However, the post-war negotiation terms themselves were disadvantageous to Division Commander Kim Tae-sik.

‘More than half of the Marine Corps forces have been transferred to the Balhut Cult.’

The Balhut Cult had conceded much to Pohang, but in return, to maintain the victor’s rights and the cult’s superiority, they took away Pohang’s military power.

So they took Kim Tae-sik’s forces, which were the only military maintained in Pohang, under the pretext of the victor’s rights, and the Marine Corps led by Kim Tae-sik was placed under the control of the Balhut Cult.

This effectively ignored the rights and powers of a South Korean division commander, and Kim Tae-sik felt humiliated by the Balhut Cult’s arrogant actions. Unfortunately, the reaction of the marines in the Marine Corps was completely different from Kim Tae-sik’s.

“We’re saved! Finally, we can live like human beings!”

“Ramen after so long…! I’m glad to be alive…!”

“No more living on fish alone!”

To be frank, the Marine Corps he led maintained only the outward appearance of a military force, but internally it was already half-collapsed.

They had not recaptured Pohang as a rear base, and naturally, they couldn’t receive supplies for military use from Pohang.

After Pohang’s recapture, it was none other than the Balhut Cult that supplied materials to the Marine Corps, and when the Balhut Cult took responsibility for the soldiers’ food, clothing, and shelter, they immediately abandoned Division Commander Kim Tae-sik and sided with the Balhut Cult.

Kim Tae-sik complained about the marines who had defected to the Balhut Cult, asking where the honor of the Republic of Korea Marines had gone, but from the beginning, an army is an organization that moves only when well-fed.

The current Republic of Korea lacked the means and government to maintain this basic principle, and only the Balhut Cult guaranteed the marines’ basic needs and provided adequate treatment.

So if faced with a choice between a division commander who couldn’t guarantee their basic needs and a government that ensured those needs even during the apocalypse, marines with ordinary sensibilities would naturally choose the latter.

Since they had joined the Marine Corps through conscription rather than voluntary enlistment, they had more reason to focus on self-preservation than loyalty to the military and division commander.

The Balhut Cult, which guaranteed that self-preservation and provided food, clothing, and good treatment, had sufficient merit for the marines.

‘This is maddening. We should have occupied Pohang at great sacrifice before the cult arrived!’

Kim Tae-sik knew this fact, but still, couldn’t it be that the Republic of Korea hadn’t perished yet?

Holding onto the hope, however vain, that the Republic of Korea wasn’t over yet, he harbored resentment toward the Balhut Cult for arbitrarily taking the military authority he held for the Republic of Korea. In response, he formed a secret organization within the Marine Corps, gathering those who were dissatisfied with the Balhut Cult’s rule.

Since some of his staff who had followed him were in the same boat, forming a secret organization within the military was relatively easy.

“If you have a mouth, why don’t you speak those fine words to me now? Mr. Seo Un-jae.”

“I have nothing to say to Division Commander Kim Tae-sik.”

After forming this secret organization and inflating his influence, he grew into a force that couldn’t be taken lightly by other camps in Pohang.

There was also the justification that their treatment had deteriorated due to Seo Un-jae’s negotiation failure, who was one of the three pillars of the Three Major Camps.

Kim Tae-sik urged Seo Un-jae to speak up if he had anything to say, and in response to Kim Tae-sik’s provocation, Seo Un-jae bowed his head, saying he had nothing to say.

In a battle of justifications, Seo Un-jae was at an overwhelming disadvantage.

‘If those two fight, I can fish in troubled waters.’

In such a case, Ha Jin-woo, as a third party, could have stepped in to mediate between the two, but instead, Ha Jin-woo chose to weaken both forces rather than mediate, and merely observed as if looking at distant mountains.

After all, it was those two forces that would suffer losses, not Ha Jin-woo’s force.

Perhaps Ha Jin-woo was hoping that these two powerful figures, Seo Un-jae and Kim Tae-sik, would hate each other and perish together.

If the two forces representing Pohang perished amicably together, Ha Jin-woo’s force, as the only survivor, could firmly grasp control of Pohang.

“I believe I secured as many rights as possible for Pohang.”

“But we weren’t satisfied at all. Rather, our rights were taken by Gyeongju, and only your rights were strongly guaranteed, weren’t they?”

“I apologize for that. But don’t our Pohang Three Major Camps have merits to be treated well by the Balhut Cult? Even if you lost power, at least I gave you the opportunity to be treated greatly as elders.”

“That’s that, and this is this.”

Seo Un-jae tried to persuade them that he had negotiated as best he could with the cards he had, but Kim Tae-sik refuted that those benefits were for Seo Un-jae’s side, not for Kim Tae-sik’s faction.

In conclusion, the ones who benefited the most were Seo Un-jae and Ha Jin-woo, who gained from fishing in troubled waters, so they could say such things.

Accordingly, Seo Un-jae apologized and said he had tried to ensure they would be treated well, mentioning that at least they could be respected as elders, but unfortunately, people tend to think first about what they’ve lost rather than what they might gain.

“Don’t change the subject. That negotiation was a loss for us. In this apocalypse, fists are faster than words. You know that well, Lord Seo Un-jae.”

“Hmm.”

Moreover, in this apocalypse, fists were faster than words, and fists were the law.

Visible fists could provide definite credit, and through this, Kim Tae-sik could gain massive benefits and support from Pohang residents.

However, with this one meeting, Kim Tae-sik’s faction had lost its foundation, so it was understandable that he would act so violently.

“I wonder when our puppet miss will arrive?”

“She’s a child with physical difficulties. And now she’s the mayor we serve.”

“Mayor in title only.”

However, Kim Tae-sik’s faction was the first to agree with Seo Un-jae’s proposal to make Baek Seol-hwa a puppet and take real power in Pohang.

Ha Jin-woo also welcomed it, as long as the Dragon Priestess was Pohang’s puppet rather than Gyeongju’s, regardless of who she was, so when Kim Tae-sik agreed first, Ha Jin-woo quickly followed suit.

They had already heard through Seo Un-jae that Baek Seol-hwa had severe disabilities, but in this apocalypse, weren’t such disabilities a common sight?

They were a bit concerned about Baek Seol-hwa’s age, but Seo Un-jae would take the blame as the representative, and Ha Jin-woo and Kim Tae-sik would only be criticized for a day or two before everyone closed their mouths.

‘If I can become the absolute ruler of Pohang instead of the lost military authority, I can make up for the losses to the cult. Perhaps I can even regain the lost military authority.’

‘Being the leader of Pohang. That’s tempting.’

‘Don’t they know this will all come back as karma later?’

Ha Jin-woo and Kim Tae-sik, these two, expressed their desires and didn’t hesitate to reveal their dark intentions.

Before the apocalypse, they might have hesitated to reveal their dark intentions for the sake of morality, ethics, face, or honor they had learned through education.

However, after more than five months of the apocalypse, patience had reached its limit, and the morality and ethics that humans should have had long been thrown in the trash.

Rather, it was Seo Un-jae, a politician who had to care about numerous criticisms and gazes from the public, who maintained his conscience and morality without much wavering even during the apocalypse.

“The mayor is entering.”

“Son Sang-hui has arrived.”

“Ha. At least that girl seems to have loyalty.”

When Son Sang-hui knocked and entered the conference room, the two representatives evaluated that she at least had a conscience.

They thought they wouldn’t see her face anymore since she had moved to the Balhut Cult, but they didn’t expect her to come here to keep her loyalty to Baek Seol-hwa.

‘It’s over.’

Seo Un-jae sensed that once Baek Seol-hwa appeared, he would be publicly humiliated by Ha Jin-woo and Kim Tae-sik, so he lowered his head and closed his eyes.

Although this fact had already been communicated and negotiations had been completed internally, those two wouldn’t miss the opportunity to beat him up so spectacularly.

It was no different from a staged WWE match, but Seo Un-jae anticipated that his camp would be overshadowed by those two for a while, so he waited for Baek Seol-hwa to enter, but…

“Huh?”

“Who is that?”

“That’s…”

Seeing the person who actually entered, the representatives of Pohang’s Three Major Camps could only swallow their breath.

How could they not?

The Baek Seol-hwa who entered the conference room following Son Sang-hui’s guidance was not the Baek Seol-hwa they knew.

“Didn’t they say her eyes and face had melted? But who is that?”

“I clearly heard she had a leg disability. Seo Un-jae, did you deceive us?”

“That’s impossible. Didn’t you all verify it yourselves?”

At first, they expressed doubt.

They had clearly heard that her eyes and face had melted, and that her legs were impaired.

That’s why they all agreed to make Baek Seol-hwa the mayor, with the plan to use her as a puppet.

Kim Tae-sik and Ha Jin-woo immediately glared at Seo Un-jae, the person responsible for this matter, as if asking if he had betrayed them, but Seo Un-jae felt wronged about this.

He had already informed them about everything that had been decided internally and had even had it verified.

Once she went to the Balhut Cult, this matter was out of his hands, and he didn’t want to take responsibility for something unrelated to him.

“Hehe. You all seem surprised.”

But they couldn’t forget the voice of Baek Seol-hwa, Pohang’s strongest Awakened.

Entering the conference room with a brazen smile and a gallant appearance, Baek Seol-hwa proudly stood against Pohang’s Three Major Camps.

Though her appearance was somewhat different, her behavior was exactly that of Baek Seol-hwa from her days as the survivor camp leader that Pohang’s Three Major Camps had seen.

“Today, I have been elected by Pohang and appointed as the Priestess of Lord Bahamut and the mayor of Pohang, Baek Seol-hwa.”

Baek Seol-hwa, wearing the same ceremonial robes as Choi Yu-na, calmly greeted the representatives of Pohang’s Three Major Camps.

Her youthful face, sky-blue hair tied in a ponytail, and brightly glowing blue eyes were striking.

“As the Priestess of Lord Bahamut, I will strive to bring paradise to Pohang.”

‘So this is what it meant!’

Only then did Seo Un-jae understand the meaning of what Park Cheol-gon had told him.

That contracting with a dragon was beyond what an ordinary human could handle.

‘Why do they call Bahamut a Dragon God! It’s because he possesses overwhelming power that can’t be explained by human common sense!’

How could the cult worship Bahamut as a god?

Even to cult members, Bahamut possessed power comparable to that of a god, which is why they worshipped him as such without hesitation.

And because they had dared to judge the Dragon God with human perception, they naturally faced the consequences.

“But, those were injuries that couldn’t be healed with healing arts?”

“All of this is Lord Bahamut’s grace. I have received eyes to see the world once again.”

Injuries that would have killed an ordinary person meant nothing to Bahamut.

Perfectly recovered and returned as Pohang’s strongest Awakened, she, with blue eyes rare for Koreans, slowly opened her mouth.

“And no more deception will work on me.”

And those blue eyes were sharply glaring at the representatives of Pohang’s Three Major Camps.