Chapter 158: Records of the Four Kingdoms

When martial arts and Kanora Church mix, it really becomes an unmatched hybrid.

But this isn’t the end.

We have to go further.

Namgung Clan must keep supporting us.

“Exactly. Thank you for accepting my request, great hero.”

“Hmm. Then, what does the Saintess plan to do next? It’s so dangerous… Will you contact Beijing again?”

Alright, it’s about time to give this a shot.

Anyway, these people in North China don’t seem particularly loyal to Zhang Guohe.

Looking closely, the Namgung Clan are people who act out of righteousness.

They couldn’t possibly like Zhang Guohe’s actions — trying to kill us, abandoning the people.

“It seems Zhang Guohe tried to kill us.”

“Kill you?”

“Quite the coincidence — just before the dungeon erupted, the Chinese army, public security, and hunters attacked us. Fortunately, we barely bought time, and then the dungeon appeared and swept them up.”

I shed tears.

The Saintess’s tears — the ultimate proof.

And while doing so, I handed over an order document that leaked from the soldiers to Namgung Cheolsu.

“How outrageous!”

“How could they touch Saintess unni!”

“Unforgivable! Attacking the Saintess just to protect their interests?”

The Namgung Clan was furious.

Now, let’s anchor this moment.

“Yes. So, regrettably, we must withdraw. We plan to travel from place to place and turn the suffering people into children of our Goddess.”

“We must help you, of course!”

As expected of Namgung Clan.

They accepted my proposal just because it’s for the people.

Well, maybe seeing the people’s misery stirred them too.

Either way, this was an unexpected gain.

We parted ways with Namgung Clan.

They would report to Zhang Guohe that we got separated and went missing.

The problem is — while I’ve set things in motion, I now need to check if it’s viable.

So I asked our smart 24th-century android, Ttaengchili.

“So we’ve kicked this off… do you think it’s possible?”

“Not impossible. Like you said, if we make a big enough splash in South China, they’ll have no choice but to withdraw the hunters controlling the provinces.”

“Right.”

Ttaengchili explained the current map of China and population distribution.

“If even Zhang Guohe treads carefully around the Namgung Clan, it means they’ve got real recognition. If they step up—”

“So it’s not impossible?”

“Exactly. China’s huge and its people are scattered. Namgung Clan should manage.”

“Can’t believe we might end up starting a new Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”

“Not quite. If we leave out Taiwan, it’d feel incomplete. What about a Four Kingdoms scenario? Sounds good.”

North: communists.

West: Kanora Church.

South: hunter federation.

Island: Republic of China.

Let’s be content with that for now.

If Kanora Church becomes one of the main pillars, chaos will erupt in the south on its own.

Then Han Sang-jae, who I dumped the Kanora Papacy onto, will handle things.

“What about America?”

“America? Haven’t thought much. As long as we don’t touch them directly, even if they’re shaken up, they won’t act. Messing with China alone is enough.”

If the worst happens and America targets Korea, branding Kanora Church a cult — well, we’ll have to crack some American heads too.

“Still, even if we stir things up, shouldn’t we cut the President some slack? Across the sea, there’s some lunatic shouting about the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere again. America’s even questioning Korea about it.”

“Why are they blaming Korea?”

“Because they must know Kanora Church originated in Korea. They probably suspect Korea brainwashed Japan’s Prime Minister. To America, this looks like robot arms and legs joining together without consent.”

“As expected from Ttaengchili — such a tin-can analogy!”

“Is that a compliment?”

Poor guy.

The President’s probably missing the good old days when he just had dumb hunter trouble. But what can he do? Our Goddess must be satisfied.

Even after that great catastrophe, Earth still has a huge population, including places like Ukraine.

Maybe it’s because the Demon King keeps attacking humanity, but either way, our Goddess wants more believers.

“Well, I feel bad. Maybe we should give the President a little gift?”

“What kind of gift?”

It’s not like I’m totally heartless.

If he wants, we can do something for him — as long as he keeps covering for our mess.

More precisely, it’s just a carrot to prevent the President from trying to cut ties with us out of annoyance.

“You all know, right? The President’s hair is actually a wig. When it got exposed before, they blamed it on stress-induced hair loss caused by the stupid hunters.”

“Ah.”

“So, we gift him hair. Not implants — real, natural hair.”

Natural hair’s always better than transplants, right?

Han Sang-jae would probably cry tears of gratitude and bow to me.

“Is that even possible?”

“Wait, does that mean I can get my hair back too?”

“Uh, Mr. Orc… you’ve been bald from the start, haven’t you?”

Would it even make sense? Probably not.

“That’s harsh.”

“Come on — I even showed off my luscious hair to our party wizard, who lost his hair to stress-induced alopecia after years of adventuring with us. I treat you fine compared to that. Anyway, you’ll be fine if you get hair again.”

“Possible?”

“For our Goddess, nothing’s impossible. Right, Goddess?”

— It is possible. For our hard-working Pope, I can at least grant that.

Our Goddess really is the best.

“So according to our angelic Saintess, we must provoke South China into action, right?”

“Oh, Cheonma-sama. Correct. That’s it.”

“But we can’t directly seize South China. That’s hunter federation territory, and they’re on good terms with other nations.”

Right.

That’s impossible.

And honestly, I don’t want to rule them. I just want enemies to smash freely.

But to satisfy our Goddess, I must at least plant Kanora Church roots deep in China.

“That said, it’s not a good idea for us to disguise ourselves as hunters from North China. North China is in such a dire situation right now that without hunters, they’re truly helpless. So they’re managing that area very strictly. We can’t provoke South China with some ‘coincidentally’ friendly North China hunter appearance.”

“Hmm. But there is a way.”

“What way?”

I flicked my tongue at the shrine maiden who asked with a dumb look.

“Anyway, Zhang Guohe’s hostile actions toward us are clear. He probably saw us as expendable, or wanted to use one to strike another. That’s likely how he viewed us.”

Honestly, given how things turned out, I figured this was the easiest way forward.

“Right.”

“South China is a loosely connected hunter alliance, so they feel they have to do something now. That’s why they keep provoking. So, let’s just outright create a situation where they must act.”

“Don’t be coy—explain in detail.”

Man, Battle mage really has no sense of tension.

I was just starting to enjoy the explanation. Anyway, it’s nothing difficult.

After all, our goal is to throw China into chaos.

And frankly, that would even benefit China right now.

Yeah, so it’s win-win for everyone.

“You think South China will just sit there with the front door wide open?”

“You mean, have them go after the North Chinese hunters on the border?”

At Orc’s comment, I flicked my tongue, just imagining it gave me a thrill.

Exactly—that’s the plan.

If South China captures all the hunters on the border, they’d inevitably push forward.

North China’s hunters get wiped out at the border—no way South China wouldn’t drool over that chance.

And while they do that, we quietly eliminate the dangerous elements in North China.

I’ll even harvest their souls. Sounds perfect, right?

The missing Canora Church rises to ‘help’ the Central Plains—something like that.

“Yeah. If the border falls, South China would be like, ‘Oh my, what a chance!’ and cross over like it’s their own backyard, poking into North China’s dungeons and flexing their influence. That’s the minimum. They might even push for outright war.”

“And when that happens, naturally, other regions would have to pull their hunters out, and the now ungovernable North Chinese land…”

“Would get taken over by the Namgung Clan.”

It should be relatively easy—if it’s the Namgung Clan we’re talking about.

Actually, they might even be more famous in today’s China than Zhang Guohe up north.

“Our saintess is terrifying. Returnees from major powers would love this.”

“They probably wouldn’t, though?”

No matter what, I doubt they’d want religion running a country.

Anyway, the bare minimum is to provoke them.

That’s how I see it.

“Mr. Ttaengchil, help us out then. Just tell us where those guys are likely to be.”

“There’s a magic stone mine near the Yangtze’s 3rd Gate. I hear North China’s Taiping Guild controls it.”

“What’s their guild ranking like?”

I honestly know nothing about Chinese guilds.

And Korea’s already full of useless ones—China probably isn’t any better, right?

Given Korea’s situation, China, with its massive population, surely has even more idiots.

“Uh, on the surface, they look good. Really good. They’re backed by Zhang Guohe.”

“Looking good but backed by Zhang Guohe—that smells fishy, doesn’t it?”

Zhang Guohe isn’t dumb, but he’s not exactly a good guy either, is he?

“Exactly. That’s why I said they seem good. Their dictatorship is so strong that while they have a good public image, actual investigations show they’ve committed all sorts of crimes. They’ve even dabbled in human trafficking over to Korea, it seems.”

“So, in other words, they’re the kind of guys no one would miss if they died.”

Even I can’t go after someone who’s squeaky clean.

Their souls would taste bland—like plain water. Not appealing.

Not that there are any pure types left these days anyway.

So better to go after the more flavorful villains.

Even the ones who died in dungeons weren’t exactly innocent.

“So we just bash them, yeah?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Wait, but there’s a problem. How do we bash them? Our own identities are at stake here.”

Good point.

If word got out that we’re alive and actively hunting people, we’d be in real trouble.

Might even get labeled international terrorists.

So yeah, we’ve already planned for that part.

We could just spawn a bunch of new dungeons using dungeon cores.

The dungeon we used to trap those Chinese guys a while back is still active, left in a wild state.

If we made a few more like that, China’s maps might have to be redrawn again after another upheaval.

Let’s create them.

That way, we won’t get caught.

Or we could use this instead.

It’d be nice if we had some slaves left, but they’re busy clearing out the ruins of Pyongyang’s dungeons, so… tch.

Anyway, I pulled out some masks from my pocket.

A bunch of them.

“What’s with the masks? You look like an actual villain now.”

“Just in case. Zhang Guohe’s so shady, you never know.”

Yeah, shady as hell.

So I prepared these masks.

“This totally feels like that thing from when I was a kid—you know, that hero show?”

Pixie, ever innocent, had stars in her eyes.

Even Orc, fiddling with a mask, chimed in,

“What, like those five—red, yellow, blue, green, pink—all gathered together?”

“Yeah, exactly, from that show!”

Right, right.

That’s exactly the vibe.

We’re like the force that wipes out evil, right?

At least, from our perspective, Zhang Guohe and his lackeys who tried to kill us are evil.

If this plan works, maybe we could try it in other countries too.

America, for example.

“Right? We’re defenders of Earth.”

“Feels more like we’re grunt villains, though.”

“Hey, that’s too harsh.”

This Pixie really needs to get smacked by me one day.

“Wait, what about this method? Rather than just capturing the North Chinese hunters, what if we also disguised ourselves as the Taiping Guild and took down some South Chinese hunters too?”

After thinking for a while, Cheonma suggested a new plan.

Oh—that’s actually pretty solid. Feels perfect, even.

If we do that, South China will definitely retaliate against the North again.