Chapter 49

Chapter 49.

There was no need for me to do everything myself.

I needed to focus only on the most important matter.

Stopping the Republic of Korea’s destruction.

The Resonar subjugation battle that would soon arrive.

The strategy for the Tower’s 94th Floor.

Aside from those two core objectives, everything else honestly... had lower priority.

‘We have to survive first, do we not?’

So I would leave the matter of Golden Mine’s assets to Kang Hyo-jun.

“Write up a business plan.”

“...”

“Answer me.”

“Yes, sir...”

I carefully put Golden Mine’s card back into my pocket.

Of course, I had no intention of handing over this card as it was.

When Kang Hyo-jun took charge of this foundation project going forward, if he requested a budget through proper legal procedures, I planned to pay it out after Snowy’s strict audit.

‘The owner should hold the key to the storehouse.’

I had confirmed the Hunters’ combat readiness.

I had confirmed Kang Hyo-jun’s damn impressive work ability.

And I had taken the first step in an ambitious new project for the Republic of Korea’s future. It was killing three birds with one stone.

‘An able person who achieves three goals in one step.’

That was me.

***

After sending Kang Hyo-jun back, since I was already out, I stopped by the Hunter Association to check on Han Seol-ah’s condition as well.

I took Han Seol-ah’s private elevator to the top floor, and the moment I opened the door and stepped out, I had no choice but to be startled.

‘It is damn cold!’

Tap-tap-tap.

I hurriedly hammered the elevator’s close button.

“Whew.”

If I did not have Synchronization turned on, I would have to stay away from the place where Han Seol-ah trained.

‘She is doing well.’

If cold enough to horrify civilians was lingering even outside the specially treated training area, then it seemed she was very diligently training the core of Frost Type magic: freezing things solid.

‘There is no need to worry about her.’

The floor immediately below.

I headed to Min Ji-hee’s operations room.

I passed Chief Secretary Song, who bowed politely, and entered Min Ji-hee’s office.

‘Whoa.’

It seemed Min Ji-hee had no talent for cleaning.

In this digital age, how could she need so many paper documents? What had once been a desk had become a grave of paper, and papers were scattered all over the floor as well.

When I roughly glanced at them, they were Hunter specifications...

‘Hmm?’

It seemed Kang Hyo-jun had actively received Min Ji-hee’s help with the Artifact build-matching.

The identity of the papers densely covering even the floor and walls was a set of evaluation documents listing the Artifacts I had purchased and the Hunters’ traits.

‘I did not know the Black Market representative and the Hunter Association Vice President were this cooperative.’

The Black Market belonged to the shadows. The Hunter Association belonged to the light.

I had thought the two organizations were hostile rivals that could not easily accept one another.

At the Association, I was the Apostle. At the Market, I was the Special One.

I had intended to split my traces appropriately along those two paths, but the lines had connected sooner than expected.

‘If the lines have connected, then they have probably already noticed that the Apostle and the Special One are the same person.’

They were both intelligent people, so it was a simple inference.

‘Well, it does not matter.’

Having them discover that the two were the same person had been part of the expected process anyway.

It was only a question of when. If I had intended to keep it hidden forever in the first place, I would have separated the movements of the two identities in a far more complicated way.

‘Why would I manage that when I am busy preventing immediate destruction?’

Even so, the reason I had deliberately divided my identity in two was to use it in situations exactly like this.

When my tail was caught like this, it served as the most effective shield.

‘The more intelligent people are, the more satisfied they become with their own insight after deducing that the two are the same person, and the more firmly they believe that this is the entirety of the truth.’

It was a kind of enormous double trap.

A trap that made one believe they had dug up every secret once they dismantled a single trap.

Kang Hyo-jun and Min Ji-hee were already crushed under the abnormal actions shown by the Special One and the Apostle.

The moment those two enormous personas fused into one, what they felt would not be curiosity toward the truth, but overwhelming awe and terror.

A monster so enormous that they would not even dare to dig into what lay behind it.

Once I created that impression, it was over.

After all, what mattered most to me was perfectly hiding the identity of Ha Seong-un, the ‘Awakening Failure’ crouched beneath those splendid shells.

Whether it was the Special One or the Apostle, they were nothing more than chess pieces I could abandon at any time to protect the main body.

“You have arrived, Apostle.”

“Mm.”

Min Ji-hee looked as if she had been caught off guard.

She naturally would not have wanted me to see traces like these, so it was an understandable reaction.

‘Ugh, is Min Ji-hee sick?’

Min Ji-hee’s face had gone pale.

It was exactly the face of someone who had been driven to the limit after working unbelievably hard.

‘...I take back what I said about her not being able to clean.’

She must have been so busy that she had no energy left for cleaning.

“...”

As I watched her with concern, Min Ji-hee smiled awkwardly, cleared her throat, and returned to her usual expressionless face.

“...I will report on our state of readiness.”

After that, I received an operational briefing from Min Ji-hee.

‘She really is good at her work too.’

She was a tempting talent, but...

If Min Ji-hee were removed, the Hunter Association would collapse.

Should I call her a pillar that could not possibly be taken out?

Or should I call her the single Jenga piece supporting the two pillars of the ‘Republic of Korea’ and the ‘Hunter Association’?

In any case...

Min Ji-hee’s expression, which looked as if she was about to die from exhaustion, bothered me far too much.

“You seem to need rest.”

“Pardon? Ah, no.”

“If you want to rest, you may rest.”

“Ah...”

Color returned to Min Ji-hee’s face.

It seemed she was moved by my consideration.

‘...I am not that strict of a person.’

On top of that, there was still about a week until Resonar appeared.

Originally, it should have been tighter.

I had assumed that distributing the Artifacts alone would take at least three or four days.

However, thanks to Kang Hyo-jun and Min Ji-hee’s insane work efficiency, it had ended in a single day, so that much leeway had been created.

“What about you, Apostle?”

“I gained a major Enlightenment this time, so I intend to train based on it.”

There were classes that had been unlocked after completing Lee A-un’s quest.

I had to check them.

‘All I will need to do is click around at home.’

It was not difficult work, but it was work that would take a fair amount of time.

“Then rest well.”

“...”

I had told her to rest this clearly, so she would take care of herself and rest properly.

On my way out of the Association, I met Jin Cheon-jin, who was rushing in, out of breath.

“Apostle.”

“Mm. Keep a close eye on Min Ji-hee.”

I firmly instructed Jin Cheon-jin as well.

‘Rest well and absolutely do not collapse, Min Ji-hee!’

***

Click.

The instant the office door closed and the Apostle’s footsteps completely faded...

“Haaaah...”

Min Ji-hee let out a long sigh like a boiling kettle and sank into her chair.

“Honey! Are you all right?”

Jin Cheon-jin rushed over at once, his face pale, and supported Min Ji-hee.

“What did the Apostle say to you...?”

“...Dear.”

In public, Min Ji-hee compulsively maintained titles such as Chairman or Association President.

For the word ‘Dear’ to come out of Min Ji-hee’s mouth?

It meant she was completely knocked out mentally.

Jin Cheon-jin carefully embraced Min Ji-hee.

Min Ji-hee gripped Jin Cheon-jin’s sleeve tightly.

“...He told me to rest.”

“To rest? Was that not his consideration? You have been working nonstop lately without taking even a brief break.”

“Think about what situation we are in right now.”

“Did the Artifact distribution not finish well?”

“Resonar’s advent is almost upon us!”

Min Ji-hee shouted in frustration.

Although it was a heavily suppressed whisper, lest her voice leak outside.

“The true crisis begins now... And yet he said, ‘If you want to rest, you may rest’?”

As Jin Cheon-jin chewed over those words, his expression gradually hardened as well.

Now that he heard it, it was strange.

Was that merciless and cold Transcendent the sort of person who would comfort her merely because she had built up a little fatigue?

Absolutely not.

“Then...”

“It was a warning.”

Min Ji-hee swallowed dryly.

“‘You are tired from only this much? How disappointing.’ That is what he meant.”

“...!”

Jin Cheon-jin sucked in a sharp breath.

“N-no way...”

“...That is not all. He saw the state of this room. He saw all the materials handed over by Kang Hyo-jun, and all the materials I created by combining them with the Hunter Association’s internal documents.”

“That means...”

“He must have noticed the cooperative relationship between the Black Market and the Association, and he must have known that I had deduced that ‘the Apostle and the Special One are the same person.’”

“...”

‘No way he laid the board that meticulously, right? D-did he?’

Min Ji-hee’s imagination began to run wild.

As someone utterly hopeless at complicated mind games, Jin Cheon-jin found it slightly difficult to empathize with Min Ji-hee’s fear from this point onward.

“And yet, without saying even a single word about that... he told me to rest. He did not care at all even if I found out they were the same person? Then why did he create an identity for the Market? Ah.”

Min Ji-hee’s movements stopped abruptly.

Jin Cheon-jin, who was holding Min Ji-hee, felt her body grow hot.

It was a phenomenon he sometimes saw when her thoughts were racing at incredible speed.

“I see. So that was it...”

“What was it?”

“...”

Min Ji-hee was silent for a moment.

“To show that he can create identities. And to let me know that identities like that hold no meaning to him. If that is the case, then his ‘identities’ have spread beyond the range I can predict.”

“...?”

Min Ji-hee soon stroked her chest in relief.

“What a relief.”

“...What is a relief?” 

‘...Incheon, Happiness Villa.’

Min Ji-hee had previously predicted the Apostle’s residence based on his movements.

She had even reached the thought that if she dug into the list of Hunters living at that residence, she might be able to learn the Apostle’s true identity.

But she had deliberately buried it.

‘What if I had dug all the way to the end?’

What awaited Min Ji-hee at the end of that path?

Exactly ‘what identity’ would it have been?

It was a trap designed so that she would inevitably be caught secretly digging into his background.

If she had fallen into that trap, how would the Apostle have treated Min Ji-hee now?

Just imagining it made all the fine hairs on her body stand on end, and cold sweat ran down her spine.

‘It is... terrifying.’

She had thought she understood.

She had thought she could see the back of the one walking ahead.

But at this moment... Min Ji-hee felt that what she had thought was the Apostle’s back was vanishing like an illusion.

‘And...’

“Training. He said he had gained Enlightenment.”

“Enlightenment?”

“Yes. He said he had to train because of it. That he would not rest...”

“...Hah.”

This time, even Jin Cheon-jin let out a hollow laugh.

He was an absolute being who had turned Pyongyang into an ice age in an instant and had faced Scathach head-on, overwhelmed him, and killed him.

An existence with such overwhelming military power had realized something and was going to ‘train’?

The fact that there was still room for him to become stronger was terrifying.

But that was not the real problem.

“It means the enemy coming this time is so horrific that even the Apostle has to train without rest?”

“That is right. And someone like me was whining about being tired right now. In front of the Apostle!”

Min Ji-hee gritted her teeth.

Even the Apostle was entering bone-shaving training to stop destruction.

And yet she, the person in overall command of the Resonar subjugation battle, would sleep? Rest?

That was no different from an act of betrayal, one that meant she had given up on survival.

At that moment, Jin Cheon-jin shouted as if he had suddenly gained Enlightenment.

“Ah! So that is why the Apostle gave me that instruction when he left...!”

“What instruction?”

“He said, ‘Keep a close eye on Min Ji-hee.’ I thought he was simply telling me to watch over your health...”

The married couple’s gazes tangled in the air.

“He gave me the heavy mission of risking my life to support you so that the Association would not be paralyzed even in an extreme situation!”

The misunderstanding swelled like a snowball and, in the end, even breathed a sacred sense of mission into the two of them.

Abruptly.

Min Ji-hee rose from her seat.

Her pale face from a moment ago was nowhere to be seen. Only eyes glittering with venom and madness remained.

“Association President. Go to the break room and bring me three bottles of stimulants and coffee with five shots of espresso.”

“U-understood. I will make it right away!”

“When the Apostle returns after finishing his training, we have to prepare a battlefield that will not disappoint him in advance. Chief Secretary Song!!!”

Chief Secretary Song, who had been waiting outside, rushed in breathlessly.

“Summon a meeting immediately. Tell them that anyone who is even one minute late will be regarded as a traitor.”

With bloodshot eyes, Min Ji-hee dug through the grave of documents and poured out instructions.

“We will not rest either. Never.”

***

“I should get some rest today.”

I even made sure my subordinates got some sweet, precious rest.

I really do seem like a good boss.

Since I am at it, I should rest too!

‘I really was busy...’

A gift to myself.

Tonight’s dinner is chicken!