Chapter 88

Chapter 88.

“Apostle. There is a problem.”

Kang Hyo-jun raised his hand and spoke carefully.

“Pandemonium’s Mobile Fortress. We have no way of knowing where it is.”

Kang Hyo-jun continued his explanation.

Pandemonium were the bastards who lived hidden inside the “Mobile Fortress,” said to be the crystallization of modern magitech.

It could freely traverse the sky and sea, and on top of that, the entire fortress was wrapped in optical camouflage, nullifying not only visual observation but even radar.

For that reason, among all the high-flying nations and organizations around the world, not a single one had ever succeeded in locating that fortress.

“Therefore, at present, a strike at the source is impossible.”

Kang Hyo-jun’s point was valid.

But I already had a guess as to where they were.

‘Over the West Sea.’

The place indicated by the Aggro Radar.

When I observed it with the naked eye, nothing was visible, but the Aggro Radar was telling me that someone there was emitting hostility toward me.

Doubting the Aggro Radar’s performance would be foolish.

Besides, considering that the Mobile Fortress was wrapped in optical camouflage, well.

‘That settles it.’

Just as I was about to open my mouth.

“I know.”

Min Ji-hee suddenly beat me to it.

“You know where Pandemonium’s Mobile Fortress is? How do you know that?”

Kang Hyo-jun turned to Min Ji-hee, looking intrigued.

I also pretended to be composed, but inwardly, I was rather surprised.

‘In my case, I can guess because I have an ability beyond common sense called the Aggro Radar.’

How on earth had Min Ji-hee found out?

“There was someone named Kim Min-seok... I attached a piece of bait to him, and in the end, he fulfilled his use by dying. This is information I obtained in that process.”

‘Kim Min-seok?’

That was the name of the traitor who had betrayed the country and joined hands with Pandemonium.

I had wondered what had happened to him afterward...

It seemed they had sucked him dry of information and he had died.

“That is somewhat strange.”

Kang Hyo-jun frowned.

“Pandemonium have spent ten years guarding the security of their Mobile Fortress with absolute thoroughness. And that was exposed by one ‘flimsy’ piece of bait?”

Min Ji-hee answered immediately.

“I assumed there was some intention behind it.”

“Then...”

“But even if there is an intention behind it, what obstacle would that be to us?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Min Ji-hee’s eyes looked straight at me.

“We have the Apostle.”

Min Ji-hee’s eyes were filled with trust in me.

Trust that this person would never make an incorrect judgment.

Or that this person would be able to solve any problem...

Absolute trust.

‘Ugh.’

While I had been packaging myself as an Apostle all this time, it was true that I had deliberately shaped my image so that I would look like that kind of being.

Since even the sharp-witted Min Ji-hee had fallen for it completely, my acting had worked properly.

It was an achievement I could be pleased about.

...But I could not simply be pleased.

Because it was also true that her trust was heavy.

I did not know what kind of being the Apostle had become inside Min Ji-hee’s head.

But at the very least, I was absolutely not some perfect, flawless superhuman.

And...

Even if the others were one thing, Min Ji-hee, at least, could not become dependent on me.

‘When I make the wrong judgment, you have to be the restraint.’

“Min Ji-hee.”

So this was the moment to use the advanced skill of taking one step back.

“Think, then answer.”

***

The Apostle’s eyes sank heavily.

“Think, then answer.”

‘...!’

Min Ji-hee was rendered speechless.

“Why did you choose to rely on me first instead of making your own judgment?”

“....”

The Apostle slowly rested his chin in his hand and silently gazed at Min Ji-hee.

“That isn’t like you.”

“That is...”

Min Ji-hee swallowed reflexively.

The Apostle’s point.

...He was right.

This was the path that would decide the Republic of Korea’s fate.

And before her lay countless branching paths, while the way ahead was so obscured she could not see even an inch.

—Choose wrong, and the Republic of Korea will perish.

Before that tremendous responsibility...

Until now, Min Ji-hee had been the one who made judgments without blinking and chose the options.

In that process, she had even looked at people as numbers.

If saving a thousand meant sacrificing ten, she had considered that the right decision.

She had saved many people that way.

In fact, a large share of the reason the Republic of Korea had repeatedly been saved from the brink of destruction until now belonged to Min Ji-hee.

However.

...In the end, the ten, the hundred, the thousand people she had been forced to sacrifice had remained in Min Ji-hee’s memory for a long time.

Remembering the names of every victim without missing a single one was also Min Ji-hee’s own form of apology.

Even now, when she fell asleep, she had nightmares of them crawling out of hell.

But Min Ji-hee had thought that was a burden she naturally had to bear as one of the people responsible for the Republic of Korea.

She had thought she must never show that it was hard.

Because before Seol-ah, her adopted daughter who carried the burden of “defeat equals destruction” under the name of Guardian, a fragile young child, she always had to appear as “Commander Min Ji-hee,” filled with certainty.

—That was how it had been before the Apostle appeared.

“That is...”

But after the Apostle appeared.

Min Ji-hee realized it.

How cruel and heavy the burden on her back had been.

...And the sense of relief that came from the fact that she no longer had to bear it.

‘I... was avoiding it.’

Min Ji-hee lowered her eyes.

She had tried to shift the decision she ought to make as a commander onto the Apostle and flee from its weight.

Min Ji-hee, painfully struck where it hurt most, bit down on her lip and lowered her gaze.

“I apo...”

The moment her head began to sink helplessly.

“Your head.”

The Apostle’s firm voice caught Min Ji-hee’s body in place.

“Do not lower your head.”

“....”

Min Ji-hee raised her head.

She lifted her eyes and looked at the Apostle.

The Apostle’s face was still expressionless.

What his eyes held was still... empty.

But strangely, Min Ji-hee read warmth in the Apostle’s indifferent voice, his gaze, and every nonverbal gesture.

“...From now on, do not bow your head to anyone, Min Ji-hee. Including me. To no one.”

“...Yes!”

Min Ji-hee straightened her posture.

She smoothed her disheveled clothes, steadied her breathing, pushed out her chest, and straightened her back.

She looked directly at the Apostle.

“Now, then.”

The Apostle smiled faintly.

“What is the countermeasure?”

***

...It seemed Min Ji-hee had regained her confidence.

‘That’s a relief.’

This operation.

For convenience’s sake, I decided to roughly call this operation the “Pandemonium Subjugation Battle.” Its key point was whether or not we could find the Mobile Fortress’s location before the terror attack occurred.

Since we already knew the Mobile Fortress’s location thanks to the Aggro Alarm, there was effectively nothing in this operation that could be called a crisis or variable.

If there was exactly one problem...

It would be the Pandemonium Guild Master’s combat power.

But when taking into account my own combat power, now that I had obtained Sword Saint Synchronization, this operation was not a life-or-death crisis.

So now was the best time to fix Min Ji-hee’s habit of trying to rely on me.

If the person who needed to slam the brakes on me later when my judgment was wrong or when a problem broke out was like this, I would truly be screwed.

“The terror risk must immediately be announced to the whole world.”

“You mean the terror attack involving the Eggs of an Outer God.”

“That is correct. The reason this is deadly is that the Eggs of an Outer God have the exact same appearance as Mana Stones. Mana Stone Power Plants, which are essential power production sites in the Hunter era, literally run on Mana Stones.”

Min Ji-hee’s voice had returned to its usual tone.

A calm, pleasant briefing.

“If a terror attack occurs there, of course the loss of life will be impossible to ignore, but in the worst case, a nation’s infrastructure itself could collapse, or at minimum become paralyzed.”

“One moment, please.”

At this point, Lee Hyeong-je raised an objection.

“Go ahead.”

“Is there really any need to do that?”

“...Could you explain in detail?”

“It seems to me we can view this as an opportunity to reshape the world order.”

“....”

Everyone held their breath.

To unpack Lee Hyeong-je’s words, it meant this.

Hide it.

However, provide the information only to a limited number of specific countries.

And then wait for terror attacks to occur, causing the infrastructure of the “uninformed countries” to collapse.

At first glance, it was rational.

In terms of national prosperity, the Republic of Korea was a country that sat at the very bottom.

The mountain was too high to climb honestly...

So he was saying we should knock everything else down.

It also meant he did not care how many lives would be lost in the meantime.

Sensing the sunken atmosphere, Lee Hyeong-je shrugged.

“Well, I am saying it is worth considering.”

I had felt this during the last business deal too, but this old man Lee Hyeong-je...

When profit and loss were at stake, he became colder than anyone.

‘Scary old man.’

Breaking the ice-cold air, one hand suddenly went up.

“How about this?”

Using the subject Lee Hyeong-je had raised as an opening, Kang Hyo-jun joined the fray.

“We keep it to ourselves.”

“....”

For a moment, a heavy silence settled over the conference room.

Three pairs of gazes, tangled with humanitarianism, opportunism, and extreme egoism, clashed tensely in the air.

Lee Hyeong-je wanted to release the information in a limited way and try to reshape the world order.

Min Ji-hee insisted it had to be announced to the whole world immediately.

...And then there was the extremist Kang Hyo-jun, who said not to tell anyone at all.

Watching the three of them exchange such lively opinions felt strangely moving.

This sensitive information that could decide Earth’s fate.

The Republic of Korea, of all places, the very byword for collapse and the nation once treated like a sucker, now held it in its hands.

Should they bestow a favor, or earn money?

Should they release the information or not? And if they did, how far should they release it?

What a sight, discussing the fate of Earth.

“There are things more important than money!”

“Ji-hee, that is why you are naive!”

“Naive? Na-ive? Mister, are you done talking?”

“Ugh, damn it. If we just pretend we don’t know and bury it, we won’t have to stress over it, will we? I need to go work, so let’s just roughly decide this.”

...The conversation was gradually racing toward extremes.

“Enough.”

When I raised my hand to stop them, all three of them shut their mouths.

The opinions of the three.

Each had a point.

‘Except Kang Hyo-jun’s.’

That bastard Kang Hyo-jun.

How could he treat this important topic as nothing more than, “Please roughly wrap this up and let me get off work”?

I looked at Kang Hyo-jun with that rebuke in my gaze, but the eyes that met mine were perfectly clear.

There was no sign that he was dead from exhaustion as usual, nor that work had beaten him out of his mind.

He even gave me a slight nod.

‘Aha.’

So he had made an absurd suggestion on purpose?

‘As expected of Kang Hyo-jun.’

He had used deliberate nonsense to throw more kindling onto the heated debate between those two.

I reached a short conclusion.

“Min Ji-hee’s method is correct.”

This time, Min Ji-hee was right.

Those bastards who have ties to Outer Gods are cockroaches.

If they are left alone, they will become an irreversible disaster.

Therefore, everyone must join forces and devote themselves to exterminating them.

Otherwise, they will return as a disaster that cannot be stopped.

“I will explain the operation.”

Of course, I had not merely been watching either.

In my head, I had been forming the “Pandemonium Subjugation Battle.”

“First, Min Ji-hee. Divide the information into three stages. Eggs of an Outer God. Degraded Entities. Strategy. These three. Of these, I will organize the strategy for you immediately after this meeting ends.”

“Yes.”

“Those three pieces of information... Lee Hyeong-je. You will sell them to each country.”

“Oh-ho. Is that the approach? Interesting.”

“Do not think of profiteering. It is enough if they can be certain there is a hierarchy in the value of the information.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Lee Hyeong-je stroked his now-smooth chin and nodded.

“It would be acceptable to proceed in a direction that makes them indebted to us.”

“As for harm to innocent civilians, Kang Hyo-jun, make sure to minimize it through Black Market.”

“Understood.”

It was nice that everyone understood quickly.

“However.”

But let us make one thing clear.

“We do not share it with the United States. We do not sell it to them either.”

“...Because they were the starting point of the terror attack?”

“Yes. Unless the United States expresses a ‘sufficient apology,’ we will respond the same way to any issue that occurs from now on. However.”

I looked at Kang Hyo-jun.

Feeling my gaze, Kang Hyo-jun flinched.

It seemed he had instinctively realized that new, brutal work was about to be added.

‘Correct, Kang Hyo-jun.’

“Humanitarian aid through Black Market is permitted.”

As a reward, I shall give you more work.

Kang Hyo-jun’s shoulders slumped, and with a deep sigh, he lowered his head in resignation.

“...Understood.”

‘That should be enough.’

When I rose from my seat, the eyes of the three people sitting at the table turned to me all at once.

“Apostle, what will you...?”

“I.”

The answer was already decided.

“I’m going to fuck up Pandemonium.”

“...Now?”

“Yes.”

Sword Saint, Ha Seong-un.

Sortie.