Chapter 75

Chapter 75. Enriching the Nation, Strengthening the Army (2)

[A manufactured person. A truly fascinating phenomenon.]

Muratan murmured slowly.

Savoring each word at a leisurely pace.

He recited his impressions of the new iron he'd discovered.

[The Dream-Pharmacist is only one component among many. Even so, it clearly plays some pivotal role.]

A thousand thoughts surged through my Transcended cognition.

And for good reason—.

'They're mass-producing people?'

China.

The root of all evil that had turned North Korea into hell.

Grasping the reality of their situation made my mind go numb.

[Considering this thing called Awakening, it is a meaningful endeavor. And remarkably efficient at that!]

In theory, increasing the population raised the ratio of Awakened, and increasing the number of Awakened raised the number of Transcendents.

China had been publicly disclosing its Transcendent count on WorldNet every month, and.......

'They weren't just products of experimentation.'

China's reality surpassed my imagination by leagues.

Even the North Korean laboratories felt like nothing compared to the reality of "human generation."

They were artificially creating human beings, embedding traits into them, and sculpting entirely new personalities.

It was as though.......

[Sword Master, as you well know, in my world it was impossible to create the genuine article this way.]

Even in Raise a Sword, there had been deranged nations that attempted similar things.

Those who worshipped Outer Gods.

Fanatics who'd entangled themselves with those beings and claimed they'd become a single colony to achieve eternal life.

But manufactured humans had clear limitations.

[Earth may be different, though. Given the existence of Awakening......]

Muratan had gleaned countless insights from disassembling Ling Ling.

He shared that information with me.

'Ling Ling is just one specimen, so I can't know for certain, but......'

Awakening was an ability that could be separated from a human being.

Furthermore, humans could serve as mediums to apply Awakened abilities in multiple ways.

[The application changes depending on the human hierarchy of dominance!]

If you structured subordinate Awakened around a powerful host—most likely a Transcendent—a dominant Awakening caste system was born.

Conversely, you could link weaker Awakened together to manifest a single powerful Awakened ability.

It was similar to series and parallel connections, and.......

"Awakened abilities are all different—how is that even possible?"

[Contracts, most likely. Or if they've transcended the dimensional boundaries of the Dark Gods and Demon Gods, it becomes more than feasible!]

All that was needed was a medium to bind them together, according to Muratan's explanation.

The domains of Dark Gods and Demon Gods, partitioned into dimensions like Gates.

Or through contracts that followed the rules within those dimensions.

[I could do it more efficiently! Forging an Awakened human would be quite an intriguing project. Whether a soft Sword Master like you would want it is another matter......]

Muratan claimed "I could do it too!" and proposed transforming Korea the same way.

Obviously, that was insane talk.

'I get that he wants to show off that he could do it, but......'

If I actually asked him to, Muratan wouldn't go through with it.

For all his bluster, the man was enormously attentive to the weak.

Every time he called me soft, it was Muratan himself who'd acted soft and gotten his sword broken.

[Fourteen seconds. Sword Master, it is nearly time for farewell.]

Even wielding a Transcendent sword, this had eaten up considerable time.

That was how many secrets had been embedded in Ling Ling.

Muratan's Manifestation time was sixteen seconds. Two seconds remained—just enough to reassemble the disassembled Ling Ling and depart.

But.......

"Urk! S-Si-woo!!! Wh-what on earth is that horrib—."

Within my Transcended cognition.

While only Muratan and I maintained real-time speed.

Out of nowhere, Seol-a reacted.

***

Shin Si-woo had lost his mind!

Kang Seol-a had no choice but to reach that conclusion.

The sight of a human being disassembled into tens of thousands of pieces before her eyes made her head swim.

'He's not just obsessed with swords!!!'

Not long after Si-woo had Transcended, Seol-a had begun noticing that her own perception was sharpening.

And within that sharpened perception, all she could see were tens of thousands of fragments bearing traces of a human, and Si-woo in front of them, chatting happily with his sword.

'He tears a person apart that horribly and then stands there yukking it up with a sword?'

Ling Ling, the Chinese prisoner.

The Patriot would have publicly executed her.

But Si-woo had done something even worse.

The moment Seol-a "intruded" into the Transcendent's perception, she saw Ling Ling disassembled into tens of thousands of pieces.

And she heard a voice.

—Disassembling Ling Ling is a terrible violation of human rights.

—What are you going to do with Ling Ling? Tampering with Ling Ling's bond with the Party violates the contract.

—Ling Ling is......

The ceaseless chatter of a soul.

That voice kept rambling until, at the very end, it revealed its true will.

She said:

—Ling Ling wants to live. The Party is terrifying. Make Ling Ling a citizen of Little China—the Republic of Korea.

Flat, machine-translated speech.

Yet to Seol-a's ears, it sounded like a desperate scream.

Seol-a perceived the entire process with vivid clarity, heard Ling Ling's soul cry out, and made her decision.

"Urk! S-Si-woo!!! Wh-what on earth is that horrib—."

She was going to give Si-woo a piece of her mind.

Then put Ling Ling back together as a person.

But.......

CLANG——!!!

Si-woo struck with his sword.

In an instant, the disassembled Ling Ling was reassembled and returned to human form.

For some reason, Seol-a had witnessed the entire process as it happened.

Before she could even get a word out, Ling Ling had been restored to her original state.

THUD—.

Ling Ling collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

And Si-woo, gazing at her with that inscrutable look of his.

He asked.

"How did you do that?"

Seol-a was the one who wanted to ask questions.

But watching Si-woo stride toward her without hesitation, staring straight through her, the question died in her throat.

Under that intent gaze, she whipped her head away.

"I-I don't know!"

Internally, she mulled over Si-woo's question.

How had she intruded into a Transcendent's perception?

The truth was, all of it was the result of changes happening within her.

——You've crossed halfway over.

A voice reached her ears.

She heard it, but as always, she would ignore it and pretend she hadn't.

She squeezed her eyes shut and spoke to Si-woo.

She had to say what needed to be said.

"You can't treat a person like that!"

Normally, Si-woo would have fired back something about "the sharp-tongued handler" or whatever.

But this time, his reaction was different.

He simply shrugged as if it were nothing.

He said:

"That thing is an artificially manufactured person."

"Wha?!"

Seol-a's tongue tripped over itself.

What did he mean, a person was manufactured?

***

"P-people...... can be manufactured?"

At my explanation, Seol-a stared at me wide-eyed.

Muratan had told me how it was done, but what she was curious about probably wasn't the methodology.......

"How? Incubators? Cultivation?"

Wrong.

She was genuinely curious about the method.

"Based on what I can speculate, they're probably being born with various buffs applied in demonic territories."

"Buffs?"

Beneficial effects.

That's what a buff was.

The Supreme Heavenly Cradle blanketing the Republic of Korea was a type of buff.

The Patriotic Protection Barrier enveloping the nation—built from Mystery—was also a type of buff.

The buffs I was referring to were.

"My guess is they implemented things like fertility-rate increase and accelerated growth."

The kinds of buffs China was using.

"Th-they actually do that?"

"Apparently so."

Mysteries were the Omnipotent Metal.

In theory, things like boosting fertility or accelerating growth were possible.

But because we humans understood human rights and respected humanity, we would never do such things.

Even India, which treated non-Awakened as untouchables, drew the line there.

Yet China had gone through with it.

"If a country like that becomes our enemy......"

A shiver of genuine fear ran through Seol-a's shoulders.

I shared the sentiment.

There was something I'd confirmed for certain this time.

'They really do have two billion people and two hundred million Awakened.'

China was real.

While half-baked pretenders played their Awakened caste games, China had proven itself through methods that defied all sanity.

Two hundred million out of two billion.

The fact that ten percent were Awakened was already incomprehensible.

'Series, parallel......'

The horrific methodology Muratan had described kept surfacing in my mind.

Perhaps Kim Jun's coffins possessed similar abilities.

'Oh.'

That was very likely.

His ability to create Natural Awakened without trials.

If you treated the Gate environment as the trial and Kim Jun's coffins substituted the entire experience.......

'So that's why Natural Awakened increase without trials.'

What a relief.

I relayed this to Seol-a and told her not to worry.

"We can increase our Awakened indefinitely without resorting to inhumane acts."

Forty-five million citizens of the Republic of Korea.

What if every single one of them became Awakened?

"That's still way short of two hundred million Chinese Awakened, isn't it?"

"We have allies."

Japan was there. America was there.

Japan would be fine with our help.

America had Elon Mask coming back to do something or other.

There was no reason for us to be intimidated.

"As long as I have my swords, demons are nothing."

That wasn't bravado.

I meant every word.

"Tch."

Seol-a clicked her tongue just like Senior Prosecutor Kang and led me to the underground bunker.

According to the President, the Saintess of Fate—Im Ji-a—had just returned.

Once I'd collected my massive Mystery haul from her, I'd head back to my Territory and carry out the true reshaping.

CREEEAK———.

The Blue House underground bunker opened.

The interior, concealed behind massive Mystery-forged doors, was revealed.

I had no idea what Im Ji-a meant by a "high-stakes game," but.......

"I believe the expression is 'returning home in glory'?"

She sat amid a sea of gold, facing me.

Wearing those noble saintly vestments, with sunken eye sockets and gaunt, slender arms fluttering.

She pointed to the casino table.

TA-DA!

A staggering quantity of Coins.

Coins piled mountain-high in quantities beyond estimation.

In her hands, tarot cards were held in a thick stack, and at her feet, gold-bar-shaped iridescent metal was layered in heaps.

"Blackjack, baccarat, Texas hold'em, poker, slot machines—."

Every gambling game was recited.

After listing them all, she faced us squarely and declared.

"Mystery: 10,000 kilograms. Coins: 10 billion. Tarot cards: 10."

I, the Saintess of Fate Im Ji-a.

Have returned from the gambling world with a vast fortune!

"Wow......"

I wanted to offer at least a courtesy compliment.

But neither I nor Seol-a were any good at that sort of social grace.

We stared at Im Ji-a with lukewarm expressions.

"Take what you need. The rest has to go toward repaying the government loan......"

Our President would have at least managed a polite word of praise.

But I genuinely couldn't bring myself to look at that state of her and pretend to be impressed.

At the very least, I conveyed my gratitude.

"I'll take exactly what I need."

Imperial Citadel of the Ruzbella Empire—5,000 kg.

Since I already had 1,000 kg, I needed 4,000 kg more.

But factoring in everything else, about 10,000 kg was necessary.

For now, I'd take it all.

'And the Coins......'

Ordinarily, Awakened purchased their gear from the Shop—even the Patriot's full Nationalist Taegukgi ensemble was Shop-purchased.

But until now, I'd never once used the Shop.

Because of how the system was structured.

'Individually customized Shops for each Awakened.'

Aside from a few beginner items, the Shop also provided gear tailored to each individual Awakened.

The primary use for Coins earned through Tower raids or Gates.

'I'm already carrying endgame gear.'

My Transcendent swords possessed overwhelming performance that no Shop-bought equipment could hope to compare with.

The instant I summoned a sword, my own body reached a state of completion matching the sword's.

That was why my Shop had always been empty.

Even the Baby Sword I normally carried could be called endgame-tier compared to other Awakened' gear.

On top of that, the Baby Sword was a growth-type weapon that evolved alongside me.

'And now my armor is endgame too.'

I had to live in the bizarrely named "Training Robe" uniform twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

It might look a bit imperialist, but this was an item imbued with the Papal Rites and the Emperor's Authority.

Its toughness was beyond description, and because its name was "Training Robe," it even boosted the growth efficiency of both me and the Baby Sword.

I was effectively a Transcendent with a full endgame loadout.

So I'd had no reason to use the Shop, and the Shop had always remained blank.

But.......

'Things are different now.'

[Shop inventory has been updated.]

From the moment the World Tree sprouted in my territory, items had begun appearing in my Shop.

The notable thing was that these items focused not on "my" growth but on building "the environment I desired."

'Proof that my current direction is right.'

Making my swords Manifest on Earth with physical bodies.

As if answering that intent, the system had turned things from the Raise a Sword world into Shop items.

'If I play this right......'

In Raise a Sword, my swords could only exist one at a time.

In Iris's world, only Iris.

In Muratan's world, only Muratan.

Even when eras and settings overlapped, never once had two swords existed simultaneously.

But—.

'My swords are already living in one shared space.'

My world, the Sword Realm.

My swords, having reached the end, could cooperate and grow even further.

That possibility had already been proven.

'The demons Muratan modified.'

I was certain—if the swords cooperated more actively, they'd produce synergy.

Growth of the swords themselves was also worth anticipating.

Reinhardt and Yuria shared many similarities.

A harmony of supreme yang and supreme yin might yield something extraordinary.......

'Judging by the Fragment of the Absolute, it's definitely possible.'

Hadn't the Fragment of the Absolute already confirmed it?

When all my swords cooperated, they could wield the power of the Absolute.

The fact that the trigger had been cooperation to destroy another sword was a bit absurd, but.......

'I'll take all the Coins too.'

My idle thoughts had gone on too long.

I gathered every last Coin from the table and every slab of Mystery from the floor, then approached Im Ji-a.

She'd been triumphant just moments ago, but now she was gazing at me with glistening eyes.

"I-if you take all of that, what about my loan......"

I'd only meant to take what I needed, but it turned out to be everything.

It was investment capital to begin with, wasn't it?

If it weren't for the urgent need to build the Imperial Citadel of the Ruzbella Empire, I wouldn't have taken this much.......

'I'll draw some tarot cards before I leave too.'

The cards would probably tell me what to buy from the Shop first.

Still, I had a conscience.

"I'll draw exactly three cards."