The Hearth That Asks No Questions
"I'm dying. I am actually going to die laughing. The second I get home, I'm joining Lord Gaon's fan club..."
"That's enough, all right? We've had our fill of the show — now get back to work. Ah, the Chairwoman's next orders... pull the undead legion back..."
"Yes? Yes. I'll take care of it right away."
The junior staffer followed the instruction, but her eyes never left the monitor. As far as she was concerned, the Swordmaster they had stumbled upon was well worth every stolen glance — whether for how stunning he looked, or for how spectacularly his behavior failed to match that face.
And they were not the only ones watching the swordsman from afar with such interest.
Not from the ground. From the heavens.
"Truly remarkable. His skill has leapt forward in a single instant, has it not? Your Great Warrior's very existence is a miracle even by the lofty standards of Heaven, O Hearth. Putting that magician to work has paid off beyond all measure. I confess I expected little when we first set him to the task."
"To have commanded that mage to such cruelty was a great sin, War. Against the mage, and against those boys. Heaven has committed a terrible crime."
"If someone desires warmth, the Goddess of the Hearth shall offer them a hearth. Without asking whether the one who sits before it is a defeated man. Without asking from what they have fled."
So spoke the Goddess of Fire and Hearth, and the God of Swords and War sighed.
Twenty minutes after the battle ended, a skull appeared without warning in midair before the gathered Rankers.
They had already witnessed an entrance like this once today, but they were startled all over again.
Fortunately, the lich's purpose was a peaceful one.
"Ah... so you're pulling out? Along with the army?"
"Well, very..."
The lich's eye-fires gleamed with delight. He was, in fact, genuinely happy.
During the Second World War, the liches under Kashad had eagerly inserted themselves into the Earthlings' conflicts, multiplying their casualties. Or they had stood with the people of As and fought the Earthlings, and killed them.
It was not merely to gather corpses for use as troops. It was an effort to be recognized as members of As society. And the effort paid off. However horrific the undead might be, they were still preferable to demons — and on that logic, the people of As eventually agreed to supply Kashad with corpses. They even abandoned the funeral custom of cremation, which had been practiced specifically to keep the dead from rising.
On top of that, the Soviet Union provided them with weapons, to be used in driving back the imperialists. Weapons plus troops made an army: the first undead army in the history of As. Backed by that military power, they eventually succeeded in founding a nation of their own.
It was a glory they could never have dreamed of in the old days, when they had been cooped up in caves and underground with the vampires. All of it thanks to the leadership of His Majesty Kashad — or Comrade General Secretary.
In accordance with Kashad's will, the liches would continue to fight for As. They would kill Earthlings and turn their corpses into minions. And in the end, they would knock upon the gates of Heaven — until the gods who had need of a half-dead army opened those gates to them.
Muttering with an emotion far too joyful for an NPC, the lich vanished.
Lee Hyun-woo found himself recalling a piece of historical knowledge.
So in the end, the only victors of the Second World War were the undead — and they want a Third World War more than anyone?
With a Third World War now approaching, it was no small thing for an NPC in a game created by As to deliver a line like that. Lee Hyun-woo started to ponder the meaning of it, then stopped. War or no war, the immediate priority was postwar cleanup.
"The machine guns and the fortifications are all wrecked... At least the field artillery is more or less intact, which is a relief. It's all thanks to you, sir."
Kang Joo-seok said this and bowed deeply, the other guild members following suit. Gaon grinned.
"Don't call me 'sir.' Just call me Gaon."
"Gaon? Come to think of it... you're not actually a real Swordmaster, are you?"
"Absolutely not."
The praise continued after that. Ordinarily, Gaon would have put on a stern face and pretended to be uninterested in the compliments. But right now, he genuinely seemed to be in a good mood. He just kept smiling — so pleasantly that, to an outside observer, he might even have looked a little ridiculous.
But not a single person here would dare take that swordsman lightly. This was the man who had gone toe-to-toe with a Swordmaster for nearly an hour. Everyone present was learning for the first time that a single individual could stand out so brilliantly on a battlefield.
So that guy can torch over a thousand people by himself in real life, and even if he can't beat a Swordmaster, he can at least go blow for blow with one. He's a real monster...
Lee Bok-dong had given up on feeling inferior to this man from As, or on admiring him. Inferiority and admiration were things you felt toward someone in a similar league. So his inferiority and his admiration turned toward more realistic figures — people who hadn't pulled off anything as transcendent as that As-born, but who had still stood out plenty.
Lee Bok-dong spoke to the Rankers.
"You were truly incredible... I heard the snipers among your teammates actually put bullets in Ban Ji-sung's chest?"
"Yeah, well."
"That's a feat nobody else managed."
"A feat? We didn't even kill him. I'm half-suspicious he let us hit him on purpose, since it wouldn't have been fatal anyway."
"Even so. Nobody else could even touch him, and you were the only ones to land a blow... I keep saying it, but it's really an amazing thing. Do you think I could get there too? If I practiced?"
For flattery, it was remarkably passionate. So Lee Hyun-woo answered in good spirits.
"I can't guarantee it, but you'd obviously get a lot better than you are now, right? Either way, there's nothing to lose by working hard... so work hard."
Lee Bok-dong nodded furiously.
Meanwhile, Gaon moved everyone by declining Kang Joo-seok's offer to compensate him for the lost adamantium sword, telling him that their losses were going to be huge as it was, and that if they had that kind of money they should put it toward rebuilding.
Kang Joo-seok said:
"We've received a truly great kindness. So I promise you — later on, whatever you ask of me, I'll do it."
"Really?"
"Yes. Really."
With that conversation, everyone departed.
Everyone was satisfied with the results of the battle — everyone except Jijonmussang, who wore a hangdog look. The loot that should have been scattered across the battlefield had all been scooped up by the undead as they retreated. This time, there was essentially no income at all.
"Ah, shit... Contract or no contract, maybe I should just ignore it from now on? Honestly, heading to some other battlefield would be better. Fighting on their orders is a losing deal..."
But four hours later, Jijonmussang tossed his plans to terminate the contract with his employer and laughed his head off.
The employer was astonishingly generous. Citing satisfaction with the results, they deposited a bonus of twelve million won.
The dragon Ataraxia watched the footage the two employees had sent.
Watching the almost comical video of a Swordmaster spouting nonsense at an old friend who had died a tragic death, Ataraxia's eyes went wide. The footage made a certain speculation possible.
Confirming that fact alone was satisfying. It made hiring those two human men for far more money than they were worth feel worthwhile.
Ataraxia gladly opened her wallet.
From that day on, Lee Bok-dong devoted himself to training in the city.
Until now, he had trained only two hours a day, and even then without focus, just letting the time drain away. He didn't do that anymore. He wanted his skills to become as excellent as those Rankers'. He desperately hoped that as a result, he would be able to pull his own weight — that he would be able to earn money on his own, that he would be able to stand on his own two feet in the true sense of the word.
For that reason, Lee Bok-dong now concentrated on training for six hours a day. He even mocked himself that if he'd put this kind of effort into studying, he could have ranked near the top of his class, gotten into a decent university, and been working a proper job by now.
But for all the seriousness of that effort, whenever Lee Bok-dong looked at that man from As, he couldn't help wondering if he wasn't really trying at all.
What the hell is that guy...
Gaon, too, continued to train afterward. He swung and swung his sword at the swordsmanship dojo, and when he had nothing else to do, fourteen hours a day was the baseline. That much was the same as before.
What made the instructor marvel anew was something else.
At Gaon's request, the two of them sparred. As in the previous bout, Gaon won overwhelmingly. But the instructor's reaction was completely different from last time.
"This is a sword style I've never seen before, and the caliber is high. Just what in the world..."
The instructor praised it in terms of substance, and Gaon was satisfied.
In swordsmanship, one always distinguishes between the strong and the weak, the soft and the hard. The European longsword style the instructor taught was no different. Gaon had mixed those concepts into his own former movements — a swing that seemed weak, then turned strong; soft, then suddenly firm.
As he swung the blade, he held an image in his mind.
The image of a spark gleaming within the gray. A spark leaping up from the ashes. One that, if fortune favored it, might be carried into a hearth and become a true flame — or even rise as a phoenix and take to the sky...
With that clear image as his goal, he trained the newly acquired swordsmanship with fierce intensity. And he kept at it.
When you trained like this, there was always someone to interrupt. Until now, that someone had mostly been Jijonmussang. But now that Jijonmussang had come into a fortune of twelve million won and was feeling flush, the interrupter was someone else.
"So you're saying Ryu Si-beom got attacked and you need my help?"
At Gaon's words, the man dispatched from the Baekgol Guild bowed his head.
"Yes. Please... we figured you were the only one skilled enough to ask for something like this."
Gaon frowned.
"Why me, specifically? If you need a good bodyguard, ask the Rankers. I just met them — want me to introduce you?"
"The Rankers? No. Those people won't do. Korea is a gun-control country. You can't walk around carrying firearms in real life..."
"What's the problem with not being able to carry a gun in real life?"
"Well, our guildmaster was attacked in real life, so..."
Gaon, about to get annoyed, stopped. His eyes went wide.
"In real life?"