Chapter 106
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: The Returner - [1]
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A few months later, I stood before the King of Sowol.
The King of Sowol didn't rule all of Sowol—he commanded barely twenty thousand people—but his unparalleled strength alone made him their king.
Still, a giant over 120 meters tall deserved that kind of treatment.
That's what I thought as I gazed up at the massive naked figure.
Procuring enough food for that monstrous size was impossible, so he spent most of his time in the astral realm, or so I'd heard. In exchange for meeting me like this, we'd promised to ship massive quantities of food from Korea.
From a height so towering I had to crane my neck even standing straight, Giant King Amaru spoke.
My Sowol interpreter translated his words.
"He says he has an idea of where the person you're looking for might be."
Amaru didn't seem to be emphasizing anything, but his voice still boomed like thunder.
Amaru spoke again, and the interpreter translated once more.
"He asks why you're seeking this man and demands you reveal your relationship to him."
That's what the interpreter said, but I could understand Sowol myself.
So I knew Amaru's actual tone was worlds apart from the polished translation.
In Incheon slang, what he'd just said amounted to something like, "Why you lookin' for that bastard? What's he to you?"
Not a shred of the dignity you'd expect from a centuries-old king—just the crude lingo of a street thug.
And to top it off, Amaru wasn't even wearing royal garb. He was buck naked. His hair and beard were a tangled mess, completely unkempt.
It wasn't just this giant king, either. All of Sowol's rulers were like that.
Only petty Earth monarchs bothered with lofty vocabulary or foreign tongues to set themselves apart from the common folk.
Sowol's rulers had no need for such pretensions. Every one of them was an Awakener, and Awakeners stood so far above ordinary humans that no fancy clothes or words were required to prove it.
You could tell just from that giant king's 120-meter frame. Even after seeing the far larger Behemoth, the awe it inspired hadn't diminished one bit.
I spoke, filled with reverence.
"Tell him we're old buddies. A Behemoth invaded our land, and it might come back. We need Kang Jun-chi to stop it. Oh, Behemoth's what we call it on Earth—might not ring a bell?"
Amaru rumbled back like thunder, in his usual thug-like drawl, and my interpreter rendered it elegantly once more.
"He asks what this Behemoth is that requires such a man to fend it off."
So I spent a while explaining what kind of monster the Behemoth was. Once I'd finished, Amaru asked,
"He wants to know if such beasts truly exist on Earth. If so, he says it must be a hellish place to live."
I couldn't help but laugh incredulously.
"Ask him if the Behemoth isn't a monster from Sowol."
"He says that upon reflection, he's heard legends of such a creature, but always dismissed them as myths, never believing they were real. And so... he asks how you repelled it when it already invaded your territory once."
I explained how my team and I had severed its tail and driven it off. Amaru bellowed in astonishment, "Sounds like bullshit, but if it's true, you're tougher than you look!"
"He praises you as a true warrior among warriors, though it's hard to believe."
The interpreter delivered that with regal poise, but his face was pale as if he might faint. Amaru's shout had ruptured his eardrums.
The sound had been so deafening that even I felt the pain—perfectly understandable.
For mere words to cause this much fallout? Truly worthy of a 120-meter gigantification Awakener.
And as a Hunter evaluating another Awakener, he was obviously...
S-rank for sure. Any nation on Earth would classify him as S-rank without hesitation.
Even a monster like this found Kang Jun-chi's presence unsettling?
The Sowol interpreter translated Amaru's next words.
"If you've come to retrieve him, he commands you do so swiftly. The sooner, the better."
Amaru's voice carried an unmistakable weight of unease. Mixed in were deep irritation and a faint undercurrent of fear—the reason he'd tolerated Kang Jun-chi's presence despite it all.
To a 120-meter giant king who'd lived for centuries, Kang Jun-chi was apparently such a burden that he needed to be removed from the area as quickly as possible.
Maybe Amaru had even accepted our audience not for the Korean food we'd promised, but just to get rid of the guy squatting near his territory...
After that, Baek Dam-bi opened a gate, and Amaru stepped through it and vanished.
Then we crossed Amaru's tribe's territory.
As we walked, we stood out starkly among the Sowol people.
Sowol natives were tiny even by pre-modern standards—none topped 140 cm. That made Baek Dam-bi a striking tall beauty here.
And me? At well over two meters, did they see me as a mini giant king?
Every step I took made the locals drop their work and prostrate themselves flat on the ground in respect.
Two months into enduring this, Baek Dam-bi still looked uncomfortable with the treatment. She averted her eyes from them, turning to me instead.
"We've finally pinpointed his location?"
"Yeah. Good thing we weren't heading the wrong way all this time."
"Ah, finally..."
Baek Dam-bi sighed in relief, but I cautioned her.
"Not out of the woods yet. The hardest part's still ahead, right?"
"True. Now we have to convince Kang Jun-chi."
She nodded firmly.
I spoke in the most serious tone imaginable.
"That'll probably be the toughest—and most awful—part of this whole journey."
"You think?"
"Absolutely."
No doubt about it.
My prophet's intuition warned of the ordeal awaiting me.
Kang Jun-chi... Convincing that guy to come back would be horrendously, unbelievably difficult.
If he'd really wanted to return, he would've done it ages ago. The fact he was holed up in a place this far out proved it.
Heading to the spot the giant king had indicated, my prophet's intuition became reality.
"Kang Jun-chi's in there?"
My Sowol interpreter nodded at my question.
"That's what the observations from the spirit realm—the astral realm, as they call the inside of gates here—indicate..."
I stared at the fortress filling my vision.
It looked carved straight from an entire mountain range of rock. Mountain-scale in size, and it appeared insanely sturdy.
Amaru, Sowol's king, commanded only twenty thousand subjects? The other tribes had even fewer. No way Sowol folk could build something this massive.
Even Earthlings would struggle. Especially with that moat around it—big enough to swallow a Behemoth whole.
It was a fortress that screamed inhuman, god-forged.
Local Sowol accounts said one man had built the whole thing alone. Terrified by the thunderous noises, they'd watched as it appeared overnight, then kept expanding and reinforcing into its current scale.
So one person did all this? Kang Jun-chi by himself? Even in a building game, structures like that took ages...
It spoke volumes about his power, the walls around his heart, and his wariness.
Before meeting him, I took a deep breath, rehearsing all the lines I'd prepared to persuade him.
I could've teleported right in, bypassing the fortress's defenses to appear before him—but that would've enraged him.
To ease his guard and show respect, I stood before the fortress and shouted.
"Kang Jun-chi—!"
Despite my warning her it might be dangerous and to stay back, Baek Dam-bi had followed. She plugged her ears and winced.
I kept yelling.
"It's Kim Geuk! Long time no see—let's catch up!"
After a few more shouts, there was a response.
Looks like Kang Jun-chi had been using an entire rocky peak as his front gate.
The massive boulder shot upward, and something emerged from beneath.
The next moment, a cargo lift with railings appeared, carrying a man aboard.
I widened my eyes at the sight of him. His features and outfit had changed quite a bit from what I remembered, but no doubt about it...
It was Kang Jun-chi. He was really here!
Soon, the lift brought him right before me.
The instant our eyes met, I knew my prophet's intuition had been spot on.
Kang Jun-chi's bloodshot eyes. The madness gleaming in those reddened orbs sent chills down my spine.
What the hell had he been through here? And the hostility radiating from him—what had turned his eyes into that?
A long silence stretched before he finally spoke.
"Why're you here?"
I forced a casual tone.
"To get you."
Then I braced myself.
I expected something like, "Get lost, or you're dead in a minute." I was ready with my rehearsed counter-lines for that.
"For real?"
"Of course..."
Kang Jun-chi wailed, his voice thick with grievance.
"Why'd it take you so damn long?!"
Words can't capture the shock I felt in that moment. I nearly passed out—that's the best I can describe it.
Dizzy as I was, Kang Jun-chi kept ranting.
"What the hell took you so long? You have no idea what I've been through! This shithole doesn't even have toilet paper! No substitutes either! I have to do my business by the stream and wash with stream water, but there's barely any big fish—just loaches and these parasite-looking freaks everywhere...!"
His pathetic whining unleashed a storm of emotions in my head.
Relief and anticlimax that things had gone easier than expected... and rage.
I had to suppress that fury. Seal away the faces of Kim Hyeong-man and Park Ju-heon flickering through my mind.
I asked him in the tone you'd use for a pitiful friend.
"If you wanted to come back, why not just come yourself? Why make us trek out here to find you?"
"I don't know the way back! I came to when I realized I'd gone way too far. Ask locals for directions? Language barrier. And every other person I see pulls a knife on me—these psycho blade nuts are everywhere! You know how many times I've run into those maniacs? How many times I've been ambushed in my sleep?!"
His sob story made it clear—no need for special convincing. Grab his hand and drag him; he'd pretend to resist but follow.
Hm. On second thought, I'd half-predicted this. My prophet's intuition never misses.
"See? I called it."
I murmured it slyly, ignoring Baek Dam-bi's glare.
With that, our two-month journey ended. All that was left was going home.