Chapter 200
Chapter 200
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 200
Chapter Title: New Branch
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“Then I’ll clean up these doyeoksini and head out. Kim, you handle the rest.”
Seo Cheon-seul hoisted his sack, dancing and singing as he swept up the scattered corpses and fragments of doyeoksini in Paju’s Samneung Tombs. Along the way, he tidied up the animal carcasses and other troublesome remnants.
All that was left were the neutralized cultists of the Gourmet Expedition Team, and that wasn’t something I needed to worry about.
So I waved him off with a relaxed heart.
“Sure. Safe travels. Give my regards to King Mangeum.”
“Bahaha! Yeah, but I’ll be back soon.”
“Huh? Coming back already?”
“Didn’t you say you had a gift for me? Gotta come pick it up.”
It was a promise with a goblin.
Unlike humans, goblins always kept their word. They’d remember it forever and return without fail.
“Plus, King Mangeum has other tasks for me. Even without our promise, I’d have to come back down.”
“Oh, so this isn’t the end of it?”
“Right. But I’ve got business at Cheongeum Hall too, so I won’t return right away. Probably—”
Seo Cheon-seul paused, mumbling to himself. Looked like he was calculating dates.
“Around tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Eh, too soon? Could be in about thirty years instead.”
That was goblin time sense.
They’d remember the promise, but no one knew when it’d be fulfilled.
“Bahaha! See you later!”
Seo Cheon-seul cartwheeled backward, still dancing.
Dong-dong-dong-dong—
The drumbeat echoed again.
“Ya-ha~ Eh-heh-heh—oh-ho— a butterfly asleep in the flower, flying off without a trace— a shadow glimpsed at midnight— could it be the thousand-gold dropped by the moon?”
With that song, Seo Cheon-seul vanished.
As if he’d never been there.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
A rooster crowed once more.
Far in the east, the sun rose, emitting a golden light.
“Phew. It’s really over.”
With the pouring sunlight, the spells woven by the doyeoksini fully dissipated.
Paju’s Samneung Tombs, which had tenuously balanced on the boundary between dream and reality, returned completely to the real world.
The barriers made from animal power, the traces of the corrupted doyeoksini, the apparitions of souls buried in the tombs, the loudly laughing goblin—all gone.
For a moment, I even wondered if the fact that I was a mad wizard trapped in [Cthulhu World] had vanished too.
[System: Penalty trait ‘Shattered Mind’ activates. You have 1 Madness point, so a random Madness manifests.]
“Tch, as if.”
Seo Cheon-seul had bound and taken the doyeoksini, but the nightmares and madness surrounding me were far from over.
“After hitting me with back-to-back garbage ones, give me something easy this time.”
The blood phobia following fish phobia had been pure agony.
[System: ‘Madness – Automaton Phobia’ is imposed on your mind.]
“Automaton?”
A vague kind of madness this time.
Easy to avoid if I stayed determined, since it was a trigger I could dodge. Still, no room for complacency—who knew what form it might take?
Thus, my final status summed up like this.
****
Kim Shin-hwa
Class: Abyss-Gazing Wizard
Level: 51
Magic Tier: 5th Circle
Madness: [Mask Obsession (Latent)], [Automaton Phobia]
Strength 5 + 4 (Embers of Bukrak Temple)
Vitality 7 + 3 (Fourfold Death-Slaying Sword (Rusty))
Agility 8 + 2 (Wings of the Night Veil)
Intelligence 30
Mind 18 + 2 (Necklace of the Body-Seizer)
Charisma 20
****
No easy rides ever, but this time the rewards outweighed the ordeal.
Finally hitting level 50 meant new powers, plus access to places and content previously blocked by level caps.
Not just that—I’d gained new items and forged new connections.
‘Above all, info on the other [Feast Offerings].’
Once my accumulated physical and mental fatigue recovered, I’d investigate that.
“Phew, alright then…”
I glanced around.
“Eek! You monster! Goblin! Don’t look at me! Don’t look!”
“Uwaaaah! Goblin! Goblin!”
The Gourmet Expedition Team cultists freaked out the moment our eyes met.
How should I deal with these guys?
“Eh, not my problem.”
I pulled out my phone without hesitation.
“Hey, Yeom. Can you report to the Alien Affairs Agency through a secure line that won’t trace back? Yeah. Say a bunch of people got attacked by extraterrestrials at Paju’s Samneung Tombs. Yep, nothing else—just that, and they’ll handle cleanup.”
Yeom Geum-ja.
“Huh? Cheongeum Hall? Hmm—won’t Cheongeum’s boss come see you personally later? Yeah, probably? Eh, I can’t guarantee it. But it’s got the boss’s word, so it’ll happen. Goblins always keep promises.”
A goblin’s promise.
To fulfill taking her to Cheongeum Hall, Seo Cheon-seul would appear before Yeom Geum-ja again.
“When? Probably tomorrow or—?”
Goblin time sense.
Maybe in thirty years?
No need to mention that.
* * *
Bald, round face with bumpy skin and a perpetual red flush like he was always drunk.
A man reminiscent of a grapefruit in several ways. He squirmed uncomfortably in his ill-fitting suit and spoke.
“So—”
At the grapefruit-like high-ranking government official’s question, the briefer tensed up.
“—what the hell is this Kim Shin-hwa?”
“Uh, yes. So, Kim Shin-hwa is the figure shown here…”
The briefer—no, the head of the Alien Affairs Agency—pointed at the beam screen with a troubled look.
A pitch-black humanoid shadow captured between dark buildings in Sejong City. Poor quality on a dim background.
It looked like a person stretched out—but was it flying up into the sky or jumping down from it? Unclear.
And dozens of floating, wriggling masks around that shadow.
“Okay, okay, I get that’s Kim Shin-hwa. But what *is* it? Some urban legend? Or a new surreal entity we haven’t seen before?”
The grapefruit official grumbled his question again. The agency head answered lowly, as if giving up.
“…Unclear.”
The other high-ranking officials flanking the grapefruit one suddenly buzzed.
Unclear? What, you don’t know? Same old crap. Jeez, what are we even paying you for? You kidding right now? Can’t do anything right.
Amid the murmurs, someone spoke up. A tall, skinny guy—like a cucumber, if you had to compare.
“Anyway, it’s not hostile, right? There was testimony linking it to the fish people earlier.”
“Yes. Specifically, accounts that a person named Kim Shin-hwa rescued someone kidnapped by fish people. Please see attached C-12 for details.”
The officials sighed or grumbled as they rummaged through the mountain of binders on their tables. This time, a broccoli-headed one with wild curls spoke.
“Aren’t fish people hazard level 6? The rating here looks off.”
“Correct. Code CD-2-35, commonly called Deep Ones. Estimated as a group activity, so per protocol, upgraded to level 3 hazard.”
“And sightings from 17 local governments nationwide—what’s that about?”
“We’ve confirmed Deep Ones abducted over 60 civilians across the country, and Kim Shin-hwa rescued them.”
The officials buzzed again in unison.
But does that make it friendly? Cultists are headache enough—now urban ghost story meetings? No solid intel?
“Forget this vague stuff. Got anything concrete? Like, real evidence?”
The agency head thought, *What counts as ‘real’ to you idiots?* and switched screens.
“Please look here.”
A front-facing photo of a cowardly-looking man in a fedora appeared.
“Name’s Park Kwang-rim. Chinese broker. Used to operate in Paju and Gyeonggi area, now moved to South Gyeongsang. Lately, he’s appointed himself exclusive agent for fixer Kim Shin-hwa. This is the ‘fighter’ he reps.”
Kim Shin-hwa’s photo on screen.
But blurry—only a bright red muffler around the neck and blue dobok visible.
“Blurry, sure, but head looks huge.”
“That’s the mask and sedge hat. Next screen, please.”
Screen switched.
“This is the most ‘reliable recent image’ of Kim Shin-hwa from Daejeon. Expert analysis confirms no tampering.”
A vertically long video, like smartphone-shot. Waaaah! Kyaaah! Bang-bang-bang! Boom-boom-boom! Graaaah! Noises.
Shaky footage from an unsteady shooter, then black.
“What’s it doing? Something shooting from hands?”
“Guns.”
“Four arms, though?”
“Suspected mutation or body augmentation mods. Confirmed wielding eight firearms freely with four arms.”
“Heh heh, mutant gunslinger, huh?”
“Daejeon City Hall announced 30 million won bounty per arm.”
Murmurs erupted again.
What? Mayor lost it? Off-the-record channel. That big observatory on the mountain in Daejeon? The one that collapsed recently? Word is Kim Shin-hwa did it. Serves ‘em right.
“And this person.”
Screen now showed a middle-aged woman in a thick coat.
“Who’s she?”
“Yeom Geum-ja, head of a crime syndicate operating in southern Paju.”
Some officials recognized her.
Oh, that woman! Bongilcheon crew? The drug trafficker. Pain in the ass. She tied to Kim Shin-hwa too?
“Yes, suspected ringleader in top-tier crimes like drugs, hits, trafficking. But recently claiming she commands a goblin named Kim Shin-hwa.”
Goblin? What goblin outta nowhere? Bad drugs? That scene’s always nuts. Well, Paju though.
Endless weird rumors, ghost stories, bizarre modern legends followed.
“Sounds hilarious. No other testimonies? Even I’d laugh at ‘three heads, six arms spotted in Wonju.’”
“Wonju reports of a golden-glowing body flying through the sky—”
“Stop! Enough! Now it’s golden bat? We know you’re a mess—shut it!”
“Pity.”
A woman’s voice cut in abruptly.
From a seat lower than the agency head’s—lesser status by meeting layout.
Yet the buzzing room went dead silent.
The grapefruit official waved a hand dismissively.
“Yang, team leader. What’s a pity?”
Yang Seo-ho, who’d silenced the room just by speaking, continued slowly.
“We’re just getting to the fun sightings.”
“Yang, team leader! Yang!”
The agency head pleaded desperately, but Yang Seo-ho ignored him.
“Recently, a new cult worshiping Kim Shin-hwa popped up in Paju.”
“Cult?”