The Business Card
Lee Dowon was confident. The schedule was tight, yes, but he had already completed his advance research on Yuhyeon before ever setting foot in this place.
He might have come across as the type to sneer at all barbarians indiscriminately, but in truth he operated by a very clear standard: never disrespect the Tianyu Empire, and treat those who proved useful accordingly. The better an asset, the better the treatment.
Hadn't he ignored the Birang party outright, while going so far as to seat Shin Yuyu, an S-Rank hunter, right beside him? Granted, that was likely motivated by a desire for her divinations, but the possibility that the man simply liked a pretty young woman couldn't be ruled out either.
And if that's the case, he'll be all the easier to sweet-talk.
He had lived in America without ever once bending his back to anyone, yet here he had been forced to bow. It stung his pride, but he had pressed his forehead to the ground all the same. Word of how the Birang party had been seized—passed along by a mole he'd planted in the Association—had told him the basic procedure.
Before long, Yuhyeon's voice told him to raise his head. Now came the real business: securing the exclusive right to hunt in the gorge.
But there was one thing Lee Dowon had failed to account for.
"Hm. Who are you, again?"
"Lee Dowon."
"Of what guild?"
"Ignis."
"That name rings of no nation I know."
"Ah, that's because it's a foreign word. We're a massive guild headquartered in the United States, you see."
"A barbarian who sold his name across the seas, then..."
In that instant, Yuhyeon's name took on a faint orange tint. Hostility was rising.
"There's nothing wrong with it! We're a multinational guild—we trade actively not just with foreign nations but with other civilizations inside the Tower as well—!"
"Without your sovereign's leave?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I am but the Grand Marshal of Military Affairs of a single nation, yet it is by the Heavenly Emperor's gracious sanction that I extend my favor to you. Did you come here bearing that same sanction?"
"W-well, that is..."
Naturally, he had never secured the Association's cooperation. To be precise, it was closer to say he hadn't felt the need to.
He had charted an independent course from the start, with no regard for the South Korean government either—but he could hardly say that out loud.
The first rule of negotiation, after all, is to avoid mentioning any condition unfavorable to your side as long as possible. And since Yuhyeon proved even more devoted to legitimacy than expected, Lee Dowon swiftly pivoted to introducing the goods he'd brought.
Before overwhelming money, conviction cannot help but waver.
He was only human. Other civilizations that had initially been reluctant about trade had opened their doors the same way.
The Elf Alliance, once utterly submissive to humanity, had ultimately been unable to resist the crushing weight of American capital.
When they're being offered the entirety of Alaska, how could they refuse?
Ignis had been one of the guilds that led that negotiation. Lee Dowon flipped a switch and opened the container.
Inside were mountains of jewels and ornaments, and row upon row of magitech implements crafted from magic stones of at least second grade. When the interior lights flickered on, the dark forest lit up bright as a desert at high noon.
"This is the first shipment. Five times this quantity is currently crossing the Atlantic on its way to Korea."
"That is a great deal."
"Haha, isn't it? An entirely different class from the mouse-tail scrapings someone sent over."
He said this while eyeing a dozen-odd carriers. A few of them had cracked from the impact of bumping into the container moments ago, and a foul-smelling broth was seeping out from within. The faces of Moon Seoyoung and the other Association hunters flushed crimson.
"Does the Great General know of something called Lend-Lease?"
Lee Dowon understood exactly what Yuhyeon wanted. The annihilation of the barbarians, and the safety of the Empire—was that not it?
"What is that?"
"The Lend-Lease Act. Simply put, it's a framework pledging unlimited support to an ally. Ah—of course, 'ally' in this context does not refer to the Tianyu Empire. It would never be written that way in the actual contract, so rest assured."
Barbarians. It was regrettable that his own people had a foot planted inside that same category, but where the line was drawn was the prerogative of the one drawing it. And to press that searing iron rod into Yuhyeon's hand, Lee Dowon drew out the finest of the magitech implements.
The thing known as the God's Rod.
"I hear you rejected everything the Association offered, but one look at our magitech should change your mind. I've charged it with a bit of mana already—just hook your finger through the catch there and pull..."
BOOM! Yuhyeon pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation. The beam fired from the tip of the rod streaked between the heads of the Ignis guild members.
Behind them stood a C-Rank monster, a werewolf. Watching the creature vanish without even a corpse left behind, Yuhyeon nodded for the first time.
"The power isn't bad."
"Right? It's a prototype, so three shots is the limit, but if we used magic stones found only in Pamagok, you'd get dozens more shots out of it. Destructive power would rise several-fold, too."
The other implements weren't quite this level, but each was serviceable in its own right. Performance that couldn't even be compared to what the Association had airlifted in at rock-bottom corporate bids.
"Since it's secondhand now, you'll have to purchase it? Haha."
He tossed out the light joke and was about to quietly reclaim the God's Rod from Yuhyeon when, without warning, the man spoke.
"You said your name was Lee Dowon. Do you truly believe you know what I want?"
"Of course! How could I not! Drive out the barbarians and bring peace to the Empire—"
"A thousand years."
"I'm sorry?"
In that moment, Lee Dowon instinctively felt that the confidence he'd been carrying all this time might be wrong. A sinister suspicion crept over him—that he might have completely misjudged Yuhyeon. And every time the man opened his mouth, that suspicion kept hardening into reality.
"Drive out the barbarians, you say? They do not disappear. They were here when the Empire was founded; they are here now, and they will be here still, long after."
"I apologize. I didn't realize—"
"Nor do I wish for universal peace. The Empire has no need of peace. It must stand ready for war at all times."
"..."
"A bond that, once forged, will not break even after a thousand years pass. That is one of the reasons I turned my back on you and leveled my spear at the Togol."
And you must prove—not with words, as I have done, but with action—that you will never betray that trust.
"Ten years can reshape mountains and rivers. You rattled on about Lend-Lease and unlimited support, but can you stake your whole life on those words?"
"Yes, I can take responsibility—"
"You, who abandoned your homeland? Not just to me—to those who took you in, wouldn't you prove ready to betray them the moment your interests shifted?"
"..."
"Whereas that man—how does he compare?"
With those words, Yuhyeon turned his head toward Park Ingyu, who had only just arrived. He had crossed through the rift in a hurry upon hearing that the Ignis Guild had entered the Hidden Stage, fearing trouble.
"He staked everything on a single careless promise he once made. Unlike you, what he gave me was a single sheet of paper bearing a name and an official title—but its essence was responsibility."
Only two people knew how heavy that paper weighed: the man himself, and Yuhyeon, who had received it.
"And yet no matter how long I ponder it, you see me as nothing more than a merchant like yourself. To a huckster, there is only one thing worth saying. Get out."
"But—"
"Do not make me say it twice. You are displeasing."
His name turned red. A final warning.
Push his luck any further here and he might genuinely die. Judging this to be the moment to retreat, Lee Dowon ground his teeth and bowed his head. He was on the verge of walking away, nursing his grudge, when—
"Very well..."
"Ah, and leave that iron chest behind."
"Pardon? I thought you were refusing tribute?"
"When a thing falls upon His Majesty's land, is it not natural that I, His Majesty's servant, gather it up and clear it away? What has that to do with barbarian sentiment from the likes of you? Besides, a gift only gains meaning when it is placed directly into the recipient's hand."
In other words, this wasn't him accepting anything they'd brought—it was him collecting garbage that had been dumped without authorization on Imperial territory.
The sheer audacity of it—less a Great General than a common thug—made Lee Dowon's head spin for a moment. Hadn't this man just been lecturing him about responsibility, about a bond of a thousand years?
"Ah—it hasn't touched the ground yet. As you can see, it's flying along just fi—"
BOOM! The God's Rod spat fire, one of the thrusters bolted to the underside blew apart, and the container plummeted earthward.
"..."
"You've one shot left, I see. Anything else to say?"
"No..."
Struck speechless, Lee Dowon ultimately had no choice but to walk away empty-handed, abandoning everything he had brought.
Once the commotion had died down, Park Ingyu—arriving late as he had—heard the whole account from Moon Seoyoung.
Piecing together what Yuhyeon had said to Lee Dowon, it seemed to mean this: if Park Ingyu personally pledged to take responsibility, then hunting rights in Pamagok would be granted.
To confirm it directly, he approached the man carefully. Yuhyeon was gazing with a strangely forlorn expression at the kimchi broth that had burst from one of the carriers, soaking the surrounding stones.
It was Moon Seoyoung—still shaken by the terrifying things she'd just witnessed—who ventured a question first.
"What if the vegetarian barbarians come looking, following the smell?"
"Hm? Ah, that's right. They did, didn't they."
"?"
"Don't worry. They're all dead. Anyway—was there more you wanted?"
"Forgive me, sir—it's about hunting rights in Pamagok..."
It went without saying that private hunters vastly outnumbered Association personnel. The Association's own staff, already buried in other duties, could never harvest the magic stones properly on their own, so the plan was to open the grounds to general hunters once the outpost was complete.
Of course, a rigorous screening process was planned for that stage, to keep friction with Pamagok's soldiers to a minimum. Having heard the details, Yuhyeon granted the approval exactly as expected.
"It's your domain to manage, so don't botch it. Do as the Director intends."
"Thank you!"
At long last, a genuine door of trade had opened for the first time. As if all their efforts until now had finally borne fruit, Park Ingyu's eyes grew hot.
Yuhyeon had rejected their tribute offers again and again, and the Association had been at its wits' end—but had he actually accepted Lee Dowon's proposal, nothing like today's outcome would ever have come to pass.
He had never sworn loyalty to anyone in his life, but from now on, he resolved, he would work himself to the bone for the Great General too. And just as Park Ingyu bowed his head deeply with that vow in his heart—
"I will give my utmost until the day my term ends."
"Hm? Term?"
"Ah, you wouldn't have known. I'm already fifty, you see..."
Park Ingyu was a civil servant. Less than ten years remained before mandatory retirement, and his term was shorter still.
Hearing this, Yuhyeon mulled something over for a while, then made him an entirely unexpected offer.
"Is that so? Then when you retire, come to our side. I'll create an administrator's post for you at Pamagok."
"I—what? But my plan was to move to the countryside and take up farming once I retire..."
"Retiring over so little? These days, sixty is still young, no?"
These days—which era, exactly, was he talking about? Coming from Yuhyeon, who was still young enough to be green, it felt doubly absurd.
"Among my own men is one called No Chil, past seventy this year, and he still fills the post of Border Guard Commander without a hitch. The two of you can keep each other company now and then."
"Then—that is, if I were to go to Pamagok, would you mean that he will still be holding his office at that time?"
"Hm? Of course. A man can sleep when he's dead, can't he."
No Chil had cooked up every excuse under the sun to step down, but Yuhyeon had refused to sanction it. Still, he'd relented so far as to allow the transfer to the 13th Pass at least—and hearing this, one could sense a considerable obsession in the man.
"Well then, for the rest of my days, I look forward to serving you."
And it was at those words that Park Ingyu, for the first time, regretted having handed Yuhyeon his business card.