6 Days After Tetora Subjugation
Six days had passed since the successful subjugation of Tetora.
A Pyrrhic victory. We had killed Tetora, but the Alliance had paid a staggering price. Including the Awakeners who fought in the final battle, one hundred forty-one Awakeners were dead. The wounded were receiving treatment in Paradise. Without the hospital, the death toll would have been far worse.
Han Seol had slept straight through three days in the VIP room before she finally opened her eyes. According to Lee Kyung-min, every one of her ribs had been shattered and her internal organs damaged — the VIP room's power had restored her. This morning she told me she was well enough and asked that the VIP room be given to a more critically injured patient. I couldn't refuse. She moved to a four-person ward. Jui spent a single night in a private room, showed no abnormalities, and was discharged immediately.
Even in victory, the mood inside the Alliance was too heavy for celebration — the losses had been that severe. Across Seoul, however, the city buzzed with a single story: the Alliance had slain Tetora and reclaimed Namsan.
This morning the four supreme officers — formerly the Odujeong — requested that I strip them of their ranks and privileges. They wanted to take responsibility somehow. I refused and ordered them to pour everything into the cleanup. If anyone bore the greatest blame, it was me — the one who had made the final call with careless ease.
We investigated the burrows the spiders had poured from and found pillars and ceilings built of hardened spider silk, along with an enormous quantity of molted husks. I ordered every husk collected and the tunnels filled with earth. The spider-beast corpses — at least two thousand of them — began rotting at an unnatural speed the moment Tetora died, and by the third day they had returned to soil.
The husks and Tetora's fragmented remains were brought into Paradise. Jui worked through the night, feeding every last scrap into the Workshop.
Only after Han Seol woke did I finally clear my head enough to go alone to the mysterious room Lee Kyung-min had mentioned on the fifth basement floor. The moment I opened the door, a flood of information poured into my mind.
Four machines resembling advanced future scientific equipment.
Each machine contains one vial of liquid and two syringes.
All syringes replenish at a rate of two per year.
Without Reconstruction: two every two years.
The production rate was abysmal — and the drugs themselves were every bit as extraordinary as that scarcity implied.
① Blue Regeneration Serum — When the body has suffered catastrophic damage, inject into a blood vessel within thirty minutes. The subject enters a comatose state for twenty-four hours while rapid healing of the injured sites begins. Even wounds that are effectively fatal can be healed so long as a breath of life remains. Whether severed limbs can be restored if the serum is administered within the half-hour window remains unknown.
② Green Enhancement Serum — For one hour, every combat-related capability — strength, regeneration, defense, dynamic vision, and more — is massively amplified. When the hour ends, the body rebounds: the subject collapses into sleep and is effectively combat-incapable.
③ Red Healing Serum — Unlike the regeneration serum that mends battle wounds, this treats disease. Cancer and other illnesses can be cured. Even so-called incurable and genetic conditions appear within its reach. With the VIP room already available, this is the least valuable serum inside Paradise — but sold outside, it would command astronomical prices.
④ Awakening Serum — The alpha and omega of the Serum Vault. A luminous golden drug that turns an ordinary person into an Awakener. Combined with the Enhancement Melon, a trusted resident can be injected, awakened, and then fed the melon to produce a powerful Awakener in a single stroke.
Twenty days had passed since Tetora's subjugation. Han Seol's body had fully recovered.
Of the Awakeners who had come from Gangnam ready to die for a greater cause, fifty-eight had survived the final battle. They wished to remain in Gangbuk rather than return south, and the Alliance agreed to take them all in.
I summoned five hundred Awakeners who had fought alongside the Alliance officers, along with twelve hundred regular soldiers, to Paradise. A victory bought in blood was still a victory. For the Alliance's public image, we would hold a ceremony of merit and reward.
I would have preferred to call everyone, but the cleanup was unfinished and the logistics made a full assembly impossible. I climbed the dais and conducted the medal ceremony.
Processing Tetora's corpse and the spider husks through the Workshop yielded a clear result: one top-grade piece of equipment from Tetora's remains, and either twenty-five mid-grade pieces or one hundred seventy-five low-grade pieces from the husks. The top-grade piece already had a designated recipient among Paradise's officers, so that presentation would be held separately. We manufactured the one hundred seventy-five low-grade pieces instead of the mid-grade set and awarded one full set to each of the one hundred fifty-five Awakeners who had survived the battle against Tetora. The remainder went to soldiers who had distinguished themselves even without fighting in the final clash. All of it shared the same design — a black coat-style kit with excellent elasticity and defense.
Every soldier who died in the battle was designated a national meritorious person, and the veterans' fund would support their families so they would not struggle to survive. Grand funerals would be held for them in short order. Before I even had to speak, the officers had already contributed vast quantities of supplies on their own. The veterans' fund was stacked high.
After the medals, we held a banquet in the domain. One by one, the officers of Paradise and the Alliance came to me and offered sincere apologies for putting their names on the subjugation request. I rebuked them for getting carried away after the Moon Dancer and Silver Form hunts and pushing a reckless plan against Tetora — then admitted that the final decision had been mine, and the greatest fault was mine. I told them to take this as fertilizer and grow from it. Had the Tetora subjugation failed, the Alliance would have dissolved on the spot. From now on, I doubted any officer would casually raise the subject of hunting a named beast again.
"Hmm… huh?"
New Title Acquired: Lord of Namsan
Held Titles: Count of Paradise, Lord of Namsan
I had finished the banquet the night before, returned to the residence, and gone to bed early. When I opened my eyes, the message was waiting.
"Lord of… Namsan?"
A strange, half-familiar feeling settled over me.
"Do-hyun! Do-hyun!"
Han Seol was calling me, knocking on the door.
"Come in."
She entered looking flustered.
"I— I just received a call from the Alliance side…"
"What's with that face? Is it serious?"
"It's…! At the site where Namsan Tower used to stand—!"
I swallowed dryly.
"They say a barrier has appeared…"
"What?"
I headed for Namsan at once by drone.
"Marshal!"
"Ah… hmm. So that's how it is."
The soldiers stationed on Namsan saluted at the sight of the drone. The ruins where Namsan Tower had stood were now flat ground, and centered on that spot a new grid of nine sectors — three by three — had formed. Unlike Paradise's bluish barrier, this one glowed green. The soldiers who had been present that morning said a sudden flash of light had flung them outside the barrier. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
The moment I looked at the new barrier on Namsan, information flowed into my mind.
"So that's what Lord of Namsan meant."
Namsan had become my new territory. And a new function unlocked through Reconstruction Points: for fifty points, a building could be restored instantly. In Paradise, where construction drones existed, the feature was useless — but inside Namsan's barrier, drone-based restoration was impossible. Here, only points could rebuild.
I convened the officers at once. Using this place as a kind of military base made sense. If war came, we could fight a siege not only from Paradise but from Namsan as well. My proposal to turn Namsan — centered on the barrier — into a military base and supply depot was adopted. The Alliance officers agreed.
"The points do feel a little wasteful…"
I treated it as an investment in the future and began restoration immediately. Fifty points raised a residence in the center sector. Fifty more raised a hospital in the First Western Sector. Another twenty points went into Reconstructing the residence. Paradise Domain — Namsan now held a Level 2 residence and a hospital.
When we discussed who from the Alliance would stay, the number of volunteers was unexpectedly huge — sorting them was a headache. Unlimited water and electricity, a safe house, and a hospital that could treat most injuries were powerful draws. Stationing here also meant becoming a garrison force on the Alliance Marshal's own land, which only added to the appeal.
In the end we settled on sixty permanent residents: the four supreme officers each contributing three of their subordinates, thirty more drawn from among the officers' own people, fifteen from smaller groups, and three doctors. All sixty received citizenship. The eight hundred twenty soldiers still stationed on Namsan for cleanup work were issued one-month passes.
Unlike Paradise's solid black citizenship cards, these bore a distinctive design — black with three green stripes.
I named myself administrator of Namsan and appointed Im Jui as deputy. Of course, neither of us would actually live there, so the titles were nominal. From among the sixty, a vote selected a representative: a soldier named Lee Pil-seong, who had fought with distinction in both the Silver Form and Tetora subjugations. His loyalty was naturally one hundred percent. I ordered him to manage the place in Jui's and my stead and granted him the authority to issue passes.
This power was starting to unsettle me. Barriers had appeared not only in Paradise but elsewhere. Some condition had been met and dominion over Namsan had passed to me — but if killing Tetora was the condition, why had the new ability unlocked more than twenty days after the successful hunt? I had no idea.
Either way, drinking water, device charging, and medical treatment were now available there as well. Artillery pieces would be moved over soon. If war came, this would make an extremely useful strategic strongpoint.
"You summoned me, sir."
"Yeah. Sit down."
"Pardon? Ah… yes, sir!"
Every officer had gathered at the hospital. Lee Kyung-min sat in the chair looking bewildered by my order.
"We had a lot of patients this time, didn't we? You worked yourself to the bone every night on medical duty. Thank you."
"Not at all! Everything is thanks to Your Excellency's grace!"
I drew a vial of golden liquid and a syringe from my inner pocket and set them in front of Lee Kyung-min.
"You've seen this before?"
"Yes — isn't this the drug from the fifth basement floor?"
"Yeah. I was wondering who to give it to. Of course it had to be the hospital director."
The truth was, running a hospital in wartime had always left me uneasy about one thing: what if a patient suddenly went berserk inside the building? Especially during a subjugation like this one, when every officer was on the battlefield — if someone rioted, there would be no answer. Even if I ordered an expulsion, they could hurt people before the system threw them out. At minimum, the hospital director needed to be able to suppress a rampaging patient by force. Only then would I sleep easy.
"Inject this and even an ordinary person becomes an Awakener. I'm not forcing you. Choose."
Lee Kyung-min answered without a second of hesitation.
"Your Excellency! Thank you! I will carve this grace into my bones!"
"Good."
Just in case, we all moved to the operating room together. Lee Kyung-min filled the syringe, then drove the needle into his own arm. The golden serum traveled down the barrel and into his veins.