Over the Fence!
Contracts with evil gods were springing up in China en masse.
But Rune said they weren't all serving the same sponsor.
"Why not?"
"For one thing, a true god would never make this many contracts. If someone bound to a god dies, it deals the god real harm."
So that was the reasoning.
Say a god chose a saintess as its champion—and that saintess fell from grace. The god would take the blow.
Yet in China right now, countless new contractors were appearing by the day.
"Think of it in terms of Omnissiah. Would Omnissiah ever personally offer sponsorship to all these different people? Or would it rather..."
"The Bloody Screw."
"Precisely. Most likely they've contracted with transcendents who survive by feeding on divine essence. For such beings, a contract is a chance to curry favor with their god while simultaneously spreading their own existence."
When you looked at it that way, it all fit.
They all served the same god, so even if their abilities differed in the details, the overall mold would be identical.
The entity that had threatened me before was also called [The Bloody Screw]—a machine-themed name, after all.
In other words, China had, quite literally, been devoured by the factions of an evil god.
"And there's another thing. We believe there's a high probability that this evil god is the same one invading Planet All-One. Wouldn't you agree?"
"You would."
"If that's the case, then it makes sense—busy as it is over there, it must have deployed its underlings to this world in force."
"Definitely... I need to run this hypothesis by Belzer."
We traded guesses all the way back to the guild, where we found Belzer hard at work collecting information.
He was commanding his electronic soldiers, rushing from one task to the next.
"What's got you so busy?"
"Ah, that would be this. The power brokers inside China have caught wind of the coup."
"And what are we doing about it?"
"Well... the coup is confirmed for roughly two weeks from now. It will begin the moment the President kills the Chairman of North Korea."
Belzer handed Shan Humang a list of the power players who had caught wind of the coup.
For the record, Shan Humang was the man who had contacted us before. We already knew his name, but he introduced himself again anyway.
"My name is Shan Humang. Might I ask yours?"
"My name is Belzer."
"I see... when this coup is over, I should very much like to share a drink with you. When that day comes, I hope we may call each other friends. Of course, your lord is welcome as well."
He already knew Belzer was nothing more than our point of contact.
More precisely, he knew there was someone else we answered to.
Shan Humang cut the call with a line worthy of a Three Kingdoms epic.
We hadn't spoken since—everyone was busy—but the information kept flowing to him steadily.
Shan Humang was a rare thing: an awakened conscience in China. A righteous man.
"Frankly, it's a relief that Shan Humang's the one grabbing power."
"Agreed. The other side has no cause like his—they're only in it for themselves."
Of course, Shan Humang was launching his coup out of personal vengeance too, but his ideology was to make China into a better nation.
Many had been moved by him, which was why his faction was the larger of the two—though the opposition was hardly small either.
"Any chance the other faction betrays him?"
"Almost none. The most likely window would be after the coup succeeds, when it's time to consolidate the new government."
"...If he gets betrayed, I'm not bailing him out."
"Understood."
To us, Shan Humang was just another piece on the board.
So there was no reason to go out of our way for him.
"Anyway, Rune. Tell them what you told me earlier."
"Of course."
Rune relayed her earlier intel to Belzer, and he pulled a face like he'd just bitten into something sour.
According to him, the Russian production guild we'd faced was no trivial opponent.
For one thing, they mass-produced their horrors with the full backing of the Russian President.
Which meant the assassins they'd sent might as well have been sent by the President himself.
The President was, after all, the guild's de facto boss.
"So our enemies now stretch all the way from China to Russia. Russia was already an enemy in a sense, but now we've crossed the point of no return."
Belzer immediately bumped Russia to the top of his information-gathering priorities.
China was already ranked first, so the two were now tied.
"Interestingly, there's quite a lot of public support inside South Korea for reunification. With China swallowing North Korea so brazenly, people resent the idea of losing the North to someone else."
China's behavior kept poking the bear that was Korea.
And the public was getting angrier in step with it.
Japan, naturally, kept maneuvering as well—simply watching the situation unfold.
Truthfully, with the Dokdo dispute flaring up again, we couldn't exactly ask Japan for help even if we wanted to.
And America didn't just shun China—it shunned Korea and Japan plenty too.
More accurately, America shunned every country equally.
"What about intel on the US President?"
"I have it all. Though my hacking capabilities still have plenty of limitations. America's state secrets remain beyond my reach for now."
"I see... Ah, how's our own defense?"
"Haha! For anyone to hack us, they'd need another thirty years of progress, at minimum."
The growth rate of the companies operating on Earth right now was simply absurd.
Countless corporations were sending their stock prices soaring into the stratosphere.
If Belzer—who knew exactly how fast things were moving—said thirty years...
He really meant at least fifty.
"Good. Then the coup is yours."
"Yes, sir."
When I stepped outside the guild, a massive line had formed.
"Oh, is that today?"
"Yes. It started this morning."
Secretary Lee Siwoo answered from behind me.
What he meant, of course, was guild membership.
We weren't actually accepting members yet—this was just the minimum vetting to prove eligibility.
Everyone had to submit their character assessment and criminal record, everything.
Beyond that, we were testing exactly how many Abyss stages each applicant had cleared.
"Whoa... it's Kim Hyunwoo!"
"You should call him Guild Master!"
"What's the guild going to be called?!"
"So cool!"
The guild name still hadn't been officially decided.
There were plenty of candidates, but most were machine-themed, tied to my abilities.
Problem was, since we were actively trying to break free of Omnissiah's dominion, a name like that might end up raising that thing's prestige instead.
I wanted something far better than that.
While I was mulling it over, a message arrived from Sun Wukong.
[There's a Transcendent I'll introduce to you.]
"Who?"
[Ha... Honestly, we're not on bad terms. But I can't stand them one-sidedly, that's all.]
"So who is it?!"
[That's for YOU to find out. In your world's terms, the Abyss, was it? Head there and you'll see.]
"Hmm... I see."
[That's it, you little brat! Give it some real thought. It'll be good for you, in your current situation.]
No further messages came after that.
So if I wanted to know what the old monkey was playing at, I'd have to go back to the Abyss.
"Hooo... sho shmucky..."
"Mmm... delicious... *slurp*..."
Pitasha, who devoured spicy food, and Rune, who merely tolerated it.
Rune was no spice lightweight—she could hold her own—but she was nothing compared to Pitasha.
Still, Rune loved deliciously spicy things enough to always order the hottest option, and she was sweating for it.
Watching her sweat—the same woman who hadn't shed a single drop facing hundreds of ogres—I couldn't help but laugh.
"...? Why are you smiling...?"
"Nothing. Just eat. It's nice watching you enjoy your food."
"By the way, Master, you should eat too. This one's delicious as well. Don't you get tired of eating the plain stuff all the time?"
"Haha... you two order the spiciest thing on the menu every single time."
I had just dodged Rune's sudden murder-by-suggestion and gone for tteokbokki instead.
Honestly, just sitting around chatting and eating tteokbokki together was its own kind of joy.
My parents had started traveling around the country lately, now that things had stabilized domestically.
The car they rode in was, naturally, a transport unit.
At the very least, in the current state of things, even if a gate opened up right beside them, nothing would happen.
So we were all relaxing and enjoying ourselves, worry-free.
"Hyung! It's an emergency! My girlfriend got taken to the Abyss! Help me out!"
"Come on, you've been hoarding space all this time. You lied and said you'd lost them so she'd take them, remember?"
Compared to what my brother had now, those old supplies were the difference between an ant and an elephant—but back then, they'd been a massive haul.
Better than what most people carried around even today.
"Well, yeah, that's true, but—"
WHOOSH!
"...Huh?"
My brother had simply vanished.
"Oh my... the young master has departed...?"
"Great. Now they're disappearing in pairs..."
RIIING RIIING RIIING
RIIING RIIING RIIING
My parents were apparently enjoying their trip far too much to answer the phone.
"...Whatever. They'll manage. How bad could it be?"
"AAAAAAAH!"
Kim Hyun-jin, Kim Hyunwoo's younger brother, had been summoned to the Abyss in an instant.
When he opened his eyes, just as everyone had described, the crimson sky and crimson earth spread out before him.
Hyun-jin hurriedly opened the pouch his brother had packed for him—the one he always carried on his person.
Everything inside had been verified in advance.
"Five drones. And this armor my brother used back in the day—still the best armor on Earth, though... and rations, and..."
There was so much packed inside he couldn't even begin to pull it all out.
To make sure he didn't forget a single item, he'd written everything down on a memo pad, and he worked through the list piece by piece.
Then he checked his unique trait.
"OOOOOOH! It's here! It's really here!"
Home Run
"Huh? Home... Run?"
Deals 5,000% damage to the target struck, sending it flying far into the distance.
"Wh... whaaaaat?"
Not long after confirming his trait, a rabbit appeared.
He kicked it.
BOOOOOM!
Skreeee...
"Th... this is... my... power?"
Kim Hyun-jin.
Awakening complete.