Three Characters of Patience Spare Even Murder
They say if you carve the character for patience three times, even murder can be forgiven.
Wondering if I had somehow mistaken the day my ban would lift, I logged in on an alternate account.
The result was identical.
The moment I tried to post anything, a message flashed and locked me out completely.
[Blocked IP.]
I even double-checked whether I had somehow failed to send the link. No—I had definitely sent it to the open chat they specified.
So what did this situation mean?
"They blocked me for no reason?"
A ban without cause or justification. In other words, abuse of power!
And the stated reason was "open chat inquiry"? What kind of nonsense ban reason was that?
Impeachment! Drag the bastard down at once!
…Of course I was joking. Honestly, it was hard to be certain what the armband even wanted from me.
"…My fan, maybe?"
Something like, You won't pay attention to me otherwise?
"Hmm."
No. That was going too far.
What authority did some unpaid slave of a head mod even have to delete posts from a proper gallery?
I could stick to the confirmed facts and still not be late.
"No, but if he had something to say, he could've just messaged me in open chat first."
Why freeze a law-abiding citizen's wholesome recreational activity?
Had he gone insane? Just because this seat sat quietly, did he take me for a sack of grain?
I needed to properly show the bastard the majesty of the Heavenly Demon…
"Ah—no. Calm down."
They say if you endure with the character for patience three times, even murder can be forgiven.
Getting angry over something this petty would be beneath the Heavenly Demon's dignity.
Right. There might be circumstances I didn't know about.
It was entirely possible he had checked my verification late and only seen the posts the part-timers had already deleted.
Mm-hmm. People have to live logically.
If you just live swept along by emotion, is that even a person? That's a beast.
So I would remain a rational human being.
First, I would do as told and send an inquiry through open chat.
"Huh."
The 1 vanished the instant I sent it.
Considering it was still early morning, the speed was practically light-speed.
This is the dignity of an armband?
So the rumor that even the armbands of mid-sized galleries like the Mage Gallery pulled five hundred a month was true?
Otherwise it would mean some unpaid slave was managing the gallery from dawn, and that didn't make sense.
Instead of a reply, the head mod simply tossed some random link.
"What the hell."
I didn't want to click it.
Tap a shady address without thinking and you were practically begging for ransomware or a backdoor. Did he think this was my first day on the internet?
Giving me another open chat link inside an open chat? What was this, a revolving door?
Naturally I didn't click it.
I wasn't an idiot.
Something he wanted to say?
I had nothing left to discuss.
The other party was stubborn.
Endure. Endure. I carved one more character for patience into my chest.
"Huuu."
Right. I was human.
And a human sometimes had to know how to take a step back.
Just this once, I would let myself be fooled.
I followed the link and another open chat room appeared.
"What the—it's a group chat?"
Not a one-on-one. Besides me and the armband, there was a third party.
Director of the Awakener Management Agency?
That guy who, every year-end, briefed the public on the 101 reasons Maestro still couldn't enter the Tower?
Why would a heavyweight like that want me?
Handing my number to a stranger was already sketchy, and once voices mixed it would be hard to hide my current circumstances.
On top of that, giving my personal number to the actual Agency Director?
It would be no different from walking into prison of my own free will. So even if I died, I couldn't hand it over.
He was using polite speech so carefully that I almost matched the register, but I decided to stick with short answers.
The person who had gone so far as to ban even my perfectly fine account just to reach me.
Thinking about it again made my blood boil. Endure. Endure.
There must have been an important reason for it.
I still had no idea how a mere Mage Gallery armband was connected to the Agency Director, but whatever.
Of course I planned to keep climbing the Tower.
As long as I had a clear purpose, my steps would not stop until it was achieved.
If it was the painfully predictable "become a South Korean awakener," I was going to get pissed.
It really was that.
They had interrupted this seat's recreational life for a proposal this banal?
"As expected, I need to properly show these bastards the majesty of the Heavenly Demon…"
No. Calm down.
It still wasn't too late to listen a little more before judging.
I pressed another character for patience deep into my chest. That made three in total.
I had no intention of affiliating myself anywhere for the time being.
Especially not with the South Korean Agency.
The Agency has Maestro in it.
Eat from the same pot as that bastard? I'd rather die.
The reason, huh. I couldn't exactly come out and say, Honestly Maestro's been a real piece of shit lately.
I deflected appropriately. It wasn't even a lie.
I was in a rush.
My blood gallery concentration was hitting rock bottom in real time.
Hurry. I was serious right now.
The other side was tenacious.
I couldn't endure any longer.
So they insisted on seeing this through to the end today?
This was something they had brought upon themselves. I had clearly given them three chances.
[Heavenly.Demon has left the chat.]
"What?"
Lee Jun-ho, who had been carefully composing his next persuasive line, could not hide his bewilderment at the notification on the screen.
Left? He hadn't even gotten to the real terms yet.
"I suppose talking without seeing each other's faces really is meaningless."
Important conversations had to be held face to face if they were to land.
Dialogue exchanged across a tiny smartphone screen was bound to lack persuasive power no matter what.
"Let's try talking again through the gallery first."
If he lifted the ban, there would surely be a response. Thinking that, Lee Jun-ho logged into the Mage Gallery.
"Huh?"
The post regeneration speed was not normal.
Because the Mage Gallery was a place where awakeners were active, it was often a struggle just to fill one page of posts in an hour under ordinary circumstances.
Right now the entire board was being swallowed by a flood of meaningless posts rising like mad.
Reverse-flow engine.
A malicious terror Lee Jun-ho had only ever heard about in stories, even after years of unpaid armband work.
But the Mage Gallery only allowed verified users to post, so a disaster like this had never once occurred before.
Just in case, Lee Jun-ho checked the author nicknames.
"They're all throwaway accounts."
Every last one was a throwaway. There were just far too many of them.
Fortunately it was not hard to guess who was behind the spam. The culprit didn't even seem interested in hiding.
But still.
"Where the hell did he get all those accounts?"
Had he hacked the gallery or something?
Even then the spam did not stop.
"Hold on. Is this what I think it is?"
The posts were not arriving at a constant speed.
In other words, not an automatic macro. A human was manually shitting out posts at a insane pace.
"Is he a lunatic?"
Whether that was even possible was secondary; damage control came first.
Lee Jun-ho hastily began banning the spam accounts. Yet the situation still refused to settle.
From somewhere else, still more accounts sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain and set the board ablaze.
"Huh? Huh?"
He banned them and they appeared. He banned them again and they appeared.
Like a hydra that grew two heads for every one cut off, the unknown throwaways multiplied endlessly and smothered the Mage Gallery.
Thanks to that, the gallery users' rage also hit its limit. At this rate it wouldn't be strange if the Mage Gallery simply exploded.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have welcomed that with open arms, but the situation was different now.
Damn it. The only link to the Heavenly Demon is… And that piece of shit Maestro won't stay quiet either…
The Mage Gallery was currently the sole connection to the Heavenly Demon.
In other words, if he let the gallery die like this, every line of contact with that deranged individual would snap completely.
Plus Maestro's inevitable tantrum on top of it.
Just what…
What about gallery activity made someone go this far?
Even after living as an unpaid slave for so long, Lee Jun-ho could not understand the other party at all. Nor did he want to.
"Ugh, damn it!"
Lee Jun-ho stood at a crossroads.
Liberation from unpaid slavery, or the connection to the Heavenly Demon.
In the end he chose the latter.
The moment he sent the chat, the spam cut off as if it had been a lie.
At the same time, the Heavenly Demon's curt reply arrived.
"Ah."
In that instant, Lee Jun-ho felt it in his bones.
This Heavenly Demon character was an even bigger lunatic than that unhinged bastard Maestro.