Apologies Are Paid in Cash
Click.
I logged into the Mage Awakener Gallery under Cheon.Ma without a hitch.
"I won."
The long, grinding ban was finally over. The war was mine.
So the mod's surrender hadn't been a bluff after all.
"Hah."
Only then did I carefully lift both hands off the keyboard.
The number of alt accounts burned to claim this glorious victory had been roughly twenty or so. More than half the secret weapons I'd been stashing away whenever I had a free moment, gone in a single campaign.
"A meaningful sacrifice."
Without their noble deaths, I never would have pried the Mage Awakener Gallery free of the mod's grip.
Unfortunately, the gallery those tearful sacrifices had saved was currently in a full-blown witch hunt for the culprit.
Hmm. The mood was turning ugly.
Every post that followed ran the same direction: punish the unhinged user Cheon.Ma who ran the reverse-flood, and while you're at it, condemn the mod who sat on his hands through the whole mess.
This wouldn't do. After all that work reclaiming my home base, I was about to get kicked out of it.
I fired off a message to the mod at once.
The reply came back even more cowed than before.
It was only text, but I could practically see his shoulders slumped to the floor. Odds were good someone from the Agency had torn him a new one.
Tsk. Poor bastard. That's what you get for trying to use me.
Not my problem, though.
What mattered right now was using this guy as a human shield to smother the boiling public opinion.
To soothe an enraged public, you need a scapegoat.
Just as Cao Cao once beheaded his supply officer Wang Hou at Guandu to quiet his starving troops' complaints, calming the gallery right now required someone's head on a pike.
And that head was absolutely not going to be mine.
The mod hesitated.
What, did this guy have pride in an unpaid job where the only perk was getting cursed out whenever people got bored?
No reply.
I never expected him to cling this hard to a free slave post, of all things, this late in the game.
An unforeseen variable.
If he dug in and refused to step down as head mod, the gallery would tear itself apart—and every alt I'd burned would have been for nothing.
I need this guy's sacrifice one way or another.
If I pushed hard, making him dance to my tune would be trivial. Threaten to emigrate to some other country and he'd wet himself with joy.
But if I wanted to keep using him on demand going forward, a little carrot wouldn't hurt either.
Instant reply.
The answer popped out so fast it was like he'd been sitting there waiting for exactly those words. Honestly, it was almost annoying.
Even that much should be enough to make the mod—or rather, the people behind the mod—ecstatic.
Bullseye.
A weird spark of life had crept into his replies.
Any more delay and people would start suspecting some shady connection between me and the mod.
That would be a catastrophe. An angry userbase would never be satisfied with just one mod's head.
The mod left the most energetic reply I'd ever gotten out of him.
(roughly: screenshots of gallery moderation logs)
We have found no connection between the currently discussed gallery user Cheon.Ma and the recent reverse-flood incident.
That said, it is also true that I have been negligent in managing the gallery. I will therefore be transferring head moderator duties to someone else.
Thank you for everything.
Clean.
By brazenly dumping his moderation logs, he'd advertised his own fairness. Most users let it slide without making a real fuss.
Of course, a few people still refused to drop their suspicion.
Other users shut it down immediately, and the bait stopped rolling.
Good thing I went with the most obvious stock phrases on purpose.
Who knew that looking up Heavenly Demon lines just in case would pay off like this. I should keep reading wuxia novels in my spare time.
Rules stay as-is for the time being.
Also, excessive nick-baiting between users is now subject to moderation.
With a new head mod on the board, the gallery could no longer keep the old drama alive.
The suspicious looks aimed at me hadn't vanished completely—but they were a minority opinion at best.
And just like that, the whole mess closed without further damage.
The next day, I went out to keep my promise.
The meeting place was a sushi place near my neighborhood.
Honestly, I'd expected scheduling to take a while, but he insisted he'd make any time work no matter what, so we just set it for today on the spot.
Let's see.
I peered into the sushi restaurant from outside.
It was still early for lunch, so customers were sparse—and even the few people inside moved with an awkward stiffness that gave them away.
Agency staff or reporters, almost certainly.
Well. I expected this much.
If anything, I'd been hoping they'd roll out the red carpet this blatantly.
The narrative painting me as Chinese had started to get on my nerves.
Why take a perfectly ordinary South Korean citizen—someone who even completed their national defense duty properly—and turn them into a Chinese national?
Starting today, I was going to shove that nonsense right back down their throats.
Time to head in.
I strolled casually past a café, put on the Demon Emperor Mask, and doubled back.
Wearing the Demon Emperor Mask was essential if I wanted to keep my identity hidden.
Last time's test had already proven that with the mask on, even my age and physical build failed to register properly.
Ding-a-ling!
I opened the door and stepped into the sushi restaurant.
Every gaze in the room snapped to me for a heartbeat, then scattered.
I walked naturally toward the reserved private room.
When I opened the door, a middle-aged man who looked ready to crawl out of his own skin was gulping mineral water like it was going out of style.
"A-are you by any chance the Heavenly Demon?"
He whipped his head around at the sound of the door, startled.
He stared at me, confusion flickering across his face, then carefully asked the question.
Fair enough. With the Demon Emperor Mask scrambling any proper read on my face, anyone would be thrown.
I gave a small nod instead of answering.
His expression lit up at once.
"I-it's an honor to meet you. I'm Lee Jun-ho, Director of the Awakener Management Agency."
He bowed with meticulous formality and held out a business card.
Director of the Agency? I'd already gotten the sense from our open chat that this man had a surprising amount of free time, but I genuinely hadn't expected him to show up in person.
I nodded again and took the card.
Today's Heavenly Demon was a person of few words.
I still hadn't verified whether the Demon Emperor Mask fully disguised my voice, so the less talking, the better.
"I-is there some kind of problem…?"
I'd kept my mouth shut from the moment I walked in, and he started watching my face for signs that he'd offended me.
I shook my head. No problem.
"Ah—th-then shall we order first?"
Nod.
I'd been waiting for those words.
This wasn't full omakase territory, but it was still a high-end sushi place I'd never dared set foot in under normal circumstances. Too expensive.
Might as well stuff myself until I burst while I had the chance.
I ordered one of everything, every variety they had.
Before long, immaculately plated sushi arrived on the table.
One piece in my mouth and it melted. So this was why people paid that kind of money.
After that, I entered a trance. Clear a plate, order again, clear another—over and over.
"H-Heavenly Demon, if I may ask… what made you change your mind so suddenly?"
After who knew how many plates had stacked up, Lee Jun-ho carefully opened his mouth.
Instead of answering, I handed him a note I'd prepared in advance.
You said you'd support me, right? Came for the items.
Written left-handed, so the handwriting was a mess.
"Ah—r-right, of course. Everything is prepared."
Lee Jun-ho nodded in a hurry. He looked faintly cowed, somehow.
Time to toss him a carrot.
Also put out an article saying the Heavenly Demon is Korean.
"Sorry? Ah…"
Lee Jun-ho took the note and tilted his head, as if the contents were somehow difficult to parse.
Did even that short sentence need interpretation?
"Might I ask what you mean by that?"
I pulled out a pen on the spot and scribbled another line.
Just run a clear article saying the Heavenly Demon is Korean, and will keep being Korean going forward.
If I spoon-fed it that hard, even he should get it now.
"Yes, yes! Understood!"
After checking the note, Lee Jun-ho nodded repeatedly, his face visibly brightening.
Even if I never joined the Agency, a front-page article like that would be a massive national win.
Of course, I wasn't a charity. I had no intention of putting on a show for free.
Alright. What should I shake them down for?
Today, I was going to yank one of South Korea's pillars clean out of the ground.