Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 017
Chapter Title: The Day the World Stopped
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"Now that you're done here, get going."
The Emperor's final permission.
Go Se-gu could ask no more questions.
He turned mechanically toward the front door.
From the moment he'd turned on his broadcast and entered the Necropolis, through every second of his private audience with the Emperor, and right up to this moment of being chased out the door, he had never once held the upper hand.
The camera shook, following his trembling gaze.
The moment he opened the front door and stepped out, the vampire who had guided him earlier appeared silently at his side.
Without a word, the vampire escorted Go Se-gu back along the same path in reverse, all the way to the castle gates.
Kiiiiiik.
The Necropolis's massive gates creaked open once more. The moment Go Se-gu finally breathed the outside air, his legs nearly gave out beneath him.
Just over two hours.
It had only been that long, yet it felt like he'd spent years in another world.
"Go Se-gu! Are you okay?!"
"Did Lee Jung-woo say anything else?!"
"..."
Reporters and guild representatives swarmed toward him like a hive of bees.
But Go Se-gu heard nothing.
His mind echoed only with Lee Jung-woo's final words.
'Before you start complaining, you should think about who just gave you this chance to stay safe.'
An absurd fallacy.
Yet the chilling fragment of truth within it sent shivers down his spine.
Forgetting even to turn off the camera on his helmet, he stared blankly up at the Necropolis walls.
Blue House underground bunker.
The moment Go Se-gu's broadcast ended, the conference room fell silent as ice water.
Dozens of screens flickered with nonstop analysis from experts in every field, but no one dared speak first.
"...Do you really think... this makes any sense?"
President Park Jung-hoon broke the silence.
His voice hung heavy, like wet cotton.
"Suwon... a gate-free zone? What the hell does that even..."
Chief of Staff Oh Se-young reported in a trembling voice.
"Mr. President, reports are flooding in from magic engineering labs and gate research academies worldwide."
"Tell me."
"The 'domain stabilization' concept Lee Jung-woo mentioned is a completely new theory, absent from all established academia. Most dismiss it as nonsense, but..."
She hesitated, then continued.
"Some radical scholars are proposing—if that pitch-black tower in the Necropolis is an ultra-high-density mana structure, it could interfere with spatial coordinates around it and suppress gate generation. It's straight out of science fiction."
"A hypothesis? What we need right now isn't hypotheses!"
The Defense Minister slammed the table.
"Worse is the talent recruitment. He's basically advertised to every ambitious bastard and criminal worldwide to come to Korea. He even said he'd leave a door open on the KBC roof. We need to seal that place with troops immediately!"
A holographic feed cut in as Ma Jin-tae, Awakener Association President, joined the fray amid the Minister's outburst.
"Seal it? Ridiculous. The second we block that door, we're interfering with his recruitment process. Forgotten what happened to Hwarang Guild already?"
Choi Kang-hyuk's face froze on screen.
Beside him sat Genesis Guild's Han Yu-ra and Black Forest Guild's Seo Jun, both silent.
Each mind churned with private calculations.
The meeting devolved once more into endless finger-pointing and arguments.
No one offered a clear solution.
A National Security Office agent burst through the door, pale as a ghost, voice urgent.
"Mr. President! Just in—top-secret communique from the Japanese Prime Minister's office!"
The room went dead silent.
Oh Se-young asked, voice shaking.
"Japan? In this crisis, what could they..."
The agent swallowed dryly and projected the message onto the President's screen.
It was wrapped in polite, diplomatic language, but the intent cut like a knife—cold and blatant.
[...We express deep regret over your nation's state of emergency and support the Korean government's wise handling for the stability of Northeast Asia. Furthermore, for the smooth resolution of the Suwon incident and future joint gate response coordination, we propose an unofficial visit by a Japanese delegation.]
The Defense Minister slammed the papers down.
"What kind of bullshit is this?! Joint gate response? They're using it as an excuse to contact Lee Jung-woo directly! Ignoring us completely!"
He was right.
"Unofficial visit" was a declaration of bypassing the Korean government entirely.
Japan had bitten the bait of Lee Jung-woo's talent recruitment.
Then another agent rushed in, face on the verge of tears.
"M-Minister! U.S. Pacific Command just contacted us. For stability in the Indo-Pacific, they'll reposition some forces from Osan Air Base to maintain order near Suwon!"
"Support? Bull..."
The Defense Minister swallowed his curse.
Support.
Everyone knew what that really meant.
Surveillance. Intervention. And if possible, monopolizing every scrap of intel on Lee Jung-woo.
The conference room became pandemonium.
The issue was no longer Korea's alone.
Lee Jung-woo had dragged every neighboring country's hidden desires and interests to the surface.
Ma Jin-tae sighed over the video feed.
"The die is cast. Like it or not, the world is starting to see him as an opportunity."
"..."
"A land without gates, that's the possibility. This isn't just our problem anymore."
The meeting lost all meaning.
One thought circled every mind.
'What the hell do we do now?'
An hour after Go Se-gu's broadcast ended.
Korea—no, the entire world—was swept by a tsunami of information.
The two bombshells from the unknown entity Lee Jung-woo—gate-free zone and talent recruitment—were tectonic shifts upending the established order.
News channels and online communities ground to a halt, paralyzed by 24/7 analysis and debates on his declaration.
Yet at the epicenter of the chaos, in the living room of Necropolis Building 103, an eerie calm prevailed, utterly detached from the outside world.
Lee Jung-woo lounged on the sofa as if nothing had happened, lost in a trashy drama.
The world's reaction mattered less to him than his viewing time.
"No way—that guy's not his real son? Unreal."
Tsking as he crunched potato chips, he didn't notice Lee Se-ah emerge from her room.
Her face was pale, tangled in complex emotions.
Like the world outside, her inner world had been ravaged by a storm.
She gazed at her brother's back on the sofa, then spoke softly.
She'd watched his broadcast from her room, heart pounding like it might stop.
"Jung-woo."
"Yeah? Hold on, that auntie's about to get slapped."
"......Can you really stop gates from appearing in Suwon?"
Her voice carried faint, unconcealed hope.
The screams of those who'd lost everything to gates.
She'd tried ignoring it as none of her business, but the fear lingered coldly under her skin.
Lee Jung-woo answered without looking away from the TV.
"Yeah. Told you. No gates in my turf."
"...So from now on, no one... gets hurt by gates. At least not here."
"Pretty much. Shouldn't you be grateful? I showed up in our neighborhood, not the next one over."
"Those guys are the lucky ones."
Arrogant as ever, but at those words, something solid in Lee Se-ah's heart began to crack.
She'd seen all her brother's actions as horrific and selfish.
Evil.
By the world's standards, he was the villain.
The process was violent, irrational.
He'd evicted thousands, plunged the world into chaos.
But what if—just what if—everything he said was true?
A safe city free of gate terror.
If this was ground zero?
If the results of his evil became salvation for some?
This paradox was shaking her values to the core.
Her mind reeled.
The line between good and evil blurred.
Suddenly, a horrific memory from years ago resurfaced.
Graduation trip with college friends.
Fun times shattered before a sudden D-rank gate in Hongdae.
Swept by goblin hordes, friends screaming and scattering.
If not for the quick response of C-rank hunters on site, she might have lost dear friends forever.
Since then, gates symbolized absolute evil to her—uncompromising terror.
Now her only brother promised to banish that terror.
In the most horrific way.
Like a doctor amputating limbs to cure cancer.
Could all the evil in the process be forgiven if the goal was good?
She had no answer.
Her head felt ready to burst.
Speechless, she stared blankly out the window.
Outside, skeletons and grotesque monsters built a new world in ways she couldn't grasp.
Watching them, she recalled yesterday's scene.
The management office—or was it the Citizen Welfare and Grievance Department?
That monster Bolg making a mess, and the goblin Tinker.
They snarled at each other but fixed the broken computer.
Skeletons sweeping the former apartment plaza—now a vast magic testing ground—with brooms.
This bizarre city had its own systems running.
That computer fix—I could order parts online and done in 30 minutes...
That monster tried handling complaints with fists. Paperwork was a mess too.
Redirect that workflow—it'd be way more efficient.
Such thoughts flitted unbidden through her mind.
As a meticulous web designer wired for efficiency, she spotted improvements even in the empire's admin.
She shook them off hastily.
Why am I worrying about those monsters?
Shaking her head vigorously, she turned to retreat to her room.
Then Belial emerged silently from the living room shadows, kneeling on one knee beside Lee Jung-woo.
"My liege, a report."
"What? Critical scene here."
"A mortal has arrived at the Necropolis main gate."
Lee Jung-woo's eyebrow twitched faintly with interest.
Something more entertaining than the drama, apparently.
"Who? Some bold soul already hooked by my talent call?"
"No, my liege. He..."
Belial chose his words, then spoke in a soulless tone.
"Calls himself your first disciple."