Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 002
Chapter Title: 300 Years Were Just One Day?
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KBC Broadcasting Station rooftop.
Dozens of meters above the ground, where the city's clamor mixed with the wind.
It was the Emperor's first respite after his declaration.
Lee Jung-woo stood at the edge of the rooftop railing, gazing indifferently at Seoul's nightscape.
The chaotic city lights brought back memories of that morning.
His return after three hundred years.
The place he'd come back to was his own room.
Slumping into the creaky chair, he lingered in nostalgia for a moment before habitually turning on his smartphone and staring at it for a while.
The world on the screen was vibrant, yet exhausting.
Pointless political squabbles, comments filled with malice, wars over trivial matters, haphazard urban planning that his Necrosia Empire would never have tolerated.
Compared to the orderly empire he'd meticulously built over the years, this world felt inefficient and noisy.
'Might as well do it myself.'
That mutter led him to stand, resulting in the current situation.
Behind him stood the empire's first sword, Doom Knight Kairon, like a shadow.
The surface of his full-body armor bore runes etched with three hundred years of loyalty.
Despite his title as 1st Legion Commander—the Emperor's right hand and leader of the Four Heavenly Kings—he was purely a loyal guard, ever vigilant against pests that might disturb his lord's rest.
Whoosh.
At that moment, the roar of propellers tore through the night air, drawing closer.
Two police helicopters.
Powerful searchlights swept the rooftop as they approached.
The warnings blaring through the megaphones were sharp, but to Jung-woo's ears, they were merely the buzz of annoying mosquitoes.
"Kairon."
Jung-woo's low call.
Before the word even finished, the pitch-black helm, utterly still until then, dipped ever so slightly.
"As you command."
There was no hesitation between lord and legion commander's exchange.
The instant Kairon stepped forward half a pace, an indescribable pressure erupted from his obsidian armor.
It wasn't mere mana or aura.
Just the faintest leak of the power within his sword.
Crackle.
The helicopters' searchlights shattered simultaneously.
Instruments flickered wildly, and the pilots screamed in primal terror, as if the end of the world loomed before them.
The helicopters staggered away like herbivorous prey fleeing a massive predator.
He didn't even glance at them.
His concerns were singular: a place to rest his weary body and dinner to sate his hunger.
"Now the nuisances are gone."
Jung-woo extended his hand into the air.
"My ancient servant, heed your master's call."
At his command, space itself screamed.
Rumble.
Cracks spiderwebbed from his fingertips, splitting reality.
A black rift yawned open, revealing the abyss beyond.
A realm where all light died, and even time grew faint—the homeland of the departed.
The first to emerge from the fissure was a mountain of a skull.
Eerie blue flames flickered in its empty sockets, followed by a spine and ribs spanning dozens of meters.
Its tattered leather wings cast shadows over the entire rooftop just by unfolding.
Bone Dragon.
Ruler of the otherworld Arkhea, defeated by Lee Jung-woo and bound in soul—a symbol of his undead legion.
Grrrrowl—
A soul-shaking roar echoed across Seoul's night sky.
The mana in the sound alone made nearby building windows vibrate faintly.
Jung-woo climbed atop the Bone Dragon's head with familiar ease, as if mounting his own car.
Kairon silently took position behind him.
"Let's go home."
At his order, the Bone Dragon began mighty wingbeats.
As its massive skeletal frame lifted, the rooftop cracked like a spiderweb under the pressure.
In moments, it gained altitude, placing Seoul's nightscape below.
Facing the cold night wind, he asked Kairon behind him.
"Kairon."
"Yes, my lord."
"How long was I gone from this world, by Arkhea's reckoning?"
"Three hundred years have passed, my lord."
Three hundred years... Time enough for a human to be born and die, for dynasties to rise and fall.
In that span, he'd become the Demon King of Arkhea, unifying half the continent.
Jung-woo gave a wry smile.
"Yet here, only a single day has passed. The laws of dimensions are truly bizarre."
'Sis is probably losing her mind by now.'
The greatest worry in the three-hundred-year-old necromancer lord's mind was his sister's nagging.
She was his one true counter, the last bastion of his humanity.
Then, the silent Kairon spoke.
"My lord. May I ask why you've returned after so long? This place is so small and frail compared to your empire."
Jung-woo fell silent for a moment.
He gazed seriously at Seoul's nightscape.
Kairon assumed his lord pondered this world's fate.
Finally, he spoke.
"Kairon."
"Yes, my lord."
"Chicken's best as half-and-half, right?"
"...Pardon?"
Kairon's empty sockets flickered with genuine confusion for the first time.
His lord had just declared war on humanity, and he hadn't questioned that grand historical prelude.
Yet the response was about chicken...
The loyal knight worried the return after three centuries had gravely affected his lord's mind.
Oblivious, Jung-woo muttered on.
"Nah, fried's the classic, though."
Leaving the chaos behind, the Bone Dragon soon crossed Seoul to the skies over southern Gyeonggi, Suwon.
The destination: the familiar lights of Hanseong Apartment complex.
The dragon silently descended, clinging shadow-like to the side of Building 103.
15th floor. Jung-woo's home.
Jung-woo leaped from the dragon's head to his bedroom balcony with ease.
Kairon landed silently behind him.
He patted the dragon's skull in thanks; the massive bone sovereign rumbled contentedly before dispersing into black mist.
"Kairon. Wait outside."
"Yes, my lord."
Kairon melted into the shadows as if he'd never been there.
He had no intention of intruding on the Emperor's private quarters.
Only then did Jung-woo quietly slide open the balcony door and step inside.
In the living room, his sister Lee Se-ah sat on the sofa, frantically talking on the phone.
"No, I'm telling you, it's real. That guy on the news? It's my little brother. What? A dragon? I don't know, the news is going nuts saying something like a dragon flew toward Suwon."
"Him? No way, right? That doesn't make sense... Ugh, I'm going crazy here."
Her voice mixed fear, absurdity, and deep frustration.
Then, a calm, familiar voice came from behind.
"Sis."
Se-ah froze mid-call, then her shoulders trembled as she dropped her smartphone onto the sofa.
Slowly, creakily like a rusty machine, her head turned.
At the end of her gaze stood her brother, who'd upended the nation and dismounted a dragon, looking utterly nonchalant.
From the balcony, no less.
"..."
"...What the hell did you do?! And what's with the dragon and awakening?!"
The first words from Se-ah weren't accusations, but confirmation.
The awakening system that had changed the world these past ten years.
As far as she knew, her brother was unawakened.
But the scene before her mocked that common sense.
"Since when? What happened? Did you get re-tested? Why didn't you tell me?!"
She imagined he'd hidden immense talent as a secret awakener—something realistic.
Jung-woo rubbed his throbbing temple and sighed tiredly.
"It's not exactly awakening. Not that simple."
He casually crossed the living room and flopped onto the sofa.
He hesitated briefly.
He'd missed his sister dearly, but centuries had worn his emotions, leading to nonchalance.
Explaining in casual sibling talk, forgotten for three hundred years, felt alien.
"Basically, I took a quick trip to another world yesterday."
Se-ah's pupils shook in disbelief.
"What are you saying?"
"Dropped into a continent called Arkhea, went through all sorts of crap, became emperor, built a country called Necrosia, really suffered. Snapped out of it, and three hundred years had passed there."
Snap.
Something rational snapped in Se-ah's mind. Another world? Three hundred years? Emperor? Not words from her perfectly fine brother yesterday.
Her reaction reverted to basics.
"You're actually insane."
Not a secret S-rank awakener—just crazy.
That felt more real.
Se-ah pressed.
"What was that to the whole world? Empire? Managing Earth?"
"Oh, that part's real."
"That's not the point! You're trending number one right now. Terrorist, unidentified awakener, KBC occupier. What are you gonna do?"
"Correction: not terror, governance."
Se-ah was speechless at his shameless reply.
She clutched her neck and slumped on the opposite sofa.
Her brother was crazy.
Utterly so.
Accepting that paradoxically cleared her head.
As if reading her mind, Jung-woo murmured.
"Won't believe words alone, huh."
He gestured into the air again, deeming talk pointless.
A chilling aura filled the room as space shattered like glass.
From the rift emerged an Elder Lich in black, ornate robes.
Pure darkness clung to his feet like living leather boots, trailing faint black smoke with each step.
Belial bowed politely upon arrival.
"You summoned me, O Supreme One?"
Seeing the second real undead, Se-ah finally gave up.
The mental seesaw between "crazy" and "real" tipped fully to reality.
Her brain, rejecting comprehension, accepted for survival.
Jung-woo confirmed it with a finisher.
"See, sis? I'm a necromancer. Believe me now?"
"Haa..."
Se-ah stared at the ceiling, composing herself.
Then she glanced at the floor, then Belial's feet, pointing out a practical issue.
"Fine. Fine... Hey, mister."
She nodded at Belial.
"Tell him to take off those black boots or whatever first. I mopped the living room yesterday. He's leaving stuff everywhere."
"....."
The room fell utterly silent.
Belial, 2nd Legion Commander and master of abyssal magic, short-circuited.
First time someone called the incarnation of darkness "black boots" and scolded him for shedding.
Belial looked to his lord in bewilderment.
There sat Jung-woo, smiling at his sister effortlessly handling the absurdity.
'Yeah. That's exactly her.'
The unyielding strength beyond common sense from his sole counter and last humanity, forgotten for centuries.
Jung-woo wore the face of an ordinary brother, not the Emperor.
Suppressing a laugh, he said.
"Belial, say hi. This is my sister. Mistress of Necrosia's inner palace, the one who rules this great Emperor with a single scolding. Treat her well."
Belial, grasping the situation, bowed deeply to Se-ah.
A strange light gleamed in his empty sockets.
"A pleasure, Mistress of the Inner Palace. Forgive any offense."
He smoothly apologized, masking shock and insult, then turned to Jung-woo.
"So, Supreme One... this is the new stronghold? Its humility is profoundly moving, unworthy of the empire's dignity."
"Dissatisfied, Belial?"
Jung-woo retorted.
"How dare I. Merely, after three centuries, I expected a more dramatic stage."
"Like a dragon's nest or ancient god's altar. This coop clashes terribly with my aesthetics."
Jung-woo waved dismissively.
"Quiet. One nagger's enough."
He declared once more to his resigned sister.
"Sis, it's safe here now. From today, this apartment complex is the heart of Necrosia Empire's capital—the imperial palace."
Se-ah stammered.
".....?"
"Who'd dare invade where the Emperor resides?"
She couldn't follow her mad brother's logic, but squeezed her last rationality to shout.
"This is our home! It's on a lease. Renewal next month!"
"Lease?"
Recalling old memories, Jung-woo muttered, deeming it unworthy of reply.
"Ah. That inefficient system still around?"
He turned calmly to Belial.
"Belial."
"Yes, my lord."
"Erect a barrier over the entire complex now."
Belial's empty sockets flickered red with interest.
Jung-woo issued the final command.
"No ant gets in or out without my permission."
"This is my palace from today."