Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 004
Chapter Title: Bolg
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The imperial palace within the barrier remained wrapped in utterly mundane concerns, oblivious to the chaos raging outside.
"Man, I'm seriously starving now. Should I order some chicken, sis?"
He had often made his subordinates whip up something similar back in Arkhea, but nothing beat the insane craving for this world's chicken.
Se-ah blinked blankly at him.
"What?"
"Chicken."
"You lunatic, how's delivery supposed to get in..."
"Huh?"
"You just sealed off the whole neighborhood with that weird crap. How's the delivery guy supposed to get through?"
Lee Jung-woo's face hardened for a moment, and Belial's jawbone rattled faintly, as if stifling a laugh.
He hadn't thought of that.
After three hundred years ruling as emperor, solving everything with mere commands, the modern concept of "delivery zones" had become foreign to him.
"Hmm..."
A brief silence fell.
This was a crisis where the emperor's authority might falter over something as trivial as chicken.
Jung-woo pondered for a moment before finding a simple solution.
He summoned a lich from the shadows.
"You. Go outside and grab some chicken. Here's the card."
With a snap of his fingers, a faint haze rose over the lich's skeletal frame.
Moments later, it awkwardly transformed into a perfectly ordinary young man in a hoodie pulled low and a face mask.
"Get one fried and one seasoned. They'll handle the rest with this."
"...Yes, my lord."
Blinking its blue soulfire eyes, it shuffled out and leaped off the 15th-floor balcony.
With permission from the barrier's master, Lee Jung-woo, the lich passed through the transparent ward without resistance.
Se-ah watched the scene in a daze before realizing a far more fundamental issue.
"Hey, Lee Jung-woo, hold up."
"What now?"
"Chicken's not the problem. What about everyone else living here? The people inside are trapped now, right? What happens to them?"
Se-ah's face paled.
This was a massive complex with thousands of households.
They'd been locked in their own homes overnight—like prisoners in a jail.
But Jung-woo saw it differently.
"It's not a prison. It's my territory now, and they're my subjects. Protected safely within the emperor's domain. Who knows what comes next, though."
"...Subjects, huh? Did you ask them? Get their consent?"
"Does an emperor ask permission from every peasant? Guess I should at least notify them. Belial."
He called out to Belial.
"Take control of every electronic device in this complex. Broadcast my image to all of them."
"Understood. The emperor's first decree it is."
Belial snapped his fingers once, and an invisible wave of mana spread across the entire apartment complex.
Building 108, Apartment 703.
A ordinary family of four was gathered in the living room for dinner when the TV screen suddenly went black, filling with the face of an unfamiliar man.
The screen flicked back to the news channel with a thunk, but the living room now felt like a vast prison under some absurd dictator's first edict.
"See? That's a polite heads-up, right?"
He said, thoroughly pleased.
Se-ah shot him a look of utter exasperation.
"Polite? Shared hearing for noise? Are you insane?"
"It's efficient. They gotta feel the pain themselves to be careful."
Further debate was pointless.
Feeling there was no value in arguing, Se-ah sank deep into the sofa backrest and squeezed her eyes shut.
That's when a clattering came from the balcony.
The mid-tier lich had returned with chicken boxes steaming in its bony hands.
"Whoa, that was quick."
The lich melted back into the shadows, mission complete.
Hot chicken sat on the living room table, surrounded by one human and two high undead.
The strangest dinner in human history.
Jung-woo tore into a drumstick with satisfaction and turned to Belial.
"It's freaking delicious. Want some?"
A playful smirk tugged at his lips.
"..."
At his words, blue flames flared wildly in Elder Lich Belial's empty sockets before fading.
He stared silently at his lord.
His jaw clenched with a faint grinding.
'Here we go again.'
Having spent three centuries with his lord and mastered Korean long ago, he swallowed the colorful curses bubbling inside.
He suppressed the urge of his finger bones to lunge at that infuriating mouth.
Every time his lord pushed the joke too far, that irreverent impulse to smack him surged up.
"Oh, right. You can't eat. Sorry."
Jung-woo grinned, eyes sparkling with mischief.
"........."
Belial let out a short sigh instead.
"Haha, just kidding."
Jung-woo burst out laughing.
"Oh yeah, Belial."
"Yes, my lord."
"Starting tomorrow, evict all the staff from the apartment management office and replace them with skeletons. No complaints, no vacations, 24/7 duty. Perfect efficiency."
Belial flattered in his soulless voice.
"A brilliant idea, my lord. Though low-tier skeletons might lack the intelligence for administrative tasks."
"Yeah, true. They just babble nonsense. Heh."
Jung-woo pondered.
They needed someone for complex duties like complaints and bill settlements.
Not just manual labor, but a tough manager with some brains.
Decision made, he grinned and beckoned into space again.
"Good thing there's a perfect fit. Come forth, Bolg."
Rumble rumble rumble.
This time, no dimensional rift—just raw physical shock shaking the entire apartment.
Dust rained from the ceiling; Se-ah's mug shattered on the floor.
Like a meteor crashing right in the living room.
Bursting from the floor came a massive figure over two meters tall, wreathed in crimson lava-like mana.
The ultimate weapon of destruction, artificially forged by alchemy and dark magic, blending flesh and souls of countless mighty beings.
Its body was covered in scarred muscles and bone armor from endless cycles of ruin and regeneration.
4th Legion Commander, Indestructible Juggernaut Bolg.
Bolg bellowed thunderously, pounding his chest with fists.
"Kra ha ha ha! You called, my lord? Whose skulls do I smash this time?"
"Ugh, shut it. Enough with the skull-cracking talk."
Jung-woo grimaced.
"I've got an important mission for you."
"Important mission... Yes, my lord. I'll pierce any foe's heart."
Bolg's eyes gleamed with battle-mad ecstasy.
Belial watched with a pathetic tsk.
'What're you assigning to that musclehead?'
Jung-woo faced Bolg with the utmost seriousness.
"Starting tomorrow, you're the apartment manager."
His words halted Bolg cold.
Those battle-hungry eyes lost focus, blinking blankly.
Like he'd been hit with some bizarre spell for the first time, he just tilted his head slightly at his lord.
"What's a manager, my lord?"
Belial snorted openly in derision.
His unmasked emotions were always bluntly honest.
"Wise choice, my lord. Assigning imperial finances to this meathead would be an equal catastrophe. Truly groundbreaking personnel decision."
"Shut your trap, you staff-wielding weakling! How could you grasp the lord's profound intent?"
Bolg snapped back, though he himself had no clue what that intent was.
Jung-woo eyed his two Four Heavenly Kings pitifully, then explained simply at Bolg's eye level.
"Bolg, your job's easy."
"Yes, my lord."
"The residents—my subjects—will come with complaints."
Bolg's brow furrowed deeply.
His mind brimmed with battle, destruction, orders.
"Complaint" was an alien Earth word outside his knowledge.
As Bolg fell silent, Belial tossed in mockingly.
"You idiot. Forgot what grievance handling is? That boring crap the bureaucrats back in Arkhea did with petitions and such."
"Complaint... an enemy's name?"
"..."
Bolg's eyes lit up at Jung-woo's words, but Belial coughed lightly, bones clacking.
"...Dumbass."
Belial's mutter carried faintly.
Jung-woo barely stifled a chuckle.
"No... Complaints are just petty gripes. Noisy upstairs, bad parking—like trivial challenges."
"Challenges!"
Bolg's eyes flashed.
"Challenge" was in his wheelhouse.
He eyed his fist.
This fist pulverized any challenge.
"Right. Accept the challenge, satisfy them, send 'em packing. So my subjects dare not complain."
"Understood, my lord."
Bolg finally got it, thumping his chest like a gorilla.
"I, Bolg, swear to satisfy every complaint and send them away. I'll be history's greatest manager!"
Se-ah's head throbbed imagining how this brute would "satisfy" anyone.
Monsters in the house and one crazy brother.
No sleep tonight, she figured.
The next morning, after a sleepless hellish night, Jung-woo dragged the exhausted Se-ah downstairs, grinning about starting the empire's first official duties.
They arrived at the management office on the first floor.
Overnight, it had become a whole new world.
The original staff had been unceremoniously booted beyond the barrier, replaced by lines of skeletons Jung-woo had summoned.
The rundown office paired with bones was grotesque.
Clatter, clatter.
One skeleton diligently watered a plastic plant. Another endlessly shuffled a single A4 sheet between drawers.
And the manager's office.
Creak.
"This chair... too small."
Bolg was crammed in a puny office chair unfit for his bulk, squirming helplessly.
A slight shift, and the ergonomic chair screamed and splintered.
"Ah, broke another one."
Jung-woo sighed and summoned anew.
A magic circle birthed a short goblin in grease-stained overalls.
"Necrosia Chief Engineer Tinker reporting, my lord. You called?"
"Tinker. The office gear's awkward for our guys. Mod it to run on mana."
"Yes. Wait, the empire's top magitech expert fixing chairs?"
Tinker grumbled, grabbing his hammer.
His field was mana engineering, not Earth's cheap furniture.
Especially eyeing the wreckage, he snapped at Bolg.
"Hey, you muscle moron. Sick of patching your armor, now chairs too?"
"What'd you say, you runt goblin?!"
The management office's first morning kicked off with the 4th Legion Commander and chief engineer grabbing collars.
Belial watched the chaos amusedly from the eye of the storm,
while Se-ah stared blankly into space, soul seemingly adrift.
Right then.
Bang!!!
The office door flew open.
Park Cheol-min from Building 108, who'd endured Jung-woo's decree broadcast firsthand.
After rallying in the resident group chat all night, he'd come as representative to protest.
"What the hell is all this?!"