Send Them to the Castle
“I’m telling you, that castle isn’t that castle.”
I’ll just ship them off to the absolute farthest place I can find.
Was it because they spent every waking day trading blows with gate monsters? Compared to my past life, people around here seemed to be running a little short on humor.
I stomped back in a huff, and Kang Jiye caught my cheeks between her fingers and squished them into a fish face.
“You little brat. I told you to apologize, and instead you pick a fight. Just wonderful.”
“Stop. I know I’m amazing.”
“That was not a compliment. …So what are you planning to do?”
“Well, catch the cultists, obviously.”
If we’d decided to round them up, then we just had to round them up. The real question was how many—and for that, I’d need to consult the Director from here on out.
Knowing his style, he was probably waiting for the perfect moment to net them all in one sweep. Stirring the pot halfheartedly and wrecking his plans would be a problem.
“First, we’re going to headquarters!”
I dragged Kang Jiye straight to the Central Hunter Administration.
“Hoh… so you came of your own free will.”
The Director received us like a king seated on his throne. Nestled in his arms was the usual pink Party Bear, which he was stroking as if it were a Persian cat.
Beside me, Kang Jiye bit down hard on her lip. I let out a hollow laugh.
“What… is that? That bargain-bin final-boss line.”
The Director snorted and set the Party Bear down.
“Seojun told me you like jokes. Judging by your face, this one didn’t land.”
“It’s funny, sure. Just a little out of nowhere…”
He nodded.
“Less out of nowhere than you turning a police station upside down a little while ago, I imagine.”
“……!”
So he really had planted informants.
Then again, the fact that Kang Jiye had come through that mess unharmed was partly thanks to him.
I sighed once, sank onto the sofa, and got to the point.
“Might as well cut to the chase. I need to find the cultists, so hand over one prisoner.”
“A prisoner…?”
“You know… last time, when the Director’s car melted into a puddle of ruined jelly.”
For a moment, the Director pressed a thumb lightly against his temple.
“……Continue.”
“There was a woman who surrendered quietly back then. I’d like to meet her.”
“And once you meet her.”
“Once I meet her… I ask where the cult is. And I need to know what happened to the faction that serves me.”
The Director’s gaze deepened as he stroked his chin.
“Now that you mention it, that woman never opened her mouth. It was rather frustrating. And once things got busy, I stopped paying attention entirely.”
“Aha. You could’ve just called me, you know?”
He scoffed.
“Let the Queen meet a cultist? Absolutely not.”
“You don’t have to say you don’t trust me quite so openly…”
The Director answered as if the idea itself were absurd.
“Wouldn’t trusting you be the strange part? How am I supposed to know what you’re thinking?”
“…….”
“I’m not dismissing what you’ve accomplished. But the fact that we didn’t kill you is the result of considerable effort on our side. Frankly, if it weren’t for Deputy Director Kang, we’d be enemies by now.”
“Is that so?”
I glanced at Kang Jiye.
I’d wondered if she’d been working behind my back, but she only tilted her head, looking just as lost as I was.
The Director went on.
“There was no grand reason. It was simply because of Deputy Director Kang’s record.”
“Ah.”
Kang Jiye quietly bowed her head, and the Director raised a hand slightly in acknowledgment.
No wonder she’d thrown herself into her work even while raising Yena. Her reputation must have been excellent.
If even the Director says he had to put in effort, it really couldn’t have been easy.
This man wasn’t the type who enjoyed gambling. Accepting me as an ally must have been genuinely difficult.
Feeling a fresh appreciation for how important it was to live a decent life, I returned to the main subject.
“……So, in short, you’re saying you can’t hand that woman over?”
“No. Take her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Kim Seojun said it might be worth trusting you once. I was going to call you anyway. We need information on the cult right now.”
“Hoh, Kim Seojun said that, did he?”
I casually mimicked the Director’s speech pattern as I said it, and Kang Jiye quietly pinched my thigh.
The Director smiled faintly and pressed something like an intercom on his desk.
“Bring in number 4364.”
He’d been paying enough attention to memorize the prisoner number. Before long, a blonde woman in restraints appeared with an escort.
The moment she saw me, she bowed her head.
“Seventh Priest Raye Ji-won greets Her Majesty the Queen.”
The Director flinched slightly. A Priest was a high-ranking figure who led an entire faction. He clearly hadn’t imagined the person he’d been holding all this time occupied a position of that caliber.
Of course, I hadn’t known her identity either.
“So you were a Priest…”
“Yes.”
“Raye Ji-won.”
“Yes.”
But that didn’t change anything. I asked her the most important question.
“What is the cult’s purpose?”
“To assist the advent of the Great Kings, and ultimately to offer the world to the Demon God.”
“And if I choose to stand with humanity?”
“…….”
After a brief silence, Raye Ji-won answered.
“I am Lady Pecia’s faithful servant. I will follow you wherever you go.”
“Good.”
“However.”
“However?”
“The ordinary believers may not share the same opinion. And there is something I must report regarding that.”
Raye Ji-won guided us to the Seventh Cult.
It was located in the basement of an apartment complex near Songdo—and the entire building above it had been completely gutted by fire.
Naturally, the underground base itself was in no better shape. The moment we stepped through the entrance, a thick stench of blood hit us, and cracks snaked along the outer walls of the corridor like lightning.
A cult’s secret base usually came loaded with traps and solid construction, but this place looked as if it had taken a direct bombing run.
“So this is the cult…”
Kang Jiye looked around with open curiosity. The regular lights were broken, so mana torches lit the hallway at irregular intervals. From her expression, she seemed to think it suited a cult hideout perfectly.
Still, the condition improved the farther inside we went.
Colorful wallpaper and furniture painted with teddy-bear designs greeted us.
Looks like an amusement park.
“You have arrived.”
Men and women in white robes were waiting on their knees in unison. Roughly thirty of them. Most were B-class or higher, but even so, they looked pitifully few for an entire faction.
“We greet the Star of the Cult, Queen Pecia von Chiffonside. I am…”
The cultists began introducing themselves one by one.
I half-listened, blew on my earlobes, and cut in.
“Okay, so.”
“……?”
“Do you all want to keep kneeling here, or do you want to go get revenge?”
“Pardon?”
Apparently, this place had taken a massive assault from the Fifth Cult during the recent terrorist incident.
Most of the Fifth Cult’s powerhouses had been deployed for the attack, so the Seventh should have been able to hold them off—except some members of the Seventh who couldn’t accept my change of heart had cooperated with the enemy.
As a result, the Seventh Cult had been driven to the brink of annihilation.
Raye Ji-won had learned of the situation through a central informant, but she’d stayed put because she believed confining herself was the Queen’s—my—will.
I opened a gate.
“Pyuppyu—!”
From inside, Party Bears poured out carrying armfuls of reinforced baseball bats.
I addressed the white robes, who were still eyeing one another uncertainly.
“Starting now, we’re wiping out the Fifth Cult remnants. Side with me, and I’ll take you to an amusement park!”
The white robes scrambled for the baseball bats without anyone needing to go first. Not a single person asked why we were using weapons like that. They simply stared down the dark corridor like half-starved wildcats that hadn’t eaten in three days.
I smiled and looked at Raye Ji-won.
“All right, lead the way. Where do we go?”
“The cults are all connected underground. They’ll probably be blocking us from the other side, but… what would you have us do?”
“We go underground! I’ll make them pay for laying hands on my followers. Move out!”
Raye Ji-won nodded and shot down the corridor. The white robes fell in behind her. I grabbed the bewildered Kang Jiye by the wrist and urged her along.
“Hurry up! Mom!”
“Hey, hey…! We should at least make a plan.”
“The plan is that our little buddies are the plan.”
“……?”
Moving as fast as we could, we soon reached the Fifth Cult’s entrance.
I laid a hand on the thick iron door, reverse-engineered every trap out of existence, and gave the Party Bears their orders.
“……Smash it.”
““Pyuik—!””
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Party Bears started hammering the door with their reinforced bats. Truthfully, a door like that shouldn’t have yielded to low-grade items—but I’d already weakened its durability through reverse-engineering.
The triple- and quadruple-layered iron door dented, warped, and crumpled.
When only the final layer remained, Raye Ji-won pulled back her hood, wound a gale around her left leg, and drove a front kick into it.
KWAANG!!
“Look out!”
The instant the door gave way, hundreds of bolt spells and throwing weapons came surging out of the darkness like a tidal wave.
I was about to block them with my own body when Kang Jiye drew something like a beam saber and stopped the projectiles cold.
The weapons lost their speed as if they’d plunged into water, then dropped limply to the floor.
“Whoa— Mom, you’re the best.”
Kang Jiye snorted and sheathed the blade again.
I pointed forward.
“Suppress them! Break their legs, break their arms, break their backs, and haul them to the police station!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
The bat-wielding believers and Party Bears poured inside in a roaring flood.
For a while there were sounds of things shattering and people fighting; eventually only screams remained.
Watching the Fifth Cult members get dragged out one by one, I asked,
“By the way, where’s the farthest castle from here?”
Kang Jiye blinked.
“Huh?”
I shrugged.
“The police officers. We have to send them to a castle.”
“……That castle isn’t that castle.”
“I know, I know. But I can’t exactly cut their balls off, can I?”
“Huh? No—”
A few hours later.
The police station Pecia had just finished stirring up.
Inspector Kim Kanghyun, deep in the middle of his work, suddenly pinched his nose and lifted his head.
“Ah, not again.”
“Shouldn’t you take a break, sir?”
“Nah, I’m fine. Just heading to the bathroom for a bit.”
“Yes… Oh, right! Your wife called asking when you’d be home. Please keep your phone on.”
Kim Kanghyun waved a hand without a word and hurried to the restroom.
He stood gripping the sink for a long time. It had already been a week since the terrorist incident, and he hadn’t managed a proper night’s sleep.
Dark circles were carved deep under his eyes, and the eyes themselves were bloodshot. Blood streamed from his nose, gradually staining the basin red.
He was holding on through sheer willpower, but honestly, he wanted nothing more than to collapse right there and sleep.
Just catch them and bring them in!
He suddenly recalled the bold purple-haired girl and smiled. If someone actually tracked down the terrorists and delivered them, his subordinates might at least get a chance to rest.
“I’m really losing it.”
Telling himself he was getting his hopes up over nothing, he stuffed the bloodstained tissue into the trash.
—No…#%$@*$&!
In the meantime, the station had grown a little noisy. Fearing another attack, he rushed out—only to find a vaguely familiar girl raising hell, shouting, “Inspector Kim Kanghyun, come out!”
The moment she spotted him, the girl shoved past the other officers and ran over.
“Mister!”
Inspector Kim could only blink, with no idea what was going on.
“What is it?”
The girl pointed outside.
Dozens of white, wriggling figures lay piled in front of the entrance, bound with rope.
“……!”
The girl declared triumphantly,
“I caught the terrorists for you! Now go to the castle!”
“What?”
She thrust a thick stack of documents at him.
“No excuses about family, colleagues, health, or anything else. This is business, and I’ve got plenty of tickets, so you’re going. No arguments.”