Chapter 316
Chapter 316
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 316
Chapter Title: 71. Cosmic Lobby (1)
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Lobby, prison, and the universe.
Confusing keywords swirled through Yeong-woo's mind, but there was no more time to waste.
Ku-gu-gu-gu-gu...!
Already, far above Seoul's skies in some distant height, something like the eye of a typhoon was beginning to take shape.
"What the hell? Those examiners are coming straight here?"
Song Ji-seon gripped her greatsword threateningly at the bizarre phenomenon that made the sky look like it was tangling in on itself. Yeong-woo paused to think for a moment, then turned his head westward.
"No, they'll probably head for the Sajik Altar. Right in front of the Victory Monument."
He had filled his glory points there to request the promotion exam, so that was almost certainly where they would land.
Then Yeong-woo pointed to Jeong-gu standing off in the distance, along with the Orc Lord Bangtu Bangtung.
"Mother, mind giving my crew a lift?"
"What?"
"I'll take Yechan with me, so just carry the other two and follow."
"You want me to play pack mule?"
"If you're not planning to attack Seoul, Dragon Form's only real use left is this."
As Yeong-woo said this and signaled for Yechan to mount up on Negig, Yechan shook his head.
"I'm good. I can just run like before..."
His speed matched Negig's anyway, so no need to double up.
But Yeong-woo had never intended to ride all the way to Jongno with him in the first place.
"What are you talking about? Running to Jongno from here now, and we still won't make it in time."
"...Then what?"
Yechan tilted his head as he asked, and Yeong-woo pointed at the 'Tower' in Gwangjin-gu with his finger.
"We're taking that today. It's the only way to reach Jongno in under a minute."
* * *
Chwaaah!
As Yeong-woo raced toward the tower with Yechan aboard Negig, a section of the tower's solidly sealed outer wall slid open left and right, clearing a path.
"Huh? What the hell is that?"
Yechan, seeing the transit route for the first time, had no choice but to gawk. Yeong-woo pointed at the tower's summit like he should take a good look.
"Think of it as your new workplace. Use this tower, and you can zip to the next one at speeds close to light."
"Speeds close to light...?"
"Each tower works like a station, and they've already been built across all of China. So from now on, you'll use them to go around collecting tolls."
Yechan voiced the perfectly reasonable question that came to mind.
"No way the Chinese just left these towers alone, right? They'd smash them the second they saw them."
"Of course they tried. But they failed."
"......?"
"You'll get it if you hit one yourself, but these towers aren't something just anyone can destroy."
"Then who can?"
"Me."
"......?"
"Even Mother would have a hard time smashing one. So..."
Shwaaaaa!
Negig rocketed toward the top of the tower with the two aboard, and Yeong-woo finished his thought.
"If you ever see someone scratching up a tower, don't fight them no matter what. Run like hell and call me."
"...The towers are that tough?"
"It's not just any tower—it's forged from souls."
The moment Yeong-woo said it, they reached the summit in the blink of an eye.
Then what must have been a system embedded in the transit route displayed a notification message.
「A new user has been detected. Register as a regular user?」
Yeong-woo immediately pressed his hand to the control device at the center of the top level, approving Yechan's user registration.
Paat!
「Kang Yechan306 has been registered as a regular user.」
The message popped up after the system process finished, so it appeared in Yechan's view too. His eyes went wide.
"What? You already did something?"
"Congrats on the job."
As he said it, Yeong-woo gazed out beyond the tower's outer wall at the top, which had already begun to open.
The path of light, shining brilliantly even in broad daylight.
"We've got less than thirty seconds. Better hurry."
"Thirty seconds? Doesn't that mean we're basically already late?"
"Don't you get what 'close to light speed' means?"
"Sure, but it's not actual light speed..."
Yechan started to half-protest, but then his surroundings went pure white.
Shweeeee!
In an instant, the pair's location shifted to Seongdong-gu.
"...Huh?"
Then again.
Paaaa!
"W-Wait a sec!"
Before Yechan could get the words out, a bizarre sense of dislocation swept through the chamber.
Yeong-woo had immediately ordered transit to the next station.
Kwaaaaa!
Light so blinding it hurt filled Yechan's vision. When he opened his eyes again.
"......?"
The scenery at the top of the tower looked the same as before, but they had arrived in an entirely different district.
"We're here. Jongno."
Yeong-woo smacked the circular control panel with his palm, and high-speed descent kicked in.
Shwaaaa!
"How the hell did you even build something like this? And when?"
As Yechan stuck out his tongue in awe at Seoul's insane progress, Yeong-woo answered flatly.
"I'm heading out to greet planetary examiners, and you're amazed by this?"
"W-Well, yeah, but..."
Yechan had adapted pretty quickly to this world, but the things happening in Seoul were beyond imagination.
For starters, Uncle Yeong-woo snagging the mayor spot was wild. What even was Metal Seoul? And how the hell did orcs end up building bridges?
"You not scared at all, Uncle?"
"Of what?"
"All this is your doing, right? So in the end, all the responsibility lands on you."
"Yeah."
Yeong-woo gave the short reply, then sank into thought for a moment.
He spoke up in a pretty serious tone.
"That's why I can't afford to be picky about methods. It has to succeed, period."
How a fringe planet survives in the greater cosmos.
Yeong-woo was learning it right now, starting from rock bottom, one step at a time.
Kwa-kwang!
Negig's iron hooves clattered as it charged toward the Sajik Altar and Victory Monument visible ahead. Right on cue, Ice Dragon Song Ji-seon descended from the sky, clutching Jeong-gu and Bangtu Bangtung one in each talon.
There had been a few bumps along the way, but everyone was assembled now.
The founding members of the 'prestigious house' Yeong-woo had begun dreaming of.
"No way that orc's your vassal too, right Uncle?"
From atop the hurtling Negig, Yechan pointed at Orc Lord Bangtu Bangtung.
Yeong-woo shook his head.
"Vassal? Brother Bang's my brother. Way more than some underling."
Yeong-woo's house, pursuing multiculturalism—or rather, multi-species harmony.
"...Yeah, definitely cosmic."
Yechan gazed up at the sky with a suddenly detached expression, and right then, a massive bolt of lightning cracked high overhead.
"Whoa! Uncle!"
The sky flashed a bluish hue, and Yeong-woo looked up too—but it wasn't lightning he saw.
"Uh, what the..."
What Yechan had mistaken for lightning was actually intermittent blue glows pulsing from a colossal ship.
It had just looked like lightning beaming down from above the clouds.
"They came right on time."
Yeong-woo's VIP timer hit '0' remaining perfectly in sync.
Then from the sky.
Gwaaaaaak...!
A brutish roar boomed out deep and wide.
The eerie sound, like some machine beast howling, came from the ship carrying the promotion examiners.
"How big is that damn thing? Can't even make out the shape."
Yechan muttered at the examiners' ship blotting out the sky, and Yeong-woo scowled in frustration.
"Fuck... why don't we have one of those?"
He was seriously pissed.
Forced to admire a ship handed out to mere planetary examiners?
It drove home just how goddamn vast the universe was.
And sure enough.
Ku-ung, kung!
Dragon-formed Song Ji-seon lumbered over with massive footfalls.
She dropped Jeong-gu and Bangtu Bangtung, then spoke in utter disgust.
—You don't have one of those? Guess we're total chum after all.
She had finally grasped how enormous the 'universe' her son was pushing into really was.
"That's why we're not the ones getting lobbied—we're doing the lobbying."
Yeong-woo pulled the commemorative coin from his pocket as he spoke, and Song Ji-seon bared her fangs.
—Those guys don't look like your average bureaucrats, though. You can just tell. Even if the lobbying works, it'll bleed us dry.
"......"
Yeong-woo had no choice but to agree with his mother.
The only bureaucrat he'd met face-to-face so far was Giajol, the registration clerk at the National Tax Service's temporary outpost—and that guy used a basic portal at best, never mind a ship like this.
Sure, portals were way more convenient in terms of ease...
'That's pure pomp at this point. They crush your spirit before even showing their faces.'
One question occurred to Yeong-woo.
'So, can the Chairman... take down guys like that?'
The Dogo Chairman he knew did beat up bureaucrats, but Yeong-woo had no clue where his limit lay.
Nor if that 'committee member' the Chairman had exterminated outranked these examiners.
Giajol from the National Tax Service registration desk last time had been a whopping Grade 86.
So just imagine how many varieties of bureaucrats infested the universe.
'The guy who bitched about the mythical weapon transfer probably wasn't low-rank either... But this ship's telling me these examiners aren't small fry.'
As Yeong-woo wore a complicated frown, a white beam lit up from the sky, bathing a spot near the Sajik Altar in a perfect circle.
Thung!
For the first time, someone from the examiners' side spoke.
〔The one who requested the promotion exam, step forward.〕
"Ugh."
"......!"
As the examiners scanned for their requester, Yechan and Jeong-gu instinctively hunched and clapped hands over their ears.
Ship-amplified audio, or maybe that mechanical howl from before reworked into words.
The voice carried insane pressure, but at least three figures in the area stood ramrod straight.
Metal Seoul Mayor Jeong Yeong-woo, Ice Dragon Song Ji-seon, and Red-Foot Orc Lord Bangtu Bangtung.
Each with their own reasons, refusing to bow even before far superior beings.
And especially Yeong-woo.
'Someday, I'm beating every last one of you...!'
He endured the examiners' majesty on pure, raging fighting spirit.
Cheol-keok!
At last, Yeong-woo planted himself at the designated spot clad in Besedel armor, and the spotlight on him flickered like blinking eyes.
Then.
〔What the fuck is that punk.〕
What was probably a broadcast slip echoed from the ship's loudspeaker.
The voice's owner urgently hailed someone else, and it broadcast.
〔Take a look at this.〕
〔...At what?〕
〔Besedel.〕
〔What?〕
Multiple examiners, their distinct speech patterns overlapping in the chaos.
Song Ji-seon, who had been listening silently, asked her son.
—What the hell's... Be-sedel?
"My backing. The royal house of the universe."
—Oh.
But a fallen royal house now.
Which made the Besedel Yeong-woo wore more a symbol of past glory.
Was that why?
〔Hah, what, some ancient Besedel relic?〕
One of the examiners snorted in short order.
At that instant, Yeong-woo's brow furrowed deep.
'Oh shit, this could get messy.'
The opponents knew the cosmic lay of the land well enough to react to Besedel—yet they dared snort at the name.
A 'named' item? Amazing boon against those who respected it.
Total poison against those who didn't.
And this looked like the poison case.
They proceeded to snap at him like he was some criminal in the hot seat.
〔You a Besedel flunky or what? State your identity properly.〕
Yeong-woo's brow twisted into something ferocious, and sensing her son's eyes starting to glaze with rage, Song Ji-seon flung her jaws wide.
—You moron, don't pull some crazy shit—bow your head! Bending with the gale is strategy too.
But Yeong-woo already had a hand resting on Bastard at his hip.
"You really want to know who I am?"
He snapped his head up with total defiance, and Song Ji-seon blew out a blue breath like everything was fucked.
—No! Not the time!
But Yeong-woo's follow-up caught everyone off guard.
"Then it's truly an honor! Esteemed Examiners...!"
—What...?
"However, this trifle will speak for this lowly one's identity."
Suluk.
Yeong-woo raised a small metal lump cradled in his palm.
None other than the commemorative coin stamped with his own face.
A 'Karma'-type object any cosmic being would spot instantly. Plain and simple: money.
As if they'd been waiting.
〔Ho.〕
The voice from the ship sounded intrigued.
〔Rumors were true after all.〕
Then the spotlight on Yeong-woo blinked rapidly.
〔They say Besedel masters of cosmic etiquette are unmatched in the universe!〕
'...Fuck.'
Yeong-woo beamed radiantly at the ship, coin held high.
Then he whispered through gritted teeth to his mother.
"These fuckers take bribes. You called it, Mother."