The Steelworks
“No! No… Aaaaagh!”
Bang! The instant Cho Taehyung was slammed into the Demon Realm, starving evil spirits swarmed him.
He tried to scream, but the acidic atmosphere flooded his lungs and packed them full.
“Grrrk… grrrk… cough!”
His throat burned so badly that even breathing was agony. Then the weak points of his mind took form. Illusory figures appeared and tore Cho Taehyung’s limbs apart. A eardrum-shattering roar of destruction rang out, and he was chewed alive, ripped open, torn to pieces, stitched back together, and torn apart again.
“Uwaaa…”
He wanted to die and could not. Forced resurrection magic kept pumping life force into him. Only the sensation of pain had been amplified thousands of times. Even the flow of time felt different. He tumbled through hell for what felt like an eternity, the price of every sin carved into his joints bone by bone, until his mind was on the verge of crumbling into dust.
“How is it? Are you lucid?”
Hanul reached out again and hauled him back into reality.
“Aaaah… gaaah!”
Sprawled on the rooftop, Cho Taehyung gagged and retched filth. His spirit was completely broken.
A black-magic spell—Rebuild Mind. Originally it was used to scrub clean the mental state of corpse thralls revived by Revive. Hanul had used it only so the man could still form coherent words after his mind had snapped like a dry twig. Of course the hellish memories and trauma remained untouched.
“I’ll ask once more. Is China scarier than I am?”
“Uuuu…”
“Ah, right. Almost forgot.”
Hanul casually flicked his fingers again.
“S-stop! It was all my fault! Please—”
Beyond the torn dimensional gate, a close-up of hell itself. Familiar faces waited there for Cho Taehyung: the missing Chinese embassy counselor, the Black Dragon Guild hunters, and even Dokgo Jun and his team who had vanished only yesterday. Their bodies were ruined beyond recognition—flesh torn away, regrown, torn away again—while Demon Realm beasts chewed them alive and they screamed without end. This was no mere torture. Demonic energy weathered them until their very existence was being erased. A slaughterhouse for souls.
Thud—
Cho Taehyung collapsed. His whole body shook like a leaf.
That’s not human! That’s a god… no, a Demon God!
The power of the Chinese embassy, the hunter legions—before that abyss they were nothing but toys.
“Well? Wouldn’t a clean death have been better?”
“I-I’m sorry. Please…”
“If saying sorry fixed everything, life would be easy.”
Hanul’s mouth smiled, but his eyes were ice.
“You said twelve years earlier. That’s how long you’ve been leaking technology. Crawl like a dog and atone. If I sense even a hint of half-heartedness, you and your son both go straight in there.”
“Anywhere but there, please, please don’t send me there!”
“That depends entirely on what you do from now on.”
Cho Taehyung trembled and begged. How could he possibly earn forgiveness? He racked his brain desperately.
“If it’s about the magic ingots…”
Beside him, Hatchery pulled something from her coat.
“Still going on about magic ingots or whatever, huh? You mean this yong?”
“H-how…?”
“It’s been so noisy lately I grabbed one to take a look.”
Hanul took the magic ingot, tossed it lightly, and caught it again.
“Nothing special.”
“…”
“Anyway, I’m sending you downstairs now. Do exactly as you’re told. The second you get any funny ideas, you and your son get a free tour of the Demon Realm.”
“Spare me—!”
“Ah, I’ll leave you with just broken limbs. Not a vegetable. You’ll still need to hold press conferences and apologize, after all.”
Hanul seized Cho Taehyung by the collar and simply let go of the hand that held him out over the railing.
“Gyaaaaaaah!”
Splat! A moment later another dull, wet impact rose from below.
A few days later.
Hwangryun Guild main conference hall.
Click—click—
Camera flashes were exploding again in the same room.
Cho Taehyung sat on the dais. He looked nothing like the man who had held a press conference only days earlier. Full-body casts, wheelchair. Even after treatment from an S-class healer, this was the best they could manage.
Still, the work had to be done. Reporters hammered him with questions.
“Is it true you jumped from the Dungeon Management Department rooftop?”
“Did Minister Kang Eunha pressure you?”
“There are allegations of coercive investigation—any comment?”
Cho Taehyung took the microphone.
“…No. The Dungeon Management Department did nothing malicious to me.”
The reporters stirred. This was the same Cho Taehyung who normally frothed at the mouth to tear the department apart. Everyone who mattered knew it. And he was simply letting such a perfect pretext slip away?
“That day Minister Kang Eunha only confronted me about the shameful things I had done. She scolded me to return to the right path. Nothing more.”
Cho Taehyung swallowed dryly. The hellscape on that rooftop flashed through his mind and he shuddered.
“That is why my son, unable to bear his own sins, jumped. I was trying to stop him when the accident happened.”
“Is that really true?”
Even under the reporter’s pressure, Cho Taehyung only shook his head.
“It is the truth. Surviving was pure luck. I take it as the will of heaven.”
Click, click—!
Shutters fired again. From his wheelchair Cho Taehyung bowed deeply and formally.
“I will spend the rest of my life seeking out everyone we have hurt and atoning. That is all.”
Hwangryun’s sudden repentance? The hall filled with shock and suspicion. And it was not over.
“All licenses, contracts, and authority related to magic ingots held by Hwangryun Guild will be transferred to the production guild under the Veteran Guild. The issues surrounding the magic-ingot announcement made a few days ago will be resolved without fail so that…”
Dungeon Management Department, Minister’s office.
The large television showed Cho Taehyung’s press conference in real time. Eunha stared at the screen as if she could not believe it.
“Uncle, what on earth happened?”
She turned. Beside her, Hanul was sunk deep into the sofa.
“Guild Leader Cho Taehyung and his son both jumped? And now this press conference…”
“Don’t worry. Neither that bastard nor the son is dead yet.”
“I need the situation more than reassurance. The articles are going crazy.”
Eunha held out her tablet. Portal sites were blanketed with the same story.
Beneath the article, comments exploded.
Public opinion was cheering, but for a minister the cleanup work was a mountain. Hanul rose with a quiet snort of laughter.
“More good reactions than bad.”
He had skimmed the comment section.
“Besides, you didn’t pressure him.”
“Well… I didn’t exactly not pressure him.”
“You only asked whether he could hold his head high about the technology leak.”
“That’s true, but…”
“And he felt the pangs of conscience and did this, right? His own words.”
“I know full well he’s not that kind of man. What really happened when you said you were going up to that rooftop? You didn’t actually throw him, did you?”
Eunha asked. Cho Taehyung was not the sort to jump out of conscience. Her uncle’s hand had clearly been involved.
“Just take the contents of Cho Taehyung’s press conference as the truth. That’s all you need to know, Eunha. Right?”
“Haa…”
Eunha lowered her head. As her uncle said, the only option left to her was to pretend she knew nothing. She was the minister. Even so, deep down it felt good—like a rotten tooth finally pulled.
“Fine. I understand. The real problem is still the magic ingots anyway.”
She changed the subject. Even if Cho Taehyung had a change of heart and Hwangryun Guild reversed its policies, every production process had inertia. What had been expanded could not suddenly shrink, and what had been cut could not suddenly expand.
Thud—
Hanul set a heavy object on the table.
“Huh? Where did you get that?”
“Nothing special.”
Hanul scratched at empty air. A spatial seam opened.
Beyond it lay the black-goat farm that had belonged to Kang Junwu—Hanul’s older brother, Eunha’s father.
And the landscape there had changed completely. A massive workshop had been built.
Whoosh—
Inside the workshop a furnace roared. Magic power poured down like a waterfall, and someone directed the flow.
“Move faster yong!”
It was Hatchery. Under her command, figures in work clothes swung tongs and hammers. The two-meter giants were Goat Demons.
Clang—claaang—
Hissss—shaaah!
They were using old-fashioned methods, yet the sheer physical power of the Goat Demons overwhelmed any high-tech process. Magic ingots stamped out at blistering speed.
The scene in front of the workshop was even more spectacular. Trucks bearing the Veteran Guild logo stood in a long line, every cargo bed already piled high with magic ingots. Mountainous quantities kept pouring out.
Hanul called to Hatchery.
“Hatchery, everything going well?”
“Yep, of course yong! First batch fully loaded, now delivering to the steelworks yong~”
“Good work. I’ll go with you to the steelworks.”
Crack—
Hanul closed the dimensional gate. Eunha still looked completely lost for words.
“I’ll be off then.”
“What?”
“You just saw the magic ingots. The most urgent place is Donghae Magic Steelworks, right? That’s what your report said.”
“W-well, yes, but…”
Hanul gave a quiet laugh and rested a hand on his niece’s shoulder.
“You just prepare the announcement that the magic-ingot shortage has been resolved.”
The Dungeon era.
The industrial map had been redrawn, and steelworks were no exception.
First, the raw material had changed. Instead of iron ore they used magic ingots.
Second, location mattered more than ever. Abundant cooling water was essential, but land rich in magic power was ideal.
Every nation therefore scoured coastal sites where Dungeon Impacts had erupted. South Korea still had the old Pohang and Gwangyang steelworks, but three major magic steelworks had been added.
The largest of them was Donghae Magic Steelworks. President Park Cheol-woo was in charge.
This is the worst-case scenario.
He was the president’s confidant. While most Korean politicians and bureaucrats were rotten with corruption, Park Cheol-woo was one of the few men of principle who never wavered under any temptation. He was also highly capable.
Huuu… I can’t see a way out.
But right now he had reached his limit. The subordinates who had weathered every hardship with him were likewise at the breaking point; the atmosphere in the conference room was toxic.
“President, the magic-ingot supply has been cut off. The production lines are about to stop.”
“The defense contractors are going crazy too. They’re demanding to know what we’re going to do about the armor-plate quotas.”