North
"Hello? You're asking if an interview is possible? No, we're still working things out internally."
"Guild Master, Haslla—the major guild from Gangwon Province—just reached out about joining the alliance as well."
The office of White Night Guild had been ringing off the hook all day long.
Thank-you calls for repelling the Yeongdeungpo Gate Break, interview requests for Kang Iseol, alliance membership inquiries from other guilds—the phone simply never stopped, not even for a moment.
And Kang Iseol stood staring at the chaotic office, wearing a hollow smile.
Hyeolcheon.
It was a guild alliance that Lee Jaeseong had put together almost on a whim, and she had never imagined it would establish such firm standing in so short a time.
Of course, luck had certainly played its part.
The sudden Tutorial Termination and the Gate Break had given Hyeolcheon a dazzling debut.
Though strictly speaking, the star of that dazzling debut hadn't been Hyeolcheon at all—it had been a single individual.
The real-time best posts on the hunter community boards were all filled with talk about the Hyeolcheon Guild and Kang Samsik.
Scrolling through those posts, Kang Iseol was forcing an awkward smile.
'Should I call this a blessing, or not?'
It was because she hadn't corrected the record precisely that several misunderstandings had spread among the public.
The first was that people had gotten the idea Kang Samsik was the one who conquered the Yeouido Gate.
But since Lee Jaeseong himself had no intention of revealing his identity, it wasn't likely to become a real problem, and it hardly warranted a public correction.
The second misunderstanding was that the notion of Kang Iseol being the owner of Hyeolcheon was spreading naturally among the people.
She had taken the lead in founding the Hyeolcheon Guild in the first place, and during the Yeongdeungpo Gate Break she had essentially commanded the scene, so the misunderstanding had a natural origin.
For Kang Iseol, however, it was a misunderstanding that couldn't have been more uncomfortable.
Even if the true master of Hyeolcheon, Lee Jaeseong, was keeping himself hidden, she still believed from every angle that a hunter like Choi Taemin standing at the front made far more sense than herself.
The problem was that even Choi Taemin was showing little interest in the alliance's affairs.
"Haah."
Looking at the mountain of approval documents stacked on her desk, Kang Iseol let out an involuntary sigh.
It was only to that extent because Cheongseol Guild had taken on a fair share of the work; without them, she might well have died buried under paperwork.
'He grows the board this big, and then can't even be bothered to care.'
Kneading her stiff neck, Kang Iseol picked up her smartphone.
Whatever people were chattering about, the owner of Hyeolcheon was Lee Jaeseong, and she needed to report the current situation to him.
Which meant that—absolutely, one hundred percent—she was not calling because she wanted to hear his voice.
"Hello?"
Before the ringtone had even finished its first cycle, that familiar, indifferent voice answered.
"A-Ah, Jaeseong-nim. Sorry to bother you when you're busy. It's just that ever since the Yeongdeungpo incident, we've been getting more and more requests from guilds wanting to join our alliance, and I wanted to discuss a few things about that—"
Kang Iseol was speaking in a tense voice when she tilted her head.
Because through the phone, instead of Jaeseong's voice, she heard the sound of wind.
"Are you... outside right now? If this is a bad time, I can call back later—"
"Ah, I stepped out for a bit. I have some business up north."
"Business? Where? There shouldn't be any separate issues in the northern region right now—"
Kang Iseol asked him with a puzzled expression.
It was true the aftermath of the Gate Break hadn't fully settled yet, but nothing of note had happened in the northern districts.
But the answer that came back from Lee Jaeseong leapt far beyond her common sense.
"No, farther up than that. North Korea."
"...I'm sorry? Where? North Korea?"
"I'll be back soon. So, let's talk next time."
Click.
The call ended right that moment.
"North Korea? That North Korea?"
All Kang Iseol could do was murmur to herself with a look of complete incomprehension.
In her understanding of the world, North Korea was not a place one could simply pop over to.
But then again, when the people involved were Lee Jaeseong and that Kang Samsik... a strange part of her felt like it somehow made sense after all.
A temporary military command post in the heart of Pyongyang.
The men known as North Korea's leadership were staring at the Gate visible in the distance, their faces heavy with exhaustion and shame.
"So it's come to this. We're about to hand our own home over to the imperialist jackals and the Japs."
A general of the North Korean People's Armed Forces, three stars gleaming on his epaulettes, muttered through gritted teeth.
It wasn't as though they didn't know that golems were monsters worth money.
No—in fact, the reason the military junta and the coalition of Awakened who had toppled the old regime had been able to maintain their rule until now was precisely because of the Golem Gate in Pyongyang.
The honey pot was about to be handed over to foreign powers, so it was only natural that everyone in the room wore sour expressions.
"There's no other way at this point, is there? Right now we don't even know whether the people who went inside are alive or dead."
At someone's words, the leadership could only nod reluctantly, swallowing their bitterness.
They were about to have their vast hoards of mana stones and byproducts torn away wholesale—but that was still better than watching downtown Pyongyang get trampled under golem feet.
"So? Where are those bastards now?"
"The plane carrying the Chinese and Japanese delegations has departed, but we haven't heard anything from the South Koreans."
"So they're refusing to come? Even after we begged them while grinding our own dignity into the dirt!"
The general slammed his fist down on the table and roared.
At that, one of the North Korean Awakened seated nearby scoffed and chimed in.
"That's how those South Korean dogs always are. I'd bet anything they're laughing right now, knowing what a sorry state we're in."
"Goddamn it. If it weren't for that lunatic, we never would have collapsed this pathetically."
A bitter, resentful lament spilled from the general's lips.
And with good reason—the damage North Korea had suffered at the hands of Kang Samsik had been anything but trivial.
Had they preserved their full fighting strength, they might have avoided this worst-case scenario of begging foreign powers for help.
"Comrade General! We have a problem."
At that very moment, a communications officer burst through the barracks door.
"What now? Did a plane go down?"
"No, sir. They say they're coming from the south. Right now."
"What was that? So they're coming after all? Where—has the flight path been confirmed?"
At the general's urgent question, the communications officer shook his head, his face drained white.
"N-Not a plane."
"What? If not a plane—don't tell me they're coming by boat?"
"B-By land, sir. And not the way they did before—no, they're simply smashing straight through the Military Demarcation Line like last time."
"...Wh-What?"
At the officer's report, every single member of the North Korean leadership inside the command post simultaneously went pale, mouths hanging open.
**
Only two people had accompanied me on the road to North Korea: Samsik and Seo Jinwoo.
Samsik, well, the North Koreans had asked for him, so bringing him along was the right call. Seo Jinwoo, I'd brought because he had his own uses.
If I was being that pragmatic, my brother-in-law would have been useful too, but dragging him into anything involving my sister seemed like it would cost more than it gained.
'I thought it over, and keeping him out of the loop for now seemed better.'
The problem was that, reconsidering it now, I was starting to wonder if my personnel choices had been a mistake.
KA-BOOM. KWAAAAAAAAANG!
I sighed as I watched a landmine detonate in the distance.
"UWAHAHA! Cult Leader! I, Kang Samsik, shall lead the vanguard of your great northward march!"
That was what Samsik had declared mere minutes ago as he sprinted ahead of me.
And clinging to his back was Robang—no, Seo Jinwoo—staring at me with an expression that plainly asked why on earth he'd been dragged along.
And the result of that was the explosions shaking the earth right now.
The Military Demarcation Line was seeded with countless landmines, and at first I'd assumed Samsik had stepped on one by accident.
If Samsik set his mind to it, he was capable of moving across snow without leaving a trace—but he wasn't sneaking right now, so there was no need for subtlety.
The martial arts Samsik had cultivated were, at their core, thoroughly strength-focused.
His heart method wasn't the type to step lightly upon empty air; it was closer to stomping hard into the earth and using the rebound to launch his body explosively forward.
So when the first mine went off, I judged it a misstep.
Granted, at Samsik's level he should have been more than able to sense something buried in the ground—but the man had never bothered with small details in his life.
Then it happened not once or twice but over and over, and I had no choice but to reconsider.
KA-BOOM. KA-BOOM! KWAAAAAAAAANG!
"...No way. That lunatic."
I muttered it with an expression of pure disbelief as I watched the dust and flame erupting without pause.
There it was.
He wasn't slipping up. He was stepping on the mines on purpose.
"Cult Leader! I, Kang Samsik, will blast away anything dangerous, so just follow right behind me!"
Even as shrapnel sprayed in every direction and flames surged skyward, Samsik called back to me in a voice as relaxed as could be.
In his own head, it was loyalty. Devotion. Thanks to him, though, I was the one forced to push through the dust clouds, and I couldn't help but find it absurd.
'Well, I can just wrap myself in Body Protective Astral Qi.'
Of course, the one suffering the most from Samsik's rampage wasn't me—it was Seo Jinwoo.
"UWAAAAH! Please get me down! Sir! No—hyung-nim!"
Dangling off Samsik's back, Seo Jinwoo screamed at me with the most desperate expression imaginable.
The amusing part was that even in the middle of all this, to stay alive, he was pushing that strange power of his to the absolute limit.
I could see the golden light pouring out from behind Samsik's back, deflecting—just barely—the shrapnel flying in from every direction.
Watching Seo Jinwoo improve in real time while whining the whole way, I let out a small snort of laughter.
One of the reasons I'd gone to the trouble of dragging him all the way here was to fix his spine.
That frustration-inducing fool who kept apologizing and acting like an idiot even after being discarded by his own blood—what he needed was a dose of venom planted deep in his bones, and that was the miracle cure.
And a few days of traveling with Samsik would produce that venom quite naturally.
"No, seriously, why am I going to North Korea? Couldn't you at least tell me the reason—"
"You're repaying your debt."
"What? No, that's not—UWECK! Another one!"
KA-BOOM.
I chuckled again as I watched Seo Jinwoo throw up another golden barrier.
Even amid all that, though, an emotion colder and heavier than ever before was churning in my chest.
That tarnished silver pendant, discovered in Pyongyang.
If anything stood between me and finding my sister's trail, I would clear it away—no matter who, or what, it was.