Chapter 77
After spending a week in Egypt, Yoon Sang-hyuk’s party quietly returned to Korea aboard the private jet lent by Park Tae-hoo, chairman of Yuseong Group. Ahmed Hassan stayed behind in Egypt, saying he had matters to handle before coming to Korea himself two weeks later.
"...Among the construction companies that applied for the bid, the ones worth your attention, my lord, are... The redevelopment work in the city has been completed. Among the families belonging to the Masked Castle..."
Baekjeong reported on everything that had happened while Yoon Sang-hyuk was away. When he was done, he glanced at Yang Su-chan, who was scowling in one corner, and asked, "What’s wrong with him?"
"Ask him yourself."
Ever since Park Ho-sung’s Heaven's Judgment had swept up even Yang Su-chan’s undead at the Sanctuary of the Nameless King, he had been like this. He kept muttering under his breath with a look of utter dissatisfaction. Every now and then, his eyes even turned red-rimmed, and he did not look well at all.
"Anyone looking at him would think someone he loved died. If you’ve got time to sit there moping, why don’t you go make more undead?"
"My kids all got killed, and instead of comforting me, that’s what you say?"
"So I’m telling you to make those kids again."
Park Ho-sung kept repeating, "I’m sorry," beside the grumbling Yang Su-chan. In the battle against the forgotten ancient king, he had failed to keep an eye on his surroundings and completely wiped out Yang Su-chan’s undead.
"What did you do wrong? It’s all my fault. I’m the bastard who should be blamed. I couldn’t even protect my own kids. I’m sorry, son."
"I’m sorry."
"Enough."
Yang Su-chan snapped at Park Ho-sung, then stormed out.
Yoon Sang-hyuk shook his head as if the whole thing was hopeless and let out a sigh.
"When is he ever going to grow up?"
He said it like a complaint, but he knew very well how hard Yang Su-chan had taken it. After all the trouble he had gone through to make those undead, only to have them turned to ash in an instant, it would have been strange if there had been no shock at all.
"Did everything go well while you were away?"
"Yeah."
"Kurihara Ayane came back two days ago."
"Alone?"
"No. She brought back the guild master and every executive from Phoenix Guild."
"Where are they now?"
"We locked them in the underground prison."
"Interrogation?"
"I thought you’d want to do it yourself, my lord, so we just kept them locked up."
Yoon Sang-hyuk nodded, understanding.
"Is Lee Jae-sung still rolling those dice?"
"Yes. These days he’s been busy collecting anything he thinks brings luck."
At the thought of Lee Jae-sung wearing a cross necklace around his neck while clutching prayer beads and a giant piece of taffy in his hands, Yoon Sang-hyuk let out a snort.
"He doesn’t seem to roll high numbers very often."
If he got high numbers that easily every time, he’d be a genuine cheating character.
"The auction for black knight corpses was held under the supervision of the Player Association. Other countries wanted to participate too, but President Lee Hyung-seok rejected them."
"The conglomerates probably took most of them."
"Yes, my lord. The one that won the largest amount was Yuseong Group."
"That man’s greedy."
Yuseong Group was the number one conglomerate in the business world, famous even on a global scale, so its financial muscle would naturally be exceptional. But Yuseong Group already had secured a considerable number of black knight corpses through its dealings with Yoon Sang-hyuk. Even so, it had joined the auction and won the largest share. For the time being, the market for player-exclusive weapons and gear would likely belong to Yuseong Group alone.
"How’s the workshop construction?"
"It should be finished by next week. It rained for four days after you went to Egypt, so the work got delayed."
Baekjeong’s report came to an end.
Yoon Sang-hyuk went to the bedroom, changed his clothes, and put the mask he had been wearing into his inventory. Then he gripped one edge of the bed and twisted it, causing the mattress to rotate ninety degrees and reveal a staircase leading downward.
He walked along the passage connected to the stairs. The path split into three branches, and he chose the left one. At the end of that corridor was another staircase leading upward.
There was an electronic lock on the door at the top of the stairs. After entering the code, the door slid sideways.
"Oh, hyung, you’re here?"
Yoon Sang-min, who had been sitting in a chair watching television, waved at him cheerfully.
"Have you eaten?"
"No. I came straight over after hearing Baekjeong’s report."
"This is your first time coming in here, right?"
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled and nodded.
This was a building located in the city district constructed in front of the Masked Castle. It was also a space meant only for the Yoon Sang-hyuk and Yoon Sang-min brothers. From now on, he intended to stay here whenever he had no pressing business.
"How did things go when you went out?"
"From now on, the Tower of the Dead will become a lower guild under the Masked Castle."
"So you settled it peacefully."
"Killing those guys wouldn’t change anything. Better to keep using them as labor, little by little. And the one who really caused the problem is someone else."
"Good call. Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving."
He left the house with Yoon Sang-min. Their home was the one closest to the Masked Castle in the city district.
They walked along the stone-paved road.
"The mother of the guy known as the Secret Inspector opened a restaurant, and the food is incredible."
The city district was already filling with people.
Restaurants, convenience stores, general shops, and more had already opened for business. Quite a few foreigners were also walking the streets. Most of them were players.
A few members of the Masked Mercenary Group were patrolling the city district. Even as they passed right by, they failed to recognize Yoon Sang-hyuk and Yoon Sang-min. Within the Masked Mercenary Group, only the captain, Baekjeong, and the two vice-captains knew what Yoon Sang-hyuk looked like.
After eating at the restaurant Yoon Sang-min recommended, the two of them headed to Hangang Park.
The apartments and schools between the city district and Hangang Park would all disappear before long.
"By the way, did you hear about it?"
"Hear about what?"
"The grave for Mom and Dad. But isn’t that a little too much?"
Yoon Sang-hyuk had bought the mountain where his parents’ grave was located, then bought up all the surrounding land as well and surrounded it with a wall more than three meters high. After that, he asked the Crimson Witch, Christina Robianco, to set up a massive barrier across the entire area inside the wall.
In exchange for that barrier, he returned the weapons of the elite guild members belonging to the Red Magic Tower, the representative Italian guild.
Now, no one could go to the place where his parents’ grave was without Yoon Sang-hyuk’s permission. He planned to make a beautiful garden inside the wall, one his mother would have loved.
"You said you wanted to splurge a little, didn’t you?"
"Still, does it make sense to use the Crimson Witch like that?"
"I did it because it does make sense."
Yoon Sang-min looked around.
"This is probably the only place in the heart of Seoul that feels this empty."
Looking at the buildings around them that would soon vanish, Yoon Sang-min spoke again.
"Who are you thinking of hiring for the construction?"
"Yuseong Group."
Since he had made up his mind to build a good relationship with them, it was not a bad idea to keep funneling opportunities their way, enough that it could almost be called favoritism.
While they talked, they soon reached Hangang Park. Even at that late hour, many people were out walking there.
"Feels good getting out like this, doesn’t it?"
"Yeah. It does."
For most of the day, he wore a mask. The moment he put it on, Yoon Sang-hyuk ceased to be Yoon Sang-hyuk and became the Masked Lord. Unlike Yoon Sang-hyuk, who could smile at the wind blowing along the riverbank, the Masked Lord carried too much on his shoulders.
"Sometimes I look at you and feel bad, like you’re running with your eyes only on the road ahead."
"Not really something I need to hear from you."
Yoon Sang-min spent more time as a member of the Masked Mercenary Group than he did investing in himself.
"Still, I’m not like you, hyung. At the very least, I meet my friends once a week and stuff."
"Friends?"
It was a word both familiar and strange.
Yoon Sang-hyuk had people he could call friends. Or rather, had had them would be the more accurate way to say it. After returning from Eternal World to reality, he had never once thought about calling the people who had once been his friends.
Would it really be the same if he met them again now?
Probably not.
"Oh, right, I ran into Chul-jung hyung a while ago."
"Chul-jung?"
Whenever he thought of the word friend, Kim Chul-jung was the first person who came to mind. The friend he had hung around with since middle school, all the way until they entered Eternal World together, was Kim Chul-jung.
A friend he had spent his school years with, and then shared drinks with after they became adults. A friend who had told him about a game called Eternal World and asked him to play it together. It was because of Kim Chul-jung that Yoon Sang-hyuk had fallen into Eternal World in the first place.
And yet the one who had actually gotten Yoon Sang-hyuk to enjoy Eternal World, while he himself did not play, had been Kim Chul-jung. His girlfriend at the time had suddenly become pregnant.
Kim Chul-jung, who had not been born into a wealthy family, had not even been able to have a wedding ceremony; he had started living with his girlfriend and then had a child. Since he had to work to support his family, he had not even had the luxury of playing games.
"What’s he been up to these days?"
"Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?"
Yoon Sang-min looked at him in confusion.
Fair enough, since Kim Chul-jung had been Yoon Sang-hyuk’s closest friend.
"Looks like I was living too hard over there. Honestly, there’s a lot I’m fuzzy on from before I went."
"Well... even I, after twelve years there, found it pretty unfamiliar at first. Do you remember how Chul-jung hyung works at a construction site? Back before you went to that other world, if you got a good item, you’d sell it and give him the money to buy formula for his baby."
Ah, right.
Yoon Sang-hyuk gave a small laugh. It came back to him now. Chul-jung had not taken after him; instead, he had taken after his wife and had a daughter with big, pretty eyes.
When the little kid had wriggled her fingers and wrapped them around his own, he had found it wonderfully strange, and it had made him happy.
"He’s still working construction?"
"How easily do people’s lives change, really? There’s no way it’s easy to raise a kid and make a living at the same time."
"Fair enough."
He had long since lost any real sense of money, but he still understood enough not to be ignorant of how ordinary people lived.
"When I met Chul-jung hyung, I asked if there was anything I could help with, and he said he was fine. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to call you. Chul-jung hyung’s pride is huge."
"Yeah. It was."
Amusement tugged at Yoon Sang-hyuk’s mouth.
Unlike the brothers, Kim Chul-jung still had parents. But their family circumstances had actually been better than the Yoon brothers’. Whenever he tried to help him during hard times, Chul-jung always refused. And every time, he said the same thing:
- Pull this again and I’m done with you for good.
As the memory of Kim Chul-jung came back, their old times together surged over him like a wave. Yoon Sang-hyuk grinned to himself in a way that was uncharacteristic of him. Seeing that, Yoon Sang-min smiled too.
"Hyung."
"Go on."
"It’s true we had it rough over there, but we’re back in reality now. Lately, when I look at you, I keep thinking the same thing. Ah, our hyung is still living over there."
The smile disappeared from Yoon Sang-hyuk’s face.
Was I doing that?
The thought surfaced suddenly.
I guess I was.
How much personal time had he taken since returning to reality? He had always been too busy, always moving without enough hours in the day. Just like back when he lived in Eternal World.
Before long, Yoon Sang-hyuk found the reason he had been living that way.
Baal.
It was because of Baal.
Whether the others knew it or not, Yoon Sang-hyuk understood. He understood the end of this world, a place where the game had become reality. It was probably the frustration of standing before a mountain too vast to ever cross.
That was why he kept running forward with his eyes fixed straight ahead.
"Sometimes you should stop and rest where you are, look to the side, look back too. And if the burden you’re carrying gets too heavy, share some of it with me."
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled and draped an arm over Yoon Sang-min’s shoulder.
"Yeah. I get it."
"Hyung, since we’re talking about it, why don’t you go see Chul-jung hyung today?"
Yoon Sang-hyuk stopped walking. Then he murmured, "See Chul-jung? Today?"