Second Awakening Quest
Chapter 86. Second Awakening Quest.
Chapter 86. Second Awakening Quest.
Woojin and Sangjin had once again swept through the Malay Peninsula in just two days and entered Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
Normally, Khao San Road and the glittering area around the royal palace would have been packed with tourists from all over the world, but now only silence hung over the streets.
That silence, however, was not the silence of fear. It was closer to awe, and to hope, the kind that comes just before a massive upheaval.
When Woojin and Sangjin’s army, having forcibly broken through Thailand’s border, marched into Bangkok, it was not the Thai government that came out to meet them, but ordinary citizens.
People poured out into the streets with cheers, flower bouquets, and sighs of relief that they had finally escaped the monster’s claws.
“Kim Woojin! Goblin Dad!”
“The Thai king can get lost! Kim Woojin is the real king who came to save us!”
Woojin sat atop the armored-vehicle goblin and gave a bitter smile.
At this rate, I really am going to end up king, just like Eileen said.
This was not the grand welcome he had wanted, but public sentiment had already moved beyond the level of a national hero. He was becoming the savior of Asia.
Then, from the royal residence in Bangkok, Thailand’s king appeared with a lavish motorcade.
In a constitutional monarchy like Thailand, the very fact that the king had come in person to greet them was itself a sign of submission.
And today, he looked quite different from usual.
The king got out of the car, walked up to Woojin, and bowed before the cameras broadcasting live to the world.
“Hero of Asia, and savior of humanity, Sir Kim Woojin. And Sir Kim Sangjin.”
The king’s voice was low and solemn.
“The foolish officials of this country were blinded by greed. They blocked your path and drove innocent people to their deaths. This is my failure as king, and the disgrace of the nation of Thailand.”
The king pointed at the prime minister and the senior officials standing nearby.
They were already bound and forced to kneel on the ground in humiliation.
“I have dismissed and arrested the prime minister and the entire cabinet for letting greed blind them and gambling with humanity’s survival. From this moment on, Thailand will place no restrictions on your advance, and I promise that every resource and supply the nation possesses will be provided without limit.”
The scene was broadcast live across the world.
Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam, Thailand’s neighboring countries, were stunned speechless. The sight of the Thai government, which had tried to stop the “army,” being overthrown overnight, with the king himself offering an apology, delivered a powerful message to them.
That afternoon, every nation on the Indochinese Peninsula issued an official statement.
[Vietnamese Government: We grant the Woojin-Sangjin army free passage through our territory and will support all supplies at the national level.]
[Laotian Government: Our border is open at any time. Please, save our people.]
Positive political stances toward Woojin and Sangjin swept across Asia.
Nations that had once worried about keeping them in check were now scrambling to grab onto Woojin’s pant leg.
Listening to these promises of support that were little short of unconditional surrender, Woojin snorted a laugh.
“Sangjin, I think this is what power tastes like.”
“Hyung, that’s not power. It’s force.”
“Ah. Is that so?”
***
After Bangkok was retaken, the brothers decided, based on strategic judgment, to split the front.
The Indochinese Peninsula was densely packed with countries, and there were plenty of complicated urban Gates.
That made it more efficient for Woojin, who could manipulate matter and lead the Origin-grade goblin army, to take the Thailand-Cambodia-Vietnam line.
Meanwhile, Sangjin’s undead army would handle Myanmar, with its rugged mountains and dense jungles, as well as part of western Thailand.
After all, corpses did not get tired, and jungle humidity and disease were no obstacle at all to the undead.
Well, Southeast Asia was pretty much all the same anyway.
And there was one piece of good news.
“Hyung, I finally hit level 40!”
It had happened after they smashed dozens of Gates on the way north from Malaysia to Bangkok.
Sangjin’s eyes gleamed like a player about to pull a top-tier character in a gacha game.
“Finally! I can summon one more!”
“Level 40... yeah, congrats. Don’t tell me you’re summoning again?”
“Of course I am! One servant gets added every ten levels. I got Eroa at 20, Lumi at 30... and now that I’m 40, I have to summon one more!”
“What’s your type...?”
“I thought about it a lot, but... it has to be the silver-haired, red-eyed, indifferent, obedient type, right...?”
“...Silver hair...? If she ends up looking anything like Eileen, I’m going to kill you.”
“...But sister-in-law has silver hair and blue eyes. I said silver hair and red eyes. And sister-in-law isn’t the indifferent type anyway. She’s more like authoritarian, with a mind that goes in and out of focus...”
“Shut up, you good kid.”
“Yo... now you’re taking my side?”
Even with his little brother’s teasing, Woojin could no longer tolerate anyone insulting Eileen or Jihyun.
He changed the subject.
“Then your second awakening quest must have popped up too, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your awakened class?”
It was an obvious question, but he asked to confirm it.
“A lich, obviously.”
“Ha. That worries me a bit... necromancer and lich are different things, you know. Is it even possible for a living person to become a lich?”
Woojin looked at Sangjin with concern.
A lich usually meant one of those freaks who placed their heart in a life vessel and turned themselves into an undead corpse that could not die.
At that moment, Eroa, who had been holding Sangjin’s hand, smiled sweetly and spoke.
“Fufu, Sir Woojin, please do not worry. Sir Sangjin is fundamentally different from those insignificant liches.”
“How’s he different? A lich is a lich. An immortal being, so long as the life vessel isn’t destroyed.”
Eroa lowered her head and whispered softly.
“No. Those who fear death and cowardly hide it are the ones who become liches with life vessels.”
Woojin tilted his head.
“Then what’s different about Sangjin?”
Eroa answered with a look of blissful devotion.
“It is almost too much of a shame to say. How could one who chants death avoid death? Paradoxically, death can only be recognized if life continues long enough to perceive it.”
That actually sounded plausible, so Woojin listened more carefully.
“Oh... go on.”
Eroa smiled. Even to Woojin, she was breathtakingly beautiful enough to make it obvious why Sangjin had fallen for her.
“Sir Sangjin is a man overflowing with praise and compassion for death, yet he never lets go of his yearning for life. A man who seeks to overcome the limits of the undead, which cannot be surpassed by death alone, by achieving harmony with life. That is the path Sir Sangjin is walking.”
“Now it’s starting to sound... a little grand.”
Eroa continued.
“Fufu, of course it is grand. Light and darkness, order and chaos, death and life. The world does not run on simple dichotomies alone. Sir Sangjin’s Way of Life and Death is the path that shatters those boundaries. A new necromancy school in which life and death coexist naturally. Perhaps Lumi and I are witnessing the birth of that great progenitor.”
“...A new kind of necromancy?”
Thinking about it carefully, that made sense.
Eroa and Lumi were undead, yes, but they were more human than any human Woojin had ever met, and overflowing with emotion.
Sangjin’s undead army, too, unlike the rotting corpses from the Unreality World days, strangely radiated vitality and kept their forms intact.
“...So becoming a lich doesn’t mean turning into a skeleton, right?”
“Of course not. Sir Sangjin will become a Master of Death with the warmth of life far more complete than any ordinary undead.”
With Eroa’s assurance, Woojin felt relieved, but he still asked about Sangjin’s quest details.
“So what’s the quest?”
Sangjin frowned as he read his status window.
“...Raise an army of one million through necromancy.”
“...That’s insane. Just completely insane.”
Woojin let out a disbelieving laugh.
“If that had been in Korea, you’d never clear it in your entire life. Where the hell are you supposed to get a million corpses?”
“Right? But hyung, remember where we are right now. Southeast Asia. Every Gate that blew open left mountains of monsters and corpses behind. This... might actually be doable.”
“How many do you have now?”
“Just about half? A little over five hundred thousand. If I sweep through western Thailand and the Myanmar jungle once, I think I can hit it pretty fast.”
Five hundred thousand undead.
South Korea’s total military strength, he had heard, was four hundred fifty thousand or so.
Just by the numbers alone, Sangjin was casually talking about an army that exceeded the military power of a modern nation, and Woojin could only shake his head.
“Yeah. Be careful out there...”
“What about you, hyung? You hit level 40 too. Didn’t your second awakening quest pop?”
Woojin checked his status window with a bitter expression.
“It did.”
“Oh? What’s the upgraded class for an Enhancer when you second awaken?”
“It says Augmentor.”
“Hmm... someone who augments things. Definitely a higher concept than Enhancer. So what’s the quest?”
Woojin checked the quest.
But he did not tell Sangjin the truth.
“One hundred +15 items.”
Sangjin gave a hollow laugh, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What? One hundred +15 items? How are you supposed to do that?”
“Exactly. I think I’m just going to give up on the second awakening.”
Sangjin said with genuine regret,
“Ah... that sucks. Still, I guess you’re broken enough that you don’t need it, hyung.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to think I don’t really need a second awakening at all.”
But one hundred +15 items was not Woojin’s actual quest.
Woojin frowned and checked his second awakening quest again.
Enhancer Second Awakening Quest: To complete your understanding, take the lives of 100 humans.
It was absurd.
An Enhancer had to kill a hundred humans?
...What kind of insane bastards made this quest and called it a quest?
Enhancement was, by definition, the act of increasing the value of an object. So why was he being told to kill people?
That was the sort of quest combat classes got, especially assassin-type jobs.
And a hundred at that. Not even a legendary assassin class would ask for a hundred.
What possible reason would an Enhancer have to kill people in order to awaken? What kind of Enhancer is that? That’s not an Enhancer, that’s a murderer.
Woojin spat to the side.
Living as an Awakened, there were times when killing might have been unavoidable.
Eileen, Jihyun, too, looked so kind, but...
In Unreality World, they must have killed hundreds, maybe thousands of humans.
Sure, it had been inside a game world, but back then, it was reality to them.
Their emotions toward killing probably weren’t so different from what they would have felt in the real world.
But Woojin was not them.
As someone who had worked a production job, he still felt a deeply instinctive aversion to killing people.
One hundred human lives, huh...
Woojin muttered as he patted Gabi on the head.
Gabi, knowing nothing, smiled happily at her dad’s hand on her head.
“Gabi. What would you do if Dad really became a bad person?”
“Huh? Why would Appa be a bad person? Appa is the one who gave Gabi breath! Appa is the kindest person in the whole world!”
The child’s pure faith stabbed into Woojin’s chest.
Damn it. Then one hundred +15 items really is better.
Woojin decided to bury this quest and keep it to himself.
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