The God of the Ratmen
Bonjwa — the Blood Demon, Cheon Yujin.
There was a time when I commanded Blood Heaven Castle, a single faction that stood all but unmatched at the summit of murim. Before the Blood Demon was ever born, the castle had been merely "close to the strongest" as a single faction went — and it was I who raised it into a power capable of meeting the two great murim of orthodox and unorthodox alike in open battle.
Of course, in truth Blood Heaven Castle was little more than a bonus; it was Bonjwa alone who clashed with those two great powers and brought every last one of them to his knees. But quite apart from the existence of an absolute being who could stand against the entirety of murim single-handedly, in the number, scale, and caliber of its peak masters, Blood Heaven Castle was unmistakably the strongest single faction alive — one no school or sect dared even approach. Even a Blood Heaven Castle without Bonjwa in it, the saying went, was strong enough to force a mutually destructive standoff with either the orthodox Murim Alliance or the unorthodox Seven Kill Palace!
And Bonjwa, Cheon Yujin, who had subdued that very castle and reigned over it as an absolute being, was the supreme charisma of murim. The charisma of the age who had made even Ma-noe — so often accused of heartlessness for his cold temperament and razor-edged calculations — turn somersaults as he flung himself into full prostration...!
And yet, for all that Bonjwa was such a man, this was not a charisma I had ever wanted to unleash.
"Squeak! Squeak-squeak!"
"Squeeeeeeak...!"
Somehow I had been carried, unconscious, up onto the highest dais of all. When I opened my eyes, the ratmen were flat on the ground, raising a deafening din of squealing. They bowed their backs and heads over and over, foreheads pressed to the floor, and the whole scene looked like some ancient sacrificial rite. At first I assumed these ungrateful rat bastards were, true to their nature, forgetting the grace of their spared lives and preparing to offer me up as a living sacrifice. Faint aboard and wake up on an altar — who wouldn't assume they'd boarded the express bus to sacrifice-hood?
But.
"No, what in the..."
The clothes were ornate. Far, far too ornate. Far too ceremonial for a sacrifice... or rather, an outfit that looked high-ceremony even by ratman standards. A loose leather cloak buried the hoodie Se-ah had given me without a trace — truthfully less a cape than a full-length robe that concealed the shape of everything below the neck. With a thick fur mantle draped over this goddamn girl's body, hiding every last curve, honestly not even my own reflection could have told me apart from any other ratman. And with a metal mask covering my head entirely, I was simply a helmeted ratman, plain and simple.
"No, hold on..."
All I had done was spare one life on the way out. Wasn't this a little much? Thinking that, I lifted my hand to call over the scarred ratman prostrate at the very head of the line — and the instant I did—
"Squeak! Squeee-rkk!"
"Shrieeeek...!"
The scarred ratman wailed, thumping its chest with both fists as if about to launch into somersaults just like Ma-noe in the old days. From nothing more than a raised hand. Like a fan who had just stepped into a legendary singer's concert, one ratman clutched its head and toppled backward into the arms of its neighbors.
"Squeeeeak......!"
A wail of pure anguish. It seemed to have fainted outright, because another ratman caught it and was even pressing both hands to its chest, massaging away. Even Ma-noe, who had attained complete mastery of everything from somersaulting prostrations to the Grand Kneeling Protest, had never once fainted before my majesty...
"Wh-what is this."
Hunching apologetically, I had to quietly lower the hand I'd raised. The reaction was so violent that I briefly wondered whether I owed them a moonwalk as fan service.
Just then, with the air of a formal protest, a group of ratmen rose to their feet and jabbed their fingers at me, squeaking furiously. They shouted something fierce in the ratmen's tongue — curses, for all I knew, since I couldn't understand a word of it.
And then.
"Squeeeak...!"
With a grinding skrrk, the scarred ratman's face twisted into a scowl so vicious I hadn't known a rat's facial muscles could contort that far. It looked as though someone had drawn hundreds of manga-style emphasis lines across its face.
Wham! Thud! The scarred one sprang forward and suppressed the protesters by force in an instant, and they promptly joined the prostration line. I had no idea what was going on, and there was still no guarantee I wasn't on the menu — so I, who had been trying to quietly shed my mask and cloak in the confusion and bolt, had to stiffen up and sit right back down.
I genuinely couldn't make heads or tails of the situation. But a rough count of the ratmen within sight came to at least five hundred. Individually, each one was as frail as this body of mine — nothing more. But numbers are their own kind of violence. If that many of them decided to suppress me by force the way that scarred fellow just had, this place would become my grave...!
This damned body reacted to the flash of danger before I could stop it. True to a frame that couldn't hide an emotion to save its life, it broadcast my unease for every eye to see. And the scarred ratman abruptly rose and started toward me.
"Eep...!"
The memory of that hulking brute's brutal crackdown was still fresh, and I shrank back without meaning to. At the hair-trigger moment, the scarred one opened its mouth with a grave expression.
"Squeak! Squeeeeak...!!"
As the scarred one cried out, dozens of ratmen surged in behind it. Like an acrobat troupe summoned to entertain at an emperor's banquet, they leapt into the air and came down fists-first, driving them into the ground. There was no mistaking it. It was the Fierce Tiger Fist technique Bonjwa had already demonstrated against the giant bear — Vortex Tiger Strike...!
And then.
.........!!!
Ratmen standing on either side, fanning me with leaves bigger than their own bodies. Ratmen clinging to my feet, kneading away the fatigue. Ratmen at my back, working my shoulders and straightening my askew mask. Ratmen arriving with armfuls of primitive clay bowls, popping the wild fruit and meat inside them straight into my mouth.
"Nom-nom-nom."
The sweet flesh melted across my tongue, and my teeth refused to stop. This was bliss. Far, far too much bliss. Even in my days as the Blood Demon, I had trained without fail every single day to keep the Blood Demon Art suppressed — never once had I known luxury like this. This was the kind of comfort that could melt a brain and soften a mind to pudding...!
This cursed body soaked in the comfort and slowly went slack. And as it went slack, the willpower I had been spending mostly just to control the thing felt like it was sinking deeper under. The mind trailing after the flesh. Without noticing his own consciousness growing hazy amid the ratmen's devoted service, Bonjwa reached a conclusion: that at long last, he had achieved a perfect understanding of the situation.
"...I see."
Bonjwa. The Blood Demon, Cheon Yujin. I had failed to realize it all this time, but of course — Bonjwa was...
──A god.
His pride swelled — and Bonjwa rose in a sweep of blood-wind majesty, deigning to grace his faithful with his presence.
"Squeak! Squeeeeeeak!!!"
"Squeee-rkk-rkk-rkk!!!"
A swarm erupting to its feet in a chorus of joyous, answering acclaim.
Blood Heaven Castle. Castle Lord of Blood Heaven Castle. Come to think of it, I was the absolute being of murim, and being called a mere "Lord" had never sat well with me. A title for a king who had never even reached emperor — and didn't it sound like it belonged in the same tier as titles like Murim Alliance Leader or First Demon Palace Master?
Bonjwa, the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin, had originally meant to found a second Blood Heaven Castle back home. But—
"Bonjwa is the Blood Demon."
And from this day forward, Bonjwa would become a god.
From this place, Bonjwa would make a fresh start as Cult Master of the Blood Cult and a living god incarnate. Which meant Blood Heaven Castle was officially out of service as of today...!
"Repeat after me."
Arms spread wide, face turned to the sky. A black cloak scattering on the wind. A sinister red gleam wavering inside the mask.
At Bonjwa's command — bellowed like a roar and packed with the power of the Forged Blood Art —
"Squeak-squeak squeak-squeak squeak-squeak-squeak──!!!"
The scarred one answered first. Then, behind it—
"Squeak-squeak squeak-squeak squeak-squeak-squeak──!!!"
The roar of hundreds of ratmen shouting as one sent a tingling thrill racing up my spine. As if... as if in that very moment, I had cast off this frail girl's body and returned to being the Blood Demon.
...But. What was I supposed to do now? Everything so far had been done on pure impulse, with no plan behind it at all, and for a moment my brain simply stopped.
And the pressure of all those gazes fixed on Bonjwa — desperate, pleading eyes begging for orders.
"Uh, hm."
It felt as though, if I didn't do something, the disappointed ratmen would seize me and burn me alive atop the altar. Having come this far, I resolved to put my experience from before this wretched little body to use. Bonjwa steeled his resolve and raised one hand more firmly than before, and with a voice carrying the majesty of the Blood Demon — strongest under heaven, who had once toyed with the whole vast murim like a playground — he issued a solemn command to the ratmen prostrate before him.
"──Squeak! Squeak-squeak!!!"
Anyway... anyway, it was a solemn command.
For a moment, the ratmen just turned to one another, bewildered. Flinch. Watching them murmur among themselves, Bonjwa had to quietly read the room. In a pinch, the old trick was to toss out something that sounded vaguely plausible and let your subordinates interpret the rest...! Was the fatal flaw that this time, what I had tossed out wasn't plausible words but crying noises......!!!
And then.
"Squeak! Squeak-squeak!"
"Squeak-squeak squeak-squeak squeak-squeak-squeak!!!"
Boom. Boom. Boom. Majestic drumbeats split the forest and rolled out high and wide; at every boom, birds burst from the underbrush and fled. Rusted spears, swords, and bows. Ratmen armed with every manner of weapon, draped in crude gear. Hundreds upon hundreds of ratmen, become a single legion, marching through the forest.
And at its center: Bonjwa. The Blood Demon, Cheon Yujin. Seated in solemn state upon a giant palanquin — a four-man litter borne on the shoulders of four ratmen, front and back — I found myself thinking.
"Where... where exactly are we going...?"
I had no idea what kind of disaster I had unleashed on a moment's impulse. What was going to happen now? Where was this legion actually marching? And why, exactly, was I sitting on top of it? Fine. Having come this far, Bonjwa, the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin, stared into the empty air and made a decision.
"──Waaah."
The decision to know absolutely nothing.
While he waited for his old comrade and classmate — the hunter Cheon Se-ah — to join them, Kim Jinhu was putting the final touches on his preparations to enter the Alios Eastern Great Forest, the regional field-type gate in Bundang managed by the Aegis Guild.
Once the guild's secrets came to light, its name and credibility would take a fall. But Jinhu had lived through the earliest days of the gate crises, and to him a single human life outweighed any guild's fortune and fame. Call it an accident as unavoidable as a natural disaster, however well it had been managed — it had still happened through the Iron Blood Guild's failure of oversight, and Jinhu had resolved to bear the full weight of it as guild master.
Perhaps that resolve got through. The Aegis Guild readily agreed to cooperate with the rescue operation. Jinhu knew the Aegis guild master was a Returnee, famous in any number of ways for an eccentric personality, and that left him a little uneasy — but the smooth cooperation was something he was genuinely grateful for.
And so he had rushed to complete every last preparation, determined to rescue the hunters swept into the rift as quickly as possible — when—
"...Guild Master! A transmission from the Aegis Guild. Could you take a look at this?"
The footage his aide had brought made Jinhu's face go rigid.
"It's... it's truly hard to believe, but..."
The aide continued, stammering.
"The Ratmen are on the move."
Footage from the Aegis Guild's scout team, taken inside the gate. Shot from quite a distance within, so the quality was rough — but the ratmen marching through the forest were too many to count. Every one of them carried a weapon, pounding war drums and blowing horn trumpets.
And at their center — something that brought orcs to mind, monsters who made a living of running across battlefields. A four-man palanquin, the kind orc warlords were said to ride, was on the move. Its occupant was draped in jet-black fur covering the whole body like a cloak, topped with a metal helmet gleaming the dull black of ink. And inside that helmet, a pair of ominous crimson eyes flickered like flames freshly risen from hell.
Kim Jinhu went rigid with shock.
"A Lord-class... a Named has been born?!"
A Named. As with the boss or master of a dungeon. As with the field bosses that prowled regional gates. Just as orcs had their warlords, and even golems had their control units, hunters called the monsters born with special talent or special mana — the ones who led their kind — "Named." A Named, in human terms, was a hero who left a name in history or saga.
If a Named had truly been born among ratmen, it should have been laughable — like goblin Named, they never carried much weight, and the proper response was a sneer.
......
In the footage, it seemed to have noticed the one filming, because it was looking directly this way. The cameraman must have felt the chill too, facing those hollow, unreadable crimson eyes head-on, because the image was shaking. And then — as if it had caught not just the cameraman but the presence observing from beyond the lens, and meant it as a warning — the helmet shifted, and the crimson gleam wavered.
──.
A sound, faintly caught on the recording. No matter how many times he replayed it, what came through was a faint utterance — utterly unlike any human tongue, and steeped in menace. At a stretch, it almost sounded like a baby's wail — but there was no way that could be right. Staring down the bizarre Named that could hardly have come from a ratman, Kim Jinhu felt a chill clamp down his spine.
A spatial transfer accident in a test dungeon, and now the uncanny appearance of a monster Lord-class Named. And for some reason, Jinhu's instincts dragged up last month's terror attack at the Indefinite Gate. Both were rare events that had no business happening so close together, and a sinister premonition came surging up — because it felt, for all the world, like the prelude to something enormous still to come.
"What in the hell... is happening in this place...?!"
Kim Jinhu glared straight into the crimson eyes on the screen and ground his teeth.