The Emperor's Labor Reform
Kim Hwang-je smashed the head of yet another snake that came lunging at him.
A scorching heat spread from his lower abdomen, making his blood surge through his entire body.
Good. Come at me, all of you. I'll kill every last one.
“Huh?”
And then he immediately got bitten by a snake.
The snake clamped down on Kim Hwang-je’s torso like an alligator seizing its prey and began thrashing him in every direction.
He lost count of how many times the world spun around him.
Crash!
His head slammed into the ground, his back smashed through a wall, and before he knew it, his legs had demolished several chairs and a table.
It felt like he’d been in ten car accidents in the span of a few seconds.
If he had still been an ordinary civilian, his body would have been shredded like meat on a grater.
And that wasn’t all—the snake swallowed him whole.
But Kim Hwang-je’s body was essentially a fortress.
On top of that, the royal castle’s protective magic was still active.
He wasn’t the kind of thing that would get hurt from being slammed around or swallowed, let alone digested.
“Uheheh… uhehehehehe. Fuck.”
Kim Hwang-je laughed in hollow disbelief from inside the snake’s throat.
He must have dropped his golden bat somewhere; his hands felt empty.
“That’s right. I was never good at fighting.”
If his awakening class had been something common like Warrior, he could have dodged using strength, agility, and technique.
But Kim Hwang-je’s class was Emperor.
He didn’t even have any basic movement or attack skills.
That damn eunuch.
Giving me only one attack skill—punching myself in the stomach? Isn’t that a bit much?
And then naming it Emperor’s Iron Fist to make it sound impressive!
“Ugh?”
But the snake soon began to retch.
It felt like it had swallowed a boulder.
This wasn’t something it should have eaten!
“Bleeegh—!”
Hiss—!
The gastric acid rising from the snake’s stomach touched his shoes.
Kim Hwang-je used the soldiers inside the castle to rip the snake’s throat apart.
“Your Majesty!”
Outside, the bandits came rushing in from all sides, hacking at the snake’s neck with axes.
The hide tore open, and light poured inside.
While Kim Hwang-je frowned, the throat split wide with a wet schlick, opening a path.
He pried the snake’s neck apart and stepped out.
Poyu, who had been fluttering down from the sky, flew over to him.
“Mister! You okay?”
“Yeah. Are you okay? Get back inside.”
When Kim Hwang-je tried to grab Poyu and put the little dragon away, Poyu cast a spell that cleaned him off completely.
“Okay! Hehe, I’ll go in now!”
After tucking Poyu inside his clothes, the hunter spoke up.
“Your Majesty.”
The hunter knelt and respectfully offered up the golden bat.
Kim Hwang-je took it.
The bandits pretended not to have seen anything and began carving up the snake.
Ugh, how embarrassing.
“More are coming!”
A bandit shouted.
Soon, other snakes were forcing their heads through the narrow gaps in the doors and windows, rushing toward them.
The fishy smell of snakes and the damp wind from their flicking tongues rushed in.
“Haha! Snake meat!”
The bandits, pretending to be cheerful, charged forward with their axes raised.
This time, Kim Hwang-je got in line properly and started swinging his bat alongside them.
“KyaAAAAA… aa?”
The snakes that had thrust their heads forward with overwhelming momentum sensed something was wrong the moment they met the group’s eyes.
Why did it suddenly feel like they were the ones about to be eaten, even though they had come here as predators?
“Whoa, it’s been forever since we had decent meat!”
“Snake meat! Snake meat!”
It was true.
Before long, the snakes were struck in the neck by axes.
They thrashed and flopped across the floor, vomiting blood from their severed necks.
The bandits didn’t stop there—they hacked the snakes into pieces.
Kim Hwang-je took care of any that slipped out with his golden bat.
Watching quietly, he thought to himself.
Wait, this isn’t hunting. This is straight-up butchering.
They haven’t just been eating monsters for a day or two.
It was a relief that Earth hadn’t fallen that far yet.
Once they finished off the snakes that had entered, no more came down the street.
The screams throughout the city had also gone silent.
Since the entity had been harvesting fear from these people every night for years, wiping them out in the shortest time possible must have become simple.
Kim Hwang-je let out a sigh and sat down on a random spot in the destroyed restaurant.
He spoke to the bandits, who were happily preparing the snake meat.
“You guys planning to eat that?”
“Y-yes!”
There was no need to look so embarrassed.
The bandits blushed and lowered their heads toward the ground.
“Throw it all away. Once this is over, I’ll feed you something amazing.”
“We’re eating it because we like Your Majesty!”
Brat. That’s not what I meant.
Anyway, Kim Hwang-je gently stroked the royal castle inside his stomach.
There was still plenty of stock left.
“Your Majesty, do you know what this is?”
The hunter scraped out the snake’s belly and pulled something free.
It was a bead.
Kim Hwang-je’s eyes widened when he saw the hunter extracting beads from inside the snakes.
“What the hell? This isn’t a wuxia novel. Are these inner cores? If I eat one, will I get stronger?”
How nice would it be if he could hit 100 agility and fly around beating everything to death?
But Kim Hwang-je had never heard of hunters pulling inner cores out of monster stomachs.
Or of anyone getting stronger by eating them.
“This is precisely Grim. It is the core of magic. Only hunters like myself or mages can extract them.”
“Ah… I’ve heard of that before.”
Gemini had definitely mentioned forging the holy sword using GrimGold.
What would happen if they combined these with the smelter?
In any case, Jung Da-yeon would probably buy them at a high price.
“This confirms it. These snakes are avatars of the main body. The evil spirit’s true form or its lair must be filled with this Grim.”
The hunter offered four Grim beads to Kim Hwang-je, who placed them in the tribute trade window.
An evil spirit with a stomach full of inner cores…
More like a heatfish than an evil spirit.
“You said this wasn’t your first time dealing with something like this.”
“I have seen it many times.”
Kim Hwang-je sighed.
In the end, the fall of a kingdom meant that every citizen would experience this nightmare on repeat until they died.
The hunter continued.
“In our world as well, evil spirits of this kind appeared. They gradually erode and corrupt the world in this manner.”
Perhaps Earth was simply following the same sequence the kingdom had gone through?
The hunter pointed at the wraiths and said,
“Please hurry and eliminate these wraiths as well, then deal with the evil spirit. Before those wraiths revive again.”
The street was covered in a thick sludge of pulverized corpses.
They weren’t truly dead—they were merely paralyzed and sprawled out.
Tonight alone, they were scheduled to resurrect and die four more times.
“Kill them? Is there no other way?”
“The more wraiths there are, the more beings will know the evil spirit’s true name. That makes it much harder to capture.”
Kim Hwang-je glanced at the bound old woman.
It was the grandmother who had given him eggs and told him to run away.
“I’d rather not kill them if possible…”
“If you wish to send them to the afterlife without killing them, you would need a paladin. But the last paladin disappeared long ago.”
“Not a priest, but a paladin does that kind of thing?”
“That is correct. Only the seven chosen paladins may wield the power of light. No one else on the continent can use that power anymore…”
As expected, even after searching the royal castle, Kim Hwang-je found no paladins.
Among the priests, none possessed spells useful for this situation.
The evil spirit’s control was so strong that there was no way to forcibly send them across dimensions to the afterlife.
Kim Hwang-je looked up at the sky.
He really didn’t want to kill the grandmother or order her death.
“Ah!”
Maybe among the mages, there were those who specialized in handling souls?
He pressed the mages around the castle walls.
But even Gemini knew nothing about this type of spell.
Hah, so it’s not a simple magic after all.
It seemed he would only be able to use such magic after restoring the Magic Tower.
He couldn’t bear to look at the bound, foul-mouthed grandmother and the others.
I have to kill them with my own hands?
Now he understood why Dave cried whenever he had a spare moment.
He must have experienced this many times.
He must have been forced to kill his own people again after they had already died at the hands of the enemy.
“Wait… what if it’s not magic, but an EX-grade ability?”
Kim Hwang-je recalled the rank of his ability Kingdom Inside My Body.
It was a Transcendent grade—something that couldn’t even be expressed with the word “extraordinary.”
He could send a pot flying with Tribute Trade. So why couldn’t he do the same with people?
Alright. Let’s test it.
The male wraith, sensing Kim Hwang-je’s gaze, began to tremble violently.
“Ugh… what are you planning to do?”
“Just checking if this works.”
Kim Hwang-je reached out his hand and cast Labor Input (Lv. 2).
Your Majesty!
This servant is deeply moved!
Your Majesty’s cruelty and ruthlessness are truly breathtaking!
To think you would turn even those who have already died and been reduced to nothing but bleached bones into laborers!?
As expected, Your Majesty is a monarch by birth.
It is far better for a ruler to be known for cruelty than for benevolence.
Do not become a loose-pants emperor.
Even if you are cruel, unite and protect your people!
Long live His Imperial Majesty!
Long live our cruel, wicked, terrifying, and magnificent Emperor!
“…”
Is that damn eunuch messing with me right now?
But the effect was incredible.
Labor Input (Lv. 3)
You can now insert souls into physical matter.
The stronger the material, the more souls it can house within a single object.
The more souls inserted, the stronger the material becomes!
* Only applies to souls that have consented or have been subdued.
* Using this without proper justification may decrease the royal castle’s loyalty.
“Hah!”
Kim Hwang-je read the status window several times before speaking to the man again.
“Hey, I think I might be able to free you from this situation. Want me to try?”
“…What? Khh, I understand. It’s better than becoming a snake…”
It seemed the man had misunderstood and thought Kim Hwang-je was offering to kill him.
The woman began wailing loudly.
But Kim Hwang-je confirmed the bulldozer’s location with World Observation and activated Labor Input (Lv. 3).
“Uwaaaaah… I am free!”
The man’s body, bound by silver chains, turned pure white and flew straight into Kim Hwang-je’s stomach.
“Ooh…”
Kim Hwang-je watched through World Observation in awe.
A green flame of a soul suddenly ignited atop the bulldozer that had been standing still.
“GRAAAAAHHH!”
The wraith bulldozer roared.
So, by shoving that green soul into the bulldozer, the machine had begun roaring and burning with spectral flame.
* Due to the low Riding level of the Heavy Machinery Knight Order, the bulldozer’s stat increase is limited!
* Riding experience has increased!
Riding probably referred to the skill of mounting a horse.
Apparently heavy machinery counted as well.
“Hah…”
The workers riding the soul-infused bulldozer were overflowing with strength and confidence.
Kim Hwang-je sucked in a breath in shock but never stopped observing.
At this point, calling them the Heavy Machinery Knight Order actually made sense.
“It doesn’t hurt!”
“This feels amazing!”
The first shout came from the soul, the second from the worker.
Park Jo-woon, who had been watching, fell backward in shock.
“What the hell! Emperor, are you seeing this? There’s a ghost inside the machine!”
Park Jo-woon’s face appeared in the status window.
Kim Hwang-je said,
“Uncle, calm them down… no, put them to work. They’re excited, so let them use that strength. We’ll be getting more friends like them soon.”
“Wait, what the hell is that? A ghost? Did a ghost just possess the bulldozer?”
“Just bear with it for now. I’ll make them golem bodies eventually. Training new workers takes time, doesn’t it?”
“W-well, that’s true… ah, whatever. Is this just how other worlds are? Hey! Where are you going!?”
But Park Jo-woon was already running after the bulldozer that was tearing up the ground in the distance.
Wait, what about the subdued enemies?
Kim Hwang-je used Labor Input on the snakes as well.
Your Majesty!
Monster ownership has been transferred!
Plunder! More plunder!
“Kyaaaaah!”
The snake let out a bizarre hiss and flew into Kim Hwang-je’s stomach.
Since he couldn’t put it in the same bulldozer, he stuffed it into a distant tree far from the castle walls.
The tree immediately changed.
Inside World Observation, the evil spirit tree displayed a command window above its head.
There were options for ‘Move,’ ‘Attack,’ ‘Defend,’ ‘Scout,’ ‘Loyalty,’ and ‘Hunger.’
“Archbishop Artanis… I think I understand how you feel now.”
So this was what it felt like to turn rebellious bastards into dragoons.
Kim Hwang-je reached out toward the other bound people as well.
The snakes would be handled with a form of Labor Correction, while the people would be converted through Labor Input.
“If you stay here, you’ll only become food for the snakes. Stay inside for now.”
“Eh… huh…? Whaaaaat!?”
“Aigo, you rotten bastard…!”
Both the crying woman and the grandmother stared in confusion before they were sucked straight into Kim Hwang-je’s body.
The remaining people all disappeared into the same bulldozer.
“OOOOOOOOOH—!”
A roar filled with pure rage echoed from far away.
It was a sound that shook both earth and sky, like war horns and war drums.
When Kim Hwang-je looked out the window, he saw a green beam shooting into the sky in the distance, shaking violently.
“Puhaha, that bastard’s scared shitless.”
“Looks pretty angry, though.”
“That’s how weak dogs bark.”
Looking at the mountain of souls piled up throughout the city, Kim Hwang-je shouted,
“Go out and protect me! Today we shall accept new residents!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
“And plant lots of house-guarding trees too!”
“Huh?”
The bandits looked puzzled.
Kim Hwang-je rolled up his sleeves and stepped outside.
The royal castle’s world grows ever greener,
And the taste of bulldozers grows ever richer!