The Castle Becomes Me
.... Why is the loyalty like this?
The sudden torrent of curses showed no signs of stopping.
Kim Hwang-je, still slung over the shoulder, and the apprentice knight who had just been cursed at both froze in place with their fingers raised.
The red reinforced suit helmet hid his face, but it was probably twisted into something vicious underneath.
“This crazy dirty bastard… The pollution concentration around you is rising because of your body odor… It’s showing on my display… No, more than that, you’re supposed to get in line…”
The trembling hand revealed the knight’s true feelings. But a third-class knight soon approached and smacked the back of the man’s head.
“Idiot! Get in formation and fight! You too, hurry…!”
Before he could finish, he sliced apart one of the charging parasitic monsters. Green blood sprayed everywhere as the eel-like creature split and fell. The blood carried a terrible ammonia stench. Kim Hwang-je frowned and slapped the thief hard on the back.
“Hey. Run.”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“I said run.”
When he spoke through gritted teeth, the thief finally dashed toward the healer. Even while running, however, the man never stopped holding up his middle finger.
I’ll have to think about whether I should summon this bastard again.
Fortunately, the thief behaved himself when he set Kim Hwang-je and the knight down in front of the healer.
Maybe it was because he was in front of a woman and felt embarrassed.
Thanks to that, the taxi driver uncle on the stretcher was successfully transported to the rear.
Only after confirming the uncle was gone did Kim Hwang-je wipe the sweat from his forehead with his arm.
“Are you injured anywhere?”
A nurse approached and spoke to him. Her tone was extremely businesslike.
Even by his own assessment, Kim Hwang-je didn’t have a single injury. Considering how difficult it was to survive a rolling car accident, both the taxi driver and he seemed to have been lucky. Of course, the castle walls had taken the damage in his place.
“I’m fine.”
While Kim Hwang-je smiled brightly, the nurse kept her expression stiff and pointed at the thief. Veins stood out on her face.
“Then take your colleague with you. And stop him from hitting on me.”
“…Yes.”
What could he say? When he turned his head, the thief was flexing his arm muscles and flirting with the nurse.
“Wahaha! I carried both of you with this very arm!”
“Come here…”
The thief turned around at the sudden chill. Kim Hwang-je was glaring at him.
The thief hurried over, dropped to his knees, and bowed his head to the ground.
“Aigoo, Your Majesty. Please forgive me.”
The nearby nurses and mages began to whisper. Kim Hwang-je let out a deep sigh.
“How much time do you have left on your summon?”
“Fifteen minutes remain, sire.”
“Go help them out. When your summon time is almost up, run toward the biggest one and cancel the summon.”
“Yes, understood, Your Majesty.”
Kim Hwang-je stepped forward with him, intending to run in step beside the man.
But what was this? The mere thief suddenly vanished from sight.
Thanks to that, Kim Hwang-je’s eyes widened as he watched the fluttering wind and sea fog split apart.
“Kuhahaha! All of you, die!”
Like a fish in water—no, like a butcher slicing meat. He looked less like a thief and more like a berserker.
He pulled out two axes, trembling with excitement, and tore apart the parasitic monsters charging at him.
One strike half-severed a spine. Two strikes turned them into clean pieces.
“Die! Die!”
The axe storm, like a spinning saw blade, chopped up the parasitic monsters in front of the line that the apprentice knights had been desperately holding.
“Kuhahahahaha!”
Even the apprentice knight who had been trembling after getting cursed at earlier secretly moved far away from him and headed elsewhere.
That bastard got scared.
That was when the nurses’ voices reached him.
“Wow, he’s insane. Sis, look at that. Isn’t he stronger than the Iron Blood Knights apprentices?”
“It’s my first time seeing that hunter. Maybe the smell wasn’t monster blood after all…? He might not be a bad person.”
“His muscles were amazing. I should have asked for his number.”
“Don’t you think a simple hunter is cool? If we wash him up and tie his hair back, he’d look like a Joseon-era warrior.”
“Kyaa—”
The nurses whispered among themselves. Hearing them, Kim Hwang-je was left utterly dumbfounded.
But his brilliant performance didn’t last long. Huge lumps of flesh began falling from the sea giant’s body.
They looked like tumors. But they weren’t tumors—they were liquefied bombs.
Kwaaaaaang—!
The terrible shockwave tore up the concrete. The knights who had been fighting closest were sent flying in every direction.
Not content with that, the sea giant opened its mouth and unleashed a breath attack.
The red liquefied breath created plasma and swept across the area. That bright red light tore through the ground and engulfed the camp where the healers were stationed.
However, at that exact moment, Arun Sepia, who had been holding her sword in the distance, threw herself forward and blocked the breath with her body.
A soft white barrier rose from her sword, enduring the liquefied breath.
The apprentice knights shouted and ran.
“Lady Sepia is holding it back! Evacuate immediately! Healers, run!”
“Leave the patients and run! There’s no choice! Hurry!”
But the healers and nurses could not abandon the fallen.
While they carried the sick on their backs and helped the injured to their feet, the barrier slowly began to collapse.
Chiiiiiiiiiiiiik—!
“Aaaak!”
She screamed but refused to let go of her sword. She stabbed it into the ground, dropped to one knee, and poured every ounce of her strength into blocking the breath.
“Your Majesty! Please take cover!”
The thief came running from somewhere, but he couldn’t even reach the front of the breath that Sepia was enduring. His summon time must have run out, because he vanished on the spot.
Sepia was pushed back by the liquefied breath until she finally reached right in front of Kim Hwang-je.
“What are you doing… I told you to run right now!”
Sepia whispered in his ear. But Kim Hwang-je could not leave this place.
Since a short while ago, a shining status window had been demanding something from him.
The Castle Becomes Me
Autonomous Combat Cost — Military Funds: 120 million won
Asking for this much money?
For a moment he felt dizzy.
But right now, doing what he could was the correct choice.
In Arun Sepia he saw the overlapping image of his parents.
Kim Hwang-je paid the 120 million won on the spot.
Autonomous Combat has begun.
Conscripting five mages from the castle wall.
Conscripting ten archers from the castle wall.
Defense operation orders issued. Total military funds of 120 million won paid in full.
‘The Castle Becomes Me’ autonomous combat initiated.
Flash—
A sudden cold rose from Kim Hwang-je’s entire body.
Through World Observation he saw that the cold spells used by the mages on the castle wall had frozen the entire fortification.
Please raise your hand.
The mages’ cold shield is being cast.
When Kim Hwang-je raised his hand, the cold shields protecting the castle wall merged into one and flew beyond the horizon.
Soon, past that horizon, an ice shield formed from the tip of his fingers. It gently moved to block in front of Arun Sepia.
“Huk… Hoo…!”
Sepia panted heavily. In the scorching heat, the cold wind felt like salvation.
When she looked to the side, she saw the massive barrier Kim Hwang-je had created around them completely blocking the breath.
Sepia’s mind snapped back to full alertness.
“This attack has two phases! First the liquefied breath! The second phase is when the breath explodes and splits into countless parasitic monsters!”
She was right. The liquefied breath pouring onto the cold barrier exploded on contact, turning into a swarm of countless insects that charged from every direction.
Automatic Interception initiated.
Along with the system message, countless bundles of arrows shot out from every part of Kim Hwang-je’s body.
It was an overwhelming arrow rain that covered all directions in a spherical pattern. The arrows instantly pierced the crowns of the incoming insects.
Papapapapapak—!
Watching the monsters’ corpses fly off and fall in every direction, Sepia swallowed hard.
“How is this possible…? Who exactly are you?”
But Kim Hwang-je had no time to answer her. The system window continued to demand more.
Raise both hands to create a channel for the ‘Large-Scale Drying’ spell.
When Kim Hwang-je raised both hands, the mages on the castle wall chanted in unison, creating a massive dry gale.
The wind erupted from his fingertips and surged toward the sea giant.
“Kiiiiiiik—!”
“Kiiiiiiik!”
The wind carved open a path. The parasitic monsters standing in a straight line all dried up and collapsed.
A clear tunnel opened through the pure white sea fog. The insects wriggling hidden in the mist turned to powder and fell.
“Let’s talk later!”
Sepia looked up at Kim Hwang-je once, nodded, and dashed forward with the dry wind at her back.
Flash—!
Sepia transformed into a single streak of light. She flew straight into the sea giant and pierced its crown.
Its head burst with a pop, and the colossal giant fell to its knees.
“Waaaaaaaaa!”
Cheers erupted from all directions.
Autonomous Combat terminated.
Sea giant successfully exterminated. Returning remaining military funds.
65 million won has been returned.
As Kim Hwang-je stared at the status window, the terrible sea fog emitted by the dying giant spread around him.
The fog obscured everything, blocking all visibility.
“We won!”
“Woaaaaaaa!”
Thanks to that fog, Kim Hwang-je was able to slip out onto the main road while leaving the cheers behind.
His mind remained blank the entire way home.
What exactly is autonomous combat? And why does it require cash?
He couldn’t understand everything, but one thing was clear. The more cash he had, the more soldiers he could deploy to fight.
The castle was like a living war engine, and the troops’ abilities were overwhelmingly powerful.
Kim Hwang-je returned to his one-room apartment. He stripped off his clothes and threw them straight into the trash. He didn’t have the heart to put them in the washing machine.
“Hoo… I need to figure out what’s going on.”
He turned on the internet, went to Duetube, and clicked on the 24-hour live stream.
The entire site was in chaos because of today’s incident. It was the first time in years that a giant monster had appeared inside Seoul without any warning.
Because the situation was so serious, the Director of the Seoul Monster Security Agency was personally giving an interview and issuing a public apology.
“This is Director Lee Jun-ho. I apologize to all citizens for the large-scale monster’s incursion into Seoul today.”
The balding middle-aged man bowed his head in front of the flashing cameras. The staff members all bowed their heads together.
Kim Hwang-je’s heart ached at the director’s clearly visible male-pattern baldness. If not for the monster, there would have been no need for an apology.
“To resolve this issue, we have requested a special audit of the hunter corporation that manufactured the warning devices, and furthermore—”
On Duetube, comments mocking the director kept pouring in.
Watching the comments, Kim Hwang-je quietly took a sip of the cold water beside him. Then he pressed the cold bottle firmly against his head.
He went to the sink, gargled, spat it out, and washed away all the stench on his body with hot water.
When he returned to the computer, the real-time search rankings were filled with “Sea Giant,” “Arun Sepia,” and the term “Your Majesty.”
Emperor.
Related searches — Emperor Your Majesty. Identity of Emperor Your Majesty. Archmage Transformation Magic.
In the video, the thief was prostrating himself before Kim Hwang-je. Then he suddenly jumped up and ran off.
Fortunately, Kim Hwang-je’s face was not visible.
The person filming seemed more interested in the thief than in Kim Hwang-je, and after the tumor explosion the camera had been dropped.
On the same day Kim Hwang-je was searching for himself on the computer, Sepia sat in her home wearing comfortable pajamas and doing the exact same thing.
“Find him no matter what. Yes, yes. It would be great if we could bring him to the next raid. With that level of defensive power…”
Sepia’s eyes burned with intense light.
“He’s the highest grade I’ve seen so far. That’s not a barrier one person can create alone.”
It was true.
He hadn’t made it alone; many had created it for him.