Wonders Beyond the Walls
Jeong Han-taek toured the castle interior under Benedict's guidance.
Kim Hwang-je had readily granted his request to see the castle before making his decision. His expression brimmed with confidence.
Thanks to that, Jeong Han-taek was granted the privilege of exploring a fantasy world.
“His Majesty intends to establish a factory here.”
“Really? You mean we can move our entire factory here? The research lab too?”
Jeong Han-taek spoke while gazing at a vast empty lot.
“Indeed. His Majesty will provide whatever support is needed.”
“Our factory requires an enormous amount of electricity, though…”
Benedict nodded.
“Did His Majesty not mention it?”
“Mention what?”
“This kingdom produces oil. Electricity comes from burning that oil, does it not?”
“Uh… that’s not quite the same kind of oil you’re thinking of.”
Electricity wasn’t generated by simply burning oil; it required running a power plant. Jeong Han-taek pondered how to explain the difference between petroleum and cooking oil without wounding the knight’s pride. He wasn’t sure if they even consumed olive oil here, but burning something like that would hardly yield decent efficiency.
“Over there.”
Benedict pointed ahead of the power-suit factory president, who was still deep in thought.
“Mind your step.”
“My step?”
Jeong Han-taek soon understood. When Benedict brushed aside the swaying leaves in front of them, a sheer cliff appeared. One more step and he would have slipped over the edge.
Yet what shocked him far more than the drop was the heat rising from below. Hot, humid air like that of a wet sauna rushed into his mouth.
“Good heavens.”
It was a steel mill!
The steel mill roared with activity. Blast furnaces thundered as molten iron poured out in gleaming streams. Fresh from the furnaces, the white-hot metal flowed along the lines, radiating blinding light.
Jeong Han-taek rubbed his eyes and shouted.
“Wait! There! There’s someone in the line! No!”
“What?! A person!”
Benedict merely chuckled at the sight.
“Ah, that is a light fairy.”
“A light what?! We have to save them anyway!”
“Now, now, listen. Do you hear screams, or cheerful singing?”
Jeong Han-taek had been about to argue, but he couldn’t ignore the song drifting to his ears. Looking again, he saw the fairy humming as it skipped along the flowing molten metal.
“Observe closely. It is a bald fairy. It is swimming. I shall explain several more times if needed, so do not worry.”
Jeong Han-taek clutched his cheeks and barely swallowed a scream. Benedict was so kind that he truly intended to repeat the explanation three or four times.
By the time the bald fairy began splashing about, Jeong Han-taek had no strength left to be surprised.
“When they bathe like that, holy power infuses the weapons. Nothing is better for facing demons.”
“What kind of broth are you making swords from?!”
“Broth, you say… That is a fine expression. May I use it later?”
Benedict pulled out a notebook and pressed his fountain pen firmly as he wrote it down.
“I have been struggling to find the right vocabulary to describe this scene. ‘Broth.’ I rather like it.”
Seeing the smile spread across Benedict’s face, Jeong Han-taek gave up on replying.
Whatever the case, steel mills were famous for consuming vast amounts of electricity. If they could run facilities like this, installing a power-suit factory here would hardly be strange.
“Ah… In any case, electricity won’t be a problem. I don’t know how, but…”
There had been a time when he thought that way too.
Before long, Jeong Han-taek witnessed barrels piled high at the Mysterious Creature Trading Post. Inside were mountains of crude oil, and the sharp smell of petroleum filled the air.
He raised his hand, stammering like a man struck by lightning.
“Th-that’s… th-th-th…”
“Hmm, why are you so surprised? I told you earlier that oil comes from here. They say simply feeding this oil to machines repairs them in an instant. Hahaha!”
Benedict laughed, but Jeong Han-taek could not hide his bewilderment. It was no joke—the power plant attached to the steel mill truly generated electricity by burning oil.
“This is…”
And soon after, Jeong Han-taek even discovered an airport with a rudimentary asphalt runway. Soldiers were wiping biplanes with rags soaked in Hangma Oil. Elves wandered about, casting spells on wooden airplanes to repair them. When he saw broken machinery fixed simply by applying the oil—sparking and popping as engines roared back to life—he felt ready to faint.
“How is this even possible? There are no sewers or waterworks, filth flows through the city, and aqueducts run overhead—yet there’s a steel mill, an airport, and an oil depot?”
It was as if someone had used a game editor that ignored the tech tree entirely.
“Well, I do not know the details either. I only know His Majesty employs rather peculiar methods. But all his requests are for the sake of the people.”
“…Is that so?”
“This city was once in ruins, and many suffered from hunger. According to the city’s administrators, half the children are orphans.”
“……”
A chill ran down Jeong Han-taek’s spine. Half the children were orphans? That meant the entire parent generation had perished. What kind of war was this world enduring?
“His Majesty personally feeds every person in this royal capital. I was not originally from this city, yet I was so moved by His Majesty’s virtue that I swore loyalty to him.”
“I see…”
“He orders his subordinates to catch fish, or uses his own funds to buy rice from Earth.”
Of course, catching bluefin tuna had involved immense frustration, terror, bloodshed, violence, and even necromancy, but Benedict chose not to mention that part. He offered a brief moment of silence for Bahu, who was still diligently working as a privateer pirate somewhere, then continued.
“I hope you will work with us. This castle is also a fortress meant to protect Earth.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Perfect timing. I shall explain from the ramparts.”
Benedict showed Jeong Han-taek around the steel mill before leading him back up to the castle walls.
From the ramparts, the distant plains stretched out clearly. Canals ran through the plains, and rice paddies had been created.
“Little sprouts, grow! Grow!”
A green dragon swept overhead. The fierce wind made Jeong Han-taek lose his balance. If Benedict had not reached out to grab him, he would have tumbled off the wall.
“Aaaah!”
“Hold on tight!”
“I-is a dragon attacking?!”
“No, it is not.”
“A-anyway, pull me up!”
Jeong Han-taek cried out desperately while clinging to Benedict’s solid gauntlet. Benedict grabbed his other hand and hauled him up.
“Phew, good thing you did not fall. I shall have to give that dragon a stern talking-to later.”
“Y-you can talk to it?”
“Of course. That dragon is Nax, His Majesty’s dragon. This is the time she bestows blessings upon the grass.”
When Jeong Han-taek looked up, the dragon was flying while scattering green light between its horns. As the blessing fell upon the sprouts, the crops visibly grew, little by little. At that rate, the fields would soon ripen, even though autumn still felt far away.
“A city where dragons grow plants… I never expected a dragon’s roar to sound so familiar. I used to hear it in Seoul too…”
Except it was not.
Listening closely, it was not a dragon’s roar at all. It was the engine of a Lamborghini.
Vroooooom!
A yellow Lamborghini shot out like a bullet along the crudely built road from the castle’s main gate. Interior Minister Lavanus and construction foreman Park Jo-woon were fully absorbed in building the road. They had poured enormous amounts of cement to create a two-lane road connecting to Sinai.
“Yahoo!”
Kim Hwang-je’s hearty laughter echoed across the land. He had taken Cho Chun-ki’s supercar for a joyride.
“……”
Watching Kim Hwang-je race across the ramparts as if on an autobahn, Jeong Han-taek swallowed hard. The Lamborghini flashed and vanished. But it was not the only one. A flock of open-top supercars chased after Kim Hwang-je. Whether two-seaters or four-seaters, each carried archers with bows and riflemen with guns.
“His Majesty named them the Road Patrol Unit. Their main duty is hunting monsters that steal crops. Have you ever seen anything like that on Earth?”
“Uh… They exist in Italy, but they don’t ride around with bows. Besides, how much did those even cost…”
Was he really planning to turn those expensive cars into technicals? Then again, even just ripping out the engines and mounting them on trucks would be far more practical.
As he pondered this, Benedict spoke.
“Would you look over there?”
Benedict pointed at the ground around the castle gate. Only that area was dark red. It was strange—no weeds grew there at all.
“Do you see? The ground was red even before the rice paddies were made.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Not long ago, soldiers slaughtered thirty thousand Bugbears on the plains before the gate.”
“What?”
“About ten days before that, they butchered twenty thousand Ogres right there.”
Jeong Han-taek’s head spun at those absurd numbers. When he finally accepted the reality, a chill ran down his spine. Even the same number of humans standing there would have been terrifying. Yet these were hordes of thirty thousand large monsters like Ogres and Bugbears? If that many breaches occurred, any city other than a capital would be wiped out.
“These breaches happen frequently. And if we fall, the next breach will open on Earth.”
“……!”
“That is why His Majesty has established a forward base here to protect Earth.”
Jeong Han-taek’s fingers trembled. Kim Hwang-je’s halo finally made sense. Yet at the same time, he was shocked—because he had seen what kind of armor the soldiers here wore. Thirteen-thousand-won mass-produced armor. That was equipment for low-rank hunters, not soldiers fighting Bugbear legions.
“That’s impossible! So these soldiers fight monsters head-on wearing that cheap gear?”
“Cheap gear… Perhaps it looks that way to you. But you should watch your words in front of the soldiers.”
Benedict let out a deep sigh of relief that the nearby soldiers had not overheard. They treasured the emperor’s bestowed items more than their own lives and had not even removed the price tags yet.
Realizing his mistake, Jeong Han-taek’s face turned pale. Still, he could not believe it.
“Then each of these soldiers is nearly a 1st Class hunter…”
“I do not know Earth’s standards well. But they may be even stronger. Every soldier here has survived the battlefield of slaughter.”
Jeong Han-taek looked around and marveled. That meant these soldiers could become far stronger still.
At last, he made up his mind.
“In that case… we could create armor here that surpasses all limits.”
“Limits?”
“Yes. Armor and weapons are bound by the limits of their owner’s power. Just as a fighter jet’s G-forces are limited by the pilot!”
Unfortunately, Benedict had no idea what G-forces were. How could he know that pilots in high-G maneuvers sometimes blacked out? Jeong Han-taek’s heart raced.
“It will cost a great deal of money…”
Benedict shrugged.
“Armorer. His Majesty has a great deal of money.”
Benedict’s voice overflowed with confidence. From beyond the plains, Kim Hwang-je’s cheers echoed between the supercars racing in formation.