Lust's Invitation
No matter how hard I focused, I couldn't sense a single trace of the soul.
"Cheongun, you're doing it right, yeah?"
"I am."
Cheongun's answer was clipped and short.
Which meant he was concentrating harder than he ever had in his life.
I should focus again too, I thought — and in spite of that resolution, I still failed to catch even a hint of the soul's trace.
"Mm…."
And then, at long last, Cheongun succeeded in forming the Orb of Emptiness.
It was a little different from what I'd imagined.
I figured it would be brilliant and golden, obviously….
The orb that had actually taken shape wasn't the gold I'd pictured. It was closer to a milky white — its surface like a lustrous pearl.
"So this is the Orb of Emptiness, then?"
"I suppose so."
Even Cheongun sounded less than certain. Fair enough — it was his first time making one. Who would know?
"No reaction from demonic power?"
"This absorption built the vessel."
I only learned this later, but it was possible because I had all but slaughtered the demons. Building the vessel was supposed to be a gradual, step-by-step process, but the trace of soul inside my body had been so enormous that the vessel completed itself in one go.
"Every trace you gain from now on will probably be converted into demonic power."
"I see."
Actually, there was one thing that had come to mind while reading the records left behind by the Primordial Humans.
What ever happened to Demon Slime?
My days had been so frantic that it had slipped my mind entirely. Judging by the silence, they were still slogging through trial and error.
I should reach out sometime.
Just as I was thinking that, I realized there was one more thing I'd forgotten.
"Where's the body of that Angel Pow you knocked down?"
"Ah. That's right."
The Angel Pow hadn't been felled by me — Cheongun had taken it down.
Which meant there was no way a soul trace would linger in my body.
"Nothing in mine, then."
"In that case…."
If no trace of the soul remained in Cheongun's body, then it might still be holding onto the Angel Pow's corpse.
Cheongun and I headed for the spot where the Angel Pow had fallen.
"Still there."
Both of us had all but forgotten about the Angel Pow after that fight, so naturally the body had been forgotten too.
"Can you absorb it?"
"I believe so."
Cheongun said this and closed his eyes. After a moment, mana began to fill the Orb of Emptiness. Not demonic power — mana.
"Why are you getting this?"
"How would I know?"
Fair point, as far as Cheongun went. The only thing I could guess was that I was the contractor. Because of that bond, maybe I could obtain mana — a power one tier above demonic energy.
"Well, getting mana is the better deal anyway."
It might be wasteful at first, but down the line, mana was overwhelmingly more efficient.
Getting mana means… maybe I can get other things too?
I had divine power, blood qi, the power of the Dao. Beyond mana, I possessed plenty of special abilities.
"I'll have to experiment later."
"With what?"
"Never mind."
And with that, the Orb of Emptiness was finally complete. There had been plenty of stumbles along the way, but I decided the achievement was what counted.
"So once you fill this up, you become a dragon?"
"I can't say for certain yet, but it seems there are conditions beyond that as well."
"Really?"
It was a slight pity there were more requirements for the evolution — but only slight.
"Shall we head out, then?"
When I finally emerged from the Cheonji realm, I had no idea that twenty hours had passed since I'd gone in — that not a single call had reached me from my parents in all that time.
That when I got home, I would find my mother possessed by a dokkaebi.
"Hm…."
What to do now.
Matsumoto Ken, one of his closest operatives, had failed. The only consolation was that Greed had failed too.
That didn't make her any less furious.
"Whatever shall I do~"
"Heh heh."
Just then, a man who'd been rolling around at her side reached out and grabbed Lust's leg.
Swish!
In that same instant, the man's head left his shoulders.
Lust despised — absolutely despised — being touched by anything she hadn't permitted.
Where does that filthy hand get off!
The headless man wasn't the only one. Several other men lay sprawled across the floor, all of them living out dreamlike worlds inside Lust's power.
"This place has worn thin as well."
The moment Lust spoke, the men's heads burst one after another. Then all the emotions that had gathered inside Lust — the lust itself — converted into demonic energy and flowed into her.
"Mmm."
Lust savored it, drinking in every last drop. But for the first time in a long while, the satisfaction wouldn't come.
"As I thought… I need that boy."
The man who had killed Envy. The man who wandered the land butchering demons, one after another.
She'd been carrying him in her heart ever since the moment he put down Envy — the Envy she'd never liked anyway.
"I'll make you mine soon enough."
Lust murmured this as she reached her hand into the empty air — and seized an imaginary Han Jin.
Matsumoto had been nice enough, but she was bored of him by now.
Just how much pleasure will you bring me?
Her heart was already pounding. And she moved at once.
"Hello?"
Lust dialed somewhere, tossed out a few short sentences, and hung up.
"Hee hee. Now then — shall we prepare?"
With that, Lust left the room.
"Agh."
I lay groaning, my back burning as if someone had dropped embers on it.
My stats had already crossed 300, and my mother's hand still hurt.
At this point, isn't Mom actually an awakener?
The suspicion felt uncomfortably reasonable. No matter how high I raised my stats, my mother's hands remained very painful. Very. Painful. Beyond "very," genuinely painful. Only my mother could deliver pain like this.
Could it be true….
Just as I was lending more credibility to the Awakened Mom theory, someone smacked me square on the back.
Smack!
"Aagh!"
A scream burst out of me before I could stop it. My back was already in agony from Mom, and someone had to hit it on top of that?
Dad. It's definitely Dad.
Weaker than Mom, sure — but only Dad could pierce my stats and deliver pain like this.
"You brought it on yourself. What's with the dramatics?"
But my prediction failed spectacularly.
The person standing behind me wasn't Dad. It was Sunha.
"Sunha? Was that you who just hit me?"
"So what if it was?"
Hearing that, my eyes went round as saucers. It wasn't Mom — it was Sunha, a non-awakener, and it still hurt this much!
Am I… weak?
I had grown weak enough to feel genuine pain from a non-awakener's slap. I fell to my knees in despair before the fact. I'd thought I was getting fairly strong. Apparently not.
What path have I been walking all this time?
For no reason I could name, I sank into a sea of self-loathing. Sunha noticed something was deeply wrong with me and quietly retreated. I floundered in that sea of despair until Dad came home and informed us that both mother and daughter simply had freak constitutions — the kind that could inflict pain even on awakeners.
"What's this?"
"I felt you needed to see it for yourself."
A few hours after dragging myself out of my despair, I was summoned by the Association Chairman and made my way to the Association. And there, he handed me a piece of paper like this one:
— REQUEST FORM —
"Why are you giving this to me?"
"Turn it over and take a look."
Not quite understanding, I flipped the paper over. And there, on the back, I read:
Designated Request: A-Rank, Han Jin
"It came in formally from the Japanese Awakener Association just yesterday."
"Ha."
Hearing that, I couldn't help but let out a hollow laugh. Naturally, Lust would be behind this request.
Clever.
If an official request reached me through the Association, I had no standing to refuse. If I were an ordinary awakener.
"If you wish, you may decline."
And of course, I sat well outside the range of "ordinary awakener." No one in their right mind wanted to ship the man who killed Envy off to a foreign country.
Still, I should at least check it out.
The contents of the request were as ordinary as could be: clear a single A-rank gate. It was a gate I'd never even heard the name of before my regression. If it had failed to be cleared, or if a gate break had ever erupted from it, there was no way I wouldn't have known.
The trap stink is pouring off this thing.
There was no reason on earth to play along with a trap like this.
"They say you may take your reward of choice from the Association's Grade-0 warehouse."
"Grade-0?"
"That's how much they want you."
The warehouses in the Association were divided into five security tiers. The ones the public knew about were Grades 1, 2, and 3. Beyond those, there was also a Grade-0 warehouse and an X-grade warehouse.
They're actually opening up a Grade-0 warehouse?
The X-grade was less a warehouse than a dumping ground for things that required sealing. But Grade-0 was different.
At minimum, Unique. Up to Legendary.
The Grade-0 warehouse held critical items that the nation could never let leave its borders — priceless things with no rightful owner.
That's one appetizing piece of bait.
I could see it plainly: Lust had placed a massive bet. Offering a reward from a warehouse whose contents could never leave the country was tantamount to declaring that she intended to have me for herself, one way or another.
"What's your read on it, Chairman?"
"Don't go."
Exactly the answer you'd expect from a man holding his position. Matsumoto had only just returned to Japan, and now a designated request had landed in my lap — the whole situation reeked.
"That's what I should say, as Chairman."
Then the old man added, quietly:
"Will you be all right?"
The question carried exactly one meaning. Will you make it back to Korea alive?
If I simply resisted Lust's seduction, everything would be fine. The real problem was what kind of trap would be waiting.
The bait is far too big to refuse.
This one, I had to accept. A chance to claim items from a foreign nation's Grade-0 warehouse, of all things — I couldn't throw that away on a technicality.
"I'm going."
"Understood. I'll send word of your acceptance to the Japanese side."
The Chairman's frown lines seemed to have deepened, but that was probably just my imagination. It had to be.
"You'll likely depart next Sunday. Use the time to get your affairs in order."
"Yes, sir."
I left the Chairman's office and headed straight for Sunny Workshop. I'd left my gear with them that day and hadn't picked it up yet.
What kind of modification takes this long?
According to the phone call, the relics had put up fierce resistance. That was why I'd been using the A-rank equipment the Association had loaned me right up until today.
Finally getting it back.
A whole month had passed, if you could believe it. Master Seo Jincheol had worked on the exterior with his own hands, so it was bound to be a masterpiece.
What will it look like?
Heart pounding, I sprinted to Sunny Workshop in a single breath.