The Returned Adversary

After many more achievements had been fed into it, the Transcendence Tale was finally complete.

The moment the tale took shape, the light blazing from my body gradually died down. And once the last of it faded, cheers erupted all over again.

"The Spirit King is a god!"

"We are the blessed people!"

They had suddenly begun deifying me. It was a little much, but it didn't feel bad, so I decided to let them have their fun.

"More importantly... Status window."

I opened it at once.

With the window open, I could see that One Who Defied Time had vanished from my achievements. In its place, a new entry now sat above them: a Transcendence Tale called The Returned Adversary. And it seemed my quest had been recognized as cleared, because my level had risen to 200.

Unlike an achievement, the Transcendence Tale came with a detailed description, but its effects were nowhere to be seen.

To think this "karma" they spoke of was actually achievements.

The message had definitely said that plausibility had been satisfied. In other words, some kind of narrative plausibility was required to forge a Transcendence Tale.

The consumed achievements alone made that much clear.

Every achievement that had disappeared while the tale was written was one I'd earned by facing down demons and demonkin after my regression and coming out victorious. It occurred to me that this plausibility might be a thread connecting achievements to one another.

"Huh?"

That was when I noticed the entry that should have sat at the very bottom was gone.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

My unique skill is gone.

Adversary, my unique skill, had disappeared without a trace. The very skill that tripled my stats against the demonkin.

Why would it vanish?

The problem was that I had no way of knowing why. While I was still racking my brain, a system message chimed in, oblivious to my plight.

"Now what is this?"

A quest with no classification, no description, no clear conditions. My head already ached from losing my unique skill, and the system handing me this cryptic thing made it throb all the more. Then, as if it understood my suffering after all, the system offered an answer to my dilemma.

"Oh, I see. You think I'd just accept that?! Give me back my skill!"

I raged all I wanted, but no reply came. The one mercy was that my outburst was drowned out by the citizens' cheering. Everyone's except the two standing right in front of me.

"Silence."

"Yes, I will re, pfft, main sile, pfft, nt, pfft, Your Majesty."

"......."

Silence like Won-ae's I could tolerate, but Baek-rim forcing out words between suppressed giggles grated on me.

"That does it. You need to be disciplined."

With that, I reshaped the broken sword hilt into a club. I couldn't use mana, but the broken hilt obeyed my will beautifully.

"M-Master?"

Baek-rim scrambled to swap "Your Majesty" for "Master," but it was far too late.

"If you were going to behave, you should have done it from the start!"

"Kyaak!"

And so my indiscriminate beating began.

"So, Sir Knight, what happened to your face?"

The man before me glanced at Baek-rim at my side and asked, tilting his head. Baek-rim's face was swollen beyond all description.

"We conducted some education."

"Education?"

"Yes. Education."

"Understood."

Sensing that digging any deeper would be hazardous to his health, the man wisely chose to retreat.

"So, your name was...?"

"Ah, I'm Baek Hyuk."

Baek Hyuk. The man said to be the de facto leader of North Korea's band of survivors, and their strategist besides. His martial prowess was nothing special, but his mind was sharper than anyone's.

Was that how Won-ae had put it? I'd heard his basic profile, name excepted, from her earlier. Which was exactly why I couldn't make sense of this. Why would a man who'd served as both de facto leader and strategist hand his territory over to us and join us?

"It seems you don't understand why I joined your territory—no, your kingdom."

He shuddered briefly at the word "kingdom," but I let that slide and answered honestly.

"Yes. For the life of me, I can't figure out why you handed it over."

"There are two reasons."

"Two?"

"Yes. The first is that we needed a new leader."

With that, the strategist laid out how things had stood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back then: the tyranny and stubbornness of the man he himself had installed as leader, the situation it had bred, and the man's attempt to join hands with the demonkin.

"So where is this leader of yours now?"

"I killed him."

"Ah, so he's already dea... I'm sorry, what?"

I was sure I'd misheard and asked him to repeat it. The strategist had clearly just said "I killed him," not "he died."

"You killed him yourself?"

"Yes. There was no other way."

Baek Hyuk's voice was utterly level as he said it. An ordinary person would feel guilt or fear over taking a life. The ones who didn't usually came in two varieties.

Either a psychopath, or a man with absolute resolve. The former was simply a lunatic; the latter possessed a cold, unclouded reason. And to my eyes, this man was the latter.

"And the second reason?"

"The second is that we no longer had the strength to hold out."

"You couldn't hold out any longer?"

It had been years since North Korea was sealed off from the world. That was far too long to survive without being self-sufficient. Which meant the survivors had to have some way of producing their own food.

"That self-sufficiency system can't be used anymore."

"I'm sorry?"

"The only one who could operate it was that damned man."

"Ah."

Then it made sense. He'd severed the only food supply with his own hands. But leaving the man alive would have made him an obstacle in my path.

"So you wanted to join the one who'd beaten the demonkin. That would be me."

"Yes."

"Then... what can you offer me in return?"

This was business, plain and simple. For this moment alone, I needed the mindset of the entrepreneurs I so despised. Give and take. It would have been a different story had the territory already found its footing, but I'd only just brought it all under my rule. There was still endless work to be done, and no established systems to speak of. Take in people mindlessly in a state like this, and the whole thing could slide into catastrophe.

"What we can offer you right now is exactly one thing. Labor."

"I suppose so."

As expected. These were people begging to join because they could no longer sustain their own territory. It went without saying they had no goods to offer beyond their labor. And yet something told me labor wasn't all of it.

"Is labor really all you have?"

"Yes."

The strategist's answer was flat. But in that fleeting instant, I caught the tremor that crossed his face.

So he's still holding something back. A card grew more valuable the longer it stayed hidden. He knew that as well ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as I did, which was why he was concealing his hand. But I couldn't just wave someone with secrets through my gates. A chance, though, I could give him.

"Is labor truly all you can offer? If that's really everything, then I cannot accept your people into my territory."

"......."

Pressed in earnest, he held his silence. Of course, every word I'd said was true.

If it came to that, I could turn Baek Hyuk and his group away at the border. The other humans I intended to accept, because they had been hunted and persecuted by demons and demonkin. But Baek Hyuk's people had survived by holding their ground against them. They were the kind who could live anywhere, whether or not it was my territory.

I don't strictly need to take in people like that. They were strength I genuinely needed, no question—but strength you cannot trust is worse than none at all. That was where I stood.

A long moment passed before Baek Hyuk broke the silence.

"Will you take us in? If not, then I cannot say."

The strategist's face was full of iron resolve as he spoke. Maybe it was because he'd shown me that face, but I found myself liking him for it.

"If I hear it and find it truly necessary, I will gladly accept."

"No. I need your firm answer that you will take us in."

He was asking me to nail it down so there'd be no taking it back later. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He was asking to be let in as my people, once and for all.

This is... not bad at all. That was an expression only a leader could wear. I'd seen it once before, the day I first met Baek-rim. And people who could wear that expression rarely turned traitor.

"Very well. I accept you all as my people."

Having confirmed the system message, Baek Hyuk nodded and looked up at me. I had given him my certainty; now it was his turn to lay his secret on the table. And the first words out of his mouth were, at the very least, words I would never regret hearing.

"Your Majesty... do you know what a Hidden Piece is?"