The Sweet-Tongued Mad Emperor
"Th-th-th-that means… Paju is no longer a ghost city?"
Reporter Kim Young-min stammered, too stunned to form a clean sentence. Fifteen years in the business had hardened him against most surprises, but this one left him reeling.
"A few monsters are still left, but we'll have them cleared out soon enough."
That was precisely why Do-ha had burned through mana stones to strengthen Canteas. He needed this news out as fast as possible.
If the complaints keep piling up, the Association will be in a tough spot.
Of course, it wasn't pure charity toward the Association. If the constant thunder of battle dragged on and the reports kept stacking up, even after he eventually revealed that he had been the one clearing the city, the residents living nearby would still hold a grudge.
"That's why I invited you all here—to get the word out."
"This is a real scoop!"
"Wow. An SSS-Rank Hunter shows up and solves in a day what nobody could fix for ten years."
"Ahem."
"Ah… sorry. We didn't mean it like that."
The Association President cleared his throat, and the two reporters scratched the backs of their heads.
"No need. It's true we couldn't solve it."
The President bowed his head low. Still, the Association had its own reasons to feel hard done by. Every time hunters pushed deep into Paju to hunt monsters, a manticore would appear and force them into retreat. Six years ago they had made a serious attempt to take the creature down, and a considerable number of hunters had died for it. Even SS-Rank Hunter Han Se-ah had been deployed at the time, yet the swarm of A- and B-Rank monsters had made a proper hunt impossible, and they had been forced to pull back. After that, the government and the Association had simply left Paju alone. They couldn't afford to lose critical fighting strength just to reclaim a single city.
I knew all that—that's why I used Confuse Flood.
Without the magic he had created himself, a purge this fast would never have been possible.
"Then where are the manticore's materials now?"
"I've got them safely stored. I plan to sell them—or use them myself."
Until now he had handed every monster byproduct over to Canteas, who had claimed them for making undead. Do-ha knew the materials were worth money, but Canteas putting them to use in combat was more valuable still. The manticore, however, he had set aside for himself.
"That's everything I wanted to say. Feel free to ask the questions you prepared."
Having finished what he came to say, Do-ha nodded toward the two reporters.
"Then first…"
And so the interview between Do-ha and the reporters ran for roughly two hours.
Canteas squeezed his phone hard.
"Ha! Gentlemanly?!"
Reading the article on his phone, Canteas let out a shout. Why did his insides twist every time he saw something nice written about that lunatic emperor?
What?
A calm way of speaking?
"If these people ever saw Baek Do-ha's true face, they wouldn't be writing comments like this."
There was a reason he called Baek Do-ha the Mad Emperor. The man showed no mercy to his enemies. He would sever their heads, spike them on stakes, and plant them along the roads he expected them to take. And if anyone ever wronged him, he always paid it back two—no, three—times over.
Above all, there's a decisive reason I started calling him a madman.
On the Southern Continent there had been twin martial artists known as the Ilmu Twin Blades. They had killed an old blacksmith. The problem was that the blacksmith had been a close friend of Baek Do-ha's for over twenty years. When Do-ha learned of his death, he flew into a rage, hunted the Twin Blades down, and brought them in. Then he cut away everything except their left eyes. He gouged out the right eyes and tongues, severed arms and legs and ears. After that he stitched the wounds shut, healed them, and dumped them alive somewhere at random—left with nothing but a single eyeball for a body.
"These people should have seen him dealing with the Brown Bear Faction, or when he was torturing Park Seok-jun! I refuse to accept this!"
"Aah~ so you refuse to accept it."
"Kyaaah!"
The voice from behind made Canteas scream. He was so startled he flung the phone he was holding clear across the room.
"You were nowhere to be seen all day, so I came to check what you were up to… and here you are badmouthing me. Leave any hate comments while you were at it?"
"Haha… th-there's no way."
"No, go ahead~ leave the hate comments. I'm confident I can track them down to the very end."
"…"
See? Where exactly was the gentleman in that? He was just a lunatic.
"I'm kidding."
"Are you really? I've seen how you operate."
"You saw wrong. Right?"
Do-ha smiled and slowly raised a fist.
"Haha, right. I must have seen wrong. I was tired—probably hallucinating."
In the end Canteas smiled and nodded. Of all things, a thug who was also a madman.
"Crazy thug…"
"What?"
"Nothing. So why are you here?"
Canteas hurriedly changed the subject. This guy barely ever came to his place—what was going on?
A soft rasp of steel.
"Wh-what is that?! Why are you drawing a sword?! A-all right! I'll delete the hate comments!"
The moment Do-ha pulled a sword from his spatial bag and drew it, Canteas nearly jumped out of his skin.
"…Did you actually leave hate comments on my stuff?"
Watching him, Do-ha's expression turned dubious. There had been someone steadily dropping hate on his articles… had that been Canteas?
"I pulled this out to show you the sword."
"Ah~ is that all? And here I thought…"
Relieved, Canteas sat down across from him.
Do-ha held the blade out.
"The sword's pretty wrecked."
"That's why I came looking for you."
"Me? I'm not a blacksmith. Why me?"
"You sit on the internet all day. You've got more information than I do, so I came to you."
"Heh heh. Then you came to the right place."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Tch."
"I want to know if there's a blacksmith I can trust."
"Hmm. There is one forge with solid ratings. A dwarf runs it personally, so it seems pretty decent."
"Oh, really? Then I should pay them a visit. I'll use the manticore claws I took this time to make a weapon and armor."
To withstand his martial arts, a sword or suit of armor had to be extraordinarily tough. Ordinary gear simply shattered.
"Even manticore materials won't hold up against your Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong."
Canteas, who knew that art well, shook his head.
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong—the Hundred-Step Emperor-Annihilating Art. With every step, mountains crumbled, seas split, and everything in its path was destroyed.
I know because I watched him use it against my undead army.
Hands clasped behind his back, strolling at a leisurely pace, Do-ha had wiped out thousands of Canteas's troops with each unhurried step. It had looked like nothing more than a casual walk, yet the martial power unfolding from him had shaken heaven and earth. And that had been before he even reached the Profound Realm.
"Besides, you've never even worn armor. Don't waste the materials—just make a sword."
"Hmm… maybe you're right."
Fair point. He had never worn armor, not even in the old days.
"By the way, I've got a question."
"What?"
"Your martial art annihilates enemies within a hundred steps, right? That's why it's called Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong. What about the Demon God? Did he last the full hundred steps?"
"Yeah. That bastard held out. Not just against my art—against every other technique I threw at him, too."
"Huh…"
The offhand remark hit Canteas like a blow. He felt, all over again, just how vast the gulf was between a god and a mortal.
He himself had been a great being in the world of Belhart—an 8th-Circle mage. He could fight a dragon one-on-one and topple a kingdom in under an hour. And yet Baek Do-ha had been far stronger than even that. No—not merely stronger. Overwhelming. Like an adult fighting a child, Do-ha had crushed everything in his path.
His unique martial art was formidable, but the real reason Baek Do-ha was a monster was that he had no limits. See a spell or a technique once, and he could perform it on the spot. It wasn't mere mimicry—he executed it more powerfully than the original user, mixed techniques together, and even created something entirely new. On top of that, he used magic and martial arts simultaneously, something no one—not even dragons—had ever managed.
A god stronger than even that Baek Do-ha…
He felt small. As if he had just been shown the scale of the universe.
"What? Why the sudden droop?"
"I just feel pathetic, that's all."
"You do something far greater than any god ever could."
"Do… Do-ha…"
Canteas's face lit up with emotion. For him to say something like that…
"Leaving hate comments on my articles."
"Ugh, you hold a grudge forever."
Of course. As if that Mad Emperor would ever say anything genuinely nice. He had gotten his hopes up for nothing.
Creeeak.
Thud!
"Hey, I told you to be careful!"
"I opened it gently! The door was rotting—it just fell off!"
Stepping into the building, Do-ha scolded Canteas for wrecking the door. With the purge of Paju more than ninety percent complete, he had come back to the house he used to live in to collect his things.
"So this is the house you originally lived in?"
"That's right. From age nine to twenty-two."
"Huh?"
Looking around the house, Canteas walked over to a photograph hanging on the wall. Moss covered much of it, but the picture inside was intact.
He wiped it clean.
"Pfft. What's with this little kid. Wait—is this you?"
Seeing the young Baek Do-ha in the photo, Canteas burst out laughing. A grandfather and a tiny boy were smiling brightly together.
"That was me at nine."
"Wow, so even you had a time like this. Man, if I'd met you back then, I'd have just…"
"Oh? Just what?"
"…Just… thought you were cute, that's all."
A chill brushed the back of his neck, and Canteas hastily revised his words. Whew—he'd almost died right there.
Do-ha moved on.
"So this was your room?"
"Yeah."
"…Is that it?"
Canteas picked up a comic book lying on the bed—titled Belhart. He had thought Do-ha was making a bad joke, but there really was a comic book.
He flipped through the pages.
"It's blank."
"Volume one originally had the comic drawn in it."
But now it was blank. Even after he had returned to his original world and a fair amount of time had passed, it remained empty white pages.
"Let's grab the stuff and go."
"Do you really need to pack it up right now, though? You're the landowner of all of Paju. The purge is almost finished. Couldn't you just come back for it later?"
"I'm going to raze all the buildings."
The existing structures were beyond any hope of recovery. He had considered leaving the foundations if anything was still salvageable, but most of them had been destroyed in the fighting ten years ago. With no maintenance and monsters occupying them on top of that, reuse was simply impossible.
"Then should we start demolishing from the front sections where the purge is already done?"
"No. I'll finish the purge first, then demolish the buildings one or two months later."
"Why?"
Canteas tilted his head at that. Was there any need to leave a grace period of a whole month or two? To check for remaining monsters, maybe?
"I wasn't the only one who lived in Paju. The people who used to live here need a chance to collect their own things. They'll have keepsakes full of memories, just like me. Family mementos, too. So I'm giving them one or two months before the demolition to come get what they want."
With that, Do-ha opened his spatial bag and began packing the things he meant to take.