Transcendent (2)
“Shin Si-woo, the truth is, Korea has three Transcendents.”
Life as an ordinary civil servant at the Awakener Management Agency had been worlds apart from this. The level of the world had changed dramatically.
He kept hearing these bizarre things.
‘Isn’t the Patriot the only Transcendent?’
If they were excluding him, a newbie Transcendent, that meant there were four in this small country, including himself.
“Including me?”
“Three with you.”
I nodded.
Then I asked,
“So, where the hell are we going? It’s obviously some secret spot connected to the presidential office.”
“I’m taking you to meet Korea’s second Transcendent.”
Chief Prosecutor Kang Mu-jin led me through a secret passage from the presidential office.
As we walked, we descended underground.
The atmosphere shifted completely.
I could tell at a glance.
‘A bunker.’
A little further down, a covert bunker built beneath the Blue House came into view.
Fitting for the president’s shelter, impenetrable walls gleaming with an iridescent sheen surrounded it on all sides.
A bunker coated in Mystery.
The hardest substance known to exist.
It even blocked abstract or formless energies from Gates.
“We’re here.”
We stood before the bunker door.
There, Seol-ah’s father asked,
“You know the Fate Saintess, right?”
I tilted my head.
It had been ages since I’d heard that epithet.
‘I know her, but...’
The Fate Saintess, Im Ji-ah.
I even knew her name.
She was a woman I almost held a grudge against.
‘She’s the one who made everyone think I awakened through Raise a Sword as a kid.’
She had awakened while playing Death Tarot on her smartphone.
A real-life tarot game where lives were on the line.
Tarot in name, but structured like gambling.
Lose a round, and part of your body vanished; win, and you gained power over ‘fate.’
She’d revealed in an interview:
‘A game where you had to win before your entire existence disappeared.’
Im Ji-ah, the Fate Saintess, had played it obsessively since her teens until awakening.
The trials were said to be insanely harsh.
In her final game just before awakening, she’d endured to the end with her eyes, nose, mouth, ears, arms, and legs all gone, clinching victory.
‘She tapped the phone with her tongue, they said.’
As a result, she awakened with the ability Fate Tarot in Transcendent form.
Unfortunately, the ordeal had left her mentally unstable.
‘She got caught gambling with national funds and was sentenced to death by the Patriot.’
Just in case, I asked,
“You mean that gambling addict saintess who nearly bankrupted the country and got the death penalty from the Patriot?”
“...Yes.”
“She’s alive?”
“She is.”
Beings I’d thought dead kept turning up alive.
First a cult leader, now the Fate Saintess.
“We’re protecting her in secret. It’d be good to meet her, hear her out, and decide.”
I just wanted to raise swords, but why did these hassles keep piling up...?
No sooner had I thought that than—
Sssrrk—
The door concealed in Mystery slid open.
A slightly ominous vibe hit me, so I scanned the interior.
What I witnessed shocked me.
“Check.”
Sunken eyes with deep dark circles and a gaunt frame.
Yet she wore pristine white holy robes, sitting at a casino table.
‘So this is the true face of a Transcendent gone mad among the natural awakeners...’
Her side of the table was empty.
The casino table itself was barren.
And yet...
“Raise.”
The saintess was conversing with someone.
No, gambling against someone.
Even mimicking shuffling cards into the air.
At first, I thought she’d lost it and was playing a fantasy game alone.
But...
‘An entity invisible, unfelt, undetectable.’
Puak!
Her arm vanished.
“Argh, damn it! You keep bluffing, you cheat? Next hand, let’s go!!!”
She wildly swung her remaining arm through the air.
It felt like shuffling cards.
“Check.”
“Raise!”
“Raise!”
“Call!”
Puak!
“Ah, shit! I tried bluffing too, how’d you read that?”
Someone had arrived, but she was too absorbed in gambling to greet us.
I considered stepping forward to announce myself.
But...
Thud—
Chief Prosecutor Kang seemed to cherish this ‘secretly protected’ saintess.
He blocked me.
Then brought a finger to his lips.
Meaning: watch quietly.
‘Who’s her opponent?’
I observed the saintess.
Arms, legs, eyes, and more.
She sucked at gambling, constantly losing body parts.
“You’re going all-in here?”
I observed the space more closely.
“Ah, damn. If I all-in too, my head’s next... Screw it! All-in!!!”
To be precise, I tried to perceive the mysterious trial-like entity she was facing.
Odorless, silent, presence-less.
But a feeling hit me.
‘No idea what it is, but I could kill it.’
When I first gripped the Agasword, distant enlightenment dawned.
Using Reinhardt and Iris, I’d partially embodied it.
Plus, as Blood Lord, all my abilities had evolved beyond human limits.
So even unperceived, I felt certain I could slay it.
As I watched her—
“Huh? Sudden all-in, then you fold here??? You crazy? Hey! Where you going!!!”
Whatever it was, she’d won the game.
Her lost body regenerated, and three golden cards materialized on the empty table.
Only then did she look our way.
“You’ve arrived.”
A haggard woman at the casino table.
Sunken eyes, roughly cut bob hair.
Her face was pallid from endless card games in the underground bunker.
Yet she smiled benevolently at me, like a noble saintess.
“In the end, Shin Si-woo, you’ll stand to check the Patriot. No, you’ll overwhelm him.”
She hit me with that out of nowhere.
Trying to assert authority as a ‘prophet,’ apparently.
Me, Shin Si-woo?
Not that easy a guy.
“Why should I trust and follow your prophecy?”
Fate Saintess Im Ji-ah.
She’d survived the Patriot, so she had something going for her.
One word from her, and all my doubts vanished.
“————.”
I’d believe her.
She was the real deal.
* * *
From the moment I trusted her as a true prophet, the saintess’s attitude turned warmly friendly.
“Draw one card.”
She pointed to the three golden cards on the table.
“You didn’t win these gambling?”
“Well. Thanks to you, Si-woo, so pick without worry. If I leave them, they’ll just get bet and lost anyway...”
I couldn’t confirm it was thanks to me, but her saying they’d be lost gambling rang true.
I quickly approached and picked one from the table.
Fsssh—
The card floated in the air.
‘Real prophet.’
Seeing the image on the card deepened my faith in Im Ji-ah’s, the Fate Saintess’s, power.
And for good reason—
[A bearded dwarf beating a red demon to death.]
Obviously symbolizing my swords, right?
4th Sword, Muratan is a dwarf.
And one never revealed to the world yet.
Her ability was astonishing, but the prophecy’s outcome wasn’t entirely satisfying.
‘Does it mean Muratan attacks Iris?’
Demons are Iris’s kin.
The dwarf is Muratan himself.
My swords exist in the sword world, realms separated.
‘Will they wage war there?’
As my mind grew tangled, the saintess began interpreting the divination.
But this prophet saintess had zero eye for it.
“A symbol of cooperation and harmony. A very good omen!”
A grotesque dwarf brutally smashing a hideous demon, blood splattering, the sheer gore sending chills just looking at it.
It’d be more believable as a harbinger of continental doom...
“This?”
I asked, dumbfounded.
She chuckled.
“A divination interpreted with my existence on the line. Soon, through the harmony of those on the card, you’ll gain even greater power, Shin Si-woo.”
Even greater power.
Tempting words.
But my completed swords already possessed peerless Transcendent abilities.
Hard to imagine them growing stronger, but...
‘Dreams are nothing compared to interpretations, huh?’
Honestly, I still didn’t get the harmony or cooperation bit.
But my mood was pretty good.
“You like it. Want to draw one more?”
They say shamans kill people?
Skeptical of the divination yet not hating the interpretation, I drew another.
Fsssh—
[A 2.5m tall black man with twin tails parting the sea as he approaches.]
This...
“Jesus?”
The Jesus we all know.
And he’s real.
“America’s EX-rank Awakener, Jesus Christ. He’s coming to find you, Shin Si-woo. Judging by the parted sea’s angle... in about three to seven days.”
Why the hell is Jesus coming to me?
An EX-rank suddenly seeking me out.
From experience using my swords, the Patriot’s a worthy foe.
But Jesus is different.
“Can he even leave the U.S. mainland?”
“He deems you worth it.”
Just as I was inwardly pleased with her divination, another odd statement followed.
“That Jesus comes seeking your destruction.”
Whatever, her interpretations were cryptic.
Why would Jesus, bearer of Earth’s greatest faith, try to kill me, savior of Korea?
“Is it because I ‘parted the Red Sea’ and stole his symbolism?”
Jesus, too, is a Transcendent.
And a mentally shattered one from brutal trials.
My guess seemed reasonable.
“...Those swords and demons. Even if they saved the world, hard to ignore—”
My head tilted skeptically at her words.
“—they’re utterly beautiful and magnificent. Jesus surely covets them too!”
My head straightened.
The saintess clearly had real skill in interpretation.
The issue was...
“Can the government handle the Jesus problem?”
I asked Chief Kang, who’d stood silently behind me.
He shook his head, of course.
“Jesus is a true god in America. Impossible. If he wills it, that’s the greater good.”
Not even a week since awakening.
Yet here I was, in a bind: check the Patriot and face Jesus.
“Draw the last one too.”
No reason not to at this point.
‘Huh?’
Drawing the final third card.
I got a clear answer on handling Jesus.
‘In the end, the solution lies with my swords.’
Communication was open.
Reinhardt had perceived everything.
Thus—
* * *
President Lee Seok-hyun had used martial law to buy time persuading Shin Si-woo.
The goal of checking the Patriot must never be exposed.
So even after the Red Sea vanished, he maintained it.
“Please, make the decision for this country!!!”
Under the Patriot Special Law, massive shelters protected by Mystery were built in every city.
Capable of housing the entire populace, all Mystery used was harvested and donated by the Patriot himself from Gates.
‘A man who guards this nation so fiercely.’
As the president fretted anxiously, lost in thought—
“Oh, Kang Mu-jin! How’d it go?”
Chief Prosecutor Kang returned.
He brought the news the president hoped for.
“He’ll do it!”
The president beamed with satisfaction.
And said,
“You could enter politics soon too. Why not run for president next election?”
Kang Mu-jin should’ve gone political ages ago...
“Why would a blade of justice do politics? Weird. You’re not getting other ideas, are you?”
The Patriot opposed it, leaving Kang a perpetual chief prosecutor.
“Honestly, I just want to retire.”
“Kuhuhu, as if.”
Even retirement was impossible.
“I handle ten Gates a day and rest only one day a week, yet Justice’s Blade Kang Mu-jin wants vacation? I’d be offended!”
As a Transcendent, the Patriot needed no sleep.
His constellations handled work, letting him take it easy.
“I want to end the seven-day workweek.”
“We’ll think on that later...”
The president worked seven days too.
Because the Patriot insisted national leaders work hardest.
The president, Kang Mu-jin.
No—all honest politicians serving the nation couldn’t rest.
“First, lift martial law, then hold the Transcendent appointment ceremony back-to-back.”
Thus, the president issued a statement.
Martial law ended.
Citizens returned to normal.
In the world of twelve years ago, it would’ve shaken the nation.
But in today’s Gate-plagued, anomaly-ridden world, it was just routine.
Citizens buzzed with curiosity over Shin Si-woo’s official debut.
SSS-rank Transcendent mere days after awakening.
Korea’s second Transcendent.
He wielded scary power, but he’d cleared the Red Sea, averting catastrophe—a savior.
The Patriot donated 300g of Mystery ingots.
Equivalent to Korea’s defense budget.
And Shin Si-woo was given a 1kg Mystery ingot.
* * *
While checking WorldNet, I learned something unbelievable.
“A 1kg ingot is that rare?”
Mystery ingot, 1kg.
The Mystery fragment from my first Gate was worth 100 million won—about 10g.
So I figured 1kg was around 1 trillion won.
“Ingots have higher purity, so pricier?”
I scanned articles on various Transcendents, punching the calculator.
In won, that’s—
“About 100 trillion.”
National budget territory.
But why?
The whole world assumed, comparing to the Patriot, I’d donate the Mystery too.
“Why would I?”
Mystery was the true divine substance.
Bestowed portals after humanity lost the skies.
Purified corroded seas, reviving fisheries.
Even birthed healthy-minded ‘induced awakeners’ amid deranged natural ones—a miracle.
[Mystery 1kg Ingot]
I already knew exactly what to use it for.
If it worked, I’d gain something immense.
‘No way I’m yielding this.’