Chapter 359 - Spamming Underplots

The plan to root out the evils of the empire commenced. Kim Si-Hun went to each and every noble of Fidelio’s faction that sucked the citizens of the empire dry, and subdued them.

The nobles tried to stop Si-Hun by arming their knights, soldiers and even the people of their territory, but it was a pointless effort. Si-Hun barged into the territory all on his own, neutralized the citizens who had been forced to fight, and forced out the corrupt nobles.

The other nobles who had heard about Si-Hun’s actions tried to run without putting up resistance or making any excuses, but it was near impossible to run from the extremely fast Si-Hun with exceptionally heightened senses.

Not just that, as if letting out the rage that had been suppressed all this time, the citizens stepped up to help Si-Hun by telling him in real time where the nobles ran to. Hence, the nobles of Fidelio’s faction, who had literally become the public enemy of the entire empire, were soon thrown in jail and could do nothing but wait for the sentence that Iris would give them.

“Fufu. He sure is working hard. I wonder if it’s to make himself look good to you, Master Kang-Woo?” Lilith giggled as she organized the report.

Oh Kang-Woo turned toward her. “How is the progress?”

“They have almost all been captured. The status of the nobles that had been demoted by Fidelio are also being restored.”

“Make sure you keep an eye on them as well. Just because they didn’t take Fidelio’s side doesn’t mean they’re clean.”

“Fufu. After what’s happening right now? Even if they have evil desires, they wouldn’t dare act on them as long as Si-Hun is here.”

“I guess that’s true.” Kang-Woo nodded. Regardless of whether it was of their own will or someone else’s, the nobles would no longer be able to do whatever they wanted. “That aside, have you found out who that woman is yet?”

Kang-Woo recalled the woman who had made the Lucifer Coin prices plummet as soon as it skyrocketed.

Lilith shook her head. “No, not yet. However, I am acquiring more and more informants in Aernor as well. I should be able to gain some information about her soon.”

“Really? How did you get informants?”

“Fufu. Would you like to know?”

Lilith smiled widely and turned a portion of her hair to a green tentacle. It wriggled up Kang-Woo’s arm while spewing sticky mucus. Kang-Woo turned pale.

“... No.”

‘I don’t wanna know.’

“Hoho. Well then, I will be on my way to expand my information network more.” Lilith lightly waved her hand and turned around.

Kang-Woo was about to ask who she was using as informants, but decided not to.

‘It doesn’t do me any good to know.’

He felt sorry for the poor victims of Lilith’s tentacles, but it was none of his business.

‘As long as it’s not me, it’s all good.’

Kang-Woo couldn’t care less about who they were. He nodded and turned away from Lilith.

“Oh right, Master Kang-Woo,” Lilith mentioned.

“H-Hm?” Kang-Woo flinched and turned back toward Lilith.

“Balrog is coming back today, apparently.”

“Oh, really?”

Kang-Woo’s eyes shone. Balrog’s party, who had been traveling throughout the nation along with Si-Hun, had separated from Si-Hun again to investigate the entire continent.

‘It’s been about a month.’

Time flew by after everything that Kang-Woo had to do.

‘I might as well go out to greet them.’

Kang-Woo smiled and stood up.

***

“Kang-Woo!”

Echidna ran toward Kang-Woo with a radiant smile and jumped into his arms. As if proving that she was a dragon, she was squeezing his waist with immense force despite her small stature.

‘You’re gonna break my spine, Echidna.’

Kang-Woo chuckled and patted Echidna’s head. “How’ve you been?”

“Hm! Hm! Kang-Woo! Kang-Woo!”

Echidna was breathing heavily with her face buried in Kang-Woo’s embrace, having no leeway to answer.

‘Since when were dragons a breed of dog?’

Echidna was taking in Kang-Woo’s scent to an excessive degree. She rubbed her nose around Kang-Woo’s solar plexus area and shouted happily, “Hm! Sniffing Heaven [1]!”

‘What the hell does that mean?’

Kang-Woo tilted his head from the unfamiliar phrase. Balrog walked up to him before he had a chance to ask Echidna what it meant.

“Have you been well, Master Kang-Woo?”

“Yeah. And you?”

Kang-Woo waved at Balrog happily. He couldn’t help but smile for some reason after seeing Balrog after a month.

“U-Urgh! M-Move!” Halcyon yanked away Echidna, who had been rubbing her face on Kang-Woo.

He looked like a frail girl on the outside, but he was an ancient demonic beast; he was far stronger than the princes of Hell in terms of physical strength, so there was no way that Echidna would be able to handle such power.

“Ack!”

Echidna glared at Halcyon after being thrown back. Kang-Woo clicked his tongue and lightly conked Halcyon’s head.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kang-Woo scolded.

“Hng...” Halcyon became teary-eyed as he grabbed his forehead.

Kang-Woo walked past him and grabbed Echidna’s hand to help her up. He lightly brushed off the dirt on her butt and asked, “How did it go?”

“I was lonely because you weren’t with me,” answered Echidna.

“No, not that. Did you manage to find anything?”

‘I don’t really have my hopes up, though.’

Kang-Woo had told them to find clues regarding the Demon God’s corpse, but it had been nothing but an excuse to send them away to prepare a stage for Si-Hun so that he could monopolize the achievements.

“Well, I didn’t really have my hopes u—”

“We did find something a little suspicious,” Cha Yeon-Joo interjected.

“What?” Kang-Woo narrowed his eyes. “Something suspicious?”

Yeon-Joo shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I didn’t really see anything off about it, but Balrog thought it was a huge deal.”

Kang-Woo turned toward Balrog. Balrog slowly closed his eyes and took something out of his pocket. It was a box the size of a palm; Kang-Woo opened it.

“Sand?” It was red sand. As Kang-Woo was about to ask what was so special about it, he suddenly froze. “This is...”

“Yes, you are correct.” Balrog nodded. “It is dirt from the Nine Hells.”

Kang-Woo scooped up the red sand from the box and licked a little of it. He detected the bitter taste of blood and a minuscule amount of demonic energy within it. It was the dirt that made up the land of the Nine Hells.

“... Fuck.”

Kang-Woo frowned. His head was in jumbles. Why would dirt containing demonic energy exist in Aernor?

“Where did you find this?”

“A town in the northern region of Aernor.”

“A town?”

“I say town, but... it was not one inhabited by people. It had become a ruin as if it had been attacked by monsters.”

Kang-Woo narrowed his eyes. He touched the red dirt in the box again.

“Were there any demons or demonic beasts in the area?” he asked.

“None,” answered Balrog.

“How far was the dirt spread?”

“About a hundred meters.”

“And nowhere else?”

“Yes, but the demonic energy itself was spread throughout the town.”

“...”

Kang-Woo remained silent. A ruined town and the affected area spanning over about a hundred meters... There was extremely little information, but there were not many possibilities to choose from.

“... Someone must’ve performed a summoning ritual,” Kang-Woo surmised.

There was a good chance that the residents of the town had become sacrifices of the summoning ritual that the Demon Cult used to perform on Earth.

Yeon-Joo grimaced and asked, “Does that mean there’s an organization like the Demon Cult here as well?”

Kang-Woo shook his head.

‘The Demon Cult... The likes of the Demon Cult...’

He firmly replied, “The Demon Cult couldn’t do something like this.”

Yeon-Joo frowned as if she couldn’t follow. “What do you mean? The Demon Cult bastards sacrificed people to perform summoning rituals all the time.”

“That’s where you're wrong.” Kang-Woo continued with sunken eyes, “The Demon Cult made considerable investments for just one summoning ritual.”

However, not once had the land of the Nine Hells been transported, nor had the summoning spanned a hundred meters, not even when Balrog had been summoned.

“But these guys managed to perform such a large-scale summoning by using people from a mere town as a sacrifice,” Kang-Woo remarked.

There would be a few dozen people, at the very least, in a town located near the border of the empire, and it would not exceed three hundred.

‘Especially if there hadn’t even been a single report regarding the incident...’

It meant that the town had been an extremely small one with not even a governing lord.

‘With such a small number of people...’

They had succeeded in such a large-scale summoning with regular people who farmed for a living in a remote town as sacrifices, not even Players or other powerful individuals. Not even Kang-Woo would be able to do such a thing.

“...”

Kang-Woo licked his lips. The bitter taste of blood from the red dirt lingered in his mouth. His boiling blood traveled throughout his body.

Ba-dump, ba-dump.

His heart beat rapidly. He felt anxiety, uneasiness, displeasure, and...

“Interesting.”

Kang-Woo smiled. Shivers of thrill ran down his spine. He had not gotten this feeling in a very long time. His demon instincts were stirred. An unknown enemy... A prey that was hiding within the darkness, waiting to strike... The desire to find and devour that prey made Kang-Woo’s blood boil.

‘I wonder who it could be?’

He had no idea; he had nowhere near enough information.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’

Kang-Woo smirked and cooled down his boiling blood. It did not matter who it was, what they were planning, nor how much power they were amassing.

‘Besides...’

Kang-Woo would come out victorious in the end. He had always done so, and would continue to do so in the future.

“Is that all that you’ve found?” Kang-Woo asked.

“Yes. We were not able to find anything else,” answered Balrog.

“Mm. Let Lilith know later so she can investigate it as well.”

“As you command.”

Balrog bowed deeply. Kang-Woo fell into thought as he looked down at Balrog.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

‘I want to head to that town this instant, but...’

Kang-Woo had things that he needed to do. He let go of his desire and shook his head.

‘If Balrog says that he wasn’t able to find anything else...’

Kang-Woo wouldn’t be able to find anything either, even if he went. Focusing on the task at hand was the right call.

‘Although it’s almost coming to an end.’

Making Si-Hun the hero of the continent, returning the authority of the imperial family to Iris, reviving the empire, and giving the people something to lose...

‘I’m still one step short.’

Si-Hun lacked just one decisive factor that would not be supplemented just by subduing corrupt nobles and saving citizens from demonic beasts.

‘Si-Hun lacks legitimacy.’

To the people of the empire, Si-Hun was literally a hero who had fallen from the sky. He was being praised at the moment because he had accomplished such incredible feats, but there were bound to be people who would criticize him for that factor. It was only natural, since Si-Hun was not a citizen of Arnan. To make a comparison, it was as if a national crisis in Korea had been resolved by a foreigner who had appeared out of nowhere.

‘He’d be treated the same way as General MacArthur.’

Although General Douglas MacArthur was considered a hero among Koreans, he was not as famous as Korean heroes.

‘Anyway...’

Although Si-Hun was being sufficiently treated as a hero at the moment, there was a way to have him be hailed even more as a hero.

‘A way to resolve Si-Hun’s legitimacy as well as raise people’s opinions of Iris at the same time.’

“Layla, I have something to tell you,” said Kang-Woo.

“Ah, okay. What is it, Kang-Woo?” As Layla was thinking hard about what she had heard about the summoning, she turned her head as Kang-Woo suddenly called her.

“Well, I have to ask for your understanding, to be more exact.”

“My understanding?”

Kang-Woo grabbed Layla’s shoulders and continued, “I want Si-Hun and Iris to be engaged.”

1. This was much more explicit, but I was uncomfortable translating it that way since a child is saying it. ?