Chapter 179

Crossing just a single ridge from the base of Special Unit Division 3 brought the camp of The Old Gods’ Wound into view.

Perhaps because the Sword Immortal had visited here once before the undersea tunnel was built, this place looked completely believable as the middle of Mount Cheonsan—unlike our side, which was just roughly logged with only the ground flattened.

After passing through a triple security checkpoint inside the Formation of Chaotic Heavens spread in all directions, a quiet garden revealed its form.

As I entered inside following Seol Si-heon’s guidance, the Sword Immortal, who was fishing in the pond, recognized us and turned his head.

“Oh, you have come?”

“Grandfather!”

“Come inside. You too.”

“…”

A simple reunion took place.

Instead of dinner, simple tea was served.

This was because Yoo Se-byeol insisted on eating together with her other division members.

Since I knew her firm personality in this aspect, I didn’t say much either and merely sneaked the snacks that were on the table into my sleeve.

“Hearing the news that our Se-byeol found a partner, this grandfather doesn’t know how many nights he spent awake with tears.”

“G-Grandfather, really! I’m all grown up now too.”

“I wanted to see the face of whatever pitiful and dim-witted fellow had venomous fangs sunk into the nape of his neck, and it turned out to be this kid.”

“Huh?”

Nodding his head with an extremely satisfied expression as if saying it was actually for the best, the Sword Immortal then spent about thirty minutes talking about how his daughter had seduced Yoo Se-byeol’s father, Yoo Cheol-jin, and the process of bringing him in as a son-in-law of the Yoo family.

Because the inside story was so brutal, obsessive, and felt like peering into the bottomless depths of a human, I excused myself to the bathroom and instantly erased the memory.

What remained was the fact that I no longer disliked Yoo Cheol-jin, whose existence I had only distantly known until now.

A person might occasionally want to take a long sick leave and send his daughter off to China.

When I return to Korea later, I should visit him to ask about things like how to escape from a basement, or how to run away when the light vanishes from Yoo Se-byeol’s pupils.

As I emptied my cup all at once to quench my parched throat, an elderly woman wearing a white hanbok poured tea for me.

Before long, the granddaughter and grandfather were completely absorbed in a conversation of their own.

“The only thing not to my liking is that there are two pests. Especially those Cheon bastards, one must not associate with them, tsk tsk. Shall I try to reduce the number of competitors for you during this occasion?”

“That isn’t easy yet, Grandfather.”

“If you endure and wait, an opportunity always comes.”

“In fact, I recently received a good proposal from the witches…”

“Dear, Se-byeol.”

At the elderly woman’s restraint, we were finally able to enter the main topic.

The Sword Immortal’s wife and Yoo Se-byeol’s grandmother, the matriarch of the Yoo family.

Was she not the pillar and final hope of this household?

Just as I was about to subtly slide a Light Mage (in training) figurine under the table as a bribe to get on her good side, the Sword Immortal brought up the real reason why he had summoned me and Yoo Se-byeol.

To be precise, it also included the reason why he himself had crossed over to Japan with us.

“Isn’t it about time to pull it out and mince it finely?”

“What do you mean?”

“The monster inside the body of this old man’s lovely granddaughter.”

Surprised for a moment, I looked at Yoo Se-byeol, but she wore a calm expression.

Did she already know?

That an Archduke dwelt inside her body.

Then again, even a somewhat unperceptive Yoo Se-byeol was bound to notice.

Since the times she failed to maintain her reason or tried to forcefully draw out power hadn’t been just once or twice.

I see why she told the agents that the enemies to be destroyed weren’t just the four Super-Class monsters.

From the very start, she intended to pull out and kill the Archduke sealed inside her physical body, which was practically in a state no different from an Incarnation.

“The reason Father changed like that was ultimately because of the Archduke dwelling inside my body. I can no longer delay it, so I am merely handling what should have been dealt with long ago.”

“Will you be alright?”

“I know that Hayan worked hard for my sake too. At first, I thought he was just a pervert who liked licking feet, but…”

You realized!

My pure sincerity.

“I still think so now.”

“…”

“Anyway, you know the method to drag the Archduke out, right?”

“To be precise, I know the method to extract the Star Scars that the Archduke possesses, though.”

Since both the Sword Immortal and Yoo Se-byeol knew that I was the Apostle of the Outer God, there was nothing left to hide.

In fact, the amount of Star Scars I had extracted so far was quite substantial.

In the beginning, I had collected it drop by drop through the primitive method of directly licking the sweat off her feet, but as technology advanced and philosophical thinking deepened, a leap in improvement was achieved in Star Scar extraction.

Such as mixing the tentacle’s bodily fluids into the foot shampoo that Yoo Se-byeol frequently used to induce the Star Scars to seep out.

Or aging wine using grapes she had stepped on.

Or measuring Yoo Se-byeol’s foot width, instep height, toe length, and heel angle perfectly, then secretly custom-ordering the exact same design as her favorite shoes to swap them with the improved, comfortable versions, and placing the original shoes upon an altar to perform a ritual offering them to Mala-nim alongside 1,000 tentacles.

“However, that is strictly just extracting the Star Scars, and I do not know the method to awaken the Archduke inside Commander Yoo Se-byeol’s body.”

“Is that true? Then I will forever…”

“So please give me some time.”

I spoke as I brought the final snack left on the table to my mouth.

“I shall devise a plan within the training period.”

The first thing to do was to identify the true identity of the Archduke dwelling inside Yoo Se-byeol’s body.

In truth, though there was no physical evidence, it was a part I was somewhat certain about.

The only entity I hadn’t counted among the five figures possessing Star Scars that I mentioned to Flauros previously.

The Archduke of Necromancy, Gamigin, whose traces couldn’t be found even through the Witch’s Mirror, was that very person.

One of the epithets referring to him was none other than the “Hooves of the Statue.”

『The foreshadowing where I was able to absorb Star Scars through Commander Yoo Se-byeol’s feet is practically being resolved here. How is it, isn’t it genius?』

『Fear…』

Mala-nim feared my madness, but she did not deny the deduction itself.

The one dwelling inside Yoo Se-byeol’s body was undoubtedly Gamigin.

It certainly took a long time. It was dark right under the lamp; to think that after scouring two dimensions just to chase that single fellow, he would be right next to me.

Now I just needed to find a way to drag him out.

“Isn’t it around here?”

“Whoa, the ground beneath our feet is moving!”

“It’s a Tartaruga! Everyone get into combat positions, and Alexei, get ready to split its back!”

“Understood. Hayan, it is dangerous, so come over here.”

Since I wasn’t summoning an Archduke located in another dimension, a invocation through a magic circle and sacrifices wouldn’t work.

I couldn’t drag him down with the Abyssal Tentacle like the entities up in the sky either.

Just as Mala-nim had initially stated, there was a high probability that if she died, the Archduke would also come out, but that was out of the question.

Separating the Archduke without inflicting harm upon Yoo Se-byeol’s body was an area I was attempting for the first time despite handling all sorts of magic and tentacles, so my contemplation was bound to be deep.

“This fellow is pouring out monsters!”

“The leash, where is the leash?!”

“Request help from The Old Gods’ Wound side! Sa-min got swallowed!”

“Get out of the way, you morons.”

“Deputy Commander Kang Ha-neul!”

As I deliberated, I decided to think about it conversely.

Under what circumstances exactly had the power of the fellow dwelling inside Yoo Se-byeol’s body leaked out until now?

When extracting Star Scars, and when the fluctuation of her emotions grew intense.

Particularly when her jealousy and anxiety reached a peak, feeling like I might be stolen away by someone.

“Cough, cough! I’m saved. Thank you, Deputy Commander.”

“If you have time to exchange greetings, go finish chopping that turtle’s legs. What is Hayan doing?”

“He is currently looking for an opening while riding on Alexei’s back.”

“It looks like he’s just dozing off, though?”

“True. I told him earlier to find out a method to subjugate this fellow, after all.”

If so, then what if we did those two things simultaneously?

By absorbing the Star Scars to the maximum, we would drill a massive hole for it to escape outside Yoo Se-byeol’s body right at the moment the fellow felt anxiety.

It was dreadful, but I couldn’t help but take the double date with the Sword Immortal and the matriarch into consideration.

And to use that method, one final, important thing remained.

While Alexei was diligently driving his axe into the ground, Kang Ha-neul flew over.

“Its carapace is so hard that it isn’t being chopped properly.”

“Hey, Hayan. Did you figure anything out?”

“About what?”

“What else? A method to make this fellow side with us.”

—Gwoooooh!

Before long, the Tartaruga, whose arms and legs were all severed, let out a mournful cry.

If I drew a magic circle across the entire mountain and spread the caster’s mana just like the method used on Moon Ah-rin previously, making the fellow a Familiar wouldn’t be difficult… but there’s no mage here?

Even so, I didn’t want to take charge of the Tartaruga.

Because feeding this massive frame and cleaning its poop every day was tedious.

“Let’s contact the Magic Tower later and have them move it to Gangbuk using transfer magic.”

“Will that resolve it?”

“It will take time, but it should be possible.”

For now, I decided to dump the task onto Moon Ah-rin.

If one more cute alligator snapping turtle increased and even bred chicks, she would surely love it.

It felt like someone’s scream was drifting over from the direction where the White Tower was established, but it didn’t reach across the sea to another land.

“Why Gangbuk of all places?”

“Because there’s a female Tartaruga there. These males completely drop dead for the words of a female of their own kind, you see.”

Even if one searched the entire Demon Realm, the Tartaruga—a rare species—possessed a bizarre ecology where the males were practically whipped by the females.

Poor fellows who couldn’t say much even if a portion of their body was bitten off by a female they once set their eyes on, and merely cried mournfully.

Since the entity in Seoul was a female, if we left it there, far from becoming a threat to humanity, it would settle down on its own without even needing magical treatment.

Feeling a sense of sharing the same plight somewhere must be my imagination.

Averting my eyes with effort from the gaze of the Tartaruga, which was looking at me with eyes saying ‘save me’ while keeping its belly flat against the ground, I gathered the seniors together.

“Hmm, I’m getting hungry…”

“Come to think of it, who was on mess duty yesterday?”

“Hayan, surely you aren’t planning to disappear again using the excuse of visiting the Sword Immortal’s residence?”

“If you keep slacking off, you might be the next thing placed on the dining table.”

The seniors of Division 3, who couldn’t even dream that the Tartaruga they caught would be snatched away again, were beginning to look for food.

Calming them down, I spoke.

“The meal is already prepared. And a massive amount of it, too.”

“Oh, really?”

“Right, you can do it when you try. Is it made from the monsters we gathered?”

“No, I used tentacles. More importantly, seniors.”

“Hmm?”

Pulling out the Archduke dwelling inside Yoo Se-byeol’s body didn’t mean everything was over.

Naturally, we had to completely subjugate the fellow.

Though the main combat would be done by me and the Sword Immortal, we needed bait to distract his sight.

“I shall serve you a feast for all three meals from now on, so could you grant me one favor?”

Right on cue, entities perfectly suited to perform that exact role were right before my eyes.