Steeling My Heart

On the way back up to Seoul, I was receiving such warm gratitude from the people of Jeolla-do that I had to seriously think about what to do with the countless ingredients filling my Sub-space.

“Have you ever tried making a golem out of food?”

“At least you wouldn’t get hungry in the middle of battle.”

Go Yu-jin joked lightly with a smile, and although the knot deep in her heart must surely have been quite large, now that she had resolved to grow stronger, I thought all of that would become the driving force pushing her forward.

Moreover, through the insight she had gained this time, she felt about three times stronger than before, so Go Yu-jin was all the more excited for what lay ahead.

The war had effectively come to a halt, and as the country moved to sort out what had been seized and prepare for recovery from the damage, the whole nation was in an uproar and noisy with activity.

There was a mountain of things to do, from the ruins of collapsed buildings to funeral rites for the dead, but rather than focusing on those first, the government was prioritizing negotiations, aiming above all to squeeze out as much as possible from both countries.

In truth, the plan was to use the reparations obtained that way for national reconstruction.

And that was not all.

They were also gathering the powerful figures scattered across the country in order to show that we still had more than enough strength to spare.

It was a situation that could easily raise concerns about a gap in military strength, but the Japanese forces that had crossed over to Tsushima were destroying themselves, and China had been pushed back beyond the border and fallen silent.

On top of that, Russia had grasped the state of the war and extended a friendly hand, so in some ways China too had reason to feel tense.

‘Russia is the one that occupied Ukraine and the surrounding European countries. They must be completely seasoned when it comes to war as well.’

In reality, although Russia had occupied a great deal of European territory, it had not conquered it through simple armed conflict alone.

At the time of the Great Cataclysm, many countries that had lost the capacity to endure had requested aid from nations possessing great strength.

But most countries, burdened just with protecting themselves, turned their backs on them, and in the middle of that, the one that unexpectedly extended a hand was Russia.

It was an unforeseen turn of events, but those countries had had to avoid collapse at all costs, and while they were preserving themselves through that aid, most of them ended up being militarily occupied by Russia.

In truth, could a country that had not even been able to handle monsters and had requested assistance really resist a country that still had strength left over after dealing with all those monsters?

It was absolutely impossible, and in a way, one could even call it a peaceful subjugation, as many countries came under Russia’s control without major clashes, allowing it to expand its territory in a manner quite different from China.

And Russia had actively used this method to push mercenary business, and while achieving remarkable results throughout Europe and Asia, it had risen rapidly as one of the major powers.

China, on the other hand, took and stole everything by force, and the relationship between the two countries could not exactly be called good.

Their relations were bad enough that it would not have been strange if war had broken out at the border they shared at any moment, and the reason they had not clashed was simple.

The number of Awakeners in each country was roughly similar, and the rest of their national military power also showed no major gap, so if they collided, it could lead to a war of annihilation.

And the supreme leaders who held absolute power in the two countries were turning away from each other in order to preserve their own vested interests.

Yet in regard to this Korean Peninsula war, Russia had taken Korea’s side.

That was a point Korea itself also found strange, but regardless, it looked like we would benefit from it.

“But this is our first time back in Seoul in half a month, isn’t it?”

“Nothing much will have changed.”

It had already been ten days since the war had quieted down.

“Recovery from the damage won’t be easy either, right?”

“It’ll recover faster than you’d think. The mages won’t leave that business alone.”

“Those lofty people?”

“Yes. To become the master of the Seoul Magic Tower, you need a great deal of influence, and the best means of increasing that influence is, after all, money. So if they pull in funds through the enormous reconstruction costs and use that to exert influence, they’ll have no trouble buying politicians, and the mages too will be swayed by that influence.”

It was coming to light that before Pi Jin-hyeok drove out his master, he had held meetings with political figures.

At the time, circumstances showing that those people had exerted influence from behind the scenes so he could become Magic Tower Master had emerged, and among those involved, many corrupt figures were under investigation and facing punishment.

‘If it had also been revealed that he was a Cultist of Ruin, the whole country would have been in chaos, but…’

For some reason, even though countless materials related to that had surfaced, Kim Dae-san had revealed nothing whatsoever about it.

It made me wonder whether he too might be a Cultist of Ruin, or whether he was actively making use of them for his own ends.

‘Judging by the way he has ruled up until now, he’s probably not a Cultist of Ruin, but….’

Kim Dae-san had too many suspicious corners. After that, when we arrived in Seoul and went to the estate, it was then.

After noticing someone’s presence and going to check, I found that An So-mi was at the estate, and after realizing we had returned while watching the news, she ran over and threw her arms around Go Yu-jin.

Then she asked with a face full of worry,

“Are you okay? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“Yeah, not at all. I’m almost sorry how completely fine I am.”

She felt over different parts of her body, then turned toward me.

“You should have gone alone!”

“I was going to.”

“That’s right. I was the one who insisted.”

“Even so!”

I knew why An So-mi was snapping like that. A battlefield was a place where anything could happen.

Especially since this time the enemy had not been Japan, which operated its military with at least some semblance of common sense, but China, she must have been even more worried.

But this time China had brought no such variables into the invasion, and in terms of deployment, it had only actively used ordinary Awakeners.

If they had brought even chimeras, the course of the war would have changed beyond recognition.

Go Yu-jin was led away somewhere by An So-mi, and as I watched the two women grow distant, I took out my phone and called Han Sang-gil.

The signal rang, and not long after, Han Sang-gil answered.

“Are you on your way up?”

-What business would we have left on the battlefield? We had already returned to Seoul long ago, after at least cleaning up the enemy corpses. -

I had heard he had gone through quite a bit to advance into Jinju.

Apparently, there had been talk that the course of the war would have changed if the Japanese forces had broken through into Jeolla-do, so one reason the war ended quickly was that Han Sang-gil and the great black mages had responded appropriately.

“I heard you had a pretty rough time of it?”

-Rough time, my foot. In any case, quite a few people want to meet you. -

The ones wanting to meet me would be nothing but a bunch of aged black mage elders, so I replied as if it were nothing important.

“I’ll have to meet them eventually anyway, so tell the Association Chairman and the Black Tower Master to arrange a meeting once they get to Seoul.”

-Those two must have gone through a great deal too. With so many lost black mages leaving empty spaces behind, their hearts will be dry as dust, so don’t stir them up too much. -

I knew that, but I still had to say something about how they had taken along so many innocent people and ended up producing far too many casualties.

The strength of black mages was already dwindling day by day, and there were hardly any capable people left to begin with, so after taking such severe damage, even if we had won, it could not be called a true victory.

‘Raising the next generation….’

At the sudden thought that came to mind, I spoke lightly.

“Why not focus on training black mages while we’re at it?”

-What kind of nonsense are you suddenly spouting? -

“A fair amount of money is going to come in. And I’ve got quite a bit as well. What if we use that to foster black mages on a large scale?”

-Kim Dae-san has no reason to permit that, does he? -

“Things have changed now.”

A short silence followed. He was probably organizing his thoughts.

“Wouldn’t it be a decent way to pass the time if all those great mages being treated like old men shoved into the back room stepped up to the front and focused on training the youngsters?”

-And what will you do? -

“I have to make money. You can’t exactly tell old men to go out and earn it, can you?”

A laugh of disbelief came through the phone. But the mood was rather positive, and Han Sang-gil hung up after saying we should talk about it properly later.

‘For a training project to truly take root, momentum matters. And right now, it’s no different from having caught that momentum, so if Kim Dae-san wants my help, he’ll have no choice but to allow it.’

I had started thinking this because when we hired staff last time, the level of black mages had been so pitifully low.

There were quite a few black mages among Awakeners, but the problem was that their direction and method of growth were not systematic, so it was difficult for them to become strong.

On top of that, another problem was that because of the widespread prejudice that anything tainted with black mana lost its value, they were even more unable to enter Gates.

In reality, unless they were raised as undead, there was no major issue even if something was killed with black magic.

If they were raised as undead, then the prey literally changed from an ordinary monster into an undead monster, and that was where the problem arose.

But even that had become easy to deal with thanks to recent improvements in technology, at least in the case of turning things into zombies.

The actual loss was only around one or two percent at most, and that was a level that could easily be tolerated for the sake of convenience and the revitalization of related industries.

That was why people like us did the work in the first place.

It was a situation that could only be described as thoughtless, blind suppression.

‘Well…. Nothing ever comes easily, but this time it’ll be different…. Kim Dae-san, you should try living a life where you have to watch other people’s eyes for once….’

Countless Awakeners invited to the site of the summit were entering one by one and finding their assigned seats.

The renowned powerhouses from all over the country had all been summoned to Seoul, and the delegations from China and Japan too had taken their places to one side, seemingly wholly occupied with observing Korea’s powerhouses as they continued to appear one after another. Then, at just that moment, when the black mage group began to enter, the representatives of all three countries focused their attention on them at once.

“My, my, these stares are awfully burdensome.”

Just as Han Sang-gil said, even the press had crowded in droves, and holding talks in this sort of form was ridiculous to begin with, but there was nothing better for expanding our power and influence, so we were currently dancing exactly to Kim Dae-san’s tune.

“But there are quite a lot of great mages here, aren’t there?”

“Our side of the industry has put in its own effort too, and we couldn’t just remain stagnant forever.”

At that moment, Jeong Gil-sun spoke from behind us. That was true enough. But for all the effort that had been made, this incident had pushed us back through so many deaths.

“How greedy were you trying to be, to get that many people killed?”

“How was I supposed to know…. it would turn out like that?”

“You should have known.”

“You damned wretch. Even if I say you’re right and I did know, I still would’ve made the same choice.”

At Jeong Gil-sun’s words, I stopped walking and turned around. Then, after meeting his gaze, I spoke.

“Do you think I refrain from forcing sacrifice because I don’t know how?”

“…I know. What I did was excessive, but it was something that had to be done.”

All the great black mages around us were looking at us with complicated expressions. They all must have felt it. I had made sure they could tell that the aura faintly emanating from my body was by no means beneath theirs.

“As the times change, the generation behind us must also be given room. We’ll never be able to move forward if we just keep throwing people in recklessly as fuel.”

Then I resumed walking and came to stand at the very front, and without avoiding the gazes of the representatives of the three countries looking at me, I faced them directly.

‘Now I’ll take the lead in the flow.’