Chapter 206 – Descendants of the Ancient Empire (1)

Sophia, who space-jumped to Korea afterward, was extremely delighted to hear Sun-woo was alive, and extremely angry he’d left without notifying anyone.

After that, when she realized how he’d returned to Korea first, she couldn’t help but look dumbfounded.

Space-jumping, of all things.

“Wow, doesn’t that make you basically invincible?”

“I almost got crushed to death by the Demon Lord, what invincible?”

“But now that you can space-jump, there’s no worry of getting crushed!”

Sun-woo didn’t reveal he’d defeated the Demon Lord.

He said he barely survived by escaping underground, and the Demon Lord collapsed on its own over time.

Everyone agreed with Sun-woo’s words. No matter how strong Sun-woo was, no one thought he could defeat such a monster.

Of course, Nanseol didn’t seem to quite believe it, but she didn’t nitpick at Sun-woo’s words.

“Oh, right! Then we have one more spatial ability user. Work will decrease!”

“There’s no reason for it to decrease. I’m not affiliated with the Association anyway, right?”

“What? You still weren’t?”

“Sun-woo’s a freelancer. Besides, assigning space-jump work to Sun-woo would be impossible anyway.”

“No!”

At Caroline’s words, Sophia lay down on the floor.

Her lips were swollen from the excessive workload that had been piling up.

She’d poked around just in case, but as expected, only hellish schedules remained ahead.

Sun-woo sat on the sofa and looked resentfully at the living room occupied by women.

The house, which had been relatively quiet while he stayed at the Association for a long time due to Yeonhwa’s security issues, became crowded with women again due to the Cleaners building’s destruction.

Yeonhwa and Caroline who were originally there, plus Sophia who’d escaped by space-jumping.

And even Mingwei waiting for treatment to finish at the hospital.

‘I need to move before Mingwei barges in…’

The only helpful thing was the cooking, perhaps?

Even now, Yeonhwa and Nanseol were making a fuss in the kitchen, saying they’d make Chinese food.

Compared to when Yeonhwa first tried making Chinese food and destroyed the kitchen, the current scene was at least watchable.

Though he had to ignore the fish being sliced by sword energy and noodles jumping into the air on their own.

Still, seeing Yeonhwa and Nanseol not wearing priestess robes and Taoist robes was quite eye-pleasing for Sun-woo, who’d been living a solo life until recently.

It was just regrettable that his status had risen, making him calmly observe that scene.

‘Have I become a sage?’

Before, he’d certainly have gotten excited over beautiful women swarming around.

Sun-woo became a bit gloomy at his own composed appearance.

Three days had passed since the battle in Eastern Europe ended.

Europe and Russia suffered tremendous damage from this incident.

Countless people died and facilities were destroyed by fragments of the Demon Lord that flew to various countries.

No country could remain intact against a monster that wasn’t scratched by current weapons and absorbed living things to increase its size.

Of course, it was better than several Eastern European countries that became contaminated and suffered near-extinction damage, but suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties in that short time couldn’t help but terrify them.

Eventually, many countries declared martial law, and the world economy was nearly paralyzed.

Moreover, Cleaners and the Summoner Association were shocked by yet another disaster.

The headquarters’ mercenaries they’d tried to rescue had already been brainwashed and were ultimately eaten by the Demon Lord.

And branches that had preserved some personnel also lost many people in this operation, making operations themselves difficult.

However, the world’s perception of summoners and the Association soared to its peak.

The Association’s leadership and surviving summoners knew the Demon Lord had dissipated over time, but they told people they’d killed it.

Of course, since Sun-woo actually did kill it, it wasn’t much different.

Anyway, people came to think of summoners as humanity’s saviors.

“For saviors, there are hardly any people who can move.”

Caroline sighed checking her tablet. While others rested, Caroline couldn’t rest even at home.

Well, to be honest, she seemed to be using Sun-woo’s living room as her personal office.

“Still, from now on we won’t have much need to deal with contaminated summoners in our dimension. We just need to resolve naturally occurring contamination, so it won’t be too difficult.”

“That’s fortunate. Then the Summoners will drag in tons of new summoners. Mission death rates will rise again.”

When summoners decreased, the Summoners recruited necessary personnel from ordinary people.

Naturally, new summoners’ mission death rates were several times higher than existing summoners.

Caroline, who’d been sighing at the briefly increased workload, asked cautiously.

“Since the problems here are roughly wrapped up, could you look at the Empire side?”

As incidents kept exploding in other dimensions, missions for the Empire side, where the entire world was already contaminated, kept getting pushed back.

Though one city had been liberated and people were gathering information about contaminated areas, in this state there was no guarantee even the liberated city could be protected.

Though Sun-woo did close one gate where Demon Lords emerged, they couldn’t know where another might pop up.

Seeing Caroline being cautious, Sun-woo felt a bit sorry.

He knew she liked him, but even more so, he knew she stuck to him for her own world—the Empire.

But her efforts seemed likely to be rewarded. Sun-woo felt like listening to her words.

“I’ll go to the Empire in a bit.”

“Yes!”

Caroline’s face brightened at Sun-woo’s words. But she soon tilted her head.

“In a bit?”

Sun-woo pointed before his eyes.

“A mission came.”

[This is a Dimension Gamma mission. Contaminated ones are advancing toward the Kingdom of Kudas. Will you participate in the mission?]

The mission format had completely changed.

Unlike before when it forcibly summoned, the mission was assigned in a way that asked Sun-woo’s opinion.

Moreover, the blinking Yes, No buttons below.

Sun-woo was dumbfounded by the polite text different from before.

‘Well, refusing is possible now anyway.’

Though he’d sealed his divine status and demonic power, his already elevated divine status allowed him to gauge the mission structure.

This thing called a mission was a divine command composed of divine power.

Though structured differently from ordinary divine power through a god’s words and rewards, for Sun-woo with elevated divine status, he could sufficiently refuse missions coming to him.

‘So that’s why priestesses and priests needed a god’s permission to become summoners.’

If a god interfered, becoming a summoner was ultimately impossible.

“Ah, this is bad…”

At Sun-woo’s words that a mission came, Nanseol was very disappointed.

Because it became difficult to let him taste the cooking she’d been learning this world’s cooking methods to make for Sun-woo.

Of course it would be possible later, but for Nanseol who only met during missions, unlike others staying here, it wasn’t easy to meet Sun-woo.

Moreover, whenever they met, they were always busy performing missions, so it was very difficult to make time.

“Well, let’s eat before I go. Seems there’s time for that.”

Though the mission window kept blinking as if telling him to decide quickly, Sun-woo sat in the living room and waited for her cooking. He looked forward to the cooking as much as Nanseol.

***

[Help the Kingdom of Kudas repel the contamination sources’ invasion.]

The mission window that appeared after crossing dimensions disappeared with a whoosh before Sun-woo could even react.

After eating, it looked angry at Sun-woo who came over after even confirming Nanseol’s return.

At the window that disappeared with a whoosh, Sun-woo showed a chuckle and looked around.

The place where Sun-woo stood was a large hall surrounded by countless books.

‘Inside a tower?’

According to what he grasped by sending the Earth Spirit, his current location was the upper floor of a huge tower over 50 meters tall.

There seemed to be more floors above, but a surveillance network made of powerful mana was densely positioned, so checking without being caught didn’t look easy.

‘Like a library from a fantasy movie. Maybe all that’s missing is a wizard appearing riding a broom.’

Sun-woo was having idle thoughts though he himself was a wizard, a powerful one at that.

“Ah, there’s someone who came late.”

As Sun-woo expected, a wizard appeared.

A wizard wearing robes and holding a staff.

It was just different in that he had a fairly young-looking face and walked briskly.

“The others went downstairs. I’ll guide you.”

Thanks to arriving late, it seemed the summoned party had moved first.

Sun-woo followed the young wizard and left the room that appeared to be a library.

“This is the magic tower’s library. You probably don’t know, but to summon large numbers in secret from ordinary wizards, this was optimal. Everyone arrived quite a while ago, but you’re very late. The Summoners are doing things strangely.”

He was a wizard who talked much more than expected. Moreover, perhaps because he didn’t see him as a wizard, he kept subtly showing off about other wizards.

“I suppose so. Thanks to the upper floors’ security, detection abilities wouldn’t reach here well either. If it’s a magic tower, are the upper floors where the tower master is?”

But his blabbering mouth was immediately sealed by Sun-woo’s words.

“Are you a wizard?”

“Just able to sense mana.”

Sun-woo subtly unfolded a magic circle before him. As beautiful patterns embroidered the air, the wizard’s head bowed deeply.

‘Damn, I’m screwed. But how was I supposed to recognize a wizard dressed like those gun-shooting world people! With that skill level, he’s at least 5th circle. This is trouble!’

The two who left the library started descending the stairs circling around the tower’s exterior.

Wizards could sufficiently create movement routes and elevators with magic, but thanks to the founding tower master’s command to exercise even a little, the kingdom’s magic tower was designed for movement via stairs.

“By the way, I don’t know the situation at all, so what happened?”

“Ah, I haven’t explained yet, have I? I’m sorry.”

The young wizard’s head went down even further.

As small revenge for coming late and making him suffer, he hadn’t explained separately like he did for others.

But since such revenge of his might become a tremendous tidal wave, the wizard’s mouth started moving rapidly.

“Monsters started pouring down from the eastern mountain range where a dragon sleeps. Thanks to summoned knights who went exploring in advance, we knew the entire mountain range was contaminated and were prepared, but far more numbers than expected are pushing down.”

According to the wizard’s words, something similar to the contaminated quasi-human attack from a neighboring kingdom that occurred recently seemed to have happened.

It was just that the forces weren’t quasi-humans like elves but monsters.

As the wizard’s rapid explanation ended, the two arrived at the grand conference room several floors down.

In the huge indoor space with a structure like a university lecture hall, numerous people had gathered.

There were knights, wizards, several people who appeared to be summoners, Daniel, Alda, and finally Prince Christine was visible too.

And in the center, an elderly wizard with a long white beard was speaking passionately.

“If we overcome this crisis, our kingdom can stand tall across the entire continent. The ancient empire’s war machines and various relics Prince Christine brought can raise our country’s magic system by several stages. We still can’t move the ancient empire’s golems, but once we finish interpreting them, we’ll have several powerful weapons no one else possesses!”

Sun-woo who entered the huge conference room saw an unexpected object there.

A golem. The same golem as the one he’d seen on the island where the Demon God was imprisoned, the golem that had been half-melted by a dragon, was standing in one corner of the conference room.

“Huh? There were more golems?”

“Ah, you know about golems? The prince defeated a dragon and brought them through tremendous adventures. One was destroyed, but there seemed to be several in the island’s underground. They brought them urgently, but haven’t unlocked the security yet, so they can’t use them. It seems difficult because they’re locked with ancient magic.”

The young wizard answered Sun-woo’s question rapidly.

That’s when it happened.

The golem, which hadn’t budged no matter what various attempts numerous wizards made, started moving.

The golem that had been standing upright knelt on one knee and the hatch on its back opened upward.

[Administrator confirmed. Ready for boarding.]

The golem emitted a voice while looking straight at Sun-woo, and everyone in the conference room looked at Sun-woo.