Chapter 196 – The Emperor

The New Tsar Empire.  

Known simply as “the Empire” in other countries, it was the superpower of Ea. Originally, the Tsar Empire had been on the brink of collapse at the hands of the Demon King, but a hero had risen to establish a new nation in its place.  

The hero who defeated the Demon King became the first emperor of this new empire, and since then, the imperial family had been descendants of that hero.  

Perhaps because of this, the imperial family had produced many heroes throughout the generations. Some members of the royal family became sword masters through magic and swordsmanship, while others, like princesses, were chosen by the gods and became saints.  

Unfortunately, no new hero had emerged since then, but the emperor, who carried the hero’s bloodline, possessed the ability to recognize heroes and saints.  

That’s why everyone was shocked when the emperor spoke, turning their gazes toward me and Yerim.  

Fortunately, the emperor tilted his head and corrected himself.  

“Ah, not a hero yet. It seems you haven’t been formally recognized by the gods.”  

At the emperor’s correction, everyone nodded in relief.  

Indeed, when I first arrived in the capital, I had been referred to as a hero candidate. In that sense, the emperor’s words weren’t entirely wrong.  

“Do you mean I’m at the level of a hero candidate?”  

“No, it’s not that. This feeling is new to me. I’ve only seen three heroes in my lifetime, but I’ve seen many hero candidates. I can definitely tell that you’re different from them. What exactly are you?”  

The chancellor tried to smooth things over, but the emperor’s next words made it impossible to recover the situation.  

“Well, if I don’t know, I don’t know. But the saintess is clear. What’s going on here?”  

After thoroughly disrupting the atmosphere, the emperor immediately turned his attention to Yerim.  

Fortunately, I had something to say about Yerim.  

“Yerim is a human from another world. She’s a priestess who serves the gods of that world.”  

At my words, the emperor nodded ambiguously.  

“Ah, a saintess from another world. If she serves the gods of that world, then there shouldn’t be a problem…”  

The emperor’s words left us speechless. If even the emperor didn’t know, how could we?  

Many people had referred to Yerim as a saintess before, but that was only to elevate her status. The emperor was the first to call her a true saintess, and since we didn’t know whether Yerim was truly a saintess, we had no way of knowing if it was appropriate.  

After throwing us into confusion, the emperor continued speaking as he pleased.  

“Anyway, now I understand why the chancellor insisted on meeting you. A party consisting of the eldest daughter of the sacred tree, a great mage, a saintess from another world, a knight of swordsman caliber, and a seasoned soldier… This is practically a hero’s party, just without the hero.”  

As he spoke, the emperor glanced at his young daughter, who stood beside him—a hero and saintess.  

When we entered the room, the two had greeted us with warm expressions, but now, due to the emperor’s words, their faces looked deeply troubled.  

I was also overwhelmed by the emperor’s words, but I still had to speak.  

“There’s one more member of our party. A spatial mage who couldn’t come here. She’s guarding a gate in another world.”  

I needed to tell the emperor about Yelena now.  

The reason I had come to the Empire was because of Yelena. I needed the emperor’s support to send mages to help her secure the gate and turn it into an official gate.  

However, unlike before, there were a few problems now.  

The gate on Ea’s side was located in a country occupied by the Demon King’s army, and the Empire was currently being pushed back by the Demon King’s forces.  

In fact, the two problems were essentially the same.  

With the Empire—no, Ea—on the brink of destruction, it was unlikely the emperor would agree to send mages to the gate.  

But I was wrong.  

“Indeed, she’s the one. That’s also why we called you. We need that gate.”  

“Huh?”  

An involuntary exclamation of surprise escaped my lips.  

Fortunately, everyone seemed to share my thoughts, as no one gave me a disapproving look. Even the emperor didn’t seem to mind.  

“Originally, we planned to close the gate connected to your world after the expeditionary force and the hero’s party returned. Unfortunately, we failed, but if we had succeeded, we might have been able to trap the Demon King in your world.”  

Moreover, the emperor recounted the failed operation in front of us, who had been left behind.  

“…It was an operation that couldn’t have succeeded anyway.”  

“Well, it failed. But at least we tried. Those who returned on their own have the right to hear about it.”  

The chancellor subtly tried to signal the emperor, but the emperor ignored him.  

He truly was an emperor who spoke his mind.  

He didn’t seem like a bad person, but he was a living example of what happens when someone with power and authority stops caring about others’ opinions.  

“Anyway, it seems the Demon King’s plans were more advanced than we thought, and things have turned out this way.”  

The emperor counted off the events one by one on his fingers.  

“We lost the gate, the hero and saintess fled…”  

At those words, the young boy and girl bowed their heads again.  

“Then hundreds of thousands of undead poured out of the gate and immediately invaded the Empire. The undead were armed with weapons we’d never seen before, and this time, even the barrier was destroyed, right?”  

At the emperor’s words, the chancellor nodded with a grim expression.  

The emperor looked at his fully extended fingers and sighed.  

“The number of undead currently pouring in is more than even this Empire can handle.  

Moreover, with the undead using weapons from your world, even the Empire’s powerful knights and mages are struggling to hold them back.”  

Though magic and mana existed, Ea was still a medieval society before its population explosion.  

The Empire, the strongest nation on the continent, had a population of around 50 million. Holding back hundreds of thousands of undead from the Demon King’s army was difficult.  

Of course, even with the barrier destroyed, the emperor and chancellor didn’t seem like they had reached a dead end.  

The destruction of the barrier didn’t mean the end of the Empire.  

The Empire still had hidden strengths it hadn’t yet revealed.  

However, the problem was that the undead currently pouring in were only a fraction of the Demon King’s forces.  

When the emperor paused, I told him this fact.  

“The population of the countries the Demon King has destroyed so far exceeds 1.5 billion. Even if only 10% of them are turned into undead, that’s over 100 million.”  

China’s population was 1.5 billion.  

10% was a conservative estimate.  

But even 10%, or 100 million, was enough to shock everyone.  

“1.5 billion? 100 million? What kind of population… No, surely the Demon King can’t turn all of them into undead, can he? The Demon King’s energy isn’t infinite, right?”  

The chancellor’s mouth hung open in shock, and even the emperor stuttered in disbelief.  

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I had already confirmed this.  

“He’s currently doing it. The Demon King has found a way.”  

This was according to the former Chinese military tank commander.  

According to him, the Demon King had been staying in China, reviving corpses and creating skeletons, continuously churning out troops for his army.  

While conquering China, the Demon King had been sending the troops he created to the front lines, and now he was sending both those troops and new ones through the gate.  

In the end, the undead that had come through the gate were only the vanguard of the Demon King’s Earth-based undead legion.  

And the vanguard had already destroyed the barrier.  

The emperor had said it was unlikely the Demon King had that much energy, but unfortunately, the Demon King had obtained that power from Earth.  

The Demon King’s infinite energy for creating undead came from the nuclear missiles that had rained down on Pyongyang.  

The Demon King had converted the power of the nuclear missiles into mana and energy, and even after dropping all the satellites, he still had an enormous amount of energy to create undead.  

“If you’ve confirmed it, then it must be true.”  

The emperor sighed and looked over our party, the hero, and the saintess.  

“In the end, there’s no other option but a diversion.”  

“A diversion, you say…”  

At my question, the emperor shrugged.  

“Honestly, it’s not much of a plan. It’s just the traditional method of using a hero.”  

The emperor pointed at the young hero, then hesitated before pointing at me.  

“Well, a hero is essentially a suicide squad sent to attack the Demon King from behind when we’re being overwhelmed in the war.”  

The emperor’s cynical words darkened the hero’s expression, and the hero’s daughter, holding his hand tightly, glared at the emperor.  

But once again, the emperor ignored his daughter’s gaze.  

“Though it’s packaged as something grand, with the blessing of the gods and the saintess moving together, in the end, it’s just a small special forces unit infiltrating enemy territory.”  

His words were harsh, but not wrong.  

In fact, I thought the same.  

That’s why I had been horrified when I was called a hero candidate.  

But I never expected the emperor, a descendant of the hero, to say such things.  

Seeing the emperor, I could understand why his daughter, the saintess, had fled, and why the chancellor looked so uncomfortable.  

“However, this time there are two problems.”  

“The first is that the Demon King isn’t here. The priests’ prayers have only brought news that the Demon King isn’t in this world. So he must be in your world, Earth.”  

Indeed, the Demon King seemed to have no intention of coming to this world.  

Earth was already as good as destroyed, so the Demon King had nothing to fear.  

Though awakened individuals had appeared, there were no knights, mages, or proper priests besides Yerim.  

Moreover, with human corpses—the raw material for undead—being ten times more abundant on Earth than on Ea, the Demon King had no reason to leave Earth.  

According to the former Chinese military officer, the Demon King was still busy creating undead in China.  

“It seems the Demon King plans to make Earth his stronghold. He’s only sending his forces here. To defeat the Demon King, we’d have to go back to your world.”  

As the emperor said, there was no real plan.  

We had already tried attacking under the name of an expeditionary force and failed, fleeing back.  

I glanced at the gloomy hero and saintess and spoke to the emperor.  

“But the hero’s attack has already failed twice.”  

The emperor nodded at my words.  

“That’s the second problem.”  

He continued with a shameless expression.  

“We’ll probably fail this time too.”  

At the emperor’s confident prediction of failure, the hero and saintess bit their lips.  

*Is he planning to sacrifice his daughter and the hero?*  

Just as that thought crossed my mind, the emperor finally got to the point.  

“However, even if we fail, the Demon King won’t be able to ignore the attack.  

While the Demon King is distracted by the hero’s party, another unit will destroy the gate he controls.”  

“So the hero’s attack is a diversion?”  

“The attack and retreat will use the gate you came through. It’s a method we couldn’t have used if you hadn’t come.”  

This time, the emperor ignored my words.  

Not like before, where he simply didn’t care, but a deliberate ignoring.  

“Originally, we planned to create a new gate using the remaining markers you left behind, but the mages said it’s impossible. There were many reasons, but if the mages say it’s impossible, then it’s impossible.”  

As he spoke, he avoided looking at his daughter.  

At least he seemed to have some conscience.  

“That’s why we need you and that gate. We may not be able to kill the Demon King, but we need to buy time.”  

Though it wasn’t what I expected, it seemed we could still receive the emperor’s help.  

However, there was a flaw in the emperor’s plan.  

“Can the unit that goes to the other world retreat?”  

If they destroyed the gate in Daejeon and tried to return through Yelena’s gate, only to die there, it would all be for nothing.  

At my words, the emperor smiled bitterly.  

“Honestly, that would be easier, but the problem is that if we make a mistake and a spatial mage defects to the Demon King, it’s over. Unless something special happens, we don’t plan to do that.”  

I silently looked at the emperor.  

*Is he telling the truth?*  

Though he spoke as casually as before, I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere this time.