◈ Episode 559. If You Can’t Reach It (1)
Kim Hyunmin lowered his head.
“I’m not really the kind of person to let things slide……. It’s a good day, but my boss has given me some special circumstances, so I’m just letting it pass this time.”
“Thanks…….”
“No thanks, good luck. Where are there people like that in the world these days?”
The sound of distant footsteps.
Kim Hyunmin raised his head and looked at the police station. Park Seongjin, the manager of the department he’d always found so annoying, was bowing to him.
“Thank you very much, then have a good day.”
“Manager Park…….”
“Where are they, those humans? did they go?”
Bam.
The shade returned to Manager Park’s face, which hadn’t lost its smile until the moment the door closed. He let out a deep sigh and rummaged in his jacket pocket.
“Oops, I forgot, I didn’t buy cigarettes.”
“I’ll run out and get some.”
“No thanks. You don’t even know what I’m smoking, do you, Kim?”
“……Sorry.”
“Never mind, sit down.”
It’s almost midnight.
Normally, I would have been irritated.
But I was guilty of something.
Shake it off.
Kim obediently sat down.
Still, he didn’t understand.
Why did Manager Park wrap his arms around me?
You didn’t say it out loud.
Manager Park opened his mouth.
“Assaulting me at a dinner party? How hard can you beat me up here?”
……Ah, that was it.
It was the moment I was thinking about.
Manager Park continues nonchalantly.
“And it’s my fault, too, for forcing you to drink when I knew you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Mr. Kim. I didn’t realize things would turn out like this.”
“?”
It was an unexpected apology.
Maybe it was the alcohol.
With a rare expression on his face, Manager Park continued.
“I guess that’s why the first step is so important, Assistant Manager Kim. Back in my day, we’d go out for a few drinks and we’d just bond. You’ll have to excuse my immature way of expressing myself.”
“!”
For a moment, Kim Hyunmin felt like he had been slapped in the back of the head.
What is Manager Park regretting?
Did he think he was bothering him?
He was right, he just had a different way of expressing it.
“No, Manager. I…….”
“Never mind, I already know that.”
Throwing up his hands, Manager Park glanced at Hyunmin.
“It’s not easy, is it, social life?”
“Nothing is easy in this world.”
“Yeah, I like that mindset.”
Why did he drag Kim Hyunmin to every company dinner?
It was because he wanted Kim to socialize with the team.
Manager Park shrugged his shoulders.
“And you did a good job.”
“What?”
“Because you showed your hot side like you did today. From now on, new recruits won’t be easy on Assistant Manager Kim, right? You know the external oil and the internal energy, right? That’s what Assistant Manager Kim showed today.”
So, you knew everything.
Kim was silent for a moment.
He felt like his narrow vision was crumbling.
‘……You’re a real adult, Manager Park.’
It was probably because he was drunk.
Kim Hyunmin said something he wouldn’t normally have said.
It was something he had never confided in anyone.
“Excuse me, Manager Park, I have a question for you.”
“Suddenly, you want to talk about your problems, Assistant Manager Kim? Okay, go ahead.”
“It’s……. There’s something I need to apologize for.”
“Apologize? Assistant Manager Kim isn’t the kind of person to cause trouble, is he?”
Kim bit his lip hard.
“But the person I really need to apologize to……. is so far away that I can’t even reach him anymore, what am I supposed to do?”
Manager Park rubbed his chin and replied.
“I’ll just have to live with it.”
“……Yes?”
“Even though I made a mistake so big that I had to apologize, I’m glad it turned out so well that I couldn’t just apologize. It’s best to just live my life thinking about it.”
On being watered down by society.
“No way.”
Park was blunt in that regard.
“Do you think that person would want to see Assistant Manager Kim?”
“……!”
“You’re lucky if he remembers your face.”
……It really was.
Kim Hyunmin couldn’t help but laugh. At this moment, thinking about the people around Hoyeol, he was living a life where he could not even become a passing ‘Extra 1’.
‘No, I’ve always known that.’
So he kept his head down.
But recently, there was a reason for the change of heart.
Yes, in the community and at restaurants.
It was a change worth talking about.
Kim spoke up again.
“So what am I supposed to do when that person is being ridiculously misunderstood? Should I just put up with it? Even though I know better than anyone that it would never happen?”
“Hmmm.”
Manager Park scratched his beard again, this time.
“Still, if you have a conscience, you shouldn’t hold it in, shouldn’t you? No, when you’re faced with an injustice, it’s the perfect time to atone for it. Like a confession of conscience.”
“In that case, I think I’ve got a good hold of it, Boss.”
“Hold on to what?”
“That asshole from earlier, the collar.”
“……what?”
Soon, the two headed to the main street to catch a taxi.
While walking.
Park muttered to himself a few times because he didn’t understand.
“So what does that have to do with grabbing him by the collar?”
Then he asked.
“Assistant Kim, do you know……. do you know Lee Hoyeol?”
Of course, Kim said bitterly.
“…… He was a friend.”
“Oh, a friend?”
“The only one I had back then.”
A real friend.
By the way, I’d never heard of a friend like Hoyeol…….
Kim Hyunmin was about to fall into deep thought.
Mr. Park shook his head.
“What, Lee Hoyeol and Assistant Manager Kim are friends?! Even if you’re drunk, you’re still very drunk? Guess I’ll never offer Assistant Manager Kim a drink again. From now on, if I ever offer Assistant Manager Kim a drink, I’ll be a dog! The dog manager…….”
*
Holy relics.
The Heavenly Sword, Excalibur.
A [Mythic] ranked item.
But.
“Rude, humans.”
Despite its rarity, the Excalibur was lying on the ground. Even passersby commented on it, not to mention the Netizens who had gathered to find it.
“This is the real Excalibur……!”
“Did you see the information panel? It’s rated Mythic, crazy!”
“The special features are real, oh my god, weapon domination.”
A secluded field in the Kingdom of Yusra.
Excalibur was plugged in.
The reason his body had become a spectacle was simple.
“I will never forget the shame of sending this body into exile.”
As you can see, it’s a little too talkative.
The players were astonished at the sight.
No matter how much people in the world are not interested in wealth and fame.
“Does it make sense to treat a Mythic item like this?!”
I can’t believe you just left it like that.
Among them, there were some who were beyond shocked and consumed with greed. The player checks the floating item window and begins to talk nonsense.
“No, if you left it lying around like this, shouldn’t someone else be the one to pick it up? Why, Excalibur is a sword that can only be drawn by the chosen one.”
He stalks over and extends his hand.
“If I draw it, can I have it?”
Why, the information window that popped up didn’t say anything about level restrictions.
A limit full of question marks.
Maybe he could meet it?
“Take a picture of me there, I’ll have proof later.”
There was no one to stop such a man’s actions.
Well, it wasn’t just one or two people.
The moment the man touched it, Excalibur began to glow.
“If……! If it’s like this……!”
The man’s face begins to color.
Jijijijik.
The man’s limbs twitched as if he’d been shocked by electricity.
He went limp.
What it meant was simple.
“You mean take as much as you want, if you can?”
“I thought he said he wasn’t done yet.”
“Then isn’t this a kind of declaration of war against the Pantheon?”
It was.
Except for Lee Hoyeol, only the gods of the Pantheon could draw Excalibur, so this Excalibur was a decoy to lure the god of war out of hiding somewhere.
A NetTuber player slowly catches the wind.
“It’s even more unusual to see it with my own eyes. Who would have thought, it was Lee Hoyeol! He’s not only subdued the gods of the Arcana Continent, but now he’s using it as a bait!”
The chat window immediately responds.
-Homen.
-He’s no longer just a player, he’s gone beyond the limits of the game.
-This is beyond awesome, it’s scary.
Like a professional broadcaster, he makes a quick retort.
“Indeed, it seems that the Pantheon wasn’t wary of the Infinitely Deep Darkness for nothing. In that sense, isn’t it a good thing that Lee Hoyeol is on our side?”
No one disagreed.
Lee Hoyeol had done nothing but work for humanity.
But at the same time, someone had witnessed.
“Whoa.”
“What are you sighing about, Captain?”
“Huh? Nothing, nothing.”
Hoyeol facing Paimon on Jeju Island.
Perhaps that’s why those who entered Jeju Island were so relieved. They were relieved that they were the only ones who had witnessed Hoyeol’s uncharacteristically strong appearance.
But there was something that even they had overlooked.
It was floating in the sky and observing everything.
The existence of the Evil Eye.
.
The Demon King of the Ten Thrones.
Buer, Paimon, and Gamigin.
Three demons had been hunted by his hand.
Of course, there was some debate.
“Buer, yes, but Paimon and Gamigin were not hunted by him, for Paimon fell to a foolish Bael and Gamigin fell through the open gates of Hell.”
The Consciousness of the Ten Thrones.
Discussions take place beneath the veil.
The role of mediator is once again the Demon King of the Eighth Throne.
Barbatos.
He used his power, the ‘Objective Eye’, to speak.
“Even if Gamigin and Paimon didn’t die directly at his hands, he was the one who drove them to their deaths.”
Even the most stubborn of the Ten fell silent as he rendered his judgment, but the silence only raised more questions.
“I can’t believe it, Paimon, he’s fallen.”
“Even after countless sacrifices to the curse.”
“This is not the least bit unexpected.”
For Paimon, his rank as the 9th demon king was meaningless.
His power could only be assessed by Bael.
Barbatos glanced up.
‘……The next arrow will be aimed at me, right?’
Buer, Paimon’s fall to Hell had made him the lowest of the Ten in the hierarchy. Whether by sight or sound, it was clear that he was next.
Beneath the veil, Barbatos swallowed dryly.
‘I am not stronger than Gamigin, nor more noble than Paimon.’
Can I survive this man?
The gentle mediator began to assess himself objectively.
It was then.
As expected.
“I can’t let that incomprehensible being into the Demon World.”
“As Paimon says, we must strike first.”
“Then, Barbatos, it’s your turn.”
Slowly, his name was being mentioned.
Barbatos was in agony.
No matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn’t come up with an answer.
It didn’t even occur to him that he could handle a man that even Paimon couldn’t handle, let alone himself. So this time, he searched his objective memory.
‘……There might be some clue.’
His own Objective Eye would have seen the Arcana continent, and their world, from a different perspective than the other Ten Thrones’ Evil Eyes. Perhaps, he thought, he could find a new path.
Barbatos was right about his subject.
“……!”
Barbatos had seen it.
Their world.
A new horror sprouting in the world of adventurers.
Barbatos opened his mouth to speak.
“Maybe it’s possible.”
*
I read the words that came to mind again.
──────
A new event is coming your way.
A new event, ‘Emissaries of the Ten Thrones’, has begun.
1. From now on, the Demon King of the 9th Throne, Barbatos, will become a neutral faction.
2. Barbatos’ envoys have requested to visit Seoul, the Land of the Anomalies.
3. Barbatos’ envoys would like to sign an oath of peace…….
──────
What?
The demon, or rather, the Ten Thrones, is a neutral power?
The sun doesn’t even rise in the west, what is this?
“You have reason to be proud, Barbatos.”
dalkag.
Grandfell puts down his unemptied teacup.
Soon, the snout speaks up.
“You are the first demon to make me lose my appetite.”