Chapter 184. No Turning Back (1)
Chapter 184. No Turning Back (1)
Skaya was originally one year older than Seo Jun-Ho. In theory, since Seo Jun-Ho had returned to the world a year earlier, they were now the same age… Still, she strongly denied it.
'I think I know how Skaya feels now.’
Seo Jun-Ho was bitterly looking at the touching reunion of the father and son. For Gilberto, it didn't matter. He was a 30-year-old married man.
‘Arthur is 29 years old, so he's only one year older.’
To be honest, it was the right age to call him hyung rather than father, but Gilberto had a face to save anyway. The problem was Seo Jun-Ho himself. Reunited after 26 years, Arthur was older than him and was now the hyung.
'I can't. I can't even if I die.'
He raised Arthur like a nephew. Seo Jun-Ho couldn’t call Arthur ‘hyung’ even if he was beaten to death. But his troubles were solved more easily than he thought.
"Uncle."
Arthur was a young man of the 21st century who knew manners.
"…For a young man, you really act like a gentleman.”
"Yes?"
"No, nothing."
With a satisfied smile around his mouth, Seo Jun-Ho looked at the swollen-eyed Arthur.
"So… Did you like the gift I gave to you after a long time?" Seo Jun-Ho asked, pointing at the blond married man with his chin.
"Thank you. Really… It's more valuable than anything else to me," Arthur replied shyly.
“Ahem, Ahem…"
Gilberto tried hard to stop the corners of his mouth from going up.
"I heard from Deok-Gu that you made the Watchguards?" asked Seo Jun-Ho.
"Yes. I wanted to continue my disappeared uncle's will...” Arthur looked bitterly at the bloodied land. "It was too much for me."
"No, looking at kids these days, it's great to achieve that much at your age."
“...”
Arthur had something to say, but he held back. Didn’t the 5 Heroes establish the new world order in their 20s?
‘But... that's because the 5 Heroes are special.’
Arthur wasn’t such a remarkable person that he could compare to them and he knew that better than anyone else. Seo Jun-Ho, Skaya, and Gilberto exchanged glances.
‘Jun-Ho, Arthur seems very depressed?’
Gilberto seemed as if he was asking the others with his gaze.
‘Yeah, even though he’s not bad to the point that he should look down on himself…’
‘Don't harass my son.’
To be honest, Arthur's skills were superior to his peers of similar age. Now that they were stuck trying to clear the 3rd floor, most Players had chosen to live in comfort. It wasn’t exactly their fault. There was just no "reason" to risk your life to become strong.
'I know it because I experienced it. Comparing the two generations is meaningless.’
In a way, Seo Jun-Ho and they were also born with the times, unlike now, where you could be infinitely lazy if someone didn’t urge you to do something. They were Players who lived in a generation that had to fight endlessly.
"Skaya."
When Seo Jun-Ho slightly hinted, Skaya clapped and drew their attention.
"Come on, kids? Shall we go over there and heal our wounds first?"
Seo Jun-Ho turned his head when she took the hint and slipped away. There were dozens of fiends who died here. Seo Jun-Ho approached the remaining upper body of the closest fiend.
"The Confession of the Dead."
Fiends had work to do even after death.
***
[The skill rank is too low. You could not recall the memory completely.]
[The skill has been automatically deactivated for the safety of the user.]
It happened again. Seo Jun-Ho blinked and read the message window in front of him.
"Grade... Are you saying B-grade isn’t enough?"
The Confession of the Dead was now B-grade. Its grade had gone up after reading Kal Signer's memory. Despite that, accessing information about the ‘leader’ was still impossible.
‘In that case, does it need to be A-grade?’
Seo Jun-Ho didn't act hastily because there were corpses all around. When the sun rose in the morning, the first thing that flew over were crows. Seo Jun-Ho walked among the crows like a plague doctor and forced the bodies to confess. When he heard his 63rd confession, he received a message.
[Repeated use of the skill has increased the skill’s grade.]
[The Confession of the Dead (B) has risen to the Confession of the Dead (A).]
[Memory projections will now be automatically saved.]
The Confession of the Dead once again rose in grade. An additional skill was even added as it rose to A-grade.
‘Save?’
Memory projections could now be stored. Seo Jun-Ho was lost in thought for a moment.
‘Is this a necessary skill?’
His memory was never bad. He remembered the faces of every fiend he saw through the memory projections, and he could also perfectly recall every piece of information. This meant that he didn’t have to save and watch those memory projections later.
‘But it's better than nothing…’
Seo Jun-Ho walked to the body of a member of the Gluttony Squadron.
"Confession of the Dead."
A memory projection came to mind, and he skipped over all the meaningless details.
- I'll make you guys strong. Have you ever heard of the strengthening treatment?
- My cooking has never failed. However, 9 out of 10 die from tasting it.
- Deputy Chef, these are the new recruits. Take them away.
‘…’
The first thing Seo Jun-Ho saw was the past in the memories of the Gluttony Squadron member. In the memory, he saw a fiend he had seen before.
‘Chef…’
He was an executive of the Fiend Association and was called the Skill Maker. From what Seo Jun-Ho knew, Chef had a unique skill: to manufacture skills himself.
"That valuable skill…”
Why did he have to use it in such an evil way? Seo Jun-Ho looked at the memory projection with an annoyed look. The number of fiends in the Gluttony Squadron exceeded 500.
‘What a crazy number. Other squads… No, it’s comparable to most large guilds.’
The only reason this was possible was because of Chef’s existence. He forced the fiends to eat the so-called strengthening treatment. In other words, the skill he had created.
‘Survival rate of 10%.’
9 out of 10 die from tasting it, but if one survived, they would obtain a stronger skill. Of course, compared to the other squads whose skills were trained from scratch, their skills were bound to be worse off.
“So this is why the members of the Gluttony Squadron were weaker than Jang Seon-Ho…’
The Gluttony Squadron dealt with the Fiend Association’s troublesome matters using their overwhelming numbers. In short, they had the role of a cleaner who took care of jobs that were too vague for other members to come forward.
‘The leader’s name is Guladin.’
All Seo Jun-Ho knew about him was his appearance and name. No one had ever seen the leader’s skills based on what Seo Jun-Ho had seen from the memories of the Gluttony Squadron members.
‘Still, I thought that a squadron member would be a key member of the Fiend Association...’
No, maybe the Gluttony Squadron was just a special case.
"Hmm."
The memory projections were naturally saved, and now, there was only one fiend left whose memories Seo Jun-Ho hadn’t read just yet.
"Jang Seon-Ho."
He was the best among the fiends here, and he belonged to the Pride Squadron. When Seo Jun-Ho made him confess, the corners of Seo Jun-Ho’s mouth slightly rose.
‘Yeah, this is what I wanted.’
Thanks to his unique skill, Jang Seon-Ho was highly regarded in the Fiend Association. He had even once witnessed Pride’s skills, the leader of the Pride Squadron.
“...”
Seo Jun-Ho clenched his fist and opened it without saying anything. To be honest, he was a little shocked. The strength of a leader was higher than he had thought.
‘If the leader is at that level, the executives will be much stronger, right?’
If that was true, then an executive was a tower that was still too much for Seo Jun-Ho to climb. From the memory projection, the skills of the leader of the Pride Squadron, Pride, were one step higher than the current Seo Jun-Ho.
‘...I’m also certain that there will be a gap in skills even among the leaders.’
If Seo Jun-Ho was unlucky, Pride’s abilities may be at the bottom among the leaders. When the memory projection ended, the light in Seo Jun-Ho's eyes became calm. He knew from experience that…
'...The scariest enemy is the one whose power cannot be measured.’
But now, he knew some of the enemy's power. Of course, what he had done could only be considered scratching at the surface, after all, there were still the leaders of the other Squadrons, the executives commanding them, and the Heavenly Demon himself.
'It's still not enough.’
Seo Jun-Ho couldn't shake off the uncomfortable feeling in his heart. His mind was constantly asking, ‘why?’
‘If Deok-Gu's data is correct... The Fiend Association is a force that can confront even the world right now.’
But the Fiend Association remained low profile for decades now. Many Players even started to think that their existence wasn’t that important anymore.
Whoooong.
Seo Jun-Ho looked up at the sky, feeling the chilly desolate wind that could only be felt in the mountains.
'Those guys... How have they been suppressing their desires all this time?’
Seo Jun-Ho was familiar with the fiends. He was confident that he knew them better than anyone else in the world. But… Now, they were unfamiliar. The only fiends he knew in his generation were those faithful to their desires.
“…”
The peaceful times… Seo Jun-Ho began to feel uneasy about the current peace. After all, there would always be a calm before the storm.
* * *
"Oh, he’s here."
When Seo Jun-Ho returned, the party welcomed him. In particular, River and Arthur looked at Seo Jun-Ho with a different look compared to before after they had come to their senses.
“H-Hello. My name is R-River."
"Nice to meet you."
It had been very difficult for him to greet Seo Jun-Ho. As such, River looked ecstatic as if he had heard the best compliment in the world when Seo Jun-Ho replied.
"It's because everyone is your fan," Skaya said as she approached and pouted. "What's up with the name of this group? Watchguards? Descendants of the Archmage… Isn’t something like this better?”
"I like it. The Watchguards."
"Tsk, anyway, I'm going to see Arthur's comrades. Apparently, they’re held in restraints."
"By Arthur's comrades...”
They were the Watchguards. Seo Jun-Ho turned his head toward Arthur and asked, "Arthur, what's the level of the Watchguards?"
"Uh, um..."
Arthur looked slightly apologetic. "There are a lot of non-combatants. There are only nine combatants, including me and I'm the best among them."
“…”
Seo Jun-Ho fiddled with his mask and thought for a while. The reason why he asked this question was simple.
‘The power of the Fiend Association is beyond imagination. It might be hard to deal with them even if I wake up Mio and Rahmadat.’
It was because he needed a strong ally. Of course, he did have a powerful ally, albeit perfunctorily, in the form of the Big 6. They had made a pledge to cooperate with him, after all.
‘But using me politically is a stronger goal for them. I don't know how they'll react when put in front of danger.'
In other words, Shim Deok-Gu was the only ally who would help him without questions or complaints.
‘If I don’t have any, I have to make them…’
Seo Jun-Ho's eyes hidden in the mask began to shine. The Watchguards were worth raising as long as their abilities weren’t too bad.
‘And it's a group of people who are hostile to the fiends...’
Most importantly, it was an organization where Arthur, his nephew, was the leader. In other words, even if he worked them hard, there would be no way for them to refuse.
"Arthur, I want to see your comrades too," Seo Jun-Ho said in a honey-coated voice.