Episode 122: Deception and Domination (2)
[If you cannot take care of yourself, eventually you will not be able to take care of anyone else.]
“I know. However, it is not easily forgotten.”
A spacious new apartment with no one around. This house overlooking the Han River is by no means a cheap house.
For Lee Ji-yeon, who worked as an ordinary employee at a small to medium-sized company, this was the kind of house she had only dreamed of living in. However, even if he became a hero and earned a lot of money and fame, the more he lived alone in his house, the more lonely it became.
She’s not obsessed with saving people for nothing. Actually, I wasn’t able to protect it in the first place. Because I’m paying the price now.
So it is like that.
“Please open the door.”
“ah!”
Meanwhile, he really came.
She was sitting on the sofa staring into space, unable to practice as usual when she heard that it was a forced vacation. Her eyes widened when she saw that he had actually come after she had hinted that he should come.
“I’ll open it now.”
After putting down the phone, she ran over to open the first floor door. My empty heart suddenly began to fill up, and my heart, which had been beating slowly as if it would stop at any moment, began to pound rapidly.
“Hmm.”
Jiyeon Lee quickly looked around. It’s a house that isn’t very messy anyway. It is clean enough to welcome guests.
“Oh, welcome.”
She soon opened the front door herself and saw him. Although he is known to the public as just his manager, he is actually a slightly more special person than that.
“Did you come by the stairs?”
“Run a little.”
But his condition was a little strange. Although he is clearly bare, it looks as if he is carrying something heavy. But he forced a smile and shook his head.
“Come on in first.”
Lee Ji-yeon, who was very nervous and didn’t pay much attention to such trivial matters, let him in.
‘The air has changed.’
At that moment she knew. Even if it wasn’t a man I was worried about, just having someone with me changed the atmosphere in this cold house.
“I’m sorry for calling you suddenly. “Actually, I really didn’t know you would come.”
“I’m free anyway if I don’t have work.”
“Shall we just leave?”
Lee Ji-yeon ran to the kitchen and hurriedly took out something and handed it to him. But at that moment, in the living room, he had his eyes fixed on something and was staring at it.
Those are photos that fill one entire wall in the large living room. It wasn’t a photo of herself.
“If it’s an uncomfortable story, I won’t bother asking.”
“no. It’s not that big of a deal, and it’s not something to hide. “I didn’t necessarily say it first.”
As he noticed and took a step back, Jiyeon Lee shook her head. The walls are full of photos. The reason why she became obsessed with protecting it from the moment she gained power.
“Grandma, my parents, my younger brother… They all passed away when I was 16. “It was a fire at my house, and I was the only one who came out alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“If I had the same power back then, no one would have died.”
After sighing, she calmly told the story.
The disaster that occurred about 10 years ago, and when the adults were unable to escape and even my younger brother, who was helpless, died in the hospital.
She felt something breaking inside her.
“Even when I first woke up, I was reminded of that day, so I guess that’s why I didn’t have time to spare.”
“······.”
He couldn’t say anything when he saw Lee Ji-yeon telling this story with a faint smile. Although he was now in the position of wielding a huge army that was trying to devour a world, he still had many shortcomings as a human being.
“Let’s stop talking about this boring stuff. But really, there’s nothing to do at my house. Do you want to leave?”
“I’ll do what’s most convenient for you. Jiyeon Lee is the one doing the hard work.”
“Are you saying I’m going to adjust to what’s more comfortable?”
Jiyeon Lee, who was trying to change the mood, grinned when she heard his answer. He flinched for a moment, but Jiyeon Lee snapped her fingers as if something interesting just occurred to her.
“Shall we let go now?”
It was indeed an unconventional proposal that he did not expect.
***
[I think you should look at this. Now on the central front of the Demon World, the enemy is demonstrating new tactics against our troops.]
“Don’t be too showy. “In the first place, you were the one solving it.”
While Lee Ji-yeon left for a moment to go to the bathroom. I, who was sitting across from her empty seat, clicked my tongue when I heard Lucy’s voice buzzing on her phone.
From the moment I came to have a meal costing hundreds of thousands of won per meal with Lee Ji-yeon, who offered to buy me food, he kept showing me everything to the point of making a fuss to get people around me.
[But I think you really need to see this.]
But that wasn’t everything. Actually, there were parts of what Lucy showed me that I needed to see.
“What is this? “Are these things brought by the Allied Forces to persuade us?”
[That’s right. Although there are not many of them, they are things that can be used as food and can weaken their power.]
What Lucy showed was a scene where Yuria and Naan were looking at a large number of carts and carriages crossing the main road toward the forest.
I thought it was a pretty symbolic scene. This was the moment when Lucy’s treachery worked and the church and the union began to undermine each other.
Through this work, Lucy was able to gradually weaken the power of her enemies without having to go to war.
“Then what about the nutrients you saved?”
“I plan to use it to invade another world connected through the World Tree, which is said to be occupied by the Dark Elves.”
Lucy changed the screen to show her body and raised her hand to point directly at the World Tree. Now, through the giant tree that has fallen completely into our hands, Lucy can project her power into another world where the connection is already active.
If Lucy succeeds in devouring that place, this power game ends. Neither the church nor the union will be able to handle Lucy’s weight class anymore.
“Are you sure you want to go right now?”
“We will first attempt sufficient reconnaissance and then figure out the power there and make efficient movements accordingly.”
Lucy did not commit an ineffective act of blindly harassing the troops. As usual, if you collect information and data calmly and step by step to create a sufficient functional formula, you can select the most efficient movement through calculation.
“We will now deploy scouts there through the gate we opened on a very small scale.”
Lucy had prepared scouts infiltrate there.
They are in the shape of small insects or birds, and they all throw themselves into the gate and spread out into the world inside.
“Are you here? “A different world.”
A completely different third world, neither Earth nor the world where Lucy exists.
This is different from when we only got a brief taste of Lucy as an unfinished dimensional shifter with limited time. Since the world, which was clearly connected, was blocked by the World Tree, the Demon King’s army that Lucy had deployed was able to move around there without any restrictions.
“Barren wasteland?”
The moment I saw the environment for the first time, I frowned, recalling a part of the Demon World. It is said to be the home of elves who lived in the great forest, a place full of abundant life, but the atmosphere is somewhat different from what one would expect.
“I can’t feel the creature’s energy yet. “Let’s go a little further.”
Lucy didn’t care and sent the scouts out further and wider.
But there was nothing to see until the moment Jiyeon Lee returned. It was to the point where I wondered if I had fallen at the pole.
“If you see anything, let me know.”
I put my phone away, and Jiyeon Lee, who knew nothing, smiled awkwardly and whined that she was hungry.
[I discovered something.]
Thanks to this, I received Lucy’s report again when I was almost finished eating.
I glanced at my phone while watching Ji-yeon Lee’s stomach fill up, and what I saw was a huge tree in the distance.
A huge tree, like the world tree, had a dark trunk and gloomy branches without any leaves were spread out in all directions.
“Do you know what that is?”
“According to information from the elves, that giant tree is the Dark Elves’ World Tree, the Corrupted Tree.”
“I have a feeling that that tree is sucking all the life out of this area.”
“That is correct. “The flow of magical energy in the area all centers around that tree.”
It was late at night when I sent Lee Ji-yeon home, saying that it was fun to hang out with her and that I would see her again tomorrow, and got back in the car again.
But instead of starting the car, I held on to my cell phone and communicated with Lucy.
Lucy, who had already explored a fairly large area, said that the only place in this area where life existed was near that huge tree.
“Can’t you come closer and take a closer look?”
[It is impossible. Small scouts cannot withstand the magic waves flowing from there.]
“······What on earth happened here?”
I couldn’t understand and laughed. Clearly, from what I have heard, dark elves are ultimately ‘life forms’ that are not much different from elves. A living being that feels all universal emotions, including joy, anger and sorrow, and has to eat and sleep.
Even if they were a cruel and violent race that won the war against the elves, they couldn’t have created such a gloomy atmosphere unless they were people who only followed orders like Lucy’s demon lord army.
[When I asked Raon, he said he didn’t know why the dark elves disappeared. Let’s build a nest by investing nutrients near the gate and begin a full-scale search.]
“Yes, do that. “I’ll go home first.”
After hearing Lucy’s plan, I started the car and started the car to go home.
[Please wait a moment. I can sense a strange current around me right now. Murderous intent, this is murderous intent, Changhyun.]
But the moment I parked the car and was about to go up to my room. Lucy, who activated the Nano/Omega I was wearing, gave me an unexpected warning.
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“What does that mean? Around my house?”
[The presence is not clearly felt. They are either skilled enough to control their breathing, or they are covering themselves with cover.]
“I can’t see anything.”
I glanced down the dark street and sighed. I think I understand why people want to live in nice neighborhoods with good facilities.
“Why on earth?”
I wondered if it was targeting me. Because in the eyes of others, I am just an ordinary new office worker.
[It’s just my opinion, but if you avoid here, you may be suspected, so it would be better to find out information about the enemies and destroy their base.]
“You’re right.”
Although it was only a short time, I chose an option. If I blindly avoid it like Lucy said, enemies whose identity I don’t even know will come looking for me at any time.
First of all, I wanted to know who they were and what their purpose was.