Chapter 357:
It was a well-known fact among the people who lived in the territory of the Black Thunder Lord that the sky above the Black Thunder Palace, where the Demon Empress resided, was always filled with dark clouds.
People thought that this background was influenced by the personality of the Demon Empress, who destroyed and devoured everything.
Rumble!
From between the dark clouds of the Black Thunder Palace, blacker than Black Thunder struck down.
The Black Thunder, which could be called the symbol of the Black Thunder Lord, never ceased in the sky above the Black Thunder Palace.
The inner castle, surrounded by walls full of sharp spikes, was a huge fortress made of obsidian.
In the deepest part of the Black Thunder Palace, in the center of a spacious hall, a woman lay seductively.
The woman wore a black dress with an extreme degree of exposure and twisted her blood-stained lips.
“So you’re saying that the troops I sent to suppress the rebels were annihilated?”
“…Yes. That’s right.”
The subordinate who was reporting sweated coldly and bowed his head.
He thought that the lord in front of him would be angry or punish him for failing his mission.
But she didn’t.
“Kya ha ha ha!”
A piercing laughter echoed in the Black Thunder Palace.
She was neither angry nor regretful about the fact that her subordinates had died and failed.
She just laughed. She laughed like a madman, saying it was so fun.
The subordinate who came to report shivered with fear.
She was crazy. There was no way she could laugh like that unless she was insane, even though her subordinates had died.
The laughter that continued suddenly stopped as if cut by a knife.
“Boring.”
“Yes, yes?”
“Anyway, it’s because you guys are incompetent that you try to serve me. It’s your own fault that you guys died, right?”
“Uh, then what about the rebels…”
“That’s something you guys have to figure out for yourselves, isn’t it?”
She snapped at him with a sharp voice. The subordinate was at a loss for what to do in this unexpected situation.
“Don’t call me for such annoying matters anymore. I’ll let it slide this time, but there won’t be a next time. Remember that. I’m going to see Mr. Yu-hyun now, so get lost.”
She, Kang Hye-rim, hugged a doll and smiled. The stuffed doll in her arms looked exactly like Yu-hyun.
The subordinate silently bowed his head and got up from his seat.
He didn’t think she was pathetic for playing with a doll. He was rather afraid of her unpredictable behavior and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
Kang Hye-rim didn’t have just one doll. There were countless stuffed dolls that looked like Yu-hyun around her, and she rolled around buried in them.
“…Then, I’ll take my leave.”
Kang Hye-rim didn’t even bother to reply as if telling him to hurry up and leave.
As soon as the subordinate who came to report left, Kang Hye-rim kissed the doll’s cheek.
“Ahh. Mr. Yu-hyun. How can you be so lovely even though you’re just a doll? I miss you so much.”
After hugging the doll for a while, Kang Hye-rim jumped up from her seat. She walked barefoot without wearing shoes towards somewhere.
Soon she arrived at a large door and opened it wide.
“Mr. Yu-hyun! I came to see you!”
Kang Hye-rim smiled brightly. The person inside flinched and shuddered at her sudden appearance.
“Mr. Yu-hyun? Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“Ah, ahaha. Hy, Hye-rim? It’s you.”
The person in the room was a man who looked exactly like Yu-hyun. If you only looked at his appearance, you wouldn’t find it strange if he was called Kang Yu-hyun.
Kang Hye-rim walked slowly towards him. The man who looked like Yu-hyun turned pale.
“Hye, Hye-rim?”
“Mr. Yu-hyun. Did you hear? The rebels in the world killed one of my legions! Isn’t that amazing?!”
“Yes, yes. It’s really amazing.”
“Really, I don’t understand why everyone is making such a fuss over killing some people. You don’t think so too, right?”
“Wa…ter, of course I think so too.”
“Right?!”
Kang Hye-rim approached him happily. The man was frozen and didn’t know what to do. She smiled sweetly and stroked his cheek.
“Mr. Yu-hyun.”
“…Yes, yes?”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“N-no, of course not.”
“Then why are you avoiding my gaze?”
At her words, the man broke out in a cold sweat and racked his brain for an excuse.
“W-well… I’ve been feeling nervous lately.”
“Really? It’s not because of me, is it?”
“H-how could I! How could I ever fear the Dark Lord… Ah.”
The man realized too late that he had made a slip of the tongue. It was taboo to utter the name of the Dark Lord in front of Kang Hye-rim.
Indeed, her face, which had been smiling brightly until a moment ago, had lost all expression.
The man belatedly recalled the past events.
How his ‘predecessor Kang Yu-hyun’ had disappeared, and why he had to fill his vacant position.
“N-no, it’s not! I just misspoke…”
His explanation was cut short.
Kang Hye-rim’s right hand smashed his head with a single blow.
Splat!
In an instant, the room was stained with blood. Her right hand was soaked with blood, and so was her face. Kang Hye-rim dabbed the blood that had splashed on her cheek with her fingertip.
“Ah, really. Why are people so stupid? They can’t even perform their given roles properly. Is it that hard?”
Kang Hye-rim looked down at the corpse of what used to be Kang Yu-hyun with a cold expression.
“Get rid of it.”
As soon as she gave the order, the space rippled and darkness sprang out to swallow the man’s body.
Crunch. Crunch!
A creepy sound echoed in the room. The body was gone in a blink of an eye.
Kang Hye-rim sat on the sofa with a annoyed look and crossed her legs. She rested her chin on one arm and tapped her toes.
Not long after, another person entered the room.
Kang Hye-rim’s face brightened up.
“Yu-hyun! You’re here!”
“…Did you kill again?”
The person who came in also looked like Kang Yu-hyun. But unlike the previous man, he spoke casually as if he was used to it.
At his words, Kang Hye-rim hastily defended herself.
“But look! This trash couldn’t even do his role right!”
“I see. But Hyerim. If you keep doing that, it will be hard to find someone to replace them.”
“It’s okay! I don’t care if anyone else dies! As long as I have you, Yu-hyun!”
She smiled brightly as she said that. Yu-hyun nodded his head without showing any emotion.
“…Thank you for your words.”
“Hehe. Right?”
Kang Hye-rim wiped off the blood on her cheek with her fingertip and then applied it to her lips.
Her curved lips turned red again.
Yu-hyun watched the scene silently with his worn-out face.
The place that Kate led Yu-hyun to was an inn located deep in the alley.
Contrary to its shabby exterior, the inside was surprisingly neat. The innkeeper greeted Kate with a smile as he saw her.
“Kate. It’s been a while. How’s your activity going?”
“I came in, didn’t I?”
“My goodness. Jimmy is here too. But who is the man behind you?”
The innkeeper narrowed his eyes maliciously, wondering if Kate was being threatened by anyone. Kate frowned.
“Didn’t you get a message from the branch? Don’t talk to him carelessly.”
“…So that was true. Can I trust you?”
“If you can’t trust me, do you have any other way?”
The innkeeper groaned and soon gave up with a gesture of surrender.
“Alright, alright. I’m not willing to risk my life either.”
“So how’s the situation now? The city atmosphere seems worse than before.”
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“You’re right. Recently, one of the units that was targeting our liberation army disappeared and the news spread all over the city. There are a lot of patrols inside, and a lot of blood has been shed.”
Yu-hyun recalled the corpses in the square at the mention of blood.
It must have been a massive purge.
“So what does the person who might help us want?”
“I want to cross the Nasaeng Gate.”
“The Nasaeng Gate?”
The innkeeper burst into laughter at Yu-hyun’s words.
“Listen here. Do you think Nasaeng Gate is some dog’s name? To pass through that huge gate, you need the seal of the city lord, and who can easily meet that person?”
“That’s why I came here.”
The eyes of the innkeeper and Yu-hyun collided in midair. Yu-hyun didn’t need to show all his power. He just raised his momentum lightly and the other party guessed his strength and backed off.
“Damn. You brought a really unbelievable person. What’s your identity?”
“Let’s just say he’s an old acquaintance of the Black Thunder Lord.”
“What? You’re crazy! Don’t even joke about that.”
The innkeeper twisted his already fierce face even more.
“How many people do you think have lost their loved ones to that monster witch in this city? Just me, I had to lose my precious brother to the legion. And what? An acquaintance? I’ll let it go because you don’t know anything, but be careful next time.”
At least the innkeeper was a person who could tell right from wrong, and he knew very well that Yu-hyun hadn’t done anything wrong. So he stopped at a warning.
He clicked his tongue and sat down on an empty chair.
“I’ve already told you that you need the lord’s seal to go inside through the Nasaeng Gate, so I won’t say it again. But that’s not the important thing. The problem is that we don’t know where that lord is.”
“Doesn’t the lord have a separate building where he lives?”
“If there was such a thing, we would have attacked or terrorized it long ago. I don’t want to admit it, but the lord of this city is a very smart and cunning guy. He doesn’t reveal his identity or let anyone know what he’s doing or where he is.”
“Does he exist?”
“He does, otherwise the Nasaeng Gate wouldn’t exist like that and be surrounded by fog. We’ve been looking for that lord in this place for over two years. But we couldn’t even catch a trace of him.”
“What? Is that true?”
Kate asked in surprise.
If Yu-hyun had his power, he would have stormed into the lord’s mansion and threatened him, but if he didn’t even know where or who the lord was, it was no ordinary problem.
Yu-hyun asked Kate.
“Didn’t you expect this?”
“…I’m not always aware of the situation in this city. But I thought you would at least find some clues if you searched for two years.”
Kate was worried about what to do. She had confidently declared that she would guide him and help him, but she ran into trouble from the start. She couldn’t just disappoint Yu-hyun like this. It was a matter of pride.
Yu-hyun stroked his chin and opened his mouth.
“Hmm. The lord’s identity is unknown. I have a rough guess why.”
“Yes?”
“Is that true?”
Yu-hyun nodded.
“What do you think is the reason why the liberation army couldn’t find out anything for two years in this city?”
“That’s because the lord is hiding well.”
“That’s right. But even if he hides well, he usually leaves some traces behind. But we couldn’t find any. Why do you think that is? Because you’re incompetent?”
“…I have nothing to say even if I hear that.”
“It’s been two years. And it’s not just one or two people, but the entire resistance that has infiltrated this city. Don’t you think it’s strange that there’s not even a clue?”
Yu-hyun recalled the scenes he had seen on his way here.
The soldiers of the legion patrolling the city, the dead people, the corpses lying on the streets.
And the thick fog that covered the city.
“The lord is in this city.”
“Then why didn’t we know?”
“That’s because the lord didn’t reveal himself as the lord.”
“We thought about that too. We assumed he was acting like a normal person and watching the situation. That’s why we investigated most of the people.”
“Not all of them.”
“How can we be sure of all the people who come into this city and die in a blink of an eye? But we did investigate a lot, enough to say most of them. And we couldn’t find the lord’s aura either.”
“Why did you miss one?”
“What?”
The innkeeper asked Yu-hyun what he meant.
“Didn’t you think that the lord might be among the resistance?”
A silence fell over the inn for a moment.
Even if Jimmy, who was young, didn’t understand what he was talking about, Kate and the innkeeper couldn’t help but know what it meant.
Yu-hyun’s point was simple.
There was a spy inside.
“What a joke!”
The innkeeper slammed the table with both hands and stood up.
“There’s no way he’s hiding in the resistance!”
“Why are you so sure?”
“That’s obvious…!”
“No, let me ask you differently.”
Yu-hyun’s cold gaze pierced the innkeeper.
“When did you start thinking that way?”
“Uh, uh?”
“Since when did you have confidence that there was no traitor inside?”
The innkeeper couldn’t say anything. Neither could Kate.
When did they start to believe that there was no traitor?
Did the lord really not know that the resistance was hiding inside his city?
A fight is not a one-sided push. There is always an exchange of attacks and defenses between both sides.
Did the lord, who couldn’t be traced for two years, really not know about the existence of the resistance in his city? That meticulous man?
If he knew, what choice would he have made?
Yu-hyun chuckled.
The fact that he didn’t show himself for two years meant that he had been hiding in the resistance for two years.
He had been hiding inside and acting along with them, while he could have rooted out all the resistance in his city if he wanted to.
That meant that the lord was not an ordinary person either.
“This seems like an interesting guy sitting on the lord’s seat.”
Did he want to play hide and seek?
Well, that’s fine.
We’ll find him soon enough.
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