Misunderstanding

“In short, you sold me out.”

“Rather than saying ‘sold out’, wouldn’t ‘job placement’ be more appropriate?”

“You decided this on your own without even telling me!”

Bang!

With a heavy sound, Alice’s fist left a clear mark on the metal table.

Yuseong, who had never seen Alice angry before, felt both amazement and bewilderment. He couldn’t understand why Alice was angry in the first place.

“If you do this job, you can travel all around the country.”

“I’m not really the type who likes going outside.”

“What do you mean you don’t like it… Didn’t you say you wanted to go outside?”

“T-that’s different from this! Back then you were with me, but now I have to be alone!”

“Sophia will accompany you for data collection and system improvements.”

“…Dangerous situations could arise.”

“Don’t worry about safety. Kang Changseok said he’d pay special attention to it.”

Yuseong desperately tried to convince Alice.

Only Kang Changseok who created Contractors, himself with Eye of Truth, and Alice could distinguish between Contractors and ability users created by Lucifer.

Kang Changseok was too busy handling affairs for the Korean Contractors Association and the newly launched International Contractors Association, while he himself had no time to spare between missions and quests.

Since they couldn’t give up surveillance on Lucifer, they naturally had to utilize Alice who was available.

Above all, since he had already finished discussing with Kang Changseok and even received an advance payment, he couldn’t say it wouldn’t work at this point.

“I’m someone who has a sense of obligation too.”

Flinch.

Alice’s body trembled slightly.

Those words felt somehow familiar.

Yuseong continued with a triumphant smile.

“Please give me anything to do. Though it won’t be enough to repay all the kindness I’ve received, I want to help even a little.”

“…”

“I don’t know who said it but it’s quite touching…”

“O-okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do it, alright!”

Judging by her reddened face, she must have been quite embarrassed.

Noticing Yuseong smiling at her, Alice got up and headed for the door with an even redder face.

Just before leaving, Alice turned her head slightly and asked a question.

“…Mr. Yuseong, you’re not trying to get rid of me because I’m bothersome, right?”

“No, why?”

To be honest, he did have such thoughts to some extent.

However, he couldn’t show such thoughts outwardly.

Yuseong answered nonchalantly as if nothing was wrong, and Alice left the room with a somewhat relieved expression.

Shortly after, the door opened again and Sophia appeared.

“She was saying she absolutely wouldn’t go, but you managed to convince her.”

“Don’t even mention it. Her stubbornness is something else – I almost had to pay a penalty fee.”

Grumbling, Yuseong soon straightened his posture and looked at Sophia with serious eyes.

“How’s the gynoid production coming along?”

After encountering Bruce and the transcendent being Lucifer, the tension that had somewhat relaxed became taut again.

Powers who could kill him with a single gesture and transcendent beings that seemed to come straight from mythology.

Fortunately, he had formed an amicable relationship with Bruce and was able to repel Lucifer relatively easily since he wasn’t at full power, but it was hard to believe such luck would continue.

‘I need to get stronger.’

A resolution repeated many times since obtaining the goggles.

There was a big difference between this resolution and previous ones.

While previous resolutions were just vague desires for strength, this time there was a clear goal in Bruce.

The difference between having a goal and not having one is huge.

Without a clear goal, one might wander or give up midway, but with a clear goal, one can move straight toward the destination without getting lost.

Yuseong intended to move straight ahead without distraction until reaching his destination called Bruce.

‘And the gynoid is one of the fastest shortcuts to get there.’

While it would be best to become stronger himself, that would inevitably take some time, so naturally his interest focused on the gynoid.

“Well, that’s a bit complicated. Making a body that can withstand the energy you mentioned is difficult enough, but having to make custom armaments to properly utilize that energy has multiplied the workload several times. Plus with the small unit restriction…”

“I can’t understand when you talk like that. Give me numbers.”

“It would take at least a year, I think.”

One year.

Some might say it’s short, but for Yuseong it was far too long.

“Can’t you make it any faster?”

“Well, as I said before, if you increase the budget…”

“200 billion.”

It was compensation wrung from Kang Changseok for preventing the Gwanghwamun Square terrorism, raiding Salvation Religion, and dispatching Alice.

“You can use all the rare metals in storage too.”

“…That way we could reduce it to about 10 months.”

Still long, but he decided to be satisfied with this for now.

Investing 200 billion reduced it by 2 months.

In other words, putting in more money could reduce the production time proportionally.

With regular income from Alice’s dispatch and selling items obtained from quests, he could more than recoup the money invested in the gynoid.

“Good. Then how about Dragonia?”

“Ah, that should finish much faster than expected. We succeeded in improving and mass-producing the Type 99 Magic Engine, and finished classifying preservation and disposal zones. It should take about 4 months to complete.”

Though an amazingly short time compared to initial estimates, Yuseong’s expression somehow looked unsatisfied.

When he first obtained Dragonia, he was satisfied with just having a secret fortress to hide in, but now thinking about it, that level wasn’t enough.

‘It should at least be an all-weather mobile fortress that can be used in actual battle.’

“Could we mount weapons on Dragonia?”

“What kind of weapons?”

“You know, like railguns, plasma cannons, that sort of thing.”

“…”

Sophia, who had been thinking of just missiles or artillery at most, gaped with a blank expression at the answer that exceeded imagination.

“And it would be good to have unmanned combat machines too. Like robots or drones…”

“Wait, you’re not seriously suggesting that, are you?”

“I am serious though?”

“Hmm.”

After contemplating what to say, Sophia finally managed to open her mouth after quite some time.

“Do you have that kind of budget?”

The technology exists.

As always, the problem was budget.

One or two might be manageable, but to cover Dragonia would require hundreds, or at minimum dozens of weapons.

Even roughly estimated, it was absolutely not an amount an individual could handle.

“…Just draw up plans for now.”

“Well, I’ll do that much for free.”

Yuseong had to quietly back down since he knew this fact too.

He just wanted to confirm whether his ideas were actually feasible, not immediately implement them.

After confirming Sophia had left the room, Yuseong relaxed his posture and let out the sigh he’d been holding in.

“…Should I ask Kang Changseok for help.”

Selling items or rewards from monster subjugation would absolutely not be enough to raise funds for Dragonia’s modifications.

Yuseong considered revealing Dragonia’s existence to Kang Changseok and asking for cooperation, but shook his head.

While Kang Changseok would surely notice Dragonia’s potential and invest funds generously, they would definitely end up fighting over ownership stakes in that case.

“That’s not possible.”

Dragonia was entirely his.

He didn’t want to give up even an inch of land to anyone.

Deciding to think about Dragonia later, Yuseong took out something from his chest and placed it on the table.

A white fragment emitting a soft light and a black fragment dyeing its surroundings in darkness.

They were fragments of Lucifer’s halo and horn.

“The information window only shows them as a type of magic power stone…”

Except for having slightly unusual energy properties and containing massive condensed energy, these two items were no different from magic power stones found inside monsters’ bodies.

‘Well, if they were special items, they wouldn’t have been handed over so easily.’

Bruce was also a user and would naturally have appraised them, and surely checked for anything hidden through other methods as well.

Appraisal skills or infusing internal energy won’t work.

That would just lead to the same conclusion as Bruce.

He needed to check in a way Bruce couldn’t.

As golden light rippled in Yuseong’s eyes, the halo emitted light brilliant enough to blind, while the horn was dyed in darkness deep enough to seem capable of swallowing everything in the world.

When he adjusted the spirit power going to his eyes, the light and darkness faded like before Eye of Truth was activated.

Nodding with satisfaction, Yuseong examined the halo and horn closely.

‘Something seems visible yet not visible.’

As he concentrated spirit power, the energy flow began appearing magnified like adjusting a telescope’s magnification.

Yuseong gradually increased the spirit power going to his eyes, and only when magnification reached its limit could he barely find something unusual.

The halo and horn had intricate patterns inscribed like semiconductor circuits.

Complex and gorgeous patterns that looked like mandalas or kaleidoscopes.

Those weren’t energy.

They were traces left by energy that had been contained in the past.

‘Feels like I’ve seen this before.’

Yuseong frowned at an inexplicable sense of déjà vu while observing the geometric patterns.

After pondering for a while, lightning suddenly struck in Yuseong’s mind.

“…Forbidden Knowledge skill?”

He could tell instinctively.

Though different in form and feel, the patterns and Forbidden Knowledge skill belonged to the same category.

That category’s name was divinity.

Tap!

After downing a growth acceleration potion taken from subspace in one gulp, Yuseong closed his eyes.

There was no need to sit cross-legged.

What he was doing now wasn’t mental technique training but contemplation and consideration.

Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Something ominously threatening existed there.

Until now, Yuseong had tried to understand it in his own way, sometimes observing and sometimes analyzing.

But this time was different.

He just looked at Forbidden Knowledge skill itself without any thoughts or meanings, like viewing an ordinary scene.

Squirm.

Why was it?

Though he didn’t know the reason, suddenly it felt like that something was looking at him.

Of course, it must be his imagination.

This was just a simple resonance without eyes, will, or intelligence.

Squirm squirm.

So it must be his imagination that something grew eyes.

It must also be his imagination that those eyes were staring straight at him.

It must be his imagination that the distance with something was steadily decreasing.

Seeing something that had approached right before his eyes now lunging at him, Yuseong closed his eyes.