Chapter 13 - The Duty One Must Uphold

"... Sir, please don't make this any worse."

The man who had orchestrated the plot to kill Limon using the Liberation Brigade—the PAB Director, known as the King of Hell to players—stepped out from among the PAB agents and spoke in a stiff voice. He had considered showing himself, depending on how matters unfolded, but he had not expected Limon to call him out first.

"If you didn't want this to get worse, you shouldn't have started it."

"It's not as though I wanted any of this."

Kang Jeong-su had not forgotten to speak respectfully, even now. Why, then, did it not sound respectful? Was it the lack of respect behind the words, or the resentment in his eyes? Limon put the pointless question aside.

Instead, he gazed down at Yu Na-gyeong's body, held in one arm, and spoke quietly. "I can more or less guess what happened, but I'll ask you too, as a matter of basic decency."

Had it been anyone else, Limon would have gone straight to what he needed to do. But he had known this family for three generations, so he asked calmly, "Why?"

Kang Jeong-su clenched his teeth. Since childhood, he had heard the elders of his family talk about Limon until he was sick of it. He knew what the question meant.

But he had already made his choice. There was no way to undo it. No—even if there were, he had no intention of doing so. He had merely made the best choice he could under the circumstances. He had done nothing wrong.

"... You brought all this on yourself, sir."

"Because of me?"

"Yes. None of this would have happened if you hadn't offended the Infinite Monarch."

"..."

"Did you really think you could go after the Infinite Monarch's brother-in-law and get away with it? Just because you're a hero who saved the nation?" Kang Jeong-su spat the words at the silent Limon. "Wake up, sir. This isn't the Age of Heroes anymore!"

Kang Jeong-su knew well what Limon had once been: what a great hero he was, what he had accomplished, how much respect he had commanded—and what a reckless mad dog he had been.

"In the old days, you could have gotten away with anything. This country needed you, no matter what you did."

Before the Iron Age began, Limon had been an absolute power, whatever anyone said. Neighboring countries watched for chances to seize territory, while subversives plotted within. Keeping the peace required overwhelming strength, and at the pinnacle of that strength stood the Sword Masters.

That was why it had been the Age of Heroes: a time when a handful of heroes protected the world, and everything they did was excused as a heroic act.

"But now, sir, we have players. We have Monarchs."

The times had changed. Players had made a world once guarded by force and violence peaceful through wealth and prosperity. Above all, the arrival of the Monarchs—another kind of absolute power—had led people to realize one thing: Sword Masters were no longer irreplaceable.

"What I'm saying is that you're standing in the way of this country's growth."

If Limon had been someone of no consequence, if he had quietly stepped aside and accepted the changing times, if he had at least compromised with reality for his own benefit, he might have lost his place as an absolute power but remained a hero in the history books.

"Why can't you understand that when the times change, you have to change too?"

But Limon had not changed. He had lost power that once surpassed even the crown's. He had been stripped of the wealth he had amassed over centuries. Even his honor as humanity's guardian deity had been forgotten. His fall had been so abject as to seem impossible, leaving him a mere low-ranking civil servant.

Yet this hero of a bygone age kept playing the hero to the bitter end, still insisting on that damned chivalry and justice of his.

"How long are we supposed to sacrifice ourselves for you just because you did this country a few favors long ago?"

Kang Jeong-su remembered. No, he could not forget.

His grandfather had been a war hero worthy of acclaim. But because of Limon, he had spent his life being mocked as a lucky man who had escaped death and won honors into the bargain. His father had been a politician worthy of respect. But he had squandered his political career trying to preserve Limon's standing in a changing age. In the end, as the Sword Master's standing crumbled, he had withdrawn his candidacy for president and been driven out of politics.

Even so, Kang Jeong-su had tried not to resent Limon. His family's closeness to Limon had barred him from entering politics and brought him all manner of disadvantages, but he had held on to the stories of Limon's achievements his grandfather told him as a child. Like his father, he had struggled through life cleaning up the trouble Limon caused.

"I'm tired of protecting you. If you want someone to blame, blame yourself for falling behind the times!"

But he had reached his limit. Now that Limon had offended the Infinite Monarch, Kang Jeong-su had no choice left. Whether for the national interest or for his family, it was obvious which side he had to take: a fallen Sword Master or a Monarch, an absolute power of the new age.

Limon's assessment of Kang Jeong-su's heartfelt outburst was simple.

"What the hell are you talking about, you moron?"

"... What?"

"Hey, asshole. When did I say I wanted to hear your shitty excuses?"

Kang Jeong-su had finally poured out a lifetime of resentment, only to have it dismissed outright. As he stood there dumbfounded, Limon spoke with a growl.

"Didn't I tell you when I beat the shit out of that bastard? If anyone came asking questions later, you were to say it was all my responsibility."

"That was..."

"So what the hell is this about letting things slide and protecting me, asshole? Anyone listening would think I owed your family something." Limon sneered.

Kang Jeong-su talked as though his family had sacrificed itself for generations to protect Limon. But had it?

His grandfather might have been mocked as lucky, but that was an age when Sword Masters held absolute power. Being saved by Limon three times was something to boast about, and he had risen swiftly through the military by trading on their friendship.

The same went for Kang Jeong-su's father. Supporting Limon had let him attract voters on the strength of the old hero's popularity. Without boasting of his friendship with Limon to the electorate, he would never have become a member of the National Assembly, much less a presidential candidate.

And Kang Jeong-su himself? He talked as though his connection to Limon had brought him nothing but disadvantages. But without it, would an ordinary man like him ever have become the PAB Director?

"Well, none of that matters. I don't care why you stabbed me in the back, either."

Limon did not bother pointing any of it out. People took credit when things went well and blamed their forebears when they did not. Kang Jeong-su was free to believe he would have had a better life without Limon.

More importantly, Limon was not interested in Kang Jeong-su. There was only one thing he wanted to hear.

"What I want to know is why you did this to Na-gyeong."

As if only then noticing Yu Na-gyeong's body in Limon's arms, Kang Jeong-su flinched. His expression turned uncomfortable.

"... It was Agent Yu Na-gyeong's choice."

"You took hostages, threatened her, and made her blow herself up. You call that a choice?"

"I wasn't the one who did that."

"But you let it happen."

"I protested too! But the Monarch wouldn't listen. What more was I supposed to do?"

If he had acted rashly, they might have lost not only Yu Na-gyeong but the hostages too. Even if he had refused, he would have been killed, someone else would have become PAB Director, and the plan would have gone ahead anyway.

To Kang Jeong-su, who was shouting all this in agitation, Limon said quietly, "You should have fought."

"... What?"

"You should have gone at them like a mad dog to the very end."

He could have stormed in with PAB agents and died, gone on air to curse the Infinite Monarch and gotten himself killed, or at the very least offered to sacrifice himself in Yu Na-gyeong's place. Kang Jeong-su looked incredulous as Limon calmly told him he should have done something—anything.

"A-are you saying I should have died instead of Agent Yu Na-gyeong?!"

"Yes."

"...!"

"As PAB Director, you should have died yourself rather than throw a subordinate into the jaws of death because a player threatened you."

The PAB was an organization created to control players. Its director, of all people, must not cower before a player's power. Limon, who had once headed the institution that became the PAB, spoke coldly as a hero of the past.

"If you lacked the courage to die, I could understand that. But then you should at least have been ashamed to be alive. That's what decency demands."

Not everyone in the world could be a hero. Not everyone could risk death to do what was right. So Limon could forgive Kang Jeong-su for betraying him.

"But Jeong-su, even now, you won't bow your head in apology to me—or to Na-gyeong."

"...!"

Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses. Even with Yu Na-gyeong's body before him, Kang Jeong-su did nothing but proclaim his reasons for betraying them and insist he was justified.

Limon knew why he would not apologize. It was the way of those drunk on power: people who saw others as tools and felt neither shame nor remorse.

In the end, Kang Jeong-su had not been afraid of death. He had simply betrayed Limon and stood by while Yu Na-gyeong died so he could discard his old connection to a Sword Master and secure a new one with a Monarch. That was more than Limon could forgive.

"... Say whatever you like. Nothing you say will change anything now."

Kang Jeong-su seemed to have given up making excuses. Limon met his fierce glare without expression.

"You think so?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because I'm going to kill you."

"Ha!"

Kang Jeong-su laughed openly at him and gestured to the forces surrounding them. "You think you can get through all of them to kill me?"

The people surrounding Limon were no ordinary soldiers or players. There were thirty elite combat agents from the PAB, an organization staffed entirely by high-level players; fifty members of the military's most elite [Unit 909], armed with advanced weapons for killing players and high-grade items; forty raid-team guild members from [Stardust] and [Heavenly Bell], two of the country's largest guilds; fifty S-rank mercenaries from [Black Wolf], an international private military company notorious for doing anything for money; and some thirty prisoners, criminals, and assassins recruited with plea bargains and enormous payments.

Around two hundred in all. Every one of them was either a high-level player above level 60 or a fighter of comparable ability. They were a force capable of waging war—of wiping out five or six cities in the blink of an eye.

Kang Jeong-su was confident. With this much strength, they could take on even a Monarch. An outdated relic like Limon had no chance of getting past them to harm him.

But Limon did not answer his question. He slowly surveyed the two hundred people with his calm, indifferent golden eyes, as though looking at ants gathered around a pile of sugar. Then he spoke softly.

"Before I answer that, I'll ask you one last thing."

"What is it?"

Perhaps it was Limon's strangely calm manner. Despite his overwhelming advantage, Kang Jeong-su felt unease welling up inside him and responded sharply. Limon asked him in a low voice,

"Is trying to kill me really your own choice? Or is it the will of the one-eyed old woman giggling as she devours your head?"

At that moment, Kang Jeong-su flinched despite himself. It was not only because the question was so abrupt and incomprehensible. Limon's eyes rested steadily on him as though seeing something invisible—or looking straight through his soul. A radiance as black as the night sky lurked in those eyes that should have been golden, sending a chill down his spine.

"What nonsense are you talking about?"

"If it's nonsense, does that mean this is entirely your choice?"

"Yes!"

Perhaps ashamed that Limon's gaze had overawed him, Kang Jeong-su answered firmly out of sheer defiance. Limon watched him with indifferent eyes and slowly nodded.

"... Fine. If you've done this of your own free will, that's enough."

As though he had confirmed all he needed to know, Limon looked away from him and surveyed the two hundred humans surrounding him...

No. He surveyed the hundreds of strange shadows half-mingled with them, sneering at him as though he were prey caught in a trap, and opened his mouth.