Chapter 21 - The Best Way to Clear Your Name

"What's the situation over there?"

["No change yet."]

Park Hyeon-gun. More often called Chief Park than by his name, he took pride in his work. Granted, being a secretary was hardly a respected position. But that depended on whom you served.

From guild management and asset management to running various companies and conducting political negotiations, he carried out the Infinite Monarch Lee Cheon-gi's orders in every field. His influence was considerable. Even presidents, guild masters of major guilds, and corporate chairmen watched how they behaved around him.

Some sneered behind his back that he was only powerful because of his master, but Park did not care. Such jibes were nothing compared to the benefits of serving as a Monarch's right hand. That was why he was scowling so fiercely now.

"You mean you still haven't found anything?"

["As I said, nothing has changed."]

"How is that possible?!"

BANG!

Park slammed his desk and savagely pressed the person on the phone. "How many Tracers do you think I've assigned to you? And you still can't confirm the Black Dragon Princess's location! What have you been doing all this time?"

["No matter how many Tracers we have, we can't confirm her location if the target doesn't move."]

"If she won't come out, then go in and check for yourself!"

["That's impossible."]

"What?!"

["You of all people should know Leviathan isn't just a hotel."]

"I know Leviathan is one of the Seven Dragon Group's holding companies. But...!"

["I'm talking about its standing in the underworld, not in respectable society."]

"..."

Park fell silent at the reminder. As the Infinite Monarch's right hand, he knew exactly what it meant.

["Let me be clear. Even on the Monarch's orders, I won't commit suicide like that."]

"You... Would you say that to the master's face?"

["Let me ask you something instead. If I infiltrate Leviathan and it goes wrong, will you take responsibility for the failure, Chief Park?"]

'Insolent bastard...!' Park gritted his teeth. But he could not bring himself to say he would take responsibility. Instead, he spat out another order through clenched teeth.

"Then at least find a trace of Limon Aspelder. Surely you're not so incompetent that you lost a school bus that big."

["It's only a guess that Limon Aspelder is even here, isn't it?"]

"Enough excuses. Find something. If things are still like this tomorrow, you won't get away with it!"

With that one-sided warning, Park irritably hung up. It was unlike him. He might be Lee Cheon-gi's secretary, but the person on the other end was the guild's best Tracer, and one of the Infinity Guild's highest-level players. Not someone Park could simply order around. Anxiety had driven him to overstep.

'Damn it! I have to produce results, somehow!' Lee Cheon-gi was not a merciful Monarch. He rewarded success generously and cast failures aside without hesitation. That made this situation dangerous: not only had they lost track of the Black Dragon Princess, whom Lee was so concerned with, they had failed to eliminate Limon as well.

'This is my last chance!' Park could feel it. If he failed again, he would never regain Lee's trust. After years as Lee's confidant, handling all manner of affairs and making countless enemies, that would be tantamount to a death sentence. He had no choice but to stake everything on this.

'All I need is confirmation that Limon Aspelder is at Leviathan.' Park forced himself to think calmly. 'If I can establish that she's harboring a traitor, I can seize the Black Dragon Princess.'

The Seven Dragons might be a fabulously wealthy corporate giant, but money was all they had. They could not match the influence of the Monarchs, who controlled the dungeons on which virtually all modern industry depended. Besides, the Black Dragon Clan was the most diminished of the Seven Dragons. Given sufficient grounds, even the Seven Dragons would not protect the Black Dragon Princess at the cost of making an enemy of a Monarch.

'If nothing else works, I can take hostages again...!' A murderous gleam entered Park's eyes. Limon had gone out of his way to rescue the children; true to his reputation as a hero, he must be softhearted. Park thought he might be able to draw Limon out by taking people close to him hostage—Kang Jeong-su's father and the rest of his family.

But Park did not know that he had misjudged the Seven Dragons Society. Nor did he know how absurdly mistaken he was to think taking hostages would work on Limon.

There was one piece of good fortune: he would never learn the former. And one piece of bad fortune: he would learn the latter.

Not through any of the informants he had stationed everywhere, or through the guild's intelligence network, but through a subordinate who suddenly flung open the door and rushed in.

BANG!

"Chief Park! We've got a serious problem!"

"What do you think you're doing?!" Park glowered at the subordinate's deathly pale face. The very idea of a mere subordinate entering his office uninvited was intolerable.

"Get out this instant! How dare you barge in here—"

"This isn't the time for that. The TV! Turn on the TV!"

"What?"

Park was briefly thrown by the non sequitur. Still looking suspicious, he picked up the remote beside him. ["Ah, testing. Testing the microphone."] The moment he turned on the TV, he understood. No—he had no choice but to understand.

["Can you hear me? You can, right? You'd better."] He understood why his subordinate had come tearing through the door like a madman, and why this was no time to worry about appearances. A white-haired man was grinning on nearly every television channel in the country. The scene around Limon Aspelder made Park's jaw drop—and made the truth sink in.

["Because if this broadcast doesn't reach the Infinite Monarch loud and clear, this bastard loses his head."] Taking hostages against that lunatic had been a colossal mistake.

* * *

Let's turn back the clock for a moment. A few dozen minutes before Park froze in front of his television, looking as though his eyes might pop out, other people had frozen with much the same expression. That was unusual. They had been trained to handle most unexpected situations without batting an eye. But what was happening went far beyond anything that could be called an ordinary emergency.

"What are you bastards waiting for?" A young face, pure-white hair, a glimpse of a scar near his eye, and a sword resting on his shoulder. Once famous but lately forgotten as his reputation faded, he had become widely known again among the country's major institutions after yesterday's emergency notice identified him as a person of interest wanted for treason. Limon Aspelder sneered at the people standing rigid before him.

"When someone suspicious shows up, you're supposed to hit the alarm and go into emergency response mode. Huh?"

"Th-this is insane...!" They trembled, then found themselves shrieking at Limon, who stood there without a care in the world. "This is the Blue House, you crazy bastard!!!"

The presidential residence was the very heart of the country. Yet here stood not just a criminal but a traitor, alone and barefaced at its front gate as if he owned the place. To the Blue House guards' horrified cry at a spectacle unprecedented since the country's founding, Limon gave a simple answer. "So what?" He tilted his head and swaggered as though he saw no reason he shouldn't be there.

Their faces flushed with outrage, the guards belatedly began doing what they should have done from the start: sounding the emergency alarm, activating their response protocol, calling for backup, drawing their guns, and generally raising a commotion.

WEEEEEE!

"Freeze! Move and I'll shoot!"

"Hands up and on your knees! Get on your knees!"

"What? What's all this commotion about... Gah!? Limon Aspelder?"

"I-is that really him?"

Shouts came from every direction, some ordering him not to move and others ordering him to kneel. Conscripted police officers arrived with nothing but shields and batons, bewildered because no one had properly briefed them. Only after more than a dozen police cars had converged did the security detail finally crawl out. Far off, tourists filmed the scene on their phones as though it were some kind of event. Watching it all from his place in front of the Blue House's main gate, Limon looked dumbfounded.

"Hey, who's in charge of you lot? How did things get this bad...? No, forget it. Don't tell me." He could guess without looking. Nine times out of ten, it was someone who had bought the position or got it through connections. Wars had been gone for a long time now. These days, even the most important posts—especially those posts—often went to people without a shred of ability. That was why he had come here.

He clicked his tongue at the thought of his original purpose, then decided he had waited long enough. Gripping the sword he had been resting on his shoulder, Limon began walking forward. "That's what I came to find out, anyway."

SLICE!

"... Huh?" The gunmen froze. It wasn't merely that Limon had brushed past them the instant he seemed to take a step. Without so much as a blink, they found their guns neatly severed, the pieces tumbling to the ground. All around them, their comrades stood clutching handles where their guns had been, just as they were.

Instinct told them that when Limon passed them just now, if he had intended to kill, it would have been their bodies lying in pieces on the ground instead of their guns.

"I don't know if he's hiding in a bunker, running like hell, or still sitting there like an idiot." In a space where everyone else held their breath, unable to move as though time itself had stopped, the man walked on calmly. "Someone tell that bastard you call president."

Humanity's last Sword Master. A hero who had saved the nation and humanity's guardian deity. Yet among his enemies, including the Seven Dragons Society, he was even more notorious as a mad dog than he was renowned for those grand titles. And he was an obsolete relic with the old-fashioned conviction that, if a man was going to be falsely accused of something, he might as well do the deed for real, boldly and on a grand scale.

With a casual horizontal sweep of his sword, Limon split the tightly shut front gate of the Blue House. Then he grinned and said, "Tell him the traitor's here to commit treason."