Chapter 5 - Choose

Limon blinked for a moment at the sight of a human head suddenly turning into a bull's. Then he found himself looking back at Kang Jeong-su and Yu Na-gyeong.

"Hey, is this one of his skills too?"

"What?"

"This. Can't you see it?"

"See what, Team Leader?"

Their baffled expressions gave Limon pause. From the way their eyes searched around, he realized neither of them could see that Seo Yong-chan's head had become a bull's.

'Am I the only one who can see it?'

If this had happened long ago, Limon would have drawn his sword first. Back then, common sense held that any bizarre occurrence was almost certainly the work of a priest's or witch's magic. But times had changed, and so had common sense.

'It does look like some kind of skill, though.'

Though he wasn't a player, Limon was a PAB agent, after all. He knew there were plenty of skills that could transform a person's body. That was precisely why he was confused.

'... Why would a transformation skill activate all of a sudden?'

Skills were activated by their users' will. That was basic knowledge. But Seo Yong-chan had been unconscious for some time. Seeing that the eyes in his bull's head were still rolled back, Limon couldn't help feeling uneasy.

"Hey, are there skills that only activate when you pass out?"

"What the hell kind of question is that?"

SMACK!

"Eek! You hit me again!"

"Is that any way to answer your boss when he asks you a question? 'What the hell kind of question is that?'"

"Then ask a sensible question! What kind of skill only activates when you're unconscious?"

"Yeah, that doesn't make sense, does it?"

"Of course it doesn't!"

Limon glanced aside. Kang Jeong-su looked as though he couldn't believe Limon had asked such a stupid question. Limon nodded to himself.

'Fair enough. If there were cases like that, word would have gotten around.'

Constellations that demanded living sacrifices. Elixirs that could raise even the dead. Players who had contracted with more than one constellation. All manner of outrageous rumors circulated through the player world like ghost stories. But Limon had never heard so much as a rumor of a player using a skill while unconscious. It was simply too absurd.

'... The problem is that the absurd thing is happening right now.'

Limon pondered why this was happening, but no matter how he searched his memory, nothing came to mind.

"Why did you ask that, anyway?"

"Well, it's..."

Limon abruptly closed his mouth. Looking at the puzzled faces of Yu Na-gyeong and Kang Jeong-su, he considered telling them that Seo Yong-chan looked like he had a bull's head. Would they be startled and impressed? Or would they think he was crazy and eye him suspiciously? Judging by their reactions a moment ago, it would unfortunately be the latter.

"Never mind."

In the end, Limon gave up on asking them. Instead, he prodded Seo Yong-chan's bull's head with a finger.

'It doesn't seem to be a hallucination, at least...'

He felt the horns rising from the head and the fur covering its face. After repeatedly confirming by touch that Seo Yong-chan really did have a bull's head, Limon's expression turned strange. He was a Sword Master, not some greenhorn who couldn't tell a petty hallucination from reality. And if this wasn't a hallucination, it meant one thing.

'Don't tell me this bastard had a bull's head all along and was hiding it with a skill?'

Logically, that was the most reasonable conclusion. If Seo Yong-chan had been concealing his head with a skill, it made sense that passing out would reveal his true appearance. Of course, that meant accepting the shocking fact that Seo Yong-chan had always had a bull's head. But that was easy enough.

The Demon God War in Europe, the Spirit Upheaval that swept the Americas, the Seven Dragons Society's rampage across Asia—Limon had fought in all kinds of major wars as a Sword Master and seen countless monsters and freaks. One more bull-headed man was hardly going to surprise him now.

*'The question is why I'm the only one who can see it...'

Was it because he'd beaten Seo Yong-chan down? Or simply because he was a Sword Master? Whatever the reason, only he could see Seo Yong-chan's bull's head. And no matter how loudly he insisted on it, no one would believe him—not Yu Na-gyeong, not Kang Jeong-su, not anyone. In other words, if he killed Seo Yong-chan now, there would be no getting around a murder charge.

*'Now, what do I do?'

Limon gazed steadily at the bull-headed Seo Yong-chan. He had been weighing whether to kill him from the start. The revelation that Seo Yong-chan was actually bull-headed had merely added another consideration to the scales. And between killing him and letting him live, Limon had known which choice to make all along.

"Jeong-su."

"Yes?"

"If anyone complains later, tell them it's all my responsibility."

"Whose responsibility would it be if not yours, sir?"

Kang was briefly dumbfounded by that remark. Then he saw Limon plant a foot on Seo Yong-chan's body, and his eyes widened. He tried to stop Limon without thinking.

"Sir, wait...!"

But he was too late. Before Kang could finish speaking, Limon was already delivering the final blow to Seo Yong-chan.

* * *

The Infinite Art Museum. Though famous for its collection of world-renowned masterpieces, the museum saw remarkably few visitors for a place of its renown. It had, after all, been established for just one person.

"I have something to report."

"What is it?"

"Young Master Seo Yong-chan was injured in an incident at PAB headquarters."

Hair neatly slicked back. An immaculate white suit. Rimless glasses and an exceptionally composed expression. All of it gave the man an air of remarkable calm, and he did not look away even at the sudden report. He kept his eyes on a single painting and asked evenly:

"Is he dead?"

"His life isn't in danger, they say."

"That makes it sound as though everything else is."

"... The healers say he's practically half-dead. It's a wonder he's alive at all."

"My, it seems my brother-in-law has had a rather rough time."

"Yes. In particular, they agree that his ability to function as a man is unlikely to recover without the Divine Monarch's power."

High-level healers could even reattach severed limbs. If healers like that were declaring themselves helpless, the man was less an injured patient than a living corpse.

"How unfortunate."

Yet the man showed neither surprise nor distress at the dreadful news. He merely murmured, "I told him time and again to drink less and stop making a spectacle of himself. It seems my advice was insufficient."

He sounded genuinely regretful, but despite his measured tone, his expression was utterly cold. Park Hyeon-gun couldn't see his face, but he could easily imagine it. If the man truly felt sorry for Seo Yong-chan, he would have looked for a way to have the Divine Monarch treat him instead of merely expressing regret.

As Park expected, the man asked about something other than Seo Yong-chan.

"Just to confirm, who was with my brother-in-law when the incident occurred?"

"Limon Aspelder."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes. The PAB Director has already acknowledged that Limon Aspelder acted on his own authority and suspended him."

That was only natural. Even Limon couldn't reduce someone to a living corpse and get away with it. Considering the victim was Seo Yong-chan, the punishment was extraordinarily lenient—so lenient it was almost irksome.

"Limon Aspelder."

The man repeated the name. Checking the title of the oil painting before him, he continued softly, "The last Sword Master, humanity's guardian and a hero who saved his country. A man truly worthy of respect."

The painting was titled Hero of the Dawn. A world-famous masterpiece, it depicted the great swordsman who had saved the world by standing against the Demon God who had descended to earth.

It was worth at least tens of billions of won. At auction, it would easily fetch over a hundred billion. The man reached toward the painting and said coldly, "It would have been better if his glorious name had remained only in textbooks."

RRRIP!

It took the blink of an eye for a cultural treasure celebrated around the world to become scraps of paper.

Neither the man who committed the outrage nor Park Hyeon-gun, who witnessed it, expressed any regret. Park merely answered as though he had been waiting for it.

"I'll take care of it."

He offered no explanation of what he intended to do or how, but the man did not ask. It wasn't because he trusted Park. He simply had no further interest.

Sword Masters had ruled supreme in the past, when duels between knights decided wars and skill with a blade alone could make someone a hero. Just as the invention of firearms had brought about the decline of knights and warriors, this was now an age of skills and constellations. Limon wasn't even a player. He was too insignificant for the man to concern himself with personally.

Instead, the man turned his attention to someone worth his notice.

"More importantly, what happened to her?"

The question was vague, but Park Hyeon-gun understood at once. There was only one woman the man cared enough about to ask after personally.

"We've confirmed that she entered the country, but we're still tracking her whereabouts after that."

"I assigned you the guild's best tracker, and you haven't found so much as a lead?"

"... I have no excuse."

Park Hyeon-gun trembled. He knew that if the man took offense at their failure to track her, he was finished too.

"I don't mean to reprimand you. She isn't someone we could find so easily anyway."

The man did not blame him. He simply added, still calm, "Spend whatever you need. Hire more top-tier trackers."

"Even if it causes friction with other guilds?"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is the result."

Park Hyeon-gun understood. So long as the result was good, nothing else mattered. But that generous allowance was also an ultimatum: after all this support, a poor result would not be overlooked.

"... I'll keep that in mind."

Even so, Park bowed his head. No—he had no choice but to bow.

Before him stood a man who tolerated no flaws. The most exacting of the ten Monarchs who stood at the pinnacle of all players: Infinite Monarch Lee Cheon-gi.

"Then I look forward to good results."

Leaving Park Hyeon-gun bowed behind him, Lee Cheon-gi walked on, having cleanly forgotten the last Sword Master he'd just heard about—a man who would soon vanish into history.