Dokgo Gyeom is a demon-lord with both hyper-regeneration and a space-type ability, and he’s a criminal rated at the very top danger tier.
That space ability is especially dangerous. Most of the time he only uses it to expand a gym’s interior into a vast party hall—but—
once Dokgo Gyeom truly gets going, he can summon beings from other worlds—the ones the Immigration Authority codenames [Illegal Resident]—into this land.
“He’s even more dangerous than I thought?”
Jang Hyundeok’s low whistle.
“Right. Hey, don’t let up—keep your foot down.”
“What about that?”
“I’ll clear it.”
[Blazing Flame]
[Heavenly Thunder]
[kwaaaaaaang!]
[kwarrrrrrum! rattle-rattle!]
As I blasted apart the barricades set on Busan’s outer road, I kept talking.
Even if Cure Medical Care performs a grotesque ritual in the city center—until the worst moment when that ritual actually triggers the descent of ultrareal beings...
“it can’t exceed the danger tier attached to one man: Dokgo Gyeom.”
That’s why I kidnapped Dokgo Gyeom—and provoked Yang ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) Seoho.
“So you really never meant to be friends with Yang Seoho, huh?”
I glanced at Jang Hyundeok’s dopey face and smiled crookedly.
“Hmph. Yang Seoho will call me his friend.”
“Eh?”
“Chief, stop! No—don’t! What are you trying to do!”
Shin Woojin’s desperate shout as he leapt from the armed truck.
“Either drop the honorifics or keep them, pick one.”
“T-that’s not the point! What are you going to do?”
Yang Seoho tilted his head and considered Shin Woojin for a moment.
Combat officers from the Immigration Authority watched from the truck, unable to dismount. See? They’re humoring him. Shin Woojin always gets special handling.
The misunderstanding deepened. It wasn’t that no one else would speak to Yang Seoho like Shin Woojin did; it’s that if a different teammate had stepped up, she would have done the same thing.
Because her attachment to comrades and unit borders on obsessive. So instead of throwing a punch, Yang Seoho explained what he meant to do.
“Go wreck everything. Rip off a nose or two.”
Shin Woojin paled at the declaration—but barely managed to say what he had to say, what he had to say as his chief’s adjutant.
“Not yet. We’re at Level-3 emergency. Without evidence of [Illegal Resident] presence, we can’t directly intervene on private property.”
“Hm.”
Yang Seoho frowned.
The Immigration Authority has an absurd number of immunities, but not unlimited freedom.
What Shin Woojin had cited was one of the many constraints binding Yang Seoho.
Unless there’s clear proof that an ultrareal entity—the kind the Authority codenames [Illegal Resident]—is involved, Yang Seoho can’t step onto Cure Medical Care’s private grounds.
He stared toward Cure Medical Care for a beat, then turned back and gave orders.
“Woojin. Tell the kids not to block the roads—let traffic through.”
“Let them through?”
“Yeah. They’re going there anyway, right? If we block them, we just raise the damage. Let them pass, and when enough have piled up—tighten the noose.”
Shin Woojin understood.
Better to corral them and build a cordon later.
He let out a breath.
“Understood. Then you, Chief...?”
[kwaaaaaaang!]
“Bahahahahaha!!!”
[ruuuuuumble!!]
A laugh boomed with enough force to shake all of Busan.
A gigantic silhouette shot up to the sky’s vault. Seo Cheonseul’s mana blazed in brilliant gold.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
Screams all around.
Seo Cheonseul opened his mouth—and a thunderous voice rolled in every direction.
“This body is Kim sir!”
[kwarrrrrrrrrrum!]
He probably meant to say Kim Sinhwa.
“Ha...”
Watching Seo Cheonseul from afar, Yang Seoho smiled, entertained.
“Uh-uh-uh...”
Shin Woojin couldn’t close his gaping mouth.
“You heard what he said, right?”
“Eh?”
“Kim Sinhwa’s here.”
“N-no...”
He said “Kim sir,” didn’t he?
“Woojin. Can you see Cure Medical Care’s status now?”
They could see Seo Cheonseul’s vast form, but he was still kilometers away.
Too far for human eyesight to pick out details.
But Shin Woojin’s senses surpassed human limits.
She fluffed her hair, popped out a few eyes, and checked Cure Medical Care—then reported.
“I see it. Still intact. The hired security company is holding very well.”
“What are you doing, you underpowered goblin.”
See? He just called him a goblin too—she thought—but didn’t say it out loud.
“Keep watching, Woojin.”
“W-watching.”
A bang rolled across.
“Wow. Kim Sinhwa is a real piece of work.”
Yang Seoho spoke as stiffly as if reading a script.
“N-no...”
“Huh? Look at that bastard—swinging a precious citizen’s car like a bat to smash the front gate.”
“Sir? There’s nothing like that—anywhere...”
Buuuuuuuuuuuun!!
[kwaaaaaaaaaaang!]
A sedan near Yang Seoho shot off like a missile, obliterated Cure Medical Care’s main gate, and exploded.
“Oh dear, that’s bad.”
“Ch-ch-ch-chief!?”
“Raise the emergency level. From Level 3 to Level 2.”
“Eh? Eeeeh? Ch-Chief!?”
“Repeat it.”
“R-raising danger level! From Level 3 to Level 2! Level-2 emergency!”
When she relayed it into the truck, the combat officers—faces blanched—shifted to the posture appropriate for the upgraded level.
“And another thing.”
Yang Seoho raised his voice to the nearby officers.
“Yang Seoho, Chief of Immigration Authority Special Team One, recommends to the Mayor of Busan that Gijang County be declared an emergency disaster area for the safety of Busan’s citizens and of the Republic of Korea! I will make priority interventions at especially critical sites and attempt life-saving rescues!”
“Uh—wha—?”
“Hey, Woojin. Focus and do what I told you. I’m going to go rescue that Akiyama or whatever.”
[boom!]
With a thunderous shockwave, Yang Seoho’s body rocketed into the sky.
Jang Hyundeok cocked his head, then asked again.
“I get why you kidnapped Dokgo Gyeom. Before that—”
“Ah, why I dragged in Yang Seoho?”
“Yeah. Ah—hang on. I’m going to cut across there. Guardrail—”
[Fireball]
[kwaaaang!]
The guardrail shattered. With fearless momentum he swung the van off Busan’s outer ring.
“Holy—!”
The Busan Police Special Unit screamed.
[thunk!]
We cleared the Suyeong River. This was now Gijang County—the district where Cure Medical Care sat.
Strictly speaking, Gijang by administrative map only.
“So many mountains.”
A web of mountain roads—Hodusal, Jangnyeon, Gongdeok, Geomun, Unbong, and Ahopsan ringed us.
You have to run these roads ten kilometers to hit the urban zone people actually think of as “Gijang.”
[bang! bwa-gwak!]
A few armored police vehicles followed us in.
“Wow. Cops here are intense.”
“Stout-hearted. If this were Paju, fewer would’ve chased.”
I said that and drew on the flow of the Cheolma Stream nearby—cast.
[Grand Deluge]
[Raging Surge]
[kwarrrrrrrrrrum!]
The Government of Busan Special Autonomous City keeps the strongest control and administrative force in Korea.
Meaning: for most crises, Busan’s police power can handle it.
If I’d only lured in cultists and criminals?
Busan would have smashed into them head-on—lots dead, lots hurt.
Busan’s policing and the cultists’ muscle—both would take damage, predictably.
“And if Yang Seoho shows up in that mess, doesn’t it just get worse?”
“No—the opposite.”
Yang Seoho is the strongest force the government has—and at the same time the biggest deterrent for ending any conflict.
If this were another Buyeo—an all-in convergence—that’d be different. But thanks to the confusion I lit, the cultists would have filtered into Busan in scattered, disorderly ways.
“In that mode, they all have to get pinned by Yang Seoho.”
I dragged him into Busan so the city could stay quiet until now.
[kwaaaaaaang!]
“So the police still have strength to spare, and—”
The cops plowed after us through the pounding surge.
[kwaaaang—]
A muffled blast rolled from beyond the hills.
Whatever blew was probably the ruckus from the cultists and criminals Park Gwangrim and Seo Cheonseul had set loose.
Paradoxically, because Yang Seoho appeared, those cultists and criminals could conserve strength until the decisive moment.
“Anyway, I’d like to end the chase now.”
[Glacial Wall]
[kwa-d-d-d-d-duk!]
The racing water flash-froze into a towering ice wall—wrapping the armored police vehicles.
“That should stop them.”
“Uh—Magus.”
“Mm?”
“I get that you pulled in Mannse Ilwon cultists to buy time till the critical moment—and that you called Yang Seoho so they wouldn’t go on a spree.”
“You got it all.”
“Then what about the cleanup?”
“Cleanup?”
“You know. When the fight with Cure Medical Care is over...”
To draw in cultists, criminals, and Yang Seoho, I’d spread the lie that I was Cure Medical Care’s accomplice.
Once I stop Cure Medical Care—or rather, the [Source of Life] they serve—every armed group in Busan will come for me.
“Dokgo Gyeom’s about to break out.”
Told you.
He’ll get his strength back, breach the ward I made—and be free.
“Isn’t that worse?”
“If Dokgo Gyeom is in his right mind...”
“Right mind” isn’t quite right. He’s always been crazy.
“Even so, he’ll try to get his people out of Busan.”
I’ve already cut the deal to make that happen.
And Yang Seoho—after declaring a Level-2 emergency—will move to seize Dokgo Gyeom.
Which leaves just Busan’s police and some drifter criminals.
We slip away in the middle of that.
“Wow, Magus. So all of that is...”
Jang Hyundeok stared at me, eyes wide.
“Yeah. That’s the whole—”
plan I built.
“...Think it’ll really go like you say?”
“...”
Oh, come on.
I was about to answer, but Jang Hyundeok clapped a hand over my mouth.
“Magus! There—! Leap!”
“Ha!”
An elevated road loomed ahead.
The Donghae Expressway, running north–south between Ulsan and Busan.
“Good. Hold on!”
[Great Whirlwind]
[bwhaaaaaa!]
A massive vortex of magic scooped the entire vehicle up.
[whirr-rii-rii—]
[kwaang! thunk!]
We thumped down onto the Donghae Expressway. Not a delicate method, but—
[skreeeeee!]
[click-clack!]
Jang Hyundeok’s hands flashed across the controls.
In an instant the Call Van stabilized—bolting south without losing speed.
“I’m going to make it happen.”
Of course some parts won’t work, and trouble will hit.
My Intelligence stat may be overinflated, but it isn’t truly mine.
If it were, in the fullest sense, I’d be on a recliner eating pizza Heo Sanghyun baked while puppeteering everything.
And there are abyssal beings.
They always watch from higher ground.
They’ll intervene at the decisive moment and wreck my plan.
“Not this time.”
I’ll cover the gaps with my own two feet—and adjust when things skew.
That’s why I came to Busan.
“Too late already! The victory is mine!”
Akiyama’s shout.
The awful clamor outside. But it was fine.
Whatever scheme Kim Sinhwa was running, whatever arts Seo Cheonseul would pull—all too late.
Because gold had arrived!
“Now, with this—”
[kwaaaaaaaaang!!]
“W-what!?”
The wall blew inward—
“Hm. The wall’s rather flimsy.”
Yang Seoho stepped in.
“Hey, Yang Seoho?! You rabid mongrel! Who gave you permission to enter here!”
Akiyama’s face twisted grotesquely as he yelled.
“Do you want your master to scold you! Remember whose money buys those clothes you wear to pass for human! I lawfully purchased this land and live here as a citizen of Korea. Whatever I do, you can do nothing to me!”
“Ah, right—you’ve got citizenship.”
“That’s right! You lapdog! Get out, go back to your master, and eat the rotten scraps he throws you!”
The abuse went on and on. But Yang Seoho reached a hand toward him and spoke.
“Relax. I’m not here to stop you—I’m here to save you. Quit spewing crap and stick your nose out. I’ll save you.”
