Chapter 18
Ding!
The phone's notification chime rang.
"Huh."
Lee Junho, head of the Awakened Management Bureau, checked the screen and gave a wry smile.
The text he'd received contained the same predictable message he always saw.
[Thank you for the offer, but I'm…….]
A rejection text that began with a formulaic greeting.
They weren't ready yet, or the terms were good but becoming a public figure was too much of a burden.
They went on and on with all sorts of excuses, but to sum it up, they couldn't work with him.
Nine times out of ten, another country or a major guild had already recruited them. It was as clear as day.
Still, at least the ones who offered such lengthy excuses were the decent sort.
Most people just left a curt 'No thanks' and blocked him on the spot.
Put another way, sending a long text like this meant there might still be the slightest room to negotiate.
"Phew."
Lee Junho quickly picked up his phone and hit the call button with practiced ease.
He'd invested too much to simply hand them over to another country. For now, he intended to cling to their pant leg and beg.
Even he found it a little depressing that, despite his impressive title of Bureau Chief, he was still doing the sort of thing a low-level newbie would.
But what could he do?
The head of the Awakened Management Bureau in a powerless country had no choice but to run himself ragged. That was the only way to barely keep up with those out in front.
Brrring. Click.
"Ah, yes. Awakened, I saw the message you sent. So, if you're not satisfied with our offer, we can do our utmost to meet whatever terms you want."
Lee Junho clung to the other party to the point of seeming rather craven.
It couldn't be helped. The Republic of Korea's Awakened Management Bureau was always desperate for talent.
To protect the citizens of the Republic of Korea from the Tower Collapse phenomenon that came around every year-end, the Bureau had to secure even one more Awakened by any means necessary.
"Ah, yes. Ah... You asked for twice the salary we offered, no matter what...?"
Of course, being endlessly polite didn't mean negotiations always ended happily.
"Ah, yes. Yes, of course. I wish you the best of luck, Awakened."
Click!
The call ended.
Negotiations had fallen through. He'd expected as much, but for some reason it stung more than usual today.
Maybe because his search for the Heavenly Demon wasn't going very well, either.
"Damn it."
Lee Junho irritably rummaged through his pocket.
He felt like having a cigarette, but all he discovered was that he'd smoked the last one a little while ago.
"Damn it, nothing ever works out."
Why couldn't a single thing go right?
Ding!
Just then, his phone chimed again.
"This is..."
Lee Junho's expression stiffened the moment he checked the alert.
"Ha. Maestro, you bastard."
Maestro.
The only S-rank Awakened in the Republic of Korea.
But to Lee Junho, Maestro was nothing more than a headache.
Unless he catered to him, even getting him to enter the Tower once a year was a struggle.
He was so infuriatingly cunning about exploiting the fact that he held all the cards that Lee Junho wanted to punch him.
This alert, too, was just an extension of Maestro's usual abuse of authority.
"Manage the gallery? Damn it, do I look like some unemployed loser with nothing to do?"
The Wizard Awakened Gallery.
Wizgal for short. It was one of countless communities that had sprung up after the Tower appeared. It had even been created by Maestro himself.
The problem was, after Maestro had spent a few days scribbling posts and fooling around, he got bored and dumped the entire job of managing the gallery on Lee Junho.
Naturally, he'd tried to refuse, but he'd never had a choice to begin with.
"Tsk."
Several years had passed like that. At this point, Lee Junho could hardly tell whether he was the Bureau Chief or the gallery's moderator.
‘Other galleries even vote to kick their mods out.’
The Wizgal crowd were pointlessly tame. Or maybe they just didn't think about anything.
He wanted to dump this whole mess on a subordinate right now, but then Maestro would throw another fit.
‘What a pain in the ass.’
Lee Junho clicked his tongue and checked the message.
‘This guy.’
A user with the nickname ‘Heavenly Demon.’
Normally, he stirred up trouble while staying just within the bounds, but recently he'd crossed the line and caused a whole mess.
The guy had sent him a link through open chat.
[Awakened proof, read this link]
"Hmm."
He really did send proof.
He'd only told the Heavenly Demon to bring back a proof video because the whole Heavenly Demon mess was giving him a headache, and now the gallery had started getting noisy too. He'd just wanted to put a stop to it somehow.
‘What the hell is a gallery, anyway?’
He couldn't understand it. Lee Junho clicked the link without thinking.
"Huh?"
And exactly thirty seconds later, he sprang to his feet.
"Somebody get in here, now!"
Exactly ten seconds after that, Lee Junho couldn't stand it any longer and dashed out of his office barefoot.
"And delete this post right now!"
There was no time to hesitate.
***
"Ah, I slept great."
It was a refreshing morning. I seemed to sleep especially well the day after visiting the Tower.
Maybe I should make a package deal to cure insomnia while I'm at it. Sounds like it could sell well.
"Nnngh!"
I stretched with all my might, and my body felt light enough to fly.
"Well, let's see how people are reacting."
I'd slept well, so it was time to do what I had to do.
"I wonder if it got too many upvotes."
I'd deliberately tossed a post into the Awakened Gallery to draw as much attention as possible.
Could I end up setting the all-time record for most upvotes in the gallery?
"Heh heh."
The thought alone was delightful. My mouth was practically watering.
Ding!
[This post has been deleted for violating the rules.]
[Reason: Graphic/repulsive content]
"Huh?"
What greeted me when I logged into the gallery with my hopes up wasn't a flood of people asking to shake my hand. It was a notification that my proof post had vanished without a trace.
And it had been only ten minutes since I posted it.
"Wait, what the..."
Of course, I'd considered the possibility it might be deleted. That's why I'd deliberately targeted a lawless gallery without a moderator.
But who on earth had wiped my post?
"Whoever it was, they got it wrong."
Did they think deleting the post could erase my influence, too?
These days, deleting a post with one click doesn't make it go away. If anything, that's just adding fuel to the fire.
[Title: Heavenly Demon Punch! Heavenly Demon Punch!]
[Title: Blood Demon <<< Just a young man who cheered for Heavenly Demon lol]
[Anonymous]
We thought he was one of our own and praised him like crazy, but then he declares himself a high school girl who's done her military service. I LOVE KIMCHI lol.
He's just a young man who cheered for Heavenly Demon now lol.
[Comments]
Blood Demon is mysteriously Korean now lol
I couldn't stand those guys from that country acting all high and mighty lol. Guess it's time for them to get smacked down, huh?
[Title: How amazing is Heavenly Demon?]
[Anonymous]
Did he beat Super?
[Comments]
Super got slapped back and forth, yeah.
Who's Super?
[Title: By the way, why was the proof post deleted?]
[Anonymous]
Did the poster delete it, or did a mod?
[Comments]
Probably a mod. No way an attention-seeking bastard who went so far as to provide proof would take down his own post after it made the featured list.
ㄴ Oh...
ㄴ But why would a mod delete it? Wait, do we have mods on Awakened Gallery?
ㄴ If I knew that, I'd be a mod;;
That's what I'm talking about.
With satisfaction welling up inside me, I clenched my fist without realizing it.
Every post in the Awakened Gallery was about the Heavenly Demon and the proof post.
So what good did it do to slander and put me down as much as they wanted?
This sovereign's majesty naturally shines through even when I do nothing. There's no way to conceal it, no matter how hard you try.
"Ahem."
Shall I look at a few more?
[Title: Heavenly Demon <<< Upvote if he's Korea's hope]
[Anonymous]
We've finally got a chance to escape being a country with nothing but Maestro, for real.
[Comments]
Better than that guy who deliberately enters the Tower in the last week of December every year.
ㄴ For real, Maestro's a vile bastard.
[Title: Upvote if you're abandoning Maestro and converting to the Heavenly Demon Cult starting today lol]
[Anonymous]
If you're talking Heavenly Demon, obviously the Heavenly Demon Cult lol
[Comments]
Long live! Long live! Long live!
The Heavenly Demon has descended! All demons bow!
“Mmmmm!”
More, more praise! I said worship this sovereign with all your heart.
To think they were even comparing me to Maestro. Every post I read made my dopamine spike, and I could barely keep myself together.
I wasn't sure what the four-character idiom at the end meant, but it probably meant worshipping this sovereign.
“Phew, phew.”
I was so excited I had to take several deep breaths.
"More time has passed than I thought."
I'd meant to look at just a few more, but ended up going through every single featured post from start to finish. It had been ages since I'd gotten so absorbed in browsing a gallery.
Shall I return to the main gallery now? The triumphant return of the king.
"All right, let's go."
The situation on Wizgal was much like on Hunter Gallery. The entire board was plastered with stories about me.
The content, however, was a little different.
Things like, a sword user means he's another warrior, bring back the mages, and why isn't that bastard Maestro doing anything?
Most of the posts were less about the Heavenly Demon as a person and more about mages worrying and complaining about the damage an overwhelmingly strong melee Awakened would do to their class.
"Hmm."
Were the mages looking at this from a slightly different perspective after all?
"Well, would they be happy if I proved I was a kind of mage, too?"
It was about time the ban on my main account was lifted, so I abandoned my alt and tried logging in with the account I was used to.
"Now, behold the majesty of this sovereign..."
The moment I confidently clicked the button to write a post.
Ding!
[This IP address has been blocked.]
[Reason: Inquired via open chat]
"Huh?"
What the hell was it this time?