Chapter 4
Leon Dragonia Lionheart.
The Hunter Association and the government were at a loss over Leon, a survivor who had crossed over from the third Black Gate to appear in thirteen years.
Survivors are exceedingly rare people from other worlds who have come through Gates.
Each has lived in a different culture and environment, and some have been overbearing or hostile toward people from Earth.
There had been a war hero sealed in a wall of ice, and even a vampire who had lived for eons.
There were descendants of dragons, as well as dwarves who dug underground tunnels and defended their fortresses.
None of them were easy to deal with, and each had their own stubborn quirks. Still, they tended to accept that their worlds had been destroyed and be content with being treated as survivors.
The policies of governments around the world toward survivors are the same.
They do whatever they can to bring them into the fold. If they can't get them to join the government, they at least try to get them settled in the country.
Since survivors have made it through the destruction of their worlds, many are skilled fighters, and all of them have something exceptional about them.
Of course, that doesn't mean every survivor has been accepted. Some survivors had values that modern humanity simply couldn't tolerate.
And now there was the latest survivor. Leon was the sort of person they had no idea how to deal with.
“What do we do? Should we use court etiquette or something?”
“Um... I've watched a few historical dramas, but...”
Manager Kim Jinsu and Assistant Manager Han Hari of the Hunter Association wore troubled expressions as they faced the survivor who had saved them.
Leon Dragonia Lionheart.
He claimed to be the king of the Kingdom of Lionheart.
He called himself an agent of the gods, a demigod, and an honorable knight.
From his speech and mannerisms, he seemed to come from a rigidly hierarchical society. Three investigators had tried to question him in succession, only to be sent packing after he threatened them.
Seolleongtang and kimchi. He refused to eat them, calling them commoners' food.
Jajangmyeon. He showed a little interest at first, but turned it down as a vulgar dish that was bound to splatter sauce everywhere.
They tried offering him chicken, but he rejected it because it had to be eaten with one's hands.
“He can tell just by looking... How uncanny.”
“I know.”
He'd rejected Earth's food just by looking at it, calling it commoners' fare. As a result, they'd had to bring food over from the finest restaurant in the area.
“Hari... you go in first.”
“M-me? I can't do that historical-drama way of speaking!”
“Still, he seems to like you. He even praised you, didn't he?”
“He only said I was brave...!”
Assistant Manager Han Hari was sent in to deal with the finicky survivor. Since Leon had looked favorably on her at the Gate, everyone agreed he probably wouldn't throw her out.
“Ugh...”
Hari cautiously approached Leon as he elegantly cut into a premium T-bone steak and sipped a 1993 red wine.
“Y-Your Majesty... I humbly beg your pardon for interrupting your meal?”
“The swordswoman from before. Sit.”
He hadn't thrown her out right away. Hari cautiously let out a sigh and clenched her fist toward the cracked magic mirror.
She was sure her colleagues on the other side were cheering her on.
“D-does the meal please Your Majesty?”
“It's not bad. I can taste the care and years of effort the cook put into it.”
“I'm honored that you like it... I committed a capital offense by serving you commoners' food...”
“You've misunderstood.”
Setting down his knife, the golden-haired man spoke gently, as if to reassure her.
“What I took issue with was your attitude toward a king.”
“W-what do you mean by that?”
“When royalty meets a representative of another country, they must be treated with the dignity befitting them. That reflects on the stature of your nation as well.”
“I-is that so?”
“I can eat commoners' food whenever I like. I wasn't raised so poorly that I'd turn down food on a battlefield. But if you've come before me representing your nation's will, you should show the dignity befitting that role.”
In other words, he hadn't thrown a fit over the food.
To be honest, Hari wondered if he couldn't just eat it, but when she thought about it, you wouldn't serve a Big Mac meal from McDonald's to a state guest, would you?
“I see. My lack of learning has led me to offend Your Majesty...”
“Then that's settled. By the way, you said your name was Han something?”
“Y-yes... I am Han Hari.”
Leon didn't tell her to speak casually, even as she awkwardly imitated the speech of a historical drama.
Royalty couldn't be addressed casually by commoners, after all.
“I've heard about this world.”
“Ah...”
Even while berating the investigators, Leon had diligently gathered information about this world.
The investigators had also done their best to explain Earth and the circumstances it faced, so Leon had managed to learn a fair amount.
“From what I can tell, this place is under some kind of invasion too. You called them Gates, was it? They appeared in my world as well.”
“Is that so?”
That detail came up consistently in survivors' eyewitness accounts.
Gates. Doors. Dimensional rifts.
They were called by various names, but all shared one characteristic.
“Demons. Those vile creatures appear on Earth too, do they not?”
“Y-yes... they do.”
Hari had one mission.
The best outcome would be to have him join the Hunter Association, under the Korean government.
The next best thing was to get him settled in the country somehow.
The appearance of a survivor always drew the attention of governments around the world. They would do whatever it took to bring them into their own country.
Recruiting survivors was so central to the twenty-first-century world's espionage wars that it had become a major priority.
Leon’s value? There was no need to explain it. He was a survivor.
His combat ability? Several Association employees had already seen it for themselves.
The potential problems were his insistence on a rigid class system and his eccentricities. But when you actually talked to him, he wasn't all that unreasonable. More importantly──
'This man is absolutely confident in his own worth.'
The fact that he acted so high-handedly toward people from a world he knew nothing about was proof of his confidence.
Many survivors were naive or tended to yield to their host country to some extent.
A lone individual couldn't defeat a massive organization like a nation. They instinctively knew there was nothing to gain by making one an enemy.
But this man named Leon was the very pinnacle of pride and self-esteem.
He boldly asked about whatever he didn't know and demanded that anything he needed be brought to him at once.
He was the ultimate aristocrat, someone who considered himself noble, so of course he was confident in front of anyone.
“Your Majesty... I humbly beg leave to say this, but if you permit it, our government of the Republic of Korea will take care of your affairs from here on.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Hari slowly laid out the options for him.
The path of becoming a Hunter employed by the government.
The path of settling down and finding another way forward.
Whichever he chose, the Association intended to spare no effort in supporting him. She emphasized that the support would be substantial, especially if he became a government Hunter.
The Association's senior leadership didn't yet know Leon's value. But once they recognized it, they would gladly do whatever it took to keep him in Korea.
“This place is under invasion by evil creatures. Any honorable knight is duty-bound to fight. Now that I have settled in your world, I naturally have a duty to go to the battlefield.”
“I see!”
Hari's face brightened. He had a more sensible outlook than she'd expected.
Many survivors refused to enter Gates or fight demons, saying they had no obligation to get involved in another world's conflict.
And yet those freeloaders still made sure to collect their survivor settlement grants in full.
At least this man didn't seem to be that shameless.
“Then, if you join the Hunter Association──”
“No. A king cannot serve under another king.”
Huh? What did he mean by that?
Hari looked perplexed.
Of course, she'd considered the possibility that he wouldn't join the government. Even she thought joining the Association wouldn't benefit him.
But if that was what he meant, wasn't he also refusing to join one of the Hunter Guilds?
“I shall establish a new order of knights in this world.”
Faced with Leon's ambitious declaration, Hari could only nod.
* * * *
“Things are taking an odd turn.”
Manager Kim Jinsu scratched the top of his head as he summed up what Leon had told them. Hari, however, gave a positive assessment.
“Isn't that a good thing? He seemed quite willing to fight.”
“That's true. He doesn't seem to be trying to go to another country, either.”
Survivors as favorably positioned as Leon were rare, even among their kind.
He had plenty of strength, was willing to enter Gates, and wasn't hostile toward the world he found himself in.
It was a bit of a drawback that he came from a hierarchical society, but he wasn't acting against reason, either.
“Still, I panicked when he said he wanted to meet the president.”
“Ugh... You didn't let him, did you?”
“What if he met him and started swinging that sword? He can put it away in some kind of subspace and summon it whenever he wants.”
“He doesn't even have a subspace pouch. What could the principle behind that be?”
If a survivor suddenly lost it and swung a sword at the president... that would be a national disaster.
“What are you going to do?”
“What else... Give him as much support as we can.”
That was the conclusion the Association had reached after its meeting.
They would win his favor and do everything they could to help him settle in this country.
He was worth the effort, even if it meant pouring in an astronomical budget.
“Our government is just too weak, after all...”
“It's all because of those major guild bastards who only care about money and power.”
South Korea's entrenched, chronic problems were still making the country sick.
“By the way, before we went into that Black Gate, didn't a Scarlet Gate pop up recently? Around the Honam Plains?”
“Yeah, the Firebird Guild took it.”
“I hope it goes well... If something happens over there, we're in serious trouble.”
Since the Cataclysm, dungeon breaks had occurred all over the world, leaving it devastated.
The problem with dungeon breaks wasn't just the monsters pouring out. As the Gates ruptured, 'miasma' leaked out along with them.
Miasma was a deadly poison that corroded space and cursed the land. Any land it tainted had to undergo at least a year of purification before crops could be planted.
In other words, a dungeon break in a major agricultural region could determine the entire year's harvest.
“Still, the Firebird Guild has Lee Yongwan, an S-rank Hunter. Even if it's a Scarlet Gate, the difficulty shouldn't be that high.”
“...That's true.”
Manager Kim Jinsu wondered whether he should tell Assistant Manager Han Hari about the intelligence he'd received from the National Intelligence Service.
Specifically, that the Firebird Guild had been acting suspiciously after the government rejected its recent request for exemptions.
-Beep!
“Huh?”
At that moment, Manager Kim Jinsu and Assistant Manager Han Hari's phones vibrated at the exact same time, letting out an ominous beep-beep siren.
[A dungeon break has occurred at the Honam Plains Gate. All available personnel are to report for emergency standby.]
After reading the message, the two shouted as one.
““Those bastards in the Firebird Guild!!””
* * * *
Leon could clearly make out the sounds from the other side of the magic mirror, though they seemed to think he wouldn't be able to hear them.
His blessed body had long since transcended human flesh. He was a living saint—in other words, a demigod.
'They seem to be in a bind.'
The dungeon break itself wasn't the problem. The problem was that it had happened in a major agricultural region.
From what he'd heard, when a dungeon break occurred, the land became contaminated and crops wouldn't grow...
'Just as I thought. There isn't one.'
Through this, Leon became certain that 'it' was absent from this Earth.
'The fact that they speak of 'poor harvests' and 'bad harvest years' is proof enough.'
'Demera, are you well?'
He asked after her from the 'temple' hidden within his heart.
────
She willingly answered the agent of the Pantheon.