Chapter 114
Panmunjom.
It was once a place that symbolized the division of Korea, but things were different now.
“Hey! You can’t do that here!”
Countless foreigners had gathered there.
“Why are you stopping us!”
“We’re going to North Korea!”
There was a border with China, too, but that side was under tight security as well.
Since the border at Panmunjom, which was open to South Koreans, was the only way in, foreigners had gathered there.
“Under the WDDO agreement, Gates in member countries are open to everyone without discrimination!”
Some people boldly invoked the WDDO agreement and insisted on entering, but...
“North Korea is not a member of the WDDO. The North Korean government is temporarily prohibiting entry to anyone who isn’t a South Korean national. In accordance with our discussions with the North Korean government, we regret to inform you that we cannot allow any foreign nationals to enter North Korea.”
Faced with the firm words of an Awakened Management Department official, they had no choice but to back down.
But when the officials saw more and more Hunters gathering, their faces turned pale.
And these weren’t just any Hunters. They were powerful Hunters known around the world.
For now, they were at least pretending to follow the government’s orders, but...
If someone stepped forward and broke the rules first...
Things would clearly spiral out of control.
“We need to ask SG Group for help!”
“Who doesn’t know that! Damn Foreign Ministry bastards...”
They grumbled, asking who had approved entry for so many Hunters, but the Foreign Ministry had an answer, too.
‘Thanks to the WDDO agreement, there’s nothing we can do if they say they’re coming to clear a dungeon!’
Unless a Hunter was a serious criminal, WDDO member countries couldn’t deny them entry.
They were also required to issue short-term dungeon-clearing visas.
There was a reason Hunters were called the nobility of the twenty-first century.
Even people from Third World countries who had a hard time getting visas could travel freely between WDDO member countries as long as they had an internationally recognized Hunter license.
Of course, getting an internationally recognized license wasn’t easy.
That was the bigger problem.
The hundreds of thousands of Hunters who had recently entered South Korea had all gone through those ‘not easy’ procedures.
They were the real deal, with all the riffraff filtered out.
“At this rate, there’ll be nothing we can do if they force their way through!”
“Got it! I’ll make the call!”
Of course, he could contact SG Group himself, but...
There was someone specifically assigned to handle SG Group.
A person with overwhelming support as the next vice minister, based solely on their work handling SG Group.
The prevailing opinion within the department was that this person was part of the ‘Kim Segyun faction.’
“Director Jo, you need to talk to SG Group right away! It’s chaos here at Panmunjom!”
It was Director Jo Hyeongbin.
**
After leaving the Demon Realm and returning to Korea, I slept for three days straight.
Honestly, I’d expected the world to be in an uproar, but I was so exhausted that I didn’t even have the energy to care.
Clearing a single Gate was exhausting enough, and the Demon Realm was on a whole different level from a regular ‘Gate.’
I turned down requests to meet with Zephyros and even the president, and didn’t leave the house until I’d slept for three days.
“Did you sleep well?”
The first person I ran into when I stepped outside was, of course, Mr. Zephyros.
“What, you’ve gotten more gray hair already?”
“It’s your fault, you punk. Because of you.”
“You’ve got a lot to say to someone who came back safe and sound after clearing a Gate.”
“Hey! You... Sigh, forget it.”
“I’ve seen the general reaction online. This whole ‘Gate owner’ thing... It’s pretty entertaining.”
“Are you really the owner of a Gate now?”
“Of course.”
As I casually shrugged and explained my authority and what the Demon Realm was like, Zephyros’s expression changed from moment to moment.
At first he was surprised, but then he began to look concerned.
“So... it’s practically a world of its own?”
“I think it has more potential than Earth.”
The Demon Realm isn’t as densely populated as Earth.
There probably aren’t even a million demons in a territory about the size of South Korea.
And that estimate didn’t even take into account the variables that could arise from the hundreds of thousands of side quests.
“So that’s the kind of Gate it is? And it’s in North Korea...”
After a moment of thought, Zephyros said,
“You’re going to pay taxes, right?”
“Taxes? Of course. Does anyone live without paying taxes?”
“No, I mean to North Korea.”
“To North Korea?”
“Even if you’re the Gate’s actual owner, under international law, a Gate belongs to the country where it’s located.”
“Ah, of course. I’d obviously pay.”
It wasn’t like I had no conscience.
“Okay, I get it,” Zephyros murmured, sounding pleased.
What was that? Had something happened behind my back?
“Actually...”
After I’d heard everything Zephyros had to say, I was furious.
“Wait, they still haven’t lifted the sanctions on a country that’s trying to open up and embrace a market economy?”
Those bastards.
“Because of that, our country’s exports have been completely blocked under the sanctions agreement, just for sending supplies to North Korea.”
President Kang Minkook wasn’t the type to cave under pressure like that, so I guessed he’d gone ahead anyway, but...
Even so, it was the U.S.
“But the market is driven by money in the first place. If North Korea can import plenty without our help... then even the U.S., or its great-granddaddy, will line up for those dollars. And which country shares a border with North Korea?”
“China.”
“Right. China is officially part of the sanctions, so it can’t do business openly. But just smuggling alone would probably bring in enough to supply everything North Korea needs.”
“It’s not called the ‘world’s factory’ for nothing...”
China might have a bad image abroad, but there was no denying it was the ‘world’s factory.’
“And China’s in such bad shape right now... They’ll probably be scrambling to make money in North Korea.”
China was falling apart just as expected.
Hunters led by the Five Emperors were turning into warlords and becoming the dominant powers in their respective regions.
The Communist Party in Beijing was trying to hold them back.
“The Beijing Communist Party controls the border with North Korea, so if North Korea has money, they’ll pour all the goods from the Northeast into the country to earn foreign currency. Do you think the Sword Emperor of Shanghai would just sit there and watch the Beijing Communist Party make money? Not a chance.”
If the immense flow of goods from Shanghai followed the supplies from the Northeast into North Korea, the country’s shortages could be wiped out all at once.
“The problem was that there was no way to send all that foreign currency openly from our side. But if the Gate you own is valuable enough...”
“It’s more than valuable. Let’s send an SG Group advance team to inspect it first.”
The advantage of the Demon Realm was that it was an open world, with content for everyone from low-level to high-level Hunters.
“Once the inspection team goes and spreads the word, people from all over the world will be lining up to come.”
**
And...
That prediction became reality just a week later.
Though it went way beyond what I’d expected.
It was all thanks to the advance team...
And especially to one older sister who’d held firmly onto Korea’s No. 1 ranking until Zephyros returned and I took the top spot.
Baekgyeong (白鯨, White Whale) Kim Yura.
She owned the ‘Spear of Poseidon’ and was a master of the ‘Sea Dragon Spear Technique.’ She was a world-famous Hunter when it came to clearing underwater dungeons.
Underwater dungeons were usually the preserve of a few niche Hunters, but she’d risen to No. 1 in Korea because her abilities worked just as well on land.
She was a kind of magic lancer, freely controlling water while seamlessly combining it with her spear techniques.
Recently, she’d caused a major stir by really getting under Kaiser’s skin.
There were even rumors—rumors that were really just facts—that Kaiser was petty enough to keep North Korea under economic sanctions over it.
Still, it wasn’t like she’d done anything wrong.
Even though a few people had suggested that Hunter Kim Yura should be sanctioned for her remarks, the government publicly said Kaiser was the petty one and she couldn’t be blamed for it.
Anyway, she’d once been the No. 1-ranked Hunter, so she still heard the rumors going around the government. They’d reached her ears, too.
If I were a scaredy-cat, I’d probably have been a little intimidated...
But this older sister had guts to spare.
If anything, she kept talking about Kaiser on her broadcasts.
Especially the way she provoked him on her broadcasts from inside the Demon Realm...
Wow. She was insane.
─Well, this area’s pretty tough. I bet even Kaiser couldn’t clear it. If he can, he should come try it himself.
─Kaiser? He’s too old to come here, isn’t he? He should retire. Honestly, it’s a bit of a stretch for him to still call himself an active Hunter.
─There are so many magical beasts in this field that you need a lot of stamina. Old Hunters like Kaiser would be better off staying away.
Kaiser still had an enormous number of fans in America, and they flooded the translated versions of her remarks with angry comments, but Kim Yura didn’t bat an eye and kept bringing him up.
They say a woman scorned can bring frost in midsummer... That’s terrifying.
In the end, her provocations played a part in making the Demon Realm showcase a huge success.
Korea’s former strongest Hunter...
Kept trash-talking the former strongest Hunter in the world. It would’ve been strange if that hadn’t attracted attention.
In the end, I wondered if she was responsible for about half of the hundreds of thousands of Hunters gathered at Panmunjom.
Especially...
The arrival of these big names had to be...
Thanks to Hunter Kim Yura’s provocations.
─Mr. Ryan Spencer! Is it true you came to Korea to enter North Korea?
─That’s right. I also came to punish a certain arrogant Korean Hunter.
─You don’t mean the White Whale, Kim Yura?
─That’s right. I’ll make sure she never dares mention Kaiser again.
A man who drew a crowd of reporters to Incheon Airport had arrived.
Ryan Spencer, America’s No. 1-ranked Hunter.
And...
Even the No. 2-ranked Hunter, Robert Garcia.
The two of them landed in their private jets at almost the same time, as if competing with each other.
Now that I knew the industry better, I couldn’t help snorting. They weren’t really rivals; they were just putting on a deliberate show of competition.
Even the fact that Ryan Spencer’s private jet landed a little ahead of the other one was probably staged to set up the No. 1 and No. 2 rivalry.
─The South Korean government has closed the border leading to North Korea. What do you plan to do?
─There are plenty of ways to cross a border.
After giving that simple answer, the two headed straight for a U.S. military base.
A U.S. military transport plane took off from there.
Right, the U.S. military was still stationed in Korea...
It seemed they intended to fly there immediately on a U.S. military plane, without following the South Korean government’s restrictions, since the U.S. military had operational control.
“Well, they can go wherever they want.”
About an hour later...
A message appeared before my eyes, saying the two men who’d parachuted from the military plane had entered the Gate.
[Ryan Spencer has entered the ‘Demon Realm.’]
[Robert Garcia has entered the ‘Demon Realm.]
They were decked out in equipment that could even livestream everything happening inside the dungeon.
They were acting as if the North Korean government and ours didn’t even exist.
“Tsk, tsk.”
They really hadn’t read the messages properly.
I’m the Gate owner, you know?
Lying down in Seoul with the two men’s livestreams on...
I...
Click.
“I eject Ryan Spencer and Robert Garcia from the Demon Realm.”
[Ryan Spencer has been forcibly ejected from the ‘Demon Realm.’]
[Robert Garcia has been forcibly ejected from the ‘Demon Realm.’]
I watched them get ejected from the Gate, looking utterly bewildered.
They tried to enter again immediately, but...
“Set Ryan Spencer and Robert Garcia as unable to enter the Demon Realm.”
[Ryan Spencer has been barred from entering the ‘Demon Realm.’]
[Robert Garcia has been barred from entering the ‘Demon Realm.’]
These bastards.
What did they take me for—the Gate Owner above landlords, who are above even the Creator?
Keeping my eyes on their livestream as they stared in confusion after being ejected,
I called Director Jo Hyeongbin.
“Yes, Director Jo. It’s me.”
I paused for a moment, then said,
“Send the foreign Hunters waiting at Panmunjom in. Yes, I’ll take responsibility.”
Next was Lee Seonghyeok.
“Mr. Lee... no, Chairman. Yes, yes. Charge the Hunters we’re sending in now an entry tax at the border, and collect an admission fee in front of the Gate. Anyone who sneaks in without paying—set their allotted time low. An admission fee? Well, how much should we charge?”
I hadn’t thought about that.
“Since this is a showcase, let’s start cheap at ten thousand dollars. A permanent pass? Do you think I started doing business yesterday? Ah, you probably haven’t run a business before. Of course it’ll be a twenty-four-hour fee.”
Ten thousand dollars for twenty-four hours... That’s not that much, is it?
Hunters are all rich.
“Yes, and get the North Korean people living nearby involved in making money, too. Something like a construction-site cafeteria... no, I mean a restaurant.”
He didn’t know much about capitalism, so I’d have to explain it properly.
Foreign Hunters.
Let them come...
The people of North Korea were starving.