Chapter 309
Extra 1. After the Great War (3)
“Find the proxies.”
Up to here, there weren’t any special conditions, but the real thing was only about to start. As if the Fairy Dragon was also aware of that fact, she quietly kept her mouth shut and waited for his next words.
Looking at the Fairy Dragon, Kim Seon-Hyeok spoke.
“Find them. And bring them to me.”
[That’s too much! As it is now, there’s nothing I can do if they refuse!]
As soon as he finished talking, the Fairy Dragon raised an objection.
Perhaps it might be different if she had recovered all the powers she had in the past, but with her current self, the Fairy Dragon couldn’t handle the Transcendentals, let alone their proxies. So of course, her words weren’t incorrect.
“I know. It’ll probably be difficult.”
Kim Seon-Hyeok was well aware of that fact.
“Then drag things out and buy some time until I get there.”
So he offered a compromise. But this request was also unreasonable.
[That also won’t be easy…]
Before the Fairy Dragon even finished speaking, he spoke first and proposed a suitable compromise.
“If even that’s difficult, just find their locations.
This time, even the Fairy Dragon couldn’t reject it since it was a fairly reasonable proposal.
[If it’s that…]
“I’m not finished yet.”
Kim Seon-Hyeok had a cold expression on his face as he watched Geheimnis breathe a sigh of relief.
“From this moment on, find out the locations of all the proxies on the continent. If you miss even one, then your past glory or whatever will be no more.”
[That’s impossible! I don’t know how many proxies there may be, or where, or even what form they’ll be in!]
Just like the Fairy Dragon said, no one knew how many Transcendental Beings had their proxies in the world, waiting for the day they could return. In such a situation, it was by no means easy to find all the proxies when they didn’t know where they were and locate them.
“It’s not like I’m telling you to look into everyone on the continent. Since the proxies will be from the foreigners, there’re in fact far fewer people that you need to find.”
It sounded simple. Perhaps it would have been different if they were still in the time period where the monarchs of each country had perfect control of the foreigners, but now that their control had loosened after experiencing many upheavals, it wouldn’t be easy to fully figure out the whereabouts of the foreigners.
[If you were offended by my actions in the past, please punish me in a different way. This is too much.]
Geheimnis pleaded with a long face, but Kim Seon-Hyeok only snorted in response.
“Bluegon fought non-stop for days and days until the Leviathan turned into fish food, and Goldrake also sent back the Behemoth, a formidable enemy, back to the soil. Redvern is on an endless mission and is wandering the continent at this very moment.”
He ignored the Fairy Dragon’s plea as he used the subspecies who had paid the price for their own sins by subduing the monsters that had destroyed several kingdoms in the past as examples.
“Your mission is simply to find the proxies. I even said that Edda and I will deal with it once you do. If you’re not even going to do that, then what ‘paying for your crimes’ and what ‘regaining the glory of the past’?”
The Fairy Dragon shut her mouth. However, it was clear that she wasn’t happy with his words.
“Edda, am I asking too much? Am I making unreasonable demands right now?”
[If it had been easy in the first place, then it couldn’t be considered paying for her sins.]
When even the Dragon Lord announced that in a stern voice, the Fairy Dragon had no choice but to accept Kim Seon-Hyeok’s request.
[As you wish…]
“Oh, also.”
Kim Seon-Hyeok spoke again as he watched the Fairy Dragon’s wings drooping as she turned around, almost in despair.
“You have three years. After all, it won’t make any sense to look for them after they’ve all appeared on their own feet, on their own volition.”
After Redvern, Geheimnis left the Imperial Capital to carry out her mission. Personally, Kim Seon-Hyeok wanted to help them and leave to look for a different proxy, but he thought that the proxies may feel Edda’s presence and hide even deeper, so he decided to stay in the Imperial Capital.
Besides, he had his own business to deal with in the capital.
“This is the information you requested on the foreigners summoned to each country, sir.”
An agent from the Imperial intelligence department came and handed him the information he had been waiting for.
“The list provided by each country was sorted through and organized again by the Empire’s intelligence department and foreigners with advanced or special cla.s.ses were listed separately here, sir.”
Information had been sorted and culled, but there was still enough to be a full armful. It seemed like he would have to spend several days without doing much of anything else and sort through the doc.u.ments.
“If you need further information, we will bring in the people who were in charge of awakening the foreigners from each country to make up for the shortcoming, sir.”
“I don’t think I’ll need that right now. If it’s necessary, I’ll ask for it later.”
Kim Seon-Hyeok quietly shook his head at the agent’s question.
Recently, a quarter of the continent had been devastated by a rebellion raised by a Demon King from a foreign country and dozens of kingdoms had been embroiled in that war. Because of the events of that time, the way people perceived the foreigners wasn"t the greatest in places other than the Empire’s mainland.
And the existence of the proxies and the Transcendental Beings was enough to ignite the oppressed foreigners’ hatred.[a] There was no need to cause any unforeseen disturbance by leaking unfavorable information.
It wouldn’t be all that odd if things went wrong and there was a reckless ma.s.sacre of foreigners in the name of preventing future strife.
“Ugh, there’s a bit too much for me to look through it alone.”
However, that didn’t mean he could deal with all the problems by himself.
Jumping into the battlefield and fighting to the death was one thing, but sitting at his desk like this and looking through the doc.u.ments wasn’t something he was good at.[b]
He needed someone who could help him search for the proxy without any prejudice against the foreigners.
“Ophelia, please help me.”
In that respect, Ophelia was his best resource.
“For now, it would be better to exclude higher cla.s.s foreigners who originated from general cla.s.ses, including the knights and mages.”
Soon, she called close-mouthed men who were discreet to sort through the paperwork, and when she was not overseeing the government, she stayed by his side and directed the agents to work.
“Don’t overlook the foreigners just because they’re in the lower cla.s.ses. These are the people who hadn’t been a.s.signed a decent ability evaluation, so if there is anyone who had really hidden their ident.i.ty, then those are the ones that should be looked at more carefully.”
The Indomitable Grand Duke, who could be said to be the pride of the Empire right now, had been a foreigner from a lower cla.s.s. Cho Min-Young, a newly emerged influential figure, was also from a lower cla.s.s. There’s no law saying that someone like them wouldn’t pop up again elsewhere.
However, despite Ophelia’s advice and searching through thousands of doc.u.ments, it wasn’t easy to find the person they believed to be the proxy.
“While each country hadn’t neglected to manage and supervise the middle and upper cla.s.ses until the very end, there are too many foreigners in the lower cla.s.ses where it’s difficult to grasp where they may be, sir. It may say they were killed in action, but we don’t know if they were truly killed or he had escaped from the disorder, sir.”
War. That d.a.m.ned war was the problem.
The war against the Demon King, the war against the Central Kingdom Alliance, and the monsters’ rampage that had occurred before the aftereffects of those two wars had even resolved. There were too many people who disappeared in the middle of those three wars.
Even if they found a suspicious person by chance, their path was too obscure and it was difficult to investigate it further. For Kim Seon-Hyeok, this was truly exhausting.
“For now, let’s continue to cla.s.sify. It doesn"t matter if they’re dead or missing.”
The agents went through the sorted doc.u.ments over and over again without complaining and examined the checked doc.u.ments over and over again.
There were more than forty people who had been selected after Kim Seon-Hyeok and his aides had discussed it together.
“They’re all missing.”
If there was a problem, it was that their trails were obscure.
“Well, I’m not the one looking for them anyway.”
Kim Seon-Hyeok informed Geheimnis, who should be flying around the continent by now, about them through Edda.
[I do not know how effective this method will be.]
While Edda was a bit skeptical of his method, she quietly did whatever he asked her to since she didn’t particularly have a way either.
“Hm.”
Kim Seon-Hyeok also knew that it wouldn’t be easy to find the proxies in such an unsophisticated method.
That was why while Geheimnis was searching for the missing foreigners, he decided to gather all the foreigners of the Empire at the Imperial Victory Day.
“Please reconsider, Your Grace.”
Many va.s.sals, whether they were powerful or not, objected to his decision. Their reason was that should thousands of foreigners, who could be called superhumans, were to be invited to the Capital and something were to go wrong, then something terrible may happen.
“Something terrible…”
It had been a while since Kim Seon-Hyeok partic.i.p.ated in a meeting. He grinned as he looked at the va.s.sals who were earnestly begging him. At the same time, the sound of flapping wings could be heard outside the meeting call.
“O, outside!”
Started by the untimely commotion, the n.o.bles looked out the window and froze.
“D, dragon!”
A huge dragon with brilliant platinum scales looked down at them.
“I promise that what you are worried about will never happen, my good sirs.”
He didn’t say it particularly strongly, but all the n.o.bles shut their mouths at Kim Seon-Hyeok’s unusually piercing voice.
It seemed like once the war was over, they had forgotten about it, but now recalled the living legend of the Empire.
“Then I’ll take it as there being no disagreements.”
Looking at them, Ophelia declared the end of the meeting and the n.o.bles couldn’t disagree anymore.
***
While Geheimnis was asking around about the whereabouts of the missing foreigners based on the given information, the Imperial Victory Day was approaching quickly.
Territories that had once been a kingdom, but now were va.s.sals of the Empire, sent envoys to the Empire, and of course, foreigners were a part of the envoy.
Unfortunately, the proxy Kim Seon-Hyeok was looking for wasn’t there.
“The number of people doesn"t match. Wonder if anyone suffered in that time span.”
After checking the list of delegations who had arrived in the Imperial Capital several times, Kim Seon-Hyeok frowned when the number of people didn’t match the list he had been given a report on.
But he soon smiled brightly as if he had never frowned.
“I think I found four for now.”
Of the four foreigners who had promised to be there, but ultimately refused to travel to the Imperial Capital under the pretext of being sick, there had to be at least one who was a proxy. No, maybe all four were the proxies.