Past Life Returner - Chapter 250

The guy looked around and opened his mouth after hesitating. He had finally realized that the majority of squad captains and vice-captains had died.

He blustered, “You will need a loyal retainer to rule over twenty thousand guild members. I will do anything you want, and I will fight for you to the death. I will remain the same even after the Stage of Advent ends.”

Zing. Ziiiing-!

His flesh was torn into pieces as soon as the streak of lightning pierced his face. His headless body then fell over. Those who had protested against the Spirit had likely died the same way. However, the one who was currently in charge of their lives was me, not the Spirit.

I commented coldly, “I asked him to tell me the reason why I should keep him alive, but why was he bullshitting me? Hey, you with the bobbed hair.”

The woman with the bobbed hair raised her eyes while still keeping her head down. Big, horizontal lines appeared on her forehead, and her eyes flickered, clearly showing she was afraid of her fate.

She sputtered, “I… I… I know a lot about the Sky Guild. I… I am overseeing the general affairs department…”

I pointed to one side, and she crawled hurriedly in that direction as she had quickly grasped what I had meant. Then, she crossed both arms on her chest which seemed to show her appreciation, but in reality, she must have been trying to press her heart down which was thumping crazily. She couldn’t afford to thank me.

The moment when I heard the bobbed hair’s harsh breathing, one guy mentioned the North.

“I was one of the high-ranked members of the Satellite Squad. We…we were usually the ones who participated the most in the trade with North out of all of the attack squads. So, w…we… no, I know the people of the North very well. I have been there often when things needed to be negotiated.”

He basically was implying that he was the envoy. Naturally, I had noticed that the land had been divided into two forces: the north and the south. It was highly likely that the northern forces had originated from those that had been left by Shin Kyung-Ah. According to this guy, the north was controlled by one powerful man.

There was nothing to put off.

I ordered coldly, “Go and tell him that I want to see him. Tell him I’ll go if he doesn’t come. However, make it clear that it will be war if that happens.”

I sent this guy, Kim Yoon-Cheol, with one attack squad to meet the guy who claimed to be the King of the North.

***

Everyone, including Yoon-Cheol, Sang-Min and his combatants, stayed silent for a long time after they crossed the border. They did their best to create as large of a distance as they could from the scene of slaughter, which was terrible and horrifying.

Someone finally spoke up when they reached a ghost town.

“Let’s take a break.”

Yoon-Cheol looked around for a place to rest, and traces of fear could still be heard in his voice.

“Okay,” Sang-Min replied.

Before Odin had appeared, there was a huge difference between their positions such that Sang-Min would have even imagined that he could sit beside Yoon-Cheol. After all, Yoon-Cheol ran the Satellite Squad, one of the ten top-ranked attack teams, while Sang-Min was in the lowest-ranked group.

However, that was no longer important. They had simply been big fish in a little pond. The Sky Guild was a tiny pond, and the fish there had been competing to see which one was bigger. Now they knew that the real world was out of the pond. The problem was that they had provoked the terribly scary giant there, and many of them had been crushed to death.

A thousand? Two thousand? How many had died..?

Yoon-Cheol sat down, recalling the burning street full of corpses. It had been three hours since he left, but he still trembled. Sang-Min sat next to him and said as he handed him a water bottle, “I’m Choi Sang-Min.”

“I’m Kim Yoon-Cheol.”

Sang-Min responded, “I know. You must not remember me, Captain Kim.”

“…I’m sorry about the past.”

There was a reason why Yoon-Cheol had to apologize first. Although he couldn’t recall any particular incident, he was sure that Sang-Min had a bad impression of him. That was what the guild was like. In particular, Yoon-Cheol had handled a lot of money and supplies for the Satellite Squad, so he had often argued with people from other attack groups. He had only verbally fought against those from the top ten squads, but he had used violence against those from other groups.

Yoon-Cheol sensed an ominous feeling from Sang-Min’s eyes.

He said meekly, “I hope you cut me some slack today. I only have one life left. If I owe something to you, then I will… I will pay it later.”

Sang-Min replied stonily, “Okay, but it has been a tough day for everyone. I’m not going to mention what you’ve done to us in the past, but today, you guys in the top ten squads almost killed us all. Me and all my squad members.”

Sang-Min’s crew was waiting for him to give them the order. When Sang-Min pointed at Yoon-Cheol with his chin, his squad members flocked in.

Slam! Slam! Slam!

Yoon-Cheol was beaten until he was close to death, but they ultimately kept him alive. He had simply been knocked out. The next day, he came to his senses in a rattling luggage compartment.

Sang-Min remarked gloomily, “Be thankful to Odin.”

The top ten squads, including the Satellite Squad, had been brought down together. There were more than three hundred survivors from those squads, but they would never regain their reputation or previous glory. Therefore, Sang-Min would have killed Yoon-Cheol if Odin hadn’t left the latter with a task at hand. Sang-Min and his team had a deep grudge against the former captain of the Satellite Squad, so Yoon-Cheol had to keep studying their faces to see if they would kill him or not.

Time flew by. Yoon-Cheol and Sang-Min’s squad steadily advanced by killing monsters that appeared. The border from District 91 to 100 was just around the corner. One Satellite Squad member had been deployed as an occupation force in each zone with people from other squads, so Yoon-Cheol expected conflicts to arise between Sang-Min’s team and them. Therefore, he came forward when some of the troops approached in groups to prevent any possible problems.

He announced, “I’m Kim Yoon-Cheol, the head of the Satellite Squad. Many of you must know my face. Yes, you look familiar.”

Yoon-Cheol recognized one man in the group.

The other man saluted. “Yes, sir! Are you here for a trade?”

Instead of answering, Yoon-Cheol ordered them to bring their commander to him immediately. The leader of the occupation force sprang out not because of Yoon-Cheol’s status, but because he received a report that Yoon-Cheol was acting strangely. The leader also thought something looked off. The luggage compartment smelled like dried fish, not trade goods. Also, the guys who came with the Satellite Squad captain weren’t from Yoon-Cheol’s group. The commander had never seen the crest that Sang-Min’s group was wearing. Their armaments looked to be of poor quality as well. If it was months before when the battle against Kciphos Corps happened, such a sloppy attack force couldn’t have reached this area.

“Where did you leave your crew, and what kind of jerks are they? I don’t know what kind of instructions you received, but whoa-”

The commander giggled, but his smile disappeared when he noticed that Yoon-Cheol’s serious expression had remained unchanged. Soon, Yoon-Cheol began to tell him a shocking story that the entire Sky Guild, all twenty thousand people, had been brutalized and conquered by a single person. The commander couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t even imagine it.

“Are you serious? Are they… all dead? Even Captain Kang?” he sputtered.

Yoon-Cheol replied bluntly, “He died first. He is certainly not one of the survivors. We were all in a hurry just to run away, so I don’t know what happened next.”

The commander shook his head. “How could that happen? Do you think this makes…sense? Do you want me to believe this? Captain Kang is so strong. He is different from people like you.”

Yoon-Cheol shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe it or not. Anyway, you should help us. We came here straight without even sleeping. I want you to escort us to the mainland of the North.”

“What brings you to the North?” the commander asked.

Yoon-Cheol said, “Odin wants to meet the king of the North. He told me to bring the king back with me. Haha. Poor thing. That guy will die soon whether he comes with us or not.”

***

“Odin also said if he doesn’t comply, he will come here himself and start a war.”

Bang!

An overwhelming crashing sound rang out, but Yoon-Cheol only blinked reflexively without showing signs of being scared. He was in the center of the enemy’s territory, so logically he shouldn’t have provoked their anger unnecessarily and caused innocent people to die.

I tried so hard to survive that bloodbath. This is nothing compared to that.

Yoon-Cheol lowered his head and added as the king of the north stared at him sharply, “That’s all he said. We don’t understand his intentions either. Please understand.”

Then, the king hit something else, causing another ruckus to ring out. Yoon-Cheol only flinched and still displayed no signs of bewilderment. The king stood up, and the energy that his helmet had been giving off suddenly vanished. The other man took off the helmet and told Yoon-Cheol to raise his head. Yoon-Cheol had faced the king several times before, but this was the first time he had seen the latter’s face in person.

Huh? This… this guy.

Yoon-Cheol’s eyes widened because it was unexpected. He felt a tingling sensation as if he had been hit hard in the back of his head. The king of the north was a famous person who every Korean knew. There were rumors that he was deeply related to the Ilsung Group, but he was more than that. He now knew there was the reason why the Northern Kingdom was named Ilsung and used the group’s logo as their crest.

The king was Lee Tae-Han, the young head of the Ilsung Group! He was the guy who had taken control of the group by pushing out his sister, the former chairman. Apparently, he had also come into the Stage of Advent. Even the head of the conglomerate couldn’t refuse the System’s call.

“Kim Yoon-Cheol, I know you ran a coffee shop in Bupyeong[1].”

Yoon-Cheol sputtered, “How… how did you know that?”

Lee Tae-Han smirked. “Do you think only the Sky Guild has placed spies here? We did the same to you guys. Haha. We have watched people like you closely. Look.”

The king flicked his finger.

“This world is not permanent. We are supposed to go back to reality at any time, and I’m confident that the majority of those who succeeded in making a leap forward in Act One, like you and me, will be able to return safely.”

Yoon-Cheol weakly said, “Yes, I think so too, but…”

“But have you thought about this? Is the outside safe? Well, yes for me, but not for people like you. Unfortunately, martial law was proclaimed outside. You will be drafted into the military. It would be nice to devote yourself to the country, but there is a huge difference between coercion and free will.”

Yoon-Cheol swallowed the saliva that filled his mouth.

Lee Tae-Han continued, “As you know, people like me don’t have to respond to the call of the state. I also have the social power to make sure the people around me don’t suffer that either. This includes those who help me. As one of the owners of our Ilsung Group, you will lead the world stage as a leading player in the upcoming new world. So…”

Yoon-Cheol shrieked involuntarily, “No… no! I can’t. I shouldn’t! I don’t want to go to hell.”

“What?” Lee Tae-Han frowned.

“You can say that because you haven’t witnessed or experienced Odin’s power.”

Yoon-Cheol’s face had turned ghastly pale, but he continued to explain.

“Most of the captains in the top ten squads were either decapitated or had their faces exploded in an instant. He crushed a thousand to two thousand lives with his hands alone. You won’t be able to believe this, but you have to. If you are going to make that ridiculous offer…”

Lee Tae-Han burst out laughing. “Hahahahaha! You are misunderstanding me. You think I am trying to fight against Odin?”

“What?”

“You aren’t the first person who has brought news from the south. There’s someone who arrived here first. Someone who has helped me for a long time, and who is in a higher position than you.”

“Who is that?” Yoon-Cheol asked.

Lee Tae-Han smirked. “Let’s talk about that later. Anyway, I want you to help me after you go back to your guild. Since most of the captains and vice-captains are dead, you are going to be a great help to me.”

Yoon-Cheol frowned slightly. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Lee Tae-Han chuckled. “Get ready. Let’s go see Odin together. Yes, I will hand over all my power to Odin. That’s not a big deal.”

Yoon-Cheol stared at the king’s hands.

“Then, will you help me after that? I’ll promise you something Odin can’t give anywhere, neither here nor outside.”

The king added as Yoon-Cheol hesitated.

“Odin may not be interested in you at all, but I am. Be loyal to me. Ilsung Group and I will guarantee you and your family’s future.”

1. A district in Incheon, South Korea. ☜