Chapter 4: Survivor
Leon Dragonia Lionheart, the third survivor of the Black Gate in thirteen years, has left the Hunter’s Association and the government in a dilemma.
Survivors are extremely rare otherworlders from beyond the Gate. They live in different cultures and environments, some of which are oppressive or hostile to Earthlings.
There are war heroes sealed in ice walls, and vampires who live for eternity and also descendants of dragons and dwarves who dug underground tunnels and defended fortresses.
Not all of them were easy opponents, and each had their own stubbornness, but they tended to be content to accept that their world had ended and to be treated as survivors.
Governments’ policies toward survivors are the same.
Bring them in somehow. If they can’t join the government, resettle them within the country.
As survivors of a destroyed world, many were highly skilled in combat, and all had something special to offer.
Of course, not all survivors were accepted. Some of the survivors had values that were unacceptable to the current human civilization.
The newest survivor among them, Leon was the type of person they didn’t really know how to deal with.
“What do we do, do we learn court etiquette or something?”
“Uhm…I’ve seen some historical dramas…….”
Kim Jin-soo and Han Ha-ri, looked at the survivor and benefactor of their rescue with a confused expression.
Leon Dragonia Lionheart claims to be the king of the Lionheart Kingdom and an agent of the gods, a demigod, and an honorable knight.
He appears to be a strictly hierarchical figure, as he speaks and acts like a noble.
He refuses to eat seolleongtang and kimchi, saying they are commoners’ food. Although he was briefly interested in jjajangmyeon he refused to eat it, saying it was a lowly dish with ugly soup splashes.
They suggested chicken, but he also refused because it’s eaten with the hands.
“He’s like a real noble….”
“Yeah.”
He rejected Earth’s food as the food of the common people just by looking at it. As a result, food had to be shipped in from the finest restaurants in the vicinity.
“Ha-ri… you go first.”
“Me? I don’t know etiquette.”
“But he seems to like you a bit. He even complimented you.”
“All he said was that I was brave…!”
Han Ha-ri was brought in to deal with this demanding survivor because of the favorable attention she received from Leon in the gate.
“Ugh…….”
Ha-ri cautiously approaches Leon, who is gracefully slicing the finest T-bone steak and sipping a ’93 red wine.
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty…May I join you while you dine?”
“The swordsman of the hour, sit down.”
After not being immediately ejected Ha-ri sighed softly and clenched her fist against the magic mirror for a moment.
She was sure her colleagues on the other side were cheering her on.
“Your Majesty, how do you like your meal?”
“Not bad. The chef put a lot of work into it.”
“I’m so glad you liked it. Ah…We committed a mortal sin by serving you dishonorable food…”
“I think you misunderstood.”
“What I’ve been pointing out to you is the way you’ve been treating this king.”
“And what does Your Majesty mean by that?”
“When royalty meets with representatives of other nations, they should be treated with dignity. It’s part of your nation’s character.”
“Is that so?”
“Commoners eat as much food as they can carry. They are not so spoiled as to withhold food on the battlefield. But when you stand in front of your men, representing the will of the state, you are expected to show them the proper honor.”
In other words, the food wasn’t the reason for his behavior.
Ha-ri honestly wonders if he shouldn’t just eat it, but when she thought about it he was right, their country wouldn’t serve McDonald’s Big Macs to a visiting head of state.
“I see. I apologize for my rudeness due to my short learning curve………….”
“Never mind. By the way, what was your name again?”
“Yes, yes…Han Ha-ri.”
Leon watched as Ha-ri mimicked the clumsy historical drama’s behavior and didn’t tell her to relax. After all, royalty doesn’t take kindly to commoners.
“I have heard stories of this world.”
“Ah….”
Despite his frustration with the investigators, Leon was diligent in gathering information about this world.
The investigators tried to explain as much as they could about the planet and its situation, so Leon had some information.
“Apparently, this place is under some sort of invasion. Gates also appeared in my world too.”
“Is that so?”
Gates were a common thread in the survivors’ eyewitness accounts.
“Demons, those particular creatures, also haunt this planet, don’t they?”
“Yes… they do.”
Ha-ri had one mission. First, to get him into the Hunter’s Association, which is part of the Korean government and the next best thing was to somehow integrate him into this country called Korea.
The appearance of a survivor always attracts the attention of governments and they’ll do anything to integrate him into their ranks.
In the 21st century, scouting for survivors is at the center of international espionage.
Leon’s value as a survivor goes without saying and his combat prowess was already proven by several Association employees.
The problem is his insistence on a high status system and his idiosyncrasies, but he’s not that incomprehensible when you actually talk to him. Above all──
‘This person has a strong sense of their own worth.’
Adopting a high-pressure posture with a stranger from another world is a sign of confidence.
Among the survivors, there was a tendency to bend to a certain extent to deal with the nations.
They can’t defeat a nation as a single person and they know instinctively that there’s no good in turning the nation against them. But this man, Leon, is the epitome of pride and self-respect.
He boldly demands what he doesn’t know and insists that what he needs be given to him immediately and since he’s the last of the noble class, so he’s bound to be imposing in his dealings with everyone.
“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, but if it pleases you, the government of the Republic of Korea will accept your position.”
“What does that mean?”
Ha-ri slowly laid out the options for him.
Become a hunter for the country or settle down and find another path.
Either way, the Society would provide support for the survivor, especially if he became a Hunter for the country, emphasizing that the support would be enormous.
The higher-ups in the organization don’t know about Leon’s value yet but once they do, they’ll be happy to bring him to Korea.
“This place is being invaded by evil races and as a honorable knight I must fight back. As long as I am settled in your world, I’m obligated to go to the battlefield.”
“I see!”
Ha-ri’s face brightened. He had more sense than I thought, didn’t he?
Many of the survivors had refused to enter the gates, either because of the demons or because of the gate. They said they had no obligation to get involved in another world’s fight. Yet they took every cent of the survivor resettlement money they could get.
At least this one didn’t seem to be that unscrupulous.
“Then, if you join our hunter’s association──”
“No. A king cannot enter in the army of another king.”
Huh? What does that mean?
Ha-ri looked puzzled.
In his own mind, Leon didn’t think it was in his best interest to join the government. But if he was saying that, didn’t that mean he would also refuse to join another Hunter’s Guild?
“I’ll establish a new Order of Knights in this world.”
Ha-ri could only nod at Leon’s ambitious declaration.
* * * *
“This is a weird situation.”
Synthesizing Leon’s story, Kim Jin-soo scratched his head. Still, Ha-ri had a positive assessment.
“Not bad, isn’t it? At least he’s willing to fight.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t look like he’s trying to leave the country.”
Survivors in Leon’s condition are rare, even among the entire survivor population.
He’s strong enough and willing to enter the gates, and he’s not hostile to the current world.
Being a human in a caste system is a flaw, but it doesn’t mean he’s acting out of character.
“Still, I was appalled when he said he had to meet the president.”
“Uh… You didn’t agree, did you?”
“I didn’t want to cross swords with him since he can put his sword into subspace and summon it at will.”
“He doesn’t even have a subspace pouch, so how does that work?”
If some random survivor swings a sword at the President… it would be a national disaster.
“What are you going to do?”
“We’ll support him as much as we can.”
That was the conclusion of the association’s meeting.
Buy his favor and help him settle in the country as much as possible. For them, it was worth it, even if it meant an astronomical budget.
“In Korea, the government is too weak…….”
“It’s all because of the big guilds who only care about money and power.”
Korea’s deep-rooted ills were still making the country sick.
“By the way, before we entered the Black Gate, hasn’t there been a Scarlet Gate recently, up in the Hunan Plains?”
“Yes, the Firebird Guild picked it up.”
“I hope it goes well…if something happens over there, we’re in trouble.”
After the Cataclysm, the world was ravaged by dungeon breaks everywhere.
The problem with dungeon breaks isn’t just the monsters spilling out. When the cracks in the gates opened, they let out “miasma” along with the monsters.
Miasma is a deadly poison that erodes space and curses the land. The land eroded by miasma had to be cleaned up for at least a year before crops could be planted.
In other words, a dungeon break in the Granary was deadly enough to make or break the year’s farming.
“The Firebird Guild is still home to S-class Hunter Lee Yong-wan, so even a Scarlet Gate isn’t that difficult.”
“……Yes.”
Chief Kim Jin-soo wondered if he should tell Han Ha-ri about the intelligence he had received from the National Intelligence Service.
The Firebird Guild had been acting suspiciously lately, ever since they had asked the government for an exemption and been denied.
-Beep!
“Huh?”
At that moment, Kim Jin-soo and Han Ha-ri’s phones vibrated with the same timing. An ominous siren sounded, “Beep, beep, beep.”
[Hunan Plain Gate Dungeon Break, all active employees stand by.]
Seeing the message, the two of them shouted in unison.
“”Firebird Guild, you bastards!!””
* * * * *
They must have thought that being behind the magic mirror wouldn’t make them inaudible, but Leon had a clear grasp of the sound from beyond.
His blessed body was already beyond human flesh and he was a living saint. In other words, a demigod.
‘They’re in trouble.’
It wasn’t the Dungeon Break that was the problem; it was the fact that the Dungeon Break happened in the Granary.
Apparently, when a dungeon break occurs, the land becomes contaminated and crops don’t grow…….
‘I guess they’re not here.’
With that, Leon was convinced that ‘it’ was absent from the earth.
‘Bad harvests’ and ‘bad years’ are a sure sign.
’Demera, are you good?’
He asked the ‘goddess’ hidden in my heart.
────
She gladly responded to the agent of the pantheon.
