Translator: miraclerifle
[I’m giving up restoring now. Please don’t look for me.]
Ju-Heon tilted his head in confusion after seeing the message from Yoo Jaeha.
He checked the number again and it was definitely Yoo Jaeha’s number. He read it again to make sure and it clearly said he was giving up restoring.
That wasn't all.
[Please deposit my severance pay into my account.]
[PS. I will report you to the Labor Administration if you don't.]
‘Is he crazy?’
The person next to him looked concerned after seeing the confused expression on Ju-Heon's face.
“Umm, Mr. Ju-Heon, is something wrong?”
It was Irene.
He was currently on a date with Irene. Well, this date was just sitting in a cafe together and going through files.
Ju-Heon was preparing to enter the Monarch's Tomb. Irene seemed to be going through some Pandora audit-related files.
Ju-Heon didn't ask what she was doing, but she seemed to be part of Pandora’s leadership like her brother for some reason.
‘Did she say it was the audit team?’
That team was responsible for observing all artifact-related businesses and all artifact users.
‘How scary.’
The Monarch of Destitution was on Pandora’s Audit Team.
‘Pandora is okay, right?’
Ju-Heon was seriously concerned about Pandora’s future.
Irene was intelligent and an amazing individual, plus she seemed to be thoroughly doing her job with a great sense of responsibility, however......
‘D, don't get on the Monarch of Destitution's nerves!’
‘Pandora might be completely destroyed if we make a wrong move!’
‘We're going bankrupt if we are even missing a cent!’
‘F, fuck, I spilled some coffee on the Monarch of Destitution!’
‘Are you crazy?! Eight generations of your family will be cursed!
Pandora was in quite the anxious situation because of her.
That wasn't all.
‘George has gotten obsessed with artifacts now.’
Irene’s older brother, George Holten.
He hated artifacts but liked the artifacts Ju-Heon gave him.
It was especially true of the artifact from the Tower of Pride.
He had given George the Louis XIV artifact after forcing it to vacate its room since it could not pay the rent and George seemed to be using it to run a dictatorship(?) in Pandora.
‘Seo Ju-Heon, you’re the best. I've been able to beat up the thorns in my eyes thanks to you!’
He had not given that artifact to George for that reason.
‘As expected, the Monarch of Torture is starting to show his true colors...’
Pandora was currently shaking in fear at George and Irene, the Holten siblings’ ruling with fear.
And now...
Ju-Heon was currently trying to figure out how to drag the enemies away from the Monarch’s Tomb which would appear soon.
The enemies were much more thorough than he had expected.
‘It would be difficult to lure them away if it continues like this.’
Was there no way to use the Monarch of Fate even more? He had been thinking about that when he received the text from Jaeha.
“This is a text from Mr. Jaeha, right?”
Irene was shocked after seeing the message from Yoo Jaeha.
She couldn't believe that he suddenly said he was giving up on restoring artifacts. It also said that he was giving up on painting.
How could that Yoo Jaeha say these things?
“Do you think something happened to Mr. Jaeha?”
However, Ju-Heon just nonchalantly threw his phone aside.
“That son of a bitch is just upset.”
At that moment...
[Please don't look for me. I'm giving up on restoration and painting.]
Julian, who had received the same message as Ju-Heon, started to frown.
“Is he doing this because he wants attention? What could make him want to send me a text message?”
Seol-A, who had also received the same text message, found it odd.
“No. He’s not the type to seek attention like this......”
‘Plus, he would rather die than being unable to ever paint anymore.’
That was why this was weird. But Seol-A just started to laugh.
“Well, I'm sure he’s joking. He’s doing it now since he won't be able to do so when we go to the Monarch’s Tomb...”
But Julian had a serious expression on his face.
“Vice Captain-nim?”
Julian stared at the message a little longer before turning around.
“This son of a bitch has a screw loose in his head.”
“Vice Captain-nim!”
Julian growled and barged into Yoo Jaeha's workroom.
“Hey! Scammer!”
"Vice Captain-nim! Please don't fight again...!”
“How dare a damn restorer talk about betraying the Captain and running away?!”
He was thinking that Yoo Jaeha was scheming as he used to do during his time as the Monarch of Fraud.
And once he opened the innermost door...
“?!”
He found a hanging corpse in the room. They were shocked because the corpse looked to be similar in build to Yoo Jaeha at first glance.
However...
“Ho. Unbelievable. Does he think we would be tricked again...”
It was at that moment.
“You idiot! Don’t come closer!”
“!”
Julian and Seol-A screamed after hearing a familiar voice.
They were then gobbled up by the serpent just like Yoo Jaeha.
The corpse they had thought was Yoo Jaeha had turned into the serpent.
The silver-haired young man, Ilya, then appeared.
“Good. I caught two more.”
There was a serpent that was large enough to fill the room squirming in the room behind him.
[The Boa Constrictor that swallowed an Elephant (B-Grade: Rare-Grade - Possession Artifact)]
This was simply the boa constrictor from the Little Prince. It was a scary snake that gobbled up everything, but everybody other than the user would see a hat or some other regular item instead of the serpent.
For example, his subordinate was seeing a hat on the ground instead of the serpent.
As for Ilya, he saw a serpent running wild.
[$#&! @#] [#$#&*!]
Julian and Seol-A seemed to be causing a ruckus inside the serpent.
"Alright, all that is left is that female doctor and Seo Ju-Heon.”
He left his subordinates here and started to move.
“I’ll leave these bastards here to make sure to modify their memories completely.”
“Yes sir!”
Ilya sneered as he walked out of the room.
“I was looking forward to it since they were said to be Monarchs. Retards.”
Even that infamous Seo Ju-Heon’s excavation team didn't seem to be much.
While that was going on...
“Sigh! You idiots! How can you guys end up gobbled up as well?!”
Yoo Jaeha was in despair inside the serpent’s stomach.
“The Captain-nim is going to kill us!”
That was right. Yoo Jaeha, who had been swallowed earlier, was inside the serpent’s stomach.
But he despaired once Seol-A and Julian ended up inside as well.
He grabbed Julian by the collar.
“Can you even call yourself a Monarch? Are you a retard? How can you fall for such a trap?!”
“I should be asking you the same......”
“Sigh, whatever. Don’t call yourself Zhuge Kongming anymore! It’s embarrassing!”
“Ho. Hey. I was swallowed on purpose.”
“What?”
“I let it happen to figure out what was going on.”
“Bullshit. That socially awkward son of a bitch got you too.”
“......”
He started to frown.
That was right.
They knew who had abducted them.
There was only one person who could do this.
‘Ilya Volgof.’
He had not expected to meet that twisted bastard like this.
“We're lucky we met him before going to the Monarch's Tomb. We'll be able to use the Monarch of Fate if we drag this bastard in.”
Yoo Jaeha didn’t sound too convinced after hearing what Julian said.
“Who knows? It'll be difficult to drag him in.”
“What? Why?”
“Did you forget about his personality? He’s not going to be close to us even if we use that Raven’s Tears. In fact, he would probably betray us.”
It was sad that Julian couldn't disagree.
Ilya never had any bonds with his team members.
“But I still didn't expect him to come crawling out like this......”
“It looks like he already has a spell book artifact as well.”
Dan mainly used warriors and physical strength related artifacts but Ilya was the complete opposite.
He mainly used spell books from people like Merlin, Medea, Aleister Crowley, and Nicolas Flamel.
He had an amazing level of Fit with those kinds of artifacts because he used a devil-type artifact.
As for the artifact he was using right now......
“Solomon's Lemegeton.”
“What? Leme whatawhat?”
Lemegeton was the name of the spell book King Solomon was said to have used in the Bible.
“You can just consider it a spell book that allows him to handle 72 devils.”
The reason Monarchs like them were so easily captured was probably because of that artifact. Even Monarchs found it difficult to handle spell book-type artifacts.
"Anyway, I don’t like him.”
That made Julian sneer.
“Well, I don’t like you.”
“What?”
“You hid the information about Un-known and never told us anything regarding TKBM's secrets. You also forgot how you got revenge against TKBM. Maybe you never got any revenge against TKBM. To be honest with you, I still can't trust you.”
“Damn it, I told you that I didn't remember! I swear!”
“Hmph.”
“Aigoo, Captain-nim, where are you? I’m being treated unfairly! Sob sob sob.”
He truly felt wronged.
He had told Ju-Heon everything he remembered.
“Anyway, that twisted bastard is going to modify our memories now! We won’t even recognize the Captain-nim!”
“Well, we would be lucky if all he does is modify our memories based on his personality.”
“Anyway, it's a difficult artifact for even the Captain-nim to deal with! What are you going to do?!”
“So who told you to get captured?”
"What? You were captured too, you son of a bitch!”
“My goodness, please stop fighting! We need to get out of here first! We need to inform the Captain-nim about this!”
As Seol-A used an artifact to try and escape...
Boom!
Gastric juice started to pour out from the serpent’s body.
“Kyaaaa!”
“Aaaaaah!”
While they were struggling with that...
Ding.
[Seo Ju-Heon, I have something to tell only you in private.]
Ju-Heon tilted his head after seeing the message.
That made Chloe, who had stripped Ju-Heon and was examining him, to ask a question.
"What is it? What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
Ju-Heon found it quite odd.
Kongming would never send him a message like this. They weren’t that close.
Something was suspicious. Getting this message after that message from Jaeha... something must have happened to them.
However...
Ding.
Ju-Heon just deleted another message he got from Julian. Chloe scoffed while looking at it next to him.
“Isn’t that from the Vice Captain-nim? Is it okay to delete it?”
“It’s upsetting. I don’t need it.”
It was at that moment.
“Ow! What the fuck is wrong with him? He ignored my messages!”
Ilya's team members who were keeping an eye on Ju-Heon's group with a mirror artifact grabbed the back of their necks.
They then shouted to Julian who was inside the serpent’s belly.
“Hey! I thought you are the Vice Captain! Why is your relationship so bad?!”
Julian started to laugh from inside the snake. He couldn't look at Seol-A because their clothes had melted away from the gastric juice, but...
“I guess we’ll be able to get out of here soon.”
There was no way that Seo Ju-Heon, that smart bastard, would have not realized something was off. He would have realized something was wrong and help them out.
‘It’s a bit shameful to get Seo Ju-Heon's help, but......’
“Seo Ju-Heon treats us terribly.”
“That’s right. Do you know how much I suffer under the Captain-nim? We need to disappear every so often so that he understands how important we are.”
“U, umm......”
"What?! Seol-A, you’re angry too, aren’t you?! The Captain-nim only went on a date with Irene!”
That seemed to be the reason the two Monarchs were chilling inside the snake’s stomach right now.
Ilya’s team members decided to change their plans now that things were like this.
‘We just need to drag Seo Ju-Heon out. Captain Ilya knows Seo Ju-Heon's weakness.’
As they had that thought...
Ding.
“What the?”
Ju-Heon had received a call from Julian's number.
“Hello....”
[Come out to the intersection if you don't want your team members dying.]
It was an unfamiliar man’s voice.
Chloe must have overheard as she started to frown.
Ju-Heon had ignored Julian's messages but this seemed quite serious. The message she got from Yoo Jaeha earlier seemed suspicious as well.
“Did they get caught in an enemy’s trap?’
“Captain, we probably should go...!”
But Ju-Heon stopped her.
And then...
“Umm, I don’t know who you are, but deliver this message to my subordinates whom you have captured.”
[What?]
“You’re all fired. You are all insincere and have neglected your duties. Oh, and ask them if they’ve completed their tasks before playing around like this.”
Click.
[......?!]
The enemies as well as the scheming Monarchs were all flabbergasted at the suddenly ended call.
‘W, wait, that’s not right!’