4.

It was a response that no one had anticipated.

Not Kenji, not the many kings who had sided with him, not the users, not the top rankers.

From the start, they had believed there was no justification to stop the rallies. If anyone tried to forcibly block them, it would be nothing more than naked coercion by brute force.

It couldn’t be helped.

Their reasons had been perfect.

Millions of adventurers across the continent had presented evidence with one voice, insisting only that it was right to at least hear out the Heavenly King, who was being mistakenly imprisoned as the Demon King, and sort out right from wrong.

From that standpoint, Han Simin’s behavior—flatly refusing any dialogue when no concrete evidence had emerged to distinguish between the Heavenly King and the Demon King—was suspicious enough.

Thus, they had believed it would work.

Their actions might have been somewhat risky and aggressive.

But that only meant their moves had been calculated with equal care and planning.

They had even accounted for the possibility that the other side might respond just as violently.

Naturally.

In the end, a cornered rat—or rather, a cornered tiger—would devour the rats.

Why would it bother to talk?

No matter how many rats there were, a tiger that had decided not to negotiate would find it a hundred times easier to simply stomp them flat and erase the pests that annoyed it than to sit down and bargain.

If the tiger responded that way, that was when the real Main Quest was supposed to begin.

That had been the plan.

However, the direction of the Main Quest, which was being broadcast live across the entire continent through Han Simin’s stream, veered off in a completely unexpected way.

The spark of conflict they’d ignited veered off in a completely unexpected direction.

They had correctly predicted that the Empire would deploy troops and make an example of a few.

“...This is impossible.”

The relaxed expression vanished from Kenji’s face as he watched the stream.

He had been tearing into popcorn while carefully sketching out the coming ant rebellion, the expansion of their influence, the NPCs who would side with them, the internal fractures that would arise, and the collapse of Han Simin’s faction as he exploited those cracks.

For Kenji, this was the moment he realized that all the pictures he had drawn so far were not on a blank canvas but on a sheet of newspaper.

This was a battle of wits and a battle of moves.

An invisible war.

On a massive Go board called the continent, they had to place stones, predicting several moves ahead and even anticipating the opponent’s moves. In that fight, Kenji had fallen behind Han Simin from the very first move.

No, “fallen behind” was an understatement.

Kenji had prepared meticulously.

Before Han Simin even sat down at the Go board, he had already simulated tens of thousands of possible moves and laid out where each stone could be placed.

Yet the moment Han Simin arrived, he brazenly grabbed a Janggi piece instead of a Go stone and hurled it onto the board.

The game had become something else entirely.

“No way. This can’t be happening.”

Even as he sensed it, he kept denying it.

’Is he really going this far?’

The Heavenly King and the Demon King had appeared on the continent.

Their loss of power made it impossible to prove who was who.

An adventurer who was the power behind the throne refused to provide proof, and the Saintess and the Imperial Princess who backed him were acting unjustly. The users had begun a rally not to overthrow anything, but to inform the Emperor and the Pope of this injustice and to correct what was wrong, demanding only the bare minimum—that they at least hear the Heavenly King out.

And now this had turned into a problem of a cult outbreak orchestrated by Warlocks trying to rescue the Demon King imprisoned in the Great Temple’s underground dungeon, and of the countless adventurers and kingdoms entangled with them?

It was absurd.

Absurd, and at the same time, it made him curious.

It was far too out of the blue.

On what basis?

The answer to his question came surprisingly easily.

“We already dug up all the evidence in the Great Temple. When those suspicious movements started across the continent, the Paladins infiltrated every corner of the land and joined the rallies. There, they identified the Warlocks mixed into the crowds, the dark magic they used, and the countless continentals who were unconsciously drawn into the rallies under its sway—not in one or two places but in dozens of locations simultaneously. Anything else you want to say?”

“...I truly did not know. Truly! If I had known those rallies were so heinous and evil, I would never have allowed them. My kingdom has only ever been guilty of being deceived and misled by wicked forces while we were single-mindedly devoted to the peace of the continent. If you would only show mercy...”

Because in the video, Han Simin and the king kindly spelled it all out.

“Oh. So you didn’t know and you’re a victim too?”

“Of course...! If I had known, I would have taken the lead and rounded up every last piece of trash, every piece of filth polluting the continent, and thrown them all into prison right there at the rally sites!”

And from that point on, the power play between the two let everyone watching predict exactly how this conversation would end.

“Is that so?”

“Without a doubt!”

“And here I was. If you’d said that earlier, His Majesty might not have made such an extreme decision. What a shame. Still, it’s not too late even now, so how about it? I’ll give you a chance to at least partially make up for the disrespect you showed His Majesty.”

The King remained silent.

“What’s with that face like you just bit into a turd? You do know, of course, that the ultimate goal of the countless adventurers and kingdoms tied to the Warlocks is to rule the continent and become masters of the Empire, right? Or are you telling me that was actually your plan?”

“Never! Absolutely not! I will take the lead!”

“No, there’s no need to overdo it when your royal capital’s already been blown to bits. The Empire isn’t so weak that it needs help from others.”

“Oh. Then...”

“Just provide support. You said you helped a lot during the war too, right? Do it like that. I won’t tell you to risk your neck. Just make sure we can fight from the rear without having to worry about money.”

The King was speechless.

“I’m not asking for anything big. It’s just that we spent about 200,000 Gold this time because of the misunderstanding you created, so keep that in mind and think it over.”

“...Yes. I understand.”

“Oh! And one more thing. We need to pick our next target. Among the kingdoms closest to here, pick one that’s similar to yours.”

Silence stretched between them.

“We did come with a full list, but now that I’ve heard there are kingdoms that are this unfairly treated, I feel like we need to tweak it a bit. We should probably visit the ones who feel wronged first.”

This was not baseless pressure by the Empire’s brute force.

They had more than enough justification.

Even if the only “evidence” was the Great Temple’s word, no one would doubt it.

If the Temple and the Paladins lied in God’s name, that would mean the continent truly was on the brink of destruction.

Nor could the users stubbornly insist otherwise, because they had been holding rallies on the premise that the Temple and the Imperial Family were clean, and that a single adventurer was defiling them.

It was inherently self-contradictory.

Thus, the situation became murky.

It was time to make a decision.

Would they continue to resist?

Or would they fold here?

Kenji’s head began to ache.

5.

He had gone a bit overboard.

It was his natural personality, but there had been no real need to go that far on stream, especially against a high-ranking NPC.

Not that it really mattered. If he had wanted to handle things more smoothly, in a more Han Simin-esque way, he would have pushed much harder on the coaxing and wheedling to squeeze more out of them.

Instead, he only shook them down briefly for money and focused on strongly asserting the Empire’s dignity and, going forward, the will of the Emperor—no, of the Imperial Princess.

He did this not because he wanted to hog the spotlight as the protagonist, but to show that he was acting as the Empire’s representative.

And to make his future moves more convenient.

He also had no idea how many more kingdoms he would have to invade, and he couldn’t use Meteor every single time.

For the first one, it was the opening of the movie; he had to grab the audience’s attention while injecting tension and anticipation, so he had accepted the loss and pumped in the CG.

Continuing to do that, however, would be a massive loss from the production company’s perspective.

On top of that, it wasn’t just one or two kingdoms but dozens.

The continent was that vast, and to pour that much effort into visiting every little kingdom would be like putting a pearl necklace on a pig.

It was no coincidence that he had chosen his first target from among the five kingdoms considered second only to the Empire.

In practice, the effect had been excellent.

First of all, the Princess’s gaze was overflowing with love.

She refused to let go of his arm, and every night she refused to leave Han Simin’s tent.

Naturally, Epia was jealous, but she didn’t show as much hostility or possessiveness as one might expect.

Perhaps it was confidence as a Succubus.

Or the composure of a Succubus Queen and Demon King.

She acted as if it were only natural that she was the official wife and seemed to consider feeling jealous of an inferior race to be beneath her dignity.

Of course, with Epia’s face, that attitude came off as more cute than lofty.

Basking in that luxury, they visited the next kingdom, and the results there were just as impressive.

Even though they had merely shown up, the path opened on its own.

The king ran out in his socks to greet them.

“Oh my! Your Highness the Imperial Princess! What brings you to such a humble place!”

He made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of being hostile.

It was the choice of a wise ruler who had seen through the true reason Han Simin had chosen that first kingdom as an example and staged a show of force.

The conversation naturally flowed like water.

What he wanted was already decided, and he had announced it to the entire continent before he came.

The kingdoms he visited had two options.

Fight. Or pay tribute.

If they obediently paid, that was fine.

“Begone! Vile forces that disturb the continent! How dare you brazenly show your shameless face here! Your Highness the Imperial Princess! You must not be deceived! That wicked woman is the Demon King!”

However, not every kingdom was that docile.

They feared the Empire, but at the same time, in battles where they believed they had a chance of victory, they didn’t back down easily.

Even with the Empire having justification and declaring it would cut down anyone who sided with the enemy, some kingdoms still insisted that wrong was wrong.

The same went for the users.

They refused to bow to such external pressure.

They had nothing to lose.

They only grew more unruly.

Even if the kingdoms tried to suppress them on their own, they didn’t care.

That was the nature of rallies.

When there was some force trying to stop them, they felt like they were doing more, achieving more, and gained a sense of accomplishment.

Naturally, in such kingdoms, the Empire’s advance was stalled.

No matter how elite their forces were, without Squeaker’s large-scale magic, they couldn’t create as spectacular a scene as they wanted.

Thus, Han Simin played his next card.

The Imperial troops, fully equipped.

A large-scale army began to move.

That was the beginning.

The beginning of true chaos.

*

In the midst of all this, Kenji reached out to Han Simin.

“I would like us to have an honest conversation.”

“How honest are we talking?”

“User to user. Leaving the entire Main Quest aside. Human to human. About the current situation.”

Han Simin readily agreed.

“Then I suppose it would be more convenient to meet in real life, right?”

“I will depart immediately.”

“Where do you live?”

“You live in South Korea, don’t you, Simin?”

“Yes.”

“I will contact you within eight hours.”

That was how the appointment was made.

Their first meeting in reality, after more than a year of knowing each other, was set.

*