Chapter 35. The First Hero (29)
"That's right."
Kosdal's voice became calm.
"Completing the required amount of training does not mean someone isn't becoming lazy."
Haiman had focused only on research results.
Kosdal's words struck directly at that flaw.
Haiman's eyes widened.
I only looked at the quotas written in the reports.
He had carelessly entrusted everything to Count Thornjer, Knight Commander Tern, and Rice Ball Guild Master Park Seokdu.
Did I trust Count Thornjer too much?
If it weren't for Count Thornjer, Haiman never would've tried handling things this way.
But regret came too late.
"Oppa! His Majesty needed concentration to perfect the Leg Machine! You know that!"
"That's true."
Kosdal looked at her.
"But someone still should've told him what was happening outside."
Serina tried to somehow smooth over the situation.
But this wasn't something that could simply be covered up.
Now that Haiman knew something had gone wrong, he needed to correct it.
"Serina."
Haiman looked at his wife.
"Is it serious outside?"
"Well..."
Serina hesitated.
Then she answered honestly.
"Yes. It's serious."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was waiting."
"For what?"
"For the Leg Machine to be finished."
Her voice carried the weight of time.
"I kept thinking, maybe tomorrow. Maybe it'll be finished tomorrow. Then tomorrow came, and I thought the same thing again."
Haiman couldn't immediately speak.
The time Serina had spent enduring in silence had weight.
She had tried not to disturb him while he worked.
They had both endured.
They had both trusted each other.
For a moment, they needed a pause before they could continue.
"If you want to meet His Majesty Haiman, we need to go to the laboratory."
"Normally, yes."
Seongchan was walking with Na-ye and Peuten through the castle.
After entering, Seongchan had suggested going to the training ground rather than the laboratory.
"There's no loss in going to the training ground, right?"
"There may be no loss, but going somewhere unnecessary is still different from going where we actually need to go."
"Then go to the laboratory alone."
"I can't do that."
Peuten sighed.
"I'll guide you to the training ground."
He erased the route to the laboratory from his mind and began recalling the path toward the training ground instead.
Peuten didn't want to go alone.
"Ha! Ha!"
The closer they came, the clearer the sounds became.
Shouts of effort echoed through the halls.
Once they left the corridor, the training ground came into view.
"Haaah! Hah!"
"Don't lose your form! Horizontal cuts, precise and fast!"
Following Tern's command, the knights quickly took position and began horizontal cuts.
The soldiers watching them followed.
Everyone was drenched in sweat.
Even though their bodies were starting to shake, they forced themselves back into position and focused on the movements.
They didn't perform one horizontal slash, reset, and repeat.
Instead, they cut right, then left, alternating continuously.
The motions flowed like water.
"That's enough for today!"
The knights and soldiers stopped and began catching their breath.
They had been training hard every day.
"Have you been well, Sir Tern?"
"I've been doing well recently."
Tern looked over.
"Na-ye, and the man beside you must be the rumored Hero Kim Seongchan. What brings you here?"
"That's Seongchan."
Na-ye answered.
"We came to see His Majesty."
"Was His Majesty supposed to come to the training ground?"
"We came here because the matter is connected to the training ground."
Tern looked confused by Peuten's answer.
If they came to meet His Majesty Haiman, shouldn't they go to the laboratory?
Peuten immediately understood his expression.
He wasn't the type to miss something that obvious.
Seongchan came here using future sight.
He must know His Majesty is coming here.
Believing that, Peuten improvised.
He has good instincts even though he probably doesn't know anything.
Seongchan nodded slightly at Peuten's quick response.
He had come to meet Haiman.
Kosdal wasn't visible yet.
That meant Seongchan's timing was good.
He fixed his gaze on the corridor connected to the laboratory.
Soon, Kosdal and Haiman appeared.
Serina was with them.
Their eyes met.
"Aaaaah!"
Serina suddenly screamed.
Kosdal and Haiman immediately looked around.
Then they noticed Seongchan.
Kosdal's expression clearly asked, Why are you here?
Haiman instinctively took half a step back.
I need to get used to this.
I can't.
Seongchan had long since accepted, while also refusing to accept, that his face was basically a weapon.
Looking directly at him could inspire fear.
Even people who had become accustomed to him weren't completely immune.
They simply learned to control their reactions.
Internally, they were probably still startled.
"Sir Tern."
Seongchan called him.
Tern had still been confused by the sudden situation.
Then he looked directly at Seongchan's face.
"Uuugh!"
Seongchan pressed a hand to his forehead.
Did a Knight Commander really need to react that loudly?
The entire training ground erupted into screams.
The knights and soldiers had finally gotten a proper look at Seongchan.
"Look at my neck or the ground."
Seongchan calmly offered a solution.
His voice disappeared beneath the screaming.
The sunlight was unusually bright today, so Seongchan had been frowning.
Apparently that made things much worse.
"Seongchan, are you okay?"
"What do you mean? Are you asking if I'm okay with having a face like this?"
"I mean... being misunderstood."
Na-ye's voice sounded genuinely upset for him.
Seongchan had already decided to accept how he looked.
"What can I do? I just need to clear up the misunderstanding."
Trying to confidently accept himself and calm the other person worked better than desperately insisting he wasn't scary.
If he shouted or became angry, the confusion only worsened.
People sometimes even fainted.
That was wisdom gained through several regressions.
The screams gradually faded.
The knights and soldiers learned where to direct their eyes.
They lowered their gazes and stood respectfully while avoiding direct eye contact.
"According to Sir Kosdal, you are Hero Kim Seongchan?"
People who placed Hero before someone's name were usually kings or nobles.
As natives of this world and members of the privileged class, they sometimes addressed heroes that way.
Seongchan looked at the speaker.
A refined face.
Pale skin.
Rather than personally stepping forward, this was a king who usually studied inside the castle laboratory, gave orders, observed situations from above, and managed the Terk Kingdom.
King Haiman stood before him.
"Are you His Majesty Haiman?"
"I am."
"I'm Kim Seongchan."
"So you are Hero Kim Seongchan."
Their meeting had been sudden.
The screaming had been sudden too.
After they exchanged names, silence fell.
Haiman glanced around.
Seongchan asked,
"Is there something you want to say?"
"I was waiting for you to ask something."
Haiman raised an eyebrow.
"Do you have nothing to say to me?"
"I have a lot to say. But I don't think this is the right place."
"I see. Follow me."
Haiman immediately understood.
Too many people were watching.
If what he'd heard about Seongchan was true, discussing everything here could be dangerous.
There's a high chance Count Thornjer planted someone among the soldiers.
And not only Count Thornjer.
Other kingdoms might have spies here too.
The Terk Kingdom looked weak enough to disappear at any moment.
There were many people watching it.
While they walked, Kosdal finally asked the question he'd been holding back.
"What were you doing while I was correcting those lazy knights and soldiers?"
"I ate something delicious and taught the Rice Ball Guild Master a lesson."
"What does that mean?"
Seongchan explained exactly what happened.
Kosdal somehow looked even more confused afterward.
Serina, unlike Kosdal, looked delighted.
"You taught him a lesson?"
She leaned closer.
"How?"
"We made a bet for one platinum..."
Seongchan spent the walk toward the reception room telling them what had happened with the Rice Ball Guild.
"Don't you think we should recruit Hero Kim Seongchan?"
"You transferred the money correctly."
"Wouldn't recruiting him be useful? Cooks capable of preparing Wild Pig aren't common."
"I said no! Why do you keep talking about recruiting someone we can't recruit?"
"At least try."
"You! You're a hero too. Why are you working for the Highs Merchant Company instead of joining our Rice Ball Guild?"
"I don't want to."
"See? I tried, and you still said no."
Park Seokdu glared at Pien.
She had been repeating the same thing over and over like a parrot.
"Are you planning to build Rice Ball Guild Houses in other kingdoms too?"
"Why would I do something that annoying?"
"If you did, I might consider joining the Rice Ball Guild."
"What? That's possible?"
There were no guilds with Guild Houses in multiple kingdoms.
The rule was simple.
One kingdom, one Guild House.
The moment someone built another Guild House in a neighboring kingdom, they would clash with the existing guild there.
Guild members from nearby kingdoms would also join the attack.
Only after surviving all of that could someone truly maintain Guild Houses across several kingdoms.
No one had ever successfully done it.
Merchant companies were mostly the same.
Except one.
The Highs Merchant Company operated across several kingdoms.
"Who knows?"
Pien looked at Park Seokdu.
He seemed to know only that the Highs Merchant Company was large.
He didn't appear to understand just how much influence it truly possessed.
That was probably why he dared treat her this way even though she was responsible for an entire kingdom as one of the company's members.
I really don't understand what Deputy Head Peuten is thinking.
The Highs Merchant Company placed one Deputy Head and several company members in each kingdom.
As the number of kingdoms under its influence grew, the number of Deputy Heads increased.
And Pien hated that structure.
I joined earlier than him.
So why am I only a company member while Peuten is Deputy Head?
Pien had believed this time she would finally become Deputy Head.
The Terk Kingdom was already half-collapsed.
She'd thought that created an opening.
"If you're going to keep talking nonsense, stop bothering me and leave."
Pien stared at him.
Who exactly was the one talking nonsense?
Their pointless conversation had dragged on so long that it reminded Pien of the past.
She found it irritating that Park Seokdu treated her advice like worthless chatter.
"Nonsense?"
Pien adjusted her glasses.
"Is discussing recruitment really that pointless?"
Park Seokdu's cheek twitched.
The conversation should've ended after he received the money.
Instead, they had somehow moved into recruitment, and now it had dragged on far longer than he'd expected.
Every time I talk to Pien, I can't tell what she's thinking.
Park Seokdu wanted to speak with Peuten, not Pien.
He genuinely wondered how the Deputy Head managed to have conversations with someone like her.
She always gave the strange impression of knowing something while pretending she didn't.
And she stubbornly insisted on impossible ideas.
Park Seokdu decided to test whether she actually knew anything.
He would've preferred to end the conversation immediately.
But if there really was a method to build Guild Houses across several kingdoms, that would be too valuable to ignore.
"If you know how to place Rice Ball Guild Houses in several kingdoms, tell me."
"There's a method?"
"You said you'd join if I did it. Stop pretending you don't know and tell me."
Park Seokdu believed Pien must know the method.
Otherwise, why would she say she would consider joining if he succeeded?
"I'm saying I'd like to be recruited by a guild capable of doing something like that."
Pien looked confused.
"I don't know how. And didn't you say it sounded annoying anyway?"
Then she narrowed her eyes.
"Were you only calling it annoying because you wanted to avoid answering?"
"Get out! Stop giving me a headache!"
"Are you sure? I still have something I haven't reported."
"Why didn't you report everything at once? What is it?"
"Count Thornjer is arriving today."
"Count Thornjer is coming?"
Pien's brow tightened slightly.
Park Seokdu smirked.
She's a hero, but she still needs to behave carefully in front of a count.
Heroes were special.
They had abilities far beyond ordinary natives of this world.
But they didn't possess noble blood.
Even so, depending on their strength, heroes could receive treatment equal to or greater than dukes.
"Yes. He'll arrive sometime today, so prepare."
"So it's finally starting."
Park Seokdu had waited far too long.
He imagined the future.
He would completely take over the Rice Ball Guild.
He would control Silnyang.
And he would become the second most powerful man in the Terk Kingdom after the king.
