Chapter 30. Hand of Redefinition (2)
Julian was hanging upside down.
The restored Cup-Ramen Yoo Jaeha tilted his head as he looked at him.
[...That’s Julian, right?]
“Yeah. He’s alive.”
[He looks completely wrecked.]
“Yeah. He got hit a little.”
[...By who?]
“Me.”
[Captain, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you...?]
Jooheon merely shrugged.
“I turned him back into a human so we could talk, and the bastard got cocky and tried to run away.”
“And he’s supposed to be my contract target, secretary, driver, and errand boy.”
Jooheon pointed at Julian.
“Right now he practically looks like sweet-and-sour pork.”
“So fix him.”
Cup-Ramen Jaeha exploded.
[Fix him with what?!]
[Do you not see that I’m still a cup of ramen right now?]
[And what kind of confidence made you smash an Artifact apart when you don’t even have a restorer?!]
“Damn it, he suddenly started spouting Schopenhauer at me.”
Jooheon mocked Julian’s depressed tone.
‘I have no value as a living being.’
[...Even so, turning him into this is a little...]
Jooheon clicked his tongue and gestured helplessly.
“Hey, rude navigation system.”
“You fix him.”
Majesty Yoo Jaeha’s lips twisted.
“I don’t do patch jobs like some sucker.”
Cup-Ramen Jaeha, who had been quiet until then, immediately snapped.
[Who the hell are you calling a sucker?!]
Jooheon raised an eyebrow.
“Whatever.”
“Just fix him.”
Majesty Jaeha crossed his arms and scoffed.
“Fix something and keep using it?”
He looked genuinely offended by the idea.
“I can’t imagine anything more common or less cost-effective.”
“Then what do you do when an Artifact breaks?”
Majesty Jaeha blinked as if the answer were obvious.
“I destroy it.”
Then smiled.
“And make a new one.”
Cup-Ramen Jaeha recoiled.
[Of course you’re both Majesties!]
[Look at you two being equally violent in completely different ways!]
“Shut up.”
“Shut up.”
Jooheon and Majesty Jaeha shouted at the exact same time, as though refusing to be grouped together.
Then they glared at each other in disgust.
“You throw away an Artifact just because it breaks?”
Jooheon frowned.
“Can’t you hear the discarded Artifact crying?”
“It’s better to work it until it breaks and repair it afterward.”
Majesty Jaeha stared at him.
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“That’s even more psychotic.”
“It’s more humane to dispose of it completely without leaving any trace.”
Cup-Ramen Jaeha muttered:
[...I think both of you need to learn the phrase ‘user negligence.’]
But their argument wasn’t the important part.
If they didn’t repair Julian...
They couldn’t leave this city.
Because—
[Analysis complete.]
[Artifact ‘Julian Miller’ currently oversees the laws governing the ‘City of Madness.’]
[‘Seo Jooheon,’ who has committed crimes within the city, is currently prohibited from leaving.]
[You cannot leave the city unless the law is lifted.]
The Crow had finished analyzing Julian.
Jooheon frowned as he read the system window.
“...Figures.”
“I was wondering why the Majesty of the ‘City of Madness’ kept this inflexible law-book bastard around.”
Julian wasn’t merely an Artifact.
“It looks like he made some kind of mercenary deal with Dionysus to keep the city’s system running properly.”
Whatever Julian had been doing wasn't really Jooheon’s concern.
The problem was what was written inside him.
When Julian had been in the form of a law book, Jooheon had briefly opened him.
And inside, he had found several extremely suspicious clauses related to this world.
[Article 74: Citizens who are intoxicated to the point of losing rational thought, or whose Madness Gauge exceeds a designated threshold, shall be forcibly designated as NPCs.]
[Article 103: Individuals who have remained under NPC designation for five years or longer shall be isolated in a Special District.]
[Article 201: Isolated individuals shall be transported to the ‘Nile River.’]
Jooheon’s eyes narrowed.
“...Nile River?”
There was no way it meant the literal geographical river.
‘Nile River’ was probably some metaphorical location or codename.
And the NPC designation itself made sense.
Majesty neutralized opposing forces and turned them into cheap, obedient labor.
That much was easy enough to understand.
But...
Why go through the trouble of isolating those cheap workers after five years?
Why transport them somewhere else?
“...There’s something behind this.”
That was why Jooheon had wanted to ask Julian what the ‘Nile River’ was and make a Bound Contract with him.
But the bastard had tried to run away the moment he regained consciousness.
So Jooheon had slammed him into a wall.
Unfortunately...
He had hit him a little too hard.
“Whatever.”
Jooheon pointed at Julian.
“Fix him.”
“I can’t make an Artifact contract while he’s at one hit point.”
Majesty Jaeha snorted.
“Why should I?”
“Don’t you feel sorry for him?”
Cup-Ramen Jaeha immediately replied:
[You’re saying that after you made him look like this?]
Jooheon reached for Cup-Ramen Jaeha’s lid.
[It was a joke!]
[A joke, Captain!]
Only after Jaeha screamed did Jooheon let him go.
“Kongming is your teammate too.”
Majesty Jaeha answered curtly.
“No, he isn’t.”
“In my world, he wasn’t my teammate.”
“!”
Majesty Jaeha gave a wicked little laugh.
“I have no intention of playing the sucker.”
“And more importantly...”
He looked toward Julian.
“That isn’t an ordinary Artifact.”
“It’s an Artifact made from a human.”
“In your terminology, an ‘Unknown.’”
He smiled coldly.
“Do you seriously think repairing one works the same way as repairing a normal Artifact?”
Jooheon frowned.
“Then what do you need?”
Majesty Jaeha’s lips slowly curled upward.
“Bring me a human.”
“Dead is fine too.”
He shrugged.
“But it’d be nice if the limbs were intact.”
“I’d rather not destroy my eyes looking at a disgusting corpse.”
“What?”
Jooheon’s expression hardened.
Majesty Jaeha acted as though it were nothing unusual.
“That thing wasn’t originally an Artifact.”
“It’s an ‘Unknown’ created using a human body as material.”
“So repairing it requires material of the same grade.”
He tilted his head.
“What do you think that means?”
“Another human, obviously.”
Jooheon looked at him in disgust.
“Don’t tell me the Majesty who created him also uses people when repairing him.”
“Probably.”
“Is there another way?”
