D.I.O

Chapter 216

[Anyway, I don’t understand. How on earth can that guy be so formidable?]

“I don’t know what to say… he developed his abilities….”

[Do you honestly think that makes sense?]

The man on the other side of the line, Park Hye-Myung, the current Director of the National Intelligence Service, spoke in a condescending tone.

[Why the hell is everyone so stupid? Do you believe he’s powerful just because he was born with such great potential and abilities? Are you telling me that a high school graduate with no work experience is superior to famous scholars and athletes worldwide?]

“Well….”

[Heaven above the Heavens… that’s all nonsense. It’s impossible to be so powerful without having a shady background. Maybe he’s an undercover traitor who works for the aliens.]

The NIS Director continued harping on about his convoluted argument and stoked his anger in the process. For some time, he had been trying to subdue Yongno, but everything he tried had failed.

‘I don’t think it’s anything like that at all, sir, but….’

Seung-Cheol didn’t agree with the Director’s assessment, but he couldn’t refute it either. This was because the three Heaven above the Heavens were truly head and shoulders above any other user playing DIO.

Of course, as a Master himself, Seung-Cheol understood the subtlety and nuance of developing abilities and skills, but he wasn’t confident enough to convince or explain this to someone who didn’t play DIO.

“Then what shall we do? Shall I investigate further?”

[No, leave it be. After all, we’re using him for another purpose. Besides, he is helping us block the enemy’s attacks, so he’s still useful. Forget what I said and continue to collect data.]

“Yes, sir.”

The call was disconnected as soon as Seung-Cheol answered, and he then scanned the battlefield.

Boom!

A massive explosion sounded out, signaling the destruction of a chariot-shaped mech robot soldier. In just ten minutes, Merlin destroyed the enemy’s forces, and the situation finally settled.

If it had been any Master other than Merlin, rather than organizing the situation within the manifestation time limit, the enemy’s attacks would have probably continued past another one-hour period, pushing the Korean forces backward and causing more destruction and casualties.

“Mr. Yongno is such an extraordinary talent. He might lead Korea to take a step forward, but….”

Seung-Cheol bit his lip. He respected Yongno as a mage, but even so, he could not go against his superior’s orders. Despite being a Master, Seung-Cheol was not someone who disobeyed commands and established his own rules.

“I hope Korea never has a conflict with him.”

As he whispered softly, Seung-Cheol turned around. Merlin landed on the ground, having finished the battle several kilometers away from Seung-Cheol.

“… Well, that’s up to you all, not me.”

Merlin grumbled in a low voice, and his figure disappeared from the battlefield.

*** Contact and Preparation ***

/[On July 28, Master Kim Seyoung visited Tokyo for a joint training exercise. The Japanese government held an event to welcome Kim Seyoung, and Prime Minister Noda expressed his gratitude to the Korean government….]/

On TV, Seyoung was seen shaking hands with the Japanese Prime Minister. Seyoung’s in-game ID was Arthur Pendragon. He was an incredible swordsman widely recognized as the strongest member of the Heaven above the Heavens.

“We’re experiencing a tough time as it is… is it really okay to send someone like Arthur overseas right now?”

“This current administration is a bit friendly with Japan. Maybe they’re using Arthur to lobby for something?”

A man and woman conversed with each other as they watched TV and sipped coffee. Arthur was already a worldwide celebrity who stood at the forefront of all Masters. He had made his name widely known beyond Korea. Thus, Arthur received more attention and fanfare than any world-renown superstar.

“It’s not ideal to rely on someone like Merlin, who’s always doing whatever he wants. Yet, it’s also not good to be swept away by the state, like Arthur… Why does Arthur, the pride of Korea, have to participate in Japan’s military training in the first place?”

“Is that something to be angry about? I think it’s okay because it helps promote Korea’s global status.”

“Well, if you look at it that way, that may be true… but Arthur isn’t a normal celebrity. He’s a key factor in our national security. Thanks to the blockers and detectors provided by DIO, there’s no longer any fear of aliens popping out of nowhere within the Korean peninsula, but still, I’d much prefer having too many defensive layers than too few.”

In truth, at the moment, Korea was relatively safer from alien attacks than most other countries.

Excluding parts of North Hamgyong Province, the entire country was within the broad-spectrum blocker’s 500-kilometer radius, including Jeju Island. Since these blockers prevented foreign entities’ from directly reaching that area, the nation could escape the situation where aliens appeared out of nowhere, as they did just a month ago.

However, that was possible because Korea was a [small] country; countries with large territories, including China, suffered tremendous damage and casualties.

From the start, countries couldn’t purchase blockers and detectors. This was because the Noblesse only provided this gear as a rental, but the rental fee was a whopping 100 million gold per month or five trillion won in Korean currency.

Countries with a high economic power relative to their sizes, such as Korea and Japan, could make the most of the blockers and detectors, but nations that couldn’t cover their entire territory with one blocker suffered tremendous damage. Even at this moment, as Yongno sipped his coffee, countless people were dying.

For the United States, the government solved the situation by installing several blockers, but in China and India’s case, the state only installed blockers in a few large cities where the rich and affluent lived. Although this caused global criticism against those countries, widespread domestic upheaval, and civil unrest, people could do nothing about it.

“Change is rapidly happening because so many people are dying. If it weren’t for the Legion and Grotesque, events wouldn’t have unfolded like this. If the world had gone in another direction, we could have seen Masters being subjected to human experiments.”

The alien invasion was the most shocking global event since the beginning of human history. Reality seemed more like what one would see in movies or read about in science fiction novels.

Many people witnessed injury, death, and destruction because of the Legion and Grotesque’s terrorist attacks, which were carried out in densely populated areas. The wider public felt the tangible threat from the aliens, so the government swiftly took many actions to resolve the situation.

Masters were being supported on a national scale and were treated like royalty. Moreover, every coastal city was getting converted into a fortress to prevent alien attacks.

In the past, constructing such massive projects and evacuating so many people would have been unimaginable due to opposition from the residents and human rights activists. However, since the state immediately enacted these decisions after suffering astronomical damage from alien attacks, they conducted the forced construction and mass exodus without any major problems.

The social and governmental systems changed to ones more associated with wartime, and taxes rose significantly.

However, what was interesting was that the general atmosphere and sentiment among people were not so hopeless.

‘Humans are adaptable creatures, no?’

Undoubtedly, many people the aliens directly harmed ended up enlisting after feeling despair, frustration, or anger toward their lot. Media broadcasts also reported the amount of damage or combat scenarios every day, but that didn’t seem to paralyze the world economy. There was no apparent sense that the world would perish anytime soon.

If alien invasions had only happened in one country, the situation might have been a little different, but these attacks occurred across the entire world. Everyone was facing a common foe.

Plop.

At that time, a plain-looking young girl with brown hair pulled up a chair and sat before Yongno, who had been lost in his thoughts. It was the first time he saw her real face, but Yongno instantly knew he was looking at Cruze, one of the Heaven above the Heavens.

“You managed to get out. The surveillance around the battlefield zone was tight,” Cruze remarked.

“As long as I have a spiritual pathway, surveillance is useless,” Yongno responded.

“Well, if you use your specialty, teleportation, it wouldn’t matter even if they put you in prison… ah, thank you.”

Cruze expressed her thanks as she accepted a cup of coffee from Yongno. When he saw her act in such a sociable way, Yongno laughed.

“Oho. Wow, Lea. Your social skills have improved a lot lately, haven’t they?”

“Stop speaking nonsense.”

“Is it because of Dongsoo (Lancelot)?”

“… Have you gotten bored of living?”

Yongno laughed at Cruze’s, or rather, Lea’s, snappy reaction. Though she was outwardly angry, Yongno could tell that she felt embarrassed.

“Well, anyway… how did you find out about my spiritual pathways?”

Cruze had suddenly come to see Yongno, whom she could not meet through typical methods or other channels, and she sent him a message.

“I want you to create spiritual pathways in my body as well.”

“There’s a way to access DIO without being detected by the Noblesse.”

Though Yongno and Lea had become quite close, that was only between Merlin and Cruze, in other words, only in-game. They had never met in reality. Naturally, there was no occasion where Yongno or Merlin ever mentioned his spiritual pathways, so the fact that Lea knew was strange.

“I can explain and fill in the gaps.”josei

“…”

An average person would have been quite surprised by this situation. It would be strange if one weren’t shocked by someone suddenly appearing and sitting down without anyone noticing; it was as if [she had skipped the whole process of entering the room and sitting in the chair].

However, Yongno turned his head to the speaker without an ounce of surprise. This was because he assumed that Lea could not have known about his spiritual pathways unless there was some kind of [transcendent] interference.

“Huh?”

However, once Yongno saw who it was, he expressed surprise. He had seen the speaker’s face before.

“What?”

“You… aren’t you Manbo?”

“You have a good memory. I guess that’s to be expected of an Irregular, one out of a quintillion.”

Unexpectedly, Yongno saw a user that Merlin had met in DIO, someone he had come across before he was known as a member of the Heaven above the Heavens. Yongno first saw Manbo when he met Aidelin, the merchant who sold weapons in Starting. At that time, Manbo was lying on the side of a bustling road underneath a tree, doing nothing.

Back then, Aidelin mentioned that Manbo had been lying around for almost a month without doing anything. Merlin hadn’t thought much of Manbo until he saw him again. Unexpectedly, Manbo was lying down on a rocky island south of the Noise Belt, an area that normal users shouldn’t have been able to access yet.

When that happened, Yongno had no interest in other users, and he felt that the situation was weird, but he just chalked it up to something being off. However, if Yongno had thought about it a bit longer, he would have understood that Manbo was a strange user.