Chapter 25: Those Who Move Secretly Behind the King's Wrath (4)
The private jet prepared by the Bronze-Black Cross sliced through the night sky without a single sound. Within the luxurious interior, only a heavy silence lingered. Alessandro Gaspare stood beside me in a rigid, frozen posture, while in the seat across from me, the Chief of the Four Divine Guardians sat on pins and needles. He cursed his fate for having to endure the King's wrath from such proximity, yet he had desperately volunteered to accompany us, knowing this was the only way to save his organization.
"Alessandro. Report on the History Compilation Committee."
At my words, the Chief flinched and straightened his posture. Alessandro spoke as if he had been waiting for the prompt.
"The History Compilation Committee. Officially, they are an agency that manages mythological and historical records within Japan, but in reality, they are a shadow government led by the four great families that oversees the entire Japanese magical society. They never step into the foreground. Their ironclad rule is to arrange the board through information and intrigue, using others as pawns to keep their own hands clean."
"So instead of facing a King directly, they incite others to serve as their shields."
"Precisely, my Lord. It is their most cowardly, yet effective, method."
The Chief bit his lip. The fact that he and Kang Tae-jun had been perfectly consumed as those 'shields'—or rather, as mere pawns—stung him to the bone once again.
"O King, if I may ask, how do you intend to move once we arrive in Japan?"
"I have already signaled the King's visit through unofficial channels. The Tokyo branch is likely preparing a reception. The standard procedure would be to decide our next move based on their attitude, but... I shall follow your will, my Lord."
I looked down at the dark clouds outside the window. Standard procedure. I didn't come here to follow standard procedures.
"No. We go to collect the debt the moment we land. I don't have the time to play along with their theater."
At my cold response, the Chief's face turned ghostly pale. It was a declaration that diplomatic protocols would be utterly ignored. This wasn't a visit; it was an overt invasion.
Narita International Airport, Japan.
Kaoru Shinomiya, the Tokyo Branch Chief of the History Compilation Committee, wiped the cold sweat from her forehead atop the control tower. Just a few hours ago, a single line of communication had arrived from the Bronze-Black Cross in Europe.
[The Seventh King is visiting your Committee to offer a 'return gift.']
A return gift? For what? There had been no reported contact. However, the reason didn't matter when it came to a Campione's whim. The only thing that mattered was the fact that 'A King is coming.' She had issued an emergency summons for all branch personnel and prepared a top-tier reception according to protocol. She cleared an entire runway and lined up dozens of black sedans and elite agents. Beside her stood her reliable subordinate, Touma Amakasu, with a grim expression.
"Branch Chief, what on earth is happening? Why would the Seventh King suddenly..."
"I don't know either, Amakasu. But whatever happens, we must not offend the King. A single small mistake on our part could turn this entire country into a sea of fire."
Right then, a massive private jet touched down on the runway like a ghost. The stairs opened, and three figures emerged. A young man led the way. Though he wore ordinary clothes, a pressure that made space itself seem to scream accompanied every step he took. Kaoru Shinomiya realized instinctively: That man is the Seventh King, the Devil King who slew a God.
She stepped forward with Amakasu and bowed at the waist with the most formal etiquette.
"It is an honor to meet you, Seventh King. I am Kaoru Shinomiya, the Tokyo Branch Chief of the History Compilation Committee. Please forgive us for not being able to fully prepare our courtesies for your sudden visit."
I ignored her greeting and went straight to the point.
"I've come to collect a debt from you all."
"...Pardon? A debt... If you mean we have committed some discourtesy against the King..."
Kaoru Shinomiya's eyes shook with confusion. She seemed genuinely clueless. As if to mock her pure bewilderment, the Chief of the Four Divine Guardians stepped forward from behind me. Seizing what seemed like his last chance for survival, he rebuked her with a voice full of rage.
"Don't play innocent! Your Committee incited Team Leader Kang Tae-jun of our Four Divine Guardians, daring to deceive and test the King! All the evidence is right here! How do you intend to excuse this insolent and cowardly act?"
At the Chief's shout, Kaoru Shinomiya's face went white. The Four Divine Guardians, Kang Tae-jun, deceiving the King... a nightmare scenario began to map out in her mind.
"That... that can't be... We would never..."
"Quiet."
With one cold word from me, silence fell over the noisy runway. I looked down at Kaoru Shinomiya and delivered my sentence.
"I will give you three hours. Find the rats within your Committee who staged this play and bring them before me. If you cannot... you and your entire Tokyo branch will take the fall for their crimes in their stead."
"Th-Three hours?!"
It was an impossible demand. But talking back to a King's word was an invitation to death. Kaoru Shinomiya desperately bowed her head.
"...I shall obey your command."
She turned around and grabbed the stunned Touma Amakasu as if hauling him by the scruff of his neck.
"Amakasu! Activate every information network the Committee has right now! Use any means necessary; we must find the masterminds behind this within three hours! All of our lives depend on it!"
The three hours that followed were a literal hell for Kaoru Shinomiya and the Tokyo branch. After escorting the King's party to a luxury hotel, she returned to the branch's temporary situation room to direct the investigation herself.
"Amakasu! It won't be through official channels! They wouldn't leave a record for an operation of this scale! Cross-reference the personal magical signature patterns of every mage in the Committee for the last three months! Root out everyone who showed an unusual flow or used unregistered magical power!"
Her instructions were sharp and precise. Under the extreme pressure of a knife at her throat, her mind was shining with icy clarity.
"Branch Chief! An anomaly was found in the information access records! Sugiura and two others, categorized as hardliners within the Committee, accessed the personal profile and psychological analysis report of Team Leader 'Kang Tae-jun' from the Korean Four Divine Guardians a few days ago! And... the final approver for that access... is listed as an Elder of the Renjo family!"
At that report, all color drained from Kaoru Shinomiya's face. This wasn't just a rogue action by a minor faction. This was an incident involving an 'Elder of Renjo,' someone at the pinnacle of the four great families who wielded absolute influence within the Committee. This was a problem on an entirely different dimension.
"...Where is Sugiura's group!"
"Confirmed to be gathered at a luxury Ryotei in Ginza! It seems they are celebrating their success!"
Cold fury erupted from her eyes at that report. While she and all her subordinates in the Tokyo branch were risking their lives in a blood-drying struggle against a three-hour time limit, the culprits who had summoned this catastrophe were leisurely drinking at a restaurant in Ginza? Faced with that arrogance and lack of responsibility, Kaoru Shinomiya felt a dizzying surge of rage.
"Amakasu, tell the King I will return shortly. I'm going to that Ryotei first. Summon the 'Yatagarasu' directly under the Chairman in my name. Surround that restaurant completely."
"Branch Chief! That's dangerous!"
"Dangerous? We are all already standing on the threshold of death. This isn't the time to weigh risks. I need to see their complacent faces for myself."
The night streets of Ginza were brilliant, but the place Kaoru Shinomiya stepped out into was an extremely exclusive, hidden Ryotei tucked behind that glamour. Agents of the Yatagarasu dressed in black were already lined up at the entrance like shadows. She entered the restaurant with an icy face. In the massive banquet hall located at the deepest part, the boisterous laughter of men leaked through the sliding doors.
Kaoru Shinomiya kicked the door open violently. Surrounded by booze, women, and food, three middle-aged men looked back at her in surprise at the uninvited guest.
"Isn't this Branch Chief Shinomiya? What brings you to such a humble place without an appointment?"
Sugiura, the head of the faction and the eldest of the group, asked without hiding his displeasure. Kaoru Shinomiya looked at their banquet table with contempt and spoke in a voice as cold as ice.
"Kang Tae-jun of the Four Divine Guardians. Jiha Daegukjeok. And the Seventh King. I came to see if you had any excuses, Councilman Sugiura."
At her words, the laughter vanished from the three men's faces. However, they didn't panic. Instead, Sugiura snorted.
"Ho, caught already? But what of it? It is our natural duty to measure the power of a new King. Obtaining information by using a weak neighbor as a shield is a fundamental tactic since ancient times. You are simply too soft, Shinomiya."
"You fools!"
Kaoru Shinomiya finally exploded with rage.
"What you did wasn't a measurement! It was like throwing a stone at a god of calamity! The Elder of Renjo will discard you like cutting off a lizard's tail, and the King's wrath will be directed at our entire Committee! I don't know what he was thinking when he orchestrated this, but as his pawns, your lives are now forfeit!"
"Hmph, how could someone like you understand the grand vision of that old fox? It turned out well in the end, didn't it? The King killed the god, and we obtained precious data. One must be prepared to handle a little risk."
Kaoru Shinomiya let out a hollow laugh at their brazen attitude. Then, she delivered the final sentence.
"Is that so? In that case, the 'little risk' you must handle has just arrived outside the door."
In that instant, for the first time, arrogance vanished from the three men's faces, replaced by pure terror.
"Wh-What! That's impossible! The King moved personally?!"
"Don't move!"
The moment Sugiura tried to activate a spell, Yatagarasu agents poured in from all sides of the hall, neutralizing them instantly. Resistance was meaningless.
"You bitch, Shinomiya! How dare you wag your tail for a King and sell out your own kind!"
Kaoru Shinomiya looked down coldly at the struggling Sugiura.
"Your lives are no longer under my jurisdiction. Wait for the King's judgment."
One hour later, in the basement parking lot of the hotel where the King was staying.
In the center of the empty space, three men were forced onto their knees, bound by the Yatagarasu. I stood before them.
"I will ask only one last thing."
At my low voice, Sugiura, who appeared to be the leader, looked up at me with arrogant eyes.
"What made lowly creatures like you think you could put a King on trial?"
At my question, Sugiura let out an absurd snort as if he couldn't believe my gall.
"Trial? Do you think the title of King is just a name given to someone who happened to kill a god by luck? We, the mages of Japan, have shed blood for hundreds of years to enthrone a King in this country. We sacrificed countless prodigies and researched every secret rite to descend a god! And yet, the Heavens bestowed a King upon a primitive land that doesn't even know the laws of serving gods, rather than our Japan."
His voice was steeped in deep jealousy and a twisted sense of elitism.
"What we did was not a trial. It was an appraisal. We simply wished to verify for ourselves whether your vessel was worthy of holding the title of King despite your humble origin. And the results were quite satisfying. The Elder of Renjo, who permitted this act, will surely be pleased as well."
Hearing his excuse, I actually grew calm. Because I finally understood.
Ultimately, the reason for all of this was nothing more than the envy and arrogance born from seeing someone else have what they didn't.
"So you... appraised me. Lowly things like you, against a King who slew a God."
I felt no further value in listening to their excuses. I simply wanted to let them know exactly what kind of existence they had awakened through their own stupidity.
"This is the punishment for the sin of deceiving a King, and for your vulgar arrogance. In return, chew on your own foolishness in eternal silence."
Along with my sentence, I looked them in the eye and softly recited the incantation.
"Those who behold me, all who stand before me—turn to stone and fall into silence!"
In that moment, Kaoru Shinomiya saw it.
The King's eyes were being stained by a strange, unfathomable grey—a color that did not belong to a human.
It wasn't magic. There was no flow of magical power, no deployment of a formula. All she sensed was the absolute sensation of a single 'word' uttered by the King reigning over every law in this space and overwriting reality. It was a sense of wrongness, as if the world were a giant canvas and the King was painting over it with grey lacquer.
There was no omen. Sugiura's struggling body began to silently turn grey, starting from his toes. His scream echoed within a vocal cord that had hardened before the sound could escape. Flesh and blood rapidly lost their life force, transforming into cold stone. His face was frozen forever in the primal fear and shock of realizing what kind of being he was facing. The petrification spread like a plague to the men beside him, and only a few seconds later, only three grotesque statues remained in the center of the parking lot. They were perfect blocks of stone, unrecognizable as the breathing humans they had been moments ago.
In the presence of that overwhelming Authority, Kaoru Shinomiya, Touma Amakasu, and the Chief of the Four Divine Guardians even forgot how to breathe. This was the King who slew a God, the Campione. An existence on a different dimension from human sorcery—a walking myth itself.
As if nothing had happened, I returned my grey-stained eyes to normal and turned to the frozen Kaoru Shinomiya.
"The trash has been cleared."
At my emotionless voice, she barely regained her senses and prostrated herself on the floor.
"Now it is time to bring this play to its finale. Bring this Elder of Renjo, who plotted this from behind the curtain, before my seat of judgment."
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