Our first two weeks in Korea were uneventful. Sure, we had the occasional assassin and party that tried their luck against us while we destroyed the proto-pillars and strong-armed the local guilds to give up and accept Scarlet Emporium rule, but nothing life threatening happened. The repetitive loop of liberating towns continued as we got closer and closer to the biggest dungeon in Korea. Seoul, the abandoned city, was the home of the dungeon. It had three entire pillars, and at least ten more proto-pillars.
“Huh. How come the Koreans still manage to make their cities look good?” Said Anna as we walked Seouls new sister city, Hutoe. The city might as well have been described as a mediaeval megapolis. Buildings made of new world metals pierced the sky as steam powered trams, people and carriages pulled forward by horses moved through the city's roads. The entire city was emulating the former grand capital of Korea in style, while every noticeable change shattered the illusion more and more. The semi-victorian style tarnished the tall buildings, making them feel like monoliths of dreads. The constant noises of horse hoofs and the chattering of the people instilled an undeterrable paranoia into my mind as everyone constantly moved forward, never taking a break to think, to breathe, to just smell the roses. Billboards illuminated by candle fire further reinforced my theory that they were desperately holding onto the past, onto the mythologised past where they were great, when they were on the top of the world.
“Why’re we even here? We have enough supplies to last us a while.” Said Sam.
“So we can assassinate the number one Korean hero. That’s half of our goal.” As soon as I said that, a massive airship came into view. On it were the words ‘Dungeon entering tournament’ in bold. “And if that airship is right, we might be able to pass it off as an accident.”
“I’m not joining some stupid tournament. You four can kill him.” Said Anna. I wasn’t bothered by her not joining the tournament. We we’re the strongest people alive even before Sam and Christian reached level ten. I quickly picked everyone up before flying towards the guild house of the city. We had started gaining a name in Korea after destroying everyone in our way, and us flying through the streets was a clear signal that stuff was about to go down. Assistants were ushering us in the moment we crashed down. The parties waiting to be tested for being allowed to enter the tournament were ordered to be cleared as we were fast tracked.
“H-Hello Sir…” The front desk assistant froze as soon as she realised she forgot my name. We towered over all the petite assistants and non-armour wearing warriors in the other parties. Even the ones wearing armour were clearly overcompensating, and were the same as everyone else when not wearing it.
“It’s Ian. Don’t be afraid. I’ll make sure you don’t lose your job when the Scarlet Emporium takes over.” The assistant didn’t seem the smallest bit less afraid after I said that.
“Of course S-Sir Ian. We h-here at the Children of P-P-Peace are ready to test you to see if y-you are allowed to j-join the tournament.” She quickly pressed a button and a tired looking assistant with messy hair that was holding a cup of coffee ushered us in.
“How come they get to skip all the bureaucracy?!” Said one of the adventurers we disrupted.
“Because people know who we are.” I followed the tired assistant into the room, leaving the adventurer with a clear message that he wasn’t worthy of this opportunity.
“Pick whatever test you want to do first. I’m only here to look pretty.” Said the tired assistant, which I translated for everyone else. There were only four tests. One for speed, one for strength, one for endurance which was skippable for people with infinite energy, and one for battle intelligence. Each one of them had a leaderboard, and the number one Korean adventurer was on top of all of them. His strongest lead over everyone else was in the battle intelligence test.
We immediately got to work while Anna stayed off and Sam was sent to another room for magic tests. I could’ve cheated in all of the tests using FTL. Power is strength plus speed, and thus having an immensely fast strike would make it stupidly powerful. I didn’t cheat though. The main reason that I didn’t cheat was that I couldn’t use FTL in a real combat scenario, and I needed to know how powerful I was in comparison to the number one adventurer.
I grew out wings and activated my aura of change before charging forward in the speed test. I flew faster and faster before reaching my limit, and stopped after a good half minute of flying. I looked up, and saw that I was barely number one. Next was the battle intelligence test, which was about battling an illusion. I looked up to see that the number one adventurer and the demoness had a tied score, which must have meant there was a hidden solution to the problem. The illusion was an exact copy of myself that barely even physically existed. The more you outsmarted yourself, the better of a score you got.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The illusion quickly turned its arms into machine guns and attempted to strike me before I melted down and slithered right up to it. It blew up its legs and pointed its guns down. I activated ‘Bullet Hell’ and took control of the bullets since the illusion was a copy of me, and still technically me, which means I fired those bullets. It activated its own version of ‘Bullet Hell’ and pushed down the bullets with the same amount of force as me. I jumped up, moving in such a way that I slithered through the wall of bullets and then activated the aura of change again for a quick boost. The combination of speed and explosions from bullets implanted in my legs would turn the illusion to shreds.
The illusion disappeared and my ‘Bullet Hell’ cooldown was reset. I looked up to see I tied with the demoness and number one adventurer. All three of us defeated our own selves, but this didn’t mean we were equally skilled. The test had an upper ceiling, but we didn’t. The last test was strength based. Christian and the demoness had outmatched the number one hero, but when I went to strike it with my ‘Explosion bullet multiple arm thunder clap’, or whatever name I would give to that technique, and barely even managed to get in the top ten.
“Damn it. How did you two tie the Korean guy?” Said Christian after getting out of the battle intelligence test.
“I just did something I wouldn’t expect myself to do. Amateurs can win against masters if their moves are unexpected.” Said the demoness. She was right, again. In matters of combat, she was a genius. Sam got out of the separate magic testing and the tired assistant just gave us a nod after looking at the results.
“You pass. I mean, you passed the moment you showed up here, but now you officially pass. The tournament is tomorrow.” I quickly motioned the others to exit with me, and right as we do, I saw the number one adventurer. His face was on the leaderboard. It was unmistakingly him. He was a young man with black hair and a skinny form wearing a long black coat that wasn’t zipped up. Four women followed him in toe, three of which had a slave crest on their neck, and the last one who had the exact shade of hair colour as the man. I tried walking right past him before he grabbed me by the arm and pushed me back.
“What do you think you’re doing? Is the ultimate evil refusing to talk to his final judgement? Say something, dog of the Scarlet Emporium.” Said the adventurer, before I felt Anna stare at the adventurer. She stared straight into his soul the same way she did to me. The man wasn’t phased though, as if anticipating it from the start.
“I don’t have anything I want to say to you. I would appreciate it if you let me and my party go, as we have places to be, foods to eat, cultures to experience. I don’t have the time to talk to a slave owner.” He chuckled to himself after I said that.
“Oh? What’s so bad about slaves? I feed them, clothe them, provide them with anything their heart desires, and all at the cost of a little freewill. Would you be so horrible as to sever them from such a thoughtless and peaceful existence.” He said.
“Yes. It doesn’t matter if the slaves want to be slaves, I will free them.” No amount of ‘Trust me! They really want to be mine and mine alone.” would’ve convinced me that he was truthful, but as long as the average citizen thought him to be honest, I needed to not contradict him on everything he said, lest I sound like an obnoxious teenager.
“Would you look at that. You hold your position not because of morality, but because of principle. How cruel. If he had a principle that murder was good, no amount of arguments would convince him he’s wrong.” I grabbed his shoulder as he said that and leaned into his ear.
“Murdering slave owners is very much one of my principles.” He stood there, unphased again. He either couldn’t feel fear, or already knew this was going to happen and mentally lived through this. I leaned off him and addressed him again. “And no, I’m not saying that because of an unflinching principle. I’m still saying it out of morality.” He scoffed at my reply.
“Oh? Please do inform me on why freeing my slaves that want to be owned is good.” Alright, it was time to bust out philosophy 101.
“Do you support throwing bricks at innocent people?” I said.
“No?” He said back.
“Why not? Do you have a principle of not throwing bricks at people?” He genuinely seemed surprised for a second, and didn’t regain his composure so quickly.
“Yes. It’s always harmful to throw bricks at people.” He fell right into my trap.
“But what if you missed and the brick was thrown at a nearby robber’s foot, which lets him get caught. That’s a good scenario that arose from opposing a good rule. Now, tell me, is the principle of not throwing bricks at people wrong?” He just stood there, silent. “No! Of course not! Just because one scenario out of many has good outcomes doesn’t mean the scenario is good. Just because your slaves ‘like’ being owned doesn't mean slavery is good. Most slaves aren’t given luxury beyond measure.” The man actually got angry, which was a good sign. I genuinely had more fun debating people who believed what they were saying, which is a lot harder than it seems. A clear sign that someone does believe what they’re saying is that they get flustered and angry when proven wrong.
“Stop blabbering about whatever and focus on one thing. You and I are fighting tomorrow, and you’re going down.” One of the girls grabbed his shoulder and teleported their group out of there.
“Uhm… I don’t understand chinese. What did you two talk about?” Said Christian.