“And why didn’t you just regenerate?” Said Anna as my party met up again just outside the now destroyed stadium. The property damage was incredibly high, but we didn’t have to pay back this one thanks to the Scarlet Emporium's protection.

“Stronger bodies take longer to regenerate.” I said. The nano-chatte wasn’t magical. It couldn’t just regenerate me at the same pace as it did before. It already estimated its regeneration will be entirely useless by level fifteen.

“So… you four failed to beat a tiny ass korean just because he could time travel?” Said Anna.

“I mean, he did overprepare for us. If he was an actual threat, he’d have defeated all of us with only three redoes.” I said. Jae Il-Seong probably rigged the battle intelligence test, or found a loophole, or knew what the illusion would think he would do, because there was literally no way he was a ‘combat genius’. Jae had fled after the nano-chatte healed him and everyone else. We would have to kill him later on anyway, and doing it right after the tournament would immediately put the blame on us and sour our reputation even more.

“How many redoes did he even get?” Said the demoness.

“Five. That disgrace shouldn’t have been given anything, but the Revifier is nothing if not generous.” Said Sam. The demoness scoffed at his statement. “Don’t even try saying anything, you demon. You’re only here because Ian thinks you’re redeemable.”

“It’s the other way round, little bootlicker.” Said the demoness while looking back at Sam with an ominous grin.

“You actually think he values you above us?” Said Sam.

“I value both of you equally, now shut up and listen to me. I think everyone can agree that all this was too easy, even if we almost lost. Korea has been a sweep so far, which probably means every strong adventurer is in this city. We gotta rush down to destroy Seoul’s dungeons before they organise.” I said. Jae Il-Seong would probably twist the story so he’d seem sympathetic, and have the local adventurers behind him. We couldn’t fight all of them and the immense hoard inside the city, so it’d be better to knock one of the two out first.

“Don’t we literally have the strongest guild behind us? Can’t they help?” Said Sam.

“The Scarlet Emporium is the strongest guild?” Said Christian.

“Well… yea? They have the most money, they have the most mercenaries, and can hold every other guild and demon empire back easily.” Said Sam.

“The Scarlet Emporium doesn’t support its adventurers. We’re not a special class of employee to them, we’re mere mercenaries.” Said the nano-chatte. I was afraid of Sam reporting me to the Revifier at the beginning, but he already knew I was somewhat robotic and hasn’t reported me yet for some reason, so it was probably safe to let the nano-chatte talk.

“Excuse me? How would you know anything? You haven’t been outside this world… Wait a minute.” Sam looked at me, remembering how I regenerated and reformed. He could’ve dismissed the armour’s quirks as something a minor space faring civilisation crafted, but now it was obvious to him. “You’re a nano-chatte aren’t you?”

“Are you stupid? Nano-chatte’s can’t do magic. I’m another type of robot.” I said. It was a flat faced lie based on another lie, but Sam didn’t know that. He still thought magic had serious rules and that I was a robot, so wouldn’t have anything to suspect about my explanation.

“Can we go already? I don’t care what type of robot Ian is. Nano-chatte or not, he’s still my punching bag.” Said the demoness as she power walked towards the giant pillars in the distance.

Jae Il-Seong kicked open the door to the guildhouse only to see everyone staring at him. His party was arguing as Nang looked incredibly angry at the three slave girls. She had fully escaped his grasp thanks to the stupid British man, and wasn’t backing down in whatever argument she had. Everyone went quiet as he approached the table and pushed Nang into her seat.

“What are you doing?” Jae said.

“I’m–” Nang tried talking, but was cut off.

“What are you doing? You think you can cause a mess while I’m gone? I saved you too. The least you could do is sit down and shut–” Jae crashed down as Nang got up and slapped him.

“Nang!” Said one of the slave girls as the trio tried stopping Nang from moving. She pushed them all away with aeromancy before pulling Jae up by his shoulder.

“I’ve had enough of this stupid party and your stupid expectations. I’m quitting.” Jae’s eyes widened as Nang said that.

“Wait what?” Jae said before being launched through the wall. Nang walked away before Jae could get up, and left him to limp back into the room. He wasn’t worried. She’ll come back crawling and begging for help soon enough. Jae looked around and cleared his throat.

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“Everyone! Gather round.” The adventurers in the guild shifted their attention towards Jae Il-Seong as he started speaking. “The tournament was a sham! Our victory would’ve been secure if they didn’t all rush me at once. They didn’t care about the lives at stake. They didn’t care about how much it would cost to rebuild the stadium. They, like all foreigners, want to see Korea get toppled. Now, we can either chase them while they’re fighting the dungeon monsters and reclaim our nation’s last chance, or we can stay here and wait to be taken over.” Said Jae Il-Seong.

“And why’re you the leader of our expedition exactly?” Said a giant twelve foot tall knight wearing armour leaked out steam as he moved. Everyone around him cleared as he spoke. He had a very subtle french accent everyone noticed.

“Because I’m still the strongest, and a Korean.” Said Jae as the knight slowly walked towards him. Jae didn’t have any cards left, and without them, he was almost nothing. Sure, his stats and base strength he gained from levelling were there, but even a ranger could overpower him in melee without the strength from the cards.

“Are you sure, little man? Perhaps your nationalism has blinded you.” The knight cut off Jae’s head with one swift move. “You adventurers aren’t here to protect the honour of your long gone nation. You are here to protect your guild. Since your ‘angel’ failed to take down that demon, the warlock has arrived to fix his mess. All of you are coming, and if you don’t,” He pointed to the corpse on the ground. Nang, who was spying for info to give Christian as a thank you since she didn’t have anything else to give him, rushed towards Seoul to warn them about the incoming hoard of adventurer’s after them.

“Holy shit. That’s… a lot of monsters.” Said Christian. He couldn’t even come up with a good comment. The entire city was swarmed with all sorts of creatures. Orks, goblins, trolls, dryads, wyverns, warhounds, necromancers, skeletons, wraiths, ghouls and every single type of monster was in the city.

“Reminds me of my dad’s army.” Said the demoness.

“Yea, of course it does. All these monsters are made to work together. The dungeons just separate them. It’s natural that they return to how they usually run things when together again.” Said Sam.

“Nerd. Who cares?” Replied the demoness.

“I care. It’s fun learning about monsters.” Said Christian in an attempt to stop an argument between the two. He probably couldn’t even care less about monsters.

“How are we tackling this dungeon? They have every weak spot covered.” I said.

“They’re a well oiled machine, we’re a well oiled machine, and when two well oiled machines meet, the only thing that matters is how strong the machine is.” Said the demoness, much to my confusion.

“What she means is that we need sheer strength if we can’t find a weakness.” Said Anna.

“And you know who has all the strength we need?” Said the demoness while pointing to herself.

“We’re not letting you do everything by yourself. We need XP too. I’ll fly Sam up, empower him, and then he lasers every monster down in a matter of minutes.” I said. My aura of change I gave to him temporarily was enough to make the demoness go unconscious, so a Sam who’s even stronger would create a laser that would cut through the city like butter.

“Absolutely not. The aura ages people, you know that right?” Said the nano-chatte.

“You can just reverse their age.” I said, but Sam immediately started talking after I finished.

“Absolutely not! I’m not letting that abomination touch me! Not until it acknowledges the Revifier as its one true god.” Oh. Sam and the nano-chatte were completely incompatible in terms of ideology. Of course they wouldn’t want to cooperate.

“You have to be kidding me.” I rubbed my eyes through my armour and when I opened them the demoness was right in my face.

“I’m always here if you don’t want to make those two make up and work together.” I pushed her away with one hand while looking at Anna.

“Alright. Anna will be leading the attack while Christian and the demoness send the monsters that escape Anna’s attack into a hail of holy fire and bullets from me and Sam. Any objections?” Anna was a fine substitution for the demoness. While she didn’t have as much power as the demon princess, she didn’t need it against these monsters. Everyone stayed silent, which I interpreted as them not having any objections, and was about follow up on my plan before someone crashed into me.

“Every adventurer is coming here right now!” Said a short girl who had flown right into me.

“Nang?” Said Christian.