Player who Returned 10,000 years Later
chapter-57

"Okay..."

KangWoo gave her the memory card with a confused expression on his face.

'It seems like there's definitely something hidden in the video.'

It didn't matter how many times he thought about it. It didn't seem that she was going to use it for what porn was intended for.

After receiving the memory card, she seemed to be thinking about something; then she slowly opened her mouth.

"Let's look at the video together. It's stuff you'll learn about sooner or later anyway."

"No, I already know that stuff."

KangWoo became sure that there was something hidden in the video, but he couldn't help but feel weird about it.

"HwaYeon, how is your agent?"

"He died..."

Baek HwaYeon, who had been looking through the corpses, spoke with a heavy expression on his face.

She approached KangWoo and spoke in a low voice.

"Could... I ask you what happened?"

"I'm also not quite sure what happened."

KangWoo sighed and told her what had happened from the moment he met the young man who had given him the memory card until then.

"They attacked you the moment you received the memory card?"

"Yes."

"So you really were involved in the incident just by chance."

Baek HwaYeon raised her chin as if she had a headache.

"But I also want to know a bit more. What happened?"

"I'll explain to you the situation after looking at that video."

"Oh, yeah. About that vid..."

Before KangWoo could finish the sentence, the sound of a moan spread through the alley.

Chae YeonJoo had pressed play after putting the memory card on her phone.

"Wh-what's this…?" Chae YeonJoo said with her face as red as her hair color.

Baek HwaYeoon took a glimpse at the video.

"It's a fake video. We cannot look at the real content in the video without the video decrypter that we have on our base."

"No, but why did he use such a video as a fake!" Chae YeonJoo shouted with her face red.

Baek HwaYeon calmly answered.

"Isn't it a good fake because it's this kind of video? We recommend our agents use adult videos. Agent Kang DongHoon just did as he learned at our headquarters."

"N-no, wait. That means..."

Chae YeonJoo turned her head around to KangWoo.

"You… you saw that video. Right?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me!"

"You said you needed to use it right now..."

"Use for what?!" She shouted with her face red.

After realizing the truth about the video, KangWoo smirked and opened his mouth.

"I was just about to ask that. What were you planning to use that for?"

"Y-you damn..."

Her body began trembling because of the humiliation.

But she couldn't say anything because she was the one who’d taken the memory card from him as fast as she could.

"But what just happened? Just what's really in that video?"

"Oof..."

Chae YeonJoo was about to say something else when she sighed and began explaining.

As she kept talking, KangWoo's doubts started to be answered.

"So, you'd arranged to meet up with an agent that had infiltrated the Demon Cult, but that went wrong?"

"Yes. After receiving the signal for S.O.S, we looked around, but we weren't able to find him. This was the place where we received the last signal."

"Hmm. That means there's information about the Demon Cult in that memory stick."

He was finally starting to understand why those men had suddenly tried to kill him and why Chae YeonJoo had said that there was important information in that video.

'That's also why there weren't that many members of the Hwarang Squad guarding the gate.'

There was a chance that the First Hwarang Squad had been dispatched as support.

"Yes. Th-that's why I didn't say that because of porn! Understood?!"

"I understand. Calm down."

It seemed like Chae YeonJoo was still embarrassed. She shouted while grabbing his collar.

Echidna approached her and separated her from him.

"Don't treat KangWoo like that."

Echidna looked cautiously at her while hugging KangWoo's waist.

"Th-this kid..."

"She's the summoned monster I told you about before."

"Oh, she's the dragon?"

Chae YeonJoo looked at Echidna with great interest.

She looked like a little girl who resembled a very pretty doll rather than a dragon.

"Wait, is she really a summoned monster? You didn't do anything weird. Right?"

"What kind of person do you think I am?"

"Ah... Well, I'm sure you aren't someone who would do something like that."

Chae YeonJoo nodded.

"You're not that kind of trash, but a different one."

"Are you complimenting me or insulting me?"

KangWoo looked at her in disbelief.

Echidna glared at Chae YeonJoo and opened her mouth.

"Take back what you just said."

* * *

"Ugh..."

"KangWoo isn't trash. He's someone very important to me."

"Th-that..."

"If you don't take it back, I won't remain still," Echidna said while letting out demonic energy.

Chae YeonJoo seemed troubled and scratched the back of her head after hearing the words that a doll-like girl said.

"Okay, I take it back."

"Then it's okay..."

Echidna stopped leaking out demonic energy and put her head on KangWoo's body, whom she was hugging.

KangWoo patted Echidna, who was rubbing her cheeks on him.

"What did you do?"

"It's because of my popularity and kindness."

"Don't say nonsense," Chae YeonJoo said, fed up.

Baek HwaYeon, who had been ordering the surroundings, approached Chae YeonJoo and KangWoo.

"Let's return to the headquarters. Only there can we can decrypt this video."

"Okay. KangWoo, you're also coming. Right?"

"Well, since things have turned out like this, it would be weird for me not to go there."

KangWoo shrugged his shoulders and followed Baek WhaYeon.

* * *

The headquarters of the Hwarang Squad wasn't that far away from there.

Unlike the player management office, the building where they followed Baek HwaYeon to was rather simple.

"Captain Baek HwaYeon!"

As Baek HwaYeon entered the building, members of the Hwarang Squad came running to greet her.

She nodded with a heavy expression on her face and opened her mouth.

"Agent Kang DongHoon died. I'll contact the family, so take care of the rewards."

"Ah..."

"He's a national hero. Take care of the family with respect."

"Yes!"

Baek HwaYeon kept talking while looking around.

"Where is Captain Jang HyunJae?"

"He's currently in Japan, investigating the SS-rank Gate."

"Hmm..."

Jang HyunJae…

He was the leader of the Hwarang Squad.

Except for Baek KangHyun, there wasn't anyone in Korea capable of winning against him.

'If the captain were here...'

Baek WhaYeon sighed.

She thought that if he were there, maybe agent Kang DongHoon wouldn't have died.

"I'll go to the investigation room. Bring in the video decrypter."

"Yes!"

Baek HwaYeon went to the investigation room with KangWoo and Chae YeonJoo.

After they passed the video on the memory card through the decrypter, a room with a dark background appeared.

The first person they saw was someone unknown wearing a mask.

'A red demon mask.'

KangWoo's eyes shone after seeing the video.

He remembered what Jo DeokHyun had told him.

'Is that the person who's going around preaching about the Demon Cult?'

KangWoo kept watching the video attentively.

[Cardinal.]

[Yes.]

One man who entered the dark room kneeled before him.

—It was a man who had a geometric tattoo on his face.

With a very educated manner, he bowed his head at the feet of the mask-wearing cardinal and spoke with a trembling voice.

[The preparations for the 'summon' are almost ready.]

[How long will it take?]

[Four weeks... If we're lucky, three.]

[Three weeks…]

The man wearing the red mask nodded after hearing that it would take three weeks.

[Faster than I thought. Did you receive support?]

[Yes. As expected from a major guild. Most of the offerings were players who had a B-rank attribute or higher.]

[Good.]

[Hehehe. Soon, our dreams will come true.]

[This is just the first step. It's going to take a while before our dreams become a reality.]

[But if we successfully manage to do this, maybe they'll give us even more support—]

[Enough.]

The man wearing the red mask interrupted him.

The eyes that could be seen through the mask shone terrifyingly.

[Avoid talking about it until the preparations for the summoning are done.]

[Yes...!] Replied the man with his head on the floor at the answer of the masked man.

The video was cut short at that moment.

"..."

There was a heavy silence in the room.

Baek WhaYeon and Chae YeonJoo looked with stiff expressions at the projector where the video had been playing.

"Hmm."

While frowning, KangWoo organized the information he had just heard in his head.

"Cardinal, summon, and big guild."

They were able to obtain three pieces of information from the video.

The first one was that there was someone who had a higher hierarchy than the person the man called 'cardinal.'

The second one was that they were making the preparations to summon something to Earth.

The third one was that a big guild was supporting them.

"It seems like the only way to get more information will be investigating the big guild."

"Huh?"

Baek HwaYeon looked at KangWoo in surprise after hearing what he just said.

"Why do you think that?"

"Now that they learned that a spy infiltrated them, they'll probably do their best to hide as much information about the summoning as possible. We currently have no way to find out more information about them, so all we can do is to investigate which guild is supporting them."

"Woah..."

After hearing an explanation that was hard to believe was made in such a short time, she exclaimed in surprise.

"Did you work in a field related to this?"

A strategist or maybe an analyst—besides people who worked in those fields, there weren't many people capable of doing such an analysis so quickly.

"No, he's... Just someone like that."

Chae YeonJoo looked at him in disbelief.

He was someone who realized her intentions from the first moment she'd approached him.

"So, what should we do?"

Chae YeonJoo knew about his abilities, so she asked him about what they should do from then on.

"Well, there's only one thing we can do now."

KangWoo kept talking in a low voice.

"Hanul, Red Rose, Onnuri, Mir, Sanarae. Except for your guild, the Red Rose Guild, one of those probably supports the Demon Cult."

"I also know that. But there's no way we can find out who's the one connected to the Demon Cult."

The big guilds were so powerful that not even the government could touch them without thinking twice.

Even if they wanted to investigate them, they couldn't do it easily.

"There's one way…"

"How...?"

"We need to…"

A smile appeared on KangWoo's face.