“Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!”
Kyuho also seemed to be surprised by Dohyuk’s sudden rise from the chair. Kyuho flashed his neck frantically.
“See? Do you see this?”
“…”
Dohyuk narrowed his eyes. He didn’t need to look closely as it was easy to notice the choker on Kyuho’s neck.
“It’s a detonation device I made. It’s simple. If something else tries to take control of me against my will…”
BOOM.
Kyuho gestured an explosion with his arms.
“I can deactivate it, but it requires me to press the combination once every five minutes to stop it from exploding. So don’t worry. If ‘she’ tries to do you any harm, I will explode myself.”
It was a matter of taking his own life, but Kyuho didn’t seem to care one bit about it. He was only concerned if Dohyuk was angry at him or not. Dohyuk looked at the mad man’s eye closely. And then he sighed.
“There’s a rule you have to follow starting now.”
“Yeah! Tell me anything!”
“Never leave the city without my permission.”
The wall had various effects in place other than just physical protection. For example, one was teleporting beasts who walked in without special permission. And no other god’s power would work in the city. So, even if Kyuho was a follower of Ka’kudenol, there was no way she would take control of him.
“Why did you have to be her follower?”
“I told you, things changed. I needed to work with at least one of them or I couldn’t have found you.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
Dohyuk hated gods, but he wasn’t talking about that. He also had a god named Aruga whom he was working with. But Ka’Kudenol was different. He gained a lot of information about many gods during his one year. This one was an exception. No one, Yuri, Giwon or anyone, had information about her. A god who only appeared to fill her weird desires. Her region’s location was unknown, and no one knew if it even existed.
‘…Honestly.’
Aside from the matter of if Dohyuk could defeat or her not, He felt rather weird about Ka’Kudenol’s madness than just plain hate that he usually felt toward the other gods.
And Kyuho had placed his life on the line for such a being.
“Don’t worry. She has a lot in common with me. There are a lot of maniacs who like you, but she’s different… probably similar to me.”
“…”
That wasn’t reassuring.
“She won’t help you without a purpose.”
“Hmm. She just said she wanted to take a tour. I heard that she gave you handmade armor and you wore it for a while before you tucked it away.”
“A tour?”
“She likes you. She’s just too happy to just even look at you. So she wants me to be her camera, you see? It’s so that she can feel you and see you too.”
Therefore, she was watching Dohyuk even while they were speaking. Dohyuk tried to say something, but he changed his mind and decided to change the subject.
“…Okay.”
He didn’t feel good about it at all. He even thought about banishing Kyuho and the damned goddess along with it, but it wasn’t a logical choice. For now, Kyuho was a valuable asset. It wasn’t like a year ago when Kyuho was more of a threat.
“Tell me everything.”
Dohyuk now was used having some beasts around. He had been helped greatly by Giwon and Yuri already. Besides, Kyuho was one of the 4 lieutenants of the Great Emperor.
“Everything about what I need to know, starting with most important ones.”
Kyuho smiled brightly. He was happy that his master was finally ready to use him.
The gray coin.
That was the new trend of the past few months. A new kind of currency gained from corrupting others. It tempted humans and gods alike and was the reason for the demise of many weak people spread around the world.
But…
“The amount of coins given when one is corrupted varies. It’s still uncertain, but there is one thing that’s for certain.”
In the room where important figures of the city were gathered, such as Heeyun, Yuri, and Giwon, Dohyuk was explaining what he heard from Kyuho.
“If the one being corrupted is stronger, the amount of coins given increases. But if their power is double the amount, the number of the coins given will be quadruple or more.”
People began mumbling to each other. Dohyuk looked at the people’s faces. They were probably thinking the same thing. Being strong without being corrupted was very rare. In their city, thousands of people were uncorrupt, yet they were becoming stronger every day.
“I know what you are all thinking.”
People became silent as Dohyuk began to speak.
“You are worried that our city will be targeted. Of course, our city is the best city to live in the current day.”
He already had been wary of this fact even before Kyuho told him. Even without the information that the strong ones got more coins, his city was a treasure box full of uncorrupt people. Fortunately, there weren’t any gods attacking for the past few months.
“It seems the reason they didn’t attack our city wasn’t only because they were afraid of us.”
“…”
“…?”
The people were confused and Dohyuk continued.
“Not all, but most of the gods seem to now have some kind of ‘concentration camp’ set up in this world.”
Concentration camp to house uncorrupted people. The reason was simple. The stronger the person got, the higher the chance that he or she would give the coins. So, they were now being treated as livestock to be killed later when they ripened.
“And the camp… it doesn’t seem to be terrible as you might imagine. I think it’s probably even quite nice.”
Livestock needed to get fat before they were put on the butcher table. That’s why the gods made an environment to protect them. Therefore, as they fed their own livestock, they instead went for the others.
It wasn’t rare for gods to fight each other to hunt for each other’s uncorrupt people and it had been going on since then.
“So, the reason we haven’t been attacked is…”
“Yeah. Even if they are gods, their power is limited if used in a small region.”
And Dohyuk’s city had one of the strongest firepowers. It was pointless to try to attack Dohyuk when there were other weaker opponents.
But as time changed, the trend changed. Gods began to trade regions that are scattered around to be placed closer to their ‘concentration camp’. This allowed them to grow in firepower and also protect the camp with ease.
Antem was a good example of this.
“Even now, gods are out there trading their regions, puzzling their lands to grow in size.”
If more time passed, their land would grow to the size of a country soon. Dohyuk stopped to drink a sip of water. People were thinking about what Dohyuk had just said.
“And we will…”