WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 137: Don’t Outbid Me on the Dragon Node I Bid On
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Since the Declaration of the Holy Realm over Seoul, we had been searching for a place that could become a new sanctuary.
We had declared sanctuaries in Japan's Kansai region and Serbia in Eastern Europe, so it was a shame that the Seoul sanctuary, our home base, was the smallest of them all.
More than anything, the sanctuary's power was undeniable.
Because it received energy directly from the ley lines, it had access to an almost inexhaustible supply of spiritual power.
Even mass teleportation, which was difficult to manage outside due to distance and the number of people involved, could be performed repeatedly between sanctuaries.
Another advantage was Gari.
An area declared a sanctuary became a place of worship where Gari's true body could "intervene."
Martim had been captured without being able to put up any resistance, so we were practically invincible in a sanctuary where Gari's true body intervened.
Of course... I could not be certain if beings like Paimon, Beleth, or Baal descended completely.
Most demons that descended into this world seemed to leave their true bodies in Hell, but the Malevolent Site transformation in Serbia had apparently been a completely different kind of incident.
Anyway, most demons only possessed human bodies or intervened through avatars.
A full demonic descent took too much effort, and it was probably far too conspicuous.
But if that was all they could do, they would not even be able to invade a sanctuary where Gari's true body was present.
In other words, increasing and expanding sanctuaries was an incredibly effective way to block the demons threatening this world.
But there were two problems with expanding the sanctuary.
"Most auspicious sites with existing dragon nodes have already been claimed by somebody. People who did not know better sold when offered a premium, but nowadays, everyone who buys them knows what they are. They will not sell."
Not many people cared about geomancy these days, but some understood those spiritually potent places and what they truly were.
Those people bought up every dragon node they could find and refused to let them go.
So what could we do?
We had to pay more.
Fortunately, I had rather a lot of money.
Then there was another problem that money could not solve.
"It is not easy to form a perfect triangular configuration. The Triangle has enormous significance in Christianity. We confirmed that the three vertices must form an almost perfect triangle before a Declaration of the Holy Realm can work."
We had tested it using the dragon nodes owned by Holy Temple Church.
We transformed them into Holy Veins, arranged them roughly into a triangle, and tried declaring a sanctuary.
It did not work.
"We struggled quite a bit after that. Without the Black Lotus Society's cooperation, it would have been truly difficult."
In the end, we decided to use existing spiritual nodes in overlapping configurations.
We would use the Holy Vein at my family home in Munjeong-dong, Songpa District, as one vertex, then connect it with two more nodes.
We had reached that conclusion thanks to support from Bang Seoryeong, the Society Head of the Black Lotus Society.
Bang Seoryeong had promised to provide the dragon node at Bukhansan, the Black Lotus Society's headquarters.
The Bukhansan dragon node had already undergone Holy Vein transformation.
It had been revealed through Kyoryong Bodhisattva, who had rebelled against the Black Lotus Society, that Kyoryong had aided Gamigin, the fourth-ranked demon. Many male shamans had also been borrowing demonic power.
Shocked that such evil beings had infiltrated the Black Lotus Society's sacred mountain, Bang Seoryeong had proposed the Holy Vein transformation separately from the sanctuary project.
"Connect Bukhansan, Songpa, and one dragon node east of Seoul, and we will have a new triangle. That final dragon node is..."
Cheonwangsan in Guro District.
We looked up at Cheonwangsan from the foot of the mountain.
It seemed to be used as a hiking trail, with middle-aged hikers in parkas coming and going and camping vans passing by.
"Isn't this government land?"
"Not all of it. The part we are buying is this campground."
Cheonwangsan had a fairly large campground.
It seemed to be a public campground operated by the Facilities Management Corporation.
"Can we buy a public facility?"
"Under certain circumstances."
The campground had apparently been built during the camping boom.
But trends did not last forever.
As camping fell out of fashion, lax management and mounting losses had led them to consider private operation contracts and the sale of public assets.
"It has a dragon node, but business is still bad?"
"Even if a place gives you good energy, people are the ones who have to make things happen."
Pastor Park had been negotiating with the Facilities Management Corporation to purchase the campground.
The corporation had initially considered private management, but it had apparently wavered once Pastor Park offered a large sum of money.
"The negotiations are almost finished. Now we only need to pay."
"Oh, so that's why you asked whether I had money."
The expected price was between 30 and 35 billion won.
It was enough to make my skin crawl, but that included the campground facilities and some of the adjoining park land.
That was how we arrived at the office where the chairman of the Facilities Management Corporation was waiting.
"Welcome, Pastor Park. And the person beside you is...?"
"This young man is the buyer."
"Such a young man?"
Chairman Choi Seongmun looked at me with a puzzled expression.
I was admittedly too young to be making a deal worth tens of billions of won.
"Since Pastor Park introduced him, I am sure there is no issue, but..."
Chairman Choi was very deferential to Pastor Park.
Gangnam Holy Temple Church was famously one of the five largest megachurches in Korea.
That naturally gave it considerable influence in political and business circles, so Chairman Choi was probably conscious of that.
"As you know, the district office must review the sale of the facility. But they are viewing it quite positively."
Chairman Choi slid an envelope across the table with his fingertips, and Pastor Park opened it to check the contents.
"Hm. That is quite a high price."
The asking price was around 40 billion won.
More than I expected.
"The officially assessed land value alone is substantial. Ha ha..."
"I understand the campground's operating revenue and maintenance costs have remained in the red for five years."
Chairman Choi scratched their head and spoke awkwardly.
"Please consider the cost of acquiring the facilities as well. We spent quite a bit building them."
"Those aging facilities. Renovations would require additional funds, and there would be complaints during the construction process..."
Chairman Choi's face began to darken. They had clearly hoped to raise the price.
The appraised value was 30 billion won. Even with a premium, 35 billion would have been more than enough to close the deal.
Yet they wanted 40 billion.
They had apparently wanted to get as much as possible.
"Whew. It seems we are at an impasse."
"Is that so? I thought this was a fairly good deal."
It was practically like we were taking over a campground that only drained money through losses.
Of course, the story would change if they knew about the dragon node.
Knock, knock.
At the sound from the door, Chairman Choi's expression changed.
"Come in."
"Yes, Chairman."
The person who entered was the secretary I had seen at the entrance.
"What is it, Secretary Park?"
"A new letter of intent to bid on the Cheonwangsan Campground has been submitted."
"Ah, is it President Kim?"
A moment later, a middle-aged man followed the secretary through the open door.
He gave off an extremely foul stench.
* * *
A foul stench.
It was obviously not a human smell.
It was that stale, disgusting odor connected to demons and their contractors.
A scent steeped in fundamental evil, on an entirely different level from evil spirits or wicked yokai.
The instant I saw him, I knew.
This bastard was a demon worshipper.
Pastor Park must have sensed something unpleasant too, because he glared at the man called President Kim.
President Kim, on the other hand, sat down with a sinister smile.
"Well now~ Good to see you, Chairman Choi. My name is Kim Minguk."
President Kim casually shook hands with the chairman in front of us.
Then he went straight to the point.
"Regarding the Cheonwangsan Campground, our company is willing to purchase and operate it. If given the opportunity, we will revive the business."
"Hm. I did not know you were interested in the campground, President Kim."
Chairman Choi and President Kim seemed to know each other.
A quick glance at his business card showed that he was the owner of a construction company.
A demon worshipper with such a respectable job, huh.
"Then, what price are you considering?"
Chairman Choi spoke while gauging our reaction.
They had been about to complete a deal with us, so they were probably worried about suddenly making us compete with an intruder.
"Ha ha. I am sure you have set an appropriate price, Chairman. We will positively consider whatever you request."
President Kim spoke while looking over the proposal.
Even though the price was far above the appraised value, he did not hesitate at all.
"Th-Then! The operation of the facility, along with rehiring the existing employees and staff..."
"Of course. An excellent network is already in place. There is no need to build one from scratch."
That confirmed it.
This bastard had come to take the Holy Vein and interfere with us.
I had expected demon worshippers to be monitoring me, but I had not expected them to obstruct me like this.
"Th-Then! I will review both proposals and submit them to the district office!"
A meeting where we had expected the negotiations to conclude was prolonged by an unexpected intruder.
As we left the office, we saw President Kim leaving with the staff.
"Heh."
President Kim walked away with a fishy smile.
I looked at him and asked Pastor Park.
"Is it okay if we don't kill him?"
"...We cannot let people see us killing someone in broad daylight. Even if we pursued him, he would have prepared a way to paint us as murderers."
No matter how much of a demon worshipper he was, openly killing him would only make us murderers in modern society.
The Mystic Association might take the circumstances into account to some extent, but if there was indisputable evidence, they could not overturn the legal system.
Those people knew that, which was probably why they had shown themselves.
"That man is only a mere demon worshipper. There must be someone else behind him. Still, this is troublesome. Getting in our way right when we were wrapping things up? Those bastards deserve to be beaten to death."
"Pastor, you are using fake Japanese again."
Sometimes, when he got excited, his Korean mixed with Japanese slipped out.
"Hm..."
"Now that it has become a bidding war, we have no choice but to spend more. Fifty billion? No, perhaps we should even consider sixty billion?"
"Do we really have to spend money?"
"Hm?"
I looked at President Kim's group through the Gugu legion, which was monitoring them.
At that direction, they were probably...
* * *
After arriving home, demon worshipper Kim Minguk ordered his bodyguards to maintain strict vigilance.
Yohan and the others had probably followed him, but if they used physical means, he had prepared thoroughly so that he could instead accuse them of robbery and attempted murder.
"Heh heh heh... To think they would give me orders directly."
Kim Minguk's objective was, naturally, to prevent Yohan from securing a dragon node.
Considering the strict requirements for a sanctuary, obstructing even one dragon node would make all the others useless.
The demon worshippers had expected Yohan to purchase a new dragon node soon.
"You dare try to turn Seoul into a sanctuary? I cannot allow that."
Kim Minguk had been assigned the task of using money and human laws to obstruct Yohan.
Now that he had received orders directly from them, his days of being a sucker who merely funded demon worshippers were over.
He too would learn spells, earn the demons' favor, and gain unimaginable wealth and power.
"To a brilliant future. Cheers."
Wearing a bathrobe, Kim Minguk poured wine while looking down at Seoul's nightscape.
The wealth he had built by worshipping demons and offering them living sacrifices was immense, but he still was not satisfied.
As he raised his wineglass and dreamed of the day he would stand at the top of this country, no, at the top of the world...
"Hm? What is that?"
A pillar of light suddenly rose, and the sky opened.
It was an obvious change that nobody could notice unless they were born with spiritual senses.
The clouds parted, revealing...
A huge eye.
"Huh?"
The moment he met that eye's gaze, blood poured from Kim Minguk's eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
.........
.........
.........
A dark mountain.
Only those with spiritual sensitivity could see the pillar of light rising in the mountains, where even the streetlamps were off due to poor maintenance.
"Well now~ I'm not sure we should be doing this?"
Pastor Go had been digging enthusiastically until just moments ago.
A large number of vampires had also been mobilized, diligently digging up part of the facility.
"The sanctuary is complete... All the demon worshippers inside it are dead, right?"
"President Kim too."
They wanted to stop us from buying the land with the dragon node?
Did we really have to purchase it before declaring it a sanctuary?
After confirming through the Gugu surveillance that President Kim had died bleeding, I spoke to the vampires.
"All right, cover it back up!"
First strike wins!
Footnotes:
Pastor Park's remark about being interrupted at the "finish line" uses Korean slang incorporating Japanese words, which Yohan calls his fake Japanese.
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