WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Our Precious Demon King ◈
Chapter 75: An Eighth Grader's Potential
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Director Park Taejun came to see Kim Junyong.
“I've taken care of Kim Remi's transfer and the property registry documents. We had to register her as your daughter, Adviser. Would you like us to change that?”
“What does it matter? Leave it.”
They were only administrative documents anyway.
“Oh, and may we begin demolition today?”
“Oh, you're finally ready?”
“We only have a preliminary design, but we should be able to go ahead with demolition.”
“Yeah?”
Kim Junyong took stock of the base.
Every detail of all nine houses, including his original home, lay within the reach of his mind.
“Are you rebuilding everything?”
“For now, we plan to build everything anew except your house and your sister's.”
“Well, then I'll pile everything over there.”
“Pardon?”
There was no reason to suffer through days of dust and noise.
This was a dungeon.
An absolute space where every object and feature of the land fell under the dark mage's control.
Rrrrumble.
One building crumpled and compressed.
“Whoa!”
The building beside it was torn free in an instant and attached itself to the lump of rubble.
“Uh, uh...”
The old low-rise apartment building beside Junyong's house was ripped free and rose into the sky. Watching a building crumple into a ball in midair, as though squeezed by an invisible hand, was deeply shocking.
Crrrunch.
In an instant, seven buildings had been broken into tiny pieces, compressed together, and piled across the street.
But demolishing buildings wasn't as simple as tearing them down.
Every house except Junyong's and his sister's flew through the air.
Crrraash.
The buildings collapsed as they piled on top of one another.
An enormous mountain of construction waste rose in one place.
Pop! Hisssss!
Splaaaash!
Water mains and gas pipes burst here and there, throwing the area into chaos.
“Oh! W-we have to stop that!”
Kim Junyong shrugged at the director's fuss.
The burst gas pipes were also inside the dungeon territory under his control.
Crrrunch.
They squeezed themselves shut, sealing off the gas.
Once the water mains were blocked too, everything grew quiet again.
“...How in the world?”
It defied belief.
The only buildings left intact on the block were Kim Junyong's house and Kim Jangmi's house.
The rest had become empty lots, with only traces of the houses remaining.
“Go ahead with construction, then.”
“Ah, understood. With this much done, we can start on the foundations right away.”
They weren't going to fill every empty lot with buildings.
Most of the space would be landscaped. The only buildings planned were for a few facilities Kim Jangmi's family had requested.
Things like a swimming pool or a gym, much like the shared facilities in an apartment complex.
'We'll build a guardhouse too.'
The Bureau would also put up the guardhouse it considered so important.
It would be a valuable outpost where the Teukgoji protection team could remain stationed at all times.
Their grave duties would be to keep the special adviser's home under tight guard and prevent any potential intruders from being killed.
“Oh, get the restaurant built quickly.”
“Yes, sir. The design for that is nearly finished already.”
The three lots across the street, now piled with rubble, would become the site of the new restaurant.
With a street separating the restaurant from the residential area, they could minimize Kim Junyong's contact with random outsiders.
For the Bureau, building the restaurant was the most urgent task.
And to do that, they first had to clear away all the waste.
“I came to discuss the schedule, but it looks like we should get started right away.”
“Go ahead.”
“Yes, sir. We'll begin immediately.”
Soon, heavy machinery rolled in one vehicle after another, as though they'd been waiting for the signal.
Kim Junyong settled onto the wooden platform on the roof and watched while drinking a beer Ed brought him.
“Master, what's that called, meow?”
“That's an excavator.”
“Wow, what an enormous mechanical arm. That would be useful for hunting drakes, meow.”
“Nah, it's too slow.”
“These all look like construction machines. Aren't there any combat ones, meow?”
“Nope.”
Kim Junyong answered automatically, then paused in surprise.
Everything Junyong knew about Earth was twenty years out of date.
“...Are there?”
It seemed possible that someone had developed them in the meantime.
“Sangsu.”
“Yes, Adviser!”
“Stop hanging around down there and come up.”
“Yes, sir!”
Kim Sangsu, who had been lingering in the yard, hurried up to the roof.
“They haven't developed combat robots with mechanical arms yet. Firing a missile is more effective than something like that. Drones are the big thing instead.”
“Drones?”
“Yes, sir. You see those things up there?”
“Oh, those.”
Kim Junyong nodded as he looked at the drones in the sky.
“I was wondering what they were.”
“They're small, but they're very versatile. Fit them with high-resolution cameras like those, and they're great for surveillance. You can also load them with explosives and fly them into a target. They're useful for attacks.”
“Wow, so they're watching us right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hah. Unbelievable.”
All he'd seen were things buzzing around in the distance. He hadn't imagined they were conducting surveillance.
'They're like watchers.'
The best way to catch watchers was with watchers of his own.
Kim Junyong squeezed every last bit of dark mana out of his dark mana core.
He would fill it up at the baseball stadium today anyway, so there was no reason to save any.
Whoosh.
The summoned black masses flew off in every direction.
Some went to the roadside trees, some to the park, and others onto utility poles.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The forms watchers liked best were birds.
A few preferred rats, but most liked transforming into winged birds.
Roughly a hundred watchers took on the forms of all sorts of local birds, from pigeons and crows to magpies and sparrows.
“Clear them all out.”
Flap-flap-flap.
The sight of the birds suddenly taking flight was spectacular.
When those birds abruptly attacked the drones, dozens of drones fell out of the sky.
“Wow! That feels good.”
“None of those belong to the Bureau?”
“O-of course not!”
'I'm here in person instead of a drone, aren't I?'
Kim Sangsu spoke as he watched the drones fall.
“Those are all illegal. Drone flights are prohibited in Seoul, but they're flying them anyway.”
“Then shoot them down.”
“It's not that simple... Haha.”
Kim Sangsu scratched the back of his head.
“We've been pulling our hair out over them. It's such a relief to have you take care of it, Adviser.”
“Flatterer.”
“Hehe.”
A question suddenly occurred to Kim Sangsu.
“By the way, what are the team leader and deputy team leader doing in the Demon Realm?”
“Training.”
“They've been there for quite a while now... Will they be all right without supplies?”
“What do you mean, without supplies?”
With Kim Junyong's permission, his retainers could also take things out of his subspace.
Luciel, who had stayed behind to keep Cheon Yubeom and Lee Mina safe and assist with their training, was regularly taking supplies out of subspace for them.
“Do you know when the two of them will return?”
“Why? Did someone tell you to find out?”
“...”
Kim Sangsu looked caught out.
He was easy to tease, even without reading his emotions.
“They'll come back when it's time.”
“Haha, yes, sir.”
Kim Junyong spoke with Luciel inside his mind to get an answer.
“Well, it looks like they'll be back as early as this evening, or sometime tomorrow at the latest.”
“Oh! Understood.”
That was news.
Kim Sangsu glanced at him, then quickly reported it to the Teukgoji group chat.
“It's not much, but watching this is pretty fun.”
Kim Junyong killed time watching the excavators busily move construction waste and the line of dump trucks hauling it away.
His two human subordinates and Luciel were training, and Remi had gone to school.
Kim Jangmi had gone to work, and both his niece and nephew were at school too.
Only Kim Junyong and Ed remained at home.
With construction sites all around them, they'd decided to close the restaurant for a few days, so at least Ed could keep him company.
“I'm bored. When's Jihun coming home?”
“Have lunch and take a nap, and he'll be here before you know it, meow.”
Of the family, the middle schooler Yu Jihun came home earliest.
“Should we go pick him up?”
“Meow, wouldn't that just disrupt his studies? The young master seems to be keeping his identity a complete secret. There's no need to draw attention to him, meow.”
“Oh, true.”
Yu Jihun felt it was his duty to protect his uncle. He hadn't said a word about Kim Junyong's existence, even to his closest friends.
For someone only in eighth grade, that was remarkable self-control.
He was at an age when he'd want nothing more than to show off and brag to his friends.
Thanks to Yu Jihun's efforts, the Bureau still only needed to guard him from a distance.
“Yaaaaawn.”
With his family out of the house, Kim Junyong passed the time gazing at the demolition site as though he were staring into a campfire.
* * *
Yu Jihun simply couldn't understand it.
'I'm a hunter! I've awakened!'
Yu Jihun had always admired hunters.
Now that he'd become one himself, it would have been strange not to be excited.
He'd spent all day yesterday looking at his status window.
Even though he'd been given the unimaginative class of Student, he'd accepted it.
He was a student, after all.
'Have I been living without putting any effort into anything?'
If he'd devoted himself to something like his sister had, perhaps he would have received a class related to it.
In any case, he'd awakened and received a skill.
Study, a skill fit for a student!
He'd been incredibly excited.
'With this skill, I'll be good at studying like my sister, right?'
He'd tried using the skill as soon as he got to school, but...
[Insufficient mana.]
“...!”
That was right.
Yu Jihun had been forcibly awakened, and his mana was 0.
As a rookie who had never hunted a single one of the minions of evil, he had no resources to use his skill.
'I'll get in trouble if I ask to go to the Demon Realm, won't I?'
Ah, he wanted to be a hunter!
His mom would definitely say no, so should he hurry and ask his uncle before she got home from work?
Mana!
He needed mana!
He wanted to try his skill!
Yu Jihun had been unable to concentrate all day, barely listening to his classes. As soon as the final homeroom ended, he rushed to the bathroom.
“Whew. Nobody saw me, right?”
His heart was pounding like mad.
It was the same thrill a superhero would feel sneaking into a toilet stall to transform without exposing their identity.
[Demon Realm Conquest] ver 3
“Ahh...”
A phone with this app installed was called a hunter phone.
To avoid being found out, Yu Jihun hadn't even taken out his phone all day.
'I need to get home and go on the Demon Realm Forum!'
How long had he wanted to read the private, hunter-only posts that weren't open to the public?
[Would you like to travel to the base?]
“Whoa!”
He nearly shouted.
He hurriedly clapped a hand over his mouth, then selected the base.
Pop!
His surroundings changed in an instant.
There was a large landscaping rock in the yard beside the front gate of his uncle's house.
A rusty sword was stuck in the middle of that rock, just like Excalibur.
And now it was right in front of him.
“This is freaking awesome!”
He'd teleported to his uncle's house.
“Hey, nephew. You're back?”
“Uncle!”
Seeing his uncle wave from the roof, he ran up in excitement.
“Please take me to see the Demon Realm!”
“Hmm? The Demon Realm?”
“Yes! I want to increase my mana!”
“Hmmm.”
Kim Junyong stroked his chin.
“Do you need to?”
“Come on, Uncle. I know I've got you, Remi, and the bodyguards, but a man should at least learn some martial arts for self-defense!”
He chuckled at his nephew's determined speech.
“Well, sure.”
Once the boy became an adult, he'd be thrown into a cold, harsh society anyway.
Throwing him in a little early should be fine.
“Let's go.”
“Meow! I'll provide support!”
Kim Junyong, Ed, and Yu Jihun formed a party and vanished in an instant, leaving only the ordinary civilian Kim Sangsu on the roof.
“Uh, ummm.”
He quickly reported the adviser's latest activities to the Teukgoji group chat.
That was his job, after all.
But why did he feel so left out?
“...Don't cry, Sangsu.”
He comforted himself and hoped that at least Kim Remi would hurry home from school.
For Kim Sangsu, the best employee benefit was getting to see her up close.
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