TKWRG 3

Chapter 3

Kim Jinsoo, Section Chief of the Korean Hunter Association

Despite returning with the tremendous achievement of closing a black-grade gate, he had to endure endless investigations and lengthy meetings rather than a hero’s welcome.

“Hari, how’s it looking?”

In the lobby outside the interrogation room, Assistant Manager Han Hari looked visibly exhausted.

“They don’t seem to believe any of it.”

“Of course they don’t.”

A black dungeon had been cleared. By a scouting party that everyone had expected to come back half-dead, at that.

And that gate was a notorious demon gate, with a great demon appearing on top of it? The normal outcome would have been total annihilation, not a fifty percent casualty rate.

Kim’s direct superior was thinking:

*Are these bastards all in on some scheme together?*

No matter how he thought about it, this defied common sense. But since every single hunter who participated in the scouting party said the same thing, their gazes naturally turned to one man.

“What is your name, sir?”

Through the magic mirror, a man with brilliant golden hair was visible. A powerhouse who had slain a great demon in a single blow and annihilated every last demon.

His identity, measured at minimum as an S-rank hunter, was…

“A survivor… correct?”

“Yes. A survivor from another world.”

There had been occasional cases. Beings who survived beyond the gates.

The gates that had appeared worldwide over thirty years all shared something in common.

Each one carried a single theme: a destroyed world, or a world in the process of destruction.

Governments around the world speculated that the gates were connected to records of destroyed worlds or the worlds after their destruction, and in extremely rare cases, survivors crossed over from them.

Not just humans, but fantasy races like elves and dwarves as well.

Those who came from other worlds. People began calling them “Survivors.”

“But it was a black-grade gate. Is it even possible for a person to survive in a place like that?”

“He’s right here in front of us, isn’t he?”

Considering his absurd strength, it didn’t seem all that impossible.

Besides, quibbling over what was or wasn’t common sense was pointless. The world had been a continuous string of absurdities since thirty years ago.

Monsters had burst out of never-before-seen cracks, triggering a cataclysm.

More than half of humanity died, land was contaminated, and cities were destroyed.

Thankfully, beings blessed with mana—commonly called awakened ones, or hunters—appeared, and humanity barely managed to persist. But there was still far too much about the gates that remained unknown.

“Survivors…”

Survivors.

Unlike awakened hunters, many of them were innate mana users, and having survived in destroyed worlds, most were equal to or stronger than hunters.

But their noses were equally high in the air, and their cultures and ways of life were so different that they couldn’t easily integrate into modern society.

People who called themselves “XX Empire citizens,” “Sages of the Forest,” or “Masters of the Underground Dungeon” would have lived lives completely disconnected from modern civilization.

That was why the government established a policy of respecting survivors as much as possible, granting their wishes to the fullest extent, and bringing them into the fold.

“We have to recruit him no matter what. That man… he’s an incredible powerhouse.”

“Yes… no matter what. No matter what.”

Even A-rank hunters had to risk their lives against high-ranking demons.

Let alone a great demon? Great demons are, excluding the Nightmare Lord-class demons, the strongest monsters in existence.

Leon was a powerhouse who had slain such a great demon in a single strike. There had been hunters who repelled great demons before, but no one had ever overwhelmed one.

Even survivors, for whom strength was the default, feared demons—they never overwhelmed them the way Leon did.

Apart from that strength, survivors who had appeared worldwide often came from cultural spheres completely different from Earth’s.

Judging by how he referred to himself as “this king,” he was at minimum royalty. The investigators would need to proceed with considerable caution.

“I think he’ll be more reasonable than you’d expect.”

“Do you have a basis for that?”

“I felt it from his voice. That man… I think he’s a good person.”

Hari hadn’t forgotten the warm tone of the man who had encouraged her and helped her to her feet.

A man who praised the courageous and looked down on them with benevolent eyes… there was no way he could be anything but good—

“You lowborn wretch! How dare you defile the glorious name of Lionheart!”

CRASH!

A single downward punch demolished the desk. The shockwave shattered the reinforced glass that could withstand monster attacks.

Beyond the broken magic mirror, the brilliant golden-haired man was roaring at the investigator.

“…You said he was kind.”

“A-a cultural difference?”

Hari blinked and tried desperately to defend him.

* * * *

Leon felt a strange sensation looking at Earth, which he had returned to after 300 years.

Well, he had been an orphan who worked manual labor and died of overwork in his twenties.

After reincarnating, he had been a knight and king of the kingdom for over a hundred years, and after demons invaded the world, he had hunted them for two hundred years.

These were memories from three hundred years ago, so it was fortunate that even faint recollections remained.

The problem was that even comparing those faint memories, the current Earth was utterly unrecognizable.

“Hello, Leon Dragonia… Lionheart, sir?”

“Hmm…”

But he didn’t let on that he knew. They called him a survivor. That meant there were others like him.

*There’s no benefit to revealing I’m from Earth.*

Revealing that he was originally from Earth might make for an interesting background, but it offered no advantage whatsoever.

Surely a 300-year-old knight-king from another world was far better than a twenty-something who died of overwork doing manual labor?

Above all, he had lived the life of a knight and a king for far too long.

“Address me as Your Majesty, commoner.”

“Pardon? Ah, yes, yes…! Y-Your Majesty!”

The investigator bowed and scraped, accommodating Leon’s unreasonable demand. Hmm, was the investigator himself a meek person, or was the government approaching survivors with caution at the institutional level?

“So… the black gate… uh, in Your Majesty’s world, you made contact with our hunters and… subjugated all those demons?”

“That is correct.”

The demons he had killed last night were the last demonic presence he had sensed in this other world. They were the demon spawn on whom Ariana, Goddess of Light, had expended her final power to engrave her mark.

“I had forgotten.”

“Pardon?”

“This king has annihilated the demon spawn and upheld the honor of a knight. You—I command you as my temporary scribe. I shall grant you the honor of recording this glorious deed.”

“Uh… yes… yeeees…”

The investigator, looking at him as though he were half-mad, desperately repeated “cultural difference, cultural difference” to himself as he wrote down Leon’s statement.

“By the way, does this place not have etiquette for entertaining honored guests?”

In plain terms, he was elegantly asking for food.

“Ah, ahh! You must be hungry—no, you must be famished! My apologies! I’ll prepare a meal right away!”

The investigator hurried out and ordered suitable delivery food for his subordinates.

While waiting for the food, Leon asked the investigator what he was curious about.

“More importantly, commoner. You shall enlighten this king about this world. What kind of world is this?”

Leon asked even though he already knew about Earth. What he wanted wasn’t the Earth he remembered, but the Earth after his disappearance.

What on earth had happened to twenty-first-century Earth?

“Ah, I see. I’ll explain.”

The cataclysm of thirty years ago.

Gates. Dungeon breaks.

Demon gates, the Hunter Association—Leon felt that the calamities that had struck Earth were similar to those that had engulfed the Lionheart Kingdom and its world.

*It’s a bit different, though.*

In his kingdom, demon gates had opened directly. Thanks to the empire’s black mages who had contracted with demons to open them.

Countless demon spawn had poured out, and one by one, nations had crumbled.

But Earth was different.

Gates had poured down on Earth, yes, but demons hadn’t invaded in a chaotic swarm like with demon gates.

Each gate had its own concept, and upon entering a gate, a system window called a “clear mission” existed.

As if testing Earth. As if strengthening it in stages.

Earth saw the gates as a catastrophe, but to Leon’s eyes, this looked like a process of trials meant to strengthen.

*And there are others like me?*

Survivors.

Otherworlders who had crossed over from beyond the gates.

Were they also from Earth like him? But what was certain was that none of them had ever declared themselves to be from Earth.

“The meal is ready, Your Majesty!”

The investigator had prepared the food. Leon’s eyes twitched at the sight of it.

Seolleongtang.

A milky-white broth with salt and pepper. And kimchi!

For someone who had done manual labor on Earth, seolleongtang was nothing short of soul food.

The taste of broth made from beef bones boiled down thoroughly, seasoned with salt and pepper to your liking, with well-cooked white rice dumped in bowl and all, eaten with cabbage kimchi!

*No… no.*

But Leon swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth. It was seolleongtang and kimchi after 300 years, but he reminded himself of his position.

Leon Dragonia Lionheart.

Royalty from another world. A worshipper of chivalry and the gods’ agent. Guardian of the Holy Grail and master of the holy sword and holy spear.

Was seolleongtang, the soul food of commoners, truly fitting for someone like him?

Would slurping broth and noisily sucking down noodles befit the dignity of royalty?!

“What is this food?”

“It’s a dish called seolleongtang, Your Majesty. You could call it the soul food of the common people—”

BANG! Leon slammed the desk. He shot to his feet as if he’d found his opening and roared.

“You lowborn wretch! How dare you defile the glorious name of Lionheart!”

“Pardon? Pardon?”

The investigator tilted his head, utterly confused. This poor investigator trembled before Leon’s overwhelming presence.

“How dare you serve commoner food to royalty! Is this how your kingdom of South Korea treats the royalty of other nations?!”

“N-no, that’s not what I—”

Investigator Park Jongpal, age 42. Having lived his entire life in the free Republic of Korea, there was no way he could know how to properly entertain royalty.

“Remove yourself at once! This is why lowborn wretches are—!”

Having roared the investigator out of the room, Leon devoured the Earth common sense the man had left behind.

Survivor Leon Dragonia Lionheart.

The history of a 300-year war incarnate, the nemesis of evil who annihilated the Lord of Chaos Malus, twenty-three great demons, and millions of demons.

A demigod.

Guardian of the Holy Grail.

Agent of the Pantheon.

The Lionheart King with the Lion’s Heart.

Master of the holy sword and holy spear, and a living saint.

The first knight of Ariana, Goddess of Light and Justice.

Finally, the returnee from Earth, seeing the state of the planet after 300 years, thought this:

*It’s a complete mess. This is all because there’s no proper faith.*

Enlightening foolish commoners was, after all, the duty of royalty.