TKWRG 6

Chapter 6

“Hello, it’s been a while since I turned on the stream. This is Park, a farmer from Jeolla Province.”

What’s up at this hour?

-When are you posting the traditional liquor content?

Farmer Park was a farmer who also worked as a YouTuber on the side.

A typical rural YouTuber who showed country life—farming content, frog mukbangs, boar hunting—while working his fields.

Recently, he had come to look at the rice paddies of his neighbor Mr. Kim, whose work had been halted by a gate appearance.

“I mentioned it in the community, right? A gate popped up in neighbor Kim’s field.”

-ㅇㅇ You did

-That was won by the Firebird Guild, wasn’t it?

-Mr. Kim even set up a full table of food and drinks for the Firebird Guild hunters, begging them to fix it properly.

“Oh, but then a dungeon break happened, didn’t it?”

-Park, no bullshit ㄴㄴ

-You’re saying Firebird, with S-rank Lee Yongwan and over forty A-ranks, couldn’t clear a crimson gate?

-Bullshit ㄴㄴ Even if Lee Yongwan didn’t step up personally, they should’ve cleared it easily

Park felt wronged by the viewers’ reactions. It was because he had personally seen Mr. Kim, the field’s owner, weeping bitterly as he looked at his maso-contaminated land.

Park didn’t know much about hunters, but he knew they were among the famous top-ten guilds and possessed tremendous skill.

And yet a dungeon break had occurred, and Mr. Kim’s field was still being contaminated by maso. It was the tragedy farmers feared most since the Cataclysm thirty years ago.

“I’m telling you, it’s real. The association staff are here too, and it’s chaos. The rice plants are all rotting from maso contamination, I’m telling you.”

Park zoomed in on the camera footage, showing the contaminated land and the association staff confronting the Firebird Guild.

Not only the rotted rice plants but also the skull fragments scattered around suggested they were skeleton remains.

-……Really? If maso spread through Honam, this year’s harvest is fucked. Why isn’t it on the news?

-Aren’t we screwed? Food self-sufficiency has been dropping lately, so farming subsidies went up.

-What’s the point of subsidies when there’s no land to farm?

-The answer is smart farms. You should buy Twojeong Future Foods now

-Stock bros OUT!

After that, Park continued filming around the gate.

A control line had been drawn, but Park, who had been sneaking around among the crops, fortunately wasn’t spotted, and the viewers’ reactions grew more serious.

“Oh… There’s a foreigner.”

At that moment, a golden-haired man entered his camera frame. The viewers also raised questions.

-What’s a foreigner doing there? Is he with the Firebird Guild?

-For that, his gear is pretty shabby. He’s not even wearing equipment.

-Then is he association staff?

-There are no Europeans among association staff. But damn, he’s handsome.

-Why are there so many ajummas over there? They’re all holding something. Park, zoom in a bit.

Park saw the altar and rice-straw dolls that Leon had piled up. It wasn’t clear since it was dawn, but they looked like some kind of altar-like structure.

‘Is he holding a shamanic ritual or something?’

Holding a gut ritual on maso-contaminated land was a common sight.

People did it to pray that the contaminated land would be purified, but in the end, the only way to purify contaminated land was to inject reagent from the Magic Tower at the right time.

Could that blonde man be a mage dispatched from the Magic Tower? No, no matter how you looked at it, he seemed far from a mage.

For some reason, Park couldn’t stop thinking about that man.

It wasn’t just because of his appearance.

Even though he was filming from a distance, the radiance of the living saint Leon exuded a subtle nobility and dignified grace.

He had instinctively sensed something ‘genuine’ that couldn’t be felt from the upper class or actors one often saw on TV or the internet.

Modern nobles might be high-ranking awakened and businesspeople, but their dignity and bloodline couldn’t imitate the real thing.

And the next moment.

Farmer Park was about to witness the moment that would change his life.

* * * *

Leon is the first knight of Ariana, goddess of light and justice.

The Sage Kings of the Holy Knight Kingdom of Lionheart were, across generations, her champions who served Ariana first.

But in the Kingdom of Lionheart, where harmony with and service to the gods was a virtue, certain gods were essential objects of worship, and naturally the Sage King also served as their champion.

“Lionheart. My child.”

“I greet the Earth Mother Goddess, Demera, divine of life and abundance.”

Leon knelt on one knee and offered respect and reverence to the rice-straw doll.

Even within the pantheon, Demera’s stature was high. She was the divinity who embraced all life and presided over abundance.

While everyone else failed to understand the voice resonating from the rice-straw doll, the goddess Demera, dwelling within it, spoke.

“This new land is also being invaded by evil. The land has been contaminated.”

“Yes, evil breeds exist in this land. Yet I fear that with divinity absent, base and lowly swine will defile the goddess’s eyes.”

The first emotion Leon felt upon returning to Earth was ‘disappointment.’

The matters of awakened and survivors were secondary. His faint twenty years of memories remained only as memories.

But what he saw upon returning—the tyranny of the top-ten guilds and an incompetent government—was both pathetic and lamentable.

“Ignorance and greed cannot simply be called sins. The lives of mortals are inherently so. What do you plan to do going forward?”

“I do not like it, but that does not mean I can overthrow legitimate rule. This land elects its leaders through the wretched means of voting, but that too is this land’s legitimacy and lawful procedure.”

That was the sole reason he acknowledged the president’s authority.

The incompetence of being manipulated by a handful of swordsmen was absurd, but the right to rule was sacred, so he intended to follow lawful procedures.

“I shall establish upon this land that rights and duties can be parallel. I will teach the ignorant and lead them to the right path.”

Earth.

His homeland, where power and money had become justice.

Above all, a land devoid of divinity.

Leon intended to establish a new pantheon upon this land.

He would restore the divinities of the pantheon that had lost their power and fallen, and revive the new Holy Grail Knight Order.

For that, he needed faith. Numerous followers, priests, and true faith to worship the pantheon.

“Child, is there something you wish to ask of this mother?”

Demera read Leon’s intent and smiled. The first knight of Ariana. He was no longer merely the champion who represented light and justice alone.

When the gods of the pantheon chose Leon, the Holy Grail guardian, as their vessel and decided to imbue all their divinity into the pantheon within his heart.

The gods had bet everything on Leon.

They believed he would rightfully punish the hordes of evil and survive to the end.

He had accomplished that splendidly over 200 years, and had found opportunity in a new land.

Therefore.

The divinities of the pantheon would grant whatever he wished.

They would trust in the greatest knight in history who had ultimately preserved honor and divinity.

“Yes, Demera. The free people of this land are suffering from the wicked energy called maso. Though it may not be easy for you, please heal and purify this land.”

Demera, in the rice-straw doll, gathered divinity at her fingertips. A feeble blessing incomparable to when receiving the faith of numerous followers.

But in this land devoid of faith, it would appear as the greatest of miracles.

“You are my high priest. Our champion. The earth of this world is not this mother’s flesh. Spread my divinity and replace this barren land with my flesh. Then all things upon this land shall become your allies.”

Divinity dwells in the land.

The living saint, the demigod, the Sage King—and further, the high priest of life and abundance—was blessed by the Mother of Life upon the land where he stood.

Land is life.

The source of life and the beginning of an abundant world.

When divinity dwelt upon the earth with its infinite energy, a wondrous spectacle unfolded.

The maso-contaminated land, the rotting rice plants—they vanished.

The divinity that forgives not the wicked sprouted new life.

Simultaneously.

The rightful duty of all life rooted in the land was tilled by the saint’s hand, and neither contaminated soil nor rotted rice could halt their growth.

Leon addressed all those watching this spectacle from afar.

“See and understand! You unlearned and unknowing masses! This is a world alongside divinity!”

Rows of rice surging like gold. Before the miracle of life that purified all the contaminated land and grew, everyone clutched their trembling hands and mouths.

“Be fruitful and multiply. This is the rightful duty of all living things. This abundant land is the proof of the covenant unto eternity.”

* * * *

Han Hari, Section Chief Kim Jinsoo, and the other Hunter Association staff were dumbfounded before the miracle unfolding before their eyes.

How does maso contaminate the land?

Why can’t life grow in contaminated soil?

The conclusion drawn from all these questions was one.

That a malignant will beyond human common sense or technology operates to devastate the world.

Crops cannot grow in contaminated land. Purification is possible, but that amounts to offsetting it by massively inputting the mana of precious hunters.

Crops cannot be grown in maso-contaminated land.

That was modern common sense, and the reason modern humanity desperately clung to printed cultured food and farm factories.

As dungeon breaks gradually increased the contaminated land, humanity’s food self-sufficiency would hit rock bottom.

“Wh-What is this…….”

Hari and Jinsoo couldn’t believe their eyes at the phenomenon before them.

Golden crops filling the land swayed gently in the wind.

The golden fields of the abundant earth shone brilliantly, as if the fact that it had just been contaminated was a lie.

“Section Chief… Th-This is real rice.”

“I-I’m seeing it too.”

The rice that had grown in an instant. It wasn’t just the Hunter Association that was shocked by this.

Firebird Guild Master Lee Yongwan, who had intended to contaminate the land to pressure the Hunter Association, was equally stunned.

“Ha! You must not know that crops grown rapidly through magic are poison!”

Lee Yongwan’s point was correct.

Since the Cataclysm, humanity had researched ways to grow crops with mana.

But mana-infused crops couldn’t be eaten by ordinary humans—they acted as toxins instead.

“Have you seen such ignorant nonsense. This is a crop directly blessed by divinity. How can you judge it as poison.”

“That rice-straw doll—”

“I forgive ignorance only once. Do not defile the goddess with your loose tongue.”

Leon’s words had power—something that compelled obedience. Above all, the implicit wariness toward survivors kept him from acting rashly.

‘Damn it, this can’t be happening.’

The Honam Plain was a hostage. As the association suspected, the Firebird Guild had deliberately induced the dungeon break.

Korea’s top-ten guilds already received countless benefits, but they wanted more, and the core of that was exemption benefits on dungeon byproducts.

Currently they wanted exemptions worth one trillion won a year, but they would continue to expand that scale and eventually demand complete exemption.

In the end, if they used the dungeon break as a pretext to pressure the government, the government—which had to protect the land and its people—would have no choice but to accept.

But that had been thwarted by some survivor. Lee Yongwan wanted to find any fault he could.

“Let’s have it appraised. For the safety of the citizens who will eat that rice, I believe verification is necessary.”

Whatever his intentions, his argument was factually correct.

Crops grown by magic cannot be eaten by ordinary humans. Therefore, verification was naturally necessary.

“We’ll lend you our guild’s appraiser. I’m curious—what exactly is a crop that grew in one second?”

Lee Yongwan wore his characteristic sinister smile and waited for the result.

Anticipating the moment he would tear off that shameless mask.

The moment even a trace of mana appeared in the crops, he planned to denounce him as a fraud.

“Th-The appraisal result is out!”

“Th-That was fast.”

“Our guild’s appraisers are excellent, after all.”

As Lee Yongwan waited for the words “this rice cannot be eaten” to come from the appraiser’s mouth, the appraiser, drenched in cold sweat, finally spoke.

“The appraisal result—the grade is Rare!”

“Hm?”

“E-Every single one of these rice plants is Rare grade!”