Returnee's S-Rank Management Guide

Stage Device (2)

"A broadcast is, in the end, a double-edged sword."

Jin Su-hyuk, the man who gained his power from the fusion of the Demon King's remains, divine art, and another world.

The Demon God, the completed product that Damian sought to create.

There were a number of completed products, but among them, Jin Su-hyuk was said to be the most well-made.

'If he's the highest-completion product, does that mean he's the most similar to that guy?'

The man who killed the Demon King, Park Jung-woo.

He, too, had fought him.

No, for top-rank demons... especially those of marquis rank or higher, anyone would have faced Park Jung-woo in battle at least once. A considerable number of top-rank demons who confronted him lost their lives, but at least this one had survived.

That was some sort of badge of honor.

To have survived fighting Park Jung-woo and the heroes who followed him.

"A broadcast can trigger a massive ripple among the public, but at the same time, it can be easily stopped. There could be backlash, and a lot of variables depending on social circumstances."

If Park Jung-woo decided to make his move through a broadcast, he would simply have to create a situation where it couldn't be aired.

That was the simplest and surest method.

"Najan, was it?"

"That's right."

Jin Su-hyuk looked at the 'demon' before him.

In general, the top-rank demons who visited this world would hide within human vessels.

By merging with them, some would gain greater power, while others would be weakened from their original form.

Najan was neither.

His body was never that of a single individual to begin with.

It was made from countless failures.

In some ways, he was similar to Benadic.

The demon had cobbled together the bodies of divine art failure victims, stitching them into Najan's flesh.

A walking pile of corpses.

That's how Jin Su-hyuk saw him.

"You'd better have at least the level of skill Damian claimed."

"Hm, is that so?"

Najan showed a vague expression at Jin Su-hyuk's remark.

"But honestly, I'm not that strong."

Well, that was all.

He simply possessed a very special ability, and his lineage was even more special.

***

The Gatekeeper, Najan, was more often called by that title than his real name.

Demons had the power to create gates, dungeons, and rifts.

Special artifacts or bloodline-inherited abilities.

Najan possessed both.

Ding-ling.

As Najan rang a bell, countless black dots appeared in the sky.

It was like someone had poked holes in the heavens with an awl.

At first, most paid the scene no mind, but as the black dots gradually multiplied in the sky, people began to look up more and more.

"This country is really strange. Such a small land, and so many people living together in a cramped city."

Najan murmured as he continued to shake the bell.

From his perspective, it was a good thing.

To witness so many lives gathered in a single place was a rare spectacle.

And, he wondered, how sorrowful—or perhaps delightful—it would be once all those lives vanished at once.

"If just a few of these rifts, or the gates, were to open—this world would instantly become pandemonium."

The moment when peaceful daily life is shattered was always the most entertaining.

When things unfolded that nobody could have anticipated, the way humans reacted was always dazzling.

The time when one could feel all manner of emotions—that was what Najan loved most.

Ding-ling.

"Now then."

He shook the bell, once, twice.

The increasing black dots embroidered the sky.

Like black stars.

It was just as one of the holes began to open.

Wooooong!!!

"......!!"

Space trembled.

As Najan looked up, wondering what was happening, a golden light caught his eye.

A golden trajectory sweeping over the sky.

It drew an arc and then, in an instant, vanished over Seoul's skies.

Even Najan, who had been calmly ringing his bell, froze at this incomprehensible sight.

'What is that?'

The weapon that had spread out across the air shrank back, and his magic power froze.

A force, different from both magic power and demonic energy, formed a golden ring, spreading throughout the vicinity.

"What was that just now?"

It wasn't magic power, nor demonic energy—something entirely different.

Suddenly, Najan sensed that this power resembled the divine art that had been used to stitch his body together.

If so, there was only one thing to guess.

"Est—tella."

A dreadful name.

Demons hated that name almost as much as Park Jung-woo's.

No, as the 'Saintess', the nemesis of demons, even more hated by some.

Najan was the same.

Estella was a veritable calamity to him.

"You're greedy, aren't you?"

Estella said, looking at Najan.

"You desire so much. You want to see people's sad faces, you want to watch them scream and run, you want to see betrayal, death—them begging for their lives. There really is a lot you want to see."

Estella, meeting Najan, said so with a smile.

It was a cold smile.

"Your desire is so great—that I'd almost call it noisy..."

Estella spun her finger in circles, drawing golden arcs with her gestures.

"Thanks to that, it's easy to deny the origin of those wishes, too."

Estella, the Saintess of Wishes.

She possessed the power to turn someone's wish into a miracle.

The bigger the desire behind a wish, and the more people who shared that wish, the more miraculous the result she could achieve.

It came close to omnipotence, but the power had its restrictions.

First, the one making the wish had to see her. They had to pray while looking at her.

If more people wished for the same thing, the power grew. With only individual wishes, the scale of miracles she could manifest wasn't that great.

All she could do was grant the wish of an individual.

She couldn't affect the world or others as a whole.

In short, her power was unsuitable for combat.

"None of the things you desire will ever come to pass."

Saintess of Wishes.

For that reason, she could deny the wishes she heard.

She could twist causality so that what someone wanted most would never occur.

The stronger an individual's desire, the stronger this power became.

For Najan, it was fatal.

He desired to achieve so much, and he fervently longed for those things to come true.

Therefore, he was even more strongly affected by Estella's denial.

All his abilities were sealed, and all he could do was flee in disgrace.

The funny thing was, that time, Najan hadn't wanted to flee.

But he'd been dragged away, forced to retreat by everyone else's hands.

It was because he ran away amidst that horrible humiliation that he was, ironically, able to escape.

There were no more wishes left for her to deny.

"So it's true. This world really does have an Estella."

He had heard the stories.

Wasn't she called Shin Ah-yeon?

The great mage who possessed the power of Estella.

'A Saintess? No, I heard she was a bit different from a Saintess.'

If she wasn't a Saintess, how could she use Estella's powers?

"You came to find me sooner than I expected."

Najan's reason for getting involved in this affair was not simply because his abilities gave him the widest range among all demons.

It was to announce his arrival in this world to Park Jung-woo and Estella's reincarnation.

"This time will be different, Estella."

Najan stroked his face with his left hand.

Though it had a human face, it was crisscrossed with countless threads.

It looked as if it had been forcibly sewn together from corpses.

In reality, his entire body was a mass of flesh cobbled together from dead bodies.

Furthermore, what was entangled with Najan was not just flesh.

Even the souls housed within that flesh—he bound them just as he did the flesh.

Now, even in his ears, he could hear the screams of the souls within this body.

"I want to live," or "Just kill me."

There were souls begging to be released from this body.

That was the most powerful wish of all.

"Thanks to you, I learned how to govern my desires."

If he hid behind the cries of these souls, Estella would no longer be able to hear his own wishes.

Ding-ling, ding-ling.

With a faster and livelier motion, Najan shook the bell.

The black holes, which had shrunk back at the golden arc, began to open little by little.

Perhaps because of the lingering effects of that arc, the area he could open was extremely limited.

'But that's more than enough.'

If he could even just devastate a part of the city, fear would spread quickly.

And once he shook off the influence of that arc, he could open all the gates.

'This city comes first.'

Seoul—a city teeming with countless people.

He'd reduce it to chaos.

【Kyaaahhh!!】

Each black hole was a gate.

The howling of the monsters peering out from the holes echoed across the skies over Seoul.

It was obvious how people would react to witnessing that.

At first, most would freeze in disbelief.

And once the creatures started massacring upon reaching the ground, everyone would scream and flee.

This time, even Estella wouldn't be able to seal her own powers.

"Now...!! Go wild!!"

It was just like rain.

Countless monsters fell from the black holes toward Seoul.

Najan spread his arms wide, closed his eyes, and placed both hands over his ears.

Ready to savor the screams soon to resound throughout the city.

"Wow, what is that?"

"So cute!!"

"Guess that thing from the broadcast was real!"

The scream, echoed.

But it was different from the screams Najan had expected.

It was more like cheers than shrieks.

'What in the...?'

They were smiling even as monsters rained from the sky?

Was that possible?

"It is possible."

An all-too-familiar voice came from behind Najan, who was still listening intently.

When he turned, he saw a blonde woman and a man.

Park Jung-woo. He shook off the blue static crackling over his body with a casual sweep of his hand and said,

"While you were busy gathering all that demonic energy, did you think I was just standing by doing nothing?"

Jung-woo pointed to the base of the building where he stood.

Following the motion, Najan saw the countless billboards flashing with lively advertisements.

【There's an event in Gangnam today.】

On the billboard was Shin Ah-yeon, announcing a small magic show she was planning.

Because of that, people were assuming the events unfolding now were all part of Shin Ah-yeon's magic.

In other words, with that expectation—that wish—added to Ah-yeon's magic,

transforming the falling monsters into cute plush dolls was not impossible.

"That's ridiculous! Even if it's Estella, transforming monsters into something else is...!"

"If it were just ordinary illusion magic, that might be the case."

Of course, in Jung-woo's eyes, the things dropping from the sky didn't look like dolls.

They were still monsters.

He could see through the essence obscured by illusion.

Other magic-sensitive awakeners would probably be the same.

But to the ordinary people present, they'd appear as only cute dolls.

The golden arc that had just swept over them.

Everyone who had been affected by it—

"She can spread illusion magic this widely?"

This wasn't just mere illusion magic.

It was what Ah-yeon had always practiced, fused with Estella's authority and transformed.

"If she limits the range, it's not impossible."

People stared at Ah-yeon's face on the billboards.

For Jung-woo and Ah-yeon, this was an experiment.

Estella's power—how could its influence be utilized?

There were still some incomplete aspects, but they now had some certainty.

Wishes directed to Estella could be realized through a broadcast.

"The demons probably intended to use the monsters since sending themselves would now obviously cause problems."

The falling monsters were neatly annihilated by Alencia before they even touched the ground.

"If a wide-area gate, rift, or dungeon were to appear, that truly would've caused serious trouble."

It was like a firework display.

People would probably just think fireworks were going off in the sky.

Because that's how it would look.

The monsters scattered before ever reaching the ground, leaving not even a shard behind.

"...... Hah."

Najan let out a hollow laugh at the scene before him.

He had never anticipated they'd stave off chaos in this way.

"So that's how it is. These small fry are meaningless."

The stage he'd carefully prepared had been stolen away.

Even the gates that had opened in the sky had become pointless.

"But well, tricks like mine can only go so far."

Najan shook the bell again.

Then, beneath his feet, a 'gate' opened.

"Let's see just how far you can cover things up with that fancy illusion."

Out from the gate that opened under his feet, monsters began to pile up like a mountain.

Those monsters climbed higher and higher, and finally, as if exploding, scattered in every direction.

Just like rain.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=

【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】