* * *

His feet tapped against the glass. The moment Limon leaped out the window, he twisted his falling body in midair and raced straight down Leviathan’s window-covered exterior.

'Our princess has a surprisingly cute side.' It wasn’t even their first kiss, yet a mere surprise kiss had turned her face as red as a ripe persimmon. Limon had expected her to brush it off with that inscrutable smile of hers, as always.

'Then again, perhaps it isn’t so surprising.' Li Qingyu was the princess of the Black Dragon Clan. She was a girl of the highest birth, one who should have been cherished and enjoyed every privilege of wealth and power. It wouldn’t be strange if she had gone her whole life without dating, or even having contact with a man her own age. It was easy to forget that simple fact when she was now treated as the cause of her clan’s downfall and was so clever and capable.

'Assuming that wasn’t an act, of course.' Limon chuckled. He knew the Seven Dragons Society too well to mistake one glimpse of this side of Qingyu for proof that she was an innocent girl. He couldn’t even count the women who had willingly sacrificed their own lives—and their families’—just to get close to him.

That was the relationship between him and her: too dangerous for trust, too fraught for an engagement. In a sense, they were farther apart than enemies. 'Well, I suppose that’s marriage for you.'

THUD! KRA-BOOM!

Even so, he understood her and had decided to trust her for now. Limon jumped away from the hotel he’d been racing down and shot off into the streets without looking back at Leviathan, where the crashes still echoed.

There were already more than enough forces to defend Leviathan. Above all, if Qingyu had gone so far as to send him away, he had no need to worry about those left behind. 'The question is how long the subsidiaries can hold out.'

His feet tapped across the rooftops. Leaving only afterimages as he crossed the city, Limon pressed the bracelet-shaped pager on his wrist. He frowned at the subsidiary reports that appeared: dozens were in emergencies. Even for him, visiting every one of them would take far more than ten or twenty minutes. At least he wouldn’t have to go help the subsidiaries enrolled in the Guardian System.

“After taking that much money, you’d better not let a single person die, you presumptuous bastard. I’ll punch a buttonhole through your other eye too.” Grinding his teeth at the leader of the local thugs he’d hired at a steep price for just this eventuality, Limon sped away like the wind.

* * *

BANG!

“...!” Xue Rong, the security chief of Heavenly Flower Department Store, had tried to protect his career only to find himself facing an unintentional warrior’s death. His eye widened. Just before the knife plunged into his neck, the grinning Ryu Gang-cheol vanished from in front of him. In his place was a man-shaped hole in the ceiling.

A figure now stood where Ryu had been. Wearing Eastern-style scale armor, silver Western-style gauntlets, and a bright red Middle Eastern turban, the bizarrely dressed man bowed to Xue Rong.

“Greetings, valued customer. I’m Nam Gi-mun, leader of Personnel Dispatch Team One. Our motto is perfection, speed, and precision.”

“... What?”

“Thank you for choosing our guild’s services. I promise you won’t regret it.”

If ever there was a time to be confused, this was it. Ryu Gang-cheol had suddenly disappeared. A stranger had appeared spouting nonsense, dressed in clothes from no country Xue Rong could identify. Unable to make sense of any of it, he started with the most pressing question. “Who are you?”

“Ah, you must have missed it in the confusion. Let me introduce myself again. I’m with the perfection, speed, and precision—”

“I heard you’re Nam Gi-mun from some personnel dispatch service! I’m asking what that means!” Xue Rong snapped.

Nam Gi-mun looked puzzled, as if wondering why Xue Rong didn’t know him. “Aren’t you a Guardian employee?”

“Do I look like I work for that damn company?!”

Xue Rong looked ready to breathe fire, but his answer only puzzled Nam Gi-mun further. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I’m the security chief of Heavenly Flower Department Store! What’s strange about me being here?”

“Aha. No wonder you didn’t know us. You’re not our customer—you’re our customer’s customer.”

“What are you talking about?”

Nam Gi-mun nodded to himself, then gave the still-bewildered Xue Rong a simple answer.

“I’m from a partner guild that just signed a security services contract with Guardian.”

“... A security contract? A partner guild?”

“Yes. Think of me as an employee of a subcontractor hired for security.”

“What?!” Xue Rong stared blankly for a moment. Then the meaning sank in, and he was aghast.

'They hired outsiders who aren’t even clan members to guard a subsidiary? Those lunatics at Guardian...!' Given its origins as a criminal organization, the Seven Dragons Society had always entrusted company security and protection entirely to clan members. Hiring an unrelated guild as guards was outrageous to Xue Rong, a Black Dragon Clan member with a proper respect for tradition. Of course, tradition and common sense had gone out the window long ago when they made Limon—the clan’s enemy, not merely an outsider—the head of Guardian.

BANG!

“Which cowardly comrade ambushed me?!”

Ryu Gang-cheol, who had been sent flying through the ceiling, burst back up through the floor for some reason. Nam Gi-mun stared at him in puzzlement. “Huh? Why are you alive? I kicked you in the crotch hard enough to kill you on the spot.”

“I did die! You made me create a new body!”

“Ah, a clone-type skill. You’re a thief using such a rare skill for the wrong things.”

“Who’re you calling a thief...!”

Perhaps being kicked to death in the crotch had been too horrible an experience. His usual composure was gone. Ryu raged, face flushed, then abruptly fell silent. He peered at Nam Gi-mun with a strange expression, as though he’d noticed something odd, and asked uneasily, “... Comrade, what’s your name?”

“What would you do with my name?”

“It’s just... you look familiar, comrade. Maybe I’m imagining it.”

“You’re probably not.”

Nam Gi-mun grinned and clenched a gauntleted fist. “My name is Nam Gi-mun.”

“...!”

Ryu’s jaw dropped. He spun to flee, but Nam Gi-mun lunged as though he’d expected it and threw a punch at the back of Ryu’s head.

“Fuck!” Ryu turned just in time to dodge, but lost his chance to escape. Swearing, he swung his knife.

CLANG!

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

“Working. Like a good employee.”

“What kind of employee? At least try to make your lies believable!”

“Why? A place that gives you work and pays you is a workplace. Work there, and you’re an employee.”

“What kind of bullshit logic is that?”

“The kind you use on a piece of shit like you. Right?”

Even as he shouted in desperation, Ryu kept slashing at Nam Gi-mun. Dozens of cuts, all useless. Nam Gi-mun didn’t even have to block; his armor was so tough the knife simply bounced off. Ryu wasn’t a fool. He tried to aim for vulnerable spots the armor didn’t cover, but wishing for it didn’t make it happen. No matter the angle of his swing or where he thrust, the knife seemed to be drawn to the armor and struck nothing else.

“Here we go! Looks like today’s the day to put down a dog!”

BANG! BOOM! CRACKLE!

Nam Gi-mun’s counterattacks, on the other hand, were vicious. Each time he swung a fist, the ten gems set in his gauntlet lit up and triggered different effects. A ruby brought an explosion; a citrine, paralysis; a sapphire, slowing; an emerald, an ethereal form; an amethyst, an increase in size; a black pearl, enhancement. Sometimes they activated in turn, sometimes all at once, in a storm of effects. Whatever Ryu did to respond, the dazzling, downright vicious succession of attacks opened a gap and exploited it.

“Damn it... fight me without your items!”

“HAHAHA! Take your head off first and I’ll consider it!”

“You son of a bitch, are you mocking me?!”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me to fight without my items? Are you my ex-wife, trying to take my stuff?!”

KRA-BOOM!

For some reason, Nam Gi-mun looked furious as he unleashed five or six effects at once.

“Damn you! I’ll get you later!”

Perhaps Ryu saw no way to win. Battered like a punching bag and sent flying by the ferocious assault, he smashed through a window in a second attempt to escape. But Nam Gi-mun wouldn’t let him get away this time either.

“Who said you could leave? Go, Kabra!”

The turban on Nam Gi-mun’s head wriggled like a living snake, then suddenly stretched out and flew at Ryu.

“What the hell is this...?! Eek!”

CRUNCH! CRACK! CRRRUNCH!

The turban coiled around Ryu like a snake catching a monkey that had stolen its eggs. He struggled and screamed horribly as it tightened to the size of a palm, until at last it crushed him, squeezing out nothing but a handful of blood.

SWISH.

“Good work, Kabra.” The turban returned to Nam Gi-mun’s head, its scarlet color brighter after absorbing Ryu’s blood. He patted it fondly. As Xue Rong stood frozen at the sight, a boy appeared.

“Ugh, you’re wearing that hideous turban again.”

“Hideous? Our Kabra is adorable!”

“You got divorced because you doted on that ‘adorable’ thing, and you still haven’t learned?”

The boy, with dark circles clearly visible beneath his glasses, sighed in exasperation.

Nam Gi-mun retorted without a trace of shame. “That’s because the woman didn’t understand the world of players!”

“Please stop making it sound as though every player is a freak like you, Deputy Guild Master.”

“Hey, I told you not to call me that while we’re working. Right now I’m the leader of Personnel Dispatch Team One.”

“That doesn’t mean you stop being the deputy guild master.”

“You brat! If they know I’m the deputy guild master, they’ll think my rates are too high and hesitate to hire me again! I need a cheaper-sounding title!”

“Do we really have to make money like this? We’re not a guild of money-grubbers like Midas.”

“That’s exactly why we should learn from Midas! Our income’s fallen since Chief Park disappeared, and it’s hard to buy new items.”

“So you just want to make money to buy yourself items!”

“What’s wrong with that? Is it a crime to want a few items?”

Xue Rong watched, dumbfounded, as the man who had twice disposed of Ryu Gang-cheol—the man who had nearly killed Xue Rong twice—squabbled with a young boy. Then his eye flew wide.

“Deputy guild master? And your name is Nam Gi-mun... Don’t tell me you’re the Item-Dependent Archduke?”

“It’s the Relic Archduke, not the Item-Dependent Archduke! Or call me the Artifact Master!”

“What are you doing here?!”

Xue Rong was aghast. The ridiculous outfit had kept him from recognizing Nam Gi-mun sooner, but if this was the man he knew as the Item-Dependent Archduke, he had no business being here. It wasn’t merely that he was one of fewer than a hundred archdukes in the world. The problem was the guild he belonged to.

“I told you. Your security company hired our guild.”

“H-hired? Your guild?”

Xue Rong stared, eyes nearly popping out. Nam Gi-mun grinned at him.

“That security company you hired certainly knows how to get things done. They even got our Infinity Guild to play security guards.”

It had been too much money to turn down, Nam Gi-mun admitted sheepishly. The ten great guilds were the dominant powers of this age, and he was the second-in-command of one of them. Looking at the deputy guild master of the Infinity Guild, Xue Rong could only open and close his mouth.