“These are some funny bastards.”

Five men, including Hwang Minhyuk, stood surrounding us.

“Namgung Myeong. I’ll give you one last chance to run.”

Without answering, Namgung Myeong revealed the “level” of his entire body. A level that still hadn’t even reached the early stage of the hero-grade. It went without saying, but that was the reality of incarnations who couldn’t join a proper ‘nebula’.

The minimum condition to become a constellation was to build ‘five tales’ with one’s own hands.

If you were around a fable-grade constellation, even something like choking while eating would trigger a history-grade tale, but for incarnations who hadn’t become constellations, a ‘history-grade tale’ was practically the same thing as a fortuitous encounter.

“Hwang Minhyuk. If you were a Murim person too, show at least the minimum chivalry!”

Judging from Namgung Myeong’s level, the tales he had built so far were three.

Even growing to that extent on his own without the help of a ‘Great Nebula’ was, in itself, something impressive.

“Chivalry? K-hahahah! If you keep something like that, does a tale get born or what?”

Hwang Minhyuk mocked him and raised his own level.

“Because you can’t break free from that old-fashioned way of thinking, you’re still not even hero-grade.”

Hwang Minhyuk and the other men were all in a state where they’d built at least five ‘history-grade tales’. However, the tales they had built weren’t tales they’d ‘purely built up by themselves’.

「In the Great Nebulae, they operate a ‘tale bus’ for incarnations in the lower scenarios.」

They had probably joined <Tamla Heavy Industries> and received help from upper-level constellations. They would have clung to those shadows to accumulate achievements, received leftover scrap tales, and become constellations.

“Do we even need to let them go? It wouldn’t be bad to just kill both of them.”

The temple officer of the ‘late stage of the hero-grade’ who had read Namgung Myeong’s tales said.

At those words, the other men’s expressions also grew fierce.

“Come to think of it, this guy was a survivor of ‘contamination’, right?”

“He’s a guy stained by an Outer God’s tale, so if we catch him and make him into a pill, won’t we be able to get some D-coins?”

With a pale face, Namgung Myeong shouted.

“You bastards, if you pull something like that inside the city—”

“I heard from Little White Tiger Moyong Shin that you fooled the overseer and gave false information about the ‘wave’.”

“That’s…!”

“The dead overseer was from <Tamla Heavy Industries>. The audit team will issue an arrest warrant for you soon.”

“…….”

“You know well what happens to incarnations who get caught by the audit team. Rather than getting dragged into the torture room, dying here would be better for you too.”

At the man’s words, Namgung Myeong seemed to think about something for a moment, then turned to me with a grim expression and said.

“Benefactor, it seems this is as far as I go.”

“…….”

“Even if it’s just you, please hide yourself. I’ll buy time somehow. Run toward <Tamla Heavy Industries>’ main headquarters. You’re a body that received the Salvation Cult leader’s choice—everyone won’t be hostile toward you. If you ask the main headquarters for help, there will definitely be an executive who will help you.”

Listening to Namgung Myeong’s resolute voice, I thought of ‘Asuka Ren’ and ‘Michio Shoji’ of ‘Peace Land’.

[The constellation, ‘Owner of Baekrokdam’, watches your choice.]

“Hahaha! What a splendid chivalrous hero we have! Do you think we’d allow that?”

As if mocking Namgung Myeong’s conviction, the men burst out laughing.

In Ways of Survival, there were probably many people who died like this.

“You’d better run. Rather than meeting a dog’s death that won’t even be recorded as a tale……!”

That’s right. Their deaths wouldn’t even be recorded as tales.

[The tale, ‘Recorder of Things That Will Disappear’, writhes.]

But even if they couldn’t be recorded, I liked them.

Just knowing that one more person like this was still alive somewhere I didn’t know—

“Mr. Myeong, that’s enough now.”

I gain the strength not to give up on this story.

“Please step back for a moment.”

“Benefactor?”

A startled Namgung Myeong looked at me as I stepped forward.

—Benefactor, who hasn’t achieved transcendence, is not someone who can face enemies like that! Among them, there are strong ones on par with an overseer!

A [Voice Transmission] flew into my ear.

Come to think of it, Namgung Myeong remembered me as an idiot who’d been driven out of the apocalypse region without even achieving transcendence.

After giving Namgung Myeong a light smile, I walked toward the men lined up in front of me.

The men looked briefly flustered by my action, then hardened their expressions.

“Hit him.”

The one who gave the order was the incarnation of the ‘late stage of the hero-grade’. That bastard was probably the ‘overseer’ Namgung Myeong had warned about.

“Die!”

The men who spat out a rather obvious line all pulled out their weapons at once.

Sword, saber, spear. Each one, Murim’s representative weapons.

But the tales wrapped around the weapons they pulled out were, from my standpoint, rather shocking.

[The tale, ‘Sleeping Dionysus’s Nose Hair’, begins its story!]

I’d thought I smelled something rotten from somewhere, and it was the smell coming from the spear halberd flying at me.

The guy who checked my expression shouted proudly.

“Looks like you recognized it. It’s the nose hair of one of the Twelve Divine Seats!”

“Hahaha! It’s too late to regret it now!”

I see. If it was around <Olympus>’ Twelve Divine Seats, even the nose hair they plucked out would become a history-grade tale.

But having to deal with something like that makes me feel miserable.

[The tale, ‘Drunk Dionysus’s Hair’, begins its story!]

[The tale, ‘Dionysus’s Beard He Shed While Shaving’, begins its story!]

After lightly dodging the weapons flying at me from three directions, I asked.

“Aren’t you <Tamla Heavy Industries>? Why do you have some <Olympus> divine seat’s hair as a tale?”

“Shut up!”

The fierce power dwelling in the tales grazed my hair.

Certainly, even tales like that are still tales, so if you master them, you can apply them like magic power.

But that’s all.

A tale displays the greatest strength when it’s used to fit the situation.

[The exclusive skill, ‘White Azure Qi Lv.???’ activates!]

Wasting tales to raise your “level” that mindlessly—

Sgagagak!

There’s no way you’d be my opponent.

Before even more serious body hair showed up, I used [White Azure Qi] to cut their tales apart.

Seeing the weapons get cut off easily, they let out groans.

“H-How can you cut a tale that contains the power of a fable-grade constellation!”

[The constellation, ‘Owner of Baekrokdam’, is surprised at your skill proficiency!]

[The constellation, ‘Lord of the Rabble’, shakes its shoulders with a familiar expectation!]

In the <Star Stream>, ‘combat power’ is decided by ‘what tales’ you ‘built, and how’. Even at the same grade, someone who built up tales with their own strength and someone who just collected leftover scrap tales and only inflated their weight class can’t even be compared in actual combat.

If the ‘Bald Militia Commander’ knew these guys were the same ‘hero-grade’, he’d be furious too.

“Kneel.”

At an order containing a very light [Incite], the men surrounding me all spat blood and dropped to their knees.

“W-What……?”

“Huuugh!”

Faces that didn’t even understand what they’d been hit by.

The incarnations of <Tamla Heavy Industries> stared at me with eyes full of disbelief.

But not all incarnations were like that.

The only one who resisted my [Incite]. The overseer of the ‘late stage of the hero-grade’, who had been watching the fight from the back, opened his mouth.

“Interesting. Were you a guy who strengthened tales with D-coins?”

D-coins?

“I underestimated you because you were a rookie. So you really are a talent Lord Nirvana chose.”

The overseer, who muttered nonsense by himself, closed the distance in an instant. For a ‘late-stage hero-grade’, the tale contained in the punch he swung was fairly heavy.

Boom!

But that was all.

Thunk!

The bastard who got smacked in the head by the side of ‘Unbreakable Conviction’ staggered.

“Kheuk?”

I hit him in the head again.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

“Kyaaaak!”

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

How many times did I strike his head like that? A message sounded from the air.

[The constellation, ‘Lord of the Rabble’, is delighted by your strange fighting style!]

[You have received sponsorship of 1 D-coin!]

As expected, your tastes haven’t changed.

“W-What is—”

His backer constellation sponsored me coins.

The flustered bastard looked up into the air with an absurd expression, then, unable to hold back his anger, charged at me.

“How dare—!”

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

“Kyaaaak!”

[You have received sponsorship of 1 D-coin!]

Making money is easy.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

[You have received sponsorship of 1 D-coin!]

“Thunk!”

This time I said it out loud by mistake.

[You have received sponsorship of 1 D-coin!]

In that way, after gathering twenty D-coins in an instant, I asked the overseer, now battered and staggering,—

“Are you going to keep going?”

Even if it was a coin event, messing with him too much would be troublesome.

In any case, ‘Lord of the Rabble’ was Bang Cheolsu’s backer constellation. Since I had a short tie with him, killing his incarnation also wasn’t something I really wanted to do.

[The constellation, ‘Lord of the Rabble’, is satisfied with your violence.]

[The constellation, ‘Lord of the Rabble’, watches you closely!]

[The constellation, ‘Lord of the Rabble’, asks if you’ve seen it somewhere before!]

As expected, ‘Lord of the Rabble’ still didn’t recognize me.

Maybe, just like Han Sooyoung said, it was because of my unique status of having a constellation’s “level” in an incarnation body.

I wanted to ask about how Bang Cheolsu was doing, but now wasn’t the right timing.

“I’ll let you off because of your backer constellation, so get lost.”

Bang Cheolsu was Bang Cheolsu, ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) but if these guys were in the same group as ‘Nirvana’, it would be troublesome to press them too hard.

By now, I’d punished them enough.

“O-Overseer. It would be best to retreat for today.”

The men who scrambled to their feet supported the overseer, now covered in blood, and ran off.. Without ever properly figuring out my “level”, the overseer didn’t forget to throw out a line even as he fled.

“I’ll never forget this debt.”

[The constellation, ‘Lord of the Rabble’, likes the incarnation’s noir spirit.]

I have no idea where the Lord of the Rabble keeps picking up incarnations with stereotypes like that.

After the short coin event ended, Namgung Myeong, who’d been watching my mood, approached.

“Benefactor…… are you all right?”

“Yes.”

Against guys like that who’d only clumsily inflated their tale weight class, I was confident I could take on a whole truckload of them.

“I got you caught up in this because of me. I’m sorry.”

“No. They were targeting me from the start.”

“They absolutely won’t back down here.”

“Probably not.”

That point bothered me a little too. I’d debated whether to use some [Incite] on them when I sent them off, but I left it alone just in case.

[The constellation, ‘Owner of Baekrokdam’, watches you closely.]

Because the bastard who looked like a constellation from the <Tamla> side had been observing me for a while now.

“Since they failed to arrest you at the overseer level, next time they’ll definitely dispatch the audit team. If the audit team comes, it’s highly likely that among them there will definitely be an ‘executive-level’. Since you helped me, perhaps now you too, Benefactor….”

Executive-level.

Then does that mean someone on the level of Reinheit or Jo Jincheol, or even Nirvana, would come?

“It’s fine. If something happens, we can ask for help too.”

“Help?”

“You have an affiliated corporation too, don’t you?”

Poking the back of Namgung Myeong, who had a stupid expression, I said.

“I want to take a look at your corporation.”

*

Namgung Myeong led me straight toward his corporation’s main headquarters.

“I never imagined you would take interest in our corporation, Benefactor…….”

“But that corporation name—how exactly do you read it?”

“Because right now it’s become a very uneasy name…… it’s a bit difficult to tell you the exact pronunciation.”

An uneasy name?

Why?

“They say that existences at fable-grade or higher can pronounce it while excluding the impurity dwelling in the name, but for me, that’s still difficult.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but for now I nodded.

“By the way, are you really thinking of joining our corporation?”

“For now.”

“You might regret it.”

“Why. Because it’s a mid-sized corporation?”

“That too, but…….”

Normally, people would be happy about having more employees, but Namgung Myeong seemed genuinely worried about me.

“Our corporation currently has four employees… no, only three.”

“Three?”

“Before, there were far more employees. Among our corporation’s ascenders, there are truly powerful incarnations. But now…… honestly, it isn’t a proper corporation. We might have to file for closure soon….”

File for closure?

“Ah, that is our corporation’s ‘main headquarters’.”

A building too small to be called a main headquarters. No— the house, too shabby even to call it a building, was located in an estate I knew very well.

With trembling steps, I stood in front of the estate.

「Heaven-Breaking Sword Sect.」

As I entered the estate, where the signboard had fallen, a house that had turned into ruins appeared. In the yard of the house sat a dog. A dog whose one arm and one leg had been replaced with prosthetics.

When the dog barked woof woof, someone revealed herself from the back of the abandoned house.

“Shingu, sorry. Aren’t you hungry?”

The woman, wearing a tattered and shabby dao robe, crouched toward the dog and held out a small hamburger from inside her clothes.

Woof!

“No. Dumplings are gone now. You have to live, so you have to eat this at least.”

Woof woof!

I watched the dog and woman’s backs for a moment, then carefully made my presence known.

“Excuse me.”

Flinch, the woman’s shoulder trembled, and she turned to look at me. As she confirmed my face, emotion gathered in her eyes. From doubt, to surprise, from surprise to shock.

Her lips slowly parted.

“Ah.”

Eight years. Even though it was enough time to forget someone, she recognized me.

I waved a hand at her and said.

“It’s been a while, Gyeong Sein.”