A few hours later, I was in the middle of Seoul.
It was definitely downtown Seoul, but the place I was in now was inside a hanok where only trees and gardens could be seen all around.
It was a Korean fine-dining restaurant converted from a hanok.
In the bright light of day, it simply looked like an upscale Korean restaurant, but I had seen places like this many times in movies.
In movies, places like this were called yojeong houses.
Places where those with real power held secret conversations.
Lee Jaeyun had guided me here.
When I arrived, there was only a reservation in place; no one was waiting for me.
It was not just that no one was waiting for me. There were no customers in this restaurant besides Lee Jaeyun and me.
Whether it had been Lee Jaeyun or the person who wanted to see me, someone had booked out the entire place.
Lee Jaeyun had been in an incredible hurry all the way here, but not only was the other party absent when I arrived, they did not appear for quite some time.
Then, an hour after I arrived, I sensed cars coming to a stop.
Several people got out of the cars.
One of them was someone I knew—the ruling party leader.
He got out of his car, spoke for a long while with the people who had gotten out of the other cars, then slowly walked toward the place where I was.
[So he’s the type who tries to establish authority by showing up late. Seems like a discourteous man of power.]
I was of the same mind as Soph.
Whether it was habit or a technique for dealing with others, the person being made to wait could not help but feel offended.
A moment later, the door opened, and the ruling party leader entered the room with two others.
The two people who came in with him were people I was seeing in person for the first time, but I knew both their faces.
The ruling party leader seated the old man who had entered with him in the inner seat, then sat down beside him.
Lee Jaeyun, who had guided me here, greeted the old man and immediately went outside.
After the other middle-aged man sat across from me, the leader opened his mouth.
“I thought we would meet soon, but it took longer than expected. You must have had a great deal to do.”
Instead of apologizing for arriving late, Representative Yu greeted me with a hint of reproach.
I smiled inwardly and returned the greeting.
“Just as you were late, Representative, I had a few things to take care of as well. As you’ve probably heard, I went to Paradise and was busy dodging missiles.”
At my answer, the representative’s eyebrow twitched.
The old man and the middle-aged man who had come with him also looked at me with strange eyes.
As if I had done something absurd.
“Is it because you’re young…”
“It may be because he’s a soldier.”
When the representative clicked his tongue, the middle-aged man chimed in.
The representative relaxed his expression and spoke again.
“In a situation like this, I suppose it would be difficult to ask courtesy from someone you do not know.”
He raised his hand and gave an order.
“Bring in the meal.”
The aides waiting outside the door heard him and relayed the message to the kitchen.
The food began to come in.
Neatly prepared Korean dishes and high-grade traditional liquor were placed on the table.
The dignified old men and the middle-aged man watched as the food was set out.
The sky was murky, and the world was in chaos, yet inside here, it was no different from what I had seen in movies.
If there was anything different, it was only me, dressed in rough clothes.
After the servers set the food and went outside, the representative opened his mouth again.
“We should start with introductions. You’ve probably seen his face before, but this is Chairman Lee of HS Group.”
An old man who looked even older than the ruling party leader.
He was the head of the largest corporate group in Korea.
It was not merely large; it was a chaebol powerful enough to hold Korea in its grasp and shake it.
If one were to name the people who moved Korea, this old man was always among the first mentioned.
Even now, the old man was silently looking at me with calm eyes.
“And this is the Director of the National Security Office, sent in place of the President coming in person. You can think of him as a person of real influence in the presidential office.”
Perhaps thinking I might not know, he explained the middle-aged man in detail.
But there was no way I would not know.
Even before the war, he had been called a hidden power behind the scenes, and because he had gone in and out of the front lines as well, even I, a soldier, knew him well.
“I was late because I had to bring these gentlemen with me. They are all busy people, but each of them made time to come see you.”
I did not know about them being busy, but the ruling party leader had certainly come with impressive people.
A representative of the business world, himself as the ruling party leader, and even a person of real influence from the presidential office.
At this point, it would not be an exaggeration to say that all the people who moved Korea had gathered here.
The fact that the ruling party leader had come with them might have been to show off his power and connections, or it might have meant he considered me that important.
But the reason they had come here to see me was because I had become that important.
As Soph had taught me, I asked in a half-roundabout way.
“I did not expect you all to come together. I thought only the representative would be coming.”
At my words, the ruling party leader and the national security director once again wore strange expressions, and Chairman Lee let out a faint laugh.
“They said you were just a soldier who happened to gain power by luck, but it seems that was not the case.”
The old man tapped the table with his finger.
“We know how important the Americans consider you. We know that America is protecting your family, that you were the first foreigner admitted into Paradise, and even the people you met.”
The tapping on the table stopped.
The old man looked straight at me.
“America considered you more important than any Korean—no, more important than any foreigner.”
They had not come here because they had realized the extent of my power.
Nor was it because they had come to understand how important the work I was doing was.
They had come here after seeing the way America treated me.
[How absurd. I never imagined they would uncover the truth in a way like this.]
It was a truly unexpected method, but the conclusion itself was not wrong.
“Still, I don’t think there was any reason for all of you to come here like this. After all, what I promised was the information I have, and what I was to receive in return was a bit of help while I’m on Earth.”
That was something for which meeting only the ruling party leader would have been sufficient.
At my words, the representative’s eyebrow twitched again.
Could it be that the representative had not wanted them to come with him?
[Tsk, tsk. It was a power struggle. Now that you’ve become important, they all want to put a foot in the door.]
Looking at their expressions, it seemed Soph was right.
The tension drained out of me.
A power struggle in the middle of all this—these were people not worth being tense over.
I loosened my posture and sat comfortably.
“Even if all of you have come, what I have to do will not change. I will tell you what has happened so far.”
I told them that I had become able to obtain Akzar black stones on a regular basis, as well as the limit on the number of people Paradise could accommodate that I had seen there.
Besides the capacity limit, Paradise itself also had a limited lifespan, but I did not tell them that.
There was one more thing—the “Magician’s Flower”—that I still did not mention.
That was not something to talk about now.