---
The corridor inside the Demon King’s Castle was quiet.
A single torch hung on the wall here and there. There were none of the ornate stone decorations from the banquet hall—just a stretch of roughly hewn stone walls.
“Hm? What was that?”
“What was what?”
“No… it just felt like something caught on my shoulder.”
At the narrow entrance, Jaewon’s arm and a demon’s arm bumped. But,
the stealth potion still had plenty of time left, so no one saw Jaewon.
Even so, he found himself lowering his voice for no reason. There was no need to let even his footsteps be heard and instinctively stir a sense of wrongness.
Light leaked from the end of the corridor.
“Hey, close it.”
One subordinate closed the half-open door to the Demon King’s Army archives.
“……Are you sure we won’t be found out?”
“Hey, keep your voice down. We’re fine as long as you don’t run your mouth.”
One of them had a large build. He had broad shoulders, and a red pattern unique to demons was
engraved on the sleeves of his armor. There was also something that looked like an insignia attached.
He was an officer-class demon hungry for advancement.
The other two were younger-looking demons. They wore cloaks instead of armor.
They were holding documents, and their hands were trembling faintly.
Neither of them saw Jaewon.
Jaewon leaned one shoulder against the wall.
‘What are they doing?’
The commander-class demon spread a document on the table and pointed at it with his finger.
“The number here. Is this right?”
The young demon looked at the document and said,
“……It was originally seventy-nine bodies. We subtract fifteen from there, correct?”
“Good. Subtract fifteen.”
After applying a magical ink remover, the commander picked up a pen and wrote something in one corner of the document.
Jaewon narrowed his eyes.
He had lowered the number.
The number of something.
Jaewon wanted to see more of the document. Silently, he stepped into the room.
No one noticed.
Jaewon circled around to the other side of the table and looked down at the document.
A densely handwritten chart. Columns of names and numbers.
At the top, he saw a title written in bold.
— Status Report on Undead of the Black Mage Lineage —
Jaewon scanned the chart.
The number of undead was organized by type in columns. Skeleton soldiers, rotten warriors, ghost infantry.
And on the bottom line, there was a clear trace of what had just been corrected.
From seventy-nine bodies to fifty-five.
‘……They lowered the number? Are they trying to create private soldiers?’
Jaewon did not take his eyes off the table for a while.
They had altered the number in the report. In an undead status report.
‘Why?’
---
“If this goes well, can we become officers too?”
One of the young demons asked cautiously.
The commander set the document down on the table.
“Yeah, dumbass. If we get a cannon just by providing a few undead bodies, that means we can take a shot at Demon King’s Army Officer Rank 1.”
“Hah… The cannon they say can even bring down dragons.”
“It’s dwarven-made.”
Jaewon froze on the spot.
The commander folded his arms and continued.
“What they want is just one thing. Our side providing labor. I don’t know how that’s even possible, but… they’re saying it’s enough if we match it on the undead side. If a cannon comes in as payment, then it’s ours.”
Jaewon lifted his eyes from the document.
The order of events arranged itself in his mind.
‘They need a dwarven-made cannon. So naturally, instead of producing cannons themselves, they buy one from the dwarves. Well, since the dwarven population pool is large, it isn’t strange in itself for some of them to collude with demons…’
If that was all, it was an interesting interaction.
‘But the dwarven mines are apparently being run on undead labor lately? And for now, the side that provided those undead holds the bargaining chip?’
And this document.
A report with the undead count lowered.
‘They lowered the reported number. They’re hiding the undead they actually deployed by providing them over there.’
Jaewon stood still.
‘...’
He inhaled calmly,
‘Fuck, these bastards were running an auto-farm?’
Based on his experience with Pure White First Snow, this time he cursed only inwardly.
He wanted to hit Ben right away.
Breathing deeply and calmly, Jaewon briefly closed his eyes, then opened them.
Running auto.
Using undead as labor was prohibited by the system.
No matter how one looked at them, undead were things that would crawl back up like zombies even if they were laid out on the ground. In terms of mining efficiency, there was no comparing them to living races.
There were rare Constellations who liked mining, but then Arcana Online would turn into an idle game with no fun.
‘It’s not like anyone wants to play Xinecraft on auto.’
To prevent that sort of game-breaking behavior, mining use had been banned outright, but…
‘But how did they bypass that?’
He still did not know how they had bypassed it.
But it had been bypassed. Unless this demon commander was a pathological liar, it was already confirmed that the hole existed.
And this transaction was taking place on top of that hole.
‘There’s a demon supplying undead to a dwarven mine and receiving a cannon in exchange. And that’s connected to part of the Demon King’s Army officer line.’
He had thought the demons’ activity patterns were too irregular. For something naturally occurring, it had been strangely uniform.
‘Seeing it for myself makes me feel filthy.’
---
The young demon rolled up the document and put it into its original storage box as he said,
“But what if we’re caught? If the mine side raises an issue—”
“Hey.”
The commander cut him off shortly.
“We just have to keep our mouths shut.”
Jaewon stood still at those words.
“If we keep our mouths shut, and the dwarves keep theirs shut, it’s over. The higher-ups have no way of knowing. You think the Operations Team will look this far?”
‘…….’
Jaewon said nothing.
The commander’s words remained quietly in the room, like the candlelight on the table.
You think the Operations Team will look this far?
Jaewon slowly circled the table once and looked at the documents again.
Ledger manipulation.
An undead supply route.
Dwarven mines.
A cannon transaction.
And the certainty that the Operations Team would not know.
‘Mm…… Fortunately. For now, your necks will stay attached.’
Jaewon turned toward the door.
He had heard everything. He had to leave.
If he banned this guy right away, they would know.
He had to find the end of this route. Somewhere in the dwarven mines, there was a hole that allowed undead to be used for mining. That hole was the source of this griefing.
He just had to block it.
He could block it with a single patch.
Of course, to write that patch, he had to know where the breach was first, and to know that, he had to see the dwarven mine for himself.
Jaewon came out into the corridor.
Above, the commotion was still continuing. It seemed the issue of the meat disappearing from the banquet hall
had not been resolved yet.
‘Looks like the Demon King won’t be able to eat meat for a while.’
It was not that he felt no guilt.
‘Then he should’ve managed his subordinates better.’
Jaewon set his direction toward the outer wall of the Demon King’s Castle and quietly moved on.
The outer wall of the Demon King’s Castle was more lax than expected.
More precisely, it was lax while he was stealthed.
Two royal guards stood on either side of the castle gate. Jaewon simply walked right between them and passed through.
The royal guards looked forward. Jaewon also looked forward as he walked.
When he came out beyond the castle gate, the night wind brushed his face.
Jaewon entered the shade of a tree a short distance from the castle wall and stopped.
Then he took the patch note out from inside his clothes.
---
Ledger manipulation. Undead supply. Dwarven mines. Cannon transaction.
He had found part of the source of the griefing that had burned down his own cabin and now seeped all the way into the Demon King’s Castle.
He had seen the evidence with his own eyes. He had heard everything he needed to hear.
One line of patching would be enough right now.
Illegal undead labor route, all related accounts suspended.
If he closed the route with a patch, the undead would disappear, the manipulated ledgers would be handled,
and the traces of the transaction would likely be buried as well. What Jaewon had witnessed would remain only in Jaewon’s head.
‘Then I have to dig further first.’
Jaewon was about to fold the patch note again, but his hand stopped.
Another thought barged in.
‘But couldn’t this be a trap?’
What if that transaction itself was bait?
What if they had made it look like undead were being deployed in dwarven mines to induce Jaewon to ban both the demons and
the dwarves at the same time?
The Constellations on the dwarven side had been sponsoring users for quite a long time. If he wiped them out together with the demon-line Constellations, his divine power would drain away. There was no telling how far the world activity index would drop.
From the perspective of an outside force keeping him in check, their goal might be to make Jaewon issue wrongful bans.
‘Then that would be seriously troublesome.’
Jaewon folded his arms.
But then again.
What if they had calculated even that thought, knowing Jaewon would hold back and gather concrete evidence, and were using it as a strategy to buy time to destroy the evidence?
‘But if I think that, then—’
Jaewon, who had been about to spin his thoughts in another circle, pressed his forehead against the tree.
Thud.
‘……Let’s organize this.’
One thing was certain.
There was too little visible right now to swing the sword immediately. Somewhere in the dwarven mines, there was a system-level breach. If he saw that for himself, he could at least understand the structure of the route.
If he understood the structure, he would know where to block it. If he knew where to block it, he could block it while preserving the evidence as well.
‘Then instead of spending time thinking, first comes the mine.’
Jaewon folded the patch note and put it inside his clothes.
He pulled his forehead away from the tree.
The tree gained one forehead mark through no fault of its own.
---
As he walked, he took out the crystal orb.
After the cabin burned down, it was the only communication method he had left. The screen still shone clearly. That was a relief.
Jaewon typed a message.
```
[Director → Log]
— I’ve got a lead.
```
A moment later, a reply came.
```
[Log → Director]
— Good work.
```
```
[Director → Log]
— Are you still having a tea party with Pure White First Snow? When are you coming out?
```
The reply was a little late.
```
[Log → Director]
— I am in the middle of the best strategic choice for escape.
```
Jaewon kept walking toward the horse and typed a reply without slowing his steps.
```
[Director → Log]
— Which is?
```
This time, it took another beat.
```
[Log → Director]
— I am gazing south with sentimental eyes.
```
Jaewon stopped walking.
He looked at the crystal orb screen again.
I am gazing south with sentimental eyes.
‘…….’
A penguin surfaced in his mind.
A penguin of Antarctica. The penguin skin he had put on Log to make contact with the Queen of the Snowstorm.
If Log was still using that,
it meant Log was trying to use it to gauge the timing for being released into the wild.
Jaewon typed another message.
```
[Director → Log]
— Will that work soon?
```
Of course not. He knew that would be the answer, but Jaewon could not understand why he had asked. Perhaps he had wanted to criticize Log’s bizarre solution.
```
[Log → Director]
— I do not know. For now, we are at the stage where the Pure White Constellation must infer that I am looking south.
```
Jaewon stared at the crystal orb.
A penguin looks south.
Step one, the Constellation Pure White First Snow sees it.
Step two, she infers that the penguin misses its home.
The final step three, therefore, she releases it into the wild.
And so Log is freed.
‘……So this is the best strategic choice you can make.’
— Get back on your own.
After writing that brief message, Jaewon put the crystal orb into his clothes.
Then he started walking again.
Northwest. The direction where the dwarven mines were.
The lights of the Demon King’s Castle grew distant behind him. The trees thickened on both sides. The road ended,
and only traces that seemed to have been made by beasts continued.
Jaewon followed those traces to where his horse was tied.
The night was deep.
He did not know when the penguin would have looked south sufficiently, but for now, Jaewon was alone.