I Was Mistaken as the Novel’s Hidden Boss

The tragedy of Jeju Island. One of the worst Gate Invasion catastrophe in the history of humanity.

 

When the gate first opened 30 years ago, humanity immediately set up a system of defense to protect earth and quickly adapted to the gate's disaster. Even making profit and improving on an industrial level in the middle of it. This fast adaptation was one of the reasons for humanity's survival. The hunters are the spearhead of this defense. They respond fast, and sweep up the area invested with monsters during the Gate Invasion. 

 

When the frequency of gates appearance toned down, and the phenomenon of Gate Invasion has been 90% under control, the world slowly moving towards the new era of peace. Nation and mega business alike starts to allocate their manpower to mining gate's resources. Thus begin the revolutionary era of Magic Energy Engineering. 

 

However, while the gate's seems to be under control, the red gate and purple gate was still an anomaly. 

 

But unlike purple gates, which pose no harm to humanity, red gates are the real disaster. Since 30 years, when the first gate opened, until now, the number of the red gate's Gate Invasion is more than 300. And Jeju Island was one of the most devastating red gate's tragedy. 

 

"As you all know, on September 13, 2034, Jeju Island was swiftly occupied by the red gate's inhabitant." Kwang swiped the powerpoint, showing a picture of current Jeju Island from the aerial view. "There are two main reasons for my reclamation proposal. First, the combatant insect has been reported flying near Cheongsando. And we were notified that there was another combatant hovering around Hisaka Island. This behavior was unprecedented. I conclude that this could mean they are scouting for another invasion." 

 

Kwang paused here, once again changing the photo on the screen. Now it displayed a graph of some detection machine, and a satellite view of Jeju Island with red dots in the middle.

 

"And second. This is classified, but in short, we finally located the artifact." 

 

At his claim, the once passive room instantly flared up. 

 

"Is that true?" 

 

"Commander, you have to take responsibility for your words." 

 

"Are you really sure? A hundred percent?" 

 

"So it's truly there after all…" 

 

"Then what are you waiting for?! If we need to act, we need to move fast, commander. Let's not waste everyone time and just form a plan." 

 

"That's not feasible as of now." Kwang shut the Huang guild master's aggresive suggestion. "We have another threat right under our nose at this moment. Surely you all remember the monster we discussed earlier? Or should I remind you about this threat roaming around our country freely?" 

 

One man from government's side straightened his back, adjusting his glasses while staring at Kwang. "Then what's your plan? We understand your concern, but the matters of Jeju Island has been stalled for too much time." He rest his chin on his hand. "Ever since the first raid ended in total failure, we decided to leave it be, since there's little value in reclaiming a broken territory. It sounds cold, but that's the reality. We simply incapable of maintaining Jeju Island even if we acquire it back. But that doesn't mean we fully turning our back into Jeju Island. Now there's a big enough reason, there should be immediate execution on our side. After all, you don't want 'Amethyst of the Violet Rain' fall into other country's hands, aren't you?" 

 

Kwang frowned, his face radiating confusion as he felt taken aback by the casual bombshell the man was dropping.

 

"Other country? Are you saying another country was aware about the artifact's existence?"

 

With relaxed manner, he take out a phone from his suit's inner pocket and handing it to Kwang.

 

"This…"

 

Disbelief painted Kwang's face after he viewed the evidence on that phone. It was a solid proof, and utterly unbelievable since it was unclear about who's the spy, but their trace was clearly all over the place. And the fact that the first Jeju raid failure was because of the backstabber's scheme completely crumpled his expression. 

 

"We have no more time to spare, commander. I understand your worry but we simply do not have the luxury of choice. Pick your poison." 

 

With a darkened expression, Kwang scanning the entire room. Meeting eyes with various high ranking people. 

 

He's diving deep into the memory lane, resurfacing an ancient memories of his participation in the first Jeju Island raid. He always felt amiss about that failure. At that time, he suspect there's something going on in the dark. A game of shadow. He just can't prove it. Intuition alone clearly did not suffice, but that suspicion did not waver one bit, only buried deep inside his heart. Now that the evidence was clear, he jogged his memory. Trying to recall if there's something weird at that time. 

 

Yet in the end, he simply shut his eyes. Relaxing his visage. 

 

Not yet. He remind himself. Not yet, not now. At least until I have more clue than present. Until then, let's just focus on the task at hand. 

 

Recovering from his emotional recess, Kwang understood the assignment. If that agent just want to convey this information, there's no need to do it in front of everyone here. If anything, this was more like a deliberate gimmick either to warn or shed the light on this previously veiled secret. 

 

"I believe all of you here would consent if we pledge to keep this secret under the Ancient Law of Covenant?" 

 

Kwang pulled out an old parchment from his subspace. He scanned the room once again. Trying to catch any peculiarity which may happen reactively. The artifact in his hands, the Ancient Law of Covenant was used to keeping secret. The usage of this artifact is limited, so Kwang rarely used this artifact. However, the government implicitly command him to seal the mouth of these influental people, while letting them know on the possibility of a traitor. Or, traitors. 

 

And as the man of patriots, he faithfully comply. 

 

As for the rest, none of them are dumb enough to miss the blatant message hiding beneath that act. If they do, the high position is clearly not for them. Every one of them nod their heads or confirmed their consent. And with everyone affirmation, the binding vow was successfully initiated. 

 

"So, what're we gonna do with the monster? We can't just let him go unattended while we all raiding Jeju, are we?" one of the guild master eyeing the government's side while asking question. After the gimmick, none of them thought commander Kwang is holding the rein in this meeeting. It was obvious. 

 

"Well, all we could say is we have a plan for that." the man answer while adjusting his glasses. "But to give a bit of insight, it's not foolproof but we think it might be the best for the current situation. We analyze this monster's activity so far and found some really shallow pattern. It's nothing more than a guess. But we have no time nor manpower to accurately assess him if we want to focus on Jeju Island. We could only gamble on this half-interpreted information." 

 

If this was in a novel, there would be some arrogant person who thought it was unnecessary to put that monster into a priority list. But no one in the room thought like this. Even Huang's guild master, who appeared boastful, understood how dangerous it is to let this monster roam freely without a surveilance. There are several reason, but two strong point was attributed to the monster himself. 

 

One, he's the first monster that the red gate spawn. Only him, no other monster was going out until the gate closed. And the worst part about him, is that they have little intel on that monster. Zero casualties within their ranks at that time doesn't translate to that monster being harmless. They all heard about the conversation between that monster and the field team on the beach that day. 

 

And that's the main reason number two. That monster exhibit an intelligence capable of communication. The original reason for pursuit was actually to 'converse' with that monster. Because he may holds information about gates which humanity still struggles to uncover. Fifty percent caused by capitalism, the other half was because it's just that hard. 

 

And looking at his recent activities, the guess was solid. 

 

"If it's in line with our assumption, then we won't need to surveil the entire nation. Because… we would soon meet each other."

 

***

 

And the man's guess was spot-on. 

 

"So this is the Jeju Island? You said there's an active red gate in here, right?" 

 

"Correct, master. The humans called the gate in this place 'Colony'."

 

"Hmm…" 

 

Just a few hours before Drunag will unknowingly meet the raid team, he was scouting the korean's beloved Jeju Island. The reason? The red gate, of course. Or, more accurately, the owner of that red gate. But why, you may ask?

 

"So those Colony was the culprit of all these destruction? They should prepare to meet my fire then." 

 

He was pissed.