The true identity of Camelot Castle,
And the purpose of the Knight King had been revealed, leaving nothing to hold me back anymore.
The reward I had saved from the 3rd level up.
I chose Camelot as that reward.
Camelot.
A truly vicious item that creates resources in exchange for life, but…
‘Well, I just won’t use that function.’
If, as he said, this castle was a type of “item”, then I could choose how to use it, as its new owner.
Even if there was some sort of connection with the Knight King, the portal would sever the energy flow from outside.
The one certain thing was that I could completely seize Camelot from the Knight King.
Rumble…
The ground shook.
“Ugh…!”
Camelot, the well-fermented kimchi jar of the Knight King.
Feeling its sweet and sour taste, I endured the sudden intense pain with all my strength.
Meanwhile, the Knight King, sensing an inexplicable, ominous feeling, glanced around in confusion.
And not long after, when I opened my eyes again.
Flash!
We were greeted by the radiant midday sun.
A city bathed in light.
The city that had cast off the dark shadow of Camelot was now enveloping us.
The Knight King gazed at the scenery with his empty eyes.
“This… can’t be happening…”
The hideous storage jar that had covered the center of Seoul had disappeared.
No, it had been swallowed whole.
He started to go berserk.
It seemed he had finally realized that the ownership had been stripped from him.
“My Camelot! The Camelot I bought, burning through all my fortune!”
As if mocking his enraged outburst, a red cloak fluttered in the wind.
The pouring sunlight was like the morning light in a casino, awakening haggard gambling addicts.
“A lowly 9th order slave dares to… How dare you! Right now…”
Sling!
The Knight King drew his sword and charged at me, but…
Clang!
Someone blocked his attack.
A broad, unfamiliar back clad in silver armor.
The blue cloth attached to the helmet cascaded down his wide back.
The Knight King let out a sound of disbelief.
“…Lancelot?”
“How insolent. Show respect to the master of Camelot.”
Lancelot, the skeleton knight who had once served under the Knight King.
He was now serving me as his lord.
It was proof that the ownership of Camelot had fully transferred to me.
“Lancelot! You ungrateful bastard!”
Claaang!
Even though it was an attack from the so-called ‘Knight King’, strangely enough, it was no match for Lancelot.
Lancelot leisurely exchanged blows with him and asked me,
“My lord, how would you like to deal with this person? Please give your command.”
“…Kill him.”
I recalled his plan to entrap innocent people in his jar and consume them.
All for the sake of expanding his fortune.
There was no reason to spare him.
“As you command.”
Lancelot responded,
Whoosh!
And swiftly, the Knight King’s head flew off.
Crunch!
Lancelot then stomped on his spine again, crushing it.
To destroy the core of his regeneration.
In an instant, Lancelot had dealt with his former master…
Clank!
He knelt before me, holding the spoils he had taken from the corpse.
From the resolution of the situation to the disposal of the culprit.
In that moment, all the events had come to an end.
.
.
.
But when I actually received the spoils, I couldn’t hide a feeling of disappointment.
“…Is this all?”
Despite the grand name of the ‘Knight King’, Lancelot was holding only a single yellow Enhancement Stone in his hand.
At that moment, PAX spoke to me.
[Jeong-gyeom-nim, I have something to report.]
[Currently, a dimensional account has been unlocked.]
“…Dimensional account?”
[The Knight King’s dimensional account has been transferred to Lancelot.]
[Furthermore, since Lancelot’s ownership has been confirmed under Jeong-gyeom-nim, you have been verified as the final owner of the dimensional account.]
“What is that…?”
PAX continued speaking calmly, like a lawyer notifying me of the death of a distant relative.
As if there was still something left for me to receive.
[The dimensional account is a function that was to be unlocked later through the awakening system, but due to the transfer of ownership, it has been unlocked early.]
[Would you like to check the account details?]
The situation was like this.
What the Knight King had bequeathed to me…
Was not only the desolate Camelot Castle.
“…How much is in there?”
I had no idea.
That the Knight King, who had passed his business over to me, had also left behind business capital.
[3,086 Mana Stones.]
I never would have guessed that he’d leave behind the funds for the business as well.
First, I returned to the subspace with Lancelot.
It was to check out the newly acquired Camelot.
“…It’d be nice if it doesn’t mix with the space that was already here.”
Though I had obtained Camelot, it was too early to be happy about it.
Not only was it unnecessarily large, but its ominous human-sacrifice function was unsettling, to say the least.
I glanced around the windows of the logistics center.
The newly established Camelot Castle should be filling the background.
However…
“Where is it?”
No matter how much I looked, there was no sign of any castle walls.
At that moment, Lancelot, who had entered with me, picked something up off the ground.
A dull gray, featureless crown.
It was unmistakably Camelot.
Lancelot spoke.
“This is the original size of Camelot. However, you can install it in any size you desire, my lord.”
“Oh… Is that how it works?”
Only then was I able to check the item information for ‘Camelot.’
—
[Camelot]
Grade: [Unique]
Description: [A palace of cursed knights. It can be installed in the size you desire, with the installation cost proportional to the size.]
Attribute: [Special]
Options:
[Blood Sacrifice]
You can ‘mature’ or ‘extract’ the life force stored inside to produce random Enhancement Stones.
[Summon Wraiths]
You can summon the wraiths of Camelot.
[Knight Appointment]
You can appoint wraiths as skeleton knights. Related costs will be consumed.
—
[Blood Sacrifice] through Camelot’s size setting.
It was an item that allowed for unexpectedly strategic use.
You could make it small and aim for minor gains, or go big and aim for a major payoff.
In other words…
“The Knight King was full of greed…”
“Indeed.”
The grand size that had covered Seoul was proportional to the Knight King’s greed.
However, even that was not without cost.
“The bigger I make it, the more Mana Stones it costs, right?”
“That is correct.”
“How many did the one built by the Knight King cost?”
“I don’t know the exact amount, but it must have used tens of thousands at least.”
An astronomical figure.
It seemed the Knight King’s claim that he had spent his entire fortune wasn’t an exaggeration.
“There’s no need to make it that big. It’d just be unnecessarily inconvenient.”
While I was certainly tempted by the Enhancement Stones, I wasn’t about to gather people en masse and sacrifice them like the Knight King.
Moreover, according to Lancelot, I could dismantle and reinstall it later if needed.
Of course, reinstalling it would cost more each time, but that wasn’t a problem right now.
However, leaving Camelot in its current crown size wasn’t going to be enough.
Especially now that I had new residents in the subspace.
I asked Lancelot,
“How much space would we need for all of you to live comfortably?”
“Ah… For that size, about 300 Mana Stones should suffice.”
Lancelot, who was now my subordinate.
And there were still wraiths in Camelot who had yet to be knighted.
It wouldn’t be much of an issue for my sisters or Lee Yong-su, but if his wife, Oh Ji-soo, or his daughter, Yoo-jung, saw them, they would definitely freak out.
So, I decided to designate Camelot as more of a haunted house attached to the subspace.
“Alright. Let’s go with that size.”
I chose a spot next to the guard post of the military base.
It wasn’t directly connected to the logistics center, but it was close enough.
My two sisters and Lee Yong-su, though bewildered by the fact that we had exited the castle, were more than happy to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building.
Following Lancelot’s instructions, I spread 300 Mana Stones across the ground and threw the crown-sized Camelot on top of them.
Slowly, Camelot began to wriggle, as if it were alive…
Chomp, chomp!
It started devouring the Mana Stones greedily.
Then, it disappeared into the ground…
Rumble…
And soon, castle walls began to rise from below.
Perhaps because Camelot was much smaller than when the Knight King had it, the castle’s growth was much faster.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
Before long, Camelot was complete.
The castle I built wasn’t a grand, antique European castle, nor was it a toy-like miniature.
It was modest, about the size of a small villa.
It looked like…
“…a motel.”
“It is a motel.”
Everyone said the same thing in unison.
That peculiar, cheap vibe lingered around Camelot.
Meanwhile…
“How could we possibly occupy this castle without our lord?”
“No, seriously, you guys use it…”
“My lord!”
Lancelot jumped in protest.
It had taken a while to convince him that I was giving Camelot to Lancelot and the wraiths as their residence.
A castle that devours life.
Honestly, I didn’t even want to go near it.
“But my lord must take the throne…!”
Lancelot was truly oblivious.
It wasn’t just my second sister, Kim Sol, who had been trapped in Camelot.
There were also innocent civilians, as well as some military personnel from the Joint Chiefs of Staff who had been dispatched for reconnaissance but ended up getting stranded during their mission.
Everyone welcomed the return of the sun, and they cheered as they watched the monsters crumble in its light.
Their faith in the government’s power hadn’t completely faded.
The isolated soldiers from the Joint Chiefs helped maintain order, and they briefly explained the current situation, the government’s response, and the recruitment of awakened individuals.
“Here, take this.”
As an additional aid, I shipped out a P999K communication device to them.
After all, being able to contact headquarters would help them manage the civilians here.
The officer who received the device looked puzzled but still saluted sharply.
There couldn’t have been anything more valuable to them at that moment.
Now, it was time to move on.
Having destroyed the Knight King’s castle, the next destination was my eldest brother’s newlywed home.
The location was Banghak-dong in Dobong-gu.
It wasn’t too far from Uijeongbu, where my parents were staying.
Just as I was about to ship a new helicopter and start moving, the officer who had received the communication device came running toward me.
“…You should take this call. It’s from the Operations Commander.”
I had received a call.
.
.
.
What Operations Commander Yoo Seong-cheol told me was news about the 1st Corps.
Specifically…
“The 220th Infantry Brigade has joined the 1st Corps.”
The 220th Infantry Brigade.
According to Yoo Seong-cheol, they were in charge of Dobong-gu, where I was headed, as well as Seongbuk-gu and Gangbuk-gu, which I would have to pass through on the way.
Originally, it was a reserve unit, so its combat strength wasn’t particularly impressive, but…
“They seem to have received various equipment support from the 1st Corps. Even the anti-air base in Bukhansan has fallen into their hands.”
In short, Yoo Seong-cheol’s conclusion was simple.
“You can’t fly over there by helicopter. You’ll definitely be intercepted along the way. Even if you take a long detour, it’s risky. To be honest, the units in the Namyangju area are in such disarray that I can’t even recommend that route.”
He contacted me out of concern that the helicopter I would be riding might come under attack from the anti-aircraft base.
I asked him,
“How large is their force?”
“Sorry, we have no idea. With the current situation, we can’t even use satellite information… and any reconnaissance planes or drones we send are getting shot down immediately.”
Yoo Seong-cheol was essentially saying that the same fate could await the helicopter I’d be flying in.
He added ominously,
“They’re definitely up to something over there. They’re aggressively blocking any reconnaissance attempts. Even when we approach by land, they start shooting at us immediately.”
“…I see.”
It was clear they were hiding something.
This was not good news.
It meant not only that I would have to pass through that area, but also that my brother and his wife, as well as my parents, could be in danger.
Maybe they weren’t as bad as the monsters, but these guys were still staging a coup in the middle of this crisis.
Anything could happen.
Sure, taking the detour through Namyangju was possible, but I didn’t want to be delayed any longer in my search for my family.
Especially with the situation growing more urgent.
I responded to Yoo Seong-cheol,
“It’s fine.”
“Jeong-gyeom-ssi…?”
“I’ll still check the situation before I proceed. I’ve got something much better than a drone.”
I had just returned from examining Camelot’s features in the subspace.
And Camelot had some amazing reconnaissance units as well.
“Surely, they won’t be able to intercept ghosts.”
It was time to put Camelot’s wraiths to use.
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