Keira Clark.
He was luckily able to kill her while she was in a weakened state, but she was an extremely strong and difficult woman. It was obvious that she would end up becoming that same headache as one of the Four Emperors if he let her be.
‘So I need to eliminate someone like her early on if I am able to do so.’
Ju-Heon started to smile.
That wasn’t the only thing.
‘One of those Four Emperors positions is mine.’
He would also steal one of those future positions.
However, those bastards seem to be properly making their move now. They were aiming for the Oh Seung Woo group to steal the Herb of Eternal Youth in the middle.
‘How dare they aim for someone else’s things? They deserve punishment.’
It sounded like a pot calling the kettle black, but Ju-Heon first calmed the Oh Seung Woo group down.
“Anyway, I got it. Do as I said and keep hiding for now. I'll be there soon.”
[P, please hurry! Hyung-nim!]
“I got it.”
Yoo Jaeha looked at Ju-Heon once he hung up the call.
They had actually gotten on a cab as soon as he picked up Oh Seung Woo's call. Yoo Jaeha who was in the front seat quickly asked Ju-Heon a question.
“What did they say, are the crazy bastards up to no good again?”
Ju-Heon started to frown.
“It looks like Keira somehow found out about the Herb of Eternal Youth. She seems to be chasing the farmers right now.”
Irene and Yoo Jaeha became shocked after hearing that.
"Wait, I get that she could find out about the Herb of Eternal Youth's existence because of Chairman Kwon. But how the hell is she chasing the farmers right now? You destroyed all of Keira’s map-type artifacts! How the hell can she track them?”
“How else? It must be the < Pandora system >,”
“Pandora system?”
“Yes, Pandora has a special artifact that can be called the brains of Pandora.”
Not only did it maintain all artifacts brought over to Pandora, it was a Divine-Grade artifact that could detect artifacts with strong auras.
This brain-type artifact would end up becoming Pandora’s central system that maintained artifact users, tombs, and their ranks in the future.
“I don’t know which great historical figure's artifact it is nor what kind of Divine-Grade artifact it is.”
However, what he knew was that this was an artifact that even he could not easily handle.
He was certain Keira was using that right now.
‘But she would have needed to donate a ton of money to Pandora to use it, so that woman must be feeling quite frantic.’
“Anyway, the farmers are low-grade users so they can’t hide the artifact’s aura. That's why they are being easily tracked.”
The Herb of Eternal Youth was a Divine-Grade artifact after all.
It must be giving off a lot of aura right now, making it easy for the artifact that controls Pandora’s system to track.
“Well, the airport is less than 30 minutes away from where the farmers are right now. We should be able to get there soon.”
But Yoo Jaeha looked at his watch and started to frown after hearing that.
“But those 30 minutes already passed a long time ago.”
That was indeed the case.
They had gotten on the cab about 50 minutes ago.
But forget entering the city, the cab wasn’t even near the city. Yoo Jaeha boiled up in anger and started to argue with the driver in English.
“Damn it, mister! You said we would be there in 20 minutes! Why the hell are we not even in the city after 50 minutes?!”
The hairy cab driver started to grumble as if he had a lot to say as well.
“What the hell can I do about traffic?!”
"Then how much longer do you think it will take?”
“Who knows…? There’s bad traffic like this from time to time. But what can you do about it, you guys are just unlucky. It shouldn't take more than an hour for it to die down.”
‘What, 1 hour?’
Ju-Heon seemed to be annoyed now as well as he finally said something.
“Hey number 1. Hand over an artifact. I'll create a path.”
“……You cannot commit artifact bomb terrorism near the city.”
“Then you create a path.”
“………”
Ju-Heon sighed.
“Oh well then. In this case, I have to use that method…”
It was at that moment.
Bang!
They heard a loud crash not too far away. Ju-Heon's eyes opened wide like a shocked rabbit at this sudden occurrence and he looked out the window.
He saw smoke rising from not too far away.
There were engines busting and signs falling down, all sorts of accidents starting to happen.
“Ahhh! A five-car pile up!”
“Ah, damn it! My car!”
“Ahhh! Who fell asleep behind the wheel?!”
Ju-Heon turned pale while watching what was going on.
‘Is this perhaps…’
As expected, a weird message popped up at that moment.
[Warning. The artifact is showing a strong reaction according to the user’s emotional state.]
[The artifact's aura is violently seeping out.]
And along with that message…
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The nearby area was turning into pandemonium.
“Ahhh! What’s wrong with the traffic light?!”
“Hey! You crazy bastard! What the hell are you doing at a red light?!”
“What? The light was green!”
"What are you talking about? The whole traffic light disappeared here!”
“Ahhh! I still have so many payments left on this car!”
“Aigoo! A 12-car pile up?!”
“No! It’s a 30-car pile up!”
‘Holy shit.’
Although nobody seemed to be getting hurt, this was quite chaotic.
People were screaming everywhere and they continued to hear cars crashing and exploding.
Bang! Bang!
The cab driver became anxious and started to swear.
"F*ck! What the hell is going on?!”
However, Yoo Jaeha and Ju-Heon were only looking at a single person.
“……….”
They were looking at Irene.
However, Irene was deep in thought and her hand was shaking as if she didn't know what was going on.
She must have been getting anxious because she had finally found a way to save her parents but they might end up getting the Herb of Eternal Youth stolen.
Ju-Heon and Yoo Jaeha awkwardly looked at her.
‘She truly is the goddess of disaster…’
It was better now because she was dominating her artifact now, but he could not forget about something.
Irene was the goddess of destruction who had instilled fear even in the monopolizers in the past.
Once they heard someone in the cab next to them scream, ‘how the hell is a cab fare 30 million won?! Are you crazy?!’ Ju-Heon decided he needed to stop this and tightly clenched Irene's hand.
He did not want to end up paying millions of won for cab fare.
“Hey.”
Irene looked toward Ju-Heon in shock.
"Save your power.”
“Excuse me?”
Ju-Heon pointed outside instead of responding to the confused Irene.
Irene almost fainted after looking outside.
She seemed to have forgotten about the world while being deeply synchronized with the artifact.
“My goodness, did I again……! We should call the cops right away!”
Ju-Heon stopped Irene who was quickly reaching for her phone.
“Please stop. Every cop who picks up the call from you right now will be ruined.”
That made Irene’s face turn pale.
The cab driver rudely interrupted at that moment.
“Wow, shit, there are accidents now too so we can't move at all. I'm sorry but it doesn’t look like you’ll be getting home until tomorrow. Do you want to play poker with me tonight?”
“…….!”
Irene looked ready to cry. But Ju-Heon was chuckling at her.
“Ah, don't be upset. You don’t need cops to traffic control.”
“Excuse me?”
The cab driver exploded in laughter as if he couldn't believe what Ju-Heon just said.
“Then are you guys going to do traffic control? You’re so crazy, you’re going to deal with all of this? Hahaha!”
“I'm really going to do it.”
“Hahaha, sure, sure, go ahead!”
However, unlike the driver, Yoo Jaeha had clenched his eyes closed.
‘Hey mister. This person will really do it if you provoke him like that.’
As expected, Ju-Heon smiled and started to wave a train ticket.
[A lonely god’s invitation (SS-Grade: Divine-Grade - Consumable Artifact)]
It was the artifact he had taken from Chairman Kwon in the past.
It was the Kamikakushi (Mysterious Disappearance).
“Damn it, when is hyung-nim going to get here? I'm about to go crazy!”
On the other hand, the Oh Seung Woo group were sweating while looking around. It was because they were busy running away from the crazy US soldiers.
“Why are the damn yankee bastards doing this to us?!”
“Shh!”
Oh Seung Woo quickly covered his brother’s mouth and went into the public restroom. The TSOF who had been chasing the Oh Seung Woo group soon arrived and were grumbling outside the restroom.
"Damn it, those eel-like bastards! They couldn't have gone far! Find them!”
"We can find them easily because they have a strong artifact on them! What is the Pandora HQ saying?!”
“Yes sir! They said it is within 50m of this place!”
“Good! Find them!”
They then started to run again.
The Oh Seung Woo group slowly came out of the restroom once they disappeared. They sighed in relief, but the people who were about to go into the restroom flinched.
It made sense because the Oh Seung Woo group had come out of the women’s restroom. Although it might be easy to wonder why they were acting so perverted, there was a reason for that.
‘The nuns…are men?’
That was indeed the case. They had looted a nearby monastery to disguise themselves as nuns to avoid the TSOF.
That wasn’t the only thing.
They had disguised as cab drivers, homeless men, Chinese tourists, and they even hid in sewers, under a bridge, and even a restroom ceiling to hide and escape.
This was only possible because they had years of experience being chased by loan sharks.
They ran and they ran some more.
They started to grind their teeth after barely managing to catch their breaths.
“Damn it, why do those shitheads keep saying money money bullshit even after we tell them we aren't selling it?”
“They pulled their eyes back and called me a damn monkey.”
Honestly speaking, the soldiers had continued to ask them how much they would sell it for all the way from the airport. They did not understand all of the English because they weren't very smart, but they did understand one thing.
They could tell those punks were looking down on them quite a bit.
They were acting all gentle but the way they sneered at them while saying take the money and get lost was quite frustrating.
“Ow, at least Ju-Heon doesn’t sneer at people like that.”
Maybe that was the reason the Oh Seung Woo group continued to follow Ju-Heon. It was true, Ju-Heon did not hold back any praise for the Oh Seung Woo group who were working hard to grow the Herb of Eternal Youth and treated them well.
This was the case even though other people would think what they were doing, weeding, fanning and singing lullabies to the plant, were stupid.
There was more.
Ju-Heon did not sneer at them even when they made mistakes while calculating money and showed their stupidity. He cared more about their positive traits than their negative traits and always did a good job helping them keep their pride.
‘That is why I want to meet his expectations after all that he has given us.’
That was why they were grinding their teeth at the punks who were trying to take Ju-Heon’s stuff.
“But those crazy bastards… Are they trying to show off that they’ve never been to Asia? Why do they think Asians are just greedy for money? Money, money, money, money, they keep rattling on like a broken record even after we said no.”
“Anyway, let’s run to somewhere else before those idiots find us.”
“Yes, let’s go somewhere safe and wait for hyung-nim.”
“Let them eat shit.”
They covered their faces with the veils on their nun outfits and slowly tried to start walking away.
“Freeze!”
They heard a stern voice behind them.
The shocked farmers group raised their hands on reflex and turned their heads.
Had the TSOF bastards already found them?
However, they turned their heads to see the New York Police who had come out after receiving a call.
“Freeze! We got a call that you were pretending to be women and hiding in the women's restroom!”
“You are under arrest for installing hidden cameras!”
“Hand over everything you have! Is that black bag you have holding a camera?!”
The Oh Seung Woo group gasped after hearing that.
‘Wait, now what?!’
“No! Nono!” ‘That’s not what we were doing at all!’ “Misunderstanding!”
“Nonsense!”
“Ah, it’s the truth! Aigoo, Ju-Heon hyung-nim!”
It happened as the cops were putting handcuffs on the Oh Seung Woo group.
“Found them!”
“!”
The Oh Seung Woo group gulped and turned their heads after hearing the voice.
They heard someone's familiar voice not too far away.
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