Hiding A Logistics Center In The Apocalypse - Chapter 83

Chapter 83: Demons and Holy Knights (4)

TL/ED – Miso

Boom!

Fermegon, who had been watching the battle, slammed his fist down.

“…Damn it!”

This was not part of the original plan.

The vengeful spirits sent to Korea for testing-

Originally, they were supposed to undergo further processing before being sent to Barnaul as prototypes.

“Th-those…!”

However, watching the gargoyles shatter into pieces, there was no other choice.

It was almost a relief.

The secret weapon that had neutralized Germany’s armored ability users,

The sand monster forged from wraiths had, until now, maintained an undefeated legend.

But…

“A priest…? And even Holy Explosion?”

As he watched the sand monster swept away by the explosion of divine light, Fermegon and the European Branch Chief painfully realized just how wrong their assumptions had been.

Thud.

Fermegon collapsed to his knees.

A 7th Order entity.

Hundreds of gargoyles, which had achieved victory after victory in Europe, had been brought over from their original dimension.

He had not thought it would be easy, but neither had he expected to lose.

And certainly not this easily.

‘…So what happens now?’

His mind was blank.

Since coming to Earth, he had never experienced defeat.

Fermegon had no idea what price a loser had to pay.

It was at that moment,

“…!!”

The Branch Chief, his face completely contorted, was shouting furiously at him.

‘Quickly…?’

“Hurry up and remove the Gate Core!”

“Ah…!”

Only then did Fermegon scramble into action.

Soon, Korea would come flooding into Europe through the installed Gate Portal.

At the Branch Chief’s urgent advice, he hastily issued a ‘final’ command to the sand monster, but

“No, no…!”

The Korean representative, who had caught on, managed to protect the Gate Core.

It was the worst-case scenario.

Not only had they failed the invasion, but they had essentially paved the way for the enemy’s counterattack.

“Ah…!”

The sight of the Holy Knights looming beyond the portal was now sheer terror for the demons.

‘Why did we even try to attack Korea…!’

He couldn’t say it aloud, but he resented the Branch Chief’s advice.

Fermegon had never been the reckless type.

Had it not been for the Branch Chief’s suggestion, he would have been satisfied slowly conquering Eastern Europe.

But he had been lured by the promise of high-quality vengeful spirits for Barnaul, leading him to attack Korea on the other side of the world.

And then,

“…Destroy it.”

At that moment,

The Branch Chief gave Fermegon new instructions.

“…What?”

“Destroy the Gate Core, now!”

“But Korea’s Gate Core is currently…!”

“Not that one!”

Snap!

The Branch Chief pointed at the Gate Core right in front of them.

The one installed in Place de la Concorde in Paris.

“But that’s…!”

Fermegon had entered Earth through the bidding competition in Paris.

For them, the Gate in Place de la Concorde was a symbolic monument of their conquest.

“Fermegon…”

As Fermegon hesitated, the Branch Chief changed his tone and explained in a calm, measured voice.

Though his voice was lower, he still spoke quickly.

“Listen carefully. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before they flood into Paris. But if we destroy the Gate in the square now, the connection to the Seoul Gate will be transferred elsewhere.”

“You mean…?”

Fermegon, who had been leading the conquest of Europe through war, naturally knew

They had secured dozens of Gates across Europe.

If the Gate installed in Korea lost its connection to Paris, it would undoubtedly reconnect to one of the other existing Gates.

That was the European Branch Chief’s plan.

“We can’t stop them from coming to Europe anymore. But at the very least, we must prevent them from coming directly to Paris. Even if it means sacrificing other regions.”

The Branch Chief had already resigned himself to the damage.

The remaining strategy was to give up the less critical areas.

If Paris fell, not only would Fermegon collapse immediately, but the Branch Chief himself, who had allied with him, would be burdened with a disastrous record.

“…Understood.”

Fermegon had no other choice.

His expertise lay more in construction and mercenary tactics than in combat.

Since he had no confidence in defeating the Korean representative, securing even a little more time was the best option.

“…Ugh!”

Crash!

With a miserable expression, Fermegon destroyed his own Gate Core.

A golden liquid oozed out beneath it.

Tens of thousands of mana stones entered his dimensional account, but his mood was utterly wretched.

It was as if he had just wrung the neck of the goose that laid golden eggs.

Perhaps because of that,

Fermegon, unable to hide his emotions, turned to the Branch Chief and asked,

“What do we do now…!? This is nothing more than buying time…!”

There weren’t many options left.

They could gather their forces, predict the enemy’s entry points, and reinforce their defenses, but…

Stopping an enemy armed with Holy Knights would not be easy.

Seeing Fermegon’s distress, the Branch Chief coaxed him as he always did.

“The situation has become urgent. We need to attract Barnaul’s attention as soon as possible.”

“B-Barnaul…”

Getting Barnaul to take an interest in Earth.

That was their only remaining option.

A massive dimension that ranked among the top ten in the entire multidimensional realm, known by name alone.

From Barnaul’s perspective, Earth was nothing more than a tiny backwater, a hole-in-the-wall operation.

“Hurry and complete Sisyphus. Then, we send Barnaul a business proposal.”

They had already been preparing extensively to become Barnaul’s subcontractors.

The tens of millions of reserve materials, humans, detained across Europe.

The ‘Vengeful Spirit Thresher’, Sisyphus, which was nearing completion.

A humiliating proposal to hand all of it over.

Even that would be acceptable.

For Fermegon, simply working under Barnaul would be an astronomical rise in status.

Flap.

Without a word, Fermegon spread his wings and took off to complete Sisyphus.

Watching him go, the European Branch Chief, Stanley, bit his lips in frustration.

“This is unacceptable. It was already hell being assigned to this trash heap of a world…”

No matter what anyone said, he was a veteran manager of the Chamber of Commerce.

He had only been demoted to this Earth dimension because of declining performance in his previous mid-tier dimension.

What he sought was a proper comeback.

And if it required selling his soul to demons, so be it.

“There’s no hope for returning to headquarters or any subordinate agencies now. So…”

Korea was Stanley’s ‘final piece of the puzzle’.

The region with the lowest profits on Earth.

Yet, also the fastest-growing.

If he could secure the vengeful spirits of Korea’s elite awakened ones, Stanley was confident he could lure Barnaul to Earth.

But…

“If Barnaul doesn’t intervene now, I’m finished.”

The order had been reversed.

Fermegon had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Korea.

Now, instead of using Korea as bait, he had to bring in Barnaul just to get rid of Korea.

“…It doesn’t matter. As long as the result is the same.”

No matter how strong Korea was, it could not compare to Barnaul.

Due to the Chamber of Commerce’s regulations, some balance adjustments would be necessary, but the warlocks would stop at nothing to devour every last scrap left on Earth.

As he watched Sisyphus slowly reach completion, the Branch Chief muttered to himself.

He would make sure to repay this humiliation one day.

***

There was no hesitation.

Fermegon, pouring his last bit of strength into removing the Gate Core installed at Bukhansan, was stopped by me.

With the protection of Kim Sol and the knights, I crossed through the Gate Portal.

“It should be fine, right?”

It was my first time using a portal installed by the Chamber of Commerce, but I wasn’t too worried.

The Gate Core had been given to humans as a sort of reward.

At this point, it wouldn’t make sense if we couldn’t use it.

But after all the preparations, when I finally crossed into Europe through the Gate Portal…

“What the hell is this?”

There wasn’t a single demon in sight.

What lay before me was a sinister-looking demon castle.

Beside it stood a magnificent medieval-style fortress, the kind I had only ever seen in history books.

And then…

Clang!

Clank!

Boom!

Sounds of battle echoed from beyond the castle walls.

As I spotted demons moving sporadically between the chaos, I quickly grasped the situation.

“…They’re under attack.”

I didn’t need to guess, I was at Fermegon’s stronghold.

Surrounding it, human voices rose along with thunderous war cries.

“Waaaaaaah!”

“We’re almost there! Just a little more! A little more!”

There was no need for me to step in.

Just minutes later, waves of humans surged into the castle.

Rumble!

“We won! We actually won!”

“Now all that’s left is to deal with that damn Gate Core…!”

“Wait, but over there…”

Covered in sweat, blood, and dust, they were overwhelmed with joy, tears, and snot running down their faces.

But then,

“…Who are you?”

I had just stepped through the portal, only to awkwardly lock eyes with them.

.

.

.

Holding onto a mana stone, I exchanged introductions with the European awakened ones.

Leading them was a red-haired woman named Lydia, who had awakened a buffing ability.

“…Prague?”

“Yes. This is Prague… Fermegon’s main base is in Paris.”

Prague.

For some unknown reason, I had ended up in the beautiful city of the Czech Republic.

‘No wonder the houses looked ridiculously pretty…’

I had suddenly embarked on an unplanned European trip, something I had never even wished for.

But the real issue was that there were no demons left here.

When I explained that I had just fought Fermegon in Korea and crossed over, Lydia shared the recent developments with me.

“Yesterday, the demons suddenly withdrew a large portion of their forces. We took advantage of that and launched a surprise attack…”

This group of awakened ones was a mix of Czechs and Germans, roughly split in half.

They had lost Prague to Fermegon in the war but had just miraculously reclaimed it.

It wasn’t hard to guess why the demons had suddenly pulled their troops.

‘It must have been because of the battle with Korea.’

Fermegon had launched an all-out assault, but his efforts had been in vain, the battle had ended in Korea’s victory.

Now, the only thing left was to take Fermegon’s head.

But the demons weren’t oblivious. Instead of sending me to Paris, they had diverted me to Prague.

Lydia spoke.

“From now on, we’re going to use Prague as our base. Our progress will be slow… but we’ll save everyone, no matter what.”

She told me that there were at least hundreds of detention camps set up across Europe, where demons were keeping people for unknown purposes.

She speculated that the demons were planning to use the captives as sacrifices, and considering that their goal was to create vengeful spirits, her assumption wasn’t entirely wrong.

However, the real problem was…

“Step aside now. We need to get rid of this damn Gate…”

They were trying to destroy the Gate I had used to arrive here.

But,

“That won’t be possible.”

“What did you just say?”

Lydia flared up and began explaining to me in frustration.

“If we leave it alone, gargoyles will start pouring out again! Even if just ten of them come through…!”

Even so, I had no choice.

This Gate had to serve as my ‘transportation’ in Europe from now on.

“I’ll go through it first. After that, do whatever you want with it.”

Scattered across Europe were dozens of Gates.

And every single one of them was a stronghold of Fermegon.

Each one was likely guarded by dozens or even hundreds of demons.

Although Prague turned out to be a bust, the conditions here were perfect for my goal of hunting down 1,000 demons.

‘I can’t let this opportunity slip.’

The plan was simple.

Travel through the portals, hunt demons, and reach the quota of 1,000 kills.

Then, destroy the Gate Cores of the portals I had passed through to rake in a hefty sum of mana stones.

By draining all the money gathered in Europe, I would naturally wipe out Fermegon’s demonic forces.

‘Farming and demon hunting, all in one go.’

And at the end of it all, two rewards would be waiting for me,

A Holy Spear infused with the power of 1,000 slain demons, and the level-up of my Subspace.