A biting wind refroze the frozen ground. People tucked their cold hands into their armpits, clinging to what little warmth they had.

It was still late November, so afternoons were usually mild. But the sky had been heavy with clouds for days, and today it wore a color like scattered ash. Even at noon, a damp chill lingered in the air.

“Looks like it’s going to snow.”

Go Byeonggap looked up at the sky and frowned.

Any man who’d served in the military had no fondness for snow. Setting aside that bias, snow at a time like this was less useful than a scrap of paper of the same weight.

“If it snows, we can make shaved ice. No, wait—would that be ‘snow-shaved’ ice?”

“Even elementary school kids don’t think like that anymore.”

“Asvillam is seriously lacking in snacks. Ah, I want something sweet. Like a parfait.”

Jeong Seongyeong breezily ignored Go Byeonggap’s ribbing and rattled off her wish list. He let out a small sigh and asked,

“So, how many of them?”

“Dunno. Maybe three. If you count the monsters, about fifteen.”

Go Byeonggap had made a similar guess. He spoke calmly to the man standing guard at the entrance of the ruined grocery mart.

“Tell the people inside to get ready.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll relay that.”

The man hurried inside the mart. Not long after, a group of humans and monsters appeared from across the main boulevard. They were staring directly at this side.

“Are those bastards Pokémon trainers or what? Pisses me off every time I see them.”

Jeong Seongyeong adjusted her grip on her axe. Go Byeonggap drew the sword from his waist.

Suddenly, the enemies charged. The numbers matched his estimate—five humans and seven monsters.

Go Byeonggap and Jeong Seongyeong answered without hesitation. Their blades struck the enemies’ necks without mercy. The gap in skill was overwhelming, turning the fight into a one-sided slaughter.

The enemies realized the power difference too late and tried to flee, but once the clash began, their escape routes had already vanished.

They weren’t fools—so why had they picked this foolish fight? Because the two of them had deliberately hidden their presence.

After wiping out every last enemy, Go Byeonggap shouted into the dark, cavernous mart.

“Come out. We need to move on now.”

“Ah, yes, yes! Coming right now!”

Workers gathered, loading carts with assorted goods—canned provisions and odds-and-ends of daily necessities.

Byeonggap immediately opened the gateway to Asvillam. The workers crossed over, carrying their salvaged supplies.

Just as the last man was sent through, Jeong Seongyeong, who had been staring intently in one direction, muttered in an irritated tone.

“Filthy bastards. Swarming like a plague of bees, as always.”

As she said, a mass of presences was rushing toward them. Those bastards were eerily perceptive—the slightest disturbance and they came boiling in like demons.

“Noona, let’s cross over too.”

“Got it.”

Byeonggap and Seongyeong stepped through the gate. The Illumission crew wouldn’t have spotted them today, if luck held.

* * *

Go Byeonggap stood atop Baltadren’s highest wall. From here, the sprawling city below unfolded in a single sweeping view.

‘Strange, every time.’

When he’d first left Somnium and settled here, Baltadren had been little more than a ruin in the wasteland.

They’d broken the dead soil to plant crops, torn down collapsed buildings to raise new ones. He and the goblins had poured everything into it—blood, sweat, and stubborn grit.

And look. A magnificent city had risen. What’s more, Baltadren was no longer just goblins. Here, spirits dwelled. Humans, too.

Byeonggap turned his head slightly.

Beyond the goblin-packed heart of Baltadren, a small basin came into view. That was Insula, home to the spirits.

Beyond Insula, the wall stretched wide again. That quarter was Polis—the human district.

‘Over nine thousand humans now. When did that happen?’

Borrowing the Hexagram Order’s phrasing, two months had passed since Judgment Day. Over those eight weeks, Go Byeonggap worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the hunters, gathering every survivor they could find.

The result: Asvillam now held more humans than goblins. With the goblin count barely over four thousand, the human population had more than doubled it.

You could say the guest had stolen the house, and you wouldn’t be wrong—though compared to Seoul’s ten million citizens, this was still a drop in the bucket.

Refugee rescue operations continued even now.

As the population swelled, problems naturally followed.

The most gut-wrenching by far was food.

“Asvillam never once suffered a food shortage… tch.”

Ever since they started taking in humans, they’d emptied every stockpile in Asvillam, and when that wasn’t enough, they’d shuttled back and forth to Earth, airlifting supplies.

They’d expanded the farmland grotesquely, thrown over eighty percent of the human population into agriculture, and only then had things begun to stabilize.

And even that would have been impossible without the elixir of Growth—they’d all have starved long ago.

Beyond the struggle for food, inter-species conflict, a lack of cooperation, and collective terror and madness also weighed heavily on Go Byeonggap.

But those problems were easier to solve than the food shortage. At this point, he actively embraced Landriol’s advice.

‘If any seed sowed discord, I cast them out without mercy.’

He was the Goblin Lord. He placed goblins above humans, without exception. If something posed even the slightest threat to coexistence, he expelled them without a trace of pity or hesitation.

They’d come crying and clinging to him later, but there was no leniency.

That this reign of terror still earned people’s cooperation was thanks to what Landriol called Byeonggap’s ‘charm.’

Not a rational charm, of course.

Go Byeonggap could handle goblins. He could govern sprawling territories and farmland. He could provide refugees with food and shelter. And on top of that, he’d forged deep bonds with the influential.

Any sensible person followed Byeonggap for survival. That was the only reason this small society held together.

‘…Even so, Asvillam right now is a boiling kettle. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out like this. I need to find a more fundamental solution.’

Go Byeonggap drew on one of his dwindling cigarettes, sorting through his thoughts.

That was when a small swirl of jet-black smoke spiraled beside him. Dorma stepped out from within it.

«My Lord, so here you were.»

«Oh, Dorma. What? Were you looking for me?»

«Yes, my Lord. You didn’t attend the meeting, so I…»

«Ah!»

Go Byeonggap slapped his forehead with a yelp. He reflexively checked his watch.

«Hey… sorry. It slipped my mind.»

«I am fine. But the humans were wondering about your whereabouts, my Lord.»

«Right, let’s go now.»

«Come with me.»

Go Byeonggap stepped into the black vortex with Dorma. The next instant, he teleported to the council hall in central Baltadren.

The meeting room held a long table. Thirty-odd suitable members were already seated.

«My Lord, you have arrived.»

The goblins rose in unison to greet Go Byeonggap.

“Hey! What the hell were you doing, showing up this late?”

“I had some business. Sorry for the delay.”

“Well, you’re here now. That’s good enough. Sit down.”

Go Byeonggap took a seat at the head of the table.

Twenty-four humans, eight goblins, one spirit. This cross-species assembly was familiar to him now.

The spirit Kunta, seated at the far end of the table, scratched his chin and grumbled.

«But why do you keep calling me here? I’ve been sitting for a couple of hours with nothing to say or hear.»

«Haha, still, we have to keep up appearances, don’t we?»

Go Byeonggap answered with a playful evasion.

«Well then, let me say this in advance. The spirits can keep handling the castle’s perimeter watch duty just fine. None of them have complaints, and they’re satisfied with the work.»

«Is that so? That’s a relief.»

«Now I suppose I just stand here like a stone pillar.»

Kunta leaned back into his chair, settling in. Go Byeonggap turned to address the humans.

«How are the new arrivals settling in?»

“Same as ever. They’re not adapting at all. Still, no need to worry too much. Just like everyone else before them, they’ll get used to the rules here gradually.”

S-rank hunter Seo Hanung answered with casual ease. That he could understand the Asvillam tongue was thanks to Dorma’s spellcraft.

A spell that made meaning cross the barrier of language. With it, the wall of communication between humans and goblins had crumbled.

«If you catch even a hint of trouble brewing from anyone, I trust you’ll step in and deal with it yourselves. As you know, the moment order shatters here, rivers of blood will follow.»

“Of course I know.”

«Any disputes lately?»

Go Byeonggap directed the question to Doran. She gave a casual nod.

«No, none at all. You told everyone not to loiter around the human quarters, Lord.»

«Right. Any complaints from the kids?»

«What fool would complain when the Lord himself ordered it?»

Go Byeonggap clicked his tongue.

They went on to discuss the refugees’ current state, their demands, and the food situation.

That was only the preamble. The meeting soon cut to the heart of the matter.

“…So we’ve pinpointed a few sites that look like Illumission’s staging grounds. The one on Yeouido is the largest by far.”

Shin Yeji, the hunter who’d left on reconnaissance duty, had only just returned today. She rattled off all she’d gathered.

“Shouldn’t we start striking back from our side now? Just running and hiding like this will leave us dancing right in the palm of their hands.”

“But we’re too outmatched for a head-on fight. With monsters falling under their command, if they push us with sheer numbers, we don’t stand a chance.”

“Drag our feet any longer, and we might lose the survivors we’ve got left.”

Opinion split into two camps.

The hardliners argued for preparing a full-scale war to wipe out Illumission.

The moderates pushed for continuing guerrilla tactics and prioritizing refugee intake.

Within the moderates, there was a further split:

‘We still need to crush Illumission and reclaim our home, Earth.’

And: ‘Why not just settle here? Is there any real need to obsess over returning to Earth?’

The debate stretched deep into the night. Amid the barrage of opinions, Go Byeonggap felt a dull ache throbbing at his temples.

For the record, his own stance leaned closer to the hardliners.

In his estimation—and he wasn’t alone in this—Illumission couldn’t be allowed to run wild any longer. But the moderates had a point: they didn’t have the strength for an all-out war.

‘If we just had one more person who could open gates…’

With just one more operator on par with Go Byeonggap, he could split a strike team into a penetration squad and a diversionary force. The tactical possibilities would open right up.

But as things stood, running that kind of operation would guarantee the annihilation of at least one group.

This meeting looked like it was going to fizzle out without any real consensus—same as always.

That was when the door slammed open. A goblin soldier stumbled inside.

«M-My Lord!»

«What is it?»

The soldier’s voice was clipped with urgency. Every pair of eyes in the room snapped toward him.

The goblin soldier sucked in a few ragged breaths before he could force the words out.

«You need to come see! A m-monster has appeared!»

«A monster? You mean a Grugle?»

«No, sir. It’s… uh… hard to describe with words.»

“Byeonggap. Let’s go.”

«Yeah.»

Go Byeonggap pushed himself to his feet. Everyone who’d been at the meeting fell into step behind him.

The goblin soldier led them toward the spot where the creature had been sighted. By the time they arrived, the fortress was already in chaos, war drums pounding out the emergency signal.

Their destination was Baltadren’s south gate. The gate stood a good distance from the human settlement, but a crowd of hunters had gathered anyway, craning their necks for a look.

Go Byeonggap spotted a massive bulk beyond the gate’s crenellations. Hard to make out clearly in the dark.

Then one of the light spirits floated up and produced a glowing orb. It drifted forward slowly, illuminating the mysterious shape.

The creature’s full form came into view at last. A collective gasp went up from everyone on the wall.

“What—what is that? That’s no Grugle!”

“It really is a monster!”

“But it’s all torn up. Looks like it’d die even if we left it alone.”

«My Lord, that’s…?»

«It looks dangerous. Shall we attack? Give the order, please.»

«…»

Go Byeonggap stared ahead, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

Then he let out a sharp yelp.

«Everyone, stop! That’s not an enemy! Lower your weapons, all of you!»

He vaulted over the wall and landed on the ground below before his shout had even faded. Then he dashed toward the bulk—no, toward the dragon.