Overthrow (I)

"Kim Yangwon, farewell," Seunghyuk frowned as he put his hand up and waved sarcastically, using the Nighthowler King's real name as a deliberate disrespect.

Hence, just like that, Seunghyuk, Jisung and the five elder Nighthowlers disappeared right in front of the King's face.

"These annoying fleas! I'll crush all of them! I will crush them all lest they become a greater threat to my throne in the near future. Nepowa Latropia!" The King fumed as he himself opened another portal to the Nighthowler Kingdom.

By the time the King had entered the Nighthowler Kingdom, Seunghyuk had already disappeared together with Jisung and the five elder Nighthowlers. Even if they had not gone far, the Nighthowlers in the kingdom moving back and forth had already acted like a self-built labyrinth, allowing Seunghyuk and the others to throw the King off-trail, ironically, in the King's own kingdom.

"So this is the kingdom of the Nighthowlers? It's really beautiful..." Jisung looked around with fascinated sparkles shining in both his eyes that both his irises looked like they were preparing to launch off fireworks, and that childlike curiosity of Jisung put Seunghyuk's tensed heart at ease once again, then one of the elder Nighthowlers answered, "Thank you for the compliment, however, the late builders of the magnificent kingdom have been long dead. I'm not sure if I had already told you, but our kingdom was named after the late King, hence its glorious and magnificent name—Arkawarenia."

Seunghyuk similarly looked around him curiously like Jisung did, but more subtly as he scanned his surrounding structures and buildings. Seunghyuk had never seen such beauty and extravagance in one place, it was like something that came right out of a fairytale story. The whole kingdom of Arkawarenia seemed boundless with only the four tall watchtowers sitting at the corners of the rectangularly built kingdom walls like four gargantuan protectors guarding over Arkawarenia.

Everywhere seemed to overflow with Nighthowlers going back and forth, just like any busy country out in the real world. Yet the big difference between Arkawarenia and the real world was that Arkawarenia looked like it was built out of the most precious materials ever found. Almost all the houses in the kingdom trumped the ones in the real world, and on top of that, every household seemed to light up brightly with orange and red. Seunghyuk strayed from the group for a little while as he looked at the red glow of a Nighthowler's house up close, then immediately took a good fifty steps back while looking at the whole of Arkawarenia in absolute awe.

"The Nighthowler's late King, King Arkawarenia, must have been extremely rich. How did he get so much fortune?" Seunghyuk questioned all of a sudden which seemed to deliver a temporary, minor shock to the elder Night howlers and one of them stepped out to answer Seunghyuk's question, "The King is indeed rich, so incredibly rich to a point that Kim Yangwon, the current King that we had just escaped from, was left with a huge fortune that would not even look as much if he ever decided to buy a kilogram of diamond every day for a century."

Seunghyuk did quick and roughly estimated calculations in his head which came to a shocking conclusion. A kilogram of diamond every day for three hundred and sixty-five days would cost over two trillion dollars. To state that a humongous sum of two trillion dollars was seen as twenty dollars by the King had greatly emphasised how filthily rich he was. Seunghyuk was definitely shocked, but he did not open his mouth widely like a hungry hippopotamus, which unfortunately Jisung did instead of Seunghyuk.

"What? That's a lot! That's too much for the current King's own good! How did they even get that much money? Did they go steal all of the banks in the world? Is that even enough?" Jisung started to ramble off with many questionable questions, but he immediately shut himself when Seunghyuk shot him a weird look, but the same elder Nighthowler simply laughed mildly while stating, "The King did not rob banks, and even if he genuinely did, I doubt he would be able to accumulate so much money. The truth is that the King had found a way to make many precious materials by using some secret technique, so it was because of that sole reason, the King would never run out of money no matter what."

Seunghyuk took a good amount of time thinking about what the elder Nighthowler had just said, then made a good link to the fact that when the Conqueror age had started, everything never made scientific and technical sense any longer. In Arkawarenia, normal, ordinary houses are weirdly being powered by active plutonium, structures are built with gold and diamond as its base materials. Everywhere seemed to be exhibiting the word 'rich' strongly that Seunghyuk and Jisung felt overwhelmed.

"Just a second, we are heading towards the Castle of Arkawarenia, and we will continue with our discussion," One of the elder Nighthowlers said and the castle was immediately insight, and it seemed to jump right out and onto Seunghyuk and Jisung's face all too suddenly.

"What?!" Jisung exclaimed loudly, which all the elder Nighthowlers hurried to shush Jisung while allowing the neighbouring Nighthowlers to bow to them and walk away.

As the elder Nighthowlers were warning Jisung about his behaviour, Seunghyuk actually had no reason to blame Jisung as Seunghyuk was equally stunned by the beauty and lavishness of the castle. It was not only something that came out of a fairytale, it was simply something that was extracted right out from one of the wildest dreams. Simply speaking, it should not exist, but yet the unexplainable existence stood tall and proud right in front of Seunghyuk. The castle greatly stood out from the other houses, not just in size, but due to its intricate and meticulous design and the materials used as well.

Seunghyuk's Eye of Detection told him news that came like a grenade thrown at his face, which only made him stand there dumbfounded without knowing how to react. The castle was made out of antimatter, the most expensive substance on Earth, and the Nighthowlers have somehow found a way to manipulate the form of antimatter to construct a whole castle.

"We should enter the castle now unless we want Kim Yangwon to catch up with our footsteps. Even if he could not kill us, we would definitely want to avoid as much trouble as we possibly can," The only elder Nighthowler that was remaining told Jisung and me, while the others have already entered the castle, but Seunghyuk stepped forward, still carrying the feeling of awestruck in every single cell in his body, as he asked something that he did not mean to ask, "If we enter the castle, wouldn't the King be able to locate us alone and be able to kill all of us without any Nighthowlers in the kingdom of Arkawarenia knowing?"

The elder Nighthowler was visibly shocked by the question as he was probably expecting Seunghyuk to ask about the extravagant build of the castle.

"Well, there are probably also thousands of Nighthowlers in the castle, some working for service and some are even royalties. The King would have no chance to find us alone if we are in Arkawarenia, however, that would not completely eliminate the chance of the King taking our lives."

Seunghyuk was confused as to what the elder Nighthowler meant but Seunghyuk was urged to quickly enter the castle and to drag the self-destructed Jisung in along with him.

For the first time in Seunghyuk's life, he had difficulties walking into a building. Seunghyuk stepped into the castle and feasted his eyes on the golden-silked walls and the californium plated tiles, accompanied with the peculiar looking chandeliers hanging on the mountain-high ceiling, lighting up the huge entrance room with tritium-lit lights. Again, for the first time in Seunghyuk's life, Seunghyuk felt afraid to touch not just anything around him, but everything that he sees and feels around him. Seunghyuk felt like he was about to detonate before something seemed to click like gears turning inside his brain, then his overheated self immediately cooled down and his calm and collected face returned.

"The skill Heart of Cold Steel has been activated to help regulate the intense shock and excitement in your heart."

"Hey, it's been so long since I've seen you, Mr Heart of Cold Steel," Seunghyuk spoke silently to himself and slapped Jisung hard in his back but without causing another commotion, so Seunghyuk quickly covered Jisung's mouth with his hand as he caught a muffled scream, "Aoooooooooo!"

The elder Nighthowler quickly led the disgraceful pair into a private room where the other four elder Nighthowlers were already sitting and waiting. Seunghyuk was reminded of the question he had moments ago, and as the heavy californium doors automatically swung shut and locked, Seunghyuk immediately fired out his question with nervosity butterflies hitting the inner surfaces of his stomach.

"Just now you talked about us still not being safe in the Castle of Arkawarenia despite being in the presence of thousands of people. Why?" Seunghyuk asked the question and the air in the room had started to get denser and tenser, but that one elder Nighthowler that just entered with Seunghyuk and Jisung answered Seunghyuk's question with a face of utmost seriousness, "Even if the King does not have the ability to get rid of us by himself, he would still be able to pull some, no, many strings with his high position of the King. This is the most worrying situation we would have to face, as well-informed wars are easier to defend and fight back, but unknown wars come like the shadows slowly appearing at the break of dawn, we would not be able to deal with it easily, much less counter the attacks."

Jisung looked down as he clenched his knuckles to meet in the middle of his palms nervously, while Seunghyuk stood still looking unfazed on the surface, but deep down, Seunghyuk was worried. Apart from the spontaneous assassination he had gone through, the King might actually be other toughest enemy he would have had to face yet. Unfortunately, the Conqueror System Mission required Seunghyuk to overthrow the current King, Kim Yangwon, and take the throne instead. It was never child's play from the very beginning till now, and it would not be any easier as the task goes on.

"That is why we should all avoid doing anything to the King. There is a reason why we keep putting ourselves in danger," One of the silent elder Nighthowlers finally spoke up, and his first-ever line escaped like a bullet yearning for blood.

"However, we must still remember that our ultimate goal here is to dethrone the King by also taking part in the annual Throne Tournament. We can't keep avoiding the King, it would do us no good in dethroning him. However, if you want to enter the Throne Tournament and compete against the current King to win the throne, you will have to meet the following criteria: Firstly, you must be a part of the Nighthowlers, which Seunghyuk fulfilled despite not being a genuine Nighthowler; Secondly, you must be recommended by at least ten royal Nighthowlers in the castle to be able to take part in the tournament; Lastly, the King has the right to disallow participation if the reason that was given is convincing enough, so you are required to get permission from the King himself."

The quiet room went even quieter, that the silence got deafening as it hurt Seunghyuk's ears.

"I don't see the point in trying, then," The quieter elder Nighthowler spoke up, and his line was yet again, sharp and piercing like it was completely merciless and unaware of Seunghyuk's feelings.

"There's no hope then. The King would not let us participate anyway..." Jisung simply said while looking down, breaking the silence to pile up more layers of continuous silent ringings, but Seunghyuk broke the silence once and for all by speaking with vivid strength in his voice, "That's not fully true, because the King can only reject our participation if his reason is convincing. I'm guessing that there will be a group of royalties determining if the reasons are logical, so there are two ways we can go about from here: Number one, we can make sure that the King's words do not come out as convincing on the day itself by manipulating the emotions when we are there; Number two, we can directly bribe the royalties, but not with money, but with something else that money cannot buy."

"You speak as if it was so simple, especially the first one. Do you see us as professionals? I suggest we should not even try, maybe the current King should be left untouched, don't you think?" The quieter elder Nighthowler opened his mouth to shoot question bullets, and the usual-speaking ever Nighthowler tried to stop the rising commotion, but Seunghyuk merely shook his head lightly and continued, "What if I told you it actually is easy to pull off? Would you be satisfied with it? Our dear...dear...spy."

When the last word "spy" escaped from Seunghyuk's mouth, the silent room seemed more lively again, but it was certainly lively going in the wrong direction.