Chapter 175 – Netherworld Procedure

===================
Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
===================

Making the hair-growth medicine was urgent too, but the construction of Celestial New City that Tang Gun-ak was planning could not be neglected either.

Its starting point was precisely the acquisition of Fuji Construction.

Through this company, he planned to procure the necessary materials, organize the construction know-how, and send it to the Immortal Realm.

The acquisition work was proceeding smoothly.

Though there were complicated circumstances behind it, there was no need for him to interfere in that much.

Building apartments in the Heavenly Realm for the heavenly people.

Would that really be possible?

‘What’s there that wouldn’t be possible?’

There was sufficient labor.

The prisoners of the Netherworld and the armies of the Heavenly Realm.

Were these ordinary humans, by any chance?

Honestly, equipment was not even necessary.

He only needed to teach them how to build.

Let him start with a model house first.

Tae-ju called in a prefab-house specialist company in Gurye.

After obtaining the floor plan of a trendy officetel.

“Make it around 24 pyeong in size, and reproduce a latest-model officetel room exactly.”

“You don’t need a roof?”

“No, just make it box-shaped. Put the furniture, sofa, and home appliances in as built-ins too.”

“Understood, Chairman.”

“Use good materials too. Make it sturdy, just like a real house.”

“We will do our best.”

Once the model house was finished, he would need to send the whole thing to the Immortal Realm, but…

‘I don’t know whether it’ll fit.’

That was the concern.

In truth, the area was sufficient.

How vast was the Infinite Space, and the shared storage too?

The problem was the size that could enter at once.

At first, even putting in one large TV had been a tight squeeze.

And when he put in the Sword Immortal’s Harley bike, how close had that been?

However, after undergoing several more soul linkages, and also taking Heavenly Peaches on top of that, now it had grown to the point that he could smoothly put in even a large limousine sedan.

But he had not tested anything larger than that.

There had been no need for it and no opportunity either.

A little earlier, he had tried an experiment to see whether a large dump truck would go in.

Of course, that too had gone in smoothly without any problem.

Tae-ju came to Yangsan Port.

It was a place where large containers bound for America were loaded.

If even a dump truck could go in, then one container would be nothing.

Then how many would be possible?

Let him stack some and see.

The area of one 20-foot container was about 5 pyeong.

If he placed six of them across the width and length combined, that made 30 pyeong.

If he stacked them in two stories, taking height into account, then a total of 12.

It was no different from putting in one entire 30-pyeong apartment unit.

‘Will it go in?’

It had to go in.

‘I can just try it.’

Tae-ju opened the Infinite Space.

And then, concentrating his mind…

Sseut. Suk.

“Oh!”

Twelve containers vanished in one go.

‘This is crazy, absolutely crazy.’

Why had he only tried this now?

Even the prefab model house being built in Gurye would fit with room to spare.

At this point, he became curious.

About the maximum size that could go in.

This time, eight across the width and length combined.

If two stories, 16, which in pyeong came to 40.

Sseut. Suk.

‘Huh? That goes in too?’

Forty pyeong was no problem too.

Then what about 50 pyeong?

Sseut, suk.

‘…’

He had nothing to say.

He had not known it would go in this easily.

But there was a limit.

It was exactly 60 pyeong.

Anything larger than that did not all go in, and containers remained on the ground.

Even so, at this level, there were hardly any items that could not be put in at once.

‘I should contact the prefab construction company and ask them to make one more.’

It felt like there would be no problem even carrying it around in the Infinite Space.

If something happened outdoors, one only had to take this one out and it was done.

As for electricity, connecting a crystal generator would be more than enough.

At any rate, the next delivery to the Immortal Realm was the model house.

Earth’s real living space would be making its first appearance in the Immortal Realm and the Heavenly Realm.

‘The delivery problem is solved.’

At that moment.

Jiiing.

A call came in.

When he answered.

– Yo, Chairman Kim.

It was Palace Secretary Geum Su-ho.

“Yes, this is me.”

– The thing is, there’s a palace banquet tomorrow. Since it’s been a while, come see my face at the palace.

A banquet.

“Do I absolutely have to attend?”

– Eoheo, it’s been quite a while since we met, hasn’t it? Please be sure to attend.

There was no helping it.

“Yes, then I’ll see you at the palace.”

– Heuheuheu, I’ll be waiting.

What banquet.

As it was, there was already so much to do that he was dying.

* * *

Immortal Realm.

One plus one.

One had come, and then one more had come too.

Now that there were two, the range of choice had widened.

Vincent Moretti, covered all over in binding talismans and demon-repelling talismans, was being interrogated by the immortals in the front yard of the Immortal Realm multiplex.

“Want to die? Talk quickly. How do we open a door to Earth?”

“…”

“Heo, would you look at this bastard? You’re ignoring me? Just rolling your eyes around, and daring to do that before an immortal!”

“…”

“Doesn’t this bastard know our language? I spoke clearly in the language of the Samhan Empire.”

“…”

“Is he a foreigner who doesn’t know our language?”

At that, the Sword Immortal cut in with a serious face.

“Our language? Are you citizens of the Samhan Empire?”

“Wh-what?”

“The only immortal here with a proper identification card is me, though?”

“…Damn it!”

“I hope you will stop going around carelessly impersonating citizens of the Samhan Empire. It’s irritating.”

In truth, there was no way Vincent Moretti did not know Samhan’s language.

He was one of Earth’s greatest scholars; there was no way there would be a language he did not know.

But the title these people used to refer to themselves.

Precisely immortal.

Immortal, they said.

Did that even make sense?

Immortals who used the language of the Samhan Empire.

“In movies or novels, you see wizards placing a hand on someone’s head and pulling information out and stuff. Is there any immortal here who can do that?”

“Tsk tsk, does he think the world is fantasy?”

“…Isn’t it fantasy, though?”

“Hmm, hearing it put that way, it is. Ghost Valley, it sounds like you would have a method.”

Ghost Valley Immortal, who had crouched in front of Vincent Moretti and was examining him from every angle, replied.

“I’m researching it now. But this fellow’s brain is very different from that of ordinary people.”

“Different how?”

“There are machine devices attached to the brain and metal wires visible too.”

“Heo, so he’s not a human but a robot.”

“Is he a transforming robot?”

One by one, the immortals put forward their opinions.

“Let’s not be too overbearing. Let’s coax him gently.”

“Will that work? He was the bastard who tried to self-destruct the moment he arrived.”

“Kikikik, Jacques!!! Come here! At last we shall become one!!! He was shouting stuff like that.”

“It was truly solemn.”

“I nearly cried.”

Despite the immortals’ mockery, Vincent did not open his mouth.

At a time when he could not even tell whether this was a dream or waking reality.

“Monkey! Let’s put your tightening band on this fellow.”

“Hmm, how can an immortal try to torture a person?”

“Fuck, immortals aren’t allowed to torture people?”

“…By the way, where’s the Poison Immortal?”

“He went to the Netherworld. He’s probably meeting Yama by now.”

The Netherworld? Yama, they said.

Vincent still could not judge the situation.

Tang Gun-ak was conversing with Yama after putting Jacques Deluan into the Infinite Space.

To ask whether it was possible to look into this bastard’s head with a treasure of the Netherworld.

Yama pondered briefly, then spoke.

“I’ll try it, but I don’t think we can proceed like this.”

“Why not?”

“One bastard is on the verge of death, and the other hasn’t been broken in. I heard Vincent, that bastard, pulled nonsense the moment he came to the Immortal Realm?”

Yama was right.

Vincent had tried to self-destruct by soul merging.

And the same-souled bastard looked so frail that it would not be strange if he died any day now.

“If we send them to hell like Drek Karax…”

“Ei, that fellow wasn’t one who dies in the first place, and his soul is no different from that of a demon, so you can throw him into hell and punish him. But these fellows will die quickly. Or commit suicide.”

“If they die, can’t we retrieve their souls and put them into bodies?”

Like the sinners in hell.

But Yama shook his head side to side.

“Did these bastards come from our human world?”

“That is not so.”

“If they die here, their souls themselves will disappear. There are procedures even in the Netherworld. You can’t just make any soul into a sinner.”

“Keung.”

That meant that if they died, it was over.

The sincerity with which Tae-ju had captured them and sent them over would vanish.

“Then the method is…”

“There is one thing worth trying.”

“Please tell me.”

Yama took a deep drag from his electronic cigarette and continued.

“You could call it a kind of shortcut. Let’s follow the procedure. I don’t know whether it’ll work, though.”

“Hmm, in detail?”

“What I mean is…”

The rules of the Netherworld.

When someone died in the human world, grim reapers or messengers brought the soul-spirit over, and after going through the judges’ verdict, it would be decided whether they would reincarnate or go to hell.

If it was reincarnation, they were sent to the Tathagata Realm, and if they were a sinner, that soul belonged to hell.

Then it could be handled freely.

Not only would it not die, but one could even move the Soul-Summoning Bell and suck out all the knowledge it possessed.

“Let’s try it once. What’s good about one plus one? Even if one bastard fails, there’s still the other.”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s work on this bastard first. Jacques, was it?”

“Probably. Vincent called him that.”

Jacques too had a machine body.

But with wires sticking out here and there, and the way he moved so weakly, it would not be strange even if he died soon.

“Also, isn’t this fellow Jacques the original one? He discovered the dimensional gate technology, while Vincent only learned it through soul linkage.”

“Good.”

“Leave it to me. I already told Gangrim in advance, so he’ll take care of it.”

At that moment.

Swoooong.

A door appeared in the Palace of Karmic Fire of the Netherworld.

And out came Messenger Gangrim.

“Great King, I have returned.”

“Did you find a suitable place?”

“Yes. There is a place called Xi’an in the human world, and there exists an inn there called Black Spot.”

“Black Spot? I’ve heard that name many times.”

“It is a place that kidnaps humans and makes dumplings out of human flesh, or manufactures jiangshi.”

“Ah! Now I remember.”

“But it turns out it was one of the dens of the remnant forces of the Demonic Cult.”

At that, Tang Gun-ak’s eyes sparkled.

Though he had escaped worldly ties and become an immortal, the Demonic Cult was not something he could simply ignore.

“You’re saying Demonic Cult bastards still remain?”

“Human greed has no end. They repeat the same mistakes.”

“Heoheo.”

“I understand that the leader of Black Spot has mastered the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Since demonic art has already invaded his brain, he’s half insane already. If we throw this fellow called Jacques to him, he will kill him right away.”

“Really? Then go throw him over there.”

Yama opened a door.

A door leading to the human world.

The privilege possessed by Netherworld officials.

Immortals could not pass through this door.

Only the Jade Emperor of the Heavenly Realm possessed the authority to let immortals descend to the human world.

Tang Gun-ak took Jacques Deluan out of the Infinite Space.

Sseut.

Jacques came outside.

But he could not regain his senses.

He could not even move.

It seemed to be because of the yellow paper stuck to his chest.

‘How did it come to this?’

The mirror dimensional gate had opened in the world where he lived.

Who had called him?

Naturally, Vincent.

What did it mean that the gate had opened?

There were two possibilities.

Either Vincent had resolved the dimensional-gate binding and saved him, or, as a scientist, he had carried out the noble act of directly applying the experimental subject to himself.

At first he had thought it had been resolved.

When he came out of the gate, Vincent had been breaking the binding and moving away, and because of that, the soul-merging phenomenon had not occurred.

But it had been a misunderstanding.

Did Vincent save me?

No, I got caught too.

It was like this.

Messenger Gangrim slung Jacques Deluan, who had a binding talisman attached to him so he could not move at all, over his shoulder.

“Now then, let’s go. To the human world.”

To the human world?

Then where was this?

And so, Jacques Deluan was taken with Gangrim and slipped over into the human world, the world called the martial world.

* * *

Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, martial world.

There was one shabby inn in the poor district.

It looked ordinary, but in truth, it was a devil’s den called Black Spot.

The owner of the inn was a martial artist named Zhuge Yeong-ho.

Originally one of the younger generation of the Zhuge Clan, but because his grandfather Zhuge Cheon had thrown himself into the Demonic Cult, his clan had been exterminated by Absolute Poison Demon Tang Gun-ak.

‘Y-you Tang Gun-ak, I’ll tear you to pieces!’

What was wrong with following the greater current?

The martial world had practically been swallowed by the Demonic Cult.

That was why he had followed the Heavenly Demon.

Who could have known the Heavenly Demon would die so absurdly?

If he had known, he would never have joined the Demonic Cult.

He would definitely take revenge.

The target was precisely the Tang Family of Sichuan.

He would suck them all dry, regardless of age or sex.

The secret manual his grandfather Zhuge Cheon, the clan head and the one called Brain Demon within the Demonic Cult, had left him before dying, Heavenly Demon Divine Art.

Its essence being an absorption art, he had set up Black Spot and kidnapped people to suck away their essential blood.

The corpses he ground up and made into dumplings.

He was confident.

Though not to the level of the Heavenly Demon, he judged the Tang Family of Sichuan, now that Absolute Poison Demon Tang Gun-ak had disappeared, to be sufficient.

‘Soon now…’

It was then.

Suuuuuuk.

Kwa kwang! Kwangkwangkwangkwang!

“Kkeuaaaak!”

Something punched through the roof of the inn, crushed one of the Black Spot workers laboring inside, penetrated the wooden floor, and fell all the way down to the underground chamber where Zhuge Yeong-ho was.

When he approached and saw, it was a person.

“What the…”

Zhuge Yeong-ho flinched in surprise.

What in the world was this fellow?

Why did he fall from the sky?

However, the identity was not important.

He had destroyed the Black Spot he himself operated.

He had also killed one of the subordinates he commanded.

Killing intent flared like fire.

There was no need to know the circumstances before and after.

“You bastard!”

Zhuge Yeong-ho raised his hand like a blade.

“How dare you, in a place like this…”

Then he plunged it into the chest of the collapsed human.

Pajik! Chijijik!

“Hm?”

Was he wearing plate armor?

It felt as though he had thrust into a mass of metal.

But this much could not block the demonic qi of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.

Zhuge Yeong-ho raised aura and stabbed deeper.

Pachichichichik.

Originally, Jacques Deluan’s heart was like an engine that moved his machine body.

When the external attack reached it, it malfunctioned.

Jiiiiii…

At the same time, an explosion occurred.

Kwaaaaaaaang!

“Heok!”

Zhuge Yeong-ho was blown backward, spouting a fountain of blood from his mouth.

Jacques Deluan’s machine body too was shattered to pieces.

At that moment.

Sssssss.

Before anyone knew it, Grim Reaper Gangrim had revealed himself.

Then he stretched out his hand and retrieved Jacques Deluan’s soul-spirit, which was escaping from the body.

But Zhuge Yeong-ho did not die.

He merely coughed blood and lost consciousness.

At most, he had suffered qi deviation?

“What a shame. I was hoping to take one more along as a one plus one, but it seems the time has not come yet.”

In any case, it was a success.

Jacques Deluan had died in the martial world, that is, the human world.

His soul-spirit had emerged too.

That meant that the laws of the Netherworld could now be applied to him.

‘As for the remaining bastard too…’

If they killed him in the human world like this and drew out the soul-spirit, that would do.