<Chapter 48. - Premature Family Plan - 4>

Lee Shin Woo was barely able to get Dana to part with the Dryads by promising to introduce her to the spirits on the surface. Then, he and his party left the wine factory and traveled to the Metal Army's base.

If he hadn't acquired the administrator seal and been to their base before, then he wouldn't have been able to lead them into the chaos; and if that happened, he would've had to work that much harder to lower the Imperial Army and the Anti-Skull's forces.

"Moreover, it's because of that that we got ourselves such a nice facility."

"That's really not the way a human being thinks."

"Wow. I didn't know you could use golems like this..."

"I'm really satisfied."

"It's quite vast. To think they built and operated a hidden facility like this..."

They had taken the golem train and arrived at the Metal Army's base. While the younger generation of heroes looked around, as if fascinated, Seira and Dana were absolutely speechless.

Of course, they realized by now that Arema Steelworker was a spy from the surface, but they hadn't expected such an expansive facility being run under the entire Empire in the past; even when the Underground Empire was still thriving.

"It's because of this that they were able to move so covertly."

"I'm surprised you were able to recreate that seal or what not, Hero. It's not easy to do, even for a magician."

The Empire had the Archmage, Feotane Von Seldin, but even he wasn't able to find this base. This base had existed for far too long for him to blame it on them becoming undead. Lee Shin Woo just shrugged his shoulders.

"Now that you mention it, I feel like it's because of my innate ability. Ah, using Bone Reinforcement on the golems helped too, since it lets me look at them closely."

"I see. It's a combination of your talent and your disposition."

"Makes sense. Let's take a look, starting from the outside."

They passed the golem train terminal and first encountered a long, outside corridor. There were a few huge rooms and warehouses, but all of them were empty.

He assumed that they were originally filled with his troops: level 6 golems. They were, of course, in his Chi Pauls' bellies now.

"But this shouldn't be all there is."

"They should have a golem manufacturing facility somewhere."

He was well aware of this, as he'd killed some of them. There were, of course, golems that had been created dozens of years ago, but there had also been golems with recent production numbers among them.

While spying on the Underground Empire, Arema Steelworker had also been increasing his forces. His party had finished looking through the outer corridors, and then went towards the inner facilities, which couldn't be accessed without the Steelworker seal; they were really excited, and...

"Ooooooh!"

"Oh, it's over there."

Kratia's yell resounded as if sounding fanfare. The party soon entered a huge room filled with devices and mysterious crystals. Above all, both walls were adorned with vaults filled with level 6 Original Cores. Once she saw the cores, she couldn't contain her excitement.

"Kratia, is this..."

"Yeah."

Kratia nodded her head enthusiastically as if deeply moved. Whenever she was introduced to a new, unknown magical technique, she tended to get really excited.

"A manufacturing facility that produces a large quantity of Original Cores... It really did exist. The surface's magic engineering is amazing!"

"Kratia, you seem a bit different."

"Uooooh!"

Kratia completely ignored Prince and uttered a sound, as if she were a human power plant, and rushed over to the magical device and began to observe it.

He would feel bad if he interrupted her since she was concentrating so hard. Lee Shin Woo decided to leave this entire facility to Kratia and looked through the other facilities. He looked through the golems' weapon storehouse, the material storehouse, the golem production facility, as well as the repair facility... Even Lee Shin Woo had gotten excited from looking through these storehouses that remained intact for dozens of years.

"I should be able to expand the golem squad significantly!"

"Oh God."

"God'll like it too. Probably."

By the time he'd gone through about 80% of the inner facilities, Lee Shin Woo found one of the things he was looking for. It was the golem terminal that remotely controlled the railroad.

"Jin, do you remember what that Steelworker bastard told us last time? It was when we still had to get their permission to use the golem trains."

"Did they even say anything important regarding the trains?"

"They did. It was incredibly important info at that. They definitely told us that they had a line that went directly to the capital."

"The capital!? Oh my god!"

"There's a line that goes directly to the capital!?"

Dana and Seira, who'd both been quietly listening in, yelled in astonishment. They should know exactly what this meant! Lee Shin Woo nodded his head and added.

"I'm pretty sure it was Guillotine. He said that 'In the process of escaping the capital, we completely destroyed the passageway and the road was closed.'"

"He must've been lying."

"He was lying."

They had been fighting like prepubescent girls before, but now they were agreeing with each other. Lee Shin Woo felt that their relationship was really entertaining and nodded his head.

"It's obviously a lie. If that line was discovered, then whether they closed the road or not wouldn't have mattered; the Imperial Army would've gotten through. At the time, I didn't know what high level individuals could do, so I assumed they were telling the truth and let it go, but now that I'm level 8, I know. Their line was never discovered after escaping the capital. And that's why they were able to continue using this base."

"Impossible... It's preposterous..."

"Arema Steelworker. He truly was looking down on the Underground Empire. It frustrates me that we never even knew about this. We were playing in the palm of his hand..."

Dana and Seira were in sync as if they'd made arrangements beforehand. The more pissed they were, the more aggressively they would fight. Lee Shin Woo nodded his head in satisfaction and said.

"In any case, that's why, at the time, I hadn't used the line to go to the capital. But now's different. I thought there'd be a facility that controlled access to the line inside... Hoo. It was really here."

"You thought this far ahead? Ah, as expected of a hero hand-picked by God..."

Dana looked at Lee Shin Woo as if she were a love struck girl. In response, Seira looked at Dana with a sullen expression and said.

"I wanted to say this before, but there are a lot more heroes picked by God than just Lee Shin Woo, Dana."

"But what were you all doing while the Hero was doing all this?"

"Ugh. We were... We were also..."

"I know! Popcorn! This is where we eat popcorn, right?"

"Prince, you're really..."

While they were noisily chatting in the background, Lee Shin Woo carefully looked at the device. Without the Steelworker seal, he couldn't even approach it; it was set up that way. What's worse, it couldn't be controlled without Arema Steelworker's seal.

'But that won't stop me anymore.'

Lee Shin Woo was level 8 and he had the Wild Card skill now. Even if he didn't absorb Arema Steelworker, he was skilled enough to create the right seal, so long as he knew how the device's locking mechanism worked!

Honestly, he could make it even easier and just use his Shining Flame to erase the lock's cause-and-effect or his Dark flame to steal ownership of the device. He could also use his Dark Shadow to reverse its locked state and open it and had several other methods available to him as well, but he decided to just make the seal.

"Alright. It really is open."

"We can go to the capital!? Directly!?"

"If that's the case, then... Then, now that the capital's defense mechanisms are gone, then we can just take this train and..."

"Yep. We can just ignore their monsters and attack their life points directly." [1]

Of course, he didn't mean that they would go right away. He still had lots he needed to prepare. But now he had a reliable way of traveling to the capital whenever he wanted.

"The final battle... truly is near."

"It's not going to be the final battle. Since some of the undead curse has spread to the surface already. Moreover, the Magic Emperor's no joke, so we can only relax and live in peace once he's out of the picture."

"The undead curse is affecting the surface..."

Dana, who was quietly listening to him, scowled. Lee Shin Woo glanced at her, and once he noticed his gaze, she lightly sighed and said.

"I'm not sure if you know this or not, but killing my father... Killing the Emperor won't completely eliminate the curse."

"Huh? What do you mean... Ah, are you talking about that source or what not?"

"Yes, exactly."

Seira had told him about it before. The reason they were able to mine Evil Eye was because the source of darkness, which had revived the Empire, had been close by.

The ore that had been affected by said darkness was already so powerful, so how insanely powerful would the source itself be? It was scary just thinking about it.

"Why didn't they equip that to the cannon and fire it? They would've been able to break through the barrier that way, right?"

"But that would've destroyed both the underground and the surface. That's just how powerful the source is. And the Emperor already used that to create the undead curse."

"Thanks for explaining it in a way that I could understand right away."

"It was truly foolish. He didn't even think about the consequences and just went ahead with it. He used the source of darkness as the base of the undead curse, so the curse itself doesn't weaken. Once the Emperor is killed, something must be done about the source for the curse to fade away."

"...Hmm."

Lee Shin Woo felt like he'd be able to do something about the source of darkness with his abilities. But he was concerned about something: what if the Emperor decided to use the source against him?

He wouldn't do that unless he was crazy, but he was already crazy, so there was still a chance he'd use it!

"Is that source or whatever always next to the Emperor?"

"Processing it is possible, but it's difficult to move it, even for the Emperor himself. It's probably exactly where I remember it."

"...I see. Well, I guess it'll just work out."

He would first get the Emperor and the Lich away from the source. He would kill the Emperor after taking care of the source. Since he had Seira and Dana on his side, both of which had detailed information on the capital, it shouldn't be too difficult.

"But the question's how we take care of the two Liches."

"Let's first think about where their life vessels may be hidden within the capital."

"No need..."

The party debated over the final battle, but then, the door opened and a small ice magician entered. Her hands were full of blueprints, which looked pretty cute.

"Since I found out a way to improve the Huginn's Eye."

Kratia declared confidently. Huginn's Eye? That level 8 artifact that they used to sense golems or the undead? He briefly tilted his head, but his eyes soon widened.

When the culmination of the surface's magic engineering met with another world's magic, the story (the day before the final battle) would truly commence...!

[1] T/N: Yu-Gi-Oh! or possibly some other TCG reference.