Chapter 305: The Honcheon Sword (4)

The grandiose title of “Lord God” made Louis tilt his head in confusion.

A toy of the Lord God? Was there ever a being in Evan worthy of being called a Lord God?

Evan wasn’t entirely devoid of religions or folk beliefs. But no matter how hard he tried to recall, Louis couldn’t think of anyone who deserved the title of Lord God.

Of course, Louis wasn’t privy to all of Evan’s history. Setting aside his skepticism, he asked, “A toy of the Lord God… what exactly is it?”

“Um… uh… an item? I guess you could call it that.”

“An item?”

It had been ages since Louis had heard that term, and his curiosity grew even stronger.

The grandiose title of “Lord God” naturally heightened expectations.

“Explain in detail,” Louis demanded.

“Well, you see… I usually just draw things as they appear in my dreams. But this one… this is the only thing I deliberately designed and created myself. Um… you could call it my own original creation, I guess?”

Wang Cheolsoo’s own creation?

Louis sensed something amiss at that revelation.

Clinging desperately to his dwindling hope, he asked again, “Hey, I almost don’t want to ask, but in ‘God’s Toy,’ is the ‘God’ referring to… you? You didn’t give it that ridiculous name thinking you’re some kind of creator, did you?”

”…”

“No way, right?”

“M-maybe?”

Louis hesitated, watching Wang Cheolsoo furtively avoid eye contact.

Should I kill this bastard now?

But even if he was going to kill him, Louis needed to know the item’s capabilities first. He forced himself to wait.

“So, what kind of item is it?”

“Well…”

“What does it do?”

“Um…”

Wang Cheolsoo glanced down again and mumbled softly, “It’s a random gacha… box.”

Silence hung in the air.

Louis wondered if he’d misheard. “What?”

“A random gacha box…”

“What kind of gacha box?”

“A random gacha…”

“This bastard…”

Louis had made up his mind.

He was going to catch this bastard right here and now and beat him to a pulp.

His eyes gleamed with murderous intent.

“H-Hic?!” Wang Cheolsoo cried out in panic, sensing the killing aura. “B-But the performance is still decent!”

“What good is that piece of trash? You think you can take down Kaiders with that?”

“W-Well, you never know! Some incredibly powerful weapon might just pop out of there…!”

“Is that your final will and testament?”

“I-If you just adjust the categories, you can get anything you want!”

“Great. Then pull out your will from there.”

“S-Spare me!”

Louis, who had been cracking his knuckles as he advanced, suddenly froze.

“Huh? Wait a minute… what did you just say?”

“P-Please, spare me…”

“No, before that.”

“Huh?”

“You said you can extract anything just by adjusting the category?”

“Y-Yes, that’s right!”

“No way… Could it be…?”

A glint flashed in Louis’s eyes.

“Can you even extract souls?”

“S-Souls?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm…”

“Can you or can’t you?”

“W-Well… I think it’s possible. The setting allows for extracting anything…”

A faint smile curled Louis’s lips.

Found it. The key Wang Cheolsoo possesses!

Now he understood why he had been sent to Earth to retrieve Wang Cheolsoo.

The final piece of the puzzle to complete the ultimate Honcheon sword had been right here all along.

“Where is it now?”

Wang Cheolsoo’s lips clamped shut.

His pupils trembled like an earthquake.

Wang Cheolsoo squirmed under the intense, electric gaze fixed on him. He cautiously opened his mouth.

“I… I don’t know,” he stammered.

“You don’t know?”

“I just set it up, but I never actually used it…”

“Really? You don’t know?”

“Come on, what would I even use something like that for? I just made it for fun!”

“So… you’re claiming ignorance?”

“Yep!”

“If you don’t know, you deserve to die.”

“Aaaah! S-spare me!”

Wang Cheolsoo thrashed wildly on the floor again.

Louis sighed softly. “That random lottery box… are you absolutely certain it exists in this world?”

“Y-yes, absolutely! Anything I’ve set up gets automatically manifested, even if I haven’t drawn it! Look at Kaiders’ Heart—no, Lotberia’s Heart. That was just a concept too, but it appeared! If God’s Toy also exists in the settings, it must be here too!”

“So, that’s it.”

Louis stroked his chin.

“Hmm… what exactly does it look like?”

“Well…”

Sensing this was his last chance, Wang Cheolsoo desperately tried to describe the only item he had ever designed.

As Louis listened to the description of the Luck Box, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

He asked with a puzzled expression, “So, roughly speaking, it’s a wooden box about 30 centimeters long with a lever like the ones on slot machines?”

“Yes, that’s how I envisioned it.”

Louis’s brow furrowed.

Wait a minute… could this be…?

He asked tentatively, “Hey, no way… did you also set it up to spit out an item about once a month?”

“Huh?! H-How did you know that?!”

Wang Cheolsoo’s eyes widened in disbelief. At the same time, his heart began to pound furiously.

Damn it! He’s not going to kill me again for selling him a defective item, is he?

He had deliberately kept secret the fact that the gacha machine could only be used once a month, but Louis had somehow divined the truth with eerie precision.

Wang Cheolsoo desperately tried to explain. “B-but there’s still a way! The monthly draw is just a freebie…”

His frantic excuses were cut short as Louis swiftly opened a pocket dimension. Moments later, a book materialized in his hand:

This was the very artifact that had guided Louis to the Tower of Wishes during his forced exile, when he wandered the world.

This was also the first and only book ever written by Dexter, the former Lord of the Tower.

Rustle… rustle…

Louis’s fingers rapidly flipped through the pages.

The final page contained an entry for “The Rusty Sword of the Tower of Wishes,” now known as the Honcheon Sword.

But that wasn’t what Louis was looking for.

His hand stopped on the page immediately preceding the Honcheon Sword’s entry.

There, depicted in a crude illustration, was an object identical to the one Wang Cheolsoo had described.

Louis showed the open page to Wang Cheolsoo.

“Hey, is this it?”

“Huh?”

Wang Cheolsoo stared at the illustration, startled, then nodded eagerly.

“Y-yes! That’s exactly it!”

A chill ran down Louis’s spine at Wang Cheolsoo’s confirmation.

Louis stared incredulously at the open page, re-examining the illustration.

The underlying principle behind this phenomenon remains a mystery.

However, the value of the items appearing within the box varies wildly.

Sometimes it’s a worthless pebble, other times a gold nugget.

Because the item changes unpredictably each time, the true value of this artifact cannot be reliably assessed.

At the time, he had simply dismissed it as an intriguing oddity, thinking, “Oh, that’s kind of neat.” He had been so focused on the Honcheon Sword that he had completely forgotten about it until now.

“But… could it all be connected like this?” Louis marveled inwardly. “Could this, too, be part of Lotberia’s grand scheme?”

His entanglement with the Tower of Wishes during his travels—regardless of how it had come about—now seemed like it might also be part of Lotberia’s design.

“Well, fine. I can ponder that later…”

For now, the priority was to acquire this “Luck Box,” as it was clearly labeled.

“Hmm…” Louis stroked his chin.

Dexter’s Encyclopedia of Magical Artifacts was filled with detailed illustrations.

The sound…

“This must be something that Grandpa Dexter, the Lord of the Tower, saw or used himself,” Louis thought. “That’s the only way he could have written such a detailed description.”

“So, where could it be?”

Suddenly, a memory flashed through Louis’s mind:

Back when Dexter was still alive, near the end of the Tower Academic Festival…

The treasure pouch Dexter had mentioned, the one he’d sacrificed his youth to amass.

The very pouch containing the A-Space Orb!

Louis’s eyes lit up at the recollection.

“That’s it!”

His intuition screamed: The item I’m looking for might be in there!

Louis’s sudden shout startled everyone watching.

“Kendrick, Tania!”

“Yes!”

“I need to run a quick errand. Keep a close eye on that bastard!”

“Again?”

“This time it won’t take long! I’ll be right back!”

“Yes!”

Kendrick and Tania nodded.

With that, Louis entrusted Wang Cheolsoo to the Flame Siblings.

Poof!

His figure vanished.

“Huh?”

Startled by Louis’s abrupt disappearance, Wang Cheolsoo cried out, “N-no! What about me? What’s going to happen to me? Please, someone, save me from these savages!”

Wang Cheolsoo’s desperate pleas echoed through the air.

The Flame Siblings exchanged glances.

“What’s that idiot babbling about?”

“Who knows? Probably just more insults.”

“Should we hang him up again?”

“Let’s.”

Working in perfect harmony, the Flame Siblings once again hoisted Wang Cheolsoo up to the pulley.

“Eeeeek!”

The mournful scream of a being cast into this otherworld echoed across the winter sky.

Having left the Great Wall, Louis headed north towards the White Mountains.

“Huh?”

“Who’s there?!”

The warriors on guard, startled by his sudden appearance through space movement, shouted urgently.

Normally, Louis would have offered a casual response, but he didn’t have time for that now.

“St-stop him…!”

“Get out of my way, you bastard!”

“Ugh!”

Louis plowed through the guards like a bulldozer and burst into a nearby barracks.

“What’s going on?!”

“Wh-what’s happening?!”

The occupants of the barracks, caught off guard, leaped to their feet.

The three Grand Masters, several Masters, Pablo, and the Order’s advanced warriors.

They stared in astonishment at Louis as he forced his way into the barracks.

“Tower Lord?!”

“L-Lord Louis?!”

Louis strode purposefully toward Douglas, his eyes fixed on him.

Without warning, he grabbed Douglas by the scruff of his neck and hoisted him into the air.

“Hey! Where is it?!”

“Gah?! W-what are you talking about?” Douglas gasped.

“That thing! Old Man Dexter’s treasure pouch!”

“L-let go of me… Gah! Gack!”

Douglas dangled helplessly from Louis’s grip, shaking like a ragdoll.

Just then, a voice came to his rescue.

“Master’s treasure pouch? Ah, you mean this…?”

Louis turned to see Floria rummaging through her pocket dimension. Soon, she emerged holding a weathered wooden box about 20 centimeters in size.

“If it’s Master’s belongings, I’ve been keeping them here,” she explained.

Hearing this, Douglas finally managed to wriggle free from Louis’s grasp.

Louis approached Floria with a beaming smile.

“Oh! Just as I expected from our clever Floria!”

He swiftly took the box of Dexter’s belongings from her.

Please be there!

With anticipation, he opened the box.

Click.

The lid of the old box creaked open, revealing its contents:

A worn feather pen.

A bundle of papers that looked like blueprints.

A clock that no longer worked.

And nestled among them…

It’s there!

The item Louis had been searching for was inside: an old pouch so worn it wouldn’t be surprising to find holes in it.

He hastily opened the pouch and poured its contents onto the box.

Clatter.

Small orbs tumbled across the box. Each transparent sphere contained a different object, and Louis swiftly examined them.

After a moment…

“Haha…”

Louis chuckled softly as he picked up one of the orbs.

Holding it up to the light illuminating the barracks, he noticed a small object nestled within.

It was a peculiar artifact identical to the illustration Dexter had drawn—the final piece of the puzzle needed to complete the True Celestial Sword.

Wang Cheolsoo had dubbed it the “Lord God’s Toy.”

“Lord of the Tower, Grandpa… even at the end, you left me one last grand gift.”

A radiant smile spread across Louis’s crimson lips.