“Ah, fuck. What? ‘Why don’t we go check out Iri’s Curio Rental Shop? See that rumored Immortal Iri and his disciple’? These bastards are lounging around doing jack shit, then dragging their worthless little errands to a place that’s already busy as hell just to make other people suffer? Are you even people? Huh? You do shit like this and you’re not in hell yet? Want me to send you straight to hell right now? Yeah?”
The Scholar divine spirit, still not calmed even after forcing every single staff member to assemble in the garden and kneel, kicked the fountain—BANG!—with his foot.
“Seriously. Knowing how busy the Immortal is, and they come over just because they want to drink more? At this point, their conscience needs to be remeasured. There’s got to be something wrong with the Five Kings’ Scale.”
Ihaeja didn’t try to stop him at all—instead, he folded his arms on one side and nodded along in agreement.
Kkiwoong. Kkiwooong. Kkiwoong.
Standing with his legs spread on Dojin’s shoulder, Kkiwoong scolded them as well, but the spirits didn’t even notice Kkiwoong’s presence.
“Hey. You.”
Dojin, who had been silent until now, pointed at the one kneeling at the very front of the spirit group. The Welfare Center’s top authority was General So, and the next rank down—the branch-level deputy team leader—was a japsin (minor god).
“Y-yes. Please speak.”
The skinny, bespectacled male japsin bowed his head.
Strictly speaking, japsin wasn’t that low of a rank—equivalent to a Jangsa—but as a deputy team leader, he had no choice but to keep his posture humble.
For one thing, he had plenty to feel guilty about… and for another, although the opponent was a young Jangsa, he was the widely rumored disciple of Immortal Iri, with divine spirits flanking him on both sides.
With General So absent, keeping his head low was the only option.
“These are all the Welfare Center–related requests that came into our rental shop over the past week. What do you think?”
Dojin tossed a file folder at the deputy team leader. He caught it and read through it with the staff beside him.
[I want to move—please introduce a place with good feng shui.]
[I’m going to make a ssireum bet with my friends. Please act as referee.]
[How do you record videos with this thing called a smartphone?]
All of it was unmistakably the Welfare Center’s own work.
“Ahem. Since our Welfare Center hasn’t been around for very long, customers keep coming to the rental shop instead… haha. We’ll contact these customers separately on our end.”
“Why aren’t you advertising? Not getting ad money from upstairs?”
“Th-that’s right. Our promotional budget is always tight……”
At that moment, a swaggering punk with tattoos on both arms snapped and shouted.
“Don’t make me laugh! Everyone knows how much budget the Welfare Center gets. And how much money do you even need for advertising? You just spread rumors among the small-fry and they’ll pass it along themselves!”
“Ihaeja, stop.”
“Stop what?! That’s a straight-up lie!”
“I know. But beating up the underlings won’t change anything.”
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do?”
“My master once explained why the war a thousand years ago ended in just one day. He said, ‘If the leader steps up, the lackeys don’t have to die.’ I agree with that completely.”
Dojin stopped Ihaeja, but he wasn’t calm either.
“We endure it from the bottom.”
WHAM! Instead of hitting the spirits, he kicked the leaking fountain again. Water burst out in torrents. Dojin and the divine spirits casually deployed a barrier so not even a single droplet touched them, but the spirits’ clothes were soaked through. As the deputy team leader subtly tried to step out of the water’s path, Dojin spoke.
“Hey.”
“Y-yes?”
“You said the ad budget’s lacking, right? Fine. I’ll talk to the higher-ups for you. General So? No, wait—who’s above General So again? The Jade Emperor? Magohalmi? Or better yet, let’s go straight to the source.”
“Th-the source…?”
“The King.”
The spirits gasped and recoiled. Dojin twisted his lips into a cold sneer.
“I just happen to be holding a Gido Ceremony soon. I’ll be meeting the King of the True Mortal Realm then. I’ll tell him that the Welfare Center can’t advertise because they lack funding, so the rental shop is drowning in extra work. That should solve it, right?”
The spirits knew Dojin was a Jangsa accumulating great virtue. This wasn’t empty bluffing, which only made their panic worse.
“W-wait! Now that I think about it, the promotional budget is sufficient…!”
“Oh? Then why’s the advertising been so lacking all this time?”
“Th-that is……”
The deputy team leader jabbed the side of the staff member next to him, but none of the others had a decent excuse either.
In the end, the deputy team leader gave up and slammed his forehead to the ground.
“I’m sorry! We’ll do better from now on, so please—please don’t report this to the King!”
“I said we’re not chewing out the underlings. We’re supposed to chew out the ones on top.”
Dojin said this while already chewing them out to his heart’s content.
“Where’s General So, anyway? What’s he doing?”
“He’s currently in another district.”
“Not Hadong?”
“No. I believe he may be in Gangwon Province.”
“Lucky bastard.”
Dojin muttered. At that remark, not only the spirits but even the Scholar divine spirit on the same side went pale.
A General-class divine spirit was equivalent to an Immortal—if anything, they were lucky that General So was absent. But Dojin had come here genuinely prepared to fight General So head-on and win.
The Scholar and Ihaeja exchanged glances.
‘Haven’t seen that brat in a while—hasn’t matured at all.’
‘You don’t get it. The fact that he’s not hunting down General So and going all the way to Gangwon already means he’s matured.’
‘You think he’d really do that…?’
‘You know about Gangnim Herald—and he’s the lunatic who threw down with Yama King.’
‘Ah… yeah. He totally would. And then some.’
Ignoring the clearly audible whispers, Dojin walked up to the kneeling deputy team leader and squatted down like a thug.
“Listen. Do better from now on. Advertise like hell. Pound the pavement. If there are any Wia bringing pointless requests to our rental shop, you’re the first stop they should be coming to. Got it?”
“Yes, yes. Understood. I’ll work hard from now on. Starting tomorrow, we’ll produce promotional flyers and distribute them immediately.”
“And if General So has any complaints, tell him to come see me directly. I came here myself, so he can at least move his ass that much, right?”
“That’s right. Absolutely. You’re completely correct. Yes, yes.”
Dojin’s expression, tone, posture—everything about him screamed street thug. No matter how intimidating the Scholar and Ihaeja looked in their clothes, it didn’t matter. Those born with a talent for intimidation were impossible to deal with.
After finishing business at the Welfare Center, the three headed straight back to the rental shop. It was only a matter of time before this reached Iri’s ears, so they intended to confess before he heard it from someone else. The divine spirits didn’t flee—they showed loyalty by standing before Iri together.
“Huh? Even the Scholar’s here—haven’t seen you in a while….”
Iri greeted them in a tone that carried no warmth at all. He sensed something ominous.
Sipping the fragrant tea Dojin had brewed, Iri listened as he was told how his two subordinates and his disciple had gone and caused trouble at the Welfare Center.
The Immortal pressed his fingers to his forehead.
“So… you threatened them and came back.”
“We only broke one fountain. Didn’t touch anything else. If General So had been there, we would’ve at least challenged him to ssireum and humiliated him properly.”
The Scholar and Ihaeja watched Iri’s reaction, but Dojin remained brazen. He even pulled out his phone and showed video evidence one by one—how idle the Welfare Center was, how they weren’t advertising at all, how they were just loafing around.
Kkiwoong! Kkiwoong-kkiwoong! Kkiwoong-kkik!
Kkiwoong passionately complained too, clearly venting about how poorly he’d been treated.
Iri only half-listened. Putting the kids aside for the moment, he scolded the divine spirits first.
“You didn’t stop this—you joined in?”
“Immortal, you know we’ve endured this for a long time.”
“And trouble? The ones causing trouble were the Welfare Center bastards. This was justified retaliation—no, not even retaliation. We were just properly transferring duties and tossing out a few words.”
“And you smashed a fountain while you were at it?”
“That fountain, really. I’ll pay for it. I’ll cover the damages!”
Ihaeja, the wealthiest of Iri’s confidants, took a ‘so what?’ stance. At first, he’d pretended to be cautious, but once it was clear Iri wasn’t going to explode at Dojin, he grew bold. Iri sighed.
“Divine spirits who’ve lived a thousand years, getting led around by the nose by a twenty-year-old kid……”
“I’m not a kid!”
The ‘kid’ immediately jumped in protest. Iri’s sigh deepened.
“General So won’t stay quiet about this.”
“I really hope he doesn’t. I was seriously disappointed we didn’t get to fight today. Arm wrestling, plain wrestling, even chicken fights—I should’ve crushed him with sheer strength.”
“General So became a General at the youngest age in history, and he’s still young. Don’t underestimate him.”
At the word ‘youngest’, Dojin’s eyes sharpened as if provoked.
“When did he become a General, and how old is he now?”
“He became a General at forty, and it’s been about a hundred years since.”
“Ha. I’m becoming an Immortal this year—next year at the latest, okay? I’m breaking that record. If people are making a fuss over something like that, when I become an Immortal it’ll be absolute chaos!”
Seeing that nothing would get through to his headstrong disciple, Iri said nothing more and simply looked at the Scholar and Ihaeja.
Even the shameless divine spirits started sweating under Iri’s steady gaze. He wasn’t yelling or flying into a rage—he was speaking gently—yet for some reason, their hearts thudded wildly.
For a moment, they even felt like blurting out, ‘We’re sorry. We won’t do it again. Should we go apologize to the Welfare Center?’ But—
The Scholar clenched his fist.
“I knew you wouldn’t be pleased, Immortal. Yes, honestly, I expected this. But we’ve endured enough. General So has mocked you for thirty years. Allowing it any longer would trample our pride.”
“That’s right. We’re your divine spirits, Immortal. To us, you matter more than even the King of the True Mortal Realm. If our opponent had been the King instead of General So, we would’ve done the same thing!”
With the divine spirits raising their voices instead, Iri’s headache only worsened.
Since this deviation was born of loyalty to their lord, no matter how he scolded them, Scholar Divine Spirit and Ihaeja would remain convinced of their righteousness.
