The princess momentarily doubted her ears. While she acknowledged that the nation of Gun-guk had immense potential, calling it a "blessed nation" seemed like a stretch both objectively and subjectively.

Yuel, with sorrow in her eyes, looked at the corpse lying behind the princess.

"He dreamed of a country without a king. He believed that if everyone united and moved forward together, they could create a nation where happiness would last forever. That’s why he named this country 'Gun-guk' (군국), a nation of the masses."

Although it was often mockingly called a 'nation of soldiers' because of the military's control, the original name meant a 'nation of the people.' Nowadays, it’s unclear which is the joke.

"He was not a genius. He was so weak that everyone worried about him, and he often tried to cover up his thoughtless actions with humor. He lacked knowledge and had such a narrow view that it almost made me want to scream out of frustration. There were times I wondered why I even followed him."

‘She's smiling while saying that!’ the princess thought to herself. Despite her sharp critique, Yuel’s expression was as soft as if drenched in water. The princess wisely kept her mouth shut, realizing it was a good choice.

"However, if he had one redeeming quality, it was that he never hesitated to embrace something good. Especially the seven great inventions of Gun-guk, tools never seen before, created by humans for the good of humanity. Every single one of those inventions was his doing."

The princess was astonished by this revelation.

"The chimera beans, the clothing packets, the meta-conveyor belt…? All of that was created by Gunwoong?"

"No, most of those things already existed somewhere in the world. All he did was make the vision I ‘saw’ a reality."

With her ability to see far and wide, Yuel had seen everything from where she sat, including things considered taboo by the Holy See.

She saw what troubled the declining Geomosin religion. She saw what humanity built near lightning-struck waterfalls. She saw what fruit hung from the forbidden trees hidden beneath the floodwaters.

Yuel was confident that if she could gather all the good and beautiful things in the world, something even more beautiful than anything ever seen before would emerge. When that day came, she believed that even the Sky Saint would reconsider, seeing the hope Yuel had sparked.

"He trusted me completely. Even the things I found hard to believe with my own eyes, he accepted without question, eyes gleaming. The two of us would talk late into the night. If we were to use this, how could we use it better? How much should we make, and how should we distribute it to spread good more widely? Even while standing on the ashes, we chased the stars. The future was full of hope."

The inventions that Gun-guk created were nothing short of revolutionary. Now, it seemed those innovations had been spied upon and stolen by the Saint.

Shouldn’t they be called something other than inventions then? I couldn’t help but think that.

"We rebuilt everything anew. We were gradually moving forward. Each day was better than the last, and we fell asleep looking forward to an even better tomorrow. There were hard, exhausting days too. But on those days, he would kneel beside me and say how grateful he was that I was there. How it was a blessing from the gods that an angel had been sent to this country. Thanks to me, the day had ended successfully…."

"Gunwoong’s ideals were truly noble. It would have been wonderful if he were still alive today."

The princess gently shifted the conversation back to the present, and Yuel’s focus returned.

"Yes. You should be grateful to him. His will and effort were genuine. He should never be scorned or disregarded."

"Lady Yuel, but… he's already gone. We, who live now, don’t know what efforts he made. Whatever happened, the current Gun-guk is a nation devoid of kindness."

Yuel furrowed her brow.

"Kindness…? Is that what you seek?"

"Kindness is necessary! Look at Gun-guk now. No one is happy, and no one dreams of hope. Where did his ideals go? Why are the inventions he provided being used to take everything from people instead of improving their lives?"

The chimera beans were indeed an incredible discovery. With them, no one would suffer from malnutrition.

But they didn’t add to people's meals. Instead, Gun-guk used the chimera beans to take away all other tastes. In Gun-guk, any food besides chimera beans had become a luxury. The same was true for other things. When clothing packets were introduced, clothes with aesthetic value disappeared. The portability of canned goods restricted the culinary arts. Little by little, luxury and joy vanished.

Though the princess had grown up in Gun-guk, she had been pampered as royalty. She understood the importance of the small joys that came every now and then, so while she acknowledged the strength of Gun-guk, she couldn’t fully agree with it.

"There was no need for that! You could have left everything as it was and simply added the good things! If his ideals were truly noble, then there should have been even more kindness!"

"Kindness, given freely, eventually becomes a burden."

"What?"

"To rebuild a broken country, we needed to create the meta-conveyor belt. That’s why we accepted the Geomosin religion."

"Yes, I’ve heard. It was Gun-guk’s best option…."

"Do you know what we had to do first? Can you imagine?"

The princess felt a chill run down her spine. Yuel spoke about the past as though reminiscing fondly. The princess had been scolding her a bit arrogantly, thinking Yuel was simply clinging to her precious memories.

‘No. She isn’t a person living in the past… She’s someone who has cast everything from the past aside and moved forward…!’

"We destroyed the temples."

Yuel murmured, her eyes devoid of light.

"All the temples that had lived off the kindness of the kingdom rose up against us. The devout followers banded together to oppose Gun-guk. Whenever accidents occurred during construction, they blamed the Geomosin religion. Some temples even conspired with the rebels. I ‘saw’ it all."

The "seeing" meant she had observed it all with her Thousand-Mile Eyes.

Wow. So that’s how Gun-guk cleaned up the chaos after destroying the kingdom. If you have a divine cheat skill like Yuel’s, I suppose it’s possible.

"I didn’t want to do it, but there was only one way. It was the most rational, quickest… the only path to survival. So I did it. I betrayed my faith."

"The temples were exiled because they didn’t pay taxes…."

"We couldn’t just kick them out, so we attached all sorts of reasons. The nation had to be revived. Pay taxes. If you don’t want to pay, at least offer donations. Show your goodwill to the nation. Naturally, the temples refused. After all, humans must not demand compensation from the gods."

"That’s…"

"Then we pushed harder. The people were on our side anyway. We just needed a pretext. That’s why I brought in 영궤 (Younggwe). There was also plenty of resentment toward the gods. A little encouragement was all it took. I personally exiled them. Haha. How was that? Impressive, right?"

In the end, the temples that worshiped the Heavenly God disappeared from Gun-guk, and the few that remained scraped by in hiding, cooperating with the resistance.

It’s ironic, really. The Saint, a living symbol of the gods, had personally exiled them.

"The gods must have abandoned me, but it didn’t matter because he was by my side."

"Um…."

"To introduce the clothing packets, I destroyed the textile shops. To teach regimented magic, I dismantled the magic towers. And I gave real weapons to the merchants who believed their hoarded food supplies could be used as weapons, right into their bodies."

Yuel calmly recounted her deeds.

To introduce something better, the old had to be eradicated. That was just the beginning. But the kingdom, which had ruled for over a thousand years, still had its old ways deeply ingrained, even during the chaos. The death of the king didn’t change human nature.

Under normal circumstances, Gun-guk would have crumbled. Corruption, rebellion, disloyalty—it would have collapsed in the turmoil. The people could never have solved their problems just by coming together. But the Saint succeeded.

"…Even while hiding deep within, I saw everything. I filled my eyes with all the filth of the world, staining my hands with indelible blood. He no longer asked why someone needed to be killed or imprisoned. When I pointed my blood-stained fingers, soldiers with guns and blades rushed in that direction…."

"Yuel…."

"But it was fine. Gun-guk kept progressing, and he remained by my side. Even if it wasn’t the vision I had imagined, I could endure as long as I could see him. But… he died. Now, I’m alone. There’s no one left to guide me. If I become this nation's ruler… we’ll just repeat the kingdom's mistakes. It will never become Gun-guk…."

Yuel’s words, which sounded like a chant, suddenly transformed into a question directed at the princess.

"Do you know what’s necessary for a nation to last forever?"

Caught off guard, the princess gave a practical response.

"…P-people? If there are no people, there’s no nation."

"Wrong. It’s the opposite."

"The opposite? So, you need beasts?"

"They’re better than humans, but no. For a nation to last forever… it must be ruled by something that isn’t human."

That was why Yuel created beings in her image. To replace the role of the Saint with the Thousand-Mile Eyes, she gave communications officers their golems and spread them across the entire nation.

The early communications officers weren’t perfect. The older ones who began their training late were incomplete, requiring Yuel’s deep involvement. But as younger communications officers, trained from childhood, took up their roles, Gun-guk gradually became complete.

"When humans form groups, they make the coldest, most heartless decisions without hesitation. That’s what the communications officers are. Alone in dark rooms, yet sharing their thoughts with countless others spread across the land. They are singular but part of a group—the essence of Gun-guk. I entrusted the nation to them, and although their skills were lacking, they managed the country far more systematically. If not for this meeting today, Gun-guk would have continued without me."

The words of someone with experience carry weight. Compared to this, the young princess’s arguments felt inadequate, and she stammered, unable to form a response.

If she couldn’t speak now, bringing her here would have been for nothing. So, I stepped in for her.

"That’s nonsense. Stripping communications officers of their humanity and treating them like machines doesn’t make them anything less than human."

When I sneered at her, Yuel shot me a venomous glare, the last bit of hostility in her.

"If it’s for the sake of creating an eternal Gun-guk, then that’s a price worth paying. But you, as a destroyer of civilization, would never agree."

"Stop framing everything. You make strange things, then claim it’s ‘civilization’ and say it’s more valuable than anything else. Sorry, but I don’t care about your civilization. It’s invisible, tasteless, and doesn’t even exist."

Yuel snapped and shouted.

"Gun-guk exists! It has until now, and it will continue to exist!"

"And yet, its leader has been checkmated?"

"It’s not like the kingdom. Even if you kill me here, Gun-guk will continue. That’s the nature of Gun-guk! The system is already in place. The other communications modules are observing this, evaluating it, making new decisions. And those decisions are Gun-guk’s judgment, which will continue to lead it forward!"

Everyone believes Gun-guk exists, so it continues to exist?

Hmm. That’s true. If you ask whether Gun-guk exists, every person would say, ‘Yes, it does.’

"…But if Gun-guk truly exists, if it’s something real…"

But what happens if you ask it to take responsibility? How would it respond?

"Can it bear responsibility?"

"Responsibility…?"

Azi had searched for a king to hold accountable for the promises made by Gun-guk. To Azi, a king meant someone who could influence large numbers of people. When that individual couldn’t fulfill the promise, Azi gave up and withdrew.

Why? Even though it was a promise with Gun-guk, Gun-guk didn’t really exist. So no one in Gun-guk was held responsible for the broken promises. After all, Gun-guk isn’t a person.

"Siaty’s ambition has hit a wall. She hated Gun-guk, but in the end, it didn’t really exist. So now she’s decided to cling to that corpse because it’s the only way left to resolve her anger."

The people who designed Gun-guk were humans. The parts that made up Gun-guk were humans. Human communications officers ordered human soldiers around, and human soldiers governed human citizens. Humans imprison, work, and execute other humans.

Humans kill humans. Just as naturally as humans give birth to humans. It’s not something to be sugarcoated—it’s a real and natural occurrence.

That can happen. I have no objections to that fact.

"But you still claim that ‘Gun-guk’ exists. You said Gun-guk rules over humans. So, isn’t that strange? It’s unfair, isn’t it? It exists to rule but vanishes when it comes time to take responsibility. A bad check that bounces. Wow, how does that work?"

"Wa—"

"This is where you need an enforcement agency. When people don’t get paid, they hire a representative to collect for them. And as the representative for ‘humans,’ I’m here to collect."

If something non-human kills humans efficiently, doesn’t that make it an enemy of humanity?

Wait. That means I have to work.

Man, even after forced retirement, I still have to work. What a lousy job.

"There’s no king here anymore. Now, get out of the way."