Park Yeon, who was still unidentified and at the center of a major national issue, smirked and puffed out his chest as Doo-shik flinched.

“Don’t be scared. This is called an elevator.”

“Ele… vator?”

“Even if I explained in detail, an orc like you wouldn’t understand, so to put it simply, it’s similar to magic.”

In truth, Park Yeon himself didn’t really understand how an elevator worked. He just knew that pressing a button made it go up and down.

“Oh… fascinating.”

“Shall we go back down now?”

With his hands behind his back, Park Yeon pressed the button for the first floor.

Clunk—

Doo-shik instinctively grabbed the handrail in surprise.

“I feel strange. It’s like my insides are flipping upside down.”

“Heh heh heh.”

Park Yeon had felt the same way at first. His stomach had twisted so much that he even wondered if it was some scheme of the Demon King.

But after riding it a few times, he got used to it, and now it didn’t bother him at all.

- You have arrived at the first floor. The doors are opening.

“Now, you try it.”

“...M-Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Won’t the human woman get angry?”

“The human woman?”

“The one who said the doors were opening earlier.”

Hahahahahaha!

Park Yeon burst into laughter.

A human woman! He actually called a mere machine a human!

“You really are an orc. That’s just a voice announcement.”

“Voice… announcement?”

“Yeah.”

“So there’s no human woman?”

“Of course not. This isn’t a living being, it’s a machine.”

But in reality, Park Yeon himself had been worse than Doo-shik.

- Thank you.

- You’re very kind.

- Farewell.

He had even talked back to it.

Having completely forgotten his own embarrassing past, Park Yeon spoke up.

“Anyway, press it. If you press this, it goes up.”

Doo-shik carefully pressed the button for the fifth floor.

The elevator started moving.

Vwoooong—

“Ohhh.”

Among the Red Orcs, there were those called Sages. Like humans, they could use magic.

With their magic, they could even fly through the sky.

Doo-shik had once seen a Sage’s magic and dreamed of flying himself.

And now, that dream felt like it was coming true. It really felt like he was floating in midair.

- Ding!

- You have arrived at the fifth floor. The doors are opening.

“Is it really that amazing?”

“You’re not amazed?”

“One shouldn’t be so easily amazed by such things.”

Doo-shik nodded.

This Earth was truly a different world from the Demon Realm.

It would be nice if his son could experience the wonders of this world too.

“Hey, you two.”

Just as Doo-shik was lost in thought, a burly man with a buzz cut approached them.

“Hmm?”

“Do you even realize how delicate and high-tech that elevator is? It’s equipped with sensors, you know… What if you break it? Are you going to take responsibility?”

Park Yeon scratched his head.

“I didn’t know. My apologies.”

Seeing his genuinely sincere apology, the burly man still looked displeased but turned to walk away.

Then, suddenly, he remembered something that had happened that morning—he had stepped in dog poop on his way to work.

As the unpleasant memory resurfaced, the man turned back around.

“No, seriously, if you break it, are you—”

At that moment, his words caught in his throat.

Someone was emerging from the emergency stairwell.

The man immediately bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

“Sir, you’ve arrived!”

“Yeah.”

The person stepping out of the stairwell was Hwang Tae-su.

“What are you doing here?”

“These guys keep messing around with the high-tech elevator—”

“These guys?”

Hwang Tae-su turned his head and was taken aback.

When he heard “these guys,” he thought it was just some random troublemakers.

But it turned out to be that monster who had come to see him this morning with a request.

- We’d like to ride the elevator for a bit.

How could he have possibly refused?

He hadn’t even dared to utter the word “no.”

Even he, the owner of the office, had left to handle business outside and had chosen to take the stairs rather than use the elevator.

And yet, “these guys”?

Smack!

Hwang Tae-su smacked the back of the burly man’s head.

“I-I apologize!”

“But why are you hitting him? He doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong.”

“Huh?”

“In fact, I’m the one who caused the trouble. I didn’t realize how delicate and high-tech this elevator was, and I kept making it operate. Is that okay?”

When Park Yeon asked, the burly man, still bewildered, nodded.

“Sorry for the trouble. Well then, we’ll be on our way.”

Park Yeon pressed the button for the first floor.

“Take care!”

Even as the elevator doors closed, Hwang Tae-su remained bent at the waist in a deep bow.

A little later.

“Manager Kim, make sure this idiot gets some proper training. No, not just him—train all the new guys so that just the sight of those people sends chills down their spines.”

That was the butterfly effect Park Yeon had caused.

“You’re late.”

At Seo-jun’s remark, Doo-shik bowed his head.

“Apologies, my Lord. That so-called hero kept dragging me around, showing me strange things…”

“What? ‘So-called hero’? You orc that doesn’t even deserve to be called an orc!”

“What?! Not even an orc? That’s an insult! Take it back!”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then I won’t let it slide!”

Seo-jun shook his head and intervened.

“I wasn’t reprimanding you. Both of you, that’s enough.”

“Hmph.”

Park Yeon snorted.

“How dare you… Such disrespect toward the Lord…”

Doo-shik clicked his tongue and pulled out an Aruthus egg from his bag.

He had originally been on his way to deliver it to the shop, but he had gotten sidetracked by Park Yeon.

“Thank you.”

“No need for thanks! It’s my duty!”

With a small smile, Seo-jun took the egg and headed into the kitchen.

‘So merciful…!’

As Doo-shik was moved by Seo-jun’s generosity—

“Hey.”

“What?”

“I’ll show you something amazing.”

“I already got in trouble because of you!”

“Come on, it’s just a little late. It’s not that serious.”

“…Fine. What is it?”

“A drama.”

“A drama?”

“Heh heh. Once you start, you’ll lose track of time. Follow me.”

Park Yeon and Doo-shik entered a small room.

Doo-shik staggered back to his quarters, completely drained.

‘That was truly incredible…’

The hero showed me a drama

The lingering impression of the thing the hero called a drama still hadn't faded.

He said I would get so absorbed that I wouldn’t notice time passing, and I thought, ‘As if something like that exists...’ but it turned out to be true.

When I finished watching and stepped outside, it was strangely morning. Even though I had started watching the drama in the morning.

And soon, I realized—I had stayed up all night.

‘This must be how Tuareg felt.’

Just as humans have their own myths and elves have theirs, orcs also have their own mythology.

For the Red Orcs, it was the Tuareg Myth.

Tuareg, the one who freed the Red Orcs from the oppression of the Black Orcs…

Of course, the drama’s protagonist, Lee Kang-to, had not freed the Joseon people from the oppression of the Japanese Empire.

But he had tried to preserve his pride as one of his people.

Even knowing how difficult that would be.

Even knowing that if he cooperated with the Japanese, he could live a far better life.

He did not lose hope and struggled to escape the oppression of the Japanese Empire.

That spirit was the same as that of a great warrior.

‘Lee Kang-to, I salute you…’

As Doo-shik was paying silent respect to the drama’s protagonist—

“Kyaaaa!”

A scream rang out.

Unable to suppress his curiosity, he went to take a look and saw male humans harassing a female human.

‘Are these bastards not just like those damned Japanese officers?!’

Still under the lingering emotions of the drama, the scene before him looked exactly like a Japanese officer with a sword at his hip harassing a Joseon woman.

He was about to rush out immediately but hesitated.

Seo-jun’s words surfaced in his mind.

—You must not harm humans recklessly, and even more so, you must never consider them prey. Above all, you must not let your identity be revealed.

‘Damn it! I should be beating those bastards up right now!’

Unable to do anything, Doo-shik clenched his fists, trembling.

Then, after a brief moment—

His eyes fell on the mask the hero had gifted him.

‘Gaksital…?’

It was different from the one Lee Kang-to wore, but in a way, it was even better. After all, it covered his entire face.

‘Then my identity won’t be exposed.’

If his face wasn’t visible, no one could identify him.

He was a bit concerned about that thing the hero had called CCTV, but… well, he could just smash it.

Doo-shik quickly put on the mask.

Wearing it, he felt as if he had become Lee Kang-to himself. So, he shouted,

“Justice may be slow, but it always comes for the wicked! I have come to punish your evil deeds!”

There were no customers.

The last remaining group had just finished paying and left the shop.

“Is today some special occasion? Not a single customer.”

For a self-employed person, an empty store was a direct cause for anxiety.

As he was cleaning up the table where the last group had been sitting, Yeon-jun muttered to himself. Seo-jun responded.

“But we had plenty yesterday.”

“That’s true, but still…”

“You worry too much. Don’t you trust my food?”

“I do. Thanks to your pork belly and fries, we’ve got more female customers, and because of them, the number of male customers also increased.”

“Exactly. And there’s a Tibetan proverb that says—”

“A Tibetan proverb?”

“If worrying made worries disappear, then there’d be no worries at all.”

Yeon-jun chuckled.

“That’s true. If worrying made worries go away, we’d have nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t stress over one slow day. It’s not like we have any debts anymore.”

That was true.

In the past, they had always been in the red, but now their bank balance was steadily increasing.

These days, Yeon-jun’s little pleasure was watching his bank balance grow.

“Let’s save up and buy a house.”

“A house?”

“Hyung, don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Back when you used to deliver newspapers.”

“What about it?”

“Wow, you really don’t remember? I helped you with deliveries for a while back then. You saw a mansion in Samseong-dong and said, ‘One day, we’ll save up money, take grandma, and live in a grand mansion like that.’”

“Oh, right. I remember now. I did say that.”

“We might not need a mansion, but we should at least have our own house. Seo-woo’s going to grow up soon, and this place isn’t very comfortable.”

To be honest, Seo-jun didn’t find it uncomfortable at all.

It wasn’t a standalone house but rather a shabby two-story building, yet it had three rooms and a bathroom.

Compared to the time he first arrived in the Demon Realm, this was a luxury.

Back then, he didn’t even think about having a place to sleep. There was no telling when or where monsters would appear.

‘But I guess Yeon-jun might feel uncomfortable.’

The family that owned the building lived downstairs. They seemed nice enough, but from Yeon-jun’s perspective, he probably felt self-conscious.

‘Hmm… should I buy a house?’

Money wasn’t an issue. He could earn it in no time.

The problem was explaining it.

What if Yeon-jun asked where the money came from?

Stocks?

He had already used that excuse once.

Now, saying, ‘Oh, turns out I had another one I forgot about’ would be suspicious.

Cryptocurrency?

Back in 2017-18, when it was just starting to gain attention, Seo-jun had invested 300,000 won and lost it all.

Since then, he hadn’t even mentioned crypto, and Yeon-jun knew that.

Now, saying he had some saved up would be laughable.

The only option left was the lottery…

Technically, he could win.

He could use his power of foresight.

But using that power would immediately alert the Celestials.

Back in the Demon Realm, it wouldn’t have mattered if the Celestials started a war. Even if he lost, only he would die or disappear.

But now, things were different.

There were many people connected to him. He couldn’t put them in danger.

‘What should I do?’

As he pondered—

Yeon-jun, who had been looking at his phone, walked back in.

“Are you texting someone?”

“No, just the landlord.”

“Why?”

“I forgot today was rent day. He texted asking why I hadn’t paid, so I’m sending it now.”

“Ah.”

As Seo-jun nodded—

Something suddenly flashed through his mind.