Tomb Raider King : End Line - Chapter 02

========== CHAPTER 2. TOMB RAIDER KING (2) ==========

“That bastard disappeared again?”

Julian clutched his forehead at Ju-heon’s empty seat.

“The international conference is right around the corner! What are we supposed to do if the person in charge vanishes!”

So, the world had been changed by Ju-heon.

[Seo Ju-heon completes the public ownership of artifacts under the ‘Majesty’ system]

[World Artifact Joint Research Institute leads the processing and distribution of artifacts]

[‘Tomb raiding’ for private acquisition is a crime; research is valuable]

Everyone believed it. Except for one person.

“Hey, tomb raiding?! A Majesty shouldn’t be doing that!!”

“What? Why not? I saw it first, so it’s mine, right?”

“Hey!”

“Public goods? If there’s no one around, I can just take it, right?”

“Th-this is the Majesty?!”

Someone is raiding artifacts today too.

The very person who made the treaty saying private ownership is forbidden was still the first to break it.

His name is Seo Ju-heon. The legendary Tomb Raider King.

And right now, a door is opening somewhere else.

Faster than anyone, before anyone else.

Thanks to that, Ju-heon’s colleagues, the team members, were having a hell of a time.

“This time… ugh… it’s in a closed-off country.”

Yoo Jae-ha sighed while looking at the map artifact.

“Why does he keep picking places with dictatorships, censored societies, and shoot-to-kill orders!”

“Wow, our Captain. His class is just different, as expected!”

Ju-heon, who saved the world, had team members supporting him.

Seol-ah, who is skilled at intelligence; Julian, who is Ju-heon’s right-hand man but grabs his collar more often, and uses the Zhuge Liang artifact; Ilya, who is a former Catholic priest but uses demon artifacts; Yoo Jae-ha, the restorer who became Ju-heon’s exclusive slave after scamming; Chloe, who beats up patients despite being a doctor; and Dan, a tanker who is at the level of a human weapon.

They were all people who had been betrayed by their employers and killed, only to be saved by Ju-heon, so they boasted a tight bond with each other, but….

“This time, he just jumped in without even getting official excavation permits for the artifacts.”

Seol-ah tried to shield him in her own way at Ilya’s giggle.

“Still, he was caught by the tracking system… uh… he just disappeared.”

“Wait, what do you mean, the tracking was cut off?!”

Julian’s eyes rolled back.

“The person who created the Guardian System to stop illegal tomb raiding is avoiding it to go tomb raiding?!”

“That’s how it is.”

Julian rubbed his temples at Ilya’s reply.

No. It’s a headache, but it’s okay.

“It’s fine. That guy has a sense of responsibility as a Majesty. He’ll just look at the artifacts and put them back down…”

Seol-ah hesitated as she said that.

“Actually… they said he looted everything.”

“…What?”

“Without leaving a single artifact. Com.plete.ly. looted.”

“……So you’re telling me the Majesty solo-raided a tomb designated as public property, and put all the public artifacts into his personal storage?!”

Julian was furious, and the team members just rolled their eyes.

Julian yelled.

“What about the international law that says you can’t privatize artifacts!”

Julian felt genuinely dizzy.

He thought he’d mature a bit after getting married, but what is this.

But something more dizzying happened.

[Majesty-nim has ‘completed registration’.]

The team members broke into a sweat at the message that arrived for all of them.

“Registration…? What did he register this time?”

Seol-ah checked the details with trembling hands.

“Ah… this time…”

Her lips trembled.

[You have registered the ‘Emperor’s Tomb’.]

The team members’ faces turned pale.

“D-don’t tell me this is that one…? The Emperor’s Tomb. The No. 1 ruin in the world that must never be opened….”

“Isn’t that a restricted area!?”

“No, it’s not just restricted, it was forbidden to open from the start!”

“That country considers the Emperor a god!”

“Registered the god’s tomb…?”

Yoo Jae-ha grabbed his head.

“…Ah, this is really going to blow up! A war is coming! An international conference will be convened!”

“…That was the tomb where 3 neighboring countries were staging armed protests….”

Even Ilya added a word, and Julian breathed fire from his mouth.

“I thought he’d calmed down a bit, but why is he acting like this ever since he got Isis’s artifact!”

In the end, representatives from dozens of countries even brought this agenda to the international conference.

「Emergency discussion on Seo Ju-heon-nim’s private use of artifacts」

“No, if he enacted the law that artifacts shouldn’t be privatized, shouldn’t he also not be entering those places?”

“It’s even a tomb where no research permit was issued.”

Then Seol-ah spoke carefully.

“No. The Captain just went to ‘check the artifacts in advance’.”

“Check?”

“Meaning, he’d loot them before other researchers go in… no, no, he’d check the danger level….”

“…….”

Their expressions were cold. It was embarrassing even for them to say it. Julian, in particular, looked like he wanted to leave.

That was when the Egyptian representative spoke up.

“Did you know? The Majesty himself registered the official name of that Emperor’s Tomb as ‘Tomb Raider’s Rest Area’.”

The expressions of the representatives and team members were something to behold.

But the next part was crazier.

[Seo Ju-heon]

A video call popped up on the conference hall screen.

“Oh? Captain?!”

Seol-ah pressed the connect button.

Ju-heon, who appeared on the screen, tilted his head.

[Hey. What the hell are you doing that no one is picking up the phone? Do you want to die?]

“We are in a summit meeting, Captain….”

[Ah. Was that today? Sorry, I’m a bit busy right now.]

“…What are you doing right now?”

[A tomb.]

“…Which tomb?”

[I don’t know which one it is, but I saw it first, so it’s mine.]

“…Captain, I told you earlier that it’s an area in international dispute.”

[Yeah. But when I went in, the war suddenly stopped. I guess they were scared.]

“…….”

[Anyway, I’m busy, so let’s talk later. Oh, by the way, while you’re having that meeting, change my title too. ‘Tomb Raider King’ is honestly a bit tacky. How about ‘Tomb Raider Emperor’?]

“……You are the Captain, right?”

[Ayy. Of course. World public resource thief, myth-class runaway, nemesis of ancient gods, and your Captain.]

Click-

The call ended.

All the country representatives bowed their heads at the same time.

Julian broke the silence and adjusted his glasses.

“…Was it really right for us to put this person in the highest position?”

Then Ilya and Yoo Jae-ha looked at the ceiling.

“We can’t even remove him. According to the artifact system, the highest administrator authority belongs to the Captain.”

“…….”

Silence again.

In the end, the international conference hall had no choice but to shout in unison today as well.

‘Argh! What are the ghosts doing not taking that guy away!’

Ju-heon came home early for the first time that day.

When his wife, Irene, greeted him at the entrance, Ju-heon had an envelope in his hand.

“Oh? You didn’t go to a tomb today?”

“Yeah.”

It was a short answer. But Irene noticed the moment she saw what Ju-heon took out of the envelope.

It was a pregnancy test. Five of them, at that.

“……Ju-heon-ssi, we already checked.”

“Just in case?”

“Five, though?”

“I’m going to put one in every office and look at them.”

Irene smiled, her heart pounding as she watched her husband, who was happy like a boy. And with a pounding heart, they visited the hospital-

“Congratulations. You are 5 weeks pregnant. You can see the gestational sac here, right?”

Ju-heon looked at the ultrasound photo for a long time. He didn’t say anything. Just quietly, for a long time.

Then he stroked Irene and hugged her tight. Irene knew. That was Ju-heon’s way of being happy and thankful.

That night, Ju-heon couldn’t sleep from excitement. He took the ultrasound photo out and put it back next to Irene. He did that about fifty times.

The only thing that bothered him was the red message window that appeared when he obtained Isis’s artifact.

[The administrator of this world, and the 187,487th has been registered.]

[Due to this, Seo Ju-heon is granted eligibility for the .]

[Forced human Reset begins♥]

[The human extinction scenario by the Artifacts begins♥]

Those words bothered him.

‘Judging by the way it talks, it’s definitely an artifact.’

He searched everywhere, but there was no big harvest.

So he asked his partner artifact, the Samjok-o, who had regressed him and put him in the position of Majesty.

“Now that I’ve even become Majesty, what do you think that warning is?”

Then, as always, the Samjok-o replied with a blue system window.

[I think it is the prank of an undiscovered artifact.]

Is that so.

So he came home and tried to close his eyes.

But.

[A proposal has arrived for the 187,487th Majesty.]

“!”

The message window popped up again.

But the state of the message was a bit strange. It was a ‘red’ message window, different from the blue one Samjok-o usually sends.

Ju-heon sat up, puzzled. The message was saying something unexpected.

[Decide the policy direction of the 187,487th Majesty.]

Policy direction?

‘What is this?’

He had become Majesty (King), so was he supposed to decide how to rule the world?

But the content of the options was unexpected.

[Submission]

– Register humanity as a resource for artifacts.

– Humanity will become the colony and nutrients of the artifacts, but your world will enjoy greater power and abundance.

– The Majesty and his kin are guaranteed freedom and will receive the eternal favor and protection of the artifacts.

[Slaughter]

– Grant the Majesty the [Delete] authority.

– You can directly delete criminals, enemies, and those you don’t like, and build your own utopia.

[Neglect]

– Maintain the present.

– You will not receive any protection from artifacts, and humanity must pioneer through all disasters on its own.

What?

(To be continued in the next episode)