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There was a problem that Jeong Gyeoul and everyone else hadn’t even thought of.

It might seem trivial, but in the current situation, it was quite serious.

A big problem that made you wonder why no one had thought of it.

Life in the Demon Realm was chaotic, and with all the various crises (?), it might have been understandable, but this seemed like the biggest crisis yet.

“Ugh, damn it… Where the hell am I?”

Jeong Gyeoul, who had set off confidently, hadn’t even left Mammon’s border yet.

Breathing heavily, she looked around, but even if she looked, how would she know where she was?

Whether she looked left, right, front, or back, everywhere looked the same.

“…That bastard Mammon made everything look the same for no reason!”

If being bad with directions was considered an ability, Jeong Gyeoul would be a transcendent-level Awakened One in that category.

She was so bad with directions that even Zoro, the first mate of the Straw Hat Pirates, couldn’t compare.

“They underestimated me too much…”

She muttered that if the leader made a wrong decision, the team should step up and guide her to the right path, but there was no one around to tell her to stop talking nonsense.

While making excuses and moving around, she noticed a group passing by in the distance.

Deciding it was better to ask someone for directions rather than wandering aimlessly, Jeong Gyeoul quickly moved.

The merchants of the Demon Realm were startled as something incredibly fast flew towards them.

It was a caravan of traders or wandering merchants.

As she stopped in front of them, a huge cloud of dust rose.

“Ugh! What is this?”

“Cough… What just flew by?”

“It was… a human, I think…”

Amidst the sudden dust storm, the demons looked confused as a voice was heard.

“Excuse me… could you tell me the way… huff…”

As the voice was heard, the dust cleared surprisingly quickly, revealing a young human girl.

Seeing her pitiful state, wiping sweat from her forehead and panting, the mercenaries lowered their swords.

Some even offered her water, while others handed her a cloth to wipe her sweat.

It was a rare show of kindness from the demons.

Jeong Gyeoul smiled, relieved that she wouldn’t have to use her fists.

Most demons were racists.

They disliked humans due to racial differences, but their eyes weren’t that different.

With Jeong Gyeoul’s looks, even the demons couldn’t help but find her beautiful.

Even though she still looked like a child, she was already beautiful, making them wonder how stunning she would be when she grew up.

Her bright smile melted away any sense of caution, and the mercenaries and merchants gathered around her.

“The shortest route to the dark valley is to keep going southeast from here, then adjust your direction slightly at the border checkpoint and head due south…”

“Ah, you idiot, she doesn’t know the way. If you explain it like that, she’ll just get lost again at the checkpoint. We should draw her a map.”

Agreeing with that, the other demons nodded and helped draw the map.

After about ten minutes, a map was completed on the parchment provided by the caravan…

“…This just confuses me more. This looks like where I was just a while ago.”

Jeong Gyeoul insisted that the tree drawn near the destination was where she had just been.

It was impossible since that tree only grew in the dark valley, but Jeong Gyeoul was confident.

“You were here? Then you’ve already arrived…”

“Shut up! It’s definitely the fault of the guy who drew the map!”

She silenced the mercenary who tried to speak the truth and had a new map drawn, but it was no use to Jeong Gyeoul.

“Hmm… What should I do?”

In the end, it seemed that asking the locals for directions had failed.

But at least she had a sense of direction, so it wasn’t a complete failure—more like half a failure.

The mercenaries had told her to go southeast, so she decided to head to the border checkpoint and ask the guards for directions again.

In the meantime, Jeong Gyeoul, who didn’t even know where southeast was, tried to ask the mercenaries for directions.

“Ah! Wait a moment. I have a compass I brought just in case.”

A merchant who had been waiting went to his loaded carriage.

‘…Can I really find my way with a compass?’

Still, she thought it would be better than nothing.

Jeong Gyeoul was the type to lose her way even while heading southeast.

Her sense of direction was beyond imagination.

Feeling grateful for their kindness, Jeong Gyeoul took the compass and set off.

Following the compass’s southeast direction, she ran for a while and soon saw a guard post that looked exactly like the one she had seen when she first entered Mammon’s territory.

A guard was entering the post.

Tap tap—

“Excuse me… I need to ask for directions.”

“Eeek!”

The guard, startled by the poke on his back, turned around and threw the spear he was holding, then fell to the ground, covering his head.

“P-please spare me! I didn’t say anything!”

“…?”

What did he mean by not saying anything?

Jeong Gyeoul couldn’t understand what the guard was saying.

She thought he might have mistaken her for someone else, but in the Demon Realm, mistaking a human for someone else was unlikely.

She helped him up and took a step closer.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The guard, seeing Jeong Gyeoul’s face up close, screamed as if he had seen a ghost.

Hearing the commotion, other guards rushed out of the post.

“What, what’s going on, David!”

“David! Why are you… gasp!”

The other guards had similar reactions.

Some threw down their weapons and raised their hands, others knelt down, and one even ran back into the post and locked the door.

With the guards too busy freaking out to answer her questions, Jeong Gyeoul started to get impatient.

‘I need to move quickly if I want to eat and sleep…’

She had wasted a lot of time wandering around after setting off, so she wasn’t in a leisurely situation.

In the end, she had to use force to get directions.

In the process, she realized these were the same guards she had met at the border earlier.

The perpetrator didn’t remember, but the victims did, and their reactions were almost like PTSD.

“Back then, you guys blocked me, so I had no choice… Anyway, I’m sorry. I’ll tell Mammon to do something for you later.”

Jeong Gyeoul bowed her head in apology and quickly left.

After asking for directions at the guard post.

After encountering a band of thieves and asking for directions.

After asking the village chief for directions. (It was a human trafficking village similar to the one in the desolate desert.)

It took her a whole day to reach the dark valley.

***

“…Is Jeong Gyeoul still not here?”

“Yes, it seems we’ll have to manage on our own for now.”

“Sigh… She left with such big talk.”

The expedition members, listening to Mammon and his deputy’s conversation, couldn’t lift their heads.

After all, their leader and captain, Jeong Gyeoul, had failed to meet the promised time.

“Guys… do you think something happened to Gyeoul?”

“Are you asking if something happened ‘to’ Gyeoul or if something happened ‘because’ of Gyeoul?”

Only Lee Ha-yoon was worried about Jeong Gyeoul.

Park Seol-hwa answered without hesitation, and the others agreed.

Unless Jeong Gyeoul had directly caused trouble, the opposite was impossible.

Most creatures wouldn’t even be able to see Jeong Gyeoul moving.

They might just see something zoom by and wonder what it was.

Unless Jeong Gyeoul deliberately stopped, nothing could happen or go wrong.

But if Jeong Gyeoul’s return was delayed…

‘She got lost.’

They only realized Jeong Gyeoul was bad with directions after she had left.

They had already given up on her returning on time.

She apologized for breaking the promise and expressed the expedition members’ willingness to join the fight.

“…You’re offering to help without even signing a contract?”

“Yes, we feel partly responsible.”

“Jeong Gyeoul will definitely throw a fit when she arrives.”

“That’s something we’ll have to deal with.”

Mammon was almost moved to finally have a conversation with a human-like human.

But he didn’t forget to probe.

“What if I change my mind after the war? Like saying you forced me to help, and I never intended to sign a contract?”

Park Seol-hwa answered calmly, as if it didn’t matter.

“Then Gyeoul will be furious… Will you be able to handle that? We’ll obviously side with Gyeoul, and after the war, you’ll have quite a bit of damage. Are you really going to start another war over a few coins?”

“…It’s not just a few coins, though.”

Her tone suggested he could do as he pleased, but the underlying message was a threat.

‘I don’t know how humans ended up more demon-like than demons.’

Mammon, tail between his legs, returned to his seat.

 

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