Gourmet Gaming-Chapter 1357

Chapter 1357

The Candle of Life was a priceless item. In fact, there were fewer than five items possessing power that could rival the Candle of Life in both the Gaia Continent and the Western Continents. Arland and all of the nobles of the Ardo Empire were well aware of this fact.

‘We tried so hard to find it, but we could not find it no matter what. When we finally learned that the Gaia Continent’s Zeus had such an item, we did not dare to challenge him to get it.’

Zeus was well-known for being an ill-tempered, almighty god. How would anyone dare think of snatching the Candle of Life from such a being? Yet, Minhyuk readily used something like that for Emperor Consteinus.

Emperor Consteinus had vowed to support the Beyond the Heavens Empire in both material and spiritual aspects. All of the people who had been clamoring about not accepting the Beyond the Heavens Empire promptly shut up at that moment.

Meanwhile, Minhyuk approached Consteinus, who had finally regained his rosy complexion and overcame his illness. He gave Consteinus a warm meal before standing right next to Hermes, who was tied tightly by a rope, and his mouth was gagged.

“Mr. Minhyuk.”

Arland addressed Minhyuk differently now, shifting to a more polite form of address and even using honorifics with him.. Earlier, he had been calling Minhyuk names, such as "bastard" and the like.

All of the nobles had already gathered in this place after they had heard that Emperor Consteinus was on his deathbed. Even the legends and Continental Gods in the empire had gathered as well.

Regardless, Minhyuk was fully aware of the situation. He thought, ‘I might have won their hearts by saving Emperor Consteinus, but I’m sure that they will still rebel and go against me.’

Now, he had the opportunity to remove any underlying reason for them to rebel in the future.

“Why? Why did you use such a precious item...?”

“Wait. Wait a moment.”

Suddenly, cold sweat beaded on his forehead as Minhyuk bent over and grabbed his sides.

“Haa... Haa...” Minhyuk breathed roughly as he leaned on the wall behind him. Then, he smiled in exhaustion and said, “What a relief. Emperor Consteinus has regained his energy.”

“No... no way...”

“Emperor Minhyuk, right now you...”

The eyes of Arland and all of the nobles present grew wide from shock. When they saw Minhyuk’s lips grow pale, they realized something.

“Did you fight Zeus just to obtain the Candle of Life?”

Minhyuk just stared out the window with a faint smile on his face. His clear and bright eyes seemed to reflect the fierce battle that he fought with Zeus just to obtain this very precious item.

Hermes had been puzzled earlier when Minhyuk put a gag on him after he was beaten black and blue by Emperor Consteinus. Now he understood why. He tried to speak through the gag in his mouth.

“Hmph! Hmph! Hmph! HMPH!!!”

‘I’m the one who got that! I stole that! Minhyuk did not do anything!’

All of the nobles turned to look at Hermes in confusion when they saw him thrash and struggle from the ropes that bound him.

Swoosh–

Then, Minhyuk slowly slid down the wall that he was leaning against dramatically.

“E... Emperor Minhyuk!”

“Did you come here right after the fight? Oh no! But... but if you delayed even for a bit, then His Majesty would have died too!” Arland sputtered as he crouched down to meet Minhyuk’s eyes. “Why! Why did you do something so reckless? You even fought such a fierce battle with Zeus!”

“Urk!” Minhyuk vomited a mouthful of blood. Then, he said, “To be honest, it’s because I’m not confident that I will be able to truly drill a place in your hearts even if I can get this empire. I know that the people will curse me, and many of those who had hidden themselves in this empire will come out and point their swords at me. Even if I won the heart of Emperor Consteinus, I’m sure that this fact will not change.”

Minhyuk’s words generalized the entire empire’s population, including the nobles present in this room. It was the truth. Even though he saved Emperor Consteinus and had recovered well, many of the nobles still did not wish for the great Ardo Empire to fall under the rule of the Beyond the Heavens Empire.

“Of course, there’s that. But... don’t you care about your emperor?”

Tears eventually dripped down Arland’s cheeks. The tears blurred his vision, making Minhyuk’s smile grow hazy in his eyes.

“Don’t you... care...”

Minhyuk’s body slowly dropped sideways.

“About... your... emperor...?”

Thud–

Arland looked at Minhyuk’s unconscious figure and vowed, “That’s never going to happen! If someone like that ever appears, I will not stand by!”

“That’s right!”

“If I ever see someone like that, then I will cut their heads off myself!”

Arland and the nobles all shouted, making a vow in front of Minhyuk’s ‘unconscious’ figure.

Meanwhile, Hermes stopped struggling. He just looked at Minhyuk as if he were looking at a very disgusting bug.

‘What the hell are you doing...?’

***

Many empires and kingdoms had allied with the Luvien Empire and the Beyond the Heavens Empire. However, many others chose not to.

One group of nations had chosen to ally themselves with the Ardo Empire.

Even though the Ardo Empire was on the brink of its destruction, these kingdoms maintained their relationship with the empire. After all, they had a lot to gain. All of them were of the same mind.

‘Let’s divide the Ardo Empire among ourselves and devour them clean!’

‘It will be easy to divide the Ardo Empire once it falls!’

They even believed they had a powerful justification.

When Hermes began stealing from the Ardo Empire, the empire’s treasury had been depleted. Because of that, the people of the Ardo Empire voluntarily paid more taxes to save their empire. However, this only contributed to the empire's downfall. It even made it worse. As a result, Emperor Consteinus had no choice but to borrow money from his allies.

The kings of the surrounding kingdoms initially reacted like this:

–Our alliance has stayed strong for 300 years!

–I’ll lend you any amount of money that you need!

As time went by, they finally showed their true colors.

–Our situation is not that good either.

–I’d like only to impose a little interest, but...

Hermes continued to rob their empire’s treasury. Because of that, the Ardo Empire needed more and more money to survive. When they had reached the point where they could no longer borrow any money, the cunning and sneaky kings began to raise the interest and devour the Ardo Empire. It got to the point where the Ardo Empire could no longer pay them back.

There was only one way for the Ardo Empire to pay its debts. That was to catch Hermes. Regardless, the kings knew that the Ardo Empire would never be able to catch Hermes. So, they planned just to divide the debt-ridden Ardo Empire and share it amongst themselves.

Unfortunately, someone appeared and poured cold water on them. It was none other than Minhyuk. Minhyuk not only caught Hermes, but he also cured Emperor Consteinus and saved him from death.

Right now, around fifteen or so of these greedy kings were heading straight for the Ardo Empire.

“The first thing that we have to do is destroy the alliance between the Ardo Empire and the Beyond the Heavens Empire.”

“Anyway, a majority of the nobles of the Ardo Empire will be hostile toward the Beyond the Heavens Empire. It won’t be difficult for us.”

They might not be able to do anything about the Ardo Empire once they joined with the Beyond the Heavens Empire, though they still had enough room to bite as they pleased. After all, the core pillars supporting the Ardo Empire would hold resentment toward the Beyond the Heavens Empire.

“The problem is that bastard Hermes!” One of the kings said.

Hermes did not stop at robbing the Ardo Empire. He also stretched his hand toward the kingdoms allied with the Ardo Empire and wiped their treasuries clean. He did not leave anything untouched, even items considered the symbols of their nations.

Of course, they knew nothing else about the situation. They just heard that Hermes had been captured.

“The Ardo Empire still owes us a lot of money. Our voices have influence and power.”

“How dare an emperor go against the words of their debtors?”

Just when they were about to enter the Ardo Empire, they caught sight of Emperor Minhyuk coming out. Standing right next to him was Hermes.

“That! That’s Hermes! You bastard!”

“Our royal treasure! Where is it?! Give it back to us!”

The kings charged toward Hermes, their eyes bloodshot.

***

Hermes chose to evaluate Minhyuk and looked at him objectively at this moment.

‘He robbed me, the God of Thieves, with his excellent swindling skills? Not only that, he used his great acting skills and won the hearts of all of the nobles of the Ardo Empire.’

He instantly concluded. With the gag off, Hermes turned to Minhyuk and shouted, “Hyung-nim!”

“???”

“From now on, I will treat you as my hyung-nim! So, please teach me the art of swindling!”

Minhyuk looked at Hermes in confusion. With an innocent look on his face, he said softly, “What are you talking about? Swindling? I have never swindled anyone in my life.”

“...?”

Hermes was in awe. This was completely shameless! He did not even know that he was committing fraud and swindling others! Anyway, God of Thieves Hermes thought that the art of swindling was far superior to stealing.

Minhyuk did not like the suggestion.

‘If I take a thief like this under my wing and teach him, then he’ll just become an even bigger thief.’

At that moment, Minhyuk saw the kings allied with the Ardo Empire running toward them with a sharp glint in their eyes.

Minhyuk had just come out after giving Emperor Consteinus a meal. He had served him with some seaweed soup, hoping that the emperor would regain some of his energy. He had talked with Emperor Consteinus during the meal and had heard a lot of things about these kings.

Consteinus had already seen through them long ago. However, he could do nothing about them.

‘If that’s the case, then...’

Minhyuk did not know what Hermes had been doing, but he had a lot of the royal treasures of those kingdoms in his hands. Of course, their kingdoms’ royal treasures were not only outstanding items. Some items represented the kingdom itself and were priceless. Naturally, none of the kings knew that their treasures were now in Minhyuk’s hands.

At this moment, an excellent idea flashed in Minhyuk’s head. His goal was to absorb as many kingdoms as he could as of now. He had taken a different way to get the Ardo Empire to his side. It was a method that suited the kingdom and caused it minimal damage. That was not the case for these vicious and greedy kingdoms.

“Hey. Hermes. When they hit you later, keep quiet. And if they demand that you give them back their royal treasures, pretend as if you don’t know anything about it. If you do that, then I’ll think about accepting you as my younger brother.”

“Yes? What do you...?”

When Minhyuk saw Consteinus, he already noticed that Hermes possessed an interesting passive skill. The skill was called Hate-mongering Thief. It was a skill that would bury resentment in others as he stole from them. The more he stole, the higher the resentment. The passive skill had always been useless for Hermes, since he was never caught.

The story was different now.

“Why do I have to get hit by those humans...” Hermes said.

However, a flying kick stopped Hermes from finishing his sentence.

“Keheok!”

Not long after, the kings arrived and began to beat Hermes like crazy. As he watched Hermes get beaten black and blue, Minhyuk murmured, “The sky looks beautiful... Huh? Dark clouds seem to be looming over us.”

Fortunately, Hermes took the hint and remained silent as the kings struck him.

“Hoo... You thieving bastard! Hurry and give us back our royal treasure!”

“You f*cking runt!”

“I’m not a runt. I’m over 3,000 years old, no?”

“Anyway! Give it back!”

“I don’t know anything about that!”

Hermes did not say anything about his deep(?) brotherly relationship with Minhyuk or the whereabouts of the treasure.

When he saw that the intensity of their beating had increased, he suddenly said, “You see, Hermes is one of the Gods of Olympus. How will you deal with the aftermath of your actions?”

“...?!”

“...?!”

“...?!”

Minhyuk hurriedly pulled Hermes up.

“Yes, I caught Hermes, and I’m restraining him now. But you should know that he’s not very easy to restrain.”

“Ahem... I- I see.”

“Beyond the Heavens’ emperor, please punish that bastard! I will visit the Beyond the Heavens Empire soon and give you my greetings.”

They said this to ensure that they would be able to question Hermes about the whereabouts of their royal treasures at a later time. Right now, there was something more important for them to do than dealing with Hermes. They had to hurry inside the Ardo Empire and meet with Consteinus and the nobles.

“I’m trying my best to restrain him right now.”

The kings stared at Hermes for a moment before running away. They still had trust in Minhyuk.

‘There’s no way that Emperor Minhyuk will let go of Hermes now that he has caught him.’

‘That’s never going to happen.’

‘He’s a famous powerhouse in the Western Continents. There’s no way something like that will happen.’

Relieved, the kings hurriedly ran toward the Ardo Empire.

Hermes, who had turned into a bruised bag with eyes again, went on a rampage.

“How... How dare you! Those mere human kings!”

Minhyuk understood what Hermes was feeling. He smiled faintly and said, “Alright. Our brotherly relationship has now been confirmed.”

“For real?”

“Hermes, what are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“You have been beaten. And by mere kings no less.”

“Oh. So, what? Hyung, you told me to get hit...”

“That’s not it, Hermes. You have to take revenge. Mere human kings have beaten you. And now, you have a justification. So, what will you do?”

Minhyuk released his hold on the rope that bound Hermes. Then, in an exaggerated manner of shock, he said, “This... this...! Oh no! Hermes escaped?”

Hermes immediately understood what Minhyuk wanted him to do after seeing the sly smirk on his face.

“Ah. Those mere kings dared to hit me like this?! Now that I have managed to escape, I will make sure to exact my revenge! Well then. How about I empty the treasuries of the kingdoms of the kings who hit me as revenge?!”

“That’s right, that’s right. Hermes, you’ve been walloped! You have to wipe them clean. Make everything spotless!”

“Yeah!”

Hermes ran excitedly.

Minhyuk smiled slyly as he perfectly executed his plans of swallowing the kingdoms of those vicious and greedy kings.

New novel chapters are published on fr(e)ew𝒆bnov(e)l.com