Chapter 179
Chapter 179
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 179
Chapter Title: Ascent to Heaven (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“It's high...”
Someone muttered while gazing at the sky. To be precise, it wasn't the sky—it was the mountain. A mountain soaring as high as the heavens themselves.
According to Barklan, it had been one of the spiritual mountains of the ancient Bayaka lordship. Back then, it was called Letu, or so he said.
In an era when religion had devolved into vulgar jests, it still held profound meaning for those who clung to their faith.
The very notion of religion becoming a mockery was hard to fathom in this age, where every territory teemed with its own proliferating cults. Even Belluan worshipped the native deity Rha, and the other domains each harbored at least one similar creed.
Elta revered the god of war, while beyond the mountains in Manar, there existed the bizarre doctrine that one could only ascend by slaying a mage.
For security reasons, they hadn't made contact with the local folk, but Arsen felt certain they too venerated this peak as something divine. Its height was that overwhelming.
How could anyone behold the clouds draped along its flanks, the summit vanishing endlessly into the blue above, and not feel awe?
As he took it in, Anun spoke up from beside him, brimming with smug satisfaction.
“It's provocative.”
“Pardon?”
“Doesn't it feel like it's taunting us? 'I'm this tall—do you dare climb me?'”
Anun's eyes gleamed as he clenched his fist tight.
To look upon such an overwhelming height and feel rivalry first and foremost—truly remarkable in every sense.
Amid his admiration, Arsen's thoughts drifted north to the Weiju Mountains, the colossal range that cleaved the continent from east to west.
'Well, compared to that chain, this one's a mere plaything.'
The mountain was narrower side to side than the Weiju range, but it stabbed upward with far greater ferocity. So tall it seemed to scrape the heavens.
One could imagine Olympus, the gods' abode, looking just like this.
With winter drawing near, the upper reaches were blanketed in pristine white snow. Arsen idly wondered if it was eternal frost or if it melted come summer.
“Knight Anun's got great spirit. I'm already losing my mind at the thought of scaling that thing.”
“We'll need to gear up for the cold. Can't rely on spells the whole way up.”
Bazkal and Rino spoke in deflated tones, visibly daunted.
Just as they said, confronting the mountain's sheer scale had left most of them somewhat cowed.
“Everyone set for the climb?”
“Yes!”
“Lattis Elder, what about the mages?”
“We've prepared ahead. Though... it'll be tough keeping pace with the knights.”
Arsen gave a light nod at Lattis's reply.
“Good. Let's head up.”
* * *
The king's wolves. Or the king's hounds.
That was the moniker for certain knights in the south.
They bore these two titles because to some, they inspired awe; to others, utter contempt.
As the king's personal knights, they could always train under the realm's mightiest warrior—the king himself—and held the privilege to challenge him to spars or duels at will.
They even received powerful relics from the king's own vast arsenal to wield, drawing no small number of kingdom knights eager to join the wolf pack.
Naturally, there was a steep price. Just one: absolute loyalty.
Even if the order was unjust, they executed it. Even if meaningless, if it came from the king, they obeyed.
It was from this that their contempt arose—being forced to commit moral wrongs at the king's command.
It proved far from easy, so for every volunteer who sought them out, another quit in short order.
Knight Belte, assigned to guard this heaven-piercing mountain, was one such soul.
“Belte.”
“Hm? What?”
“Trap's sprung. Something's caught. Go check it and reset the traps.”
“I'm in the middle of lunch here.”
“Do it and then eat.”
“Ugh, such a pain...”
With great reluctance, Knight Belte set down his bread and hauled himself to his feet, grumbling all the while.
This, his second mission since joining the “king's wolves,” was utterly displeasing.
Perched atop an endlessly towering mountain—cold and desolate as befitted its majesty—this duty of lying in wait for intruders while fending off swarms of magic beasts had a notorious reputation for tedium and peril.
Worse still, intruders never came, rendering it utterly thankless.
“Slacking off?”
“No, I'm going.”
He bristled inwardly at his superior's barked order, but the man wasn't just older—he was leagues superior in skill. Defiance was impossible.
Belte clicked his tongue and beckoned a soldier.
“You. You know trap maintenance, right? Come with me.”
“Yes, sir!”
Mounted atop his Jin, with his subordinate astride a riding beast alongside, Belte let out a sigh as they raced off.
'Maybe I should quit...'
These past few years, the king had been recruiting subordinates in unusual numbers.
Some fifteen years back, when the kingdom was newly forged, he'd accepted only the most renowned knightly powerhouses. Now? Skill scarcely mattered—exaggerating only a touch, he'd take even hardened criminals.
Who could have guessed it led to such pointless drudgery?
The eager hopes and illusions from his enlistment days lay shattered. All that remained was bone-deep weariness.
Better a morally dubious task than this meaningless time-killing.
“Where is it?”
“Just a bit farther ahead.”
The soldier's reply came as he clutched something like a round platter—an artifact mapping the terrain and traps.
The traps studded rugged paths passable by man were, of course, infused with magic.
As they drew near the triggered site, Belte drew his sword from his belt.
Likely some dead or wounded magic beast.
“If it's alive, I'll handle it. Stay back...”
“Kn-Knight Belte! It's a person!”
“What?”
Belte whipped his head around to see the soldier reporting in a voice trembling past mere shock.
“The thing that hit the trap just now—it was human! Look, the light turned purple, which means...”
Sure enough, the artifact in the soldier's hands glowed violet.
At the sight, fury sparked in Belte's eyes.
“Is that right?”
The odds of another knight or soldier from the scattered garrisons triggering it were slim to none—they'd have reported ahead if so.
Which meant a genuine intruder.
Nabbing one could earn him merit enough to request a cushy posting closer to home.
If it meant staying in the capital, receiving the king's personal tutelage—no finer reward imaginable.
Belte fixed his gaze ahead and bellowed.
“Hurry up and scan with the detector! See if they're nearby?”
“Y-yes, ri... Aaaagh!”
The subordinate's words cut off in a scream. Belte spun at once.
The soldier no longer held the detector—his arms had been sheared clean off, blood jetting like fountains.
And beside him floated a single disc, silent as a specter.
“What the—?”
As if in answer, the disc whirred into a spin and lunged at him. Its power and speed outmatched any ordinary knight's strike. Belte gaped in horror, raising his sword to parry.
All the while, he funneled mana into his necklace and roared at the top of his lungs.
“Damn it all! HQ, HQ, come in! We've got enemies! The enemies are discs—!”
In that instant of reporting, a searing heat bloomed in his chest.
He was too busy fending off the disc to heed it at first, but the sensation hit, and his strength drained away in a rush—he could no longer cling to his Jin.
Belte labored to crane his neck downward.
'What...'
A massive hole gaped in the center of his chest. Large enough, exaggerating just a bit, to pass a fist through.
There was no time to grasp that a javelin had punched clean through it unawares.
The disc streaked in and clove his skull, snuffing his consciousness for good.
* * *
Regrettably, the ascent proceeded without hitches for only so long. Mere minutes after setting out, the scout dispatched to reconnoiter returned to report to Arsen.
“There are sentries posted all over the mountain.”
“Sentries?”
“Yes. They've even built outposts—old ones, too. Not thrown up yesterday or today.”
“Is that so.”
Arsen stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then ordered a formation shift. A longer, snaking line to advance in.
Thanks to the mages capable of detection spells, they could peer into the woods ahead, pinpoint outposts, and weave around them with cunning.
That held until one of the scouting knights blundered into a trap.
“A magic trap?”
“Yes. Wasn't hurt, but it froze me solid for a moment... Took quite a while to thaw out.”
“And it signals activation. Slips past detection spells, disrupts perception too. No modern mage cooked this up.”
Arsen sighed at Eloise's rundown.
“If it's tripped, they'll come to check. We need to pull out fast...”
“Someone's coming!”
“Too late. Everyone, take cover!”
Moments later, a knight and a soldier passed right by the party, hastily concealed in nearby brush.
The knight in the lead was armed to the teeth. His armor, weapons, even a few baubles—all relics.
He cut a figure like some triumphant knight from a ruined city.
'Those relics we seized from Byulburmi way back?'
Arsen glanced sidelong at Lattis, who nodded. The question had passed unspoken.
With an inward sigh, Arsen watched their movements in silence.
Best case, they'd pass without noticing. Worst case, if they spotted the group, subdue and interrogate.
“Hurry and scan with the detector!”
At the knight's shout, the soldier began activating something.
Judging by the name, likely some wide-area scanner. To stop it, Arsen loosed his Narae Sword at once.
The relic from the ruined city streaked like lightning, lopping off both the soldier's arms in a blink.
It then clashed with the knight, who reeled in shock.
“Guhk!”
Arsen nodded as he observed the foe desperately parrying the blade with his sword amid frantic cries.
'Good. Not as skilled as feared.'
Nothing terrible—just standard knight fare.
Arsen's greenhorn subordinates might take him; Bazkal, Rino, or Anun would crush him.
While puppeteering the Narae Sword, Arsen drew the javelin slung from Black Lion to finish the job himself.
That's when the knight began yelling in desperation.
“Damn it all! HQ, HQ, come in! We've got enemies! The enemies are discs—!”
The implication was crystal clear. He had a way to alert HQ—the other knights' base—immediately.
Arsen switched his aim from the legs to the chest and hurled the javelin.
Empowered by the launcher, it flew several times faster, cannon-like, skewering the man's torso.
“Kuhuk...!”
To silence him for good, the inbound Narae Sword slashed his throat.
“...Looks like we're made.”
As Arsen reached out to recall the blade with a rueful murmur, Bazkal piped up from nearby, puzzled.
“What do you mean? Wait, weren't we planning to interrogate?”
“That shout just now? No way it was solo rambling. They know we're here. We push forward at max speed.”
With that murmur, Arsen pointed to the surviving soldier.
He was still shrieking from the agony of his severed arms.
“Bring that one first.”
* * *
Meanwhile, the mountain's central command post overseeing the guard details plunged into chaos. The frantic transmission from the rookie knight offered no clues on the enemy's identity or numbers.
The intrusion itself, however, rocketed across the entire mountain in seconds. HQ had messaged every outpost at once. Astonishingly, each one was equipped with a comm crystal, enabling simultaneous chatter.
[Enemies? A real intruder?]
[Numbers? Scale?]
[Nothing solid yet. Belte only got out 'disc' before... probably dead. Mobilize everyone, even off-duty. Sweep the mountain. Report any anomalies to HQ on the spot.]
After issuing that, the man paused to catch his breath before adding,
[If you engage, don't die babbling nonsense like Belte. Get solid enemy intel through. I'll handle the report to the king.]
The knight issuing orders—Mallak—was the mountain's guard commander, a veteran standout among the king's wolves, and a loyalist who'd followed the king since his days as mere estate lord.
[Understood!]
[Rubak, Belte was under you, right? What's his skill like?]
[Averagely skilled... but even I couldn't drop him mid-sentence like that. Takes real talent.]
[Good. Not pushovers, then. That's the report I'll send.]
With orders dispersed and the crystal dimmed, Mallak drew another from the room and placed his hand upon it.
A direct line to the kingdom's capital.