Chapter 413: Bipolun (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 413: Bipolun (2)
“…An evacuation?”
“That’s right.”
The old man nodded.
He then pointed to the endless procession of refugees in the distance.
“They’re all leaving for Noirvel. They’re anxious, not knowing when the tides of war will reach them.”
“Noirvel? Do you mean the city with the lord’s castle?”
“Indeed. We’d go to the capital if we could… but it’s too far, and rumors are spreading that they can’t accept any more refugees, so we have no choice but to go to Noirvel. On top of that, the lord issued a conscription order, so it’s not easy to leave the Bipolun territory.”
The old man sat on a rock and let out a long sigh.
“…Still, everyone believes that since the Baron is in Noirvel, the rebel army’s invasion won’t be a major threat.”
As he said this, his eyes held more desperation than faith.
I handed the old man a silver coin for the information and got back into the carriage.
Iris, sitting next to me, smiled and offered me a water bottle.
“Um, Sir Hyun-woo.”
“Yes?”
“Doesn’t the rebel army’s marching speed seem unnaturally fast? They were in the east just a short while ago, and now they’re already near the south.”
“I know. They’re not a small elite force, either. How can an army of a hundred thousand move that quickly?”
One hundred thousand.
I’d heard it from the old man, so I couldn’t be sure it was accurate. But knowing the size of the rebel forces from the battalion commander’s memories, I couldn’t just dismiss it as nonsense.
While it wasn’t the full strength of the rebel army, it was a force large enough to be considered the main army.
“Did they use military magic?”
There were a few such spells on Earth.
Military-exclusive magic, developed in secret by various nations and not even disclosed to the mages of the Magic Towers.
“It’s not that similar magic doesn’t exist… but accelerating the march of such a large army would consume an enormous amount of magic power. You’d need to mobilize dozens of high-ranking mages.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s not just about increasing speed. You’d have to use physical enhancement magic in tandem to keep the soldiers from collapsing from exhaustion.”
I nodded at Iris’s explanation.
In truth, there were other ways besides magic.
The most likely was an artifact. If it was an artifact from the Mythical Era, excavated from the Sutra Great Desert, that would explain the rebel army’s abnormal marching speed.
Of course, with no evidence at the moment, I couldn’t jump to any conclusions.
I continued to think, considering all possibilities.
It wasn’t because I was bored from the auto-drive.
Before long, the carriage arrived at the city gate.
I presented our letter of recommendation to the approaching guards.
The guard’s face turned pale in an instant upon confirming the document bearing the seal of the Nivia Royal Family. Fortunately, we were able to enter the city without any further inspection.
It was a relief, considering some guards in other cities had tried to inspect the inside of the carriage.
As we entered the city, a bewilderingly empty landscape greeted us. There wasn’t even a single hawker on the streets.
It was like a ghost town.
It seemed the old man’s words about most of the citizens having evacuated were true.
“Sir Hyun-woo, should we leave for Noirvel right away?”
Iris tugged on my sleeve, looking around.
The deserted city had a slightly eerie atmosphere.
“Let’s just stay for one day. It’s not like we’ll find an empty room in Noirvel if we go now anyway, and it’s not as if the rebel army is about to descend on us this very moment.”
Of course, if I explained our situation, we could probably stay at the lord’s castle, but I felt we needed a day of leisurely rest before that.
Sylvia and I were fine, but Iris and Amelia were quite exhausted from crossing the mountain range.
I drove the carriage into the noble district. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find a decent-looking hotel.
“Thank you for choosing our hotel. How many guests will be staying?”
“Four. Can we get two double rooms?”
“Of course.”
Normally, it would have been difficult to get a room in the noble district without a reservation.
But the hotel lobby was clearly empty at a glance.
I guess it wasn’t just the commoners who had fled.
“Everyone get some good rest. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Amelia’s face lit up as she headed to her assigned room, while Iris followed me into my room as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Through the slowly closing gap in the door, I could see Sylvia glaring at me as if she wanted to kill me.
-Jealous?
“?!!”
When I playfully sent the telepathic message, Sylvia instinctively gripped the hilt of her sword.
A murderous aura filled the hallway.
Creeak—
But the door closed before anything could happen.
I chuckled softly and headed to the bathroom with Iris.
*
That evening, I suggested we leave for Noirvel the next morning.
Everyone was exhausted, so there were no objections. As soon as dinner was over, we all returned to our respective rooms.
Iris and Amelia fell asleep as if they’d fainted, and the same went for Sylvia, who had seemed relatively fine.
It looked like she had been pretending to be okay all this time.
Either that, or she was just pretending to be asleep because she didn't want to act cute.
“Clever girl.”
I stroked Sylvia’s hair before returning to my room and sitting cross-legged on the bed.
I erased all unnecessary sensations and sharpened my mind.
Amidst the familiar feeling of my body and spirit slowly separating, I slowly opened my eyes.
-!!!
What entered my vision was a vast, endless universe.
It was a space I had created, but it was so dark and gloomy that it didn't feel very welcoming.
I sat cross-legged again in the middle of the empty universe.
Rumble…
Then, I drew upon my magic power with all my might.
I wasn’t worried about it affecting reality.
My control wasn’t that sloppy.
RUMBLE—
In the midst of the fierce storm of magic power, I recalled Iris’s advice.
-Sir Hyun-woo, you constructed your world based on the harmony of all things, right? In that case, the universe within your astral space needs to change accordingly. For example, fire, water, earth, wind, and light and darkness. You could try creating stars or planets corresponding to each element.
Fwoosh—
A small fireball ignited in the darkness.
Following it were a droplet of water, a clump of earth, a condensation of wind, and spheres of light and darkness.
The manifestations of the six great elements, created by my will, began to orbit around me.
But that was it.
I focused for a long time, but I couldn’t even begin to grasp how to grow these manifestations, smaller than my head, to the size of a planet like Earth.
And this was despite it being quite some time since I had reached the 5th Circle.
‘…Let’s just keep trying for now.’
Even if I were to receive help from the White Tower Lord later, I wanted to keep thinking and trying on my own until then.
It didn’t matter if I didn’t realize anything.
As I continued to focus, a question suddenly popped into my head.
This is an empty universe.
In that case, shouldn’t I first create a star to act as the center, like the sun?
‘The center…’
For a moment, I thought it was a plausible idea, but my thoughts quickly became more complicated.
Which element should be the center of my astral space?
The fire element, which I was most familiar with?
But was that a good enough reason to decide the center?
No, in the first place, if I designated a specific element as the center, could that truly be called harmonious?
Furthermore, the lightning element was also a problem.
Lightning was originally a power derived from fire.
If the lightning element were to become a planet, it meant that other derived elements would have to balance it out.
From water, ice.
From earth, metal.
From wind, vibration.
Even if I made an exception for light and darkness, the conclusion was that I would have to master three derived elements.
Needless to say, not just anyone could handle derived elements.
For example, even if there were a hundred elementalists who could handle the water element, fewer than ten of them would be able to handle the ice element.
Two or three would be considered a lot.
No matter how much I claimed the foundation of my astral and mental image was ‘harmony,’ allowing me to handle other elements, learning derived elements was a separate issue.
‘…I haven’t messed this up, have I?’
At the time, I had acted on a sudden epiphany, but looking back now, I worried that I might have just cranked up the difficulty of my own growth.
Of course, in magic, ‘return’ is always proportional to ‘risk.’
In other words, the harder it is to reach the next realm, the stronger you can become compared to other mages of the same realm.
It was just like how a mage who reached a realm through talent at a young age was stronger than one who forced their way through with age and sheer magic power.
For a moment, I felt a slight resentment toward my past self for learning the Formless Vajra Art.
But it was also true that the Formless Vajra Art had allowed me to grow strong quickly, so I couldn’t entirely blame it.
“…Should I ask the White Tower Lord how to handle the ice element?”
Hoo.
In the end, nothing was resolved, and the night only grew deeper.
*
THUD!!
Under a cloudless blue sky, a massive body collapsed.
A thick cloud of dust rose, and I wrinkled my nose involuntarily.
I gave my sword a light swing to flick off the blood staining the blade.
I looked down at the giant bull lying on the ground.
‘…About a C+ rank, I guess? No need to bother taking the magic stone.’
It was a waste to leave a free magic stone behind, but I’d have to drench myself in the magical beast’s blood to extract it.
I didn’t want to go through all that trouble just for a few extra coins.
Besides, I couldn’t put it in my inventory anyway.
It was already full of the carcasses of the highest-grade magical beasts I had hunted down in the gorge.
“Th-thank you, Sir Knight…!”
Just as I was wiping the blood from my face with the back of my hand, a middle-aged man approached and bowed his head repeatedly.
“Th-thank you so much, Sir Knight!!”
“You saved our lives!!”
“We will never forget your kindness!!”
Following him, other people crowded around me, each expressing their gratitude.
They were refugees from the Bipolun territory, heading for Noirvel.
I gave them a casual wave.
“It was nothing, so please don’t worry about it. More importantly, you have a long way to go, so you should all hurry.”
The giant bull was a magical beast that had attacked the refugees.
If I had been just a little later, a few of them would have been trampled to death. The timing was good.
After sending the refugees on their way, I returned to the carriage.
“Good work.”
Iris smiled softly and wiped my face with a handkerchief.
I wasn’t particularly sweaty, but there were probably bloodstains, so I silently accepted her touch.
“Sir Hyun-woo.”
Just then, Amelia approached.
She looked at me, her lips parting and closing, before she bowed her head respectfully.
“…Thank you so much for saving them.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Amelia, as the heir to the duchy, was expressing her gratitude.
I patted her on the shoulder and smiled faintly.
“Anyway, this is a bit strange. Don’t magical beasts usually stay away from main roads like this?”
“I agree. Besides, that beast just now didn’t seem to be targeting the refugees from the start. It seemed like it was being chased by something.”
Sylvia also gave a short nod.
So, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
“Is there a stronger magical beast around?”
With that thought, I immediately expanded the range of my mana detection.
Soon, I sensed a fairly powerful presence rapidly approaching from the distance.
In fact, there wasn’t just one, but five.
I looked across the plain with my naked eye.
‘…People?’
Uniform armor, a banner bearing a specific crest, and powerful warhorses.
It was an order of knights.