Chapter 61
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Map Hack
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Shore looked exactly the same as before after all this time.
No, not exactly.
His qi flow was disrupted.
On the surface, he seemed fine. No wounds, no bandages.
His gait was as heavy and steady as last time.
But I could feel it. The flow of mana. The tangled remnants inside his body.
It was the trace of a major injury that had been forcibly patched up.
Magic... no, shamanism, probably.
The method used by the steppe shamans.
I'd heard it was fast and powerful, but not clean. In truth, whether magic or shamanism, they could knit bones and flesh back together, but they couldn't perfectly realign the flow of mana.
I didn't let on. If he asked how I knew, it'd just give me a headache.
"You've grown a lot taller."
Shore spoke first.
"Kids this age shoot up fast."
"Still an old soul in a young body, huh? And now you've got a baron's title to go with it."
"Yeah. It just sort of happened."
"'Just sort of'... "
Golden Bear warriors filed in behind him. About twenty of them.
A closer look revealed that Shore wasn't the only one with disrupted qi.
His subordinates weren't just disrupted—they were covered in wounds big and small. Unlike Shore, who must have received the shaman's full mana treatment, most of them had bandages wrapped tightly around their injuries.
"Did you go up against an ice dragon or something?"
My half-joking, half-serious remark made the corner of Shore's mouth twitch.
"Not an ice dragon. But something on the level of its cousin."
"Cousin?"
"Ice drake."
Ah.
Drake.
If a dragon had wings, wielded magic, and possessed intelligence surpassing humans, a drake had neither wings nor much intelligence. It was more beast than anything.
But in terms of raw physical power, it wasn't far behind a dragon. Like the difference between a tiger and a leopard, maybe.
"The tribe's on the brink of annihilation."
"From just a few drakes?"
The question slipped out of my mouth.
I knew drakes were strong. But this was the Golden Bear tribe.
These were the guys who'd been squaring off against the Mueller family—rulers of the north—on nearly equal footing for over a century. And a handful of drakes had them facing extinction?
"It's entirely possible."
It was Duke Sylvesta.
"They're not just simple drakes."
"Not just a few?"
"Monster break. Isn't that right?"
My mind went blank.
"Didn't that happen 150 years ago?"
My voice came out higher than I'd expected.
Duke Sylvesta nodded.
"The great migration of monsters. That's what they call the particularly large-scale ones. The last monster break was when the glorious Hardenberg Empire was founded. It's entirely possible."
Shore's eyes flickered.
"What's with that elf? Why's he butting in all of a sudden?"
A low growl. Like a wary beast.
One of his subordinates stepped up beside Shore.
"Chief. I heard there's an elf in the south with a ducal title. Could it be him?"
He'd lowered his voice, but not enough that it went unheard.
"You idiot. Why would someone like that be here? He'd be in the Hardenberg capital."
Sharp analysis.
The problem was, sharp analysis didn't always mean correct.
"That's him."
"What?"
"That's Duke Sylvesta."
"You're joking, right?"
"Why would I joke?"
Shore's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. He was flustered, clearly.
It wasn't incomprehensible. I was internally reeling myself at the fact that this ancient monster was stuck to my side. I just didn't show it.
"Why's someone like that here?"
"Beats me."
A brief silence fell.
Shore cleared his throat awkwardly, forcibly tearing his gaze from Duke Sylvesta before speaking.
"Anyway, like that... gentleman said, a monster break is a big deal. Big enough to topple the Great Khan of the south... no, the Emperor of the south."
For an already crumbling empire, that kind of disaster was like a pro heavyweight boxer slamming a gut punch into a terminally ill patient.
"Definitely big trouble. What's the scale?"
"Twenty confirmed ice drakes."
"Damn."
"All twenty are moving as a pack. And there's an orc army besides..."
Shore kept talking, but honestly, it wasn't really sinking in.
Twenty.
Ice drakes. Twenty of them.
Monsters several times the size of an African elephant. The frost they spewed from their mouths could freeze an entire city wall solid.
One breath could turn a few companies into ice sculptures.
And twenty of them. In a pack.
"They're heading south."
Shore's voice pierced my ears again.
"What?"
"The ice drake pack is heading south. They've already trampled our territory. Next up is here."
A chill settled beside me. It was Batur. He was grinding his teeth.
Probably because of the 'our territory' bit. That land had originally belonged to the Red Deer tribe. Until the Golden Bears pushed them out.
But now wasn't the time to worry about that.
"So what do you want? Land, like the Red Deer?"
"That's not it. We have no intention of becoming slaves."
He said it flatly.
Not that I could give it anyway.
The Red Deer were a mid-sized tribe. The survivors Kuulruk had brought. Feeding them was tight, but doable.
The Golden Bears were different.
A colossal tribe. One of the largest among all the Kuman, even counting every clan. Long ago—though it was ancient history—they'd even produced a Great Khan not just of the Kuman, but of the entire north. Once.
Taking in a tribe like that wholesale was an entirely different league.
"We're not slaves!"
It was Batur.
Shore snorted derisively.
"Sure, whatever."
He brushed it off lightly, but his eyes weren't smiling. Neither were Batur's.
The air between them grew icy.
"Enough."
My voice echoed through the room. Batur froze, and Shore's gaze turned to me.
"Then what do you want?"
"Cooperation."
"Cooperation?"
"Monster break. We deal with it together."
Deal with it.
Deal with a monster break?
"Apologies, but is that even the kind of thing you can 'deal with'? I've lived 1,800 years, but I've never heard of anyone successfully handling a monster break. Plenty of dragon-slaying tales, though."
Duke Sylvesta again. The old elf's voice was still languid.
"It's possible."
"Any basis for that? Historically, it's been impossible."
If that elf said so, then it was so.
"It was impossible until now. I admit that. But we can do it. No. I can."
"Hmm..."
Overly self-confident type, huh...
"It's true!"
Shore's voice rose.
"You got some kind of strategy?"
He nodded. Once. Slowly.
"You know about my bloodline."
"Yeah. Descendant of the ice dragon, right?"
Half-dragon. More precisely, a descendant with that blood mixed in.
That was the source of the overwhelming pressure he exuded, despite his small stature.
"Something like Dragon Fear? So weaker monsters just steer clear?"
"Nothing like that."
True. If it were, he wouldn't have been driven out to begin with.
"Then what?"
"Do you know the true advantage descendants of dragons gain?"
"Breathing ice from your mouth?"
Shore chuckled.
"That's highly secondary. Useless in actual combat. It's nowhere near a true ice dragon's breath—in fact, it's inferior even to an ice drake's in power and range. Freezing one person right in front of you is the best you can hope for."
I nodded. I already knew that.
"Then what is it?"
"Mana sensitivity."
Not a term I'd never heard, but I hadn't expected it here.
"Mana sensitivity?"
"Even His Grace over there must know that dragons are the origin of magic manipulation."
Gazes turned to Duke Sylvesta. The old elf nodded slowly.
Legend had it that magic had been passed down over nearly 10,000 years.
From dragons to elves. From elves to humans.
"I know. Myth to humans, but history to us."
Of course, human historians claimed it was just elves puffing themselves up, but the only elf historian here was him.
And even if they had embellished the records, the point was clear.
Elves had an edge over humans, dragons over elves, when it came to learning magic.
"And I possess mana sensitivity that far surpasses humans."
"That's plausible. There's debate over whether the north's half-dragons truly inherit dragon blood, but their high mana sensitivity is fact."
Shore looked displeased but pressed on regardless.
"The tribe has a secret art. Those who master it can sense the direction of any mana-bearing being—monster, mage, anything infused with mana. You feel the flow."
"How does it work?"
"Hard to explain. It's not something you see with your eyes. You just feel it. If you had sensitivity like mine, you'd get it. But probably not."
"Does it require dragon blood? Can't anyone learn it with that level of sensitivity?"
"No one but dragon descendants can reach my level of mana sensitivity! It's a realm unreachable without dragon blood. Elves maybe, but humans? Absolutely impossible."
"What about mana control?"
"Control isn't even necessary. Though mine's top-tier, of course."
I see.
No need for control. Just sensitivity. Overwhelming sensitivity.
Sweat beaded in my palm.
I had it too.
"Celine."
The black cat leaning against my feet stirred.
In an instant, her form blurred like smoke, shifting into human shape.
"Yeah?"
"Test if that guy's telling the truth."
Celine just stared at me without a word.
A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead. Mine too.
In the exact same way as back then.
I didn't need to add that part.