Chapter 276
Chapter 276
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 276
Chapter Title: Dogs and Wolves (1)
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Deep in the overgrown thicket.
Two wolves with silver manes were tearing through the undergrowth, racing for their lives.
“Pant, pant!”
Their breath hitched in their throats.
Without a thought to wipe the drool dripping from between their sharp teeth, the two wolves frantically pushed onward through the brush.
“B-Brother, I…”
“Just a little longer!”
One of the wolves, lagging behind, stumbled and collapsed to the ground.
The wolf called ‘Brother’ quickly turned back to check on the fallen one.
Her silver mane was stained with dark splotches.
Her beautiful silver fur, which must have once shimmered like silk, was now a matted mess of dirt and dust, her entire body covered in small cuts from the branches.
“Riru! Stay with me!”
“I’m sorry… Brother Leo. I can’t go on…”
“Grr!”
The wolf called Leo let out a low growl, baring his teeth fiercely.
“Just wait a moment.”
*Crack!*
With a sound like twisting bones, the wolf’s form began to shift into that of a human.
Though covered in dirt, the wolf transformed into a boy with neat features.
His appearance was largely human, but he had the ears and tail of a beast, not a man.
“Hnngh!”
Now in human form, Leo embraced the fallen Riru.
“B-Brother. At this rate, you’ll be caught too…”
“Quiet.”
Leo ran through the forest, carrying Riru in his arms.
He had a lean frame, looking as though he couldn’t lift a single sack of rice, but the beast’s blood flowing through his veins granted him superhuman strength that defied common sense.
“Pant, pant!”
But in the end, as a living creature, he had his physical limits.
Having not eaten properly for days and now carrying Riru, his stamina was rapidly depleting.
“There they are!”
“Get those brats!”
Fierce shouts pierced his ears.
The hunters had surrounded them in an instant.
“Tsk, these kids are fast on their feet…”
One of the hunters approached, his eyes narrowed.
The hunter, in human form, also had the ears and tail of a beast, just like Leo.
The only difference was that unlike Leo’s silver fur, his ears and tail were covered in a dull brown coat.
“Damn it.”
Leo muttered a low curse, glaring at the hunters.
“Just give up, kid.”
“You won’t get hurt if you come quietly.”
The hunters sneered, tightening their encirclement.
“Shut up.”
Leo stood in front of Riru, spreading his arms wide.
Sharp, beastly claws extended from his outstretched hands.
“I am a wolf of the Silver Mane tribe.”
The boy’s fighting spirit burned, a clear sign he would never surrender.
The hunters shook their heads as if they were tired of this.
“Sheesh, these Silver Mane bastards never change.”
“Don’t they know what kind of mess they’re in for being so stubborn?”
“Well, they’ve always been like this.”
The hunters, seemingly abandoning any attempt to subdue him peacefully, placed their hands over the left side of their chests.
*Crack, crunch!*
With a sickening sound, brown manes began to sprout from their bodies.
“You know we’re not supposed to kill them, right?”
“But breaking an arm or a leg should be fine, right, sir?”
“Well, I’m sure the higher-ups will understand that much.”
With ferocious eyes, long snouts, and sharp teeth, the hunters, now transformed into werewolves, charged toward Leo.
***
Beyond the black rift that spread like a curtain.
A vast forest unfolded before them.
“We’ve arrived.”
From a distance, it didn’t look much different from a forest on Earth.
But a closer look made it easy to tell that this was not Earth, but the land of beasts.
Actually, was there even a need to look closely?
*Swish!*
A green stem shot out like a whip from a massive, three-meter-tall flower.
The stem cracked through the air, lashing out with terrifying force.
“This place is still the same.”
Ha-eun narrowed her eyes and flicked her fingers.
*Fwoosh!*
Flames erupted, incinerating the rapidly whipping green stem.
“Indeed.”
Isabella lightly scratched her palm with a fingernail.
The spot where a drop of her blood fell sizzled, and red thorns shot up, extending in a straight line.
*Skewer.*
The flower, pierced by the red thorns, limply drooped.
“Let’s go, Mr. Oh-jin.”
“Right.”
“…Hold on, brat.”
Riak rushed forward and swung his front paw at the drooping flower.
A blue lightning flash erupted, and the ground beneath the flower was overturned.
Within the upturned earth lay a grotesquely writhing root.
“If you don’t deal with a Raple’s root completely, it will regenerate in an instant and attack again.”
Riak said, slicing the wriggling root with his sharp claws.
Ha-eun let out a short gasp.
“…So you really are from the Demon Realm.”
“Hmph. Did you not already hear that from Lady Vega, lizard woman?”
“I heard, but it didn’t really sink in until now.”
Riak snorted and turned his head away curtly.
[Where should we go now?]
“One moment.”
Oh-jin took out the compass he had received from Allen.
As he channeled his magic into it, the needle began to spin wildly.
A moment later, the red needle stopped, pointing in one direction.
“That way.”
“…That’s the direction of the kingdom.”
“Is the kingdom of the beastmen that way?”
“It is.”
Riak gave a low nod.
Ha-eun grinned and playfully leaped onto Riak’s back.
“Then it’d be perfect if our little pooch could guide us!”
“Grr! G-get off me, lizard woman!”
“Hey, I’m not that heavy, am I?”
“Hmph. You still weigh well over 50 kg…”
“Sh-shut up, you jerk!”
Ha-eun quickly clamped her hand over Riak’s mouth.
“I-It’s because I’m tall, okay?!”
Ha-eun blushed, glancing back at Oh-jin.
Oh-jin chuckled and walked over to Riak.
“In any case, if you know the way, can you guide us?”
“Grrr… Just follow me quietly, brat.”
Riak nodded and began to walk forward.
There was something dejected and listless about his retreating figure.
It was as if he was hesitant about going to the Demon Realm itself.
No, in a way, it almost looked like he was ‘afraid.’
“What’s with him?”
Ha-eun asked, looking at Vega.
[That is…]
Vega, gazing at Riak’s back with a bitter expression, let out a short sigh.
[I do not think it is my place to say. You should ask Riak yourself.]
“Hmm. Is that so?”
Ha-eun hummed, sensing the complex emotions in Vega’s sigh.
“…Seeing him so down makes him look like a real sad puppy.”
Though she grumbled, she didn’t approach Riak to ask him directly.
Even someone as unobservant as Ha-eun could tell that Riak was not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.
“By the way, Mr. Oh-jin. You said you were going to meet the one called Cheongwonseong first, right?”
Isabella asked, naturally moving to Oh-jin’s side.
“Yeah. I’m hoping to get some information there, and maybe some cooperation if possible.”
“…Do you think that’s wise? There’s very little known about him, you know.”
Cheongwonseong, Baek Mu-gang.
He was a member of the Seven Stars, but almost nothing was known about him.
He never engaged in any public activities, and despite holding the immense rank of number one among Deneb’s twelve Apostles, he was an Awakened who had settled down to live alone in the Demon Realm.
“Well… I heard he has a rather eccentric personality.”
“Wouldn’t that make it more dangerous?”
“Well, it’s not like we have any other options.”
Most of the Awakened who settled in the Demon Realm were those who had committed major crimes or had become targets of assassination and fled.
At least Cheongwonseong was unlikely to be one of those cases, so he was worth meeting.
[Come to think of it, I have hardly ever heard Deneb speak of Cheongwonseong.]
“Not even to you?”
Even though he was the number one Apostle among only twelve, she hadn’t heard anything?
[Cheongwonseong was not chosen as the first in rank for his personal martial strength. In terms of simple combat power, Allen Oscar is likely far superior.]
“Then why?”
[His high rank is due to the symbolic nature of being the first Apostle. Ah, but that is not to say he is weak by any means.]
“Well, he is one of the Seven Stars, after all.”
If his personal strength was lacking, he wouldn’t have survived alone in the Demon Realm for so many years.
[Hmm. Thinking about it, it is a bit strange. When he first made Allen an Apostle, that child came to my temple and boasted for hours on end, yet he was particularly reserved when it came to Cheongwonseong.]
Vega recalled the memory of when Deneb first introduced Allen.
Like a doting father, Deneb had spared no praise for Allen.
And it wasn’t just Allen; he would go on tirelessly about the Xiaolin and Xiaolan sisters and his other Apostles.
‘But he was quiet specifically about Cheongwonseong?’
Considering Deneb’s personality, it was behavior that was hard to understand.
[Hmph. Had I known, I would have asked about him beforehand.]
“It’s fine. It’s not like you two were that close, right?”
In fact, if one had to say whether their relationship was good or bad, it would lean toward bad.
“Well, we’ll find out when we meet him in person.”
Oh-jin followed Riak, heading in the direction the compass pointed.
***
After a week of trekking through the dense thicket.
Taking short breaks to camp along the way, they had finally managed to exit the forest.
“We’re fiiiinally out of that damn forest!”
Ha-eun spread her arms toward the beaming sunlight and roared.
“That forest was disgustingly huge.”
“I agree. And there were so many beasts along the way…”
Isabella also shook her head with a weary expression.
Oh-jin, Ha-eun, and Isabella.
For the three of them, all possessing transcendent bodies far beyond human limits, to take a whole week to get through the forest…
Even considering the frequent beast attacks, it was excessively large.
“The Forest of the Demon Sea is notorious even within the Demon Realm.”
Riak also looked back at the forest with a rather exhausted expression.
“If the first rift had opened somewhere other than the Forest of the Demon Sea, the damage to Earth would have been much less.”
“…Good point.”
Even just on the outskirts of the forest, the number of beasts had noticeably decreased compared to where they first arrived.
‘It wasn’t this bad when I came here on Poppy before.’
It had taken a long time back then, too.
But beasts hadn’t been attacking from all sides like they were now.
“Ugh… So how much farther is it to this Baek Mu-gang or Cheon Mu-gang or whatever, this Cheongwonseong guy, Oh-jin?”
“I don’t know that either.”
The compass only showed the direction, not the distance.
“Anyway, let’s pick up the pace now.”
“Can’t we rest a bit?”
“You know we don’t have time, Ha-eun.”
It had already been a week since they entered the Demon Realm, and they hadn’t even met Cheongwonseong yet.
“Hmph.”
“…Wait.”
Riak, who was leading the way, lowered his nose to the ground and sniffed.
“I smell a human.”
The direction he indicated was exactly where the compass needle was pointing.
Oh-jin’s party picked up their pace and ran in the direction the compass indicated.
After running for about five minutes.
A small hut built next to a gently flowing stream came into view.
*Click.*
The door of the hut opened, and an old man emerged.
He was so short he would barely reach Oh-jin’s chest.
His back was bent like a hunchback, and his face was covered in liver spots.
An old man so ugly it made one frown.
“Huh?”
The old man spotted Oh-jin’s party and approached them, his eyes twinkling brightly.
Perhaps because of his hunched back, he approached with a rather comical gait, looked up at Oh-jin, and grinned.
“Besides Allen… other people… a first.”
The old man smiled broadly and raised a hand.
Oh-jin thought he might be offering a handshake, but the old man began to pick his nose with his raised hand.
“Me, Cheongwonseong… Huh? Am I Cheongwonseong? Hmm. Anyway. Me, name, Baek Mu-gang. Nice to meet you.”
“……”
Oh-jin’s expression hardened as he stared at Baek Mu-gang, who was smiling brightly while extending a hand smeared with a booger.