Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Desperate Plea at the Barrier
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‘Hurry.’
My lungs felt like they were about to burst, but I couldn’t stop. Not mentally, and certainly not with the spirit command forcibly compelling me onward.
‘Before something happens to Alakish... please, hurry.’
With both arms cradling Kasena, and telekinesis gripping the reins of the pony carrying the unconscious white wolf, I pressed on southward.
I had to get Kasena and this wolf to the barrier for the spirit command’s binding to release...
In the dawn light, the barrier shimmering purple seemed so close I could touch it, yet the distance refused to shrink.
‘If I hadn’t trained my stamina so intensely with Logan, my legs would’ve given out ages ago.’
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than memories flashed: the 1388th class practicing magic volleyball, chattering noisily.
‘Kayden scribbling nicknames in his notebook while bickering with Weiber and Logan...’
Lilian and Nora, the mischievous Gertrude Fenton, Christa Warden with her love for clay figurines, Aunt Elin, Professor Owen—they all came to mind.
‘I guess I ended up liking those guys... and our daily life together more than I thought.’
Why were these thoughts surfacing now, in this dire moment?
This wasn’t the time for sentimentality. Not for shedding tears of nostalgia. This was a time for thinking and acting.
That’s why I called out to Pippi, who’d been circling overhead, scouting the area.
“Pippi!”
“Pippi, pipi, pipi.”
“Go straight to Varlzen right now. Tell him an absurd monster—one that can control the Old Ones—has truly appeared.”
What I needed to speculate on was that transcendent being’s goal.
Why had it attacked the white wolves?
From what I’d read in books before, abyssal entities turned the living into undead to bolster their armies of darkness.
- The wolf pack’s leader led a massive expedition.
If it wasn’t because they were white wolves, but simply because they were the largest group nearby? If Alakish couldn’t defeat it?
The hairs on my arms stood on end. Then Ravenfel would become a slaughterhouse...
There had to be something—some way. I had to find it. And in the next moment, the words slipped out unbidden.
“...Right, the Battleship Base.”
“Battleship, battleship, battleship?”
“The Battleship Base, Pippi! Tell them to head there! We’ll open the barrier gate nearby.”
It wasn’t a panicked, random guess.
The Battleship Base lay across Silverhorn Bay, southwest of Harbadonia positionally. Roughly half a day’s journey from Ravenfel, with the bay in between.
It was closer to the barrier than Ravenfel, but the main reason was the platinum-ranked adventurer number one, Frisbia, stationed there.
- You can’t reconcile those two. Never.
He was a shady, inscrutable guy, but compared to what I’d just encountered, he was nothing. Right now, we needed every bit of help we could get.
“Lin says go to the Battleship Base. Pippi, relay Lin’s words to Varlzen.”
“They won’t know who Lin is, so say Rain.”
“Rain says go to the Battleship Base. Pippi, relay Rain’s words to Varlzen.”
Pippi repeated my words back perfectly, confirmed no issues, then flapped off northwestward with a whoosh.
Was it loneliness? With even Pippi gone, my whole body felt even colder...
No, wait. This chill clawing through my arctic fox fur coat wasn’t some imagined emptiness—it was real pain.
‘No way...’
One step, two... My slowing footsteps halted abruptly of their own accord.
‘It’s gone—Alakish’s power.’
The spirit command forcing my body’s movements, the constant warmth that had enveloped me—it all vanished in an instant.
All of it, as fleeting and hollow as a short dream, without any warning.
Cold sweat beaded ominously as my heart pounded painfully. I whipped around. The world was utterly still.
‘No, no. Alakish couldn’t have lost.’
A red dragonkin with demigod-level power—there must’ve been a reason to sever the connection. Maybe she needed her full strength...
‘Yeah, she couldn’t have lost.’
No time to think—I had to move.
I couldn’t waste the time Alakish had bought me.
Gasping ragged breaths, I forced my feet toward the barrier again, this time under my own power.
‘She couldn’t have lost, couldn’t have...’
I convinced myself to drag my leaden feet that refused to lift, to ignore the urge to turn north right now.
I persuaded myself again and again.
In the Arctic dawn heralding the day’s start, drawing ever closer to the pink-flamed [Snowridge Great Wall].
......Bwooooooo......
After emerging from the pine grove and trudging across sunlit open fields for a while, a low, resonant horn sounded from somewhere atop the barrier.
Immediately, the Clear Cascade Gate—the miraculous portal sealing the abyss with sacred waterfalls—receded its torrent, revealing a long tunnel to the civilized world beyond.
The main gate of [Snowridge Great Wall] had opened, but there was no time to marvel.
“Hurry, over here!”
The barrier’s passageway blazed with light from incomprehensible magic tools. Three white wolves leaped out to cover us at the entrance.
One wolf took the reins, checked the unconscious wolf on the saddle, and let out a stifled groan.
“Ahh, Reni... how did this...”
As it did, the waterfall crashed back with deafening force, sealing the entrance.
“Thanks for bringing Reni back safely, but... who exactly are you...?”
The wolves eyed Rain and Kasena suspiciously. I nodded toward Kasena’s unique hair color in my arms.
“I’m Rain Ludwig, heir to the Ludwig Marquessate. This is Lady Kasena Page of the Page Marquessate.”
Word of the Page Marquessate’s prestige—and that one-of-a-kind hair—must’ve reached even this northern frontier.
“Page...?”
“Page, you say...?”
“Page...?”
That alone seemed to confirm our identities. The wolves exchanged glances, swallowing hard. But I had no time for their subtle signals.
“Sorry, but we don’t even have time for this. Please take us to the executives—quickly!”
* * *
Beyond the barrier’s long tunnel stretched Whitecenter, the white wolves’ famed headquarters.
Whitecenter, which had served as [Snowridge Great Wall]’s control center for a century of angels, was a grand, beautiful fortress rivaling the barrier itself.
“Ha...”
The sensation of entering a wholly different world melted away months of tension, leaving my legs buckling.
This was the North, frozen land.
Frozen, yes... but compared to beyond the barrier, it was paradise, civilization incarnate.
Sunlight shone several times warmer, fresh clean air filling my lungs instead of the abyss’s strangling fog.
‘But...’
For such a vast, majestic structure, the number of personnel was shockingly low.
The white wolves were an elite force boasting anywhere from three to seven thousand historically—Northerners took pride in serving here.
Had the massive expedition truly failed, reducing their numbers this drastically?
“Not everyone’s stationed here.”
The wolf escorting me must’ve read the worry in my eyes, speaking up. He’d switched to honorifics after hearing my status.
“[Snowridge Great Wall] has five fortresses centered around Whitecenter. Still, the situation’s desperate, no denying that.”
“I heard the expedition failed... How many did you lose?”
“Five thousand wolves went out. Fewer than four hundred returned. I was too young, my combat skills too poor to join...”
He trailed off, adding it seemed like the gods’ grace now.
During this exchange, I was led to the command center atop Whitecenter.
“The executives will see you, young master. This is as far as I go.”
The vast room featured a long, roughly hewn table of white wood.
Above it floated a dozen windows—advanced far-sight spells monitoring above and below the barrier.
Ten wolves sat facing each other across the table, staring straight at me. Eight had bandages on limbs or faces from expedition wounds.
“Something urgent to say?”
An elderly wolf on the left scanned my appearance top to bottom, frowning.
“But is he really a Ludwig scion? Plenty of imposters masquerading as nobles in these backwaters.”
“Yes.”
The reply came not from me, but a young wolf opposite him.
Even in this polar north, he retained a noble air with his dark red hair—a familiar face. Where had I seen him?
“I’m not fully convinced on the Ludwig side, but Kasena’s definite. Her image from the houses’ assembly is burned in my mind.”
Houses’ assembly...
Blado Marquessate, then?
A sturdy middle-aged woman with graying long hair raised an eyebrow.
“Kasena Page—the girl who vanished during the sunspot incident? So that means the supposedly dead Rain Ludwig?”
I was dead?
Odd. Kasena missing, but me deceased?
“Yes. We’ll hear how you crossed the barrier later... So, what’s the urgent message?”
No time for calm, detailed explanations—I hurriedly recounted the journey’s events.
Even now, Alakish was fighting that monster... We had to resolve this fast and return.
Impatience warped my composure, dulling my judgment.
“So the beastkin were gathering at Ravenfel. Couldn’t spot them deep inside—darkest under the lamp, huh...”
“Sorry to say.”
As the officers murmured, Whitecenter’s old scholar stroked his white beard, eyeing me.
“Hard to believe. Beastkin nursed you two? Two missing from Blade Peninsula suddenly appearing atop the barrier? Doesn’t add up.”
“Believe it or not, it’s true. The abyssal entity awakening is too. If we don’t act, every beastkin beyond the barrier dies—becomes undead.”
“...”
“You all know better than anyone: the abyss devours the living to swell its ranks.”
No one replied.
They knew the truth but pride forbade acting on it—those were the faces.
“We have to open the gate and save the beastkin.”
“It’s not that simple. You’ve clearly been fooled living with them—”
“—No fooling. It’s all a misunderstanding... Shar’kas. Alakish clearly named it Shar’kas.”
“What?”
“The monster that wiped out the white wolves!”
The words surfaced unbidden in my mind, and I blurted them. The command center froze icy. The scholar paled.
“Shar’kas? No, impossible...”
“You know it? Alakish’s fighting it alone right now. We have to help—now!”
If I could just persuade them a bit more here... How?
Be careful.
This was the turning point.
“Smelled fishy, and sure enough—beastkin spy.”
Then, from the far end—the head seat—a white-haired elder suddenly drummed the table with his fingers.
“Ludwig scion? You think I’d fall for your glib tongue?”
“Pardon?”
“We know an abyssal entity awakened. Lost our main force! Was just drafting letters to His Imperial Majesty and His Holiness.”
“You know and still won’t open the gate?”
“Why open for beastkin? They’re all abyssal minions.”
“What nonsense? Beastkin aren’t minions—they’re people like us—”
“—Shut it! Where does a beastling get off yapping? Search him—bound to have a beastkin mark hidden.”
Wolves by the doors hesitated, rank issues perhaps, until the white-haired commander bellowed.
In that instant, flashing through my mind wasn’t despair—end is near—but intense wariness.
Thanks to Bell Quirius’s activation, visible mana flows swirled behind the commander, forming an eerie shadow.
“Who are you?”
Silver-white light bloomed mystically from the boy’s eyes—a flower of wisdom’s blade parsing all superhuman powers mathematically.
Bell Quirius.
0100101010010101010... A bizarre visual like a blood-sliced cross-section made me gasp.
‘A possession spirit...?’
How to describe the form: countless numbers whirling like a maelstrom, forming tentacles writhing horrifically, stuffing number-made tendrils into the commander’s eyes, mouth, nose, cackling.
Something was there after all... Unpleasant sweat beaded my forehead.
“You whelp—what’d you say?”
Beastkin-wolf conflicts had backers. This possession spirit in the commander was likely the mastermind.
And no amateur. The black magic forming it was 5-star. No wonder the others missed it.
‘But I heard the archmage position’s vacant... Who cast this?’
At that thought, the mollusk-like spirit’s eyes snapped open, locking on me.
That sparked the fight.
As it yanked tentacles from eroding the commander’s mind toward me, and an executive grabbed my shoulder roughly—
“Sorry, wrong opponent to mess with.”
Bloodlight erupted from me, a dazzling mana storm hurling the grabbing executive into the wall.
“Wh-what insane mana strength...?!”
“You bastard, what’re you—?!”
“Commander...!”
Seated executives clung to the table against the gale, but in the unseen realm, fiercer battle raged.
‘Analysis complete, reverse calculation adjustment.’
In 1.8 seconds, I parsed every magic circle: runes mostly Luticen formulaic, some taboo Orvios mixed, but Luticen dominant.
Possession was famed traditional black magic, but this emphasized Luticen strengths—black magic via magic, basically.
My specialty... Twist equations, fake roots for real, force flaws in the circle.
[......?]
Tendrils lunging for my eyes sucked into the vortex nullifying all powers, dissolving one by one.
One, one more, another... When the last remained, I reached out, snagging the vortex-bound main body.
Not just erasing it. I’ll expose who you are, where you are. Or it won’t sit right.
‘Mana casting coordinates... target’s location?’
Parsing the core circle’s heart, the spirit’s maw grinned.
[Oh, impressive eyes for a brat? But this senior’s insured too.]
Then, its maw spewed jet-black numbers filling my vision... Dizziness pierced my brain before I could parse.
Focus shattered; the gripped spirit body exploded.
Point-blank mana blast.
Numb floatiness wrapped my senses—next, my body lay beside Kasena on the cold floor.
‘What...?’
It tried devouring me in that split-second blast... Such advanced possession unheard of.
‘Barely nullified with Bell Quirius at the last...’
Two problems: blast aftermath paralyzed me.
And with the soul-eroding shadow gone, the commander too flung by mana waves, head slamming the wall, collapsing.
This chain made them think I attacked the commander.
“...C-Commander...!”
“...He got the commander...!”
“...Seize him, assassin...!”
Executives’ frantic cries rang dully as pain spread bone-deep from arms wrenched back, bound.
Alakish’s face surfaced.
‘Alakish...’
Her face at the end, gazing at me with wistful smile, entrusting something...
What do I do? I... think I failed...
With that final thought, consciousness faded.