The Stormy Plain (Part 3)
I had pondered it for a long moment.
Whether to cut the binding.
If the situation grew urgent, I would have to sever the chains myself to participate in the battle and survive.
They called it the unbreakable chain made from Dragon power veins. That was just one of those typical exaggerations.
Dragons never had power veins in the first place.
And beyond the Labyrinth, no Dragons still walked the world. Every last one had been banished into the depths.
Therefore, the thing binding my body could not possibly be a Dragon-made binding. At best, it was only enough Hydra veins to boast about—veins with excellent regeneration and easy reinforcement through mana.
“Now, you can release it whenever you want. You said you could cut it at any time, right?”
Prince Frederick had allowed the release. Of course, he made me do it myself.
The soldiers on the watchtower fixed their gazes on me. Even if they had exaggerated the name, the binding they had bound me with was the so-called unbreakable chain.
A chain that could not be cut unless the caster personally removed it.
“Ah, I was waiting for your permission.”
Prince Frederick had clearly sized me up already.
I sent a trickle of mana. The chain snapped apart instantly. Hydra veins unraveling in a smooth, clean cut.
“Huh? Did it break?”
Seeing that, the scarred man Kyle let out a bewildered sound.
“Kyle, do you not know the Capital Defense Guard saved your life?”
“Eh?”
“They sliced a Wyvern that was diving toward you in half with a suspicious blue lightning.”
Kyle stared at me with eyes full of suspicion.
I simply said nothing.
I had only shrugged my shoulders after learning it from Kai Ren, the guy who kept poking fun at Marian.
“I could have chopped it to pieces at any time. Why bother with the Capital Defense Guard? They’re just making a mountain out of a molehill.”
After speaking, Kyle spat on the ground.
I turned my back again and watched Prince Frederick gazing at the horizon.
Even during the frenzied battle, he had kept his eyes on me.
Maintaining a wide view for the fight while observing my small movements close by.
‘He’s an incredible expert.’
And.
The efficient operational command I had witnessed during the battle. The aura of a veteran who had fought hundreds of battles.
Born into the direct bloodline of the Gilorian royal family, sitting at the peak of power, yet every night facing death on these walls.
Watching him, the citizens of the Empire offered praise. And the Prince Frederick who had to answer them.
Perhaps it was the heart of a jester.
Behind that smiling face hid an unimaginable pain. And beyond it, he had to restrain the crafty power that might strike as a dagger at any moment.
Thud. Thud.
The hammers of the Dwarves repairing the walls rang out.
A rough sound as complex as my emotions.
Perhaps this place, Prince Frederick’s fortress and army, was his only refuge.
His only strength, his only shield, and also the blade that checked those who aimed at his neck.
‘That was why he might have brutally trained his own army.’
As my thoughts continued to twist.
“It seems the subject of the academic research at the Imperial Magic Tower is…”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Prince Frederick asked.
“What is the research target?”
“It is the truth behind the mysterious living creature drifting over the Hermitia Plain.”
Prince Frederick nodded slowly.
“Kyle, support him well.”
Kyle showed a nervous expression. Prince Frederick stared at him dispassionately and slowly turned his body.
“Living creature… Do they think of themselves as living creatures too?”
His last words, carrying an unknown chill, left me with a sudden sense of unease.
I unconsciously raised my head. The moonlight had turned a deep red.
* * *
That night, there were two additional monster legion attacks.
The first came as night deepened. The booming drums on the walls woke me.
Howling sounds of monsters coming from the darkness that felt like scraping souls.
At first, I sprang up as if convulsing and jumped onto the watchtower.
But what I faced there was simply the organized movement of an army that left no room to insert oneself.
A perfect battle that I could not even muster the courage to interrupt.
If I had clumsily intruded, I would have become a foreign object spinning inside the interlocking gears.
Even then, Prince Frederick was on the watchtower.
Is that why?
When the second drum sounded, I did not stir even from the bed.
But throughout the night, amid the cries, cannon fire, and screams, sleep was impossible.
Whenever the noise of battle came faintly, I simply closed my eyes and repeated Prince Frederick’s last words.
‘He clearly knew something about the living creature.’
The person who issued the special alert because of the appearance of the living creature was Prince Frederick.
Yet he had prohibited the Capital Defense Guard from investigating and showed sharp vigilance toward visiting the Imperial Magic Tower.
What he did not want revealed was clearly there.
And the reason he had spoken that meaningful line to me.
‘It’s a warning.’
Prince Frederick’s warning not to delve into the living creature.
‘The moment dawn breaks, I must investigate the Artifact and souls.’
In any case, it seemed the time given here would not last long.
* * *
“I’m tired.”
The eyes reflected in the mirror were bloodshot.
I had tossed and turned all night.
I washed simply and headed to the dining hall.
There, Nora was sitting with a pale face, nibbling quietly.
“Investigator-nim didn’t sleep either.”
“Yeah.”
We ate in silence. The taste was excellent, but because of the sharp tension unique to this place, my mouth felt rough.
But the drum that had sounded all night was simply the morning landscape of Prince Frederick Fortress, no different from any other place.
The fortress had repaired its walls after last night’s battle.
Weapons had been maintained.
The people of the territory were preparing for another day.
They were plowing the fields and watering the plots.
The merchants had no time to rest. They were laying out ingredients on stalls and preparing to welcome guests.
“Now we have to go find Kyle, right?”
Nora said in a tired voice.
At that moment, he appeared.
“Haha, you’re up early.”
“Is he awake… or still hasn’t slept…”
Kyle ignored the passing soldiers and shouted.
“Hey, new recruit! What were you doing during last night’s battle?”
The rookie soldier answered with startled eyes full of tiredness. The young-faced new recruit from the watchtower yesterday.
“Ah, y-yes… I was in the eastern barracks.”
Kyle raised his voice while glancing at me.
“Eastern barracks? You were in the barracks during a battle?”
The rookie soldier answered carefully.
“That’s because… I was on the first rotation patrol…”
“Ha! Did you hear? These days new recruits are like this. When I was a new recruit, I didn’t sleep at all. I fought monsters until my eyes bled at the front lines.”
It was unnecessary jealousy.
Since monster battles happened every night here, they had formed squads for rotation patrols.
It was necessary.
Still, the young recruit’s face reddened from the old veteran’s unnecessary jealousy.
At that moment.
Smack!
A plump Barbarian woman suddenly appeared and slapped Kyle’s back. The Barbarian I had seen yesterday with a very foul mouth.
Today she had two large axes stuck in her thick waist like a lamp post.
“If you don’t sleep, you die!”
“Who is it?”
To the growling Kyle, the middle-aged Barbarian woman smiled wickedly.
“I’m the mom of that idiot and your mom too!”
“Mom!!!!”
Kyle and the rookie soldier shouted at the middle-aged Barbarian with flushed faces.
They seemed like brothers.
“……”
Kyle twisted his body and only touched his back, saying nothing. The rookie sighed heavily.
Nora, as if seeing her young son’s face overlapping on the young recruit’s, forced something into the arms of the man watching Kyle anxiously.
“It’s good. Trust Auntie.”
She looked like a con artist, but because it was a potion made with her skill, the effect was certain.
I also rubbed my tired eyes and stared at the potion.
Nora muttered softly, noticing my gaze.
“That’s… there’s only one left…”
I ignored it and asked Kyle.
“When can we leave?”
* * *
Our destination was the Hetia Library.
I changed into comfortable clothes and brought only simple snacks, then set out.
“How long will it take?”
“How much money do you need to think you’re rich?”
Kyle answered the question with a completely wrong one. As if he were a Sphinx or something.
“It depends on the person. It varies with the number of dependents.”
“Same here. It depends on variables. If there are no monsters, we go fast. Otherwise, we might not arrive at all.”
“……”
He clicked his tongue and led the way to our destination.
“If you just mark the map, I can go by myself.”
“You think I’m going because I like it?”
We did not know the geography of this place and Kyle had been guarding us because we might suddenly encounter monsters.
But the main reason was.
‘It must be Prince Frederick’s order.’
The order to monitor every move of ours.
Whether he knew or not, Kyle kept a sullen face.
“Why exactly are you researching the living creature at the library?”
He looked at me with a pitying gaze and asked.
In his head, I must have seemed like a desk-sitter who would find the living creature mentioned in the books of the library.
“It’s important to secure information first.”
Gathering prior information before facing an unknown dangerous thing was extremely common sense.
Of course, the soldier on the battlefield, especially a Barbarian, would not feel it deeply.
‘I’m personally verifying something too.’
The hidden truth about the method of making the Elf Bone Artifact and the souls.
Nora needed information about the texture of souls from the Jacob incident site.
But I could not let her notice.
An old man would have been better.
Because the case had too many connections, I could not protest about official travel.
“If it had been Prince Frederick, he would have immediately assembled the soldiers and rushed to the site. Because monsters are things you cannot know until you face them with a sword.”
Kyle said, puffing out his chest.
His pride toward Prince Frederick was enormous.
And he seemed to have already confirmed the living creature as a monster.
“You’ve been together a long time?”
I asked lightly.
“Over ten years.”
Kyle answered immediately.
If a leader had fought monsters and survived for a long time at the empire’s southernmost point, he deserved respect.
“Hey, you’re loitering again.”
At that moment, Kyle swung his hammer forward.
Where he was heading, a giant monster resembling a grasshopper, deep in thought like a monster, was gazing at something.
“Hey, you monster brat!”
The monster slowly raised its head as if understanding human speech.
Its compound eyes with red light gazed at him.
The monster accurately met my gaze as if understanding human speech.
The monster’s compound eyes blinked.
And in a speed that was hard to believe, it raised its hind leg.
A sharp saw blade protruded from the end and began to rotate, cutting the air.
Shiiish—
The sound of an electric saw.
Wind swirled, creating sharp airflow around the monster’s leg.
It was the first time I had seen this monster.
Kyle momentarily stepped back a step.
And.
“Eat this.”
Kyle’s hammer spun half a turn in the air and collided with the monster’s leg and front.
Crash!
The impact of hard chitin and the hammer echoed. Then the monster’s leg hit by Kyle’s hammer was pushed back.
Without missing the chance, Kyle’s hammer danced again.
From below upward, like a golf swing, he continuously struck the monster’s leg.
Crack!
The leg shattered into pieces.
But Kyle’s hammer did not stop. It spun one more turn and finally brought it down on the head.
Puk!
The monster was slammed into the ground.
All its joints twisted, and it no longer moved.
“Ugh, I’m tired of this.”
Kyle said, slinging the hammer over his shoulder.
A calm voice as if finishing an ordinary chore.
“Do monsters appear here even on the surface?”
I had boasted that I had traveled everywhere in the empire, but this was the first time I had seen monsters living outside the Labyrinth.
“No.”
“…Then?”
“On the ground, underground, and in the sky, everywhere.”
“……”
As the rumors said, the Hermitia Plain might be the origin of monsters. And most importantly.
“Are they monsters that appear often?”
Kyle said it was tedious, but for me it was the first monster I had seen.
I had roamed the Labyrinth for years and encountered more monsters than anyone, but this was one I had never seen before.
“They pop up randomly. So the first person to kill one gets to name it. A kind of trophy, haha.”
Kyle was unnecessarily pretentious.
“This one is called Mantotia. I named it.”
Kyle put his hand in his pocket.
Then.
“Ah! I left the Purification Torch.”
An unexpected warrior, Kyle rummaged through his whole body in a panic and said.
“Damn. This needs purification… or the monsters will take it…”
He kicked the broken monster as if it had been a failure.
At that moment, Nora approached quietly.
“No, don’t go, wizard-nim!”
Kyle jumped in surprise and waved his hands.
“I have no intention of resurrecting them with dark magic. Do you know how annoying monster zombies are?”
Nora smiled faintly at his words and raised her fingertips. A faint light immediately rose from her fingertips. It was a warm sunlight-like light.
“Because I can do various things.”
Before her words ended, a pure white flame wrapped the monster’s corpse.
Inside the burning flames, the monster’s remains turned into multicolored particles and scattered into the air.
A quiet and beautiful scene like spring petals that did not match the death of the monster.
Kyle looked at the scene as if he had nothing to say.
“Eh? There are more people like this?”
And Kyle muttered to himself.
Purification ritual finished, Nora opened her eyes wide and asked Kyle.
“What did you just say?”
Kyle brushed aside Nora’s words and muttered.
“The stench is really bad… why do all the passersby act like this?”
Was Kyle’s muttering a momentary reflection on some passing existence?
The words meant that no matter who Nora was looking for, there was no one left here.
I hid my disappointment and watched Nora’s back as she walked forward.
A lush forest began to appear in the distance. The primitive forest, as if the origin of monsters, suddenly appeared before my eyes.