Chapter 58 – LV.Two Priest Park Taeyang – [Seven]

Seo Yun felt extreme anger, but as the party’s guide who was under everyone’s gaze, she couldn’t voice her fury and instead glared at Gaeulbi.

‘This wicked chimpanzee… No, I shouldn’t call her that anymore because then I’d be the one with lower intelligence.’

Wondering what insult to use, she stared at Gaeulbi, who smiled again. It was a smile that looked far too cheerful for someone who had just been sniffling.

“Applause! Siwoo, what are you doing? You applaud too!”

“Applause… um… really?”

It’s hard to stay angry at a smiling face, so Seo Yun eventually gave up glaring and sighed.

“Please don’t.”

Along with that, she felt the tension ease. She wondered if it was okay for the three of them to fool around in such a serious situation, but upon reflection, it seemed unnecessary to worry about that.

From behind, Oh Haengun’s voice reached them.

“Now, now, we may not have caught the Basilisk in the end, but just the items you gathered are incredibly valuable? Thanks to you, the villagers now have supplies that will last them ten years. It’s not enough to just reward you with contribution points, so there will be separate rewards when we reach the village. Everyone really worked hard, let’s endure just a little more.”

Oh Haengun was also trying to boost the party’s morale. Indeed, they needed to keep their spirits up somehow. After all, they had to walk from Anyang to Namdong-gu, Incheon.

But the distance that took over two hours by car couldn’t be covered quickly on foot. They couldn’t walk all night to quickly close the distance either. Even in summer, the nights were terribly cold. Forcing a march in this cold would be perfect for sweat to cool and freeze them to death.

In the end, they had to camp, and Oh Haengun assigned the night watch.

“I’m skipping night watch. It’s because I need to recharge my spells, so everyone understand. It’s not that as an adult, I’m trying to make myself comfortable in this situation… Taeyang, you barely used any spells today, right? Then Taeyang, you’ll take night watch. Seo Yun…”

Seo Yun immediately replied.

“I can recharge my spells even without sleep.”

“Still, you were burning up earlier, so it’s not right to put you on watch.”

“It’s fine. Besides, the situation is what it is, right?”

At Seo Yun’s words, Oh Haengun nodded.

“Right, this time the situation is serious… I’m truly ashamed.”

Arnold was on the first watch. Since Seo Yun had to keep watch all night, she would spend time with him too, and Arnold subtly started a conversation.

“You said this land was Heaven, but it turns out it was only a relative Heaven after all.”

“That’s how it all is, I guess. Anyway, if I meet the bastard who made the world like this, I’ll beat them up.”

Arnold paused for a moment, then frowned.

“If you mean the one who made the world like this, are you talking about the Goddess who dropped the meteorite and the half-dead Mages who follow her?”

“No.”

The villains of the Immortal Kingdom were nothing more than background settings. They might believe they summoned the meteorite themselves, but that couldn’t be true. It was just that there happened to be a meteorite setting in that fantasy game, and the meteorite merely took on the role of the meteorite that existed in that fantasy game.

“Then?”

In response to Arnold’s question, Seo Yun answered.

“The one who made a wish on the meteorite.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I guess you won’t kill them.”

“That person’s sins won’t end with death.”

For some reason, Arnold let out a small groan. It seemed like he groaned secretly so it wouldn’t be heard on this side, but ears with 11 Health Points heard it well.

After a period of silence, Arnold muttered.

“Come to think of it, I shouldn’t be chatting in a serious situation. I should be guarding a different direction from the young lady’s position.”

“Do that.”

After that, time passed quietly. Seo Yun entered the tent and woke Park Taeyang, the next watch.

“Hey, hey. Wake up.”

Park Taeyang staggered up, then was pulled by the wrist by Seo Yun and exited the tent.

Since the guy was shivering, Seo Yun cast a spell on him. As a purple energy enveloped his body, Park Taeyang stopped shivering and muttered.

“What’s this?”

“The Warming spell. It’s a 2nd-level Hearth Priest spell. I don’t have enough spell slots to cast it on everyone, so I decided to only cast it on the night watch.”

As expected, no words of thanks came back.

“Must be nice to have a high Level…”

Park Taeyang muttered that and sat in a spot far removed from Seo Yun.

Seo Yun resisted the urge to punch that head. Anyway, it seemed he still found her suspicious, and for the perpetrator to receive a favor and act like that was just absurd.

Seo Yun approached Arnold.

“Mr. Arnold? You should go in and sleep now.”

Arnold shook his head.

“No, I’ll stay up all night.”

“Weren’t you tired from driving the truck for hours today?”

“Not at all.”

In the end, the three of them kept watch together.

Seo Yun’s necklace moved slightly.

Feeling it, Seo Yun focused on her chest. The necklace shook very slightly, enough that it would normally be hard to notice. It was a reaction when a Goblin, animal, or an ordinary human who hadn’t undergone Class Change approached.

Normally, she would have assumed it was a Goblin, but now she couldn’t ignore it. She thought it was better to wake everyone and get scolded than to let it slide, so she immediately stood up to shout.

She opened her mouth wide, then opened her eyes wide.

No sound came from her throat. What on earth?

Seo Yun only gaped her mouth and drew her sword. She struck the surrounding rocks wildly with the blade.

There should have been clanging sounds, but again, no sound came out. Seo Yun gritted her teeth.

She had seen this situation once before. The Silence Spell of a Mage that had even erased gunshots.

Seo Yun hurriedly tried to approach Arnold but tripped. Something invisible had grabbed her ankle. Lying face down, she quickly turned her head to look at her ankle.

As if Invisibility had been dispelled, the figure of a man appeared.

‘Ugh…’

The man climbed on top of Seo Yun’s prone body.

Crushed under his weight, Seo Yun couldn’t move. With no voice, she couldn’t chant a Magic Spell either.

Amidst this, the man reached out as if trying to take Seo Yun’s sword too. In her prone position, she couldn’t swing or stab him with the sword. So, rather than let it be taken, she decided to use it for another purpose.

Using only the strength in her wrist, Seo Yun threw her sword far away.It seemed the silencing spell’s effect disappeared from objects that had left the body. Only after the knife fell far away did the thud sound finally come.

She hoped someone had heard that sound. Seo Yun only lifted her head to look at the other night watch members.

Arnold, what the hell is that bastard doing? She looked over there with desperate hope, but he was just staring intently in a completely different direction.

That fucking orangutan bastard. The curse slipped out in her mind before she knew it. She shouldn’t have trusted someone who got petrified by a basilisk in the first place.

Barbarian Warriors cannot wear armor and lack defense, but in return, they possess all sorts of powerful passive skills. Like the owl eye tattoo that allows them to see through darkness, or Wild Instinct which increases their resistance judgment against ambushes.

None of those skills seemed to be in effect right now. Perhaps he was just keeping his eyes open while thinking about something else entirely.

So, Seo Yun’s eyes met Park Taeyang’s instead of Arnold’s. Whether he had heard the sound just now, the guy had turned his head towards her.

For a moment, Seo Yun thought: That bastard might pretend he didn’t see this.

Fortunately, he wasn’t that much of a fucking bastard. Park Taeyang’s eyes widened, and he shouted.

“A…ambush!”

Only then did Arnold look this way. His blue eyes popped open. Whether he was really lost in thought or dozing off in the midst of it all, his reaction was sluggish.

So sluggish, in fact, that Park Taeyang drew his weapon faster than Arnold could even get up from his spot. Considering that Barbarian Warrior’s agility was supposedly at a level where he could catch bullets, it was utterly astonishing.

“Son of a…”

The man pinning Seo Yun down unrolled the scroll he was holding.

The rolled-up parchment unfurled lengthwise, covered in runic characters. Whatever it was, it seemed like a magical item.

Sure enough, the phenomenon that occurred the next moment was literally magic.

Seo Yun saw Arnold rushing towards her rapidly, and then the surrounding space distorted, causing the figures of Arnold and Park Taeyang, who had been charging this way, to blur together with the background.

An intense wave of dizziness hit her instantly, so Seo Yun closed her eyes for a moment.

Lee Hoon was a man who took pride in the fact that he had lived a reasonably decent life.

Back in middle and high school, there was always someone being ostracized in every class, but Lee Hoon never participated in bullying them. Instead, he showed his own brand of kindness, like secretly peeling off insulting post-it notes stuck to the ostracized student’s back. Even during his time at a small-to-medium company where superiors acted unreasonably, when a new hire came in and struggled, he never picked on them and even tried to occasionally buy them a drink.

He had felt a certain satisfaction in his own character.

But looking back now, he realized he never directly helped that ostracized student or that new hire escape their difficult circumstances. Well, what could he have done? He merely comforted himself, thinking, At least I treated them well enough, when the ostracized student dropped out and the new hire quit.

He lived like that until the world ended up in this state. Belonging to a survivor group, he naturally became a Mage while fighting monsters, and just as he was starting to feel the limits of this life, he encountered soldiers.

They were soldiers of the Dawn Corps. They invited the high-Level Mage Lee Hoon to join their unit.

He knew the Dawn Corps was a problematic place. In fact, all military units in this era were. Weren’t all soldiers who hadn’t deserted yet just looters and kidnappers anyway?

He also knew that among them, the Dawn Corps was particularly vicious.

Three years ago, the Dawn Corps raided the government’s emergency rice reserves. They looted enough rice to distribute to the entire local population and still have leftovers. People had already gathered there, but the Dawn Corps soldiers fired bullets to drive them away.

Whether they actually shot and killed them or just beat and chased them off probably didn’t make much difference. Once all the reserved rice fell into the hands of a single group, the rest of the people had no choice but to starve to death.

After that, the Dawn Corps continued to go around ‘requisitioning’ from supermarkets, gas stations, and the like. The overflowing rice they didn’t need to farm and the abundant fuel they could wastefully run their vehicles on must have piled up from then on.

Lee Hoon knew that fact well, having once been on the receiving end of such requisitioning, but he still joined their ranks.

He didn’t feel much guilt about belonging to a looter group. After all, he wasn’t the one who directly did the looting. Moreover, the Dawn Corps had started unnecessary fights to protect Korean survivors, hadn’t they?

He thought it was because they had a sort of sense of mission. But now he saw that wasn’t some noble intention.

The Dawn Corps probably thought, while looting like that, that the world would just end like this. So they likely felt relief at having survived this far and didn’t think they’d feel any guilt.

But as a little more time passed, they must have realized the world hadn’t just ended; it had become a nasty fantasy. They must have realized the world would continue, tattered as it was. They must have also realized their misdeeds would be passed down for a long time, and that they might have caused the deaths of people who could have survived in greater numbers.

They needed a way for others and themselves to feel that even they, who had committed unforgivable sins, had some good points. That’s probably why, following Division Commander Kim Jeongtong’s sudden proposal—who had no authority among the soldiers—they decided to fight the Centaurs.

After that, the Dawn Corps began conscripting instead of requisitioning to replenish their forces, but Lee Hoon turned a blind eye. He defended himself and his unit, saying they were committing necessary evils for the sake of Korean survivors.

Now he couldn’t do that anymore. Now that they appeared to be nothing but a band of robbers, the main culprits who got most Koreans killed…

Given the times, even the excuse that all these atrocities were unavoidable no longer resonated.

The face of a young girl surfaced in his mind. In this harsh era, Lieutenant Colonel Lee Hoon had seen a girl like an Angel.

That girl, through her contrasting actions, showed him that the world being terrible didn’t justify acting terribly. He remembered the smile she had shown him, who was nothing but an oppressor…

Somehow, his heart pounded. He tried hard to ignore the reason.

To soothe his chest, he was indulging in the luxury of having a candle lit—a privilege of his rank—and drinking tea.

In the faint light of the candle, he saw something red.A red mist was seeping through the gaps in the tent. Lee Hoon, lost in thought, blinked his eyes. What on earth was that?

It looked like a fog made of blood. He had never seen such a thing directly, but he had heard reports about it somewhere.

‘Oh Haengbok, that orc that transformed when dodging the rocket…’

He wondered if that orc had come for revenge, but that wasn’t it. The blood mist thickened and took on a form that was not an orc.

What appeared in this place was a massive half-human, half-horse.

A centaur clad in splendid red armor looked down at Lee Hoon. Due to the height difference, Lee Hoon had to crane his neck upward to look at that Mongol-like face.

He was so shocked that he couldn’t react at all and just stood there frozen. Belatedly, he tried to scream and call for help from the soldiers around him.

But no voice came out. As a Mage, he instantly realized he was under a Silence Spell. He tried to run, but his body wouldn’t even move.

The giant centaur spoke. His attitude was like appraising livestock.

“Your soul is the largest here. Not large enough, but still the largest.”

Lee Hoon trembled slightly and thought. Soul? He must be talking about Level.

“Therefore, regardless of who the leader of this place is, it seems you are qualified to negotiate with the Golden Clan of the Yeke Kentauri Ulus.”

As Lee Hoon only rolled his eyes, the centaur continued speaking.

“I shall bestow upon you the Goddess’s Grace. I grant you the vacant position of general.”

The sharp fangs flashed within the centaur’s open mouth as he spoke. They were fangs resembling those of beasts, the kind vampires in movies might have.

The Centaur Vampire proposed.

“In return, offer this place’s army to the Great Khan.”

When Seo Yun opened her eyes, what she saw was a bald man and the men lined up around him.

The surrounding scenery had also changed. This place now seemed to be inside a tent with a bonfire lit, not the collapsed ruins she was just in.

Where is this? Who are all these people?

As Seo Yun rolled her eyes, the man who had pinned her down got up. He stood respectfully beside the bald man.

He and the bald man conversed. The bald man, sitting on an expensive-looking sofa, asked.

“Did the Scrolls work well?”

The man who had attacked Seo Yun bowed his head.

“Yes, I used three. Silence, Chase, and Return.”

“Silence and Chase, I can understand, but Return… I mean, I didn’t really think teleportation would work. The performance is definitely good, huh? Even if it was expensive, it seems I bought well. So, you properly brought the Priest girl, right?”

“Yes, as you can see from her looks, there’s no way to mistake her.”

“Yeah, those looks. I caught a glimpse last time, but seeing her up close, she’s just like a pictorial.”

Seo Yun looked at the bald man who seemed to be appraising her appearance. He was someone she had seen before.

She thought his name was Kim Jongil. A Warrior Player who ruled the village next to Happy Village… Then this must be the neighboring village.

Kim Jongil, who had been blankly staring at Seo Yun’s face, spoke.

“Hearth Priest, right?”

Seo Yun quietly got up and, instead of answering, drew her sword. As flames erupted from the sword, Kim Jongil nodded.

“That’s right.”

Kim Jongil continued.

“It’s blinding. Put the sword away while I’m being nice. Just looking at it, if I get stabbed, it’ll hurt like hell and we’ll become enemies right away, and that won’t do. We’re planning to live together from now on, so we need to get along.”