Chapter 108 – In Search of the Holy Sword (2)

“I’m home.”

Karin walked into the house.

“Welcome back, my lady.”

The blond-haired knight, Lee Jeon-guk, greeted Karin.

Seeing the rubber gloves on his hands, he appeared to have been washing the dishes.

“You need to eat, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Karin took off her bag and looked around as she headed to her room.

As expected, he wasn’t back yet.

Of course, there was no way he’d be back in just one day.

Karin went into her room and changed her clothes.

At first, she had asked to go with him.

But Ajeossi hadn’t taken her.

‘Just how long does he think I need to be protected?’

Karin bit her lip in frustration.

A saintess with the power of a priest.

She was the one who possessed the greatest power against the immortal Demon King.

The threat would be greatly reduced if he took her along, so she didn’t like that he had left her here.

As if that wasn’t enough, he had even spoken to Im Jae-joon to arrange for people to guard the house and protect her.

“Lee Ja-rang, is school fun?”

Lee Ja-rang had started attending school with Karin.

His actual age was eighteen by Korean standards.

Though of course, no one who saw him for the first time believed it.

“Lee Ja-rang likes school. They give food. Friends ask if I have money. They worry about Lee Ja-rang’s financial management.”

“Is that really financial management?”

“Lee Jeon-guk is stupid. This country has a ‘friend fee.’ You still haven’t adapted to this world. I am very surprised, and thrilled.”

Paying no mind to Jeon-guk and Ja-rang’s bickering, Karin washed up and came out.

When she came out of the shower, the meal was already prepared.

Karin sat at the table and looked at the side dishes.

Kimchi stew.

The food Ajeossi had cooked for her before he left.

Karin shoved a large mouthful of white rice into her mouth and slurped down the stew.

It was tasteless.

It was definitely delicious before, but now it had no taste.

“My lady, have you lost your appetite?”

Lee Jeon-guk asked Karin.

It was probably because her expression had been grim ever since the Hero left.

“My lady ate ten hamburgers at school. And three packs of ramen…”

Karin completely ignored Lee Ja-rang’s words and hardened her expression again.

She had no appetite.

“My lady, for you to say you have no appetite now…”

Lee Jeon-guk’s words didn’t reach her ears either.

For some reason, she felt anxious.

As if Ajeossi might not be able to come back.

If a new Demon King was indeed conquering dimensions, it was clear that this one would eventually face a crisis too.

In that case, the Holy Sword was crucial for the Hero.

She knew that, but her heart felt heavy.

‘You have to come back soon, Ajeossi.’

He was someone who had always been with her for some time now. Someone who was now like family. She felt lonely after not seeing him for just a few days.

***

“Damn it.”

The teenage boy felt a curse escape his lips as he looked at the rationed bread.

He didn’t even dream of luxurious food like meat. He just wished for something decent to eat.

Of course, the boy’s hands were clutching two loaves of bread.

“Can you even call this bread?”

It was as hard as a rock.

Hard enough to kill someone if you threw it at their head.

To eat this, you had to boil it in soup to soften it as much as possible.

Because trying to eat it raw would surely break your teeth.

“Theo, if you don’t want to eat it, just give it to me.”

“We’re dying because we don’t even have that.”

The boy called Theo clutched the bread tightly, as if afraid his friends would snatch it away.

Seeing this, his friends laughed even harder.

Of course, they were just joking, but one wrong move and it might not end as a joke.

Food in the city was scarce.

The only silver lining was that food was still being distributed to the city’s residents.

That alone was something to be relieved about.

The boy looked up at the sky as he walked.

A world where dark, black clouds always hung overhead.

To the boy, this scenery was normal.

They said that in the past, you could surprisingly see a clear sky.

The boy didn’t like hearing that.

Those stories about how things were in the past.

“Mom.”

Returning home from the distribution center, the boy saw his mother kneeling and praying in a corner.

She was always like that.

“Please, save this world. Under the Hero’s blade, please grant us peace.”

This was the reason the boy had come to hate stories of the past.

The Hero.

A savior who supposedly appeared from another dimension, blessed with the system’s benefits, to save this world.

The boy used to think they really could do it.

But he gave up that thought when the tenth Hero was defeated by the Demon King.

A Hero being defeated by the Demon King was one thing.

But this Hero was deceived by the Demon King’s sweet words and turned into an enemy of humanity.

The traitor came to lead an army of the undead.

After that, people no longer trusted the Heroes.

Cursed Heroes who, despite receiving the goddess’s blessing, turned their blades against humanity.

The continent was devastated because of them.

“Oh, Hero, please help this world.”

“Stop looking for some damn Hero. I’ll heat up the leftover stew.”

Despite her son’s words, his mother remained absorbed in her prayer.

It wasn’t just the boy’s mother.

Praying had become the only thing humanity could do.

In the past, they said, there was a first Hero.

That first Hero, Vin, supposedly defeated the Demon King in just one year.

They say he went on to bring peace to the continent.

‘Bullshit.’

As if someone would come to another world and be that meddlesome.

The story of such a great person saving this world and returning to where he came from had become a legend.

People said.

That if the first Hero were here, he might have defeated the Demon King’s army.

But the boy didn’t believe it.

Seeing what the other Heroes had done, it was obvious the first Hero would have been more or less the same.

The Seven Kingdoms had been defeated by the Demon King’s army. There wasn’t much land left for humans to live on.

The seven cities blessed by the goddess. Only there could humans live like humans.

But there was no telling how long that would last.

The power of a god comes from humans.

Because when humans believe in and worship a god, their recognition is converted into power.

Much of humanity had been massacred by the Demon King.

In other words, the goddess’s power had weakened.

The goddess’s remaining blessing was gradually being depleted, and it could one day disappear.

The boy put the bread into the stew and stirred.

He could see the rock-hard bread slowly getting soggy as it soaked in the stew.

Though it was tasteless bread, the sight of it dissolving into the stew made his mouth water unconsciously.

“Mom, eat.”

“Okay…”

He saw his frail mother look at him with a haggard face and smile.

The boy gave his mother her bowl and then frantically finished his meal.

*Slurp.*

The hot food going down his throat made him feel alive.

They said the corrupted Hero’s legion had recently come to the vicinity of the goddess’s city.

Before, they hadn’t even dared to try and conquer the goddess’s city, but with the recent weakening of her blessing, they were now able to approach its borders.

Because of that, the people of the city were extremely anxious.

Of course, the city’s lord had offered firm words of hope, saying that the enemy would never invade this last bastion of humanity.

Walls that monsters could not easily cross. And gates that no evil could touch.

This was an inviolable zone that monsters could not approach.

Everyone surviving in this blessed city.

It wasn’t just the boy; many people thought that way.

That irresponsible hope that someday, a glimmer of light might shine for humanity.

*Swoosh!*

A corpse flew from a distance.

*Splat!*

Upon hitting the wall imbued with the goddess’s blessing, the corpse burst like a tomato and slid down.

“Ah, those bastards.”

“Fucking disgusting. Of all the times to be on guard duty.”

The guards were watching the monsters’ demonstration from beyond the walls.

The ninth Hero, Teilder.

He had been a famous knight of the Aitesos Kingdom.

“Fuck, no matter what, I’d rather not become a monster like that.”

The ‘former’ Hero, clad in armor that seemed to radiate a gloomy aura, was attempting a siege.

“Let them throw all they want. It’s not like we’re going to go out there.”

The guard scoffed at the former Hero, Teilder.

Beyond the wall, a dense army of ten thousand undead was roaring as if begging to have their hunger sated.

A spectacle, if you could call it that.

A horrifying sight, however.

They always attempted a siege like this, then retreated, only to try again a month later.

Everyone had come to think of it as just a routine occurrence.

That they would eventually give up, and another identical day would follow.

Early evening.

It was when the sun was just beginning to dip its head.

A few men exchanged glances.

“Damn it. It’s real, right?”

a man said, his voice trembling with anxiety.

“They’re the enemy, but they keep their promises. Look at the other Heroes. They all joined the Demon King’s army and are living in luxury.”

As the men said, joining the Demon King’s army was one option.

There were cities where humans lived, even without the goddess’s blessing.

Of course, they weren’t the same as traditional human cities.

Just as the people here lived in hiding in a safe place, those people lived as slaves.

“It’s better than slowly dying here.”

The people who had gathered in the early evening had been given a chance.

It was the chance to throw open the gates of this godforsaken city.

In truth, the city’s situation was not good.

Food was one issue, but the population had also reached a saturation point thanks to the influx of people from ruined regions.

What frightened people most of all was…

…that the goddess’s blessing was steadily weakening.

No one had officially announced it, but everyone already knew, one way or another.

At first, the Demon King’s army couldn’t even get close to the city.

But gradually, the Demon King’s army was able to draw nearer.

In other words, the barrier’s power was weakening.

Now, those bastards were even flinging corpses with siege engines.

This city had no dreams or hope anyway.

Those who had been given this chance were tired of living each day in fear.

They wouldn’t have to subsist on rock-hard bread anymore.

From what they’d heard, the administrators of the slave cities subservient to the Demon King’s army were living quite well.

“Let’s go.”

“Let’s just do it. We’ll die if we stay here anyway.”

They decided to lower the gate’s drawbridge tonight.

If there were no dreams or hope, they just had to grab a new lifeline.

***

The sun had now set, and darkness slowly enveloped the city.

Not that it mattered, since dark clouds covered the sky even during the day.

“Those monster bastards are finally quiet.”

The guard watching the gate was exhausted from the monsters’ nauseating antics all day.

He was just thinking he’d like to be off duty for a while.

“It’s not time for the shift change yet. Why are you here already?”

His colleagues were coming up for the shift change.

He was so happy to be relieved from his tedious duty that he didn’t notice his colleagues’ expressions were different from usual.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

the guard asked, puzzled.

*Thrust.*

Something pierced his abdomen.

The guard looked down.

His colleague had stabbed him in the stomach with a dagger. The sensation was so surreal that his scream came out a moment later.

However, he didn’t even have the freedom to do that.

Because his colleague clamped a hand over his mouth.

As he was dying, he looked around. His other fellow guards were there.

But there was no one who could help him.

The guards were being murdered almost simultaneously.

Betrayal.

He closed his eyes as that thought came to him.

*Huu, huuk.*

There was something he felt even before the guilt of having just murdered his colleague.

There was no turning back now.

For their own glory, the city’s traitors began to open the gate that had been sealed by the blessing.

Just then, a passerby happened to witness the scene.

*Creeak, creeeak.*

As the drawbridge suddenly began to move, the passerby looked at the guards in shock.

The passerby—no, the boy, Theo—doubted his own eyes.

“W-What are you doing…”

If they lower the gate, the enemy can get inside.

It was literally no different from lowering the blessing itself.

“Raise it… You have to raise it…”

The boy, seeing the surreal situation, couldn’t scream and only muttered.

“You crazy bastards!”

Just then, other guards realized what was happening.

They saw their dead colleagues around them.

They tried to stop it, but it was already too late.

*Creeeak, thud!*

The drawbridge was down.

“S-Stop.”

Monsters scattering ominous glints from their eyes in the darkness.

“R-Raise it. N-No…”

The boy, muttering weakly, trembled in terror.

He regretted cursing the hard bread for being tasteless.

He regretted thinking he hated the sight of his weak mother who did nothing but pray to the Hero.

He saw a black horse snort as it entered.

A man in black armor, entering the city with far too much ease.

He raised his sword.

The demonic energy flowing from the cursed sword was visible even to the boy’s eyes.

He had to run, but his feet wouldn’t listen.

The boy shook his head, tears streaming down his face.

He thought he knew who it was.

The traitor to humanity.

Sir Teilder, the ninth Hero and a commander in the Demon King’s army.

Behind the Hero who had abandoned humanity, an army of black monsters began to swarm in, as if singing of the feast to come.