A thin smoke rose lonely over the cold and extinguished bonfire.
Ruon stepped on the faintly sparkling embers and lightly shook the two quiet sleeping bags with his hands.
Soon, Kyle and Amella, who showed their faces quickly from inside the sleeping bags, got up with their eyes forced open.
The three of them didn’t have much conversation while cleaning up the campsite.
Ruon rolled up the sleeping bags and tied them with a string and hung them next to the backpack. He suddenly lifted his head.
His amazing gaze reached the outer wall of the city that faintly appeared beyond the horizon.
When he raised his concentration there, his sight blurred for a moment and then suddenly expanded, as if he had brought his eyes to a microscope, and the wall enlarged.
The peeled-off outer wall, the shabby watchtower, and the face of an unknown soldier who yawned.
Ruon, who was rather surprised by the clear scenery, closed his eyes tightly and shook his head vigorously.
Then Amella, who had been feeding sugar-coated carrots to Kaliban and other horses before departure, opened her eyes wide.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“···I can see much better than I expected.”
“What?”
Ruon didn’t answer any more and pressed his palm on his sore eyes. He couldn’t say he was an ordinary person anymore.
Was it because he engraved his name in the sky? Or was it because he had achieved two level-ups by knocking down the chief and the god tree in succession?
Maybe both.
He decided not to worry about his grown physical abilities anymore.
In a world where experience and titles exist, growing continuously was a natural phenomenon, like breathing.
He shrugged his shoulders at Amella, who was still looking at him with a worried look, and climbed on Kaliban’s back.
“Let’s go.”
With a short word, he lightly tapped the black horse’s flank with his ankle, and the guy neighed loudly and started to move his feet.
***
Around noon, when the sun was overhead. The party arrived at the gate of Dumpres.
They ran at a controlled speed for stamina, and it was the fourth day today.
Ruon, who got off the horse and walked ahead, heard someone shout loudly.
“Stop!”
A soldier who looked like a guard came dragging his feet from the direction where the sound came from and blocked the party. And he didn’t say anything.
What?
Ruon stared at the soldier in disbelief, and suddenly he started to rant. But the following words were strange.
“What? Who are you to look at me like that?”
The soldier made a sullen expression and spat on the ground. The yellowish liquid that splashed from his widely opened front teeth hit the ground and made a disgusting bubble.
“···Ruon.”
Did Ruon’s eyes, which sank down, draw the scene of the soldier’s bones breaking? Kyle lightly grabbed Ruon’s arm and muttered.
Ruon didn’t think so, though.
He said.
“Did you forget that you told me to stop?”
At his words, the guard’s eyes widened. Like a person who belatedly remembered a forgotten fact. And the pupil that expanded one beat late was strangely alien.
“···Right. I told you to stop. Why did I do that? Ah, inspection, I have to inspect···”
The guard, who was mumbling to himself, chuckled and added.
“But I don’t want to. It’s annoying. Just go ahead.”
He moved his feet as if he was joking and leaned against the wall and sat down weakly.
Kyle frowned at the incomprehensible behavior.
“···What. Like a madman.”
“I think he’s right. He seems to be addicted to something.”
Ruon answered like that, and Amella, who had been silent, looked back and forth at the saliva on the ground and the soldier’s face that kept swallowing.
“It’s drugs. It makes you numb and forces you to stay in a dreamy state.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve tried it before.”
Amella ran into the gate as soon as she finished speaking. Ruon, who entered the city ahead of her, saw the ruined cityscape in his eyes.
The collapsed stalls and overturned tables, the scattered various items, and the people who whimpered like invertebrates.
He couldn’t even guess what had happened in the scene that was hard to understand, and Kyle frowned.
“How does the world work?”
He moved his feet unconsciously and kicked something. He realized that the thing that rolled away was a bright red apple and looked around.
“The fruits are not rotten and fine? Maybe there was a market recently.”
“Yeah. I think so.”
The city streets filled with sprawled people were not an environment to ride a horse, so the party immediately tied up the two horses except Kaliban nearby.
***
The beasts seemed frightened to be left in such a place, snorting anxiously, but they quieted down quickly when the dark mage stamped the ground irritably.
“Run to us if there’s any trouble while you’re waiting. You can do that, right?”
At Luon’s question, Caliban nodded vigorously, as if to say it was obvious.
Just then.
With a surge of heat, flames shot high into the sky in the distance. Amela, watching the blazing pillar of fire, said,
“It’s coming from the orphanage. Let’s hurry.”
As we leaped over obstacles on the ground, I asked,
“What kind of drug is it?”
Dodging the hand of a middle-aged man trying to grab her ankle, Amela replied,
“It’s a special herb grown with spells. Quen made it.”
She glanced at the drooling man for a moment before turning away and adding,
“It’s useless just by taking it, but when exposed to a certain spell, it induces a temporary state of awakening. It’s used to greatly increase magical achievements. It saves time but puts a lot of strain on the mind.”
Why would the townspeople consume it?
The question rose in my mind, but knowing Amela wouldn’t have the answer, I focused on running.
After passing through a narrow alley, we saw a large iron gate and the figure of a gaunt man standing in front of it.
Watching the fire with sunken eyes, he spoke as he saw us approaching.
“…Amela? I heard you were dead.”
Amela strode forward and said,
“Gonzalo. Why did you feed the people of the city Skar? You know what happens when those who don’t know the spell take it!”
The man called Gonzalo, with a foreign-sounding name, looked at us with a stony face and answered,
“It was my father’s command. He said there are talented ones even among the wretched, and we should weed them out. Like us.”
He sighed as he watched the still-raging fire and waved his hand.
Like a lie, the flames died down.
On the scorched ground lay a charred body, no taller than my waist.
Kyle gripped the handle of his hammer, growling,
“That bastard… to a child!”
Gonzalo defended himself with the only plump part of his body, his lips,
“You misunderstand. This child burned himself, unable to control his overly expanded consciousness. It’s a regrettable case. It’s very difficult to find those with magical talent in this wretched city.”
Kyle shouted,
“You call that an excuse!”
With a roar, white lightning shot from his hammer like an arrow.
After a tremendous explosion and a cloud of dust, Gonzalo stood protected by layers of transparent shields, crinkling his nose.
“I indulged in conversation because I missed my sister and you showed up. But this is uneducated behavior.”
Then Amela spoke,
“The orphanage… no, Quen treated children with magical talent like animals but at least didn’t harm innocent people. Of course, that was to blend in with the city.”
She slowly raised her hand, aiming at Gonzalo, and demanded,
“Answer me straight. Why did you do this to a perfectly fine city?”
Gonzalo shook his head,
“Have you become stupid in my absence? I told you, we were trying to weed out the talented ones among the wretched. And that was my father’s command.”
“Madmen.”
With a short reply, an invisible force from Amela’s palm struck Gonzalo’s shield with the speed of a hare.
The force was so immense that the iron fence behind the orphanage began to crumple as if screaming.
Yet, Gonzalo spoke leisurely amidst the onslaught,
“My father thinks you’re dead for some reason. I’m glad. I can kill you here without any problem!”
He raised his arms as if celebrating, and several bodies on the ground began to rise.
Having fought resurrected corpses too often, I calmly drew my sword, then suddenly turned my head, feeling a strange sensation.
Boom!
The force that grazed my ear collapsed the building behind me. The direction from which the power came was an old man pointing his finger, his eyes turned white and eerie.
As spells flew at us from all directions like a barrage, Kyle quickly pulled out the Spellbreaker and effectively blocked the continuous barrage of spells, though the overlapping shockwaves pushed him back.
Amela, too, struggled to maintain focus in such a situation, retracting the force pushing Gonzalo and protecting herself.
“Ah… Ah… Aaah.”
Seeing the old man continuously throwing lightning bolts as thick as forearms and blood pouring like a waterfall from his eyes, nose, mouth, and even ears, Kyle yelled.
***
“Are those people still alive?”
Amela answered, as she extinguished the lightning that flew at her with a spell.
“Yes. They are pushing themselves to the limit, like wringing out a wet cloth. They will eventually go berserk and die.”
Gonsalo laughed and said.
“They are ignorant fools who lived their whole lives without knowing their own talents! They are burning themselves in the last moment, like martyrs, even though they didn’t know they were the chosen ones of the spell!”
He shouted, spreading his palms wide towards the sky. Soon, a sinister power began to swell above his hand.
He looked at Amela and said.
“I never understood it. Why did father cherish that failure so much, who always whined and clung to Rozelin’s bosom?”
As soon as he finished his words, Gonsalo threw a soccer ball-sized crimson sphere, but at that moment, a terrifying shockwave burst from the compressed air, and Ruon flew at him like a cannonball, hitting his shoulder.
“···Ugh!”
Gonsalo had endured Kyle’s lightning and Amela’s invisible force, but this time, he flew like he had collided with a dump truck, breaking the wall covered with thorny vines and falling to the ground with a thud.
“Inom-!”
Suppressing the dizzying pain that rose from his waist, Gonsalo threw the sphere in his hand at Ruon.
Ruon dodged the projectile that flew like a dart with a slight tilt of his head, but the projectile turned in the air as if it were alive, and hit his back, exploding.
──!
The space was distorted by the explosion, and the air that was pushed out by the vacuum rushed back in.
For a brief moment.
Gonsalo, who had summoned five layers of shields to protect his body from the aftermath of the shock, glared at the dusty front and chuckled.
“You’re such a brute. How low can you stoop to use such a dirty trick. That’s why you won’t leave a trace-”
He couldn’t finish his rant. A red disc flew from the front, tearing through the stacked shields and leaving a red line on his neck.
His head began to split, unable to bear the weight, and he clenched his eyes in pain. He saw a warrior walking through the fog, approaching him.
-Ow! Throw me gently!-
The ego sword, which had only the handle left and was stuck deep in the ground, complained. Ignoring the sound, Ruon walked up to the writhing mage and lifted his foot.
Gonsalo squeezed out a voice that didn’t come out of his mouth, looking at the black shadow looming over his head.
“···Your···father···wait···”
Bang!
Ruon stomped his foot without waiting for the rest of his words, rubbing his shoe that was stuck with flesh and bone fragments on the ground.
“One down.”
