Chapter 143 – The Battle of Yeongji (1)
Sunny sunny day.
My party, Patrick’s party, and Orca came into Daewoo Forest after releasing the barriers we talked about before.
Although the leaves blocked the sunlight, they did not even remove the heat, and we could feel it very well after walking in the woods for hours.
“How much further do you have to go?”
Orca murmured, wiping the sweat from his eyes. I handed her her handkerchief.
“We just need to go a little further. Please cheer up a little.”
“Uh, uh… Yes…”
The annoyance on her face disappeared. She roughly wiped off the sweat with the handkerchief she was handed to her and returned it to me.
There again
I sighed and placed her handkerchief on the orca’s forehead.
“Hey, what are you doing..?”
Embarrassed, Orca pulled her body back. I propped the back of her head with my left hand.
“Please stay still. If you’re going to wipe your sweat, you have to wipe it properly. What’s the tickling thing?”
“I-I’ll do it.”
“It’s okay, so stay still.”
I scrubbed Orca’s face and her neck meticulously. After seeing that she was clean without a single sweat, I took off her handkerchief.
However, Orca snatched her handkerchief with her quick hands.
“Are you Orca?”
“…I’ll wash it and bring it to you.”
She tucked her handkerchief under her robe and left without hearing my answer.
‘Well, it’s strange that I’m taking a sweaty handkerchief.’
Seeing the orca walking ahead of her, she shrugged.
Then someone stabbed me hard with an elbow on my side.
I turned to see Kara puffing out her cheeks with a disgruntled expression.
“Why are you hitting me?”
“I don’t know!”
Joy! Kara snorted her snort and she walked ahead like an orca. Rubbing her throbbing side, he turned to Ceris.
“Seris, Kara, why me…”
Seeing Cersei’s goofy smile, he shut her mouth.
Hmm. I don’t know anything else, but I think I know why he’s doing this.
I pinched her cheek hard.
“Ah, it hurts..!”
* * *
“Please open it.”
Ariel asked the surrounding forest spirits. The spirits obediently accepted the request. The trees that covered the front disappeared, revealing a new landscape that was different from before.
A white temple built in the middle of nature embroidered with greenery.
Orca’s eyes widened.
“It’s a real temple…”
“Then it is real. Did you think I was lying?”
“Oh no, it’s not like that. It’s just… It’s just so amazing…”
Orca couldn’t take her eyes off her temple. She strode over and touched the wall.
It looks like you are just touching it, but if you look closely, you touch it delicately so that there are no traces left on the ruins. Proof that this isn’t the first time she’s been to a place like this.
Deep down, thinking that it was good that she had brought her, she gently tapped her on the shoulder.
“Orca-sama, can you take a look at it later and resolve the barrier first?”
“Oh yeah. Yes. Where is the barrier?”
I took Orca and headed to the innermost room of the temple. After solving the boring riddle carved on the pillar, an entrance leading down appeared.
“…How the hell do you read that?”
“Yes?”
“No, let’s go down. Guide me.”
I led the way, shining forward with my pendant. I didn’t need to be careful because it was the way I had been before. I went straight ahead and quickly reached the front of the barrier.
“This is it.”
I tapped the purple barrier.
“Is that it? Let’s see.”
Orca touched the barrier, tapped it, and held out her hand to me. When I tilted my head, I said while looking at the barrier.
“Dagger.”
“Ah, yes. Here you are.”
She glanced over at the handed dagger and slammed down the barrier with it.
Of course, Orca’s arm bounced off. It hurt quite a bit, so she brushed her wrists.
“Write…”
“That’s what we tried, but it didn’t work. That’s why I brought Orca-sama.”
“I know that much. What you just did was not to break the barrier, but to test something.”
“A test?”
Orca replied, returning her dagger to me.
“Usually, when you give a shock to low-level barriers, a wave-like thing spreads based on the point of impact. The barrier itself is weak, so it disperses the impact to the side.”
“Okay. By the way, there was no such thing as a wave just now, was there?”
“That’s right. So it’s a bit of a headache. All of you are ten steps behind me.”
We retreated from her, following her orca’s words. Moments later, her bluish lightning flashed along with Orca’s murmur.
It was a lightning that was noticeably larger than that of Julius’ ruins.
As she stretched out her hand, her lightning struck the barrier as a spear.
-Pajijijik!
The lightning spear collided with the barrier, emitting an intense impact sound and light. Soon, the lightning spear split into several branches and disappeared.
The barrier was intact, as if it were natural.
“Tsk…”
Orca kicked her tongue out, and this time she unleashed two lightning spears.
But the result is the same.
It didn’t change even if the lightning spears increased to three or four, or even if they shot intense lightning together.
Eventually, to her irritation, Orca snapped at her barrier with her lightning whip. Later, she sighed as she brushed her bangs, as if she was tired of the grass.
She walked up to her with her slinky.
“Isn’t it going well?”
“Huh. It doesn’t even go gold even if I hit it with the strongest output. Thanks to that, it has become very difficult.”
Orca frowned, took her scroll from her sleeve and unfolded it.
“Hold the end here and follow me.”
I grabbed one end of her scroll and followed her to her barrier.
“If you do three, it will be attached to the barrier. One, two, three.”
Me and Orca simultaneously attached the scroll to the barrier. Her loose midsection was propped up with her free hand.
Light began to flow from the side of the scroll that touched the barrier.
“Orca-sama, what is this?”
“It’s a piece of paper engraved with magic. If you apply magic such as barriers or curses here, a spell will appear. Oh, it’s done.”
The light shining from the scroll faded. We put the scroll down carefully so as not to damage it.
The scroll, initially blank and white, had black letters engraved on it.
Orca studied the writing and frowned at her.
Is something wrong?
“What’s wrong?”
“Yes. A very big problem.”
“What is it?”
I asked, slightly nervous. She replied with a serious expression.
“I can’t read.”
“…Yes?”
“Translate it.”
She held out to me the scroll she had placed in her hands.
I looked down at the scroll.
The scroll, about my height, was filled with letters.
“…All of this?”
Orca nodded her head as if it were natural.
Oh shit.
* * *
“Whoa…”
I sighed and put down the pen.
In front of my eyes are two scrolls filled with letters.
One is the scroll from which I read the magic of the barrier, and the other is the one I translated from the ancient elven language.
“Great job.”
Orca, who stayed by her side until the translation was finished, tapped my shoulder.
I turned my tingling wrists and got up.
“I’m going to go get some fresh air.”
“Oh, take a break.”
Leaving Orca reading her scroll, she left the temple.
…It must have been bright until I came in, but why is it dark now?
Had I been copying for half a day?
Even so, you didn’t take off your ass once.
My shoulders drooped, wondering if it had been learned from repeated overtime work in the past.
I took a short walk in front of the temple to relieve my stiff body.
‘The scenery is always nice.’
The wide-spread lawn, the river surrounding the temple, and even the bridge over it. It seems to be the best example of harmonious harmony between man-made architecture and nature.
But now there was an impurity in the harmony.
‘Belita?’
Belita stood in the middle of the bridge. Leaning on a railing under the moonlight, showing off her long stature, looked like a pictorial.
‘If it was Earth, I could have modeled it.’
I walked over to her, thinking her silly thoughts. She stood next to her and leaned against the railing in the same way.
Said to Belita.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“So so. You?”
Belita answered without taking her eyes off the night sky.
“I thought I would fall behind, but it got better because I was treated. She didn’t call heel a miracle for nothing.”
“Okay? I’m glad.”
There was no conversation for a while after that. It was an awkward, comfortable silence. I, like her, stared blankly at her night sky.
The stars in the sky were so pretty.
“What was that fire then?”
Melting into the atmosphere, he asked quietly.
Belita took her pipe from her bosom and placed it in her mouth. She lit her cigarette with the fire rising from her fingertips as if she didn’t have to hide anymore.
She said, exhaling smoke.
“It is better not to know. There is nothing good to know.”
“I see.”
Don’t tell me
After that, I didn’t ask further.
Because everyone has a secret that they can’t tell anyone else.
If you try to dig, you will only get further away from each other.
She reached out and took Belita’s cigarette. She frowned as if asking what Belita was doing.
“I only have one pizza.”
She put a cigarette in her mouth and inhaled the smoke from her. Smoke from her cigarette passed through her airway and touched her lungs. It wasn’t as hot as last time, but…
“It tastes like shit.”
I couldn’t find the ‘cool’ feeling commonly referred to by smokers.
Belita clicked her tongue and took her cigarette away again.
“What would a kid who doesn’t even know the taste of cigarettes smoke…”
Then she puts the cigarette back into her mouth. Without even wiping her mouth.
Is he not aware of that?
“Hey.”
“What else?”
“It’s a bit out of the blue… But when I passed out in the dungeon, I was conscious for a moment, right?”
“…”
“So I’m asking, was this your first time?”
At my question, Belita turned her head and stared straight at the flowing river.
“…Shut up, you asshole.”
In the moonlight, her face was slightly red.
* * *
“Is that so… Did it end up like that…”
After Klener, the artist’s eldest daughter, Karen von Klener, touched her forehead with a sigh.
A vassal reports that mercenaries are being recruited in Bahran.
Despite her persuasion, she meant to cause Yeongjijeon.
Her head was pounding and aching.
‘Ban Reed… Are you sure you come out like that…’
How hard she tried to prevent Young Ji-min’s meaningless death.
What the eldest son of Count Marnix, Van Reed Marnix, did was to trample on her efforts.
Of course, Banreed must have had his own thoughts.
It was to show her majestic appearance to the saintess of Eurmia who was visiting nearby.
Like putting on a show for the coronation ceremony that’s only a few years away.
Or to kill Karen’s spirit, her future wife.
However, all of those reasons were just not the same for Karen, her and her.
“Zod, tell the magistrate to recruit mercenaries in preparation for the territory battle. Thoroughly with outside personnel without local residents. If it’s not enough, put something in the adventurer’s guild.”
“All right. Do you intend to go to Yeongjijeon by yourself?”
“Sounds natural.”
Karen drew the sword that was propped up next to her chair.
The silvery glow of her well-forged sword was as sharp as hers.
