Episode 15
#15. The Golden Chariot of the Demon Lord (4)
They may have been embarrassed, but they were not despairing..
High-ranking knights also train assuming battles with wizards..
There were as many experiences with actual barriers as there were during training..
Therefore, everyone basically knew how to break the barrier..
In that way, each day passed, a week passed, and a month passed..
“…….”
“…….”
But the barrier has not been broken yet..
“How on earth did this barrier come to be??”
“It is a barrier where space and time are distorted and twisted..”
“Spreading this barrier this wide for this long? It's not an ordinary wizard's work.…….”
The way to break the barrier is simple..
The goal is to find subtle gaps between reality and the barrier by moving around the barrier as much as possible..
Then, you can widen the gap between reality and the barrier by giving mana to the gap, and then cut the gap with a sword covered in aura..
But no matter how much I looked around, I couldn't find the gap..
The reason I couldn't feel the gap was simple. It was because the barrier was too wide..
“This is a big deal. food…….”
I don't know how much time has passed in the outside world, but for Arina and the knights inside right now, the time has passed quickly and long..
The biggest problem was that food was running low even though we tried to save as much as possible..
But their suffering is not over yet.
There's a basement underneath the floor.
Heeeeeee… … . dump!
One day, all of a sudden, the special horses they were riding collapsed at the same time..
“It's a curse, it's a curse!”
“how?!”
A world without monsters, people, and most of all, the fruits of the common trees..
The horses survived by eating weeds and snow growing in the snowy fields..
Even though they were clearly in a better situation than people, the horses collapsed..
“It looks like it was probably done by warlocks..”
“Aren’t we in danger too??”
“We are superhumans who are highly skilled in mana and swords. If the curse was bad enough to poison us, they would have had to show up too..”
“Umm… … . The type of curse is?”
“It's like a plague curse. It must have been painful, but at least give it a try... … . They are like foolish and faithful friends..”
Knight Doyle checked the horse's body and reported with a sad expression..
“bury the words.”
Arina and the knights who received Doyle's report closed their eyes with miserable faces..
“And just in case… … . From now on, I won't just eat snow. Always boil and eat.”
Another obstacle struck Arina and the knights..
“Is it possible to eat these fallen horses??”
The knights, exhausted from hunger, mourned the sudden death of their friend and looked at the corpses of their horses with complicated eyes..
“I was cursed with a plague. If we eat this, we too will die the same way..”
“More nutrients will pour out of your mouth and back than the meat you put in your mouth..”
“shit…….”
In the end, no one ate horse meat.
They had no choice but to sadly dig up the ground and bury their close friend..
After losing their horses, Arina and the knights had to find a gap in the barrier on their own two legs..
“Damn it! It wouldn't be unfair if I had died fighting.!”
Their patience has now reached its limit..
For the knights who considered dying while fighting on the battlefield the most honorable thing, the current situation was no ordinary insult..
“Come out, you disgusting warlock! Let’s stick together proudly!”
Kuoooooo!
Did you even hear the cries of Arina and the knights??
Monsters began to appear in front of them, who were exhausted from hunger and had even lost their horses. As if I had been waiting.
“It's an undead monster.!”
“Everyone raise your sword!”
“Find the necromancer controlling them! You have to catch him to escape the barrier.!”
The monsters that finally showed up were the undead type that Doyle had been talking about..
Unlike regular monsters, all limbs, tail, wings, tentacles, head, etc. must be cut into pieces to render it incapable of combat..
Types that consume the most stamina in hunting.
Arina and the knights, who were already at low health, faced such monsters..
Seogeeokeuk-. Flash! Paaaaat
But it wasn't called the northern strongest fighting force for nothing..
The attack by countless undead monsters resulted in the knights' victory. every time.
“How dare you target us with these smelly monsters and zombies?!”
Arina and the high-ranking knights of the High Castle were all monsters..
Even with almost depleted stamina, I hunted over 500 monsters..
Even these monsters are all monsters that can only be found in the abyss of the Demon World..
Although they became undead and lost the agility they had when alive, they were undead who gained a strong body..
“Come! these damn things!”
“Lancelet! Rune Lancelet!”
I defeated that group of dead people..
I could see why Arina and the knights were so confident before leaving Haven..
“There's no end, no end…….”
However, this momentum could not last forever.
The fight continued, and the barrier was not broken..
Food has long since run out..
The knights' stamina and vitality are gradually depleted..
“we… … . Will I be able to come back alive??”
“Arad… … . I want to eat Haven's arad stew before I die..”
The initial confidence has faded like a gray snow field..
I fell into a state of semi-panic due to long hunger and wandering in the barrier..
“I wish I could at least sleep comfortably.”
“Would it be easier if I died like this? Or will I become undead and not even be able to rest??”
And now I can't even sleep properly.
Whenever I tried to sleep for a little while, monsters came as if they were waiting for me..
No matter how cold-resistant and resilient northerners are, there are limits..
“This is a big deal. Weapons and armor……!”
“Sharpening does not slow down corrosion!”
What was even worse was the rate at which their armor and sword, their last bastion of protection, were corroding..
While fighting against undead monsters, their weapons corroded without their knowledge, and this reduced their combat performance, which was already close to zero, to a minus..
* * *
In front of the bonfire.
Arina, haggard and exhausted, sat blankly and looked at her sword..
It was a famous sword made from Northern Hancheol, but now it was so worn out that it looked like scrap metal..
‘At this rate, the next battle will have to be fought with bare fists.…….’
The sword that could break at any moment looked like it was in his own hands..
Growling
Her stomach made a sound like it was shrinking..
4My stomach, which had not eaten anything for a day, was so painful that it was beyond hunger..
To forget the hunger just a little bit, I scooped up water on the bonfire..
‘This Arad salt is also running out..’
After opening the water, she took a pinch of Arad salt from her luxurious leather pouch and added it to the water..
The salty, warm water soaked and filled her parched lips, tongue, and stomach..
“…….”
“…….”
Around her, knights with similar or even haggard looks were sitting blankly..
Everyone was so tired and worn out that they didn't even have the energy left to speak..
‘hmm……?’
That was right then..
Something caught her senses, which had become extremely sensitive due to being hungry and not sleeping well..
A figure of some kind approaches from a distance..
Arina gazed in the direction from which she felt with the advanced eyesight of a sword master..
‘carriage… … ? In this magic scene?’
I saw a golden carriage slowly approaching here..
‘Now I keep doing it and seeing it all in vain..’
She laughed and shook her head, then closed her eyes and opened them again..
But the golden chariot was still far away like a mirage..
So this time I rubbed my eyes.
As if that wasn't enough, I even washed my face with snow..
“……?”
But still the golden chariot was approaching here..
Jump up
Jump up
Then, other knights around started to stand up..
They also seem to have realized that what they saw was not in vain..
* * *
The golden carriage I was driving stopped in front of the gray snowy field without being attacked once, perhaps thanks to its luck stat..
For reference, you may be wondering if it would be okay to cover this golden chariot with cloth or something, but at least in the magic world, it was right to walk around alive..
Because it makes no sense for horse-drawn carriages to travel in the horse world in the first place..
Since it would look strange anyway, it was better to at least pretend to be strong by going proudly in a golden carriage..
Anyway, we finally arrived in front of the abyss of the magic world..
The gray snow fields clearly marked a dividing line like a border..
‘It's probably not too late?’
The Archduke and his knights were sent first, and they were scheduled to meet again in almost 15 days..
“Umm…….”
And in this meeting place I sensed a clear vision.
‘The compass says that there are archdukes and knights within 500m. But I can't even see a trace.’
A gaping gray abyss.
Kuoooooo-
Kiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-
High-ranking monsters are heard from all over the place..
But Arina and the knights can't see a single hair..
‘no way?’
Suddenly a thought occurred to me and I brought something from the carriage..
It was a magic stone that looked like a fist-sized ball, and it merged with the compass he was holding..
Bleep
Then, along with a bird's cry, something like a laser appeared and pointed somewhere..
‘As expected, it was a barrier. That's also a barrier that cost a lot of money.’
I had a feeling that there were archdukes and knights inside that barrier..
Sssssssut
Sussssuk
“?!”
It was then.
I detected signs of popularity, including living around me..
A vivid sense of living that I, a non-combat person, can clearly feel..
‘It's not a monster! is human!’
That life was different from the monster's rough peers..
If it had bloomed enough to penetrate the energy of the golden carriage in the first place, my horses, who are protected by the carriage, would have been extremely excited..
This life belonged to humans, not monsters..
More importantly, he was never targeting me with good intentions..
pabababat
About a minute passed? A group of about 10 people could be seen approaching quickly from the gray ground in the distance..
Although he was not riding a horse, he ran faster than most horses..
‘This is a top-notch adventurer’s party! It's also of poor quality!’
I don't know if they were northern adventurers or imperial adventurers, but judging from the atmosphere they gave off, their intentions were impure..
Slap, Chuck
I took the magic crossbow and magic bullets..
At the same time, the carriage moved and the distance increased little by little..
‘10Four of them are floating by magic and are moving around. Even if you can’t do it, at least 4 circles. The remaining 6 people are at least Class A mercenaries! It seems like a very dark abyss, so there are groups of superhumans that are hard to find even in Haven..’
Did you say that highly developed eye scans can surpass scouts??
‘If you fight, you lose 100%!’
After estimating the opponent's combat power through eye scanning, another passive skill in this body, I came to the conclusion that this fight should be avoided at all costs..
‘Maybe he was behind that barrier.!’
In this situation, if I want to save my life and protect my golden carriage, which is my entire possession, I must bring a reliable ally..
“let's go!”
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I drove the golden carriage and dived into the barrier indicated by the compass..
* * *
“this… … . If I had been a little late, I would have been in big trouble.……?”
What I said just now was not directed at me, who entered the barrier as if I was being chased, but was said to the six people on the other side who were trapped in the barrier first..
‘Did the Grand Duke and high-ranking knights of the original history disappear because of this barrier? In fact, it would be accurate to say that he died of starvation..’
As soon as I entered the barrier, what I saw was the same magical scene as outside the barrier, and the surroundings were extremely quiet..
And there were six knights looking at me blankly from afar, looking like beggars..
‘What kind of vain ending is this??’
After briefly recalling the history of the Silver Age 1, I approached the bonfire while driving a golden chariot..
‘It seems like it's been quite a while since everyone starved. After restoring your energy with a light stew, I'll serve you some proper food..’
As I approached, I thought of my own prescription..
‘But considering I haven't seen him for only about 15 days, things look really bad.?’
The closer I got, the more miserable I saw of them, and I started thinking about this and that..
‘Is it a barrier where space and time flows differently from the outside? Who on earth created this high-dimensional barrier? If it's this much money, then of course…….’
These thoughts of mine did not last long..
Because while I was making various guesses, my golden chariot arrived before the knights..
“Woah, it wasn't an illusion!”
“thank you god!”
“Lancelet! Rune Lancelet!”
When we could see each other's expressions like that,.
The knights seem to have finally become convinced that me and the golden carriage were not some kind of mirage..
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