Chapter 125

The young generation who hadn’t experienced war and the players, outsiders who had crossed dimensions, couldn’t fully grasp it, but the scars left by the Second Species War were scattered all across the Ardina Continent.

It was only natural.

It had been less than fifty years since the war had ended.

Even though direct combat had decreased significantly in the final stages of the long war, due to the involvement of the Sacred Kingdom and the exhaustion from the prolonged conflict, no one remembered those times fondly.

For this reason, aside from a few cases like the Sacred Kingdom, there were hardly any people who liked the Demonic Race.

One such person was the young man guarding the entrance of a moderately-sized village called Katlan.

The young man, who had just turned twenty this year, had not experienced the Species War.

But he had heard about how things were back then so many times that his ears could bleed.

“Jack.”

At the sound of someone calling his name, the young man, Jack, sighed and turned around.

It was a familiar voice, but not one he was particularly happy to hear.

“Sigh… I keep telling you, it’s dangerous here. You shouldn’t come.”

As Jack expected, the person speaking to him was someone he knew.

An old man with a cane, used to support his unsteady legs.

The old man, tapping his bent back, glared with bulging eyes.

“What? Dangerous? You fool, back when I was young, I went through much worse than this!”

Jack let out another sigh.

It was already his second one.

Jack could easily predict what the old man would say next.

‘Do you know how my leg ended up like this?’

“Do you know how my leg ended up like this? It’s a glorious scar from fighting desperately against the monsters that invaded the village!”

‘Three days without sleep, battling nonstop…’

“Back in my day, the Demonic Race attacked so often that we had to fight for three days straight without a wink of sleep!”

“Yes, yes, I get it. Now please, just go back home.”

“Kids these days, getting scared of a few monsters… Tsk!”

Jack had heard the story so many times that he could recite it himself.

If you only listened to his words, the old man sounded like a war hero who had bravely fought against the Demonic Race and monsters threatening the village.

However, Jack knew that the old man’s reality was far from being a war hero.

The reason the old man had a bad leg was because he had tripped over a rock while picking herbs in the mountains when he was younger.

Similarly, the stories about sleepless nights fighting the Demonic Race were lies.

Jack had learned the truth from other elderly villagers, making the old man’s stories seem laughable.

Yet, the reason Jack never pointed this out was that, despite his tall tales, he knew the old man wasn’t a bad person.

“Here, take this and eat.”

Whoosh.

Thud.

The bread the old man tossed arched through the air.

Jack caught it easily and grinned.

“I told you, you shouldn’t be giving me things like this.”

“Lick your lips before you speak, you brat.”

Standing guard was tedious.

Spending the entire day standing at the village entrance on watch—how could it not be dull?

Thus, though Jack had grumbled when the old man visited, he didn’t actually mind it that much. seaʀᴄh thё Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

It certainly wasn’t just because he was getting food.

“Nothing unusual?”

“In a quiet village like this, what could possibly happen? At most, maybe a lost monster would wander in…”

“Hey! If you let your guard down like that, you’ll invite trouble!”

“Who said I’m letting my guard down? I’m just saying.”

Jack yawned lazily, brushing off the old man’s words without much thought. He kept his eyes turned toward the village outskirts, knowing that if he seemed completely inattentive, the old man’s nagging would only get worse.

It was because of this that Jack was able to notice the anomaly.

“…Huh?”

“What is it? Something wrong?”

“That… don’t you see it?”

“Are you bragging about having good eyesight right now? Fine, you punk! Your poop sure is thick! You think you’re so sharp!”

“Geez, why bring up poop while I’m eating bread… I mean, why talk about dung while I’m eating? You’ve ruined my appetite.”

Jack grimaced as he imagined a foul smell coming from his bread.

But that aside.

Jack tucked the half-eaten bread into his pocket and kept his gaze fixed outside the village.

If his eyes weren’t deceiving him, someone was approaching the village.

“…A girl?”

Jack muttered in confusion, frowning deeply.

It wasn’t unusual for merchants or travelers to visit the village, but it was rare for a young girl to wander around outside alone.

Besides, she wasn’t armed, so she didn’t seem like a mercenary looking for work.

“Jack.”

Maybe she was a child who had wandered off from a nearby merchant caravan?

“…Jack.”

Or, with such a delicate face, perhaps she was the runaway daughter of some noble family.

“Jack!”

“…Whoa, you scared me!”

Lost in his thoughts while watching the girl, Jack was startled back to reality by the old man’s sharp voice.

“Why are you shouting like that? Are you losing your mind?”

Jack asked irritably, trying to calm his racing heart.

‘Losing my mind? Why would I? But how can you let your guard down like that as a watchman? Typical young fool…’ he might have expected the old man to scold him like this.

But contrary to Jack’s expectations, the old man wore a serious expression Jack had never seen before.

“You’re the one who’s not paying attention! But that’s not the issue now! You have a whistle, right?”

“Huh? A whistle? Of course, I have it—”

Though puzzled, Jack reached for the whistle hanging from his belt.

As a watchman, his role was to blow the whistle to alert others when danger approached the village.

“Blow it now!”



“What? Now?”

“…Oh, for heaven’s sake, you fool!”

The old man snatched the whistle from Jack’s hand and blew it himself.

Fweeeeee—!

A sharp sound echoed throughout the village.

In an instant, the village fell into silence.

Beeeep!

Beeeep!

For a moment, it was quiet, but soon sharp sounds erupted from various corners of the village in response to the old man’s urgent whistle.

Whether it was due to the old man losing his mind or an actual emergency, Jack’s instincts leaned toward the latter.

With his weapon firmly gripped, Jack asked,

“So, what exactly is going on?”

“Don’t you see that over there?”

“A girl?”

“I don’t know if it’s a girl or not!”

Frustrated by Jack’s inability to understand, the old man thumped his chest.

“No…”

Jack felt wronged in his own way.

How could he know what the old man meant when he hadn’t even explained it properly?

“I’m talking about Magi! Magi!”

“Magi?”

At that moment, Jack’s eyes finally caught sight of the black mist writhing around the girl.

Even though Jack had grown up relatively peacefully, he had seen monsters before.

Therefore, he could recognize the black mist enveloping the girl as Magi.

“…Demonic Race?”

Even as Jack muttered this, the girl was steadily approaching the village.

Feeling the tension build, Jack suddenly felt a hand grabbing the back of his neck, making him choke out a sound.

“If you have time to mumble, you should be running!”

“Cough, cough! …Huh? Running? Shouldn’t we stop her?”

“Do you think you can stop that?!”

Following the old man’s finger, Jack quickly understood what he meant.

Anyone would have grasped the danger upon seeing the foliage that the black mist touched wilt almost instantly.

While the world around them was being tainted in darkness, the girl, who was the source of that darkness, was radiating vibrant colors like a flower just beginning to bloom.

“You could just stop her.”

“…Hmph! If I weren’t so old, I could take care of her in one blow…”

The old man’s earlier bravado shrank back down.

Jack’s brief hopes of having a reliable ally also deflated.

That figures.

Sighing, Jack picked the old man up onto his back.

There was no way he could escape quickly with that bad leg of his.

“Hold on tight.”

“If only I were ten years younger…”

“Come on, old man, not again. If you bite your tongue, it’s not my fault! Stop complaining and hold on tight.”

“…”

Jack confirmed that the old man had shut his mouth and stomped the ground.

A few minutes later, a complete silence settled over the peaceful village of Katlan.

***

A girl wandered aimlessly down the road.

She had no destination.

She simply walked wherever her feet took her.

Thus, the girl moving eastward was purely coincidental.

‘──

“…”

Perhaps she instinctively felt she needed to go east, but that wasn’t particularly important.

At least not to those caught up in the girl’s journey.

When caught in a typhoon, most people pray for survival or resent the approaching storm, rarely questioning why the storm came.

The girl’s presence was similar.

Swish!

An arrow sliced through the air.

The sharp arrowhead gleamed as it aimed for the girl’s life.

However, the girl was oblivious to the arrow flying toward her.

Even if she had noticed it, how many could avoid an arrow coming at them from such a close distance? Regardless, it was clear that if things continued like this, the girl would lose her life, blood splattering everywhere.

If the girl had been just an ordinary girl by appearance, that would have certainly been the case.

Just before the arrow could reach the girl’s head, the black mist surged and splashed like a wave.

Thud.

“?”

The arrow lost its strength as it struck the black mist that stood like a solid wall in front of it, falling to the ground.

Even throwing a dead branch onto the roadside wouldn’t be as pitiful as that.

Attempting to take her life was an obvious act of hostility.

Suddenly threatened while walking down the road, the girl seemed completely unaware of the danger, blinking her eyes.

And before her stood a figure.



“…Commander. How did you end up like this?” Eric asked, his voice filled with an indescribable mix of emotions.

There was no response.

—

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