#185 Earthlings in Another World (2)
The day after arriving in Rohan.
When Hesperon regained consciousness, the four-member hero party arranged a private conversation in his hospital room, including the princess as well.
After all, their ultimate goal had always been to defeat the Immortal King, Hans.
And now there were people who had been taken prisoner, escaped from his very stronghold, and made it out alive, so it was an essential step, if only for the sake of gathering information.
Of course, the others had no way of knowing that, among the six people gathered there, a majority of three were in fact the same person.
“...And that’s how we barely managed to get out of that place. There wasn’t much after that. We moved south across lands crawling with monsters, and in the end, just when we were about to be done in by a griffin, the Saint saved us.”
No matter that Hesperon had regained consciousness, he was still a patient, so Riley volunteered first to explain the situation.
Still sitting propped up against the bed, he had decided to add comments only when there was something to supplement, but her calm, orderly explanation left almost no need for him to say anything more.
“Hmm, the Immortal Castle. We already knew through observation that the Immortal King had a base within the northern mountain range, but as it lies in such a dangerous region, no one had ever seen it in person...”
At last, when her story came to an end.
Heinrich, who had been listening with a grave expression, closed his eyes as though picturing the scene in his mind and continued speaking.
“Thank you for the valuable information. This will be of great help when we face the Immortal King in the future.”
And that serious atmosphere was shared by Isea, who had already heard enough to know the general outline, and Geos, who stood leaning against the wall while hugging his spear.
Only Harley, head drooping as he nodded off through the lengthening conversation, remained utterly carefree.
“...However, there is one question I have.”
But then, Geos, who had been quietly listening, opened his mouth with a glint in his eyes.
Unlike his usual silent self, he was showing a very proactive attitude now that the topic concerned the Immortal King.
“I don’t believe you have clearly explained how you were able to escape from that Immortal King’s castle. The method that made it possible even with that Banshee Queen Olivia obstructing you, no less.”
“That was, as I said earlier, thanks to Mr. Hesperon’s special ability...”
“No, Your Highness. This is not a matter to be glossed over like that. A means of neutralizing security that the Immortal King must have poured his heart and soul into. For the sake of what comes later, this is something we must address.”
Geos Calkin, who spoke in a torrent utterly unlike usual.
Heinrich and Isea, seeing him speak so much for the first time, and even Harley, who had been dozing off, woke up and stared at him blankly with rounded eyes.
“If it is a special ability, then what exactly made it special enough to allow such a thing? Whether some specific condition required for activating the ability was the key. Or whether there is room to apply it to other techniques.”
He paused for a moment, then turned his gaze away from Riley and stared intently at Hesperon, who was leaning against the bed.
His eyes, in which none of his usual gloom could be found, were burning fiercely with some kind of heat.
“Do not forget. Our opponent is that Immortal King Hans. The Hans who brought down this Duchy of Rohan where we now stand and massacred countless people across the continent. Right now, we are not in a position to be picky about what means we use.”
“...Mm.”
Unable to refute him, Riley let out a quiet groan.
It was a little extreme, but it was certainly correct.
Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been an argument more than capable of earning the agreement and support of those around him.
The one unfortunate point was that, among those present, he alone was an outsider who knew nothing.
‘No, wait. Isn’t this actually a pretty good opportunity?’
Telling someone to reveal even their personal secret arts for the greater good... Couldn’t that logic be applied to him as well?
From the standpoint of someone who had long been coveting his techniques, this incident could be called a fine opportunity.
“Well, what can I say. It’s not really something I need to hide.”
After rapidly weighing things out and reaching a decision in an instant.
Hesperon, who had been receiving his gaze, opened his mouth calmly.
“To be honest, I don’t know much about this ability myself. It hasn’t even been two months since I obtained it.”
“What do you mean... Then are you saying that as soon as you obtained that ability, you headed straight to the northern mountain range and were captured by the Immortal King?”
“Ah, going there had nothing to do with my own will. That just happened to be where I landed. I’m a person from another world, you see!”
“...A person from another world?”
At that sudden coming-out, Geos put on a bewildered expression.
At the same time, Isea also flinched slightly, but she merely looked at him quietly without any particular change in her expression.
“I got the ability during that process too... so there really isn’t much I can say about it.”
He finished speaking and gave a light shrug.
In truth, Hesperon had planned to take this route from the beginning, so it was not some particularly great secret.
He had no intention of going around announcing it everywhere, but neither was he so determined to hide it at all costs.
‘Honestly, it also feels a bit like bait.’
At the same time, he had intended to use this chance to test Geos’s reaction a little, but from the moment Geos heard the words “person from another world,” he had only been tilting his head as though lost in thought.
“Sir Geos? For now, let us move past that matter. In any case, even if we hear the complicated details now, it will not mean much.”
“Ah! ...Understood, Saint. If it is that sort of ability, I suppose more time will be needed to learn more about it.”
“As for that, I think it would be best to entrust it to Lady Isea, who is an archmage. Would she not know more than we do?”
“Indeed. It seems I was too hasty.”
With Heinrich’s intervention, Geos, who had been burning so fiercely, quieted down again, and with that conversation as the end, the fairly long discussion gradually began to wrap up.
“The conversation went on longer than expected. I will stop by the encampment for a while. There is nothing else scheduled today, so please rest comfortably.”
“Wahahaha! I’ll go make a round of the area and do some hunting! I was starting to get restless anyway, so this works out well!”
As the gathering broke up, the party members left one by one to attend to their own business.
But not everyone left.
Right after Riley, the last of them, glanced around cautiously and carefully stepped out of the hospital room...
“Mr. Hesperon? Do you have a moment? There’s something I’d like to talk about with you, just the two of us.”
Isea, who had remained until the very end, looked at him with narrowed eyes and quietly curled up the corners of her mouth.
***
The headquarters of the World Returnee Association, located in the United States.
Click.
—Click!
“Phew, finally done. Upsy-daisy!”
The man who had finished uploading the newly added information stretched his stiff body, then slumped down limply.
“Ugh—
This job never ends, no matter how much I do.”
He was a member of the Returnee Association’s “Otherworld Status Assessment Team,” and his main duty was to compile information collected from various places and update the current status of each dimension.
At first glance, it might seem like a job that yielded little compared to the effort put in, but this was, surprisingly, a project that received a great response from the public.
For those who had not yet awakened, it provided advance information about other worlds and raised their chances of survival, while for returnees who had already come back, it served like news that allowed them to indirectly access information about the world they had come from.
In truth, even if ordinary people awakened, they had no way of knowing which dimension they would be sent to until the moment of transfer, so the odds of obtaining useful information from data on hundreds of dimensions were not that high.
But even so, wasn’t it far better to know even a little than to be dropped into another world knowing absolutely nothing?
‘If they happen to be assigned to a world they paid close attention to, they’ll be able to drastically shorten their adaptation period, and their survival rate will also rise sharply.’
In fact, the effect was being clearly proven by the return rate, which had recently begun to rise little by little.
‘Of course, from the standpoint of someone doing the work, because of the time difference, changes happen too often, so updating everything is a bit of a pain.’
On top of that, at headquarters, they had to compile information sent up from branches all over the world and even cross-verify it, so it was not uncommon for information they had painstakingly confirmed and organized to be discarded immediately afterward.
If he had to pick one more annoying case, it would be that dimensions which had not been observed for long required a great deal of effort to determine the truth of the information.
Since the information organized here spread throughout the world, it had to be thoroughly checked to ensure no false information was mixed in.
But dimensions with insufficient prior information and few knowledgeable people naturally made verifying information that much more difficult.
‘Still, this dimension was a bit better in that regard.’
He quietly nodded as he looked over the information he had just uploaded.
-New) Auterica Dimension.
There were still only a few people who had returned from this place as well, but the few who had come back generally said the same things, so verification had proceeded quickly in this case.
The times at which they had returned were also similar, so there was not much difference in the world situation each of them knew.
‘...They said the world is in chaos right now because of the Demon King’s descent.’
Monsters were rampaging madly all over the continent, shaking numerous nations, and there was even a small country that had ultimately fallen and another nation that had been occupied by vampire demons taking advantage of the chaos, so what more needed to be said?
Accordingly, the danger level estimated by the association was “considerably high, caution required.”
It could be called an environment where middling awakened individuals who had secured karma in advance would choose to return one after another.
‘Though it’s probably nothing that matters to the people on Earth. Anyway, it’s already this late. I should start getting ready to go home.’
In any case, his work was done here, so the rest was up to those who would receive the information.
Thus, the information that began at the World Returnee Association headquarters quickly spread across the world through the internet—
And thanks to advanced technology and capable personnel, it was translated into each language in an instant and released to the public.
It was a paid service that charged a certain fee, but the latest information on each dimension could now be viewed by anyone who wanted it.
“Oh? So information is starting to come out now? As expected, there must have been quite a few Earthlings in Auterica too, whether anyone knew it or not.”
And among those looking through it was Han Seonghyeon, who was spending his day as usual in Korea on the other side of the Pacific.
After finishing his workout and shower in the gym inside his house, he had been browsing the internet with a towel draped over his shoulders when his eyes lit up at the material he discovered.
There was not much that could be called high-grade information, but unlike last time, it was filled with fairly substantial content, so it seemed the number of people who had returned during that time was not small.
However, if there was one thing he did not like...
-The world has fallen into great chaos due to “Immortal King Hans,” the Demon King who invaded the Ion Continent. As all monsters are steeped in madness...
It was that the Immortal King’s name had finally become known on Earth as “Hans.”
He had already half given up, but considering how diligently he had appealed until now, he had still held a faint hope.
It seemed that level of effort had not been enough to reach even the Earthlings living in Auterica.
“Tsk, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
In truth, since he was called Hahoe Mask here, there was no need to be particularly attached to the Immortal King’s name.
After all, that was merely a name that would remain only on documents without any actual substance.
‘Hmm, but the content is better than I expected. If you really study this properly, it would definitely be a great help in adapting. ...It would have been nice if something like this existed when I went.’
He ran through the information on Auterica and quietly rubbed his chin.
-Heinrich Saint Landguard, the Saint of the Main God Church, the largest force that dominates Auterica’s religious world, is opposing the Immortal King together with his companions, allowing the immediate war to be avoided. However, the situation remains precarious, as no one knows what incident may occur at any time...
-In the Kingdom of Talia in the western Ion Continent, vampire demons have seized control of the nation. For now, no problems are occurring due to the strong control exerted by the Vampire Lord, but this too is unstable...
Of course, most of the information was already known to him.
In truth, it was strange to say he “knew” it, since there were more than one or two major incidents being treated as important that he himself had been involved in.
‘What’s this?’
But not all the information was useless—
Quite unexpectedly, it even included information he had failed to grasp.
-A coup has occurred in the Calcos Tribal Alliance in the southern Ion Continent. As it was carried out with extreme secrecy, detailed information is unknown. However, since the region is fundamentally exclusionary toward outsiders, if one were to start there...
‘A coup?’
He had already known that the southern tribal alliance was in a noisy situation, and he had also been thinking of visiting soon.
It was just that, with one thing and another happening recently, he had kept pushing it back until now.
‘But a coup, huh? And one so secretive that even the various intelligence organizations of Auterica failed to notice?’
Of course, the tribal alliance was a closed-off place to the point that it was called an information blind spot, but even so, the fact that no one had noticed such a major incident was no ordinary matter.
It meant that the side behind it had truly set their mind to it and begun their plan in earnest.
‘But even those guys who blocked off information so thoroughly probably never expected that an Earthling would flee across dimensions. If they knew about something like this, they must have been fairly close to the upper ranks.’
In any case, thanks to that, he had obtained useful information, so from his side, he could only be grateful.
“Hmm... the south, and a coup. Can I use this somehow? It would be nice if I could figure out the details.”
Great incidents were accompanied by great karma.
And if it was the south, there were surely more things that Harley could gain there.
‘No matter what anyone says, it’s the homeland of his heart!’
Of course, that too was something Harley had decided unilaterally.
Still, if he snapped the waists of everyone who objected, would they not all understand his sincerity?
And so, from the south that he had continued putting off for lack of information, a deliciously ripened scent began to waft forth.