Eight men and women were walking through a wasteland where dry grass tumbled.
It was the exploration team that had departed from the forward base.
Seven in the advance team walking ahead, and one in the rear team following behind.
The rear team member was me.
Watching the advance team members walk with only a spear each, I tightened the backpack on my shoulders again.
*Since I'm the only one carrying a backpack, I'm unmistakably a porter.*
If I were holding a spear too, I might barely look like a comrade.
I gripped the backpack strap with my other hand and scanned the advance team members walking ahead.
Five men and two women.
Two of the men and one of the women were people I knew; the rest were merely familiar faces.
The members I knew were David, Latin Man, and Huiwon.
The others were typical American men and women.
Two middle-aged white men and one young Black man.
And one young woman.
On the women’s side, there was a stunning blonde beauty.
Her name was Margareta.
Huiwon was a woman who could be called a beauty as well, but when they stood together, the difference was stark.
“Isn’t the bag heavy? Let me know if it’s hard. I’ll help you.”
She was as kind and friendly as she looked.
Moreover, unlike the other Americans, she could speak a little Korean.
She wasn’t kind only to me.
She was kind to the other advance team members too, and seemed to get along well with Huiwon.
At a glance, she looked like a beloved darling of everyone, loved wherever she went.
However, her kindness felt slightly unnerving to me.
If I called it a honey trap, maybe that was an excessive thought.
Thinking it might be an inferiority complex, I kept walking.
After walking like that for a few hours, a canyon appeared abruptly in the middle of the desolate plain.
A massive fissure that started from a small split in the earth and spread far into the distance.
From above it was a giant fissure, but from inside, it would surely be a waterless canyon.
When we arrived at the fissure where the canyon began, David spoke to me.
“Arrived. Take the equipment out of the box.”
*Does he want me to take out the items?*
I understood to some extent, but there was no need to pretend I knew.
I waited for the interpretation.
“Please take the equipment out of the box.”
Hearing Huiwon’s interpretation, I set the backpack on the ground.
Just as I opened the backpack and was about to take out the box.
“First, take out the shield.... Wait.”
David, who had been giving continuous orders, stopped me.
When I looked at him, he was pondering with a serious expression.
A moment later, he took something like a pebble from his pocket and threw it to me.
Tak.
The object he threw was a metal bar the size of a pebble, engraved with a semi-transparent pattern.
The pattern engraved on this metal bar was one I had seen many times before.
That pattern from the ruins and the box.
As I grasped the object in my hand, David’s voice reached me.
“From now on, use that thing.”
[Use that from now on.]
David’s words reached my ears and my mind simultaneously.
One was in English as spoken, and the other was in Korean.
*A translation device?*
Amazingly, what he had given me was a relic capable of simultaneous interpretation.
The others were just as surprised.
A middle-aged American who looked like a businessman spoke to David.
“Is it alright to give him that?”
“I’m merely lending it to someone who needs it. It’s useless right now anyway, and when it’s needed elsewhere, or when we return to Earth, I just need to take it back.”
Now I could hear their conversations with each other immediately.
A near-perfect translation that conveyed even nuances precisely.
However, perfect interpretation wasn’t necessarily always a good thing.
The contempt and rudeness hidden within their words were felt instantly.
Putting aside the contempt, lending it to me was only natural.
Though it was an object used for interpretation, it was a relic nonetheless.
I hadn’t even thought he would give it to me.
*Are relics more common than I thought?*
To lend out a relic simply because it was troublesome when it had no immediate use…
If it were a precious item, he wouldn’t use it like that.
If not, it meant David was an extremely rational person.
No matter how dangerous the ruins might be, being unable to communicate with the only porter would clearly be a problem.
Anyway, now I possessed two relics.
Neither was mine; I had merely borrowed them.
But both were in my hands now.
This too wouldn’t remain borrowed forever.
*There must be a way.*
Already, the box was bound to me.
Unless I released the binding or died, no one else could use this box.
Even if I released the binding on this planet right now, there would be no one who could use this box.
*Huh?*
While looking at the translation relic with such thoughts, I suddenly came to my senses.
*Did I always have a collecting obsession?*
It wasn’t even the One Ring, yet I was losing myself over such a relic.
It was unlike me.
I tucked the translation relic deep inside my clothes.
First I tried putting it inside the box, but when placed inside, its effect disappeared.
This too must be because of that interference thing.
The translation relic seemed to require Dark Energy as well, but the consumption wasn’t large.
It was to a degree that I could hardly feel.
After securing the translation relic, I opened the box.
“First, take out all the shields and ropes.”
Following David’s instructions, I took out the items from the box.
They were the items I had placed in the box this morning.
Inside the box were combat rations, monster meat, shields and ropes, bone knives, and several torches.
They were too many items to fit into a box less than thirty centimeters, but the interior of the box, which only I could see, was still completely empty.
The shields I took out were things barely worthy of being called shields.
Tattered leather shields made by framing monster bones and covering them with hide.
The ropes were the same.
Ropes roughly twisted from monster tendons.
They looked terrible, but perhaps because they were made from monster materials, they were sturdier than expected.
Three men whose names I still didn’t know took the shields, and the blonde beauty Margareta took all the ropes.
After each person gathered their equipment, we entered the canyon.
The fissure in the earth grew progressively wider as we walked.
The path that had required walking single file soon transformed into a wide canyon enclosed by high walls.
After walking for about an hour like that, David halted the group.
He frowned and glared ahead.
“As expected, more have appeared.”
They weren’t visible to the eye.
It was due to both distance and the complex terrain of the canyon.
Instead of confirming with my eyes, I extended my senses.
Something caught.
What I sensed was an insect-type creature with six legs.
*Ants?*
But they were too big to be called ants.
What I sensed was an insect with a massive build, big enough to reach waist-height.
It was no coincidence that Latin Man had discovered the prey first yesterday.
After David, he was the one to notice the ant-like monsters.
“There are five this time.”
The number of ant monsters he found matched what I had confirmed.
“I wonder where they came from.”
Then Margareta sighed and unwound the rope.
“I hope it’s not a large colony.”
“If it were a large colony, this many wouldn’t be roaming around like this.”
“I suppose so.”
David, finishing his conversation with Latin Man, gave an order.
“Shields!”
At his command, three advance team members stepped forward with their shields.
Though the monsters weren’t even visible yet, the people followed his orders well.
Behind the three shield-bearers, those with spears lined up.
Latin Man, David, and even Huiwon.
I ended up standing at the very back with Margareta.
Standing at the very back, I felt a strange sensation.
It was because I had never been protected from the rear like this before.
As if noticing my mood, Margareta, who was unwinding the rope, looked at me and smiled.
“Please protect the box well. It’s our lifeline.”
A beautiful smile and sweet words.
If not for the uneasy feeling, I might have fallen for her.
As we had noticed them, the ant monsters seemed to have noticed us too.
The ants charged toward us.
The ants hidden behind rocks began to come into view.
The slowly moving ants gradually sped up.
The rugged terrain posed no problem.
They became six-legged chariots armored in carapace and charged at us.
Then, haze shimmered from the shields blocking our front.
Simultaneously, I felt that power from the shields.
That power called Dark Energy, or dark energy.
The three shield-bearers could channel Dark Energy into their shields as well.
Now I understood why the shields were made of monster bone and hide.
It was to channel that power into the shields.
Even seeing the haze, the ant monsters didn’t stop.
The ant monsters accelerated even more.
The ant monsters that closed in instantly rammed their heads against the shields.
*Boom. Boom. Boom.*
With tremendous sounds, the earth shook.
It was a sound and vibration like trucks colliding, but the shields held.
They were pushed back more than a meter, but the three people blocked the ants’ charge.
The shields standing firm.
The ants didn’t stay still.
The ant monsters tried to climb over the blocking shields.
Then, the people in the back moved.
Latin Man shot out like lightning and thrust his spear at an ant extending its head over the shield.
It was a movement I would have missed if not for my senses.
There was someone I missed even while using my senses.
It was David, who appeared behind the ant.
I had no idea when or how he had gotten there.
Finally, the rope moved.
The moving rope was the one Margareta held.
Margareta was still standing beside me.
She was simply holding the end of the rope.
Absurdly, the rope surged forward on its own and wrapped around the legs of an ant trying to get over the shield.
The surprised ant struggled, but the more it did, the more the rope entangled its legs.
One. Two.
She captured the remaining two ants alone, excluding the one Huiwon was facing.
Shortly after, the battle ended.
The ant monsters wrapped by rope all had their necks severed as well.
After the hunt, David gave me an order.
“Put everything in the box.”
I put the severed ant monsters into the box.
I couldn’t understand it, but even parts larger than the box all went inside.
“It’s nice having a box carrier. We used to waste so much time picking out what was usable before.”
“But if we stuff everything in like this, won’t the capacity run out?”
“If it runs out, we just throw away what we don’t need.”
David shook his head at a forward team member’s question.
As expected, this box wasn’t my possession.
It was merely their communal box.
Of course, I had no intention of leaving it as is either.
*I’ll pretend to throw things away and just keep them.*
They might be useless right now, but there would be an opportunity someday.
After collecting all the ant monster corpses, we walked again.
After walking another hour, we arrived at our destination.
The ruins deep within the canyon.
Petra.
It was an ancient ruin carved into the canyon walls.