The situation on Earth relayed by those who had returned astonished the people on TRAPPIST.
They had heard that Earth would be destroyed, but none of them had thought that destruction was right at their doorstep.
Hearing of the chaos on Earth in such circumstances finally made it feel real to them.
The hunts became active again.
Deputy Commander Hyeon and the exploration team were absent, but everyone took part in the hunts led by Catherine.
They would arrive at the city ruins through spatial movement, then move through the tunnels they had made, repeating the process of hunting the Akzar monsters on the surface.
Without Deputy Commander Hyeon and the exploration team, it was more dangerous than before, but thanks to Catherine and Sterling, they were able to continue hunting without any major accidents.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The heavy sounds of energy guns rang out,
Kiiiiiik!
and the scout’s shriek echoed through the cavern.
Between those shrieks, Sterling’s shouting followed.
“Firing team! What are you doing? It’s trying to come to its senses! Shoot more!”
“Melee team, get ready! The moment we find the black stone’s position, you charge in!”
“You still haven’t found the black stone? Hurry up! If you don’t want to hear yourselves compared to someone else, find it quickly!”
The shouts were similar to before, but Sterling himself was different from before.
There was experience in the way he carried himself.
The people’s movements had changed as well.
They moved swiftly according to instructions, and they had become remarkably adept at firing energy guns and making use of their abilities.
Watching them, advance team member Huiwon spoke.
“He’s changed a lot from when I first saw him. Back then, I thought he was just a spoiled rich brat who only knew how to show off.”
At Huiwon’s words, Sergeant Kim nodded.
“He certainly was. If he’d been just a little less skilled, there would’ve been several people who’d have gone at him. I was one of them.”
Huiwon pointed out with a laugh at Sergeant Kim’s words.
“Sergeant Kim, you’re the person who even tried to go at Captain Hyeon.”
“Ah, that story is a bit…”
Sergeant Kim let out a sigh.
Time had passed, but the story of how he had challenged Deputy Commander Hyeon and been slammed into a wall still followed him like a tag.
“Oh, right. That was a dark chapter in your past. Hehe, sorry.”
At her words, spoken with a laugh until the very end, Sergeant Kim could only shake his head.
If a man had said such a thing, he would have thrown a punch first, but he had no way to respond to a young woman’s joke.
It wasn’t as if he had never spoken with women before.
But after spending years rolling around battlefields with men, he had long since forgotten not only romance, but even how to talk to women.
For someone like him, he was grateful enough just that she was talking to him, even if it was in jest.
Right now, the two of them, watching the hunt and continuing their conversation, were part of the reserve group.
They were the second team, resting a short distance away while observing the hunt in case anything happened.
In the next hunt, they, the reserve group, would be the ones to go hunting.
Many people had volunteered, but as the absence of Deputy Commander Hyeon and the exploration team made the hunts less safe than before, Catherine had divided the hunting team into two groups.
The reserve group and the hunting group.
Ordinarily, the two groups would take turns hunting, and when things became dangerous, the reserve group would be deployed to help with the hunt. So far, it had gone well.
“Even so, I didn’t expect things to run this smoothly.”
Originally, without Deputy Commander Hyeon and the exploration team, their level of skill was such that everyone had to rush in just to barely take down a single scout.
It would have been only natural for there to be injuries and even deaths among them, but now hunting was possible with only half that number.
Catherine’s excellent command was a great help, but the biggest reason lay elsewhere.
“It’s probably because Commander Catherine’s skill increased by leaps and bounds after she went to Earth.”
At Huiwon’s words, Sergeant Kim looked puzzled.
“Her magic has certainly become incredible, but can skill really increase that much all at once?”
It was amusing to see a bear-sized man make such an expression, but Huiwon pretended not to notice and answered him.
“Captain Hyeon is the same way, and when you’re beside him your skill does change rapidly, but no matter how I look at it, that’s because of the relic.”
The moment Huiwon spoke, Catherine cast a spell.
“Fire!”
It was a simple incantation, but the magic was not simple.
Her signature wind blades flew toward the monster.
It was not just one blade flying out as before.
Several magical blades, materialized enough to be visible to ordinary eyes, poured down over the tentacles.
Puh-puh-puh-puck!
The blades tore the tentacles to shreds.
Kuaaaaak!
The monster screamed, and Sterling gave the order.
“Melee team, move in! We’ve found the black stone’s position! One quarter down from the top, on the flank!”
As soon as he gave the order, the people holding swords and spears charged at the monster.
Seeing that, Sergeant Kim lowered the energy gun he had been gripping.
“That’s a relief. This hunt will end safely again.”
Unlike Sergeant Kim, who was relieved, Huiwon folded her arms with a gloomy expression.
“It’s absurd enough that we’ve come to a planet like this and are hunting monsters like that, but seeing this kind of scene makes it hard to feel like all that chaos really happened on Earth.”
Even while watching the monster being smashed apart like this, she felt as if Earth would still be sitting there exactly as it always had.
Sergeant Kim felt the same way.
“There’s no way it would feel real. We didn’t see it ourselves, and we haven’t heard anything directly. If you think about it, it’s something happening ridiculously far away.”
“Right? It’s dozens of light-years. It’s strange to feel like something that happened on Earth is far away, but it still feels like something happening in a distant country.”
Even if they came to believe it was true, physically feeling it was an entirely different matter.
“Do you think Earth will really be destroyed?”
“I heard that Earth won’t be destroyed, but that it will simply become uninhabitable for humans.”
At Sergeant Kim’s answer, Huiwon stuck out her lips.
She liked his dependable appearance, but she did not like that he said unnecessary things instead of sympathizing.
“That’s the same thing. If it becomes like Venus, it won’t just be humans who can’t live there. Life itself won’t be able to exist.”
At Huiwon’s words, Sergeant Kim said with a hardened expression,
“Before that happens, we have to rescue people. My family, too.”
He, too, was someone who had fought enemies in order to protect his family and others. The reason he had come to this planet was also because he had been told money would be sent to his family.
For someone like him, whether it felt real or not was not important.
“You’re right. Whether it feels real or not, rescuing our families comes first. And to do that, we have to hunt and obtain black stones.”
At Huiwon’s words, Sergeant Kim nodded.
Right now, that was the only thing he could do.
Having perked up at his words, Huiwon watched the people extracting the black stone from the dead prey and began to worry again.
“But will this be enough? We’re hunting hard too, but I think it’ll still fall far short…”
It was just as Huiwon said. Even in Sergeant Kim’s eyes, it seemed difficult to save many people with this amount.
But he was not worried.
“In any case, Captain Hyeon and the exploration team will obtain far more black stones.”
Having seen him firsthand and heard continuous stories from Sergeant U, he had already become one of Captain Hyeon’s followers.
Huiwon was the same.
“That’s true. But I wonder if they’ve been gone too long this time.”
With a worried expression, Huiwon looked at Catherine.
Catherine was standing before the monster’s corpse, looking down at her own arm.
Sterling, standing beside her, was asking the same question as Huiwon.
“It has already been ten days since the exploration team left. Will they be all right? No matter how I think about it, their return is far too late.”
Unlike before, Sterling asked her with an expression of genuine concern.
It was just as Sterling said.
Deputy Commander Hyeon and the exploration team had set out to explore immediately after arriving on TRAPPIST.
Ten days had already passed since they left.
Even without comparing them to the others, who had difficulty spending even two days outside, they had been out far too long.
But Catherine was not worried.
She trusted Hyeon, but it was not because of that trust.
Given her personality, she would not make decisions based on such faith.
The reason she was not worried was because she knew the exploration team was safe.
The bracelet she was looking at now—the bracelet had a white dot shining on it.
That white dot was the exploration team.
This bracelet was a relic Deputy Commander Hyeon had given her when he left with the exploration team members.
He had given it to her this time, but it was not a relic obtained in Paradise.
According to Hyeon, this bracelet was a relic obtained from another ruin on TRAPPIST.
He had said that this bracelet was a relic obtained from the First Emperor’s museum and had belonged to a companion of the staff-wielding magician.
‘This is the sacred relic of the ancient kingdom’s Magic Tower Master?’
It was a relic with an unbelievable origin, but the bracelet displayed power worthy of it.
It strengthened her magic severalfold and, just as now, showed her the magicians registered to the bracelet.
She had heard that if she were a true Magic Tower Master, she would be able to use even more functions, but even now, it was not bad.
She could check the status of registered magicians in real time, and with a little application, she could do other things as well.
Blink, blink, bliiink.
The light turned off and on repeatedly.
It was not broken.
She did not know how he was doing it, but Captain Hyeon was concealing and releasing his own energy.
A repeated signal—Morse code.
Catherine read the signal.
“Tar…get…found…re…turn…ing…soon.”
After confirming the signal, Catherine said to Sterling with a satisfied expression,
“There’s no need to worry. They say they’ll return soon.”
Then she shouted loudly to everyone.
“We’re withdrawing! Tonight, we sleep at home!”
At the commander’s words, gentler than before, the people cheered loudly.
***
While I hid and released my energy with magic to send the signal, the team members looked down the hill and let out sighs.
Below the hill, in the middle of a wide basin, a tall tower could be seen.
It was a tower similar to the one we had seen in the canyon not long ago—a magician’s tower.
“In the end… we made it.”
Tom brushed himself off with an exhausted face.
He brushed himself off lightly, but dust billowed up in clouds.
The others were just as covered in dust.
All their faces were worn out with fatigue.
Even though we had arrived at our destination, no one’s expression relaxed.
I was tired as well.
It might have been the hardest time I had experienced since coming to this planet.
Eleven grueling days.
It was not that we had lacked food.
It was not that we lacked bedding, nor that we lacked magic to entrust with keeping watch.
We had food, but no time to eat. We had bedding and magic to handle the guard, but no time to sleep.
The reason we could not rest was because there were things chasing us.
Far away, on the horizon behind us, dust was rising.
“It’s them.”
Sergeant U seemed to have seen the dust cloud as well.
No one was surprised by Sergeant U’s words.
The team members who saw the dust cloud grumbled.
“To think they’ve followed us for ten straight days. Don’t they ever get sick of it?”
Hanna grumbled, unlike her usual self,
“I guess Captain Hyeon must have looked like their mortal enemy.”
and Magtera teased me with an exhausted face.
“Fine. Perfect. Let’s settle this here.”
“Now that we’ve reached the destination, we’re going to fight anyway.”
As Tom raised his gun and put on a brave front, Sergeant U looked at him and clicked his tongue.
Just as Sergeant U said, it was time to fight now.
The monsters that had chased us for ten days were the control entity and monsters we had encountered in the First Emperor’s ruins.
The reason we had run all this time instead of fighting those monsters was partly because the place where we had encountered them was a wide open area, but also because we had a separate destination we were trying to reach.
That destination was the magician’s tower.
Among the towers seen on the Tower Master’s bracelet map, another tower where the “magician’s flower” had been grown was our destination.
Instead of the tower contaminated by the gray eye that we had first discovered, it was another tower that was still intact.
Only now had we finally arrived at that tower.
Tomb (2)