After I checked the surface, the people came up aboveground.
Magreta and Secretary Li came up first, followed by the soldiers who had come with us, bringing the people who had been hiding in the ruins up to the surface.
Seeing the shattered temporary base, Secretary Li looked relieved.
“Fortunately, the monsters didn’t make an even bigger mess of it.”
To my eyes, everything there ought to be thrown away, but it seemed they intended to repair the ruined base and use it.
The people cleared away broken objects and gathered anything that could still be used, even a little.
They repaired the broken defensive walls as well, and distributed food and water brought from Earth to the people who had gone days without even drinking water.
While the Chinese were putting the base in order, I stepped outside and looked around.
Dry, crumbly earth, a cloudless sky, and parched air.
Unlike Trappist, there was not even withered grass or dead trees to be seen.
In the middle of that desolate plain, a hole leading underground and a temporary base sat forlornly.
The temporary base, whose walls had been built from stone and rock and whose lodgings had been made with tents brought from Earth, now retained only its shape.
Watching the people busily moving about among the ruins, I asked Sop.
[What do you mean by a dead star?]
I had heard those words quite some time ago, but I hadn’t been able to ask him because I was worried other monsters might come rushing in.
This planet looked like a dead star even to me, but Trappist had been no different.
Seen broadly, Paradise was not so different either, and if one looked from a desert, even Earth would feel like a dead star.
However, there was no way Sop would not know that.
[I mean it exactly as I said. It would be better for you to see it yourself. If you go to the ruins where the monsters appeared, you will understand.]
Sop did not give me the answer right away.
His old-man-like Zen riddle made me sigh on its own, but either way, we had to go to those ruins.
The exploration team that had set out to investigate the ruins had not returned, and they said the monsters had appeared from that direction as well, so to confirm our safety, we had to investigate the ruins in the end.
I decided to hold back my curiosity until we examined the ruins.
For that reason, I wanted to check the ruins as soon as possible, but I couldn’t do that right now.
Looking at the Chinese, it seemed they intended to repair that ruined base completely.
On top of that, the people who had been hiding in the underground ruins had to be sent back to Earth.
[Sending those people back should not be difficult.]
This planet seemed to have more dark energy than Trappist. There was also a considerable amount of energy remaining in the spatial transfer ruins, and Sop’s magical skill had clearly changed from before as well.
At least once, he could send everyone who had remained on this planet back to Earth.
Those people were no longer of any use.
Even now that they had come up to the surface, they were trembling like frightened rabbits as they looked all around.
After sending those people back, I was thinking about how to explore the ruins when I sensed a commotion from the direction of the base.
Puzzled, I approached the base.
Inside the base, the Chinese were doing something unexpected.
The people who had originally been on this planet continued repairing the base even as they trembled in fear, but the people who had come this time were taking spearheads and shafts out of their bags and assembling spears.
“Weren’t they supposed to have brought food?”
When I frowned at the sight, Magreta, who had come up beside me, told me what was going on.
“It seems one bag held food, and the other held spear parts. Apparently, quite a few of them considered the bags with spear parts more important and failed to bring the bags with food.”
The spears they had brought from Earth were not ordinary spears.
The shafts were ordinary, but the spearheads were made from the bones of native Trappist monsters that could accept dark energy.
It seemed the experimental materials I had worked so hard to carry to Earth had been processed and handed over to them.
As I watched the people lift the spears they had assembled, Secretary Li approached.
He too held an assembled spear in his hand.
“When I went to Earth, I requested them. Until the Akzar monsters appeared, we had not found any native monsters on this planet whose materials could be used as weapons. I do not know whether the spears will help, but I did not want to be torn apart by monsters while empty-handed.”
People who had not awakened dark energy were going to face Akzar monsters with those spears.
As Secretary Li said, it would not be of any help.
Thanks to that, the food and water they could have brought had been reduced by more than half, making the problem even more serious.
However, I couldn’t tell him he had done something foolish.
It was only natural that people who had nearly died to monsters would want to hold on to anything at all.
As I watched the people swinging their spears with a complicated expression, I sensed a strange energy among them.
“Dark energy?”
Dark energy was gathering toward the people.
“Huh?”
At the same time, a surprised voice rang out.
A soldier in his thirties, standing where the dark energy was gathering, tilted his head while holding a spear.
With a bewildered face, he looked down at his own body and the spear, then thrust the spear toward the half-destroyed base wall.
Thunk.
The spear sank deep into the rock.
Seeing the spear embedded there, the soldiers beside him were greatly startled.
“Huh? How did you do that?”
“That thing was incredibly hard.”
Another soldier tried thrusting his spear in the same way, but—
Clang!
He had to groan while clutching the spear that bounced back.
“Ugh, it won’t budge at all.”
A soldier who had been laughing at the sight asked the soldier who had driven in the spear.
“Captain Li Wei, don’t tell me you awakened?”
“It seems I have.”
At his answer, the soldiers crowded around and congratulated him.
“Wow, congratulations.”
I had known he had awakened even before he thrust the spear.
Energy had gathered around him, and even now his spear was glowing faintly.
An energy only I could recognize was enveloping his spear.
On top of that, though the others did not know, there was one more person whose spear was glowing.
A young soldier with a gloomy expression who had been silent for a while.
The spear in his hand was glowing as well.
Perhaps because they had been selected from among 1.5 billion people, two energy users had already appeared.
It seemed the other awakened person had no intention of announcing that he had awakened.
Holding his glowing spear, he joined the line of people praising someone else.
Thanks to energy users appearing sooner than expected, we were able to head to the ruined ruins immediately.
Before I could say anything, the soldier who had become an energy user stepped forward first and suggested exploring the ruins.
“If monsters like that come rushing in again, repairing the base will be meaningless. First, we must confirm where the monsters came from and what the situation is now.”
He was saying we should check the place where the monsters had appeared, but that was no different from saying we should explore the ruins.
It was not wrong, and from my perspective it was something to welcome, but his words did not sound pleasant to me.
He too had been absorbed in repairing the base until just a moment ago, yet as soon as he gained power, his thinking had changed.
Seeing him stealing glances at me as he spoke, it seemed he did not like the fact that I had stepped forward and dealt with the monsters.
Did he think that now that he had obtained power, he could do better?
It seemed the others thought the same. The people who had come from Earth with him applauded his words.
The soldier standing proudly with a glowing spear, and the soldiers applauding him.
Watching them, Sop let out a sigh.
[I made a mistake. I should have shown them how you fought.]
Sop seemed to think they were acting that way because they had not seen me fight the monsters, but I thought differently.
[I don’t think it would have changed much.]
It might have been my prejudice, but I couldn’t help it.
After facing them as enemies several times by now, there was no way anything good about the Chinese military would come out of my mouth.
Unlike them, the others’ expressions had darkened.
Especially the people who had fled underground. At the mention of going out to find the monsters, their faces turned pale.
Lastly, there was Secretary Li, who looked at a loss.
I handed the whip to Magreta and said to him,
“What he said is not wrong. We would have had to check eventually, so it may be better to go now.”
At my words, Secretary Li’s expression brightened.
“You will come with us?”
“That’s why I came.”
Even if it had not been at the American president’s request, I had to check the ruins.
There had been no traces left by the people who escaped Trappist in the spatial transfer ruins.
In the end, the only place on this planet worth checking was the ruined ruins from which the monsters had supposedly emerged.
On top of that, there was what Sop had said, so I had to go to the ruins.
When I said I would go with them, Secretary Li, who had been troubled, took the lead and began preparations to depart.
They gave food and water to the people who had been there before and sent them back underground.
Secretary Li and the people who had come this time shouldered the remaining food and water and set out with us.
As we left the base, the awakened soldier approached and held out his hand to me.
“I am Captain Li Wei. Since I have come to sense dark energy this time, I have been placed in temporary command of the unit.”
If it was the rank of captain, it was not a low rank. It was similar to a captain in the Korean military.
Among them, there was one more soldier of the same rank. However, he could not sense energy. For that reason, it seemed the man before me had been given command.
I took the hand he held out.
“I’m Hyeon Myeonghan. Former sergeant in the Korean military.”
Hearing my answer, he nodded.
“Sergeant? Ah, so you were a soldier. It is good to meet you.”
His expression did not change at my words, and there was no falsehood in his greeting either.
It seemed he had not participated in the Korean War.
Feeling a little awkward at his sincere answer, I let go of his hand right away.
[There is no need to look through colored glasses every time.]
Thanks to that, I even had to hear Sop’s advice, but I did not regret testing him.
Because there had been someone who glared at me after hearing my words.
The gloomy soldier who had been quiet from the beginning.
The soldier hiding his awakening was glaring at me.
I committed his face to memory.
We continued onward in the direction Secretary Li indicated.
Secretary Li did not know the exact route either, but that was not a problem.
In the direction we were heading, a large, long fissure continued on and on.
It was lower and smaller than a canyon, but it was a long fissure that might have been a great river in the past.
We continued walking along the fissure, and before half a day had passed, we were able to reach our destination.
The ruins had been built right up against the side of the fissure.
They were destroyed now, but had they been intact, they would have been quite large.
I had seen those ruined ruins before.
The ruins I had seen in Paradise.
Seeing the destroyed ruins, I was able to understand Sop’s words that “this planet is a dead star.”
It was only natural.
Those destroyed ruins were terraforming ruins.
The heart of this planet had stopped long ago.
Peace (3)