Another small crater had formed inside the enormous crater.
This time, it was a pit I had made.
The inside of the pit was a filthy place, littered with monster remains and fragments, but I was half-lying there, leaning against one piece of wreckage.
“I’m dying here.”
[Of course you feel like you’re dying. This time, you truly almost did die. And your body is still far from fine.]
When I groaned while leaning against the wreckage, Soph scolded me as usual.
It was the same old nagging, but I couldn’t say anything back. Every word was true.
I was pouring the food from the box into my mouth and healing my wounds as soon as my dark energy recovered, but my bones were still gaunt, and the healing of my wounds was painfully slow.
The reason I hadn’t moved from this place was because I couldn’t move.
[At the very least, you’ll need to rest for more than a day while receiving recovery magic before you can move.]
I felt the same way.
My body was far too depleted.
It was only this much because my arms and legs hadn’t been cut off and my organs hadn’t been damaged. If any part of my body had been lost, even recovery magic might not have been enough.
Even so, I didn’t regret fighting that way.
If I hadn’t fought like that, I would have run away in the middle of the fight, or died.
The fact that I could lie here in pain was only because I was still alive.
[I won’t oppose you creating your own method of combat, but fighting while repairing wounds with recovery magic is far too dangerous. It would have been better if you had moved with short-range spatial movement instead.]
As Soph said, if I had moved with Blink, I wouldn’t have had to dodge the tentacles while covered in blood.
But I couldn’t.
The situation had been urgent, but more than that, until just a little earlier, I hadn’t been able to use spatial movement here.
“It couldn’t be helped. Maybe because magic was spread throughout the entire area, I couldn’t lock onto any coordinates.”
Just like when I was ejected from Soph’s memories, my spatial movement had been obstructed.
I still didn’t know whether that was because of the magic laid out over this region, or because of the Giant Lord.
At my words, Soph clicked his tongue.
I understood Soph’s concern, but I had no intention of preserving myself.
There were bound to be more monsters like this on the road to the Demon King.
If I held back, I wouldn’t be able to fight and win against monsters like that.
Besides, it was a little strange for Soph to say such things.
He had always said that a mage should cast magic from a safe place, but in the end, Soph had also given up his life to protect people.
For someone like Soph to worry about my body.
“At the very least, I’ll protect my own life until the very end.”
Unlike Soph, I was using my body roughly in order to survive.
I would struggle to stay alive until the very end.
Perhaps because my words hit the mark, Soph fell silent.
After Soph quieted down, I took a black stone from the box.
It was the black stone I had obtained this time.
Although it was cracked, this black stone contained several times more energy than the black stone I had obtained from the control entity.
I examined the black stone and asked Soph.
“Can’t we replace the black stone in the spear with this one?”
Though a little late, Soph answered my question.
[……It’s a broken black stone that was forcibly pieced back together. It can be used as energy, but it will be difficult to process it and attach it to the staff.]
Unfortunately, it seemed upgrading my weapon would be difficult.
I had gotten my hopes up a little, but apparently I had thought too simply.
When I looked disappointed, Soph spoke to me as if he found it absurd.
[Even without attaching a new black stone, you’ve already become able to use my main offensive magic, haven’t you? If you can use that magic, you should be able to deal with most monsters easily.]
Certainly, with that magic, I could deal with something on the level of a control entity by myself.
However, this was not entirely my own power.
The reason I had been able to use that magic was thanks to the powerful spear and the black stone attached to it.
It was magic activated by using half the energy of the black stone obtained from the control entity, and I had nearly died from the aftermath of that magic as well.
In the end, this magic, too, was nothing more than a final move with no way back, a “you die and I live” kind of technique.
On top of that, the black stone was out of energy, so I couldn’t use it now.
Unlike the other black stones, the control entity’s black stone regained energy over time.
But waiting for it would take far too long.
“This exploration ends here. Once my body recovers, I’ll have to go back.”
I had to return to the terraforming ruins and replenish the energy of the black stone.
Soph would probably grumble again because I would be consuming the energy the ruins had gathered, but this time there was no helping it.
I did intend to use my body roughly, but continuing to explore with the black stone completely drained wasn’t merely using my body roughly.
That was just a stupid thing to do.
“But it’s a shame. It’s good that I defeated a Lord-class monster, but I still didn’t find out where the Demon King is. At this rate, I don’t know how long it will take to learn where the Demon King is.”
If the Giant Lord had been sane, I could have at least asked, but that monster hadn’t been sane until the moment it died.
Thanks to that, I had been able to take it down, but now that fact became regrettable again.
At my complaint, Soph spoke.
[I don’t think you need to worry about that. As you know, my memories returned a little while ago. I remember the path my past self walked. I don’t know the exact coordinates of where the Demon King is, but I do know the general direction and distance.]
“Really?”
That alone was a great gain.
I had killed a dangerous monster, obtained a black stone, and learned the road leading toward the Demon King.
The exploration had been short, but the gains were substantial.
A day later, I was able to pull myself together.
It was a morning where I had slept outdoors and ended up covered in dew inside my sleeping bag, but at last, I could move my body.
First, I walked around the area, found usable items, and put them into the box.
First, I put the unfamiliar metals and stones that had become the monster’s body and limbs into the box, then I also put in the black stones of the Akzar monsters that had died after being caught up in the battle.
And then, I put the monster’s black skin and egg-like head into the box as well.
[Take the black hides. They may not be what they were when alive, but there is no question they are sturdy.]
Honestly, I didn’t want to put them in, but I couldn’t ignore Soph’s words.
Fortunately, perhaps because it was definitely dead, they went into the box without issue.
After gathering those things, I took new clothes out of the box and put them on, then placed the box into a new backpack.
Once I finished preparing like that, I looked around the ruined city.
The scene I had seen in Soph’s memories overlapped with the city before my eyes.
The city felt different now.
Soph must have been feeling that way all along.
For the last time, I bowed my head toward the city.
When even that final farewell was over, Soph said,
[You know this already, but combat will be impossible for a while. If you’re injured now, recovery magic won’t work well either.]
Even now, Soph was healing my body with recovery magic. Since he was using my dark energy to cast the magic, the amount of dark energy accumulating was minimal.
At this rate, not only combat, even running away would be impossible.
Still, I could use magic.
With the remaining energy, I used gravity magic to lift my body into the air, then began shooting bursts of air as I flew east.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Because I couldn’t use much energy, I couldn’t fly at high speed, but it was faster than running.
I flew hard toward the western mountain range.
***
I returned to the terraforming ruins a week after leaving them.
At the terraforming ruins, even more people had arrived, and the exploration team members had also returned.
While I had been out exploring, the cleanup of the city ruins had been completed.
When I returned, the exploration team members, along with Catherine, dragged me toward the underground city.
After we arrived in the underground city, the team members’ eyes widened at the chickens and rabbits roaming around inside, but they suppressed their curiosity and headed for the exploration team building.
There were items I had brought back this time inside the building too, but everyone pretended not to notice and headed to the living room.
Then they all sat around the living room and waited for me to speak.
“You ran off without even seeing us. And you came back late, too. Tell us everything that happened.”
At Hanna’s serious interrogation, I told them what had happened.
Magreta would have told them everything that happened on Earth, so I only told them about what had happened after I left the terraforming ruins.
Since it had only been a week, there wasn’t much to say.
When my explanation ended, Magreta summarized my story in a single sentence.
“So, you left us behind and went alone, fought a monster stronger than a control entity, got injured, and were late coming back because you were healing your body. Is that what you’re saying?”
It was a violent summary, but I had no choice but to nod at her words.
On top of that, I had also stopped by the tower on the way back and brought the first harvest of the “Mage’s Flower,” but it was difficult to bring that up now.
Everyone was angry after hearing what I had said.
Before I explained, they had been half-jokingly angry, but after hearing my explanation, all of them were genuinely angry.
The reason they were angry was nothing special.
It was because I had gotten hurt alone.
Everyone was worrying about me with angry faces.
“It seems we can no longer trust only Hanna’s words.”
“I’m sorry. Through the light, I could only know that he was safe. My skill was lacking, so I didn’t know he would come back injured.”
At Magreta’s words, Hanna apologized with a gloomy face, and
“You may have been treated, but your injuries are quite severe. Take off your clothes. You say they were healed with magic, but there may be aftereffects.”
Tom tried to undress me.
Unlike the others, Sergeant Wu had been looking at me with a calm face, but when he heard that healing magic made the pain even worse, he stared at me as if looking at someone half insane.
After that commotion passed, Catherine organized the situation.
“So Hyeon has grown stronger than before, and west of the mountain range, there is a monster stronger than a control entity, though Hyeon did win against it. There may be more monsters like that as well.”
As the commander, that was probably the most important part to Catherine.
“That’s right.”
When I nodded, she asked one more important question.
“Do you think a nuke would work on something like that?”
At the mention of a nuclear bomb, the others looked at me with stiff faces.
It seemed they had all heard the story from Magreta.
I shook my head at Catherine’s question.
“I can’t be certain.”
The restored side of its body could probably be blown away along with the entire city, but I wasn’t sure if a nuke could penetrate its original body.
“One mountain after another. And you said there’s even a sealed Demon King at the end…… It seems we’ll have to reveal it after all.”
“Reveal what?”
“This underground city.”
At her unexpected words, everyone looked at Catherine.
When everyone stared at her, Catherine explained the situation.
“People have learned that the food Hyeon brought this time was not food brought from Earth.”
The place it was grown was different, and the sacks it was packed in were different, so there was no way people wouldn’t know.
“Originally, I intended to simply gloss over it, but seeing the situation, I think it would be better to inform them about the city instead.”
She meant that, since dangerous monsters were appearing, we should tell people about a safe city.
But her words were very different from the plan I had made.
“Does that mean you want to bring everyone into the city?”
For the safety of the people who had come to this planet, that would be best, but I didn’t want to let in just anyone.
I thought Catherine felt the same way.
“No. We have to be extremely selective about who we accept. People who follow Hyeon.”
Fortunately, Catherine’s thinking had not changed.
“However, before accepting people, we need to spread rumors about this underground city. We need to answer their questions about the food, and we can also reassure people by letting them know there is a refuge.”
Certainly, if they learned there was a city, people would be able to feel at ease.
It would also make it easier for Catherine to manage them.
If that was the reason, I thought revealing it would be fine.
But Catherine had not yet explained all her reasons.
“The most important thing is to make the city known so that people will do their utmost to get inside. That way, even after entering the city, they will be grateful to Hyeon.”
Catherine continued speaking with eyes that looked a little frightening.
“To do that, we need to introduce this city to people as an abundant and safe city where monsters do not approach, a heavenly city managed by spirits and golems.”
Opening (2)