After Hannah received an unexpected gift, I brought the squad members who had been waiting into the tower.
When the white light vanished, the underground level of the tower we had seen before departing came into view, and Hannah was waving at us.
The squad members who had teleported with me ran over to Hannah.
“Why didn’t you come with us? We were worried.”
At Margreta’s question on everyone’s behalf, Hannah showed them the ring on her finger.
“Because of the magic. I had to check the magic on the ring.”
At Hannah’s words, everyone stared at the ring with bewildered faces.
“What do you mean?”
I had thought it better for them to hear it from the person involved, so I hadn’t explained what had happened in this tower to the squad.
“Well, you see…”
Hannah explained to the squad what had happened here.
Watching Hannah begin her explanation, I went up the stairs and stepped outside the half-destroyed tower.
A massive gray mountain stood at the center of an enormous basin.
The Demon King was sealed inside that mountain.
We had found out where the Demon King was sealed, and we had obtained the finest weapon. Now, only one problem remained.
If Hannah could not undo the seal, we could not reach the place where the Demon King was.
“It should have been obvious, but I didn’t think of this.”
All this time, I had only thought about the Demon King’s seal. I hadn’t considered that it would block access as well.
But if it was a seal, that was only natural.
What kind of seal would it be if just anyone could approach?
If access had not been blocked, the monsters would have awakened the Demon King long ago.
“They said we can’t enter right now, but we still have to confirm it.”
I couldn’t simply turn back just because of what a prophet from ten thousand years ago had said.
I had to see for myself what kind of seal it was.
Partly because of my promise, but also to confirm it, I had brought the squad members along.
A moment later, I sensed people coming up from underground.
The squad members who came up stepped outside the half-destroyed tower and looked at the basin and the mountain.
The immense, desolate basin and the gray mountain.
At the bleak yet majestic sight, the squad members were greatly astonished.
The people who had been staring blankly at the mountain began speaking one after another.
“This really is an unsettling place. A tall gray mountain in the middle of such a vast, barren basin.”
At Tom’s words, Sergeant Woo nodded.
“It won’t be easy to approach, either. The basin floor doesn’t look like ordinary ground. It’s closer to a marsh.”
After Sergeant Woo’s thoroughly tactical assessment, Margreta said something else.
“You said this place used to be a lake, right?”
I nodded at her words.
That much was obvious just from looking.
After glancing at Hannah, who had come out with us, I asked Margreta this time.
“Did you hear the whole story?”
“Yes. Though it’s hard to believe she had a real-time conversation with someone from tens of thousands of years ago.”
Looking at Hannah, Margreta shook her head.
Certainly, it would have been a hard story for an ordinary Earthling to believe.
“Haven’t we experienced more than one unbelievable thing since coming to this planet? This is just one more added to the list.”
However, as Tom said, the people here had already gone beyond the experiences of ordinary Earthlings.
“This is different. The moment someone makes contact with the future, the future should change. The idea that it can be prevented is scientifically strange.”
“Well, scientifically strange things have been happening all the time.”
Perhaps displeased by that remark, Margreta grumbled again, but that too was quickly suppressed by what followed.
“That’s true.”
Margreta sighed and raised both hands in surrender.
The people looked back at the mountain, and Sergeant Woo asked a question.
“That mountain is where the monster called the Demon King is sealed, correct?”
When I nodded at Sergeant Woo’s words, Tom asked next.
“But why did the people of the past call it the Demon King? Was it simply because it was the strongest monster?”
Everyone looked at me.
No, they were looking at the spear I was holding.
[It was the strongest monster, yes, but more than that, it was because that thing was the king of monsters. It could issue commands to every monster, every controlled object, and it possessed intelligence beyond that of humans. What else would you call such a monster, if not the Demon King?]
If he used magic, Soph could speak to others as well, but ever since that time, he had only spoken inside my head like this.
Thanks to that, I had to relay Soph’s words to the others every time.
When the people heard my explanation, they shuddered.
“Even now, without Captain Hyun, we’d all be swept away. If the seal were undone… it would truly be horrific.”
I thought the same as Sergeant Woo.
In any case, now that everyone was out, it was time to work.
I asked Hannah first.
“You still don’t have a feel for it, do you?”
“No. I need more time.”
“Got it.”
Awakening was not something that could happen so easily.
It would be a problem if her awakening came too late, but there was no need to worry about that either.
After all, the prophet from ten thousand years ago had prophesied that if she used that ring, she would awaken before it was too late.
After hearing Hannah’s answer, I told everyone the operation for today.
“Today, we’ll first try going to the sealing point. They said we won’t be able to go inside, so let’s confirm the situation and return.”
At the words that the objective was simple reconnaissance, everyone’s expressions brightened.
They all checked their gear and weapons, and after I checked my backpack and spear as well, we all set out toward the mountain.
Once we left the Magic Tower and entered the basin, the ground beneath our feet turned into mud.
The mountain was far in the distance, and yet we were already starting with this kind of mire.
At this rate, we would have to cross an enormous expanse of mudflats to reach the gray mountain.
A mire where our feet sank deep with every single step.
Crossing such a place would require a great deal of preparation.
But neither I nor the squad members had made the slightest preparation for crossing the mud.
There was no need to, and we had no intention of doing so.
Because we had magic.
“Harden.”
With the incantation, magic spread outward from my feet.
Drrrrrk.
Earth magic and heat magic unfolded at the same time, and the ground ahead gradually hardened.
Like a road, dry ground appeared atop the mire, wide enough for the group to walk side by side.
Seeing the dry ground, Tom whistled.
“I find magic like this far more fascinating than terrifying attack magic.”
At Tom’s words, the others nodded as well.
“The reason science failed to develop in the old civilization must have been entirely because of magic like this.”
Soph agreed with Margreta’s following words.
[That must also be why a political system like democracy never took root. When an individual possessed the mighty power and convenient abilities of magic, there was no way the principle of one person, one vote would have worked.]
Perhaps because the walk had become easier than expected, the group continued along the road while talking about such things.
After we had walked several hundred meters and the dry path disappeared, I cast magic again, and once the road was made, the group moved forward once more.
A desolate but quiet road.
The gray mountain drew closer and closer.
We had been walking like that for quite some time when Hannah stopped.
I looked at her in puzzlement, and Hannah pointed into the middle of the distant mire.
“Over there, is that a humanoid monster half-buried in the mud?”
Everyone looked in the direction Hannah was pointing.
“I can’t really see it…”
“It does look like some kind of lump is sticking out.”
The others could not make out what Hannah was pointing at.
That was how far away it was.
Among the group, I was the only one who could see what she had indicated.
I heightened my extrasensory perception and swept over the place Hannah was pointing to.
What I saw with my eyes was a lump of mud resembling a human.
There were no traces of life, but I sensed no trace of a monster either.
That was a person—the body of a dead person. And a corpse that had died a very long time ago.
“It’s a corpse. Someone who died long ago.”
At my words, Tom tilted his head.
“What? Long ago? Then there’s no way a corpse would still remain, would there?”
“It must be a mummy. It likely hardened inside the mud and has remained until now.”
Margreta answered Tom’s question.
“That’s incredible. A mummy from the ancient kingdom.”
We watched the barely visible mummy for a while, then started walking again.
As we resumed walking, Margreta asked a question.
“That mummy made me think of something. Why did the Demon King come to this mountain and get sealed here?”
This question, too, was directed at Soph.
After hearing her words, I became curious as well.
Soph answered.
[Because this mountain is a sanctuary.]
It was an answer I had not expected.
To think the word sanctuary would come from a mage’s mouth.
“A sanctuary? Isn’t that sacred ground in a religious sense?”
I was so surprised that I spoke aloud.
Everyone looked at me, and Soph continued.
[Doesn’t the Magic Kingdom have a religion you are aware of? The religion with the Saintess.]
At the word Saintess, I looked at Hannah.
Hannah was looking at me with shining eyes.
Just moments ago, the previous Saintess had looked at Hannah and called her the new guardian and Saintess.
[That mountain is the sanctuary of those who follow the prophet, the Star Guardian.]
Soph’s words meant that the mountain was the sanctuary of those who worshiped the prophet as part of their religion.
It was something I had never heard of before.
I asked Soph.
[Is this a memory you gained this time?]
[It is. I recovered quite a number of memories this time. Important memories I had lost.]
It should have been good news, but Soph’s voice was dark.
As if trying to change the subject, Soph continued his explanation.
[That sect calls it a sanctuary, but from a magical perspective, it is a place meant to connect the power the star has gathered—dark energy—to the guardian on the surface. You could call it an antenna connected all the way to the center of the star, or an oil field with its pipe driven into the star’s core.]
Perhaps because he had continued studying Earth’s culture, Soph explained things far more easily than before.
[The Demon King came to this mountain in order to steal that power, and the reason the Demon King could be sealed was also because this mountain was the sanctuary of the prophets.]
I relayed Soph’s explanation to the squad members.
At my explanation, some tilted their heads, while others wore grave expressions.
Hannah turned her head and looked at the mountain with profound eyes.
Thanks to Soph’s explanation, we fell silent once more.
As we quietly hurried on, the mountain drew closer and closer.
The closer we got to the mountain, the more mummies we discovered.
Corpses found in a hardened state.
Now we knew who those corpses were.
“They must have been the people who protected the sanctuary.”
People who had fought to protect the sanctuary of the religion they believed in.
Killed by the Demon King, they had become mummies and were now guarding the seal.
After continuing to walk like that, we finally arrived before the mountain.
Seen up close, it was a mountain so tall that its peak could not be seen.
Above the steep mountainside mixed with stone and earth, gray snow had piled up.
It was a desolate mountain that looked as if an avalanche might occur at any moment.
As we approached the mountain, my steps halted on their own.
The rest of the group had already stopped behind us, and only Hannah stood beside me.
Though invisible, there was something in front of us.
I reached a hand forward.
Thunk.
My hand was blocked.
There was a solid wall before me, though I could not see it.
When I placed my hand against empty air, Hannah also reached out.
Hannah, too, placed her hand against the empty air.
At that moment,
a translucent wall appeared in front of her hand.
It was a shield.
The shield Hannah had cast not long ago, the shield Shamara from the memories had cast.
The translucent wall spread left and right, and upward.
The translucent wall covered the mountain.
A shield had been spread over the entire mountain.
Star Mountain (2)