The fact that I was the only one who could let people into the ruins naturally required an explanation.
“They told me I’m not the official administrator.
I only stopped the sandstorm temporarily. Right now, this storm is the defense facility coming back online with the passage of time.
To stop the storm, I have to go back down beneath the ruins.”
At my words, Magreta’s expression turned grave.
“Can no one else do it?”
“Well. I think that’s something the people coming here will have to research.”
Of course, Soph had already assured me that researching it would be useless.
[It is administrator authority personally set by a great mage. There is no way someone who isn’t even a mage could obtain that authority.]
It was an answer full of self-praise, but this time it was extremely reassuring.
“That means if they don’t go with Hyeon, they can’t even enter the ruins, and if Hyeon doesn’t stop the storm, they can’t leave either!”
That was exactly it.
As Magreta’s expression turned serious, Carlo slipped into the conversation.
“Then I suppose we could call you the owner of the ruins...”
I shrugged.
“All I can do is help people enter and leave. I can’t control those ruins as I please.”
In truth, I could control them as I pleased.
The fact that Soph had completely seized control of the facility meant he could shut down the facility, just like turning off the defenses.
When I heard that, I asked Soph.
[If you can maintain the environment, it seems like you could also worsen it. You could raise or lower the temperature to extremes, remove the oxygen...]
Soph unleashed a string of curses.
[Are you insane!]
I had only asked.
I wasn’t saying I would do it right away.
I had only asked just in case.
[Do not forget Tenia’s last wish. This facility was made to protect this planet.]
Since he said it in such a serious voice, I had no choice but to nod right away.
In any case, it seemed that such things were possible too.
After hearing me, Magreta fell into thought.
Even as we left the raging sand desert behind and headed toward the base, her expression did not ease.
When everyone began watching her mood, I stepped forward as the representative.
I approached her side and asked in a low voice.
“It seems like it’s because of what I said... Is that going to be a problem?”
Thinking about it, she was also bound to the U.S. government.
This matter could be seen as a mercenary occupying the ruins, and she and her organization might end up in trouble.
She shook her head.
“Ah, I’m sorry. It’s not that. I just have a lot more to think about now.”
“I see. I was thinking of charging an entrance fee and a guide fee, but I suppose I shouldn’t.”
To change the mood, I offered a joke that was half sincere.
At my words, Magreta’s eyes widened.
She grabbed my hand tightly.
“No. Do it. You absolutely have to do it.”
“Pardon?”
It was a truly unexpected answer.
“In Korea, do you call it gapjil? Abuse of power? Do that as much as you want. You can even lie down halfway and say you can’t go on.”
What followed was not easy to keep up with either.
She was not trying to stop my actions, but encourage them even more. I could not understand it at all.
“Actually, that was what I’d been worrying about. I was thinking about what to demand from those bastards.”
Since it was difficult to understand, I decided to just listen.
Fortunately, she explained it in a way I could understand.
“This worked out well. Our side can use Hyeon as an excuse, and Hyeon can use us as an excuse. Then we’ll be able to give them a proper blow.”
According to Magreta, the people coming to research the ruins seemed to belong to a different department from hers.
“They aren’t just a different department. They’re our enemies.”
She denounced the other side in an emotional voice.
“We go through all that trouble to find ruins and discover artifacts, and then they come late and gobble up only the achievements.
We were the ones who found the spatial transfer ruins, but those bastards took the credit, and the truly necessary research is going nowhere because of those money-eating hippos!”
The target of her anger was the organization to which the researchers who would come later belonged.
“It’s an organization created by the Department of Energy, NASA, the defense research labs, and those corporate bastards all joining hands, so if there’s one thing they have, it’s dollars. You can rip them off for a fortune. We’ll take a cut on the side too.”
Even a high-flying American intelligence organization had money problems.
From her words, I could feel the sorrows of an active intelligence agent that were different from the movies.
On the way to the base, Magreta and I discussed ways to profit from the ruins.
Fortunately, we did not encounter any monsters before arriving at the base.
There was no need for me to use my senses to avoid them either.
Was it because we had continued hunting them all this time?
It was nice that things were comfortable, but the absence of prey like this was not necessarily a good thing.
Food was the immediate problem.
Still, it was better not to encounter monsters right now.
The group had fought through the night, and there were wounded, so we were not in a state to fight.
Just walking and dragging the stretcher was hard enough.
Like everyone else, Hannah was quiet too.
After making the stretcher, she did not look at me.
She continued following behind the stretcher, staring only at it.
No, she was not looking at the stretcher. She was looking at the pole tied to the stretcher.
What she was looking at was not my old spear shaft, but the tree branch on the other side.
She stared at it so intently that I wondered if she could see energy too.
Seeing her follow the branch as if enchanted, I asked Soph.
[Is there any way to use that branch besides as a spear shaft?]
Since I could retrieve my spear, I did not need another spear.
If I ended up using that branch, I felt like I would use it to make a bed.
[If you use it as a weapon, you could use it as a staff, or as a bow stave... But not a bed. That would be too much. You don’t even have a lover.]
There was an unpleasant remark mixed in, but in any case, it seemed there were ways to use it besides as a spear shaft.
For now, Hannah seemed to want it, but I felt I needed to think about it a little more.
We had transported even the patient on a stretcher, but we were able to arrive at the base without being late.
When we reached the cave in front of the rocky mountain, the sun was still high in the sky.
The yard in front of the cave looked different again from yesterday.
Smoke was rising from a cave in the corner, and laundry was hanging on a line on one side.
Perhaps for tanning, hides were hung up as well, and meat was being dried.
There were people sitting on the ground carving wood, and people eating food.
It seemed that the people who had initially been inside the cave were gradually coming outside.
“It’s a nice sight. Now it looks like a place where people live.”
At Tom’s words, the others nodded.
However, one person did not agree.
[They seem far too careless. It worries me.]
The person who objected was the mage.
[What do you mean?]
[They are not keeping watch at all. There are people holding spears, but they aren’t properly standing guard...]
[You saw that nearly all the prey had disappeared on the way here. Maybe there’s nothing left to be wary of now.]
I said that, but I was worried too.
I thought it was a compulsion born from the war, but it seemed I was not the only one thinking that way.
While I kept his words in mind, we arrived in front of the cave.
“People have returned!”
The ones standing guard shouted loudly.
The people in the square looked at us.
Seeing that, Carlo said,
“Let’s go into the cave.”
However, Tom stopped him.
“First, let’s move the patient.”
At Tom’s words, Carlo lowered the stretcher with an apologetic face.
Tom immediately checked Sergeant An’s wound.
“That’s strange. His condition is quite good. Even if he was carried on a stretcher, we dragged it along the ground, so I was worried the wound would worsen...”
Sergeant An had not woken once during the journey to the base.
He had not fainted either; he slept comfortably, as if he were riding in a real ambulance.
[That is the power of the Ollamar branch. Still, a bed is out of the question.]
When I seemed to be considering it, Soph emphasized it again.
Since he kept saying it, I felt like I should check even more.
Meanwhile, the wound inspection was completed.
“At this rate, he’ll be able to move in just a few days. His body has become sturdier than before, so wounds do heal easily, but... I’m sure it wasn’t to this extent.”
Tom tilted his head until the end, then moved the stretcher to the rear party’s cave together with Hannah.
The remaining people headed to the advance party’s cave to report.
David was inside the cave, and Magreta quickly finished her report.
The report covered the discovery of the ruins and the rescue of the survivors.
Upon hearing that the survivors had been rescued, David seemed satisfied, and at the story of the ruins, his expression turned serious.
After that, a question-and-answer exchange continued between David and Magreta.
“You’re saying there were ruins inside the sandstorm?”
“And they’re a terraforming facility.”
“Can people enter and leave?”
“They need Hyeon, though.”
“We’ll have to contact Earth.”
“I’ll go.”
“That would be best.”
“I’ll check what times are possible.”
Once the conversation ended, what needed to be done next was also decided.
All reports were complete, but nowhere in them was there any mention of Park Osu.
Park Osu had already been erased from David’s mind.
Neither Carlo nor I said anything about that matter.
Instead, I brought up something else.
“I saw on the way here that the defenses seemed quite lax.”
I had heard it from Soph too, but now I was even more worried myself.
To be honest, I did not think it was my place to say it, but a word of advice should be fine.
David frowned.
‘Is it not fine?’
When my expression flinched, he burst into anger.
“There’s no way to handle it! Even if I try to set more guards, we don’t have enough people. All four sides are wide open, so guards aren’t all that effective. I’d rather have everyone live only inside the cave, but even the advance party won’t listen.”
Fortunately, the reason he was angry was not me.
He was not opposing my opinion either.
There was simply no way.
“I’d like to build a wall at least, but I can’t see proper trees, let alone stone... If things get bad, we’ll have to hole up in the cave and collapse the cave ceiling.”
On top of that, he was thinking of something extreme, as expected of a soldier.
Hearing those words, Soph spoke.
[There is a way to build a wall. I know a place where there are materials that can be used for a wall.]
I hastily asked back.
[What? There’s a place like that?]
[Didn’t you see the underground bases we made? To make bases like those, a great deal of materials are needed. There is a place where such materials were gathered.]
It made sense.
However, far too much time had passed for those materials to still be intact.
[There’s no way they’d still be fine after all this time.]
[There is magic, isn’t there? You say that while using magic when burying corpses? Magic that freezes materials in stasis is not difficult magic.]
If that was the case, this was useful news.
With a brightened face, I asked him.
[When did you remember that?]
[...I thought of it after seeing the Ollamar branch. I brought that branch from that place.]
The atmosphere suddenly sank.
It was a needless question.
Soph continued in a darkened voice.
[More importantly, it would be best to hurry.]
[Is there really a need to hurry that much?]
When I tilted my head, Soph spoke again.
[You saw why we were destroyed, did you not?
What destroyed us was neither the ant monsters nor the native creatures you people are hunting.]
An image rose in my mind.
The monstrous beings in the image that blocked magic and swept people away.
When that horrific sight came back to me, my expression hardened stiffly.
[They are still on this planet. Now that humans have returned, those things will awaken again as well.]