Chapter 51
There were those crossing a scorching desert where not a single shadow could be seen.
They rode Bactrian camels with two humps, looking around their surroundings.
“Phew! It’s damn hot.”
“Damn it!”
Thick beads of sweat streamed down their faces without rest.
There were six of them riding the Bactrian camels.
Four men and two women.
Not a single one of them looked ordinary.
In truth, they were not ordinary people.
They were a party consisting entirely of Awakened.
Their official designation was Pathfinder Team 7.
They had been dispatched from Neo Seoul on a mission to pioneer the south.
The distance from Neo Seoul to this place was well over a thousand kilometers. It was the first time they had been dispatched so far away.
Seven Pathfinder teams had been dispatched.
They had built a shelter one hundred kilometers from this place and were searching the area.
The leader of Pathfinder Team 7 was Zahar.
True to his Russian descent, he stood over two meters tall, his enormous muscles wrapped around him like iron armor.
He was not merely strong in appearance.
As a C-rank combat-type Awakened, he led the team with outstanding skill and powerful leadership.
He had four team members.
Felix, a curse sorcerer; Anika, a magic-type Awakened; Darren, who had replaced both arms and legs with machinery; and Seido, a combat-type Awakened who wielded a sword as his main weapon.
Finally, including a woman named Mandy, a supervisor dispatched from Neo Seoul to report on the mission’s progress, there were six of them in total.
Mandy was a beautiful woman with long, wavy blonde hair. With sapphire-like blue eyes and a fresh smile, she was the center of the men’s attention.
At this, Anika, the sole female team member, glared at her with narrowed eyes.
Mandy fanned herself with her hand and chirped,
“Oh my! It’s so hot. You all are truly amazing for working in such harsh conditions.”
“What’s the big deal about this? Once you enter a dungeon, this is really nothing.”
Felix the curse sorcerer replied as if he had been waiting for the chance.
The gaze with which Felix looked at Mandy was sly.
Felix’s appearance was extremely ugly. He was short, his skin was rough, and above all, his eyes were shifty. That was why women disliked him.
On the other hand, Mandy was an incredible beauty that any man would want to embrace. It was Felix’s first time seeing such a beauty up close. Thus, he orbited around her like a satellite.
Zahar clicked his tongue at Felix.
“Tch!”
His displeasure was evident on his face.
She was a supervisor dispatched from Neo Seoul.
They wouldn’t have dispatched an ordinary woman to such a harsh place.
Though they didn’t yet know what her ability was, she definitely had a hidden blade up her sleeve.
Above all, a beauty like Mandy would never give her heart to an ugly man like Felix. Nevertheless, Felix incessantly hovered around her.
Just then, Darren the cyborg approached Zahar.
“That dwarf bastard, is it really okay to leave him like that?”
“Leave him.”
“But...”
“He’s not enough of a hindrance to the mission yet, so just leave him.”
“Tsk! Understood.”
“By the way, is your body okay?”
“It’s already creaking. I can still endure for now, but it won’t last long.”
“As I thought.”
Zahar slightly furrowed his brow.
Darren’s arms and legs were made of machinery.
He demonstrated tremendous power through his fusion with machinery. But desert sand was the natural enemy of machines.
It was because it wore down the drive parts, shortening their lifespan.
Though they had blocked sand from intruding with a special coating, there was no telling how long it would last.
That was why they were riding Bactrian camels instead of vehicles.
Vehicles or mechanical devices couldn’t last long in the desert.
They had only been able to advance this far thanks to the recent leap in technology, but that was the limit.
At the nearby shelter, they were busy repairing vehicles that had broken down on the way here. That was why they were moving on Bactrian camels instead.
Whoosh!
Another sandstorm blew in.
“This is really fucking awful.”
Sandstorms were humanity’s greatest enemy for survival in the desert.
Because if heated sand entered the respiratory tract, the trachea and lungs would be burned instantly.
That was why ordinary humans found it difficult to survive in the desert.
It was then.
“Captain!”
Seido, who had been riding ahead of the group, suddenly called out to Zahar.
Zahar urged his Bactrian camel and approached him.
Seido had already dismounted and was examining the ground.
“What is it?”
“Look here. The sand has melted.”
Zahar looked at where Seido was pointing.
Only that exact spot had melted and crystallized like glass.
“What is this?”
“It’s traces of fire magic.”
“Fire magic in the middle of the desert? The odds it’s another team’s doing?”
“None! As far as I know, there is no one among the Pathfinder teams dispatched here who uses fire magic.”
Seido shook his head.
Zahar’s eyes sharpened.
Seido possessed an extraordinary memory. Once he saw anything, he remembered it perfectly. The probability of his memory being wrong did not exist.
Zahar called Mandy over and showed her the traces of fire magic.
Mandy made an interested expression.
“This is definitely worth investigating.”
“We’re investigating it?”
“Our mission is to investigate all threats near the shelter. Naturally, whoever used this fire magic is also a subject of investigation.”
“Understood. Then let’s begin tracking.”
Zahar nodded at Seido. At that, Seido immediately began tracking.
The group followed after him.
Zahar and Mandy rode their Bactrian camels side by side.
Zahar asked cautiously,
“What are the higher-ups thinking? Building a shelter in such a remote place all of a sudden and telling us to investigate the area. This is the first time for such a mission.”
There had been more than one or two strange things about this mission from the moment they first received it.
Dispatching Pathfinder teams from Neo Seoul was not a new occurrence, but sending them so far away was extremely rare.
Especially since this place used to be an ocean, human feet had hardly touched it. Therefore, what threats or demon beasts existed here was completely unknown.
Zahar couldn’t understand why they had insisted on dispatching Pathfinders to such an area.
Mandy looked at Zahar for a moment and opened her mouth.
“Do you happen to remember what happened seven years ago?”
“Seven years ago... you mean that mana explosion?”
“That’s right. Exactly seven years ago, a massive explosion occurred in the middle of a far, faraway desert.”
The explosion had been so massive that a super-powerful mana storm had struck Neo Seoul.
Fortunately, Neo Seoul was unharmed thanks to defensive magic, but the outer slums collapsed and crumbled, killing many people.
The tremendous mana storm, enough to evoke the Sixth Destruction, was absolutely not a natural occurrence.
Neo Seoul had dispatched Pathfinder teams to determine the cause of the explosion. But the Pathfinder teams had found nothing.
It was because the explosion had occurred beyond the observation range of the Pathfinder teams.
Even if they wanted to get close to the source of the explosion, their abilities did not reach that far.
Thus, Neo Seoul had eventually given up trying to find the cause of the mana storm.
Seven years had passed since then.
Mandy continued.
“After that incident, the desert’s ecosystem changed completely.”
“Hmm!”
“The demon beasts underwent a great migration, rendering all the data accumulated until now useless.”
If a single A-rank demon beast moved, the effects reached even B-rank and C-rank demon beasts. In this way, a chain migration occurred, greatly changing the ecosystem.
Neo Seoul had been keeping track of all nearby demon beasts and dungeons, but due to the incident seven years ago, all the data they had painstakingly accumulated became useless.
Because of that, Neo Seoul had to send numerous Awakened outside to obtain new data.
In the process, previously unseen demon beasts, unknown dungeons, and labyrinths were discovered.
It had taken a full seven years to stabilize this.
“Recently, demon beasts coming up from the south have been captured. New types that don’t exist in our data.”
“Then could it be?”
“Yes! The higher-ups suspect that a boss-rank demon beast may have appeared. That’s why they think a chain migration might have occurred.”
“Surely they don’t expect us to stop an A-rank demon beast by ourselves?”
“Of course not? Our mission is to find out if such a demon beast really exists.”
A-rank or boss-rank demon beasts usually possessed special skills.
To hunt such demon beasts, detailed information had to be obtained beforehand.
“To minimize damage, we’ll need to get the information as quickly as possible and get out.”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm!”
Zahar stroked his chin with his large hand.
He now understood why they had been dispatched so far away. Still, a strangely unpleasant feeling remained.
Mandy looked at her reddened forearms and said,
“Now, let’s get the information quickly and return to the shelter. The desert sand and sun are the enemies of skin. Look, it’s already damaged. How upsetting!”
“We’re investigating an A-rank demon beast’s information, and you’re worried about your skin getting a little damaged?”
Anika, who had been waiting for an opportunity, took a shot at her. But Mandy replied calmly without a hint of fluster.
“Of course. Skin is a woman’s life. Anika, you should take care of your skin too. If you wander around the desert without any care like that, you’ll experience sudden aging before you know it. Don’t regret it then...”
“What did you say? You really...”
Anika flared up at Mandy’s spiteful remark and tried to raise her hand. But her attempt was blocked by Zahar.
“Stop! Now is not the time for us to fight among ourselves.”
“But she started it?”
“Don’t forget that she is the supervisor.”
“So what if she’s a supervisor?”
Anika’s face twisted fiercely. But before Zahar’s cold expression, she couldn’t flare up any further.
In the end, she slowly turned her head away, avoiding Zahar’s eyes.
Seeing that, Mandy formed a faint smile.
It was then.
“Captain!”
Seido called Zahar.
“What is it?”
“I’m afraid this situation is turning serious.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is our equipment.”
Where Seido pointed, breastplates and shields were scattered about.
Though half-buried in sand, they were definitely equipment mainly used by Neo Seoul’s Awakened.
Zahar’s face hardened stiffly.
“You’re sure it’s our equipment?”
“I’m certain it’s the equipment those in Team 2 used. I remember it clearly.”
At Seido’s words, all of Team 7 tensed up.
They knew Team 2.
Their skills were absolutely not below Team 7’s.
If those people had been attacked, then they were in danger too.
“Who did this to them?”
“Why aren’t there any corpses?”
No matter how much they looked around, they couldn’t see the bodies of Team 2’s members.
They dug through the nearby sand just in case, but there was nothing.
“Then were they kidnapped?”
“A demon beast kidnapping people? Does that mean it has intelligence?”
The faces of Team 7’s members showed clear confusion.
“Can you tell who attacked and kidnapped Team 2?”
“The sand has covered everything, so it’s impossible to tell.”
“Is tracking possible?”
“I’ll try.”
“Hurry.”
“Yes!”
Seido set out tracking again.
They crossed over a dozen large sand dunes.
When Team 7 was beginning to tire from the continued tracking, Seido, who was ahead, spoke.
“I found it.”
“Did you?”
Zahar brightened and went to Seido’s side.
But Seido’s expression was strange.
His pupils were greatly dilated, as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have.
“What is it?”
“It’s...”
Zahar’s gaze turned toward where Seido was looking.
In an instant, Zahar’s expression changed to resemble Seido’s.
What they saw was a huge village.
A village large enough to house well over a thousand people.
“A... goblin village?”
There was only one type of demon beast that built such a large settlement in the desert.
They were goblins, low-rank demon beasts.
Indeed, goblin corpses could be seen everywhere in the village.
The goblin village was thoroughly destroyed. However, most of the destroyed houses were buried under an enormous amount of sand.
The goblin corpses were the same.
“What is this? Did a sandstorm pass through?”