114. Rustwood (5)
Seeing the huge pillar of fire soaring in front of him, Silverfang thought.
what the hell
This feeling that tightens your whole body.
fear? fear? thrill?
Once upon a time, I encountered a feeling like this.
Back then, when I was working as a mercenary.
A hurricane I encountered while traveling in a car.
He knew that in the wasteland with high elemental density, elemental collisions in the atmosphere were frequent, and abnormal natural phenomena often occurred.
I thought it would be nothing.
Until we meet in person.
The sky was tinted with gray.
A clump of wind that seems to rip apart everything it touches.
Thousands of beasts at the same time sound like a sharp scream of the wind.
Goosebumps ran all over my body.
I knelt as I watched the hurricane passing by in the distance.
and felt
He knew that he was just a creature created by nature, and that he could not dare to protest in the face of the great power of nature.
I felt the same way now.
The other thing is that the huge pillar of fire in front of you right now feels fierce hostility.
That hostility was letting us know that the owner of the pillar of fire was human, not nature.
‘How can a mere human… .’
He worked as a mercenary in the past and met numerous humans.
sometimes as a colleague. sometimes as an enemy.
The human being he felt was an incomparable weakness as an individual.
He didn’t have iron-slicing nails, nor did he have leg muscles that ran nonstop.
There were some who dealt with mana, but there were not many.
I’ve seen a lot of wizards exist, but I thought that all of them were performing at least modest feats.
However, the phenomenon in front of us is different from the one that was dismissed as such a talent.
I suddenly had a thought.
‘god… .’
If he is capable of creating natural phenomena, he must be close to God.
‘The feet do not fall off.’
The span of the pillars was barely in front of where he was now standing.
fierce heat.
I tried to widen the distance even more so that I might be caught in the flames, but my body stiffened and did not move.
It was the same with others.
As I looked around, I saw that those who were fighting outside the range had also stopped fighting, and their faces were terrified.
Kwawagwa-!
It felt like an eternity.
The pillar of fire that reached the sky disappeared completely starting from the top, and the world that had been dyed red regained its original light.
“… … .”
There was nothing left.
Neither Tirhon nor his subordinates who were involved with him showed a trace.
complete nothing.
Only the tanned earth was proving that what had just happened a moment ago was not a dream but a reality.
“How long are you going to stand so stupid?”
When everyone was unable to take any action, a voice from somewhere awakened Silver Fang’s mind.
Cain got out of the car and was approaching across the spot where a pillar of fire had erupted, dressed as if nothing had happened.
Ooh-
As Silver Fang howled, the wolf beasts trembled for a moment.
The enemy had already lost their leader and lost their fighting spirit, so the battle that followed was one-sided.
* * *
The wind blew.
Under the setting sun, the cool breeze passed through the piles of dead bodies of prisoners, soaking up the scent of blood.
Whoo-
And it crashed into a man’s arm and shattered.
The man, Cain, spoke to the silver-haired wolf beast standing next to him.
“Beasts must have a much more sensitive sense of smell than humans. It’s not going to be very enjoyable.”
“I don’t really care. It’s the smell of blood that I’ve been smelling for my whole life. It would be correct to say that I became dull.”
Silver Fang looked at his subordinates with thoughtful eyes.
People in good condition were collecting the bodies and the wounded.
He glanced at him more and more, then made eye contact with Cain and bowed his head hurriedly.
“… … .”
He knew that it was an emotion that stemmed from the fear of those who handle fire.
forest. It is fire that devours the home.
The primal fear engraved in the genes is unavoidable.
Then one of his subordinates came and reported. Likewise, I looked at Cain’s eyes.
“Fifty-two dead and sixty-three wounded.”
“… … .”
The war lasted less than an hour, but the casualties were well over half the original number.
Although the seedlings were protected, the bodies of those who had been together for a long time were cold.
In an instant, a sense of realism flooded in.
It felt like waking up from a long sleep.
“You look complicated.”
Cain’s question.
Without turning his head, he spoke with a cracked voice characteristic of Silver Top.
“What did I fight for?”
“You fought for your beliefs. The result is what you see in front of your eyes.”
“If I had accepted your offer of help from the beginning, would the outcome have been significantly different?”
Since he already knew the answer, it was more of a self-reflection rather than a question.
“I would draw the composition of the war and make a plan. At least not as many deaths as there are now. To put it bluntly.”
On one side of the battlefield, the task of tying up the surrendered enemies with ropes and sorting them out was being done.
Silver Fang, who looked at him, said after a while.
“Cain, do you think my dream is a vain fantasy?”
“You mean the dream of rebuilding the forest?”
“okay. My dream is to reconstruct the forest where there used to be a large forest, and to create a place where all beasts, regardless of species, can live comfortably.”
Cain didn’t laugh.
Because all the major characters in this world live with their own utopias in their heads.
“I think it’s a great goal. It’s just a dream that’s too far to come true. The dream deserves respect, because the world is full of all kinds of malice and rudeness.”
“… … .”
“Because the world cannot live on faith alone.”
“What do you mean?”
After Cain caught his breath, he spoke in a low, yet skeletal voice.
“Compromise with reality. It is impossible to believe in a belief straight out of the box. Take care of those around you right now. Stop the naive thinking that it’s for all beasts. There are times when malice must be met with malice, and rudeness with rudeness. Also, you don’t have to stick with the past.”
“… … .”
Silverfang said nothing.
It felt like a hot needle stabbed deep in my head.
He seemed to know now what he had never seen before, and what he had missed.
“It’s never too late to achieve short-term goals first and think about bigger dreams later. follow me I will let you achieve what you want.”
Cain held out his hand.
The short-term goal would be to leave this place where they had been home for a long time and bring back the water of life to Leica.
Among many thoughts, a thought suddenly came to my mind.
Maybe this man will be a guide who will pave the way for you to reach your goal.
I looked at Cain, but the conflict didn’t last long.
Silverfang reached out and grabbed Cain’s hand.
That was then.
From the hill in the back, someone’s thick voice was heard.
“I was late because I had business to do somewhere else, so it’s already done.”
Cain and Silverfang turned their heads.
On the top of the hill, a giant lion with a body of over 2 meters was looking down with a thick cigarette in his mouth.
bang!
Cain quickly pulled out his gun and pulled the trigger, and the lion’s beast also waved his hand in the air at an equal speed.
He clenched his fists, and faint smoke rose from between his fingers with the sound of something grabbing.
He put a cigarette between his fingers and said white smoke from his mouth.
“What the boss said was true. He would be really alive.”
“It’s been a while, Laika. Sending you directly, the boss must have been in a hurry to fill the executive vacancy.”
The tone of the two men was very calm.
As if they knew each other would appear in this place.
“I heard that you use magic, is that your work?”
Laika’s gaze turned to the scorched land in the middle of the basin.
“It’s a fire-type magic. Communication with his subordinates was cut off, but if he had been swept away by a magic of that scale, he would have disappeared without leaving ashes.”
Laika’s gaze turned to Cain again.
“I always thought he was a dangerous guy. So I put him in prison, and he came back as a total monster. What’s the secret?”
“Leica!”
At that time, Silver Top took off his eye patch and exclaimed, revealing his long scarred left eye.
“How dare you show up here!”
He looked extremely excited, to the extent that he could not have imagined his usual calmness.
“Someone said there was a familiar dog.”
“I will kill you!”
Silver Top kicked off his seat and ran.
The silver new model headed up the hill, and Leica threw away her cigarette and fought a fierce battle against it.
Seeing that, Cain thought.
‘I can’t get rid of him right now. My mana has been used up a lot, and the wolves are all in a state of exhaustion.’
The emergence of Leica.
And the encounter between the two enemies in the past.
It was one of the situations that left the possibility open, so I wasn’t particularly embarrassed.
The removal of Leica was not too regretful because it was looking at the achievement of the goal in the first place in the long term.
‘In the first place, this is not the only time he’s going alone.’
Tung!
At that moment, the silver top rolled down the hill with a sound that sounded like the leather was exploding.
“Nothing has changed. If you are settling in the past like that, you will lose something precious.”
“Dare, dare!”
As Cain reached out, Silver Fang, who was about to run again, was startled.
“It is not yet the time for revenge. Even more so in my current state. Don’t your right leg muscles feel as hard as stones?”
“How do you… .”
All living things that live on the ground are born with the energy of the soil.
Those born in a land that lacks vitality will inevitably be exposed to various diseases that normal people would not suffer from.
The most typical example is the mage.
Apart from such atrocities, there were many diseases that corrode the body.
For example, the petrification of the body that Silver Fang suffered from, which gradually hardened.
‘For now, go back to Area 47 for maintenance.’
Unlike horse disease, which requires the use of a ‘specific method’, other diseases could be sufficiently cured only by developing new drugs.
It will take some time, but if you heal Silverfang’s disease, you can secure a high level of power.
Aside from the war with Leica, a strong power that would be put into all kinds of shades.
There was a group called Supreme Security, but they were troops to operate in the sun.
Because the external image is important in ‘inside the wall’, where you will be acting as the representative of Supreme Security.
Seeing the wolf beasts flocking to the bottom of the hill, Laika said sarcastically.
“There are not one or two homeless dogs. Are you gathering in one place like this to make it easier for me to slaughter?”
“The arrogance is still there. Do you go out without a throne and spit those noises?”
Leica snorted.
“Your seat. That’s what weak people wear. The earlier guys didn’t have time to spare, so I let them go, but if they were still alive, they would only be rude.”
Endless arrogance and wickedness.
and distrust of others.
That was the word that represented him.
It was for this reason that he was alone or accompanied by a minimum number of attendants and did not have talented people as his aides.
confidence in one’s own abilities.
And because he thinks that being able to stab him in the back can be an ally as well as an enemy.
Cain felt Laika’s eyes carefully scan the battlefield.
Analyze power.
If you fight, what will your odds be, how long will it take, and how much damage will you take?
He was arrogant and clever at the same time.
Although the boss’s instructions to purge the traitors have been given, he is not loyal enough to the organization to blindly follow them.
‘He never wagered an uncertain battle.’
Strictly speaking, I don’t rush into a fight that I think can cause ‘damage’ to ‘myself’.
As soon as movement is disrupted, there will be problems in cultivating the forest in one’s area, searching for the seeds of another water of life, or even the water of life itself.
“If you put up a fight, I’ll accept it.”
As expected, he smiled and shook his head.
“I would like to, but I don’t know what kind of trap your guy might have dug again. Cain, I’m not saying it’s a coincidence that you’re here.”
Leica took out a new cigarette, lit it, and exhaled smoke again.
“Did you plant a spy inside? Or prediction? You may have released the information guild’s snares on every road. He must have devoured Area 47 and touched some money.”
“I don’t think you’re obligated to answer me.”
“It really should be. Do you intend to keep rebelling against the boss?”
“I have no intention of stopping. Until the entire organization collapses.”
The air around him was stiff.
Only Laika and Cain were talking in a calm tone.
It’s like a part of a landscape that is separated from the whole.
“I admit to being poisonous. I don’t know how you got out of prison, but you dream of coming back and getting revenge. But my advice is, it’s pretty stupid to be hostile to the boss.”
boss.
After a moment of silence, Cain said.
“I’ll give you one piece of advice. You better not trust the boss that much.”
Leica said after a laugh.
“Know. It’s just a business relationship. One day I will take over the boss position.”
Leica finished smoking and turned halfway to the other side of the hill.
“I’m leaving today. But soon we’ll bump into each other again. If you continue to disobey the boss in this way, it will only be a matter of time before the order to wage an all-out war is issued.”
“Let’s see you again then.”
Laika’s figure slowly disappeared down the hill, leaving only a smoked cigarette where he stood.
Soon, the tension of the wolf prisoners was relieved, and moans leaked from all over the place.
“… Thanks for drying it.”
Cain of Silverfang’s horse shook his head.
“Say nothing. As soon as the situation is settled, move on. It will be very busy in the future.”
When Cain’s gaze reached them, the wolf beasts flinched once more and then scattered again to take control of the battlefield.
As if Cain thought of it as their leader too.
Cain, who looked at the scene, moved with Silverfang toward the car parked in the distance.
‘The next goal is Hexa Medical. We will make a ball for Zervia and secure facilities to develop new drugs.’
I had to keep moving.
Continue as always.
Cain got into the car and hit the accelerator again.