168. truth
I felt as if the landscape had become a blunt weapon and was mercilessly hitting my head.
As if I wasn’t the only one who felt the world twisting, Ha-yoon also waved her hands in the air, looking for a place to lean on.
“What the hell is this…”
Words don’t come out properly. The voice drowns in thought. My eyes were telling me that this was reality, but my head couldn’t accept it.
Like forcing food into our mouths, our eyes were telling us to accept this as reality.
In the end, Hayun and I had no choice but to leave the city for a while.
Living in the forest of the demon realm, the alien sense that I have felt many times comes to me again after a long time.
Even if a strange situation unfolded before my eyes, I took a deep breath as I tried to recall the time when I thought it was the forest of the demon realm and passed on it, and it got a little better.
“Hey! Hell!”
However, Ha-yoon, who had a dissonance along with a distortion in her cognition, was breathing heavily while squatting as if she couldn’t stand.
“Calm down, it’s okay. We just have to check what happened.”
While patting the back with effort, I look around Nirva with my eyes. Clearly, this was Nirva, and the place I had visited through the warp a few days before was correct.
It was embarrassing to the contrary because it was so the same.
Many people glance at us as they pass by. Everything was real, starting with their gestures of concern about being unwell.
They weren’t fakes created by Sharqal to fool us.
The ghost town regained its original appearance in just a few days.
I had to admit that fact now.
“Hey, it’s okay now.”
Hayoon wakes up slowly. She takes a deep breath, sweeps her chest as if to calm her surprised heart, and then checks on Nirva again.
“That’s right, Nirva… that’s the city I know.”
“…First, let’s go to the Ren family’s mansion. If you go there, you will know something.”
So we moved back into the city. Even if I calmed my surprised mind and started to look at it coldly, my head seemed to be hardened, and I didn’t want to accept it.
“Cheap! Come and taste the fruit we brought you directly today!”
“there! Move straight! If it breaks, will you take responsibility and ask for it?”
“I think the city is full of life these days.”
The noise of people rings in our ears. All my senses were firmly asserting that this was true, so I was swept away by a strange feeling again.
“ah……”
Standing in front of the Ren family mansion, Hayoon couldn’t help but exclaim. Even from the barred door, it could be seen that the mansion was completely unmaintained.
The weeds in the garden had grown so long that they were sticking out all the way to the entrance.
This was different from what I had seen in the ghost town of Nirva. When Ha-yun reached out, the mansion made a rusty sound as if it was welcoming a guest after a long absence.
“It is completely unmanaged.”
“It must have been real that they fired all the people in charge.”
The Ren family’s mansion was rather old and shabby on this side. It was just that the color had faded, and the facilities themselves were neat and tidy.
Compared to the last time in Nirva, where countless servants came out to greet you, the inside of the mansion was desolate.
First of all, the place we headed straight was the banquet hall, where Sharqal was sitting on the throne.
Like the other doors in the mansion, the banquet hall made a bizarre creaking sound.
The ceiling was lined with spiders, and they were using the luxuriously huge banquet hall as their home. Rats living as a roof between the remaining tables and chairs are also noticeable.
The figure of the archmage who had lived for a long time sitting on the throne of the skull was nowhere to be seen.
“……”
I can’t hear anything except the sound of my footsteps walking towards the center of the banquet hall. perfect silence.
As I looked around the center, I was starting to get a sense of it little by little.
“You got it wrong.”
“uh?”
Hayun asked what she meant, and I calmly explained it back to her.
“It means that the first Nirba we went to wasn’t Nirva.”
If the ghost town of Nirva and the present Nirva were the same, the culprit would be Sharkal.
I don’t know what method he used, but Sharkal was the only one who could bring about a change in the level of the heavens and the earth with his own strength.
But here, his mana is not felt at all. Any wizard, even a god, will change an entire city, leaving at least a small trace.
“In this banquet hall, I don’t feel the transformed mana of Sharkal at all.”
Sharkal has never been here.
Thinking about it that way made me feel better. Because it meant that the ancient beast didn’t settle deep inside the kingdom.
But it comes down to one conclusion.
‘Did the geek make a mistake?’
No, it wouldn’t be a mistake.
It was rare for someone to interfere with the warp where coordinates were taken and moved, and it was rare for someone to go wrong.
It can be said that he deliberately moved us to a false Nirva.
I didn’t know why I did that right now, but anger at being cheated slowly boiled in my chest.
“Then where is the Nirva we first went to?”
I answered bitterly to Ha-yun, who gave me a very good question.
“The Demonic Forest.”
I don’t know how or why Sharqal recreated Nirva there.
Also, I don’t understand why the geek sent us to the forest of the Demon World.
Anyway, the answer was in the forest of the Demon Realm.
“Then you should get some weapons.”
I think I’m going to enter the Forest of the Demon Realm, but it doesn’t make sense to not have a proper sword. I wondered if there were any blacksmiths in Nirva who could handle swords well, but Hayun claps her hands and shouts.
“There must be quite a few weapons piled up in the Ren’s warehouse. See you there.”
He was a little sorry, but there was no reason to reject Hayun’s offer. If you have a personality like Haven Ren, even if you don’t use it, it seems like there are a lot of things that you just put in the warehouse.
Ha-yun, who skillfully guided me to the mansion’s warehouse, cuts through the locked safe door itself. I was a little surprised that his posture was so neater than I had known.
“Has your posture improved?”
“Do you know that I only sew every day? You fight together with Sen.”
It was Sen who properly scarred the face of an incumbent pirate officer and even ran away. If you think about Ha-yun, who was always sparring with Sen like that, he couldn’t help but grow.
The inside of the warehouse was also dusty.
The pleasant dust made me wonder if I should use the sword I brought out from a place like this, but I naturally frowned.
I changed my mind when I checked the neatly placed swords.
“Can I just do some grooming?”
There are several swords that are better than I thought. There is a risk of breaking it like last time, so I thought I should pack a few bags.
“ah……”
Hayun’s gaze is fixed on a certain point.
Even in the dark warehouse, the white light alone did not lose its elegance. The purple cloth covering the top looked like it had been wrapped around to prevent damage to the sword.
As Hayun carefully removed the cloth, a beautiful sword appeared. He lifted it with trembling hands, giving it the atmosphere of a famous sword just by looking at it.
“White Cloud Dragon.”
Ha-yun spit out a word with a tearful voice.
“It’s my mother’s sword.”
“……”
Haven Ren assassinated his brother and sister-in-law with poison in order to take over the family. Haven Ren, who accepted their daughter Ha-yun and devoured all their property.
In particular, in the case of this sword, it was made in the East, where sword artisans, who are said to be comparable to dwarves, live.
It was sufficient in terms of practicality, but if you take the time to keep it, it is a treasure among treasures that nobles who collect swords will want to own even if you pay a thousand gold.
Heven Ren deliberately kept the White Cloud Dragon in his warehouse to increase its value.
The sword that has been waiting for a long time without shining has finally found its owner.
*
Hayun, whose eyes were slightly red, forced her to turn her head away and tried not to let me see her face, but I already saw it.
He deliberately bends his head forward to cover his face with his hair, but Ha-yoon’s short hair doesn’t cover all of it anyway.
Even so, the fact that he didn’t take his hand off the sword he wore around his waist was so strong that it felt cute.
After leaving the mansion, I didn’t have any intention of talking about this topic anymore, so I asked her.
“Are you just here, or are you thinking of going back to the academy?”
“No, I don’t have one.”
“Can’t you pretend to be worried?”
Then Ha-yoon, who crossed her arms and placed her hand on her chin, pretended to be thinking for a moment before answering.
“No, I don’t have one.”
“Yeah, thank you for pretending to be worried.”
There’s no way Ha-yun doesn’t know that the Forest of the Demon World is a dangerous place. Nevertheless, he was responsible for checking what the hell he was up to and what he was trying to do.
“Oh, it’s a bit expensive in the first place.”
I laughed and muttered.
“I’ll take you to a friend at a discount price.”