177 – To the Farther Sea (4)
There is such a thing as a demonic world in this world.
To the general public, it is called ‘Magyeong’ in the sense of ‘a harsh natural environment where people cannot live’, and in fact, there are many places like this that maintain the environment that people want to live in.
However, people live on the floating island, in the desert called the Immortal Golden Land, and in the frozen land called the end of the world.
And likewise, organisms also live by adapting to the environment.
If there is a problem, it is that there are many creatures that are outstanding and powerful in the Devil’s Land, as conspicuous as the harsh environment.
It’s teeming with terrifying creatures you don’t normally see in your lifetime, like the monstrous beasts and top people who lived on the upper levels of the floating island.
For example, a pack of wolves living in a demonic landscape appeared in a country built near the demonic landscape.
The wolves raided the pasture and ate all the livestock, ate the people, ate the mercenaries who came out after receiving the request, and ate the guards, knights, and vigilantes in each castle and city.
Its tough fur blocked arrows, its agile body that could freely change direction and run trampled knights, and its enormous strength, strong fangs, and claws were so powerful that it could kill even a stout bull in one shot.
When such a pack of wolves appeared and rampaged, people had no way to use their hands.
In the end, the country evacuated as many citizens and troops as possible to the capital city, gathered technicians, mass-produced weapons, led by ballistas, and used the summoned people as labor force to expand the wall and mass-produce the expanded wall. Using his weapons, he fought against the pack of wolves with the spirit of a desperate fight and finally subdued them.
Creatures of the Demonic Realm were such beings. In the case of countries dealing with wolves, the damage tends to increase because they initially treated them as wolves and then reacted too late. fall into danger and suffer enormous damage.
Why did that suddenly come to mind?
In the end, Chester, who was floating on a log with his raft smashed in a storm, suddenly remembered such a story.
The story of an old kingdom that almost perished because of wolves, and was actually destroyed by foreign invasion after not being able to deal with the damage of wolves. It was a fairy tale, but Chester knew it was true because of his father, who had visited the area and heard about it from a historian.
‘This isn’t even a demonic place!’
This place isn’t even a well-known demonic world, it’s just the sea, and the one I was dealing with was a shark.
Of course, that doesn’t mean sharks are weak, but if you think of the monsters above the floating island, you wouldn’t say they’re strong.
But Chester realized it.
The sea was a demonic realm by its very existence.
Fortunately, however, as a result of the crazy storm harassing the raft, the continent began to be visible in the distance.
“… … .”
“… … .”
– … … .
“Is everyone okay?”
Next to Chester were his family, exhausted from battling the storm, and stretched out like dead bodies in the sea.
In order to somehow answer, Monia raised her hand draped over the log while trembling, and immediately dropped it.
“It’s okay.”
Chester nodded, tied a rope to the log in case someone was swept away, and started swimming holding on to the log.
The destination was that continent in front of me.
* * *
As a result of swimming for about an hour while being pushed by the waves, I was able to arrive at the continent with more stamina than I thought.
“Whoa!”
Having pulled the log and his family out of the sea, Chester looked around as he relaxed from the long swim.
‘A little tree.’
A few trees are growing around the beach, but Chester immediately noticed something odd.
‘There’s only a little bit.’
It must have been the guess that Chester had deduced from the wrecked and neglected ship.
Chester immediately climbed a nearby tree, climbed to a high point, got a view, and looked around.
Then, what opened up in Chester’s eyes was a desert that stretched endlessly, just like the sea.
“… … Whoa.”
As expected, the desert spread out in front of Chester.
“… … Wait, is that a golden glow?”
Suddenly, Chester noticed that one side of the desert was strangely golden, unlike the dark yellow color of the other side.
And in Chester’s mind, his father’s travels in the golden desert of old came to mind.
‘I’m not going to the fuck again.’
That was the first line of Chester’s father’s long, majestic, boring, lamentable journey through the desert.
The two places where Chester’s father, who has traveled all over the world, passed the most near-death crisis.
It was a certain desert and jungle called the Devil’s Land, especially the desert… … .
‘Damn it, father.’
Chester lamented over his dead father.
‘You should have said something!’
Chester’s father didn’t say much about the desert, to the extent that he remembered all the novelty and lengthy things about the desert and his mother’s nagging to stop cursing in front of the child.
If it was a jungle, there would be some scars, so I’d definitely take care of them properly, but I heard that an insect got into the wound and laid eggs, so I had to open a new wound and take out dozens of threadworms.
‘The desert, that’s what they said.’
A desert that changes color from deep yellow to golden only when sunlight hits the grains of sand at a specific angle.
The special power of that desert sand… In fact, it is the power of microorganisms, but people who do not know that think it is the power of sand. Anyway, because of that special power, the corpses buried under the sand do not rot even after more than 100 years, so the name Land of the Living Dead is attached.
‘Yes, I did.’
One of the names that Chester came up with while lamenting the harshness of the sea.
The golden scent of immortality.
“You’re crazy.”
When they left the floating island and tried to go to another continent, how should they judge this reality, where they were greeted by the Devil’s Land, the Immortal Golden Land, and not another desert.
“Obviously, obviously.”
My father cursed at the desert so much that I was so curious that I found a book and studied it when I was a butler.
‘Did they say that the desert is so strong that if you stay in the sunlight for a long time unlike other places, you get a strange disease and die? There should be no problem with this because there is grace from the top.’
Every time you rest, you will have to rub the grace of the top on your body periodically.
Chester continued to think of the desert as he descended from the tree. However, of course, most of the desert-related articles that Chester read had no choice but to be travelogues of travelers.
It was difficult to find professional books by scholars who specialized in studying, investigating, and recording the desert. Because knowledge is a precious thing, the valuable knowledge left by alchemists and scholars is not released to the public, but managed by the government.
However, when it comes to desert travel, hardships are bound to follow. How they solved that hardship could be known by reading the travelogue. Why? It is because the person who did not inform the hardships he went through through the travelogue will die.
‘Creatures rot unusually quickly… It doesn’t matter.’
The Golden Land of Immortality is a place where creatures do not rot. If you carry around raw meat and periodically bury it in the desert, you will be able to keep it for several months.
In other words, ironically, even though the Golden Land of Immortality is a desert and a demonic realm, the need for food preservation is extremely small. All food is preserved.
‘Next creature.’
There was a note written in a traveler’s travel journal that he had seen a huge snake so tall as to pierce the sky eating birds flying in the sky.
There were also stories of giant lizards, scorpions and spiders, normal-sized snakes… … .
‘There are many creatures that are bigger than I thought.’
Although it is a lizard to a snake.
‘How do you get your water? If he grows up, he will drink a lot of water.’
Chester could not have imagined the existence of snakes that burrow deep underground and consume groundwater, and lizards that gather heat during the day and release it on cold nights to deliberately create condensation to consume necessary water overnight.
‘But you’re lucky. If huge creatures live that long, getting water might be easier than I thought.’
Chester nodded in agreement and began to think of food to eat in the desert.
‘Cacti could be eaten, right? There was a story written on it about getting water and filling the stomach by eating a cactus. They said that scorpions can be eaten as long as the tail with a stinger is removed, and I know that spiders can be eaten. There’s more to eat than I thought.’
Water, fire, beds, food.
If these four things are solved, you can survive anywhere. Chester made up his mind and prepared his mind to cross the golden land of immortality.
Then I suddenly remembered.
‘Rex has fur, can he survive the desert?’
The people at the top are creatures adapted to a floating island with a rapidly changing climate, so it’s okay, right?