Chapter 39

Chapter 39

39. Reunion (3)

Gerik walked and walked again.

‘Magical entities are after a long time.’

If it was just an ordinary magical beast he would not have needed to step forward, but magical entities were a different story.

Bromwood was a city too far from beyond the northern border where magical entities swarm.

There is no way the floaters who have not even seen grade 3, grade 4 magical beasts a few times know the method to deal with magical entities.

There is a degree even to what one can do by chance.

The scale of the colony faintly felt was already quite large. By the time it reaches Bromwood it might swell the body to the extent that even Gerik would have a hard time handling.

Gerik gauged the distance with the faintly felt magical energy.

‘In two days I will roughly catch up.’

It was not that he could not go faster, but for the battle that would follow right after encountering he had to appropriately distribute stamina.

“Ha.”

To have to think of distributing stamina against just blood-sucking rats.

Thinking of the prime it was a matter one could not even imagine.

It was in the midst of that.

“······.”

Discovering a human cleaving the sky like one hawk was.

‘Is it an aura user.’

At the moment of kicking the ground one strengthens the muscular strength, and when gliding one makes the body as light as possible to increase the flight time.

‘Skilled.’

In the Gold Badge mercenary days when the heart was fine, it was also a movement method Gerik often used.

Meeting one or two aura users on the way is a common matter, but meeting an aura user of that level is not common.

Discovering the ashen head that popped out behind such a man’s back was at that moment.

‘Hmm?’

Gerik concentrated his eye power.

The moment he faced the bright pupils the body reacted.

─Huuuup!

Gerik who inhaled lowered his posture. Instantly the thighs swelled as if about to burst.

─Crack!

The ground sank concavely and Gerik’s huge body shot forward as if exploding.

Gerik thought while running at a speed truly like a beast.

‘Why is he being carried there?’

At that moment the aura user’s speed became one layer faster.

‘For kidnapping the face is too peaceful.’

The distance that seemed to be catching up similarly started to open little by little.

While chasing the aura user’s back the direction subtly twisted with the blood-sucking rat colony.

If continuing like this the distance would open greatly.

Gerik pondered for a while.

Blood relative and potential threat.

What is correct to chase.

***

Benrik turned his head with a tense heart.

‘Did he shake off···?’

The area near the hill where whitish dust wind was rising until a while ago was quiet. Either he shook off or the direction split one of the two.

Since he is not a human who would give up this quickly it is probably the latter.

‘On earth where he is going one does not know but···.’

Fortunate. At Benrik who is relieved Drenor threw the question he had swallowed throughout.

“Who was it?”

The child was quite urgent and the momentum of the man following like an angry bull was quite threatening so he first shook off and saw.

Benrik who was bending his eyebrows as if troubled said.

“Our father.”

At that Drenor opened his brown eyes wide. If it is the child’s father he was also a person he knew well.

“If father, are you saying Gerik?” “Yes, does Sir Vinter also know?”

When Gerik stayed in Bromwood, Drenor was at the northern Ironblood Fortress so he had never met, but he heard abundant stories from the count and the residents.

‘That guy just now?’

Drenor recalled the man who was chasing himself at a speed hard to believe is running on the ground. Because of the distance he could not see the features in detail but he clearly felt that ominous momentum.

If as Drenor heard he was an aura user of a level surpassing himself. Then catching up to himself would not have been that difficult a matter.

‘Strange.’

Then whatever he was thinking, the child carefully asked.

“By any chance did our father also owe a debt to Sir Vinter?”

It was a question whose context one cannot know but he answered first.

“No, he has no debt to me.”

“That is really fortunate.”

Drenor asked the circumstances from the child who is visibly relieved.

Benrik readily answered.

The story that Gerik took the count’s money and fled and the matter of sending a letter through the count’s carrier hawk to confirm that, even up to the matter of writing full of curses in that letter and sending, without hiding.

“So you called him by cursing···?”

Benrik who saw Drenor Vinter’s absurd gaze added one beat late.

“It couldn’t be helped, I am a kid and have no money to repay.”

Drenor somehow received the impression that Benrik uses the point of being a child only when it is good for himself, but first passed over.

“Even so surely he would try to kill.”

He had heard abundant rumors of what kind of person Gerik is, but still isn’t he a child.

The child did not say yes or no.

“Hmm.”

He only made a troubled expression with a face that looks very having circumstances.

Drenor no longer asked about that.

Instead─

“Did the count say no other words besides that? Why, something like asking something.” “Ah, he asked about the magical beasts of the Golden Mountains. He seemed to have a lot of interest in magical beasts?” “···Hmm, that was so.”

Because he was turning his head one could not see the expression, but it seemed he was pondering something.

How much more did they move, the old knight pointed at a huge tree trunk with his finger and said.

“Let’s rest a bit there and go.” “Yes.”

Because mana is not something one can use infinitely, a process of filling in the middle was needed.

The two people did not waste even this rest time in vain.

While Drenor fills mana in the empty heart, Benrik held the sword. It was a daily routine that continued from the day of leaving Bromwood.

‘Certainly he has an eye for it.’

Drenor who saw the child drawing the sword and taking a posture admired small.

Isn’t he reproducing the swordsmanship briefly shown last evening almost without error.

“There use the wrist a bit more. If you release the strength the radius of the sword widens.”

Excluding the detailed parts it was almost identical.

Moreover,

“Like this?” “Correct.” “But if like this doesn’t the strength not enter?”

He knew how to ponder himself not just following as told, as shown.

“Why does strength have to enter?” “Well to cut something one has to give strength of course?”

He also knows how to express opinions without being intimidated.

“What is needed to cut something is not strength but speed.” “Aha.” “Of course using strength appropriately is important. But you do not need to be bound by that. What do you think the reason is?” “The reason one does not need to use strength···.”

The child who was thinking carefully shone his eyes as if realizing something.

“By any chance is it because the origin of strength is different?”

At that Drenor opened his eyes wide.

It was a question he wanted to see the appearance of struggling a bit but he recalled the correct answer at once.

“···Origin?”

When requesting supplementary explanation just in case the child said.

“Because I will strengthen the muscles with mana, there is no need to consciously squeeze the muscles.”

It was accurate.

Even now mana is accumulating little by little in the child’s heart area, so becoming a mana user is a matter of time.

Therefore there was no need to move like ordinary people who do not know how to use mana. Just by releasing the restriction of the muscles the movement becomes lighter, and also wider.

And such a habit was better to form when young, when not long after holding the sword.

‘···Huh, excellent to an absurd degree.’

Whatever meaning he took Drenor’s silence as, the child scratched his head as if embarrassed.

“Hmm, is it not?” “No, it is correct. You are excellent.”

Drenor who patted the child’s head and praised continued and asked.

“How is the mana operation?” “Something is wriggling in the chest area but it does not move according to will yet.”

Mana smaller than a fist only pools and waves in the heart area, and does not greatly leave that vicinity. With this the thing one can strengthen might only be cardiopulmonary endurance or so.

“It seems it has not accumulated enough yet. Let’s wait with leisure.”

Like that the two people repeated movement and rest during the day and repeated movement while avoiding the night dew at an appropriate shrine site at night.

And the day exactly five days after leaving Bromwood.

“······.”

They discovered a campsite with a cart and carriage with a movement cage on it.

Along with over twenty corpses.

“······.”

The state of the corpses was one and all not ordinary. An appearance where all the body fluids inside the body escaped and hardened stiffly.

An appearance reminiscent of mummified mummies one and all.

The stiffly hardened corpses were even ignored by the cleaner crows and flying insects. If the two people had not found them from the air, they would probably have been left as is for a very long time.

The campsite was set up in the middle of a concave lowland where hills continue winding, and because that location was exquisite it was not visible from the path going to and from Delmar.

“···I have heard the story that a black market often opens near here.”

It was a habit those who do illegal things usually have.

Drenor who said so while examining the surroundings looked complicated, but it was not an appearance of being greatly surprised at this situation itself.

“I see.”

Benrik carefully examined the traces of the campsite and found the iron cage where the child would be.

And not long after he could discover one cart with an iron cage on it.

A child who tightly hugged a small child who looks like a younger sibling and hardened, a child who sat down covering the head, a child who held the iron bars and screamed.

Among such children there was a boy with reddish-brown hair crouched.

He was hardened tightly hugging the knees like a fetus.

“······.”

Benrik who blankly looked at him picked the lock and opened the cage.

To recover the corpse.

“I will do it.”

Drenor who approached at some point said.

“No, I will do it.”

Benrik dug the nearby ground and carefully took out Lucian’s corpse. And buried the child together with the gold buttons and belt, clothes he took care of by searching Oren’s shop.

When looking at the grave with an unsettled heart, Drenor who approached at some point said

“It is not your fault. It is just that the luck was not good. The attack of a magical beast is no different from a disaster.”

The one who can respond to a disaster that suddenly struck is only one equipped with martial force of a level equal to him.

He knew.

However the thoughts just become a bit many.

If there was no knowledge about magical beasts, if he did not meet the Jenkinsons, if the luck was a bit worse it was a matter that could sufficiently have happened to Benrik as well.

While Benrik was burying Lucian the other children’s corpses seemed he recovered.

He roughly gathered the corpses of the slave merchants excluding him in one place then burned them.

─Tadat tadat···.

Benrik who was looking at the sparks rising riding the wind as if recalling opened his mouth.

“Come to think of it, Sir Vinter. Do you know something about the magical beast that attacked here?” “···Did it show?” “Yes.”

He who was narrowing the corners of his eyes as if troubled said.

“Hmm, actually─”

Drenor first talked about the reason the count deliberately called Benrik to the lord’s castle.

Even up to the matter of the disaster-level magical beast that has not even been reported to the magical beast society and the ‘hawk’ chasing it and Drenor who stepped forward to subjugate it failing to even properly inflict damage and missing it.

‘So, was the black heat haze seen at first because of that?’

That means, it means the magical beast that attacked here is that dangerous.

Benrik who was thinking tilted his head to the side.

‘Scattering Rat Swarm···.’

Although the name calling the magical beast differs by region, even hearing about the habit of scattering and gathering, or the habit of sucking all the body fluids of living things there was not particularly a magical beast that came to mind.

Moreover···.

‘The remaining traces are strangely none.’

The traces the magical beast that attacked here left were only the countless tooth marks remaining on the skin of the corpses and the ash powder scattered here and there in the campsite.

‘Wait, ash powder?’

Benrik examined the surroundings. The ash powder mainly remained in the places where the adult men’s corpses were. And it was also smeared on the grasps of several corpses.

Benrik asked.

“By any chance is that ash powder···.” “If one kills them they become ash like that.”

He has never seen it even once, but he has heard from Gerik.

About the monsters composed only of magical energy that do not take any living thing as origin.

This is not a magical beast but─

“Is it a magical entity···?”

It was then that a heavy voice intervened.

“Correct.”

Benrik turned his head while feeling a mood as if the heart falls to the floor.

Broadly opened shoulders and shortly cut ashen hair, bushy beard and ominous blue pupils.

“Benrik.”

The huge barbarian who appeared without even a sign smiled while revealing white teeth.

“The complexion is rotten good.”

It was Gerik.

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Author’s note Thank you for the precious recommendation and support Jaeryongdangam-nim! Really really thank you!