Chapter 118

Chapter 118

The Mana Stone mine was the strategic facility Neo Seoul considered most important.

If the supply of Mana Stones from the mine was cut off, every facility in Neo Seoul would stop at once.

There were cases where Mana Stones could be obtained from monsters, but it was extremely dangerous, and not every monster possessed a Mana Stone.

Even if dozens of monsters were killed, only one or two Mana Stones would appear at most. The efficiency was far too poor.

The Mana Stone mine was the only place capable of supplying large quantities steadily and regularly.

That was why Neo Seoul managed the Mana Stone mine with particular care.

They sent Awakened to subjugate the monsters inhabiting the area around the Mana Stone mine and the Dungeons that appeared unexpectedly, reducing every possible danger factor.

Because of that, there was even a ridiculous rumor that, aside from Neo Seoul itself, the safest place was the Mana Stone mine.

“Fuck! It’s damn hot.”

A blond man with a delinquent look on his face scowled deeply and grumbled.

The man’s name was Logan.

He was an Awakened dispatched from Neo Seoul.

A Grade C martial-type Awakened, his main weapon was a large greatsword.

Behind him were more than ten Awakened riding in two buggies.

They were all Awakened led by Logan.

“I don’t see a single Great Horn Hyena today.”

“I heard their habitat is gradually moving south.”

“Is that true?”

“That’s what the other teams are saying.”

The team members’ expressions turned serious.

Great Horn Hyenas lived and hunted in packs.

The leader of the pack was female, much larger and stronger than the males. Like a lion, she even had a mane around her neck.

She was a monster whose height from forepaws to shoulders exceeded two meters, and whose length from head to tail reached five meters.

They lived in packs ranging from a few dozen at the smallest to hundreds at the largest. And a considerable number of them were cubs born from the leader female.

In other words, they were a matriarchal bloodline society.

Naturally, all Great Horn Hyenas obeyed the leader female’s commands absolutely.

One by one, they were not particularly strong. But when dozens or hundreds gathered together, the story changed.

Under the command of the leader female, the Great Horn Hyena pack displayed dozens or hundreds of times more power.

In the past, they had mostly been found quite far from the Mana Stone mine, but lately, one or two had been appearing even near the mine.

They were clearly a kind of scouting party.

“If scouts have been seen, it means the main force isn’t far away. We might have to go through quite an ordeal soon.”

“Ugh! I hate monsters that move in packs, like Great Horn Hyenas or Flame Wolves. Fighting them one by one wears you out.”

The Awakened already looked sick of it.

Logan smirked as he looked at his subordinates.

That was because he felt the same way.

It was better to fight one strong individual. If one dealt with monsters that moved in packs like Great Horn Hyenas one by one, one would end up covered in wounds large and small before realizing it.

If one was ever isolated inside a pack, survival could not be guaranteed, so most Awakened avoided Great Horn Hyenas.

Logan himself had once been isolated inside a Great Horn Hyena pack and fought desperately.
That was why the rumor that the Great Horn Hyena pack was moving south was anything but welcome.

“If the Great Horn Hyena pack really moved its habitat near the Mana Stone mine, we won’t be able to deal with it by ourselves. We’ll have to mobilize all the Awakened dispatched to the Mana Stone mine.”

“That’s right, leader! We can’t be the only ones stuck with the whole burden for no reason.”

“Pain should be shared. Heh-heh!”

At Logan’s words, his subordinates laughed.

Then Logan’s face stiffened.

That was because a massive cloud of dust rising into the air entered his field of vision.

Logan shouted,

“Everyone stop chatting and prepare for battle.”

A dust cloud of that scale meant either a large-scale group was moving, or a massive monster was on the move.

“Fuck! It’s not really a Great Horn Hyena pack, is it?”

“Surely not?”

Tension appeared on the Awakened’s faces.

They drove the buggies toward the direction where the dust cloud was rising and prepared for battle.

As the dust cloud drew closer, the Awakened’s tension reached its peak. Then, when the dust cloud finally came close, a drained voice escaped someone’s mouth.

“What...... is that?”

“What the hell......?”

Their faces filled with absurd disbelief.

The owner of the dust cloud was a monster.

It was a Mammoth, a gigantic monster whose shoulder height exceeded five meters.

The problem was the cargo wagons trailing behind the Mammoth like beads on a string.

The cargo wagons had only wheels and no power source, and they were as huge as warehouses. Several dozen of such wagons were attached behind the Mammoth.

Without realizing it, Logan murmured,

“A...... Caravan?”

“A Caravan?”

“I’ve heard plenty about them...... but this is my first time seeing one in person.”

Caravans visited without warning.

They did not come regularly, so ordinary people almost never had a chance to see one.

Even among Awakened, not many had actually seen a Caravan in person.

Recently, Caravans had stopped coming altogether.

Because of that, contact with other Colonies had been cut off as well.

Caravans did not merely trade. They also served as messengers, carrying news between Colonies.

With no Caravans arriving, there was no way to know the situation in other Colonies.

Since Caravans had not come for years, people assumed that the Colonies near Neo Seoul had been annihilated.

That did not mean it was easy for Neo Seoul to dispatch people and confirm whether the Colonies had survived.

Traveling between Colonies required an exceptional Navigator, and unfortunately, Neo Seoul had no such person.

And there was no reason to pour manpower into confirming whether other Colonies had survived.

Even without other Colonies, Neo Seoul had no problem surviving.

Logan was shocked to see a Caravan appear after such a long time.

“A Caravan. Then does that mean there are surviving Colonies?”

His voice trembled by itself.

The fact that, in this damned world, a functioning Colony existed besides Neo Seoul gave him a strange sense of relief.

They were not alone.

The fact that another human group existed somewhere in the world gave him a strange sense of fullness.

When the Caravan saw Logan and the Awakened, it slowly came to a stop.

Warriors who appeared to be Awakened began revealing themselves one after another on the roofs of the cargo wagons.

They wore armor and clothing distinctly different from the styles of the Neo Seoul Colony.

Logan shouted,

“I am Logan, dispatched from Neo Seoul. The person in charge of the Caravan, come forward and identify who you are and where you came from.”

At that moment, a man in a black robe appeared on top of the Mammoth’s head.

The man opened his mouth.

“We are the White Bear Caravan from the Akutsk Colony. Is this Neo Seoul territory? If so, we found the right place.”

---

“Zeon! Zeon!”

Briel came crashing into the house and called for Zeon.

Zeon, who had been sitting on the sofa enjoying his leisure, turned only his head to look at Briel.

“I haven’t gone deaf. Call me quietly.”

“Zeon, did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“So you haven’t heard yet.”

“What happened for you to make such a fuss?”

“A Caravan is coming.”

“A Caravan?”

Only then did Zeon look interested.

“Yes! They say a Caravan entered the Mana Stone mine the day before yesterday. I heard it’ll enter Neo Seoul this afternoon.”

“Where did you hear that information?”

“Uh, at the Goblin Market.”

“Is that so? Then it must be true.”

Zeon rose from his seat.

To him, Caravans were not that unfamiliar.

He had encountered one in the desert seven years ago. But most people had not.

They knew other Colonies existed, but they had never come into direct contact with them, so they had no way of knowing how those Colonies built cities, defended themselves, or developed.

When the Caravans stopped coming, the already precarious exchange was completely severed.

People thought the reason must have been that the Colonies had been trampled by monsters.

Unlike Neo Seoul, which was protected by anti-magic force, other Colonies had to defend themselves with human strength alone, and that was an extremely difficult task.

Because of that, they could not rebuild modern civilization the way Neo Seoul had, and their civilizations had stagnated somewhere between the medieval and modern eras.

It would not have been strange for such precariously surviving Colonies to be destroyed by monster attacks.

If a Caravan really had come from another Colony, then it meant contact with another civilization was being made for the first time in years.

It was only natural that people would be excited.

“You said they’re entering this afternoon? Then if we go out now, we should be able to see them.”

“Yes! Let’s go watch.”

“What about Levin?”

“He went out earlier. If the Caravan comes in, he’ll show up on his own.”

“That’s true.”

Zeon nodded and put on his robe.

The two of them went out onto the street together.

Most people still did not seem to know that the Caravan had made contact with the Mana Stone mine, so the street was quiet.

Zeon and Briel found a high place with a good view near the entrance to the slums and sat down.

Sitting beside Zeon, swinging her feet, Briel suddenly seemed to remember something and took out a piece of dried meat from her chest.

“Eat this. I bought it at the Goblin Market.”

“Jerky?”

“Yes!”

Zeon accepted the jerky and put it in his mouth.

He could not tell whether it was dried rat meat or dried monster meat. But he felt no reluctance toward it.

After all, the ingredients of food one could find in the slums were usually obvious.

Of course, the story would be different once inside Neo Seoul.

He had been chewing the jerky for a while when a sand-laden wind blew in.

“Ugh! This damned wind.”

Briel held down her pointed hat so it would not fly away and grumbled.

Looking at Briel, Zeon thought,

‘Still, she’s gotten a lot brighter.’

She still sometimes lost focus in her eyes because she had not escaped the aftereffects of the drugs, but even so, she had improved greatly.

Along with it, her personality had grown a little brighter too.

It was a positive sign.

For better or worse, they would have to stay together for a while, and there was nothing bad about Briel becoming brighter.

Then it happened.

“Ah! Over there.”

Briel suddenly pointed toward the middle of the desert.

Zeon’s head also turned toward the place she was pointing. Then he saw a dust cloud rising far away.

In Zeon’s eyes, he could see a gigantic Mammoth approaching while raising the dust cloud.

The Mammoth, whose shoulder height alone exceeded five meters, was imposing just to look at. The cargo compartments trailing behind it in a long line reminded him of old trains.

“Wow!”

Briel let out an exclamation of awe.

“What is that?”

“A Mammoth? It’s a Caravan.”

“A Caravan came?”

People who had belatedly noticed the Caravan’s existence began murmuring.

A Mammoth was not a monster one could easily see.

At least, such a gigantic monster had never been discovered near Neo Seoul. The appearance of such a monster was enough to startle people.

But what was even more astonishing was the line of cargo compartments attached behind the Mammoth.

From that, people realized that the Mammoth was a monster controlled by the Caravan.

“A Caravan came.”

“It really is a Caravan.”

“Waaaah!”

People began gathering at the entrance to the slums.

It was a spectacle they had not seen in a long time.

The road leading to Neo Seoul quickly filled with people.

People eagerly waited for the Caravan pulled by the Mammoth to enter. But for some reason, the Mammoth stopped several kilometers short of Neo Seoul.

“Why isn’t it coming?”

“Did something happen?”

People murmured.

Briel was puzzled as well.

“Why isn’t the Mammoth moving?”

“It’s because of Neo Seoul’s anti-magic force.”

“Anti-magic force? What’s that?”

“An energy that is incompatible with monsters. Because of it, monsters are reluctant to approach Neo Seoul. Like that Mammoth.”

“There was something like that? I didn’t know.”

Briel blinked her large eyes.

Since the Mammoth stopped, naturally, the Caravan did not move either.

Instead, the person who seemed to be the leader of the Caravan and several Awakened walked toward Neo Seoul under the escort of buggies.

At last, they entered the main road of the slums leading to Neo Seoul.

It was an encounter with the unknown, taking place for the first time in several years.

“Waaaah!”

The cheers of the people echoed loudly through the street.