Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Alexandro was furious.

The reason he had led the Caravan all the way to this distant place was to engage in legitimate trade.

The goods he had brought were practically the lifeline of the people of the Akutsk Colony. Yet Kim Jae-kyung and Brickston had tried to seize those precious goods with a Skill called brainwashing.

It was an act he could never forgive.

“I’ll kill you.”

BOOM!

His fist struck Brickston in the chest.

“Guh!”

In that instant, Brickston’s face twisted.

A tremendous impact had slammed through his entire body.

If his heavy armor had not protected him, his breastbone would have been completely caved in.

It was truly terrifying power.

Alexandro’s attack was not over yet.

“Chaah!”

Another fierce blow followed.

Brickston hurriedly swung his hammer.

BOOM!

A fist and a hammer collided, yet the sound that burst out was metallic.

Brickston’s body slid backward, while Alexandro’s massive frame merely shuddered.

One side had a weapon called a hammer, while the other fought with bare fists.

And yet it was the one holding the hammer who had been pushed back.

It was clear who stood above and who stood below.

But Brickston could not accept it.

“A mere desert merchant is stronger than me? Impossible.”

At that moment, the black disappeared from his eyes.

It was the phenomenon that appeared when his Skill, Berserker, activated.

Once the Berserker Skill was fully activated, his attack power instantly rose by more than double. In exchange, he completely lost his reason and became unable to distinguish friend from foe.

He had to be stopped before that happened.

Kim Jae-kyung shouted.

“You idiot! Don’t activate your Skill. Now is the time to retreat.”

But her shout came too late.

The black had completely vanished from Brickston’s eyes, and the whites were bloodshot red.

The Berserker Skill had fully activated.

“I’ll kill you.”

Having lost his reason, Brickston charged at Alexandro with terrifying force.

BOOM!

With an explosion, Alexandro was the one pushed back this time.

Rage appeared on Alexandro’s face after he was forced into a disadvantage.

He was just about to go all out in anger.

“Step back.”

A youthful voice reached Alexandro’s ears.

The instant he heard that voice, Alexandro retreated without hesitation.

At that moment, the same youthful voice rang out again.

“Direction Disturb.”

A red light fell over Brickston’s body.

Brickston, having lost his reason, could not dodge the light in time and took it head-on.

In that instant, Brickston’s senses were thrown into disorder.

His opponent was clearly right in front of him, yet he could not judge how to approach.

It was a Skill that confused the opponent by disturbing their senses.

Against someone like Brickston, who had entered a berserker state and could no longer make proper judgments, its effect was doubled.

The more Brickston tried to attack Alexandro, the farther away he became.

“Leader!”

“Damn it!”

The warriors who had come with Brickston called out desperately, but he had already gone outside the fortress.

Kim Jae-kyung shouted.

“Everyone, escape!”

In the end, the Dongdaemun Awakened suffered heavy losses and escaped the Caravan.

“You sons of bitches!”

“KAAK! Ptooey!”

The victorious Awakened of the White Bear Caravan spat phlegm while breathing heavily.

Even though they had won, their anger had not subsided.

Unexpectedly, it was the youthful-looking beautiful boy who soothed them as they huffed with rage.

“Everyone worked hard. Let’s all calm down. We expected this much trouble anyway.”

As if a spell had been cast, the Awakened of the White Bear Caravan regained their reason.

That was one of the powers the boy possessed.

Among the Awakened of the White Bear Caravan, he was the youngest, but he was more reliable and trustworthy than anyone.

The boy’s name was Damian.

Alexandro approached Damian and patted his shoulder.

“Good work.”

“Good work? It was nothing.”

Damian smiled, revealing white teeth.

“You know that I always feel reassured because you are here, don’t you? I hope you will continue to guide us well.”

“People will misunderstand if they hear that. The leader of our Caravan is you, Caravan Master.”

“But everyone knows that the one who truly guides us is you. Without you, we would never have made it this far.”

“Please don’t say that. There are other people here.”

“Very well.”

Only then did Alexandro remember that outsiders had entered the Caravan.

Alexandro’s gaze turned toward Zeon’s group, who had been watching from one side.

Naturally, Damian’s gaze followed him.

It was at that moment that Damian’s eyes widened as he looked at Zeon’s group.

“Brother?”

An unexpected form of address slipped from Damian’s mouth.

“Brother? What are you talking about?”

Alexandro, who stood beside him, asked, but Damian did not answer. No, he could not answer.

His gaze was fixed on Zeon.

Zeon opened his mouth.

“So it was you, Damian.”

“It really is you, Brother. I thought I was seeing things, but it’s actually you.”

“I thought I was seeing a mirage too. You appeared out of nowhere.”

“Ha ha!”

Damian burst into laughter.

It was a laugh born of both joy and disbelief.

He had truly never imagined he would see Zeon here.

He knew that Zeon was from Neo Seoul.

But Zeon had been wandering the world, and there had been no telling when he would return to Neo Seoul.

Naturally, Damian had not expected to meet Zeon.

Because it was a meeting he had never expected at all, it felt strange and also joyful.

Zeon approached Damian.

“You’ve grown a lot.”

“It has already been seven years.”

“You’ve changed a lot.”

“Really? Everyone says I’m exactly the same.”

“That’s how it looks to me.”

“Then you must be right, Brother. Anyway, I’m really glad to see you like this. When did you return to Neo Seoul?”

“Not long ago.”

“I see. So that’s why I didn’t know.”

Damian nodded.

Then Alexandro approached Damian.

“Won’t you introduce him to me as well?”

“Ah! Say hello. I told you about him before, didn’t I? The older brother I met in the desert seven years ago.”

“Ah! So you are that person. It is good to meet you. I am Alexandro Furchenko, the Caravan Master of the White Bear Caravan.”

“I’m Zeon.”

Alexandro and Zeon shook hands.

Alexandro looked over Zeon’s entire body with sharp eyes. But he did not discover anything particularly unusual.

Damian asked Zeon,

“Did you come to buy goods too, Brother?”

“I only came to look around because this one dragged me here.”

Zeon pointed to Briel, who was with Eaton’s group. Briel then approached Zeon and greeted him.

“I’m Briel. Nice to meet you!”

“It’s nice to meet you too. But somehow, you don’t feel like an ordinary person.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just a feeling......”

“You don’t look ordinary either.”

“Then I suppose we are the same.”

Damian smiled faintly.

On the other hand, Briel glared at Damian with eyes full of wariness.

Fortunately, her gaze was hidden by her pointed hat.

‘This man is strange.’

She was a High Elf.

Although her senses had dulled greatly because of the drugs, the unique intuition of a High Elf was still alive.

For some reason, she felt an unpleasant aura from Damian.

As a High Elf in name and in truth, there was almost no chance she was mistaken.

Then Damian said to Alexandro,

“Caravan Master, please open up to the third floor for them. If there is anything they need, give them priority. I’ll take responsibility.”

“Understood. I will do that.”

Alexandro nodded.

Zeon said to Briel,

“I’m going to talk with him for a while, so look around and see if there is anything useful.”

“Be careful!”

“Of what?”

“Damian. I don’t have a good feeling about him.”

“Got it.”

Zeon nodded, and Briel hurried away with quick steps.

Zeon said to Damian,

“Shall we walk a little?”

“Sure.”

The two left the fortress together and walked across the sand.

Zeon was the first to speak.

“You came from the Akutsk Colony?”

“As you know, I couldn’t return to the Kamchatka Colony. So I had to find another Colony.”

Damian was from the Kamchatka Colony.

His father, Belov, had operated a Caravan in the Kamchatka Colony, and Damian had grown up there as well.

But Belov had lured Daeioden and Zeon into a trap because of the threats of the nonhuman races, and he had been killed by those same nonhuman races.

Damian could not return to the Kamchatka Colony.

In the end, Damian had to find a Colony other than Kamchatka.

Damian wandered the desert alone.

After wandering for several months, the place he barely managed to reach was Akutsk.

When Damian arrived, Akutsk was broken, with neither dreams nor hope.

Because of the monster attacks that continued day after day, the walls were on the verge of collapse, and food, weapons, and willpower were all lacking.

It was only a matter of time before the Akutsk Colony fell.

The one who offered a solution then was Damian.

He manipulated the Caravan, traded with other Colonies, and brought the supplies obtained that way into Akutsk.

It sounded easy, but the process was so arduous that it could not be expressed in words.

Almost no one was willing to trust a boy who seemed insignificant.

Moreover, the boy had not even been born in Akutsk.

Naturally, people distrusted Damian.

The only person who trusted Damian then was Alexandro, the Caravan Master of the White Bear Caravan.

At the time, Alexandro was the captain of the vigilante corps that protected the Colony from monster attacks.

Even when everyone else despaired, he did not let go of the thread of hope and continued fighting the monsters.

He believed that someone would surely find a breakthrough.

The one who appeared then was Damian.

Everyone thought Damian’s words were absurd, but strangely, Alexandro found himself trusting them.

In the end, Alexandro created a Caravan together with Damian, and that was the beginning of the White Bear Caravan.

Damian showed astonishing ability.

Even in the desert, where compasses did not work, he could find the correct path, and he detected monster movements in advance to avoid danger.

He had awakened perfectly as a Navigator.

His ability grew stronger as time passed.

In the end, he succeeded in finding another surviving Colony far from the Akutsk Colony.

“Honestly, the beginning was hard. After that, it wasn’t so difficult. Fortunately, that Colony had quite a few things we needed, and our goods were useful to them as well.”

After the first trade succeeded, trust in Damian rose greatly.

The White Bear Caravan rapidly grew in size, and the environment of the Akutsk Colony improved along with it.

The walls became higher, and weapons to resist monster attacks were placed atop them.

The residents became safer, and their lives gained a little room to breathe.

“Once that happened, I wanted to expand the scale of trade a little more. That was when I thought of Neo Seoul. If we could open trade with Neo Seoul, we could grow Akutsk even further.”

“The road here couldn’t have been easy.”

“It really wasn’t easy. The route to Neo Seoul was on a completely different level of danger.”

“I suppose it would be.”

Zeon nodded.

There were no monsters near Neo Seoul. But the story changed once one went beyond the range of the anti-magic force.

Countless monsters swarmed there.

Among them were terrifying monsters that even high-ranking Awakened could not handle.

Finding a safe path through the threat of all those monsters was close to impossible.

The boy who had made that impossibility possible stood before him.

Damian was smiling at Zeon.

That smile somehow felt ominous.