Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The Mort Clan riding on Archelon possessed outstanding abilities in producing and enhancing things.

They were talented people who would receive tremendous treatment if they entered Neo Seoul. Those talented people were all mobilized to stabilize Crayon.

Not only that, they dismantled Crayon down to the smallest detail and repaired the damaged parts, making it like new.

Kaylee tried to enchant it anew, but Crayon already had countless enchantments on it, so no more could be added.

With an expression of disbelief, Kaylee asked Pabilsa,

“What in the world is this sword? I’ve never seen a sword like this before. Was it truly made by a human?”

“Crayon is a masterpiece created by one human’s obsession.”

“It really was made by a human?”

“Yes.”

“Who in the world?”

“Crayon!”

“What?”

“Crayon made this sword.”

“So the sword’s name is the same as the person who made it?”

“Yes.”

“Why......”

“Enough! I cannot tell you anything beyond that.”

“Ah!”

At Pabilsa’s words, which drew a firm line, Kaylee looked regretful.

Pabilsa sheathed Crayon and headed toward Deioden.

Deioden had already finished preparing to leave and was waiting for him. Zeon stood beside him.

Handing Crayon over, Pabilsa said,

“I have polished it until it is practically new.”

“Thank you.”

At Deioden’s thanks, Pabilsa flinched in surprise.

That was because they were words he was hearing for the first time in a hundred years.

Deioden was not a man who ever said thank you or expressed gratitude to anyone.

He thought that everyone in the world, including himself, was a cripple, and therefore not qualified to be treated with respect. That included Pabilsa as well.

The fact that he had thanked Pabilsa was an event in itself.

Pabilsa spoke cautiously.

“You sound as though we will never meet again.”

“We probably will not meet again while alive.”

“Mm!”

“Live well, Pabilsa! Thank you for everything until now.”

Deioden rose with a faint smile.

Overwhelmed by his mood, Pabilsa could not say anything for a moment.

It had truly been a long time since he had been left speechless like this.

After looking at Deioden for a while, he told Kaylee to bring several items.

They were essential items for surviving in the desert, including a safety tent that hid one’s presence from monsters, a dagger with enhanced cutting power, a large jar that could hold drinking water, and Mana Stones that could be used as substitute currency.

“Take them. They will not be of much help, but even so, the day will come when they will prove useful.”

After looking at the items for a moment, Deioden said to Zeon,

“I do not need them, so put them all into your subspace.”

“Yes!”

Zeon injected mana into the gauntlet and activated the subspace.

The subspace swallowed all the items placed there.

Zeon looked at his own gauntlet with a fascinated expression.

Then Kaylee said,

“Oh, right! This too.”

What she offered to Deioden was a breastplate made from the Queen Wolf Ant’s shell.

It was an item made to perfectly protect the chest and abdomen while causing no discomfort in movement.

Although there had been no time to enchant it, it had been made from the Queen Wolf Ant’s corpse, so at least its defensive power was tremendous.

Deioden said,

“Give it to that one.”

“Right! This was Zeon’s.”

“Yes! Since he still cannot even take care of his own body, I have no choice but to drag him around wearing at least a breastplate.”

“All right.”

Without asking any more, Kaylee handed the breastplate to Zeon.

“Take it!”

“Ah, thank you.”

Zeon accepted the breastplate.

Someone else might have thought their pride was wounded. But Zeon was grateful that he had gained one more means of protecting his life.

Just as Deioden said, he still did not have the ability to take care of his own body. Until he became strong enough, he needed protective equipment like this.

In particular, the battle against the Scavengers had made him keenly realize the need for protective equipment.

Zeon put the breastplate on beneath his robe.

Just by wearing one breastplate, he felt much more secure.

Deioden said,

“Let’s go!”

“Yes!”

Zeon answered and descended from Archelon.

Pabilsa and Kaylee watched the two of them from behind as they moved away.

Both of them walked farther away indifferently, without looking back.

When they were about to disappear from sight, Kaylee asked Pabilsa,

“Grandfather!”

“What is it?”

“Why are you doing so much for him? Did he perhaps find some weakness of yours?”

The Pabilsa she knew was not someone who gave this much or showed such consideration to others.

What mattered most to Pabilsa was his own clan.

Kaylee could not understand why Pabilsa, who considered everything else a target to be used, was giving so much to Deioden.

Pabilsa’s answer to that was simple.

“The world and I owe him a debt.”

“A debt?”

“All of us, myself included, have deliberately turned away from the truth and lived cowardly. But he is different.”

“What do you mean?”

“He alone is facing the truth and moving forward. For a full hundred years, no less. Leaving circumstances aside, how could I not respect such a man? He is the only person I respect and fear.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Grandfather.”

“You do not need to understand. It is a truth I do not wish to tell you. But promise me this one thing.”

“What?”

“Zeon is the one Deioden chose as his companion. If you ever meet him again, help him. That is the only way we can repay even a little of the debt we owe Deioden.”

Pabilsa’s mood was so heavy that Kaylee did not dare ask any further.

---

After leaving Archelon, Deioden and Zeon walked east.

Deioden still did not tell Zeon their destination. He simply walked forward in silence.

Zeon did not ask either.

Now he merely followed Deioden out of inertia.

They walked through the desert all day, but he did not feel tired.

That was because the sand moved Zeon on its own.

All Zeon had to do was manage his mana so it did not run out. That too was extremely difficult, but he had grown used to it now, so it was all right.

Mana was strange. The more one used it, the more its capacity grew little by little. Because of that, Zeon formed a habit of emptying his mana in time with their rests.

He used Sand Blaster, Sand Missile, and sand control without pause, increasing his proficiency.

The battle against the Scavengers had been a major turning point that made Zeon realize his own infinite possibilities.

He reviewed the fight against them endlessly, examining his own problems and thinking about how he could use sand more efficiently.

As he spent the entire day playing with sand like that, his skill improved by leaps and bounds.

As they walked through the desert, monsters attacked them often enough.

Deioden did not move a single finger, and dealing with the monsters became Zeon’s role.

Now that he had accumulated quite a lot of experience, Zeon dealt with the monsters without panicking.

He used every method he had imagined while walking on the monsters, increasing his proficiency.

Now, Zeon could use Sand Blaster and Sand Missile at the same time even while using Sand Walk. Besides those, he also learned various other Skills.

Deioden watched Zeon with an indifferent expression.

THUDTHUDTHUD!

More than a dozen monsters fell to the Sand Missiles Zeon unleashed.

They were Ghost Scorpions that hid in the sand and attacked with venomous stingers.

Among the monsters inhabiting the desert, they belonged to the lower ranks.

Because they hid in the sand without any presence and launched surprise attacks, they were extremely dangerous if not detected in advance.

Countless people had disappeared after becoming prey to Ghost Scorpions that way. But this time, they had chosen the wrong opponent.

The Ghost Scorpions may have believed they had erased every trace of their presence perfectly, but they could not hide the vibrations transmitted through the tiny grains of sand.

GUSH—!

No sooner had a Ghost Scorpion broken through the sand and revealed itself than its head shattered.

In that way, countless Ghost Scorpions lost their lives to Zeon.

The ground was piled high with the shattered remains of Ghost Scorpions.

“Hmph!”

Deioden snorted and turned away.

Zeon still fell short of his expectations. Even so, the fact that he had not let his guard down until the end was worthy of praise.

Now, Zeon never let his guard down under any circumstances.

‘At least he is not a complete birdbrain.’

Thinking it was fortunate there had been some learning effect, Deioden moved on.

After dealing with all the Ghost Scorpions, Zeon quickly caught up behind him.

Even after facing countless Ghost Scorpions, Zeon’s breathing had not become rough.

There was no joy on his face either.

Now, hunting monsters of this level had become a matter of course.

“Huh?”

As he walked after Deioden, Zeon suddenly let out an exclamation.

That was because he saw a large rock far away.

Finding a rock jutting up like that in the desert was never common.

In this world of mostly sand, such a rock was an extremely precious resting place. That was because monsters like sandworms, which moved stealthily through the sand, could not approach it.

The rock was probably part of a huge rocky mountain buried beneath the sand.

Just like the Mana Stone Mine where Zeon had worked.

Deioden said,

“It seems something buried in the sand has revealed itself. We will rest here today.”

“Yes!”

The two sat on the large rock.

Without anyone going first, both of them took jerky from their clothes.

They chewed the jerky without saying much.

They chewed slowly, softened it enough with saliva, then swallowed it.

Jerky made from Great-Horned Hyena meat contained an enormous amount of nutrients. Because of that, eating just one piece was enough to gain a full day’s worth of energy.

However, for Zeon, who was still in the middle of growing, one piece was not enough.

He took out another piece and put it in his mouth. Then he looked around.

Before he knew it, the sun had set, and the surroundings were stained with darkness.

The desert under the night was quiet.

Most monsters also stopped their activity and sought sleep in their hiding places.

That was because the desert night was dangerous even for monsters.

Zeon now understood that the more active monsters were at night, the stronger they were.

For an overwhelmingly strong person like Deioden, it would not be much of a problem, but for Zeon, it was a matter of survival.

KROOO!

A monster’s roar shook the darkness.

It was the cry of a giant monster that mainly moved at night.

Zeon furrowed his brow and looked toward where the cry had come from.

It had clearly come from a place quite far from the rock where the two of them were. Unless the monster came straight toward them, it did not seem they needed to worry too much.

Deioden paid no attention to the monster’s cry and took out Crayon, stabbing it into the rock.

SQUELCH!

Crayon sank into the hard rock as if into tofu.

After driving Crayon into the ground like that, he conversed with it.

“My friend......”

It was a sight he had seen countless times, but he still could not get used to it. So Zeon simply stopped paying attention to Deioden and focused on the gauntlet on his right hand.

Given Zeon’s nature of using sand as a weapon, there was no occasion for him to swing the gauntlet directly. Because of that, he had not truly felt the gauntlet’s real power.

What was most useful was the subspace attached to the gauntlet.

Zeon stored every useful part from the corpses of the monsters he hunted inside the subspace.

Time did not flow inside the subspace, and there was no change in environment.

Because of that, things could be stored permanently.

Moreover, his subspace was nearly the size of a warehouse.

Even after storing many items, space remained.

No matter how he thought about it, it was a fraudulent item.

Zeon stroked the round indentation on the back of his hand.

“If I equip a fire-attribute item here, it can amplify the power, right?”

At the words fire-attribute item, he thought of the dungeon where Deioden had caught the Flame Drake. It was the dungeon that had swallowed Zeon.

Every living creature inside the dungeon had possessed the fire attribute.

If he had known in advance that he would obtain a gauntlet like this, he would have searched there to see if there were any useful items.

“Tch!”

Since there was no use regretting it, Zeon merely clicked his tongue.

That was when it happened.

KROOOAR!

“This way.”

“Run over there!”

Along with the monster’s roar, urgent human voices rang out at the same time.

A short while later, four people appeared through the darkness. But there was something strange about their appearance.

Their sun-browned skin and clothes made from monster hide looked exactly like a human’s. However, the pointed ears jutting from both sides and their purple eyes were not human.

“Nonhuman race?”