Chapter 173

"Senior?"

Leandros stood still for a moment, not even knowing why he had stopped.

Russel, who had been walking ahead, turned around and called to him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Was it really nothing?

Leandros asked himself, but even he couldn't find an answer.

They were on their way to the next destination after concluding the incident in the valley village, Toro.

It had taken quite a long time to exterminate the demonic beasts that had made their nests in the valley, including werewolves, but it was the only immediate solution.

Leandros wanted to go ahead and destroy the suspicious structure that the Toro village woodcutter had reportedly discovered, but Amelia strongly discouraged it.

Saying there wasn't enough time, and they needed to win people's hearts as quickly as possible.

On top of that, Russel, who had become utterly sick of continuous demonic beast extermination, threw a tantrum about leaving soon, so the three decided on their next destination and set off.

"A-are you c-concerned about that building? H-His Grace s-said he would check with the Information Guild if there's any information a-about the moonstone and let us know."

"...It's not because of that. Let's quickly move to the next city."

"Are you feeling unwell, Senior? You've been acting strange for a while."

"That's not possible."

"No, you really are acting strange. Right, Lady Amelia?"

Leandros wanted to push away the blond brat hovering right in front of his face, but he restrained himself.

"Move aside."

"Lady! Look at Senior's face. Doesn't it look different from usual?"

"Wh-where..."

"I think he might be sick?"

"Would you please step aside."

"No, we might need to rest for a while? Do you have a fever? Or is your digestion not good? Should I pat your back, Senior?"

Leandros was displeased to see someone of a respectable age suddenly trying to act like a servant knight.

As he was finally contemplating a way to make Russel shut up, a voice suddenly called out from behind him.

"Miss, and knights! Wait, please wait!"

It was a voice coming from far away.

When they turned around, they saw someone running up the winding mountain path, panting.

"It's s-someone we saw in the T-Toro village."

"Was there something we didn't resolve?"

"I d-don't think so."

Amelia stepped forward to greet the villager.

The person, who was drenched in sweat from running so far, panted and staggered before grabbing Amelia's shoulder.

"You must not go!"

"Wh-what do you m-mean?"

"You must not go. You absolutely must not go ahead!"

Amelia looked back at the two men, but both Russel and Leandros also frowned slightly, seeming to have no idea what was going on.

The villager wiped away the sweat that was streaming down and asked.

"I heard you're heading south from here. That's what you said before, Miss, right?"

"Y-yes. That's r-right. We're g-going to Concha."

The Hartmann ducal territories of the past, located in the northeast, extended far south along the Dikenter Mountains, which curved long from the north toward the east.

So, to visit villages and cities sequentially, going south was the best option.

But the villager shook his head vigorously.

"There are people who went to the southeast and came back last night. From what I heard, the south is awful these days!"

"Wh-what do you mean by a-awful?"

"Haven't you heard that the sea is unstable and tidal waves have swept away several small villages? In such a state, would it be possible for ships to come in? It's a complete disaster, a disaster. That's why there are so many people trying to migrate from the south to the upper regions, and they're even considering a blockade order."

"S-suddenly? But it s-seems like there was n-no news at all until just a f-few months ago."

There's no place with as many coastal cities and villages as the south. Naturally, there should be equipment or facilities that can prevent various disasters, including water damage to some extent.

People are leaving their territories and migrating because of a few tidal waves?

The villager expressed denial once again.

"No, if you go just a little further, you'll see immigrants swarming. Besides, this is something I've heard in passing..."

He unnecessarily looked around at the surrounding trees and lowered his voice.

"They say a deity of calamity has descended. A huge whirlpool formed in the middle of the sea, and a gigantic monster surged up. Everyone who saw it, even from a distance, has gone mad! Moreover, as the sea became violent, various demonic beasts are rampaging. I've also heard that people near the coast were dragged away by merpeople and disappeared into the sea."

Amelia reflexively looked at Leandros.

Leandros nodded.

Amelia first smiled at the villager and then spoke in a calm manner.

"It w-would be a great help if you c-could tell us in detail what you've h-heard about that monster. Where did you s-say the monster appeared from?"

* * *

Destruction came like a silent season.

The first person captured by merpeople was an old merperson scholar who loved merpeople.

The merperson scholar, who lived in isolation among small villages at the southernmost tip of the kingdom, did not stop his research and went to the shore even on the day when the sea turned black and rippled.

And when he approached the merpeople swarming between the reefs, greeting them with delight, his entire body was torn into pieces.

A passerby who watched the scene from a distance ran away screaming.

Even after the death of the merperson scholar, people continued to disappear from the southern coast.

Someone described seeing a mermaid swimming through rough black waves, carefully carrying a dangling arm, behaving as if bringing food to its young.

The south was thrown into complete chaos.

Merchants hurried to evacuate their warehouses and goods to other regions. Those from other places who were in the south for different reasons abandoned their belongings and homes and left.

But the fishermen who had settled in the south had no good options.

People who had never left the south since their parents, their parents' parents, and from time immemorial couldn't even think of abandoning their homes.

Though they feared the rough sea, they continued to live steadfastly, trusting in the sturdy breakwaters built by their ancestors.

They thought that the sea's fickleness was the law of nature, and it would soon become peaceful as if nothing had happened.

But when the first tidal wave hit the cities and villages, hell broke loose.

Homes and foundations that had been preserved for generations disappeared, and people were swept out to sea.

Deep-sea demonic beasts, dragged from the seafloor to the surface, hunted people indiscriminately.

Demonic beasts that looked like a half-mix of fish and frogs walked on land without any problems, and their translucent hands with webbed fingers held rusty tridents covered with sticky mucus.

They would impale people with those tridents, or hunt them by biting into soft flesh with teeth as dense as a shark's, and then return to the sea without regard for the screams of their victims.

Thanking the blessing shown by the black waves, and hoping that rough tidal waves would bring them to land the next day.

Even the army supposedly dispatched by the lord was powerless before the demonic beasts.

Weapons that hadn't even been properly maintained because the lord had embezzled taxes merely bounced off the slippery flesh.

Some courageous people and the lord's army had worked together to launch boats with great difficulty.

But once a boat set sail, it never returned.

Frightened people requested more troops from the lord, but there was no answer. The lord had already been preparing to leave the south for a long time.

At night, flashing lightning would momentarily illuminate the black sea. People who witnessed the shadows revealed by the lightning—unholy and vicious things squirming on the water's surface, slowly approaching land—all jumped into the sea themselves, wailing, as soon as day broke.

Given that, survivors began moving inland, away from the coast.

Those who couldn't do so quietly despaired in places as far from the sea as possible.

The south had effectively collapsed, and all that remained was for the monster from beneath the sea to stand under the sky.

The south, where everything seemed dead.

Madness awakened from the deep sea was approaching, leading destruction.

Under a gloomy sky of dense gray, when a reality worse than nightmares was preparing to devour this land, the only shadows approaching here were three.

The person at the forefront of the travelers, riding horses so fast they were foaming at the mouth, shouted.

"Lady Amelia!"

"I-I'll check if there are any c-civilians left! I'll d-divert to the nearest residential area! Please be careful!"

The brown horse turned its head in a different direction and quickly moved away.

The two horses that passed the road leading to the village ran along the sandy shore of a large bay. Steep sea cliffs were faintly visible in the distance.

Leandros shouted again.

"Nabilov!"

"Yes, I'll assist in combat!"

"From here, we eliminate the demonic beasts that are now visible. It will be a prolonged battle, so pay attention to your energy distribution."

"Yes!"

"I'm going to the sea."

Russel, who had been riding with good momentum, glanced sideways.

Due to heavy clouds and a strange fog that had settled, the distant sea was not visible.

But Russel could feel that there was something there.

It wasn't that he felt ordinary energy like pressure or killing intent.

Something enormous, beyond his own existence, was poking its head out from the sea.

While reason brought forth curiosity, instinct was fiercely warning that one should not notice that existence.

Perhaps Leandros was keeping him on the shore to distance him from that entity.

When Russel yanked the reins, the horse stopped as if sliding, raising its front legs with a high neigh.

As the horse's cry echoed in the damp air, the demonic beasts wandering along the shore, with appearances like a mix of frogs and fish, turned their heads toward the sound.

It was an instinctive action to identify the intruder, but that brief moment determined the life and death of the demonic beasts.

Russel, who had dropped onto the middle of the sandy beach with a thud, watched as the demonic beast under his feet gurgled and dyed the sand brown.

"My, how dirty."

Russel pulled his heavy sword from the corpse.

The demonic beasts slowly gathering around Russel as a focal point began to make bizarre sounds with their postures lowered.

Seeing the fins on their backs trembling, they were clearly either angry or scared.

-Kiiiiiiii!

It was a high and sharp sound like fingernails scratching a metal plate.

Simultaneously, tridents from all directions aimed at him and rushed in. Russel deflected the rusty tridents with the flat of his sword and charged into the midst of the demonic beasts.

If their outer skin was just slippery and thick, under the assumption that his sword was sharp enough, he was confident he could deal with them.

The heavy and fierce sword flew toward the gills of a demonic beast. Behind the fallen demonic beast, another one bared its teeth and pounced.

The sword was tilted diagonally. The sword, after slicing the demonic beast and returning, struck down another with formidable destructive power.

It was a sword that prioritized the swordsman's strength over detailed and sharp techniques.

Bodily fluids from the demonic beasts splashed onto Russel's cheek.

His mind heated up, and the familiar pleasure of destruction made his heart race.

The sight of him ramming his shoulder into a demonic beast slightly larger than an adult man, while shoving his sword into the mouth of a fiercely howling demonic beast nearby, resembled not a Holy Knight but a barbaric warrior.

The moment all the demonic beasts focused on Russel,

A shadow fell over Russel with a whooshing sound.

The rider who leaped over Russel and the densely gathered demonic beasts around him didn't even give him a single glance.

The horse running straight toward the violent waves seemed about to be swallowed by the waves,

But the rider split the surging waves with an achingly white and blue sword.

A sharp, ringing sound echoed in their ears.

The freezing sword, as if it had brought the eternal frost of the north, froze everything it touched.

People, demonic beasts, and even the angry waves that seemed impossible to subdue.

From behind Leandros, riding on the path over the firmly frozen sea, Russel came to his senses and shouted.

"Senior! When will you return?"

No answer came, and the horse only grew more distant.

Russel finally realized why Leandros had emphasized energy distribution so much.

Until Leandros returned to the shore, he had to survive alone among these swarming deep-sea demonic beasts.