Chapter 180 – The Former Hero Party (1)

Unfortunately, the gate she could create was a “temporary” one.

Even though she was a spatial mage, it was a gate created by a single mage.

It was disappointing, but it was hard to expect a proper gate to be made.

It seemed that temporary gates had several limitations.

If it were a proper gate, once created, it could be used continuously, but a temporary gate had limitations on the number of people who could pass through, and Yelena was always needed.

While the gate was open and maintained, she had to continuously pour mana into it.

“I’m sorry. Since I’m doing it alone, the safety might be compromised.”

There was no reason for her to apologize.

If it weren’t for Yelena, we wouldn’t have even been able to do this much.

The problem was time.

“How long will it take?”

“Since it’s temporary, it will take a few days to prepare and about a day to create.”

It didn’t take as long as I thought. It was manageable enough to wait without worry.

“So, all we have to do is wait?”

At my words, Yelena looked at me with an awkward expression, touching her neck.

“Well… During the creation process, I have to keep pouring mana into it, so those who can sense mana will be able to detect it from a distance.”

I knew it. Things couldn’t go smoothly.

“Ordinary undead won’t be a problem, but… some of the Demon King’s army will notice, right?”

Yelena nodded at my words.

According to Yelena, fortunately, the mana flow wouldn’t reach Daejeon, but it would spread about 30 kilometers, covering the area within North Jeolla Province.

This meant that the Demon King’s subordinates within North Jeolla Province would notice.

“This time, it’s defense.”

I sighed inwardly.

If there were only ordinary undead nearby, we would be safe until the gate was completed, but that had never been the case before.

It was certain that enemies would come this time as well.

Honestly, if not all of the attackers from Daejeon came, our party alone would be enough to hold them off, but the problem was the others.

The priests and the trainee knights.

Fighting off the enemies while protecting them would be difficult because this safe zone was too weak.

Was it because there were no holy relics here like in Daejeon? Or was it because there were few surviving priests?

The skeletons that had pushed in earlier were one thing, but even the current range of the safe zone was less than half of what had been established in Daejeon.

“This is troublesome…”

As I made a troubled expression while looking at the priests, Yerim, who had been preparing meals with the priests, quickly ran over.

“Is it because of the safe zone?”

Had Yerim and the priests been discussing this as well?

“Well, yes…”

“Leave that to me! I think I can strengthen this safe zone.”

“Strengthen?”

“Yes. There’s a temple on this mountain, and right next to it is a martyrdom site, so there’s a lot of divine power here. That’s why the safe zone was set up here, but it seems it didn’t turn out as well as expected.”

Indeed, I could feel more divine power here than in other places.

‘Huh, now that I think about it, did I always feel this much divine power before?’

Something felt off, but anyway, I thought the divine power was abundant because of the safe zone, but it seems this mountain was originally rich in divine power.

“The priests looked into it, and it seems that the safe zone they set up doesn’t align well with the divine power of this mountain because it’s from a different world’s faith.”

Isn’t divine power the same?

It was a bit absurd to think that the power granted by the gods wouldn’t be compatible just because the worlds were different.

“Actually, if you think about it, I’m from a different religion too, but the priests said it’s fine because they’re from the same world.”

“Aren’t they similar?”

I don’t know much since I don’t follow that religion, but I thought they believed in the same god, excluding Buddhism.

“No, they started from the same place, but now they’re different religions. Some religious scholars say they’re not different beliefs, but this is a very sensitive issue. If you touch it carelessly, everyone will rise up…”

Yerim went on for a while with a complicated explanation, but to me, who doesn’t know much about that religion, it was no different from the sermons I heard when I went to get candy.

In other words, I didn’t understand a word of it.

“Anyway, you’re saying that if you help, the safe zone will become stronger?”

“…Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

Yerim looked at me with a sly expression as she spoke, but I didn’t mind.

After all, it meant that the safe zone problem would be solved.

‘So, the temporary gate should be created here.’

If the safe zone is strengthened, there’s no reason to move elsewhere to create the gate.

Even if we move further away, we won’t be able to leave this land, and it would be hard to find a place with as much divine power as this mountain.

We need to inform Ea as soon as possible, so we have no choice but to make the defense here more thorough.

Once the tasks were decided, everyone started moving.

Not only the party members but also the priests and the trainee knights, who had recovered from their wounds thanks to Yerim’s healing, worked hard to assist Yelena and Yerim.

A large magic circle, drawn with melted gold, was created in a clearing next to the hiking trail between the temple and the martyrdom site, and mana-filled gems were placed throughout the magic circle.

The sight of a golden magic circle drawn next to the old exercise equipment on the hiking trail looked quite strange, but compared to Yerim strengthening the safe zone, it wasn’t that unusual.

‘Is this what you’d call a grand harmony of three religions?’

That was the best way I could describe it to protect Yerim’s honor and faith.

After a series of scenes that would have caused an uproar among traditional religious people, the safe zone’s area more than doubled.

“What is this! I’m never doing this again! From now on, I have to do penance prayers, so don’t talk to me!”

Yerim, who had expanded the safe zone with the help of the priests, got angry at the priests for the first time.

It seemed that this incident had been a shock to her as well.

After all, the polytheistic priests had conducted their rituals in their own way, so it was only natural that Yerim, who believed in a single god, would be shocked.

The priests watched Yerim run off with warm smiles, and unlike the party members who were tilting their heads in confusion, Irene and I sighed as we watched her run away.

With the safe zone strengthened, a few days later, the preparations for creating the temporary gate were completed.

Now, it was time to create the gate.

Yelena stood in the center of the magic circle and spoke to us.

“If the magic circle is damaged midway, or if I receive a shock, the gate creation will fail.

The gate can be recreated, but the problem is that if that happens, there’s a high chance my mana circuits will be damaged.

If my mana circuits are damaged, I won’t be able to create a gate until they recover.”

In other words, she was asking us to protect the magic circle and herself until the gate was completed.

“It shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m saying this just in case.”

She added as if to tell us not to worry, but no one was reassured by her words.

The trainee knights and priests, who had been desperately protecting the safe zone, became even more determined.

The party members, who had been through tough times with me, seemed to think that this time wouldn’t be easy either.

In fact, even Yelena, who was speaking, felt the same way.

With an ambiguous expression, she added a few words, then chuckled and immediately began casting the spell.

**Whoooosh!**

As she poured mana into the magic circle, it began to glow.

The magic circle painted the surroundings in gold and emitted a massive amount of mana into the sky.

The strengthened mana from the magic circle began to create a hole in the air.

It was creating a hole in this world to connect with another world.

At the same time, the powerful mana began to announce to the world that a gate was being created here.

And we prepared to fight.

The next day.

The time when the gate would be completed, and the time we had to protect Yelena and the magic circle.

As Yelena had predicted, the mana emitted from the middle of Donggosan Mountain did not go beyond Jeolla Province.

Moreover, the ordinary undead within Jeolla Province could not sense that mana.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, Donggosan Mountain would have been safe until the gate was completed.

However, unfortunately, when the magic circle emitted mana, there were undead within Jeolla Province.

They were the undead who had come down from Daejeon a few days ago.

Among them was a mage who could sense the mana emitted by the magic circle.

**[There’s powerful mana over there…]**

The mage pointed south with his skeletal hand.

Hearing the telepathic message from the undead mage, the lich, a gray-haired woman walking behind him asked.

“What kind of mana is it?”

**[I knew before, but now I don’t. It’s similar to the mana of the gate we saw earlier.]**

The lich answered indifferently to the woman’s question.

“A gate? Does that mean a gate is being created?”

**[I don’t know.]**

If he were alive, it would have been a shameful answer, but now that he was a lich, it didn’t matter.

At the lich’s words, the gray-haired woman shook her head.

“Becoming a lich has made you dumber than I thought. Well, it’s where we were going anyway, so it doesn’t matter, right?”

“……”

She turned her head and asked the two knights walking with her, but the knights didn’t answer.

After looking at the knights for a while, the woman habitually made the sign of the cross, then looked down at her hand.

Her hand, like her hair, had turned gray.

It was the hand of a dead person, moving only through necromancy.

Staring blankly at her hand, she clenched her fist and muttered softly.

“The mage has become a fool, and the knights have become mute. Am I the only one who’s still sane?”

The woman chuckled softly.

She knew she had changed too.

Before, she had never badmouthed her comrades, nor had she ever poured out her frustrations in soliloquies like this.

That alone was enough to show how much she had changed, but in reality, it was a minor change.

In fact, the biggest change after her death was her faith.

She, who had believed in the goddess and followed the hero according to her faith, now served the Demon King.

Instead of the goddess, she now followed the Demon King as her god, and instead of divine power, she spread necromancy throughout the world. She was no longer called a saintess but a saintess of death.

As the saintess of death, she was more sensitive to divine power than any other undead.

It was she who had discovered the safe zone in Daejeon not long ago, and it was she who had noticed the strengthened safe zone in Jeonju this time.

While the Demon King and his army were busy preparing for Ea’s invasion, she and her party members had come south in their place.

“Let’s hurry. We must eliminate those who hinder the Demon King.”

At her words, the saintess’s companions—the undead members of the hero’s party—quickened their pace.

The court mage and the knights, who were closer to swordsmen.

Having become a lich and death knights in death, they moved according to the gray-haired saintess’s instructions.

**Kreeeak.**

Moreover, although only they had set out from Daejeon, there were many others here besides the saintess’s group.

Countless zombies drawn by the saintess’s necromancy and skeletons resurrected through necromancy.

A massive horde of undead followed the gray saintess south.