Chapter 221 – Nuclear Explosion

I had desperately clung to the Demon King until the very end—because of the nuclear explosion, the submarine’s self-destruction.  

The reason the submarine had remained unrepaired and anchored here at Nampo Port was for this moment.  

The reason we had fought so hard to reach this place was because the submarine was here.  

Sacrificing others was something I hated, but this time, we had no choice but to use everything at our disposal—even if it meant human lives.  

To be honest, I hadn’t intended to sacrifice the submarine’s crew.  

I had naively thought, like in the movies, that we could just set a timer. But apparently, nuclear bombs don’t work that way.  

The captain and a few others had stayed behind to manually detonate the bomb, while our role was to lure the Demon King here and signal them.  

And at the moment of detonation, I had to prevent the Demon King from deploying a magic circle to shield himself from the blast.  

Unlike a missile strike from afar, this explosion would happen right beside us—making it nearly impossible to block. But we had to prepare for every possibility.  

So, I held onto the Demon King until the last second, ensuring he couldn’t activate a spell to convert the nuclear energy into mana.  

And because of that, both the Demon King and I were caught in the explosion.  

An ordinary person would have been vaporized instantly.  

Even with my preparations, the moment the bomb went off, I thought I was going to die.  

Heat and light consumed the world, and as I saw that blinding flash, I lost consciousness.  

Then, after who knows how long…  

“……Injuries… severe……”  

A voice flickered in and out in the pitch-black darkness.  

A familiar voice.  

But I couldn’t quite place it.  

No—I couldn’t even comprehend what was happening.  

My thoughts were as fragmented as the muffled voice.  

And my eyes… couldn’t see anything.  

When I tried to move my body, pain shot through every nerve.  

‘Guh—!’  

“Hold on… a little longer……. Yes… most of it… restored……”  

The voice returned, clearer now, amidst the worsening agony.  

This time, I recognized who it belonged to.  

‘Yerim.’  

Once her name surfaced, other memories followed.  

The Saintess, the Hero, the mages. My comrades.  

And then, who I was, and where I was.  

‘I am Knight Egar. This is Nampo’s shore.’  

I had taken a nuclear blast head-on with the Demon King.  

Now I understood why it hurt so much.  

This pain was my nerves regenerating.  

Which meant that until now, I hadn’t even had enough nerves left to feel pain.  

Injuries so severe I couldn’t even experience phantom pain.  

‘Just how badly was I hurt?’  

Honestly, I had been prepared to die.  

If it meant taking the Demon King with me, it would’ve been a fair trade.  

But I wasn’t about to go down without a fight, so I had prepared every possible way to survive.  

That was why I had pushed the Demon King toward the sea before the explosion—to use him as a shield. And I had asked Zahina to cast a protective barrier on me at the critical moment.  

Of course, that alone wouldn’t have been enough to withstand a nuclear blast.  

So, I had also instructed Zahina to secretly dig a shelter underground, where we could hide when the bomb detonated.  

That was why Zahina hadn’t been able to fight the Demon King as actively as she could have.  

“Are you awake? Your head seems mostly healed… but there’s still so much missing. I’m not sure if it’ll be okay.”  

Now, Yerim’ voice was fully audible.  

From her words, it sounded like I hadn’t just been injured—I had lost most of my body in the explosion.  

Had my brain been shattered too?  

Was that why I couldn’t even heal myself or feel phantom pain?  

At any rate, I could think clearly now, and the pain was gradually subsiding.  

My vision was also returning, though only in grayscale due to the lack of light.  

As expected, we were underground—inside the tunnel Zahina had dug beneath the shore.  

When the bomb went off, the other two must have dragged me in here.  

I forced my upper body up and looked around.  

Inside the small cave, I saw the two figures sitting beside me—Zahina and Yerim.  

Their clothes were half-burned, their hair singed and frizzled.  

Thankfully, their bodies seemed unharmed, but their unnaturally clean skin suggested they had already been healed.  

If they had taken shelter underground before the blast and still ended up like this…  

“How long has it been?”  

Judging by the surroundings, it couldn’t have been too long.  

The ground and ceiling were still radiating heat.  

“About thirty minutes.”  

“Not too long… or maybe it is?”  

Objectively, it wasn’t much time, but even without my divine energy, it had taken Yerim thirty minutes to heal me.  

Just how much damage had I taken?  

Still, now that I could channel divine energy again, my body was recovering rapidly.  

The pain had lessened significantly.  

I tried to sit up.  

“Ah—you shouldn’t move yet! Your legs aren’t fully restored!”  

At Yerim’s warning, I paused and looked down.  

True to her words, everything below my knees was missing.  

No clothing, either.  

And the rest of my body was pristine, like a newborn’s—completely unscarred.  

“Good grief… Just how bad was it?”  

Baffled, I asked Yerim, who gave me an awkward look in return.  

“Are you sure you want to know?”  

Wait, was it that bad?  

I nodded anyway.  

“Only part of your head was left. I almost fainted thinking you were dead. Zahina unnie said you were still alive, so I poured every bit of divine energy I had into you.”  

Only… part of my head?  

“I’d heard about the Hero’s regenerative abilities, but this surpasses even us, the Children of the Divine Tree. That’s the only reason we could save you.”  

Come to think of it, when I first met Zahina, she had been buried underground with only half her body intact.  

Back then, I had mistaken her for a zombie.  

And now, she was the one praising me.  

“But this was still too reckless. A little longer, and there would’ve been nothing left to heal.”  

Now that she mentioned it, tear streaks marked Yerim’s face.  

Had she cried thinking I was dead?  

I had no rebuttal to her scolding.  

I hadn’t expected a nuclear blast to be this devastating.  

Then again, the previous Hero had died to conventional explosives.  

If those could kill a Hero, underestimating a nuke was suicidal.  

Surviving at all was a miracle.  

Still, our gamble—betting on my and my comrades’ healing abilities—had paid off.  

If I had been this badly injured, the Demon King couldn’t have escaped unscathed.  

“It would’ve been great if the nuke finished off the Demon King.”  

“Yeah…”  

Unfortunately, the Demon King was still alive.  

I could sense his miasma and mana.  

Not as overwhelmingly strong as before, and emanating from somewhere far away—but it was still there.  

It was disappointing, but our primary objective had been accomplished.  

Killing the Demon King was never the main goal.  

Shaking off our frustration, we exchanged weary smiles in the dim cave.  

At the very least, we had survived a fight with the Demon King.  

A few minutes later, with my restored divine energy and Yerim’s healing, my legs were fully regenerated.  

Once my body was whole again, we took out spare clothes from our pouches.  

Thankfully, the spatial-expansion pouch I had entrusted to Yerim was intact.  

Though its exterior was charred—likely from when Yerim’s clothes had burned—the pouch itself and the magic on it were unharmed.  

A true stroke of luck.  

Inside that pouch was part of the gold we had worked so hard to obtain.  

Most of it was stored in Yelena’s pocket dimension, but the amount in these two pouches wasn’t insignificant.  

As I dressed, I let out a long sigh.  

‘What kind of hell did I sign up for, just to retrieve some gold?’  

Staring at the scorched pouch, I made a firm resolution:  

Once this was over, I was retiring from the Hero business—no matter what the gods said.  

For now, I donned a mass-produced armor set and picked up a plain steel sword.  

Zahina and Yerim equipped leather armor, and with Zahina leading the way, we began walking through the lightless tunnel.  

Rumble…  

Zahina reshaped the earth as we moved, though much slower than when we were aboveground.  

But we had no choice.  

If the heat was still this intense down here, the surface would be hellish.  

After walking over a hundred meters, the heat finally subsided.  

We emerged aboveground.  

Our exit point was behind a small hill, away from the shore.  

As expected, the outside world was a nightmare.  

Beyond the hill, the beach was unrecognizable—scorched and reshaped by the blast.  

A mushroom cloud lingered in the sky, and the shore had been carved into a crater, now filled with boiling water.  

The surrounding sand had melted into glass.  

Even the rocky hill we stood beside was half-molten on the far side.  

The air here was nearly 100 degrees—unbearable for ordinary humans. Even we were barely enduring it with mana and divine energy.  

The only reason this spot was relatively safe was because the hill shielded us from the worst of the heat.  

Yerim peeked over the hill and paled before turning to me.  

“We’ll be okay, right? Divine energy can block radiation… right?”  

I almost laughed. Why was the Saintess asking me that?  

“How should I know? But if it can bring someone back from just a head, I’d say radiation isn’t a problem.”  

It made sense for Yerim, being from Earth, to worry. But fretting wouldn’t change anything.  

We could only trust in divine energy.  

Then, Zahina spoke up, gazing at the western sky.  

“We succeeded. The magic circle is gone.”  

She was right.  

Though miasma and mana still lingered, the translucent mountain range that had hovered over Pyongyang’s sky was no longer visible.  

Yelena and Irene had dismantled the Demon King’s spell.  

Now, it was time to reunite with the rest of our party.  

Before setting off, we bowed our heads toward the sea one last time.  

“We’re sorry… and thank you. We’ll make sure the gods and everyone else knows of your sacrifice.”  

We didn’t have time, but we had to honor the crew who had given their lives to stop the Demon King and save the world.  

As Yerim said, we had to let everyone know what they had done—how incredible their sacrifice was.  

And to do that, we had to survive.  

After paying our respects, we left the shore behind.  

Before sprinting toward Pyongyang, I turned back and looked up at the sky over the sea.  

Against the darkening heavens, a faint red glow hovered alone.  

Like a star—or a satellite.  

But no satellite would emit such an ominous light.  

And from it, I sensed a faint trace of mana and miasma.  

The Demon King’s mana.  

‘He fled that far?’  

At the moment of detonation, the Demon King must have escaped into the sky—no, into space.  

He had likely prepared an emergency teleportation spell.  

Judging by his mana, he wasn’t unharmed. But with no way to fly after him now, catching the Demon King in orbit was impossible.  

So, we headed for Pyongyang.  

We had to leave the city before the Demon King returned.