Chapter 29 – Mountain Soldier (3)

Mountain soldiers, also known as rangers, were elite troops of the northern mountains, many of whom were skilled enough to sense mana.

They could be said to be worth more than 10 ordinary soldiers.

Especially within the northern mountains teeming with magical beasts, they were considered equal to knights.

While they weren’t preventing the magical beasts from descending to the plains, it wasn’t easy to patrol the northern mountains overflowing with magical beasts as if it were their home.

Although the mountain soldiers were skilled and recognized for their abilities, they weren’t treated according to their reputation.

Knights, mages, noble officers, and even common soldiers thought of them as capable but untrustworthy individuals.

It might seem strange, but once you knew how mountain soldiers were recruited, it was understandable.

In fact, the mountain soldier unit was a penal battalion to punish criminals.

The northern mountains, swarming with magical beasts, were a dangerous place where even beast hunters and adventurers had ceased to venture.

It was a place that soldiers, and even knights, were reluctant to approach.

They had built fortresses at the foot of the mountains to block magical beasts from descending to the plains, but to prevent sudden waves of attacks, someone had to enter the mountains to monitor the beasts’ movements.

The higher-ups solved the problem by throwing in criminals.

Soldiers, adventurers, and hunters who were too skilled to be killed.

They were all thrown into the northern mountains under the name of mountain soldiers.

After numerous soldiers died and time passed, the remaining soldiers all became elites.

There were quite a few soldiers who sensed mana to survive, and it was thought that they might even be able to fight knights within the northern mountains.

Although the mountain soldiers had become so strong, their original sin as criminals did not disappear.

Moreover, their minds, which had brushed with death repeatedly, were not entirely sane.

Hoffman’s addiction to potions wasn’t just because he had been in the army for a long time.

“Damn it all. I come down from that hellish mountain only to end up rolling with corpses, and just when I think the war is over, I’m thrown into another world…”

Hoffman was thoroughly disgusted with his life, which seemed like a chain of hell.

“If it weren’t for the potions, I would’ve died long ago.”

Whether he meant the potions had saved his life or that he hadn’t committed suicide because of his addiction to them was unclear.

Muttering these ambiguous words, he climbed up the apartment wall.

Past the 29th floor to the 30th.

The evacuation floor, which seemed to be left empty at night, was completely deserted.

“They put guards in front of the house where we sleep, but leave this place empty. Really, what a bunch of idiots.”

Were the guards placed in front of the house originally meant to guard this floor?

What’s the point of guarding just one house when someone could come up through another stairway?

Well, it’s all meaningless if someone climbs the wall like him anyway.

They claim to be a gathering of surviving civilians, but weren’t all the men in this country supposed to have served in the military? How could they be so careless?

It was utterly pathetic.

There were plenty of magical beasts that could climb cliffs, and even some undead that could scale walls.

Seeing how they left this place empty because it had been safe so far, it was clear that this place wouldn’t last long either.

“I could probably just threaten them and extract information… The knight is unexpectedly docile.”

If he had gained such fame rolling around in this muddy war, he should have a mindset similar to his own.

But the knight moved much more gently than expected.

“He seems to know a lot about this world too.”

Seeing how he figured out various things with surprising ease, Hoffman thought the knight must be quite intelligent.

And his combat ability was also quite…

“Fighting a knight my ass.”

Remembering the party leader knight, he couldn’t help but curse.

The young knight who died first had crude mana, but it felt like he could have tested him to some extent. However, the party leader knight was impossible to gauge.

“If I try to test him, my head will surely be cut off.”

Even though he wasn’t emitting killing intent or leaking mana, just the thought of testing him made Hoffman break out in a cold sweat.

“Well, thanks to that, I’m still alive, so I should just quietly do as I’m told and not act up.”

When he saw the hero die, he felt like the world was ending, but unexpectedly, living here wasn’t so bad.

The pretty elf woman turned out to be unexpectedly useful too.

The mission to join up with the hero had failed spectacularly, but if he played his cards right, he might be able to return alive.

“Come to think of it, how did he know about my skills?”

Hoffman sighed as he climbed above the evacuation floor.

Seeing how he gave precise instructions, it was clear that he knew about his former profession.

Before becoming a mountain soldier, Hoffman’s occupation was a thief.

In the dead of night when everyone was asleep.

If one wanted to plot something secretly without others knowing, they had no choice but to use such hours.

The leader of this organization, Yang Gi-hyeok, was no different.

In the dark night.

On the floor below the rooftop, in a suite room made by connecting two houses, the leader’s suite, several people gathered.

“Brother, what are you going to do?”

“If we’re not careful, we might lose the area we’ve built up.”

The men who barged into the house spoke urgently to the leader.

The leader, Yang Gi-hyeok, frowned at their words.

“Weren’t you all just watching during the day?”

“No, even you, a superpowered person, were knocked out in one hit. What could we have done?”

It wasn’t wrong, so Yang Gi-hyeok just clicked his tongue softly.

As Yang Gi-hyeok didn’t say anything, the other men continued the conversation.

“Actually, only the guy in the iron armor fought. If we could just take him out, it seems like it would be fine.”

“No, we’re gathering here at night and making a fuss because we can’t take him out.”

“Since when have we fought openly? Can’t we just kill them secretly? Like drugging them and ambushing them at night.”

“Hmm. Sounds good…”

The other men looked intrigued at his words.

“Should we just say they ran away? Or maybe bring some zombies and leave traces of a fight…”

However, the plan that was being formed collapsed at the words of a man who had been quiet until then.

“An ambush is difficult. After dinner, they blocked the door in a strange way.”

He was the man who had guided the outsiders to the empty house.

He had brought them dinner, handed over clothes, and had been watching the house with others until just now.

“That woman seems to have some kind of ability too. It looks like she took a bath even though we didn’t give her water, and it seems she was the one who blocked the door.”

At the man’s words, a young man suddenly spoke up.

“Right. Even if we end up killing everyone, let’s not kill that woman.”

“Of course.”

“But it doesn’t seem like we’ll even get a chance…”

“No, we should offer her to our brother. What are you thinking? I was satisfied just looking at her.”

The leader’s lips curled up slightly at his brothers’ words, but he soon regained his composure and tapped the living room floor.

Thump. Thump.

“Quiet, and anyway, since we’ve put them all in one building, we can’t kill them inside, so don’t even think about it.”

The men nodded at his words.

In fact, the men gathered here, including the leader, were not original residents of this apartment.

They were people who had been doing gangster-like activities in a place a little far from here.

They had fled in a car to escape zombies, but their car broke down near the apartment, so they took refuge in this apartment.

At that time, there were quite a few survivors in the apartment where they took refuge, but not long after, only they survived along with abundant food supplies.

Then, Yang Gi-hyeok awakened his superpower and gathered the surviving apartment residents into one apartment to form a survivors’ group.

While Yang Gi-hyeok was gathering people and becoming the leader, no one realized that Yang Gi-hyeok and his brothers were outsiders.

After all, no one knew who lived in other buildings among the apartment residents.

Since there were no survivors left in the apartment where Yang Gi-hyeok had been, there was no one to suspect him.

Of course, now some people were starting to suspect a little, but until the knight’s group arrived, there had been no problems in this building.

It was enough for Yang Gi-hyeok to suppress them with force.

Fortunately, this group had been running smoothly so far, so there was no need for Yang Gi-hyeok and his brothers to reveal their true nature.

There were no incidents of raiding other houses for food supplies like in the apartment where he had been, nor were there incidents of stealing wives or killing people for fun.

Of course, occasionally people who went out on reconnaissance died, and their wives let other men into their homes for food, but in times like these, it wasn’t anything special.

“For now, from tomorrow, attach them to the external exploration. If we’re lucky, the zombies might kill them for us.”

“If a wave doesn’t come like last time, it seems difficult to kill them with ordinary zombies.”

“I said ‘if we’re lucky’!”

Yang Gi-hyeok shouted at his brothers’ unprecedented objections.

These were the brothers who couldn’t even make a peep after he gained his superpower.

But now they were raising objections like this.

This was all because of those guys.

Yang Gi-hyeok also wanted to kill them, but as the representative of the organization, he had to prepare alternatives.

“If we can’t kill them, we can make them walk out on their own. Depending on the situation, we can reveal the information about other organizations that we’ve been hiding.”

Others didn’t know, but Yang Gi-hyeok and his brothers knew about the news from other regions.

It was news about quite large organizations.

It was information they had kept hidden for fear of causing unrest among the apartment residents, but it seemed like a good opportunity to use it now.

At Yang Gi-hyeok’s words, one of his brothers made a diplomatic suggestion.

“Can’t we tell them right away tomorrow?”

Yang Gi-hyeok glared at his brother.

“No, we should wait a few days in case there’s a way to kill them.”

He didn’t say it in front of his brothers, but Yang Gi-hyeok was angry.

He wanted revenge for being knocked out with one hit, and he also desperately wanted to possess the beautiful long-eared woman.

Revealing information about other organizations was his last resort.

“…After saying that, everyone went back to sleep.”

Before dawn, Hoffman returned after doing his job properly.

I had him do the job because his mana movement seemed similar to an assassin I had seen during the war, but he performed much better than I expected.

Climbing up to the floor just below the rooftop on the outside of the apartment, hanging from the window to eavesdrop on the conversation in the living room, and returning without being detected.

It was a task that only required avoiding one natural awakener and ordinary people, but that didn’t diminish what he had accomplished.

“Now that we know the situation, it seems we can just point a sword at them and ask.”

I shook my head at Hoffman’s following words.

“I don’t think we need to move right away, as the leader said. We should rest a bit too.”

This base was too valuable to destroy or leave after just one day of rest.

It had been so long since we had apartment living, we couldn’t just give it up quickly.

And even if we were to leave, there were things to do here for now.

The next morning, the leader came to visit in person.

Before he arrived, Zahina had restored the door she had welded to its original state, and he glanced at the door before speaking to me.

“If you’re going to stay here, you’ll have to help us with our work. I hope you can help us find food supplies.”

“Alright. If it’s that kind of work, I’ll be more than happy to help.”

Although there were grains piled up in my space expansion pouch, I immediately nodded at the leader’s words.

“Because I’m the only one who can fight properly, we haven’t been able to approach the commercial area until now. Since there’s a knight here who’s more skilled than me, let’s go to the commercial area starting today.”

An area with many undead…

Did he set up some kind of trap?

It didn’t matter. If it was a commercial area, it was actually what I had been hoping for.

There would surely be abandoned jewelry stores there.