Chapter 54 – Dragon (1)
by Heavenly CatCraaaaaash!
The wyvern crashed into a forest in one of the mountain ranges, smashing several trees.
With tremendous dust clouds, startled beasts ran off in all directions, and wyverns from afar began flying toward the crashed wyvern.
“Argh!”
Sun-woo got up from a place some distance away from the crashed wyvern, groaning in pain.
Sun-woo’s clothes were in tatters and his exposed hands and feet were full of scratched and scraped wounds.
But fortunately, <Body Enhancement> had definitely been effective. Though he had been smashed into the ground deep enough to create a crater, it ended with just skin wounds.
After confirming there was nothing wrong with his body, Sun-woo looked at his clothes with a dejected expression. The clothes worth over a billion won were torn all over.
Thanks to the clothes, the body inside had barely any wounds, but at this rate he would have to extend his hand to the association or Caroline again.
Sun-woo ran to where the wyvern had crashed.
The wyvern had smashed several trees before being buried in the ground with its life ended.
Naturally, Sun-woo received points, but this wasn’t the time to check that.
He had to quickly rescue Daniel.
Sun-woo had jumped off the wyvern just before it crashed, but Daniel had crashed along with the wyvern.
“Are you alive?”
Sun-woo, who approached the wyvern through the smashed trees, searched for Daniel nearby.
“Ugh, I’m not dead yet.”
Daniel’s voice came from under the wyvern’s body. It seemed he had been crushed under the wyvern’s body during the crash.
Startled Sun-woo began pushing the wyvern’s body.
Though it weighed over a ton, he gradually pushed it using the strength enhanced by internal energy and <Body Enhancement>, and was eventually able to extract Daniel who was buried under the wyvern.
Fortunately, Daniel was also alive. Though he had crashed together with the wyvern and received much more impact than Sun-woo, his skilled <Body Enhancement> and armor bought with points had protected him.
Daniel was able to escape from the deep crater with Sun-woo’s help, and having barely escaped the crater, he removed his helmet and vomited blood from his mouth.
Though the outside looked relatively fine, the impact had turned his insides upside down.
Seeing Daniel sitting on the ground continuously spitting blood, Sun-woo sighed. It seemed he would have to use a potion again.
Sun-woo took out a potion from his phone and handed it to Daniel.
Daniel looked somewhat surprised at Sun-woo who handed him the potion, but soon took the potion and drank it down.
Watching Daniel’s internal injuries begin healing immediately, Sun-woo swallowed his regret.
To escape this place where he couldn’t contact the Summoner and couldn’t be summoned, he needed a healthy companion.
‘Let’s consider it compensation for the skill.’
While Sun-woo was consoling his regretful heart, the blood stopped flowing from Daniel’s mouth and his deathly pale complexion returned. It seemed he had been healed to some degree.
After expressing gratitude to Sun-woo, Daniel checked his armor and his expression darkened.
Because the beautifully shining armor had been dented beyond recognition. All the limb parts of the armor were completely destroyed, and even the relatively intact breastplate didn’t look very good.
“At least the breastplate is still usable.”
Daniel muttered with a dejected expression while removing the ruined armor pieces. Most of the armor he had poured almost all his points into had been ruined after barely being used.
Shortly after, Daniel removed all armor except the breastplate.
The parts where armor was removed looked quite pitiful with only underwear remaining, but Sun-woo, knowing he wasn’t much different, just pretended not to notice.
“This doesn’t seem like an ordinary problem.”
Daniel’s expression was rigidly hardened as he looked around. The surrounding forest and distant mountain ranges were all tinged with murky colors.
Daniel’s hope that perhaps only the mountains near the village had been contaminated completely crumbled. The contamination was devouring the entire eastern mountain range of the kingdom.
“But I don’t understand how such a thing could be happening without anyone noticing.”
Ordinary people couldn’t recognize contamination, but for the kingdom not to notice monsters running wild like this… Sun-woo found it very hard to understand.
Daniel answered Sun-woo’s words with a dark expression.
“If it were an ordinary mountain, they would have noticed quickly. They would have deployed sentries around the mountain range too. But this mountain range couldn’t do that.”
Looking deep into the mountain range, Daniel continued speaking.
“This mountain range has a dragon’s nest. The nest of Green Dragon Zigmund, the actual ruler of the eastern mountain range.”
According to Daniel’s words, this entire mountain range was the territory of a dragon named Zigmund.
At Daniel’s words, Sun-woo frowned. It definitely didn’t seem like he was talking about something similar to a wyvern.
Dragons were the highest predators of Daniel’s world who had lived for thousands of years, beings revered almost like demigods in that world.
Possessing fundamentally powerful bodies and minds, they had gained enormous mana and various magic through long lives, making it so no one could lay a hand on them.
“Well, occasionally adventurers or armies would rush in talking about slaying dragons or whatnot, but most would be annihilated. There are even countries that were ruined because of it.”
Sun-woo, who had roughly thought of it as just a bigger wyvern, had to change his thinking at Daniel’s words.
“It’s been dormant so small villages have been established nearby, but it’s hard to enter the dragon’s territory without permission. There are the dragon’s guardians too, and you never know when the dragon might wake up.”
“Are you saying such a great being is unaware of this situation just because it’s sleeping?”
At Sun-woo’s question, Daniel’s expression darkened.
“Perhaps something has happened to the dragon too.”
The wyverns that had flown from the wyvern nest examined the dead wyvern from above and began returning.
“Without you, Mr. Sun-woo, we might still be being chased.”
Daniel muttered while looking up at the sky. Daniel and Sun-woo were already hurrying their steps through a forest quite far from where they had crashed.
When Sun-woo and Daniel saw wyverns flying from afar, they immediately left that area. Since Sun-woo had overturned the earth to erase traces of where they had been, they were able to avoid other wyverns and safely reach this place.
“Rather, getting out of here seems like it will be the problem. It seems like we’ve come incredibly deep in that short time.”
Daniel nodded at Sun-woo’s words.
“As you said, Mr. Sun-woo, we’ve come quite far into the eastern mountain range. It might actually be faster to exit through the opposite side of the mountain range.”
But though he said that, they couldn’t go to the opposite side of the mountain range. Because that’s where an endless vast desert stretched out. This eastern mountain range served as a breakwater protecting the kingdoms from the desert.
There were rumors that some merchants went around the mountain range to cross the desert and trade with distant desert kingdoms, but hearing such rumors, there was no way they would go into a desert that might be contaminated to who knows where.
“Still, fortunately it’s an area I’ve been to before.”
Daniel looked around with a nostalgic expression.
“Before joining the knight order like now, when I was doing adventurer work, I used to pass through here with companions. Fortunately, I don’t seem to have forgotten everything yet. Though the monsters must have changed from before, with you, Mr. Sun-woo, I think we can get out.”
At Daniel’s words, Sun-woo also breathed a sigh of relief. Though he hadn’t said it, he had been tremendously at a loss.
With Daniel’s guidance, the two began crossing the mountain range.
Daniel knew the monsters’ boundary points in advance and guided Sun-woo, while Sun-woo used sorcery to detect surrounding dangers in advance and hid both their bodies underground before monsters appeared.
Thanks to this, that day the two were able to move several kilometers westward toward the kingdom with almost no fighting.
Though it was quite slow movement considering the two’s abilities, it was by no means a short distance for movement without fighting inside enemy territory.
That night, when further movement became difficult, the two decided to hide in a small cave below a cliff that Daniel showed them and spend the day there.
Fortunately, neither of them had poor night vision, and using moonlight flowing in from outside the cave, the two had their meal that day. Dinner was bottled water and bread from Sun-woo’s inventory.
“Really amazing. How do you know the areas where monsters live so well?”
Thanks to Sun-woo’s sorcery, they were ultimately able to avoid encountering monsters, but if Daniel hadn’t told him about the types of monsters and where they lived, there’s no way they could have come this far without fighting.
No matter how much of an adventurer he had been, it couldn’t help but be amazing that he knew almost all the monsters living throughout the mountain range.
“It’s more thanks to you, Mr. Sun-woo. Still, fortunately it seems their living places haven’t changed much from before. I was worried because the number of wyverns increased, but the other monsters don’t seem very different.”
Drinking bottled water, Daniel continued speaking.
“Among my companions was a half-elf who lived in this mountain range. She had been abandoned by elves and couldn’t stay among humans either, so she was living in this mountain range. She made me memorize them one by one, so I remember.”
Daniel’s expression became wistful. Seeing him smile while recalling old memories, it seemed difficult for Sun-woo to continue the conversation.
After that, the two finished their meal in silence, and that day Sun-woo almost completely blocked the cave entrance and they spent the night there.
The next day, at dawn the two collapsed the earth wall blocking the cave and came outside. Fortunately, Sun-woo’s earth wall and illusion arts seemed to have worked, as no monsters lurking around could be seen.
The surroundings were endless mountains with no end in sight. If it hadn’t been for Daniel, it would have been perfect for wandering in the mountains until death.
And above the cave where the two had slept, a considerably high sheer rock cliff was positioned.
After leaving the cave, Sun-woo and Daniel began stretching their bodies. Thanks to the uncomfortable sleeping place in the cave, their muscles were screaming.
“Ugh, an uncomfortable sleeping place is as bad for the body as falling from the sky.”
Sun-woo also nodded at Daniel’s words.
That’s when dust began falling over the two men’s heads.
When the startled two looked up, something was falling from the top of the cliff.
“Take cover!”
The two hastily threw their bodies toward the cave, and simultaneously a loud vibration echoed around.
“Thud!”
What had fallen to the ground was a four-legged monster with two heads. One head looked like a wolf and the other head looked like a cat.
The monster had lost its life from the impact of falling, and following that monster, other monsters began falling down.
“Could it be guardians!”
Daniel’s startled voice echoed, and Sun-woo, who looked up at the sky, frowned for a different reason.
There was something else falling besides monsters.
“A person? No, an elf?”
In Sun-woo’s eyes, a long-eared woman was falling among the monsters.
At Sun-woo’s words, Daniel looked up and shouted at Sun-woo.
“We have to save her! Hurry!”
So urgent was he that informal speech burst from his mouth. At Daniel’s urgent voice, Sun-woo placed his hand on the ground, and Sun-woo’s body began shooting upward along with the ground.
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