Chapter 14 – Zahina, Daughter of the Sacred Tree (2)

“I lost consciousness amid the continued explosions. When I regained awareness, it was after you, Sir Knight and soldier, had arrived. So unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to the others.”

Zahina, the elf woman, answered my question about what happened to the others like this.

Certainly, she was as good as dead when I arrived here.

That’s why I felt there were no survivors when I first arrived.

In any case, she didn’t know anything about the missing hero’s party either.

So only speculation remains.

Let’s see.

My guess is that the Demon King’s minions took the hero party’s corpses to use as undead materials.

They left behind the elf corpse with only parts of the body remaining, as it was useless, along with the hero’s corpse here.

An absurd situation did occur where that corpse actually came back to life, but thanks to that, at least one witness remained. As someone who should be with the living hero, I was grateful.

We ended our conversation with my question.

The elf woman, Zahina, focused on her regenerating body, while the apothecary soldier and I kept watch over the surroundings until her body returned.

It was about 2 hours later that Zahina, the elf woman, returned to a normal state.

Against the backdrop of the setting sun at the end of a long day, the elf woman rising to her feet looked like a beautiful statue from mythology.

Long red hair, a slender figure, and a sculpted face.

As someone who remembers my past life, it felt more like a tall, slender visual idol center than a statue.

Moreover, having her wear a relatively intact North Korean military uniform instead of the tattered elf clothes made her look like an idol or actress cosplaying as a North Korean soldier.

“The hero is… gone, so what do we do now?”

Hoffman still found it difficult to accept that the hero had died.

At Hoffman’s words, the elf in North Korean cosplay looked at me.

It seemed she hadn’t heard anything separately either.

“…”

Seeing the elf woman not taking the initiative to speak, I let out a sigh of relief.

Unlike the arrogant elf in our party, the woman before me didn’t seem to have any intention of leading our party.

That was fortunate.

If she had insisted on being the leader like the elf in our party who died, it would have been quite a headache.

It was a good situation, but I still needed to confirm properly.

“If there’s nothing special, may I decide the party’s course until the gate opens again?”

Saying I would determine where we go was essentially asking if I could be the leader.

Hoffman immediately nodded, and fortunately, the elf woman also nodded without hesitation.

I let out another sigh of relief.

Since coming to this world, I could finally move as I pleased.

Of course, I’d still need to provide some explanations or lies in the future, but as the party leader rather than a member, I wouldn’t need to persuade the other members.

In the worst case, I had even considered going alone.

I was grateful to have met kind people and avoided bloodshed.

“Although we didn’t see the hero party’s corpses here, even if they’re alive, it would be difficult to go rescue them.”

I pointed with my eyes at the hero’s corpse strewn about as I spoke to the two.

With the goddess-blessed hero dead like that, there was no way the companions could be unharmed.

They must have all died.

And chasing after the undead who attacked the hero to recover those corpses would be foolish.

Moreover, even if they were alive by some chance, there was no reason to rescue them now that the hero was dead.

Without the hero, the hero’s party was just members of a somewhat strong, skilled, or politically famous party.

Surviving and helping to open the gate was far more important than rescuing them.

After all, the reason the allied forces left our party here was to find the living hero and wait for the gate to open again.

Now that the hero was dead, we just needed to survive and wait for the gate to open.

Both Hoffman and the elf woman agreed with my words.

I continued speaking.

“Judging by the direction from the gate to where the hero died, I think the undead or Demon King who killed the hero is heading north or has a base in the north.”

The gate appeared just south of the ceasefire line, and this place where the hero was lured and killed was beyond the demarcation line in North Korean territory.

The clothes worn by the undead who killed the heroes were all North Korean military uniforms, and the weapons they used were North Korean guns and artillery.

In the end, the Demon King had made part or all of North Korea his kingdom.

For that reason, the Demon King’s crossing into this world was not half a month ago when he fled through the gate after being defeated by the hero.

“Since it seems the Demon King has taken over North Korean territory, let’s head south and wait for the gate to open.”

That’s how I decided our party’s course.

A quite plausible explanation for my two companions. Now that I was the leader, this much explanation was sufficient.

The two nodded at my decision.

* * *

The deep forest of the demilitarized zone quickly darkened.

The sunset seemed to shine, then the forest immediately darkened.

Fortunately, we were able to find an abandoned trench before it got completely dark.

It seemed to be a trench made long ago during the war, but judging by the traces inside, it appeared to have been used by people until recently.

Of course, those traces were now covered in dust.

Hoffman and Zahina made uneasy expressions at the unfamiliar human facility.

However, when I, the leader, entered the trench first, the two followed behind me into the trench, albeit hesitantly.

The trench we entered was a small pit with a cement observation window and entrance.

It was small, barely enough for three people to lie down, but if we blocked the observation window and entrance, it would be a much more comfortable sleeping place than sleeping outdoors.

I first took out several cloaks from my space expansion bag to block the window and the wide-open entrance.

Then I spread the remaining cloaks on the floor.

Next, I took out a self-illuminating lamp and placed it in the center of the trench, and brought out three bowls, three brick breads, and a pouch of gail pickle.

A lodging and dinner place created in an instant.

Hoffman looked surprised at me, a skilled survival knight, but Zahina, true to her elf nature, sat on the floor with an unreadable expression.

“It’s just for today. From tomorrow, let’s prepare separately.”

I spoke up before Hoffman could feel sorry.

It had been a hectic and tiring day, so I didn’t want to argue over such trivial preparations.

After all, most of the travel supplies were in my two space expansion bags.

Hoffman was also carrying a backpack, but it didn’t seem to be a magic backpack,

And the elf woman, who had lost two-thirds of her body, now had nothing of her own.

That’s why I prepared the camp now.

But as I said, today would be the only day I prepared the camp alone.

From tomorrow, we would either divide the tasks or take turns.

Both of them agreed with my words, and we ate the hard bread and sour gail pickle for dinner.

As always, it was really tasteless bread and pickle.

In fact, the food standards of the continent weren’t that bad.

Moreover, as I came from a knight’s family, I had eaten above middle-class meals since childhood, and even after leaving home, I had enjoyed quite abundant meals by spending more money than others.

But such relatively decent meals became almost impossible to see after I jumped into the war against the Demon King.

The military supplies coming from the rear were unlikely to be of good quality.

It was also difficult to requisition live livestock or delicious food in the undead lands full of death.

In the end, I had no choice but to eat brick bread harder than bricks and gail pickle, said to be closer to a monster than livestock, for most of the years I fought against the Demon King.

The fact that I crave money, want to obtain a small estate for a comfortable life, and am here in this place now, is not unrelated to this garbage food.

The elf from another world who recovered her body by receiving mana from the earth didn’t seem much different from us in eating food.

She seemed to have difficulty eating the hard bread like us, and frowned at the sourness of the gail pickle.

After finishing such an unappetizing meal, I asked the elf woman a question.

“Mountain soldier Hoffman specializes in tracking, pursuit, and survival skills, and I, a free knight, specialize in close combat with the undead. Could you tell us your specialty, Miss Zahina?”

Zahina was a party member we had to travel with until the gate opened again.

As the leader, I needed to know her specialties and skills.

Of course, she would likely hide some of her abilities, like me.

Fortunately, Zahina answered right away.

“I am the first daughter of the Sacred Tree. In your world’s terms, I would be called a nature mage.”

Nature mage…

What does this mean?

It’s a term from the continent, but I couldn’t understand what it meant at all.

However, hearing her words, I recalled how she looked when I first saw her.

“Is that ability also why you recovered by obtaining mana from the earth?”

“Yes. It’s one of the minor abilities of a nature mage.”

I asked another question in response to her words.

“But isn’t the recovery ability something all children of the Sacred Tree can use?”

Although he failed to revive, the elf in our party also had quite good regenerative abilities.

Besides him, all elves seemed to have good regenerative abilities, didn’t they?

“Actually, all of us children of the Sacred Tree could be called nature mages in your terms. It’s just that I received a little more blessing from the Sacred Tree than them, so I’m called a nature mage.”

Listening a bit more, the nature mage Zahina spoke of was a kind of shaman or sorcerer.

A primitive saint who moves nature and prays to the Sacred Tree by borrowing its power.

That’s what it meant to be the first daughter of the Sacred Tree.

“If you’re the first daughter, are you perhaps someone like a princess?”

Hoffman looked at the elf woman with a surprised face.

I couldn’t help but be surprised by her words too.

She probably wasn’t a real princess, but she certainly wasn’t like ordinary elves.

Well, they wouldn’t have assigned an ordinary elf to the hero.

It made sense, but it was inevitably awkward for me.

It seemed I shouldn’t have asked.

But since it had come to this, I asked her about what a nature mage could do.

“I can slightly change the flow of wind, water, trees, earth, fire, and water by borrowing the power of the Sacred Tree.”

As she spoke, she made a gentle breeze blow in the tightly sealed warehouse and made warmth felt from the cold cement floor.

She also made a soft light glow from the ceiling instead of artifacts, etc.

She even made water appear in the dish where the gail pickle had dried up.

It was like magic.

No, since mana moved, is this also a kind of magic?

Hoffman’s head lowered even further.

“But in this world, it’s better not to expect help as a nature mage. As I felt when recovering my body, the power of the Sacred Tree is barely felt in this world, so I can’t use my powers properly.”

Indeed, after showing small miracles that weren’t very impressive, she looked extremely tired.

The miracles she just showed might help with daily life, but they don’t seem very helpful in attacking enemies.

It seemed I should just think of her as a novice assistant magician.

With that conversation over, we closed our eyes leaning against the wall.

Fortunately, we could solve the night watch with Zahina’s magic.

Zahina implanted mana in the atmosphere, turning the surrounding air into detection sensors.

When I tested it, no being moving on the ground could escape her detection sensors.

Although she could only implant mana within about ten meters due to the weak power of the Sacred Tree, that was enough as long as we could prevent surprise attacks.

Her sensors didn’t go off during the night.

That’s how the first night passed in another world, or the world of a past life.