Chapter 208 – Lure

Undead filled the surroundings.

Not just ordinary zombies or skeletons, but ghouls and corpse golems were mixed in as well.

Moreover, there were undead wielding modern weapons.

Thousands, tens of thousands, or even more of such undead were gathering here.

This was the Demon King’s army, a force that even ordinary human soldiers, knights, or mages would struggle to face.

Even for a hero, a swordsman, or me, it was no different.

No matter how many I killed—ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand—the enemies kept coming endlessly.

Even if I had become a swordsman of comparable skill, or even if I could temporarily wield holy power like a hero, I couldn’t defeat them all.

However, if I chose to run instead of fight, that would be a different story.

Of course, unlike in the past, they now had modern weapons to cover their weaknesses, but I was well aware of those weapons too.

‘Machine guns, portable anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles… They’ve brought everything they can carry.’

Of course, there were weapons that seemed impossible for one person to carry, but these undead had strength beyond that of humans and never tired.

Ratatatat! Boom!

Even now, bullets and missiles were flying around me as I ran.

Surrounded on all sides, undead were everywhere, but they didn’t care if their own were caught in the crossfire.

Explosions, gunfire, grenades, and bomb fragments flew everywhere, along with pieces of corpses and bones. This place was no different from hell.

But to me, it felt like just another day.

Without modern weapons, it was no different from the battlefields I had lived through for years.

However, for the old man who hadn’t experienced the battlefield in a long time, it seemed different.

“This is horrifying,” the Duke muttered, shuddering as he looked around while running and fighting alongside me.

“Are you okay?”

“You… seem fine. Did it used to be like this when you fought with the Allied Forces?”

I could only give a bitter smile at the Duke’s words.

“It was worse back then.”

Perhaps because there were no modern weapons, but to me, those times were more brutal.

The endless waves of undead, comrades dying all around me.

And then, those dead comrades turning their swords against me.

It was a battlefield where one misstep could drive you mad.

In fact, many did go mad.

It was why the absurd situation of people becoming addicted to potions occurred.

“I see. So that’s why you were angry at the Empire for not helping.”

The Duke’s response was unexpected.

After slicing a corpse golem in half, I glanced at the old swordsman.

Even as he spoke, the Duke was diligently cutting down undead.

Despite his age, he lived up to his title as a swordsman, unleashing dazzling sword energy.

“What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you so angry that you messed up the operation?”

Ah, he was talking about when I saved the hero.

It seemed the Duke thought I had acted out of anger when I saved the hero.

‘That’s not it… Well, it’s not entirely wrong.’

The reasons were different, but there was definitely some emotion involved.

“I wasn’t angry at the Empire.”

“Is that so?”

“If I were angry, it would be at the royal family or the Emperor.”

The Emperor, who tried to make me the next hero, and the gods, who, without saying a word, gave me the power to wield holy energy.

I’ve been pushed around by others and suffered enough, and now they’re forcing this on me again.

If it weren’t for the fact that Ea seemed doomed, and if I didn’t have my party members, I would have taken the gold and hidden away in my hometown.

The Duke’s expression darkened at my words.

As a member of the royal family, he must have been displeased by my mention of the Emperor.

“The Emperor and the royal family are no different from the Empire.”

As the instructor of the royal knights and a member of the royal family, this was a natural statement for him.

Anyone living in Ea would likely think the same.

But I remembered a world where the people were the masters of the nation. As such, I couldn’t nod to the divine right of kings.

Besides, this wasn’t the time for such discussions.

In fact, this wasn’t even the environment for such a conversation, but the fact that we could talk meant the battle wasn’t too intense.

Instead of killing all the enemies, we were breaking through one side of the encirclement and running, so we could manage to talk.

Even now, as the Duke destroyed skeleton soldiers, he was able to observe my fighting.

“Have you already become the hero?”

The Duke asked as I sliced another corpse golem in half.

Around me, several golems were already cut down by sword energy, burning fiercely.

Before coming to Earth, these undead were difficult to defeat, and even after arriving here, they were tough opponents at first.

But now, they had become weak undead that could be killed with a single swing of my sword.

Of course, it wasn’t that the corpse golems had weakened, but rather that the holy power of the hero was overpowered.

“As I’ve said before, no. I’m just using the holy power of the saintess.”

“But this…”

He looked around with disbelief as he swung his sword.

The surroundings were filled with burning undead.

They were undead that had been struck by my sword, imbued with holy power.

I could only shrug at his words.

“Well, before the holy power runs out, I’m similar to a hero. That’s why I can lure them like this.”

After the hero left, the Duke didn’t get angry again because of this.

The holy power I was emitting.

That holy power was the reason the undead continued to chase us even after the hero had left.

For now, the holy power felt stronger than the hero’s, so the undead had no choice but to flock to me instead of searching for the vanished hero.

That didn’t mean I was willing to die in the hero’s place.

The hero’s holy power wouldn’t disappear until death, so there was no way to escape.

That’s why the hero had fought, prepared to die.

I was different.

Once the holy power given by the saintess ran out, I would return to being an ordinary (?) knight.

At that point, the undead wouldn’t chase me so frantically.

Until then, my task was to ensure the holy power didn’t run out before we received word that the gate in Daejeon had been destroyed. Of course, I couldn’t die either.

To do that, I had to stop what was flying toward us from the northern sky.

The things flying toward us weren’t imbued with mana or energy, but my enhanced mana sense could detect their approach.

They were disrupting the energy filling this area.

The trajectory of the objects flying through the energy.

It felt like watching something on radar, sensing the approach of objects without mana or energy.

It seemed like I had gained a new skill, but now wasn’t the time to celebrate.

“Sir Gunther! Are you alive? If you are, can you stop what’s flying from the sky?”

Only the Duke was near me; the rest were undead.

The knights and mages who had come with us were nowhere to be seen, and the archmage who had briefly appeared after crashing from the sky had also disappeared. But I knew.

The archmage was alive.

[Did you know?]

As expected, Count Schröder’s voice echoed in my head.

As he had said, he had hidden himself to survive.

With the hero gone, he must have thought there was no need for him to die.

I could have pretended not to know, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option now.

The only one who could stop what was flying from the sky was a mage.

“Use lightning magic! You don’t need to hit them precisely. They’re probably Chinese or Russian-made, so their electromagnetic shielding won’t be perfect!”

[I don’t understand what you’re saying, but you want me to use lightning magic, right?]

“Yes! Please!”

Before I could finish speaking, lightning surged from among the undead.

It shot toward the northern sky, lingering in the air and spreading in all directions.

Like lightning within clouds, it spread across the clear sky.

Kugugugung!

With the sound of thunder, the missiles flying toward us scattered in all directions.

Boom! Crash!

Some missiles exploded mid-air, while others crashed to the ground.

Some flew up and collided with other missiles, while others fell among the undead, scattering corpse fragments.

As expected.

It wasn’t jamming or an EMP, but the powerful lightning was even more devastating to electronic equipment.

“To think they’re firing artillery from that far away, it’s astonishing. Are those weapons from this world too?”

The Duke was amazed as he looked at the piles of corpse fragments soaring into the sky.

“They’re the weapons that killed the previous hero.”

Actually, the weapon that killed the previous hero’s party wasn’t a missile but an artillery shell. Still, the result wasn’t much different.

They probably didn’t have time to deploy artillery nearby, so they fired missiles from a distance. For us, that was actually fortunate.

Clearly, the Demon King’s army had prepared well to fight the hero.

They gathered all the undead they could to surround the hero’s party, called in undead from Daejeon to block escape routes, and then rained down missiles.

If the hero had been here, survival would have been difficult.

The missiles fired now were clearly a hasty response to our attempt to break through the encirclement.

If we had stayed there, they would have deployed artillery and tanks as well.

In any case, the hastily fired missiles were a great help to us.

The missiles that crashed to the ground disrupted the encirclement, allowing us to escape the undead-filled park.

With the undead horde in pursuit, the two swordsmen and I ran south.

It would have been better to go in another direction, but we had no choice if we wanted to lure the undead coming from Daejeon.

After leaving Sariwon and running south for half a day, we reached Gaegyeong.

Once we broke through the encirclement, the undead couldn’t easily follow us.

Helicopters and drones tried to track us, but unfortunately for them, we had a lightning mage.

Since drones and helicopters relied on electronic equipment, they couldn’t withstand the lightning.

As we lured the undead and reached Gaegyeong, the Demon King never appeared.

Was he afraid of showing himself and being defeated by the hero?

Or did he have other business?

In any case, it was fortunate for us.

Of course, if I escaped this time, the Demon King would prepare another method, but that wasn’t my concern.

I had saved the hero, so the hero would handle it.

Shortly after we arrived in Gaegyeong, we received word.

[The portal and gate have been destroyed.]

It was a close call.

I used the last of my holy power to wipe out the undead I had lured here.

After that, we slipped into the ruined streets of Gaegyeong.