Chapter 63 – Old Friend (1)

I didn’t immediately notice that Jin-su was an awakened one either.

Unlike other natural awakened ones, there was almost no mana flowing from his body.

Perhaps because of this, neither Zahina nor Hoffman realized he was a natural awakened one.

The mana was barely perceptible like Hoffman, but mana was moving inside his body.

“Stealth or thief class maybe…”

If it was that class, it wouldn’t be strange to hide being an awakened one.

Unlike other physical awakened ones, thief or stealth classes don’t become superhuman strong physically.

It was better to hide being an awakened one for surprise attacks.

‘But that’s something you’d do to strangers…’

Looking around at the people, they all seemed unaware he was an awakened one.

Was it about deceiving allies to deceive enemies?

I didn’t understand well, but thinking about it, I was hiding things from my party members too.

If it was him from my past life, he must have some other reason, so I should watch a bit longer without telling others unnecessarily.

While I was thinking this, he was talking with the people around him.

After a while, finishing the conversation, Jin-su said to me.

“It seems most people want to go to the sanctuary. Still, we should talk more. Some might have different thoughts.”

He continued speaking while checking each person’s expression.

“It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to reach a conclusion though. Could you come back here before returning to the sanctuary today? If we decide to go, we’ll prepare to move and wait.”

He meant they wouldn’t make a hasty decision, but would talk thoroughly with people, properly prepare to move, and wait for us.

It was a reasonable suggestion considering various people, just like him from my past life.

It was good for us too.

‘Was I just being needlessly suspicious…’

I clicked my tongue at myself for growing more suspicious.

“Let’s do that. We’ll come back in the afternoon.”

Since the safe zone side agreed, it wouldn’t be difficult to take them.

Once we reached a general conclusion, I asked what I had been curious about.

“Where did you hear the octopus story you mentioned earlier?”

He answered my question.

“It’s a story I heard yesterday when we went to the northern stream looking for food.”

Jin-su continued with a dark expression.

“Everyone heard it then, but only two people returned, so only I and this friend beside me remember that incident.”

“At the stream?”

“Yes. If you go a bit north, there’s the Gapcheon, a tributary of the Geumgang River. We met someone on that riverbank.”

“Don’t tell me… someone who came down by boat?”

“That’s right. He said he came there using a small motorboat along the Geumgang tributaries.”

Using rivers as roads to move by boat…

It wasn’t a bad idea.

No, it was a good idea. If the undead were ordinary zombies like in movies.

But reality was different from zombie movies. There were scarier things than zombies in rivers.

“Did he die?”

Jin-su nodded at my question.

“Yes. He was nearly dead when we met him. His boat was wrecked too. He said he was attacked by fish zombies.”

“It was hard to believe, but we saw a monster half human, half fish poke its face above the river, so we didn’t even set foot near the river after that.”

“He said he saw a giant octopus coming down the Jungbu Expressway when he was coming down the Miho River north of Cheongju.”

“You said yesterday?”

“Yes.”

North of Cheongju a day ago.

“I hoped it would go somewhere else…”

It seemed the creature had steadily followed the Jungbu Expressway south.

“Is it following us?”

I shrugged at Hoffman’s quiet question.

“Can’t know. It might just be heading south.”

Either way, if it kept moving along the Jungbu Expressway, it would pass by Daejeon in a few days.

It would be fine if it kept going south along the highway, but if it turned toward Daejeon…

“Will the safe zone be okay?”

Hoffman asked again, but I couldn’t answer.

I didn’t know the answer either.

I wasn’t a cleric, how could I know?

I’d heard safe zones could block the Demon King’s army’s advance, but also heard of safe zones falling to the Demon King’s subordinates.

This safe zone wasn’t made by any cleric I knew, and I didn’t know what holy artifacts were used.

I wasn’t sure if the octopus was strong enough to break the safe zone.

There were too many variables.

Plus, I didn’t even know if it was following me.

However, I thought I understood why the undead in Daejeon had suddenly decreased.

Besides the Demon King’s army, the octopus coming down from the north was one reason.

We left the building right after hearing this.

People seemed worried we wouldn’t return, but when Jin-su led us out, they just watched us leave without saying anything.

Even while walking, I could feel their gazes, but this wasn’t the time to worry about that.

“What do we do now?”

At Hoffman’s words, both Zahina and Yerim looked at me.

Yerim had heard about our past after joining our party.

She’d heard how we came to this world chasing the Demon King, lost the hero, fled south from the Demon King, and were waiting to reconnect with the other world.

Though Yerim looked even more disbelieving after hearing the story, she half-believed it after touching Zahina’s warm ears.

So she knew about our bad history with the octopus.

Hearing it might be following us, Yerim looked at me with a face devoid of reality.

I answered Hoffman’s question while walking.

“If it just passes Daejeon heading south, there’s no problem, but if not…”

Actually, if it wasn’t chasing us, it didn’t matter if it stopped at Daejeon or attacked the safe zone.

We could just avoid it.

But if it was chasing us, we couldn’t do that.

We couldn’t keep running just hoping for the gate when we didn’t know when it would open.

If it kept pursuing us, we’d eventually have to fight.

If we had to fight, I needed to choose the battlefield, not the creature.

And in this world, among the places I knew, only this safe zone was suitable for fighting that monster.

“First, we should tell the people in the safe zone about the octopus undead coming.”

“And if it’s certain the creature is really coming to the safe zone…”

If it’s certain it’s chasing us.

“We’ll have to fight together with the people in the safe zone.”

If we weren’t the target, we could leave the safe zone with others.

As expected, Hoffman, experienced in war, properly understood my roundabout words.

But Zahina tilted her head looking at me, and Yerim seemed to take my words literally, clenching her fist.

Seeing this, I inwardly sighed.

Handling clerics really wasn’t easy.

You had to speak indirectly and half-deceive them.

But without doing this, righteous clerics and worldly people like us couldn’t travel together.

‘Need to corrupt her as quickly as possible.’

Even Yerim, with values identical to clerics, would surely become more like us after leaving the safe zone and experiencing betrayal and plunder in the death energy multiple times.

Though I originally planned to slowly search for a hideout, we changed plans after hearing about the octopus.

We headed straight to the arboretum in the north and immediately chose one of the buildings there as our hideout.

Instead of large buildings like the Arts Center or Art Museum in the south, we chose a small management office in the forest at the north end of the arboretum.

Originally intended as a rest spot for party members, that purpose disappeared with the octopus’s appearance.

The hideout we chose now was more of an escape base than a rest stop. Right above the rest stop was a large road running east-west, and beyond that was the Gapcheon stream.

Of course, there would be corpse mermaids in that stream too, but we could break through that much.

With the Demon King’s army that swept through Daejeon in the south, we could only go east or west.

“In the worst case, if we get scattered, let’s agree to meet here.”

Parties getting scattered during battle was very common.

Moreover, it wasn’t just the octopus – the Demon King’s army seemed suspicious, and the safe zone wasn’t normal either.

Even I couldn’t predict what might happen.

So we buried some of our food supplies in the ground behind the management office.

“Since no one’s here, couldn’t we hide it inside the building? It seems hard to dig up.”

When Yerim asked about burying food in the ground, both Hoffman and I shook our heads.

Leaving food above ground in times like these was like asking someone to take it.

“You’re just not used to physical work, but since you’ve awakened, you should be able to dig it up easily.”

I handed Yerim a field shovel from my pouch.

“And if it’s hard for you, it’ll be hard for others too.”

Finally, looking around, I spoke to Yerim.

As Yerim said, there was no one else around.

Zombies didn’t come deep into the arboretum, and there were no signs of people staying here.

But it hadn’t always been empty.

Until we started digging, I had sensed human presence.

No, I told them to dig because the presence had disappeared.

A faint presence that neither Hoffman the mountain soldier nor Zahina the elf noticed.

Even I wouldn’t have noticed it in the other world.

That presence had followed us since we left the government complex and only retreated after we arrived here and checked the building.

Southward, toward the government complex.

I knew whose presence it was.

It was the presence I felt from my friend from my previous life.

‘He probably followed us because he was suspicious about where we were going.’

He’d need to verify things about us if he wanted to return with us.

He couldn’t just trust our words and accept our escort.

For such reasons, he might follow us secretly.

Keeping his awakening secret from people was probably to move secretly in situations like this.

‘Damn! There’s no way to sugarcoat this!’

My previous self might have bought these excuses, but now I was just a knight who swung first and asked questions later.

No matter what excuses I made, once suspicion arose, it wouldn’t disappear.

After hiding the hideout’s supplies, we returned to the government complex.

People were waiting for us with their belongings packed.

They looked at us with expectant faces, carrying backpacks.

“We’re ready.”

I stared at my friend from my previous life who stood at the front announcing they were ready.

Then I opened my mouth toward him as he looked puzzled.