Chapter 7 – Reconnaissance (2)

Is this a dream?

Seeing Korean before my eyes.

Or is this Earth from my previous life? Korea, even?

That can’t be.

This isn’t a novel, there’s no way such a convenient coincidence could unfold.

Maybe I’m caught in some illusion?

Is it a scheme of the Demon King? Or perhaps my mind has gone mad from enduring war for too long.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and circulated mana throughout my body.

My own secret technique developed to block and overcome the Demon King’s army’s mental attacks.

It was a simple method, but I had escaped many crises with it so far.

However, it didn’t work this time.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the words “Gangwon Hometown Association” written on the T-shirt once more.

Could it be real?

Really? Is this Earth?

Have I returned? Home?

Dozens of thoughts flashed through my mind and disappeared.

Is this really Korea?

What year is it now?

Are my family and friends from my previous life still around?

As I was unable to gather my thoughts, someone spoke to me from beside.

“Um… Are you alright?”

It was Soldier Hoffman.

His words snapped me back to reality.

The memories of my previous life that had filled my mind subsided.

And the knight’s instinct returned.

“Right, we’re still in the middle of an operation.”

We were currently tracking traces of the escaped Demon King.

The situation was full of animals turned undead by the miasma spread by the Demon King.

It wasn’t the time to be lost in thought.

Moreover, I couldn’t be certain yet that this was Korea from my previous life.

I had only seen Korean, it could be a foreigner wearing a Koreanl T-shirt,

Or making an even more absurd assumption, this could be an alternate Earth dimension with Korean.

So I needed to stay more alert until everything was certain.

Besides, even if it was Korea from my previous life, now wasn’t the time to get excited.

I turned my gaze away from the T-shirt with Korean and looked over my team members.

The prematurely aged soldier looking at me with a puzzled face and other team members examining the remains of corpses.

And seeing myself wearing plate armor and holding a sword, I could once again confirm my current situation.

My hardened face relaxed, and a dry chuckle escaped my lips.

That’s right.

I wasn’t a Korean from my previous life, but a free knight of the Kingdom of Sorbia.

As I had decided after regaining memories of my previous life, I chose to live as my current self, as a knight.

Even after seeing Korean, that decision didn’t change.

After reaffirming my resolve once more, I was able to answer Hoffman’s question.

“I’m fine. There’s no problem.”

At my curt reply, Hoffman nodded and turned his head towards where the corpse was.

I also looked in the direction Hoffman was looking, where the team members were gathered.

While I was sorting out my confused feelings, the team members were discussing the remains of the corpse.

“I’m glad I volunteered. To think there’d be writing from another world… What could this mean?”

The mage was wide-eyed, looking at the tattered clothes and the Korean and patterns drawn on them.

“The corpse looks like an ordinary person.”

“Indeed… It resembles you people more than our side.”

The Shiny Knight and the Elf were discussing what race the corpse might be.

In truth, such discussions were unnecessary after seeing Korean, and the mage’s efforts to analyze the letters had become meaningless,

But I didn’t say anything to them.

Partly because I wasn’t certain, but even if it was Korea from my previous life, I couldn’t tell them the truth.

The world I lived in in a previous life…

Even if the place I was reborn into was a world with magic, my words would inevitably sound like nonsense.

And if they didn’t take it as nonsense, that would be a problem too.

With bad luck, I could be accused of being the Demon King’s spy,

And I couldn’t know what the Allied Forces’ leadership, the barbaric medieval nobles, might do to extract information from me.

It seemed best to just pretend not to know for now.

“Anyway, it seems we were on the right track. Seeing the corpse, we might encounter ‘living’ people of this world if we follow this path.”

So I just nodded vaguely at Hoffman’s words.

The mage collected the tattered T-shirt, and after that, we were about to move along the path again.

But we had to stop in our tracks immediately.

Whoosh.

Because we saw a bright light shooting up from behind us, the direction we had come from.

A light source soaring into the sky, changing into various colors. It was the mage’s signal.

“Could it be a return signal?”

“It is indeed a return signal.”

Hoffman nodded at the Shiny Knight’s words.

Looking at the color of the light source, it was indeed a return signal, but seeing the flickering light source, I understood the Shiny Knight’s doubt.

The signal was far too irregular to be called a return signal.

I had rarely seen such a messy signal before, wasn’t it the signal a mage would shoot up from a unit on the verge of annihilation?

“It seems to have been shot quite urgently… The mana arrangement is quite tangled.”

The mage’s words also supported my guess.

At his words, I spoke while drawing my sword again.

“We should hurry.”

Everyone quickly understood what I meant.

The place where the magical light source had shot up was the main camp where the gate was located.

It meant the main camp was in danger.

We couldn’t understand why the main camp had suddenly become dangerous, but anyway, we needed to return as quickly as possible now.

We were quite far from the main camp, but all team members were people who could use mana.

If we hurried, we wouldn’t be too late.

“Looking at the situation, it would be difficult to go together. You go ahead. We slow-footed ones will follow safely behind.”

The mage patted Soldier Hoffman’s shoulder and spoke to us.

It was the right thing to say.

Although possessing mana, it was impossible for the mage to keep up with a knight’s pace.

And mountain soldier Hoffman, though possessing mana, couldn’t utilize it and wouldn’t be able to keep up with us on this flat mountain path.

“Let’s do that.”

The Elf, our temporary team leader, agreed with the mage’s words.

It was decided that the knights, Shiny and I, and the Elf known for his swift feet would depart first.

The first to move was Shiny.

The moment the Elf’s words fell, he stomped on the ground.

Thud.

The ground caved in, and simultaneously, he shot forward like a bomb.

It looked as if an iron tank was lunging forward.

Dirt and dust rose behind him.

It was a reckless sprint that couldn’t be used without an unusually large amount of mana.

As I clicked my tongue at that sight, the Elf started running.

The way the Elf ran was different from Shiny who had departed first, and from other humans.

He bounded forward more than ten meters at a time, like a mountain goat running on a mountain path.

I wondered how his muscles were structured.

Seeing that, I could once again realize that the Elf race was different from humans.

After watching the two run off and confirming the remaining two people, I also started running.

I pushed mana into my legs moderately, lowered my body to reduce wind resistance, and ran forward.

Whoosh.

The sound of air flowing past my ears could be heard, and my field of vision narrowed rapidly.

The winding narrow mountain path approached quickly, and tree branches and potholes on the path obstructed my steps.

I traversed such mountain paths without slowing down, quickly.

I cut down obstructing tree branches with my sword and reflexively jumped over deep potholes.

The speed at which I ran like that gradually increased.

It felt like riding a mountain motorcycle down a mountain path.

If it had been an ordinary person, they would have surely tripped on something and fallen on the path.

Of course, if it had been an ordinary person, they wouldn’t have been able to run this fast in the first place.

This is why awakening mana to become a knight was no different from becoming a superhuman.

Of course, it wasn’t like having ridiculous powers like the heroes in movies from my previous life, but it was still incomparable to ordinary people.

Strength, speed, and the consequent reflexes all surpassed the level of ordinary people by several times.

In my previous life, knights were often compared to medieval tanks, but in my view, knights who had awakened mana were no different from real tanks.

After running for a while, the Shiny Knight, Leopold, who had disappeared from my sight, came into view.

He was still running vigorously, but it was a different kind of running from the intense movement he had shown when first departing.

It was an obvious story.

No matter how much mana one had, there was no way they could continue running while recklessly pouring out mana like that.

Thanks to that, I was able to catch up to him midway like this.

Come to think of it, the Elf who had departed later than Leopold was still not in sight.

Surely Leopold had run off first, hadn’t he?

Could it be that the Elf had overtaken him?

If that’s the case, I’d feel bad about overtaking him…

I looked at the running Shiny with a pitiful expression, then passed by him.

Ignoring him out of pity.

“Damn it.”

But it seemed my consideration wasn’t to his liking.

As I passed by his side, Shiny muttered a small curse.

Surely that curse wasn’t directed at me?

I thought about asking him, but decided to just keep running.

It was probably a curse lamenting his own lacking skills, so I decided to forgive him generously.

As a sign of forgiveness, I stomped my feet even more vigorously.

Just in case he might misunderstand.

As I expected, once I left him far behind, I no longer heard any grumbling.

How quiet.

Instead of unnecessary noise, hearing only my breathing and footsteps improved my mood.

And the forest, though corrupted by miasma, felt familiar.

Now I seemed to understand why it felt familiar.

Of course it would feel familiar, being the forest I had always seen in my previous life.

As I ran, I became somewhat certain.

That this place was Earth, and moreover, Korea.

Furthermore, given how unpopulated it was and how flat it was compared to the continental mountain ranges, if it was one of the more rugged mountain ranges in Korea from my previous life, it must be a branch of the Taebaek Mountains.

Mount Jiri, or maybe Mounti Sobaek?

Or seeing quite a few coniferous trees, could it be Mount Seorak?

In any case, having come here like this, it wouldn’t be difficult to confirm.

If so, the signal we just saw shouldn’t be anything serious.

I continued running while inwardly pleading to the gods of both my previous life and current life.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch up to the Elf who had departed first until I arrived in front of the gate.

I finally saw the Elf on a hill overlooking the gate.

Fortunately, mana was still rising from the Elf’s body.

It meant he hadn’t arrived long ago.

It didn’t seem like there was much difference between us.

As I approached the Elf, I could sense the smell of blood flowing from beyond the hill.

I couldn’t sense any signs of fighting, though…

Could we be too late?

I quickly suppressed my presence and stopped beside him.

As I stopped next to him, the Elf’s body twitched.

And he looked at me with slightly surprised eyes.

Why is he acting like that?

Is it because I came faster than expected?

Or did I appear more quietly than expected?

At other times, I would have been very satisfied with surprising the Elf, but now the situation at the base was more important.

“We’re late.”

The Elf nodded at my muttered words.

Indeed, both he and I were too late.

The fight was already over.

Numerous undead, skeletons were sprawled in front of the temporarily constructed base.

Fortunately, the base was safe.

Many soldiers seemed to have died, and the base looked half-destroyed, but the outpost still remained.

We were late, but the result wasn’t bad.

We could reinforce personnel through the gate anyway.

But my expectation was immediately shattered.

“There will be no more support.”

That was the answer given by the mage who first appeared when we went down to the base and asked.

As I looked at him with bewildered eyes, the mage pointed at the fluctuating gate.

“It’s a trap. The gate is closing.”

At his words, I looked at the gate.

This is closing?

Come to think of it, it does seem smaller than when I first saw it.

“A trap, you say?”

“Yes. We thought it was a fixed-type gate using an artifact, but it turned out to be a gate that can be controlled remotely. They are closing the gate.”

“Can’t we stop it?”

“No, we can’t. The analysis isn’t even complete yet… If we had time, replication might be possible, but right now we can’t control it.”

It was an absurd story.

To think we had fallen into a trap.

Moreover, seeing that the gate was still there, it seemed a bit strange for a trap.

“Can’t we just go back now?”

He said replication was possible, so we could just come back again.

“But… the Hero hasn’t returned yet.”

Come to think of it, the Hero’s party wasn’t visible at the base.

Well, if the Heroes were here, the base wouldn’t have been half-destroyed by attacks from ordinary skeletons.

“Didn’t the Hero’s party return to our world?”

Seeing they weren’t here, I thought they had crossed the gate again, but that wasn’t the case.

It seemed that among the advance party, there was a team that discovered traces of the Demon King and returned first, and the Hero had left the base with them.

And now, the Hero had not yet returned, and the gate was closing.

As the mage said, this was the Demon King’s trap to capture the Hero.