Chapter 82 – Welcome (1)

“It’s a spectacular sight we haven’t seen in a while.”

That was what Hoffman said the next day after looking at the university’s southern road.

The Demon King’s army that had retreated the previous day returned to the safe zone before a day had passed.

Unlike yesterday, the Demon King’s army didn’t press right up against the safe zone boundary.

The undead stayed slightly away from the safe zone, completely surrounding the entire area.

Though the safe zone wasn’t small enough to just wrap around the university, the properly organized Demon King’s army could completely surround the entire safe zone.

The view from the rooftop of the Social Sciences building next to the main gate clearly showed this.

As Hoffman called it spectacular, nothing but undead could be seen outside the safe zone.

“Undead everywhere you look. The roads and residential areas behind are full of zombies and skeletons.”

Yerim said with a worried expression.

“Still, we confirmed that even the Demon King’s army led by the lich can’t breach the safe zone, so the safe zone should be fine as long as we don’t do anything stupid.”

Yerim sighed at my words.

She and my other party members had clearly witnessed yesterday the stupid act I was referring to.

The Apostle leading people to the safe zone boundary and holding a gathering in front of undead to show God’s power was the stupidest thing I’d seen in my life.

If the Apostle had died there, he would have definitely won this year’s Darwin Award.

Though they certainly couldn’t have expected undead to shoot guns, even without guns, a lich could attack into the safe zone.

The lich could use magic, and undead could throw spears. Without spears, corpse golems could throw stones or rocks.

Anyway, it was truly foolish for the Apostle supporting the safe zone to show himself right in front of the enemy.

Of course, the Apostle must have had his reasons for doing such a thing.

With everything going wrong and his right-hand man disappearing, he probably wanted reassurance from his god again.

Though not incomprehensible, that didn’t excuse his stupidity.

And the Apostle was paying fully for that foolishness.

“So he ended up unable to use his lower body?”

“Yes, the wound was too severe. With my and the Apostle’s holy power, we couldn’t fully restore that injury.”

Though the Apostle had nearly died, Yerim’s holy power saved him.

After moving him to the memorial hall, even Seo Eun rushed over to treat him, allowing him to survive after having one foot in death.

But he hadn’t returned to normal.

Though treatment using holy power produced miraculous results, even holy power had limits.

“Creating blood, regenerating flesh, and joining bones isn’t difficult, but properly reconnecting nerves isn’t easy.”

Though I had seen the hero party’s recently deceased saint revive someone with only half their body remaining, and our party’s Zahina restore her whole body (limited to herself), I hadn’t seen anyone else capable of such feats.

Though Yerim was an excellent cleric, she was a natural awakened one who had just gained her abilities.

Though Yerim did her best and the Apostle who belatedly came to his senses worked hard to heal himself, the two couldn’t regenerate the nerves in the injured area.

The Apostle’s back where the hole had been pierced. The spinal cord nerves in its center couldn’t be revived.

Though the Apostle’s wound was healed, unfortunately his lower body was paralyzed.

After yesterday’s events, the safe zone’s interior had become a mess.

The believers in charge of internal security had fled in terror,

And everyone had seen the Demon King’s army surrounding them and the safe zone’s barrier fluctuating,

So people couldn’t feel at ease even inside the safe zone.

People’s nerves became more frayed, and verbal fights and violence continued until this morning.

In the end, even people who disliked the Apostle wanted him to come out and reassure them.

But there was no way the Apostle with paralyzed lower body would show himself to people.

Nor was he someone who would tell people about becoming paralyzed from the waist down.

“This might be for the better. If he stays hidden like that, he won’t be able to do anything stupid anymore.”

Zahina nodded at Hoffman’s words.

Certainly, Hoffman wasn’t wrong.

To maintain the safe zone, it was better for the holy artifact and Apostle to stay hidden as much as possible.

However, what still worried me was the Apostle’s personality.

“I hope he just stays cooped up like that… Though I’m not sure if he will.”

He was someone who had caused this accident because things weren’t going his way and he couldn’t see his allies.

Having become paralyzed from the waist down while holding a gathering for his god, there was no telling what else he might do.

“Can we just rely on his lower body paralysis…”

If I could have my way, I would have tied him up and thrown him in prison.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t do things like in the other world here.

Anyway, setting aside the immobilized Apostle, we examined the Demon King’s army.

Though not a proper legion, thousands of undead was still an overwhelming number.

“There really are a lot. Without the safe zone, we would have been wiped out immediately.”

Seo Eun who had been behind came up beside me and said while looking down at the road.

I blocked her as she tried to lean her body out past the railing with my sword.

“I told you to watch from behind. It’s dangerous here. As we saw yesterday, the undead have guns too.”

“I know. After the Apostle showed us directly, there’s no one who doesn’t believe it now.”

Only believing after seeing results right in front of them… As someone who had scouted this, I couldn’t help but sigh.

Anyway, I couldn’t understand why someone who knew about the guns would come forward like this.

Actually, I wasn’t happy about her coming here at all.

Though her awakened husband was guarding her, she was an ordinary person.

Bringing an ordinary person to such a dangerous place. If not for her suddenly changed position and this being inside the safe zone, I would never have allowed it.

Seo Eun had come up to this rooftop with us to directly check the situation as the safe zone’s person in charge.

Though Seo Eun had been driven from her Personnel Management Department head position the previous day, now there was no one else who could do it.

Right now, the Apostle was paralyzed and confined to the memorial hall, his right hand was missing, and his followers were terrified.

The Apostle’s opposition had lost their backing after terrorizing him,

In the end, only Seo Eun, who had an awakened husband and was close to us, could lead the chaotic safe zone.

Realizing she was the only one, Seo Eun stepped up actively instead of backing away.

Regrouping the management department and comforting people, she followed us out with her husband.

Her reason was that as the person in charge, she needed to see the enemy surrounding the safe zone directly.

It certainly wasn’t a bad idea.

No, compared to other nobles and generals who only gave orders from safe places, it was truly an excellent idea.

But being in the position of having to protect that person in charge was just troublesome.

Couldn’t she just trust my reconnaissance?

Though I sometimes moved on my own and skipped parts of reconnaissance reports, we were quite excellent scouts.

At least we could return alive and report what we saw.

Right now there was no one else here who could even manage to return alive.

“Anyway, why aren’t you staying behind and coming up front here? And why isn’t Jaeha stopping his wife?”

At my words, Jaeha shrugged from behind.

“I did try to stop her. But my wife doesn’t listen to me well at times like this.”

Looking at Jaeha scratching his head, I couldn’t say anything.

Actually, I knew well about Seo Eun’s stubbornness too.

“It’s fine. I have my husband… And Sir Knight will protect me too, right?”

Seo Eun said while pointing at the sword placed in front of her body.

“You really have no fear.”

“I hear that a lot.”

I was probably the one who had said that the most.

Whether believing that I had blocked bullets, she put her hands on the railing and examined the Demon King’s army with binoculars she had brought.

After scanning the Demon King’s army, she said to me.

“But I don’t see any zombies or skeletons with guns. Was there really only one?”

“I identified one sniper. There might be more, but the numbers won’t be many.”

Seo Eun nodded at my words.

“Let’s hope there aren’t. Could the skeletons possibly shoot things other than guns? If they shoot missiles there’s no way to block them…”

Good heavens, missiles…

That wasn’t the kind of joke to make.

To me who was already shocked by cannon-firing undead, undead shooting missiles was something I didn’t dare imagine.

“If there are only a few skeletons with guns, we shouldn’t worry too much. Since they can’t enter the safe zone, we just need to stay out of the gun-wielding skeletons’ sight.”

Fortunately, the university where the safe zone was established was surrounded by trees and buildings, making it hard to see inside from outside.

As she said, if people didn’t come out to the safe zone boundary, they should be safe from guns.

“And the skeleton mage… I can’t find it. Does it really look exactly like other skeletons?”

Everyone nodded at Seo Eun’s words.

Yesterday our party members had all seen the skeleton that had thrown off its robe.

If it hadn’t laughed, the lich would have been an ordinary skeleton difficult even for me to distinguish.

“Maybe it’s hiding completely like the Apostle after being hit by Ms. Elf’s gun yesterday?”

I waved my hand at Seo Eun’s words.

“If it were a living mage it might hide, but it’s a lich. It will come out.”

Though the lich was a coward, it was the Demon King’s undead subordinate.

Undead who became part of the Demon King’s army couldn’t disobey the Demon King’s orders.

Even if it ran away briefly in fear, the lich would eventually have to crawl back out.

This was why people didn’t believe liches when they claimed to be the same beings as their living mage selves.

“Is that so. That’s disappointing. I was confident in my eye for detail so I thought I could find it.”

Certainly, Seo Eun’s eye for detail was amazing.

She could identify distinguishing features to tell even identical twins apart,

And could distinguish between all identical-looking newborn puppies.

I had secretly hoped when bringing her along.

Though she was an ordinary person, I thought she might be able to spot lich characteristics I didn’t know about.

Seems my expectations were too high.

Yerim comforted the disappointed Seo Eun.

“It might be that you can’t find it because it’s not here. Since they’ve surrounded the safe zone, it could be on the opposite side.”

Though just ordinary words of comfort, I had to agree with those words.

“It was on the opposite side. And not hiding either.”

Beyond the safe zone, a single dot floated in the northern sky.

Pushing mana into my eyes, the dot became a lich wearing fluttering rags.

“If it’s floating like that, we can catch it this time!”

Seeing the lich, Zahina’s eyes sparkled, and Yerim and Hoffman tried to move quickly.

But I stopped them.

“We can’t go outside the safe zone right now.”

Though others couldn’t sense it yet, death energy was rising on the northern horizon where the lich was floating.

That death energy was from the octopus monster that I thought would arrive tomorrow or later.

The octopus monster had come down faster than expected.

Looking at the lich floating in the sky, I understood why the Demon King’s army had come up to Daejeon now.

The lich and Demon King’s army had come out to welcome the octopus monster.