Chapter 44 – New Continent (4)

Unfortunately, the information Caroline conveyed ended there. It seemed a lot of information was blocked even within the association. 

Well, since even Caroline didn’t know that summoned could be contaminated, it wasn’t strange that core personnel separately knew more secrets. 

Since it wasn’t this world, there was nothing Sun-woo could do with this information. In the end, he had no choice but to wait for the Summoner’s call. 

Sun-woo began training again. 

***

A few days later. Dimension Beta. 

An unnamed island. 

The place where Sun-woo and the party appeared was a small island overgrown with sparse trees and weeds. 

The party summoned on the coast looked around with troubled expressions. 

“What kind of situation is this again? Don’t tell me there’s another volcano.” 

Fortunately, unlike Michael’s worries, it was just an ordinary small island. 

“This is hopeless. It seems work will only proceed after the mission details come out.” 

Daniel, who had been surveying the surroundings, shook his head. The island was small enough to survey at a glance, but nowhere was there any part that looked murky. 

[Special mission. Go to the mainland and obtain the barrier stone in the destroyed base. Additional explanations will be provided by additional summoned.] 

“What are you talking about? Additional summoned? And the mission isn’t on this island but on that distant landmass?” 

Far on the horizon, a large land that appeared to be mainland was spread out. 

And the additional summoned also immediately revealed themselves. 

“Why was I summoned already?” 

Caroline appeared with a bewildered expression. 

Sun-woo’s party was equally absurd. Caroline was definitely an aftermath processing agent, not a combat agent. 

Opinions were divided at the sight of bewildered Caroline, but everyone nodded at Sun-woo’s words that came out shortly after. 

“It seems Caroline was summoned because she knows this place well.” 

“Huh? But I don’t know this place either…” 

Caroline, who had been objecting to Sun-woo’s words alone, stopped speaking while looking toward the distant sea. 

Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth that had opened without her knowing with both hands. 

“No way, it can’t be.” 

Caroline collapsed on the ground. Tears poured from her eyes. 

“Why! Why! Why did you send me to this place? I thought I had barely forgotten.” 

At her sobbing words, the party couldn’t bring themselves to speak. 

“I barely escaped. Why did you call me back here? This is already abandoned land!” 

Her words falling with tears reminded Sun-woo of the story she had told him recently. 

The reason she had fled from her dimension and come to Sun-woo’s world. 

“Is that land the place called the New Continent?” 

Now the entire massive land appeared to Sun-woo’s eyes as if dyed in a gloomy color. 

***

After crying for a long time, Caroline finally returned to her usual appearance. Of course, the area around her eyes was still red, but her emotions seemed to have settled. 

“The continent visible far over there is called the ‘Lost Continent’ in our world.” 

As Sun-woo had expected, it was exactly that continent where several expedition teams and occupation armies had all been annihilated, hastening the empire’s decline. 

“Looking at the familiar coastline, it seems to be the point where we landed and built a base. Our base was probably the target location.” 

At Caroline’s words, Daniel tilted his head. 

“Then why didn’t they summon us right next to the base? Why summon us on an island? From this island, it doesn’t look easy to get there either.” 

At Daniel’s words, Caroline made a sad expression. 

“It can’t be helped. Summoning to that continent itself is impossible. Summoning doesn’t work in areas where contamination has spread. The reason you’ve all been summoned outside contaminated areas so far is for that reason. The continent ahead is entirely contaminated.” 

“Does that mean if we leave contamination sources alone, they’ll eventually become impossible to approach like that continent?” 

At Nan-seol’s question, Caroline nodded. The party’s expressions became serious. Eliminating contamination sources was a much more important problem than expected. 

“It’s strange that we were summoned to this island too. It’s quite a distance, but it would still be a difficult distance for summoning.” 

At her explanation, Michael finally let out a groan. 

“Ugh. So in the end, you’re telling us to infiltrate a continent crawling with contaminated monsters with just this number of people and come out with an item. We’re not some special forces from a spy movie, and there’s no way this could succeed when thrown in like this without any preparation.” 

The team members also sympathized with Michael’s grumbling. 

“And shouldn’t people with higher skills than us be doing a mission of this level?” 

Daniel added doubt to Michael’s words. The party remembered the summoning team that had demolished transcendent masters. 

“Well, I’m not sure about that either. Whether it’s because strong summoned are hard to summon near contaminated areas, or because they get discovered easily. The things Summoners do are often incomprehensible.” 

“Well, maybe they just think of us as expendable supplies.” 

At Michael’s harsh words, the party could only give bitter smiles. 

Anyway, if they didn’t want to starve to death on this island, the party had no choice but to carry out the mission. 

The party moved to find their respective tasks. 

Daniel took his greatsword and began cutting down trees. Fortunately, the island had trees that could be used to make at least a raft. 

Michael was drawing a huge map on the beach after hearing about the mainland coast and base structure from Caroline, and Hayden was conserving energy for later. 

Nan-seol also helped Daniel by sending sword energy to clear small branches, and Sun-woo began looking for food. 

Though bread and drinking water still remained in Sun-woo’s inventory, that amount certainly wouldn’t last long. 

Since food might be hard to obtain on the contaminated continent, they needed to gather as much edible items as possible on this island. 

Since there was too much to prepare to obtain food from the sea, Sun-woo decided to search the island first. 

After searching for quite a while, he was able to find several edible roots and fruits, as well as small animals resembling squirrels. 

The small animals quickly hid in caves they had dug when Sun-woo approached, but once they hid underground, they couldn’t escape from Sun-woo’s grasp. 

Shortly after, the island’s ecosystem came to an end at Sun-woo’s hands. 

According to Caroline’s primary check, fortunately most of the emergency food Sun-woo had obtained was edible. 

The two women looked sorry at the sight of the cute-looking animal corpses, but shortly after at mealtime, both ate the grilled meat deliciously. 

The raft was completed in half a day. It was time that clearly demonstrated what excellent workers a knight with superhuman strength and a peak swordsman were. 

The sun in the sky was still shining afternoon sunlight. 

The party all boarded the hastily made raft. The food Sun-woo had obtained was contained in baskets made from large leaves, and oars carved from wood were held in each person’s hands. 

But the oars weren’t this raft’s main engine. 

When the party had all taken their positions, Hayden’s hand rose upward. 

Whoosh. 

Telekinesis enveloped the raft, and soon the raft began racing forward. 

***

Fortunately, the surroundings were quiet until they approached the coast. 

Sometimes the boat stopped when Hayden got tired, but thanks to his enhanced abilities, he soon recovered and moved the boat. 

Though Michael teased him about being a rowing slave and ended up falling into the sea, it was generally a comfortable voyage. 

The party was able to approach the coast with plenty of sunlight still remaining. 

As they got closer to the coast, the party’s expressions darkened. Especially Caroline’s expression was pitiable to see. 

The coastline bore the scars of battle as they were. 

In the shallow sea, ships that had sunk revealing their ugly keels appeared everywhere, and various old and rusted materials were scattered on the beach. 

“In the end, no one except a few summoned were able to leave this place alive.” 

Caroline seemed to see past battle scenes from the beach’s appearance. 

All the party members who landed on the beach seemed to be infected by her atmosphere and felt gloomy. 

“But why are they telling us to come to such a dangerous place to retrieve an item? What kind of item could it be?” 

Then Daniel brought up an unexpected question. He seemed to have said it to change the gloomy atmosphere. 

At his words, the other party members shook their heads, but Sun-woo and Caroline looked at each other’s faces. The phone conversation from a few days ago came to both their minds. 

“Could contamination spreading agent really have started from this place?” 

“Isn’t that the only reason a mission would suddenly drop for this place?” 

At the two’s conversation, the party looked bewildered. 

Sun-woo briefly explained about the medicine to the party. He had to omit the story about sacred maidens and summoned also being able to be contaminated, but the party, who had only known fragmentary stories, finally understood the situation after hearing Sun-woo’s story. 

“Well, it doesn’t seem like we were thrown in as expendables. But what did they trust to throw us into such a mission?” 

“It’s definitely not that they trusted the old man…” 

“You little brat.” 

Michael and Hayden began bickering, and the gloomy atmosphere came back to life. 

Daniel, watching this, checked the sky. The sun’s position had lowered considerably. 

“Let’s depart. If we dawdle, the sun might set here.” 

At Daniel’s words, the party began moving. 

***

The sky began gradually reddening. 

The plain extending from the beach was extremely abundant. Endlessly spread tall bushes and forests scattered everywhere – that sight looked extremely bizarre with the murkily changed colors. 

Moreover, beasts with red eyes were wandering and moving around the plain. From wolf-like beasts to wild boars, there were also beasts that looked like bulls. 

But all the visible beasts had their appearances slightly distorted. 

Besides red eyes and dark-looking skin, they had bodies several times larger and blood vessels protruding from their skin, making them look like ancient demonic beasts. 

Some of the demonic beasts crossing the plain occasionally sniffed the air, but this place too seemed peaceful in its own way. 

Rustle. 

One spot in the bushes swayed slightly despite no wind. 

“There are no more detectable signs around.” 

Sun-woo’s voice was heard from within the bushes. Simultaneously, bushes rippled in various places, and Michael’s voice was heard from ahead. 

“Move 100 meters east.” 

The rippling bushes immediately continued eastward, and several lines began forming toward the east. 

The party was all hiding in bushes and moving according to Michael’s directions. 

It was a method where Sun-woo surveyed the surroundings with sorcery, and Michael, with survival abilities now approaching superpowers, informed the party’s movement direction and distance. 

It was a method Michael devised after hearing about the surrounding environment from Caroline, and it was perfectly suited for this place overgrown with bushes. 

“Still, the speed is too slow.” 

Hayden grumbled while crawling through the bushes with his body crouched. 

As he said, this movement method was too slow. It would be absolutely unusable for missions with time limits. 

But in a place like this where enemies were everywhere, it was hard to find another method. 

So all party members were following Michael’s directions without complaint, but surprisingly, the two women had faces full of dissatisfaction. 

The faces of the women pushing through grass were covered with mud, and their clothes and hair were thickly covered with long grass. 

All were decorations Michael had applied in the name of camouflage. 

Camouflage might be necessary, but it was hard to understand whether such camouflage would be effective against contamination sources. 

Moreover, compared to Sun-woo’s simple camouflage, the women could only glare at Michael who giggled to himself. 

Whether it was thanks to the camouflage, fortunately the party was able to avoid being detected by contaminants until the base was close. 

The sky had already darkened, and red light was shooting up to the sky from ahead where the base had been.