Chapter 219 – Branches

000

Starting with normal battles, large-scale battles, and adventurers’ exploration.

If there is an important factor that absolutely divides one’s superiority with the other in all actions that accompany fighting, it would be ‘number’.

Of course, there are countless things that the side with less must pay attention to than when dealing with the side with a large number.

Dispersion of gaze, occurrence of blind spots, gaps that must be seen inevitably.

Not only that, but given the pressure of being outnumbered, it was perfectly normal for veterans to somehow avoid dealing with those who outnumbered them.

No matter how weak the opponent is, the number of them piles up, and as they pile up, their physical strength and magic power will be depleted as long as they are human.

Reconnaissance and preliminary investigation were necessary to prevent it, and if necessary, he had to think about running away in the face of shame or abandoning the mission.

Beyond a certain level, even those who have surpassed the level of ‘strong’, which is commonly referred to as ‘strong’, do not change.

Cleon and his companions were no exception.

The sword, which generated heat due to super vibration, pierced another anomaly.

As it is, the black oil-like body is burned and turned into ashes, but Cleon’s consumption is greater than expected.

Even though he was slowly swinging his sword, his momentum his was weakening.

It took a certain amount of training to use a weapon called ‘Soul Eater Metal’ that could absorb the user’s soul and turn it into power, rather than the magic sword Galatea or the holy sword Caliburn that he usually wielded.

Medjed exclaimed in admiration for being able to overcome such a process and use it with just his senses his.

Eventually, the limit will come, so you don’t know how many you’ve already cut. Consumption was intensifying in the never-ending fight.

“Kuh… Ha ha…”

Since that was the last one, I dropped the sword from my trembling hands.

If you consume your stamina like this every time you use it, even if you reach the Sun King, the battle won’t be established.

“Whoa… What is it, barely… That much?”

And, if you glanced at Verastol who was talking nonsense next to you.

She, too, was carrying her usual shield on her back her, showing signs of exhaustion as she dropped the shield made of the same material as the sword Cleon had brought from her hand her.

Although the size was smaller than the shield I used to use, I wonder if the technique required to handle it was similar, and I was able to wield it regularly to defeat deviant beings.

She, like Cleon—no, she was fighting her battle her, concealing that she had reached the limit even more than Cleon had, with her pride and courage her.

“Hey, both of you… Why don’t you stop using that equipment…?”

Mejed, who had wielded the same type of weapon—Mejai’s staff for a much longer time than the two of them, spoke in a worried voice, and both Cleon and Verastol silently shook their heads.

It took almost an hour from the research center to this place, walking, going up and down the stairs, and fighting strange monsters along the way.

Of course, the cause is the black anomalies that appear from time to time.

Perhaps it was judged that their imitation as a human was meaningless now, but they attacked in the form of twisted monsters from the beginning, and I could be sure that the number was increasing as I got closer to the altar.

Besides, it was showing behaviors such as learning the movements of this side, getting away from repeating being attacked and disappearing ignorantly, avoiding, reading attacks and defending.

Thanks to that, the difficulty of dealing with it was getting higher and higher.

What was more problematic was the appearance of an object that appeared to be an enhanced type.

Even compared to other variants, the size has been completed to some extent since it appeared, and its regenerative power is high, so the attack method of scattering it and then burning it does not work properly.

That guy, who had the same shape as a strange dog, was so bizarre that it gave goosebumps all over his body when he saw it.

Also, cleverly, I could see that he was trying to focus on Quon, the only one who didn’t have the means to fight.

For that reason, no matter how tired he was, Cleon couldn’t throw away this weapon right now.

“Umm… You’re stubborn…”

Looking at Cleon like that, Medjed made a dark expression as if he understood his feelings of her, but he had no choice but to sigh and shake his head.

“Then, at least, let’s rest for a bit. Enforcing it like this is not a good idea no matter how you think about it.”

“Even while resting, if they approach you, you won’t be able to advance.”

Verastol tackles Medjed’s proposal, but Quon answers such a verastol.

“Even so, if Mr. Verastol and Cleon go further than this, it will only be more dangerous.”

“…”

Hearing her words, Verastol looked down at his shield for a moment, then set it down on the ground and sat down.

When Cleon saw Vera Stoll like that, he dropped her sword to the ground and relaxed her legs as if he was almost sitting down.

“If we continue like this, we will definitely get tired first. Quon, how much water do we have left?”

“A canteen… There’s a potion, but it’s a bit much to quench your thirst…”

Hearing Quon’s words, Medjed’s face became even more serious than before.

“As expected, it can’t be like this. You have to find a way to heal your mind and body.”

Quondo and Cleonon agreed, but in the current situation without magical powers, they couldn’t come up with any particular method.

“I have the church’s protection and faith. It’s the only thing that can heal my heart.”

When Vera Stoll said that, Medjed just shook her head.

“You don’t have to pretend to be so strong. It’s not good for yourself or others. Humans have limits as long as they’re human. Thinking of our ancestors who changed their bodies into machines because we felt that in the monster of the heterogeneous family, here’s a human body. You guys who can fight up to that level are also amazing.”

At Mejed’s point, Vera Stoll quietly shut her mouth and looked at her black shield her.

The number of heterogeneous monsters was really close to infinite.

It was a really simple story to say that it was enough to fight using fire, so the means of the people of the ancient kingdom without magical powers must have been limited.

Besides, the number of people, their stamina, and even their lives are limited.

Transplanting a soul into an indefatigable body, abandoning the human body was an inevitable choice to counter the endless enemy.

“Wait, I’ll come up with something.”

Meh Jed said that, then grabbed his staff with both hands and lowered it to the floor in the area where his party was sitting.

Thud! When I thought it was vibrating, I felt something flowing through the ground and gathering with Mejed’s staff.

“What are you doing?”

“I am accessing this ruin and looking at the map.”

When Mejed indifferently answers Cleon’s question, Verastol sarcastically muttered, ‘It’s a convenient staff that can do anything’ with a sullen face.

Quon silently looked at Mejed’s figure, holding her breath.

Medjed closed her eyes for a moment, as if concentrating on something, then she flinched, quivered her eyebrows, and made a noise as if she had found something in her.

“This… All! The direction is slightly different from the altar, but there seems to be a place to get water.”

“Water…? In an underground building like this?”

The energies of magical power were also depleted, and considering the desolation of the ground, it seemed unlikely that there would be water.

“Yes. There was a manufacturing facility for armor in here. There is a facility that brings in water from afar for cooling. You should be able to get some water there.”

“How far is it?”

“It’s not that far. Just a little more walk.”

Upon Medjed’s answer, Cleon and Quon sighed, ‘Huh’.

“…Okay. Then, let’s go there. Another strange monster may appear, but I want to replenish at least some water.”

“Are you serious…? Even if we head straight to the altar, we might not have enough time… It’s absurd.”

After Vera Stoll said that, he stepped forward in the direction he was originally going to go.

“Wait. Are you sure you’re going alone?”

“…Yes. Even without you guys… The ghosts of the past…”

At that moment, Cleon, who suddenly realized that her voice and gait her were strange, tried to grab her.

As her hand brushed the air over her, her body her bent forward.

Thud! With a thump, the helmet fell off her head as she fell forward.

She made the appearance she had seen before, as her hair was disheveled, the color of her cherry blossoms.

“Verastor!”

The moment when Cleon approaches her and puts her hand on her armor her to raise her body her.

Profit!

With a thump, she heard something ripe as her hand touched the surface of her armor her.

“Kuk!”

Cleon was also startedled by the pain burning her fingertips of her, but the temperature she felt on her armor of her was anything but normal.

“No… Is that natural?”

Plate armor covering the whole body of her. The material is unknown, but the fact that it is metal has not changed.

In such a state, they fought for close to an hour with a high-temperature shield. When Cleon, who was wearing her greaves her, held her sword, she felt angry and approaching heat, and her armor her was heated like a steamer for Vera Stoll.

Continuing such a brutal fight in a state of lack of water was, of course, close to suicide, causing dehydration to the point that it took away even normal judgment.

“I think we’ll have to cool off her armor and give this guy some water too.”

At Cleon’s words, Medjed looked down at the collapsed Verastol while making a ‘yeah’ sound.

“So don’t overdo it… How do I move it?”

Of course, if I touched her now, that part might be deliciously cooked.

If left unattended, it would slowly cool down, but in the meantime, Berastall’s condition could have deteriorated.

“…Haa~”

Cleon took off her robe and wrapped it around her arm.

Then, using both arms, carefully lift the outstretched Verastol.

As before, there was a ‘chiik’ sound as if something was burning, but fortunately, only a little soot was formed on the robe.
“K-Cleon? Are you okay? It must be hot no matter how…”

“At this level… It’s okay. For now, this robe is made of a material that can withstand heat… As a countermeasure against the desert.”

However, I felt a little bit of pain as if I could n’t completely block the high temperature itself from reaching his arm, but I could n’t delay this longer.

“Mejed, guide.”

“Yes, I understand. It’s not that far, so bear with me.”

Medjed led the two of them according to the directions he had memorized in his head, and headed for a water tank full of `coolant`.

001

The place the three of them arrived was literally a room full of water in a huge water tank.

It seemed that there was no problem in drinking the water stored in a size that could easily accommodate dozens of people, but it did not rot and maintained its quality despite being stored for a long time.

And one more thing, if there is anything unusual, was that the water tank was not in the form of an ordinary hexahedron, but in the form of a perfect ‘sphere’.

“Uh… Tea…”

After Cleon set Verastol down in front of the tank, he asked Mejed to take out the water from the tank.

Seeing that the water drained from the pipe connected to the sphere and accumulated in the bowl in front of Cleon and the others made it a bit silly that they were worried about the lack of water until now.

“It would be nice if we could bring this much water… And drinkable water… To everyone in the village.”

Mejed said so and he looked at the water with pity.

Of course, this is because it was impossible to move such a huge tank from the underground to the ground.

“How, is there no way to resurrect the spirit vein?”

When Quon looked at Mejed sadly, Mejed shook his head.

“Finding that way is impossible for our ancestors thousands of years ago… And even for us today. Spirit veins are the blood vessels of the stars. Our ancestors clogged those blood vessels, and it’s no different than drawing blood from there and using it to necrotize them.”

Even Cleon had never heard of the resurrection of a spirit vein that had once ceased to function.

Quon muttered as if thinking a little.

“In order to purify the tainted spirit veins, it takes a natural healing that takes much longer than the time it took to become contaminated. Really, you might have thought that there was no other way but to manipulate time.”

“Is there any way to enhance the natural healing power?”

Quon is troubled by Cleon’s question.

She, too, is a sacred tree shrine maiden in her hometown her, and the basics of her spirit line were learned through her own tradition her.

“Tree-“

“Tree?”

When Quon muttered that, she questioned Cleon as if he were repeating it.

“Yes. The sacred tree in my hometown. If it is that tree that is also the sense of touch for the stars, it is like a spirit vein in itself. If connected to the spirit vein, it may be able to heal the spirit vein little by little. Of course, it can’t be just… Things like prayer and faith must come together, but like spirits.”

“…If that’s possible, when this is over, in Quon’s hometown-“

As Cleon was about to finish, he looked at Quon as if something about her was stuck in her head.

“…Quon. Is there any ‘that’ in the bag?”

Quon tilts his head at Cleon’s question.

No matter how much the two of them pretended, they even developed a pretending relationship, but no matter how much they pretended, I couldn’t figure out what they were referring to with just ‘that’.

“The one I gave you at the academy before… ‘Twig’.”

At Cleon’s words, Quon shut his mouth for a moment, then opened his eyes wide.

“Ah, yes…! I have it! Like a talisman… It’s because Cleon gave it to me.”

As she said that, she tried to take it out of her bag, but Cleon stopped Quon’s hand in a hurry.

“Quon! It’s okay. Better not get it out of here… I think I know what’s calling those monsters.”

“Yes…?”

At Cleon’s words her, Quondo tilted her head, but she held onto the opening of the bag and waited for Cleon’s next words her.

“That tree branch… Is something I received in my dream from Kuon of the future. So… It means that it is something that stays with us ‘beyond time’.”

“…Ah.”

From Cleon’s words, Quon could understand what he meant.

“Yeah. If they’re beings who want to stop them from tampering with time manipulation skills… Or the time axis. It’s because the tree branches entered this land where the spirit vein doesn’t flow.”

Quon opened her eyes wide, and Mehjed tilted her head, as if not quite sure what the two of them were talking about.

“I, because of me, the monsters reappeared… Are you saying?”

When Quon asked in a trembling voice, Cleon shook her head.

“No. It’s not Quon’s fault… Because no one expected it.”

Cleon talks to calm Quon, but Quon’s steps are already trembling.

“Quon, calm down. There’s no need to throw away that branch.”

“But… If this makes Cleon and everyone suffer…”

Quon stared at Cleon, clutching her own bag.

In her eyes her, her hatred her for her own powerlessness to do nothing again mixed with her apologetic feelings her towards Cleon, Vera Stoll and Mejed.

“…It’s just as the dark horse clan said. Miss Quon.”

Vera Stoll, who opened her eyes at some point, slowly raised her upper body and opened her mouth to her kuon.

Thanks to being next to a bowl full of cold water, she no longer felt the heat in her armor, perhaps because her armor her cooled a little faster.

Medjed hurriedly fills her canteen with water and hands it to Vera Stoll.

“It is foolish to suffer for things that are not for you.”

“Yes. What is needed is how to solve it.”

Cleon approached Quon with Verastol’s words.

“… The quon I met is a quon from the future. She, like that, just meant nothing. I don’t think she would have handed that branch to torment us. Something, she must have had an intention. “

“…”

Quon was silent for a moment.

“…I… Am I not able to decide something with my own will this time too?”

And, what came out of her mouth was a voice close to self-mockery.

“Quon…”

“Um, no. I’m sorry, Cleon. As Cleon said… This is a precious item both to me and to Cleon.”

Cleon nodded her head at Quon’s words her, but he thought it would be difficult to get her mood back.

“…”

That’s why Cleon thought. What was the real reason why the future Quon handed her branch to Cleon?

Really as a talisman? Or is there some reason?

At least, right now, if she didn’t figure out why at this moment, she didn’t seem to understand that Quon was carrying this branch.

“…”

And at that time, what passed by Cleon’s head was the existence of the ‘Sun King’.

The Sun King transferred that body to a body made of Soul Eater Metal.

It was natural, but it was an act that deviated from the providence of the stars, and the material itself was a taboo.

The branch of the sacred tree itself is a huge mass of divine magical power and part of the spirit vein…

It was able to become a powerful counter to the existence that goes against the providence of the stars.

“In other words… To defeat the Sun King, that branch is needed.”

Cleon told the three of them, hoping that her guess her would be correct.

“His Majesty the Sun King is a mighty warrior… His body, as a machine, cannot be destroyed with a simple attack. However, with that much enormous divine magic… His soul, which has no resistance to magical power, can’t stand it. And may be separated from the body.”

After hearing Cleon’s explanation, Medjed said that, and Cleon also nodded.

“You think so too, Verastol.”

Vera Stoll stayed still, and when Cleon spoke, he only answered curtly.

“…Don’t ask me for my consent. I’m just thinking it’s right in theory. I’ll have to try it to see if it’s actually possible.”
However, after listening to Verastol’s words, Quondo nodded as if he had calmed down a bit.

“…Yes. Okay. Then, I’ll keep this as a trump card to defeat the Sun King.”

At Quon’s answer, Cleon sighed in relief and picked up his canteen her.

“Okay. I know the countermeasures against the Sun King and the cause of the reappearance of the monster.”

“All that’s left is to go to the throne and do something with Galatine and the Sun King.”

When Cleon and Quon talk like that, they relax a little and start talking about their comrades waiting in the capital.

Vera Stoll looks at the two of them in silence and then touches his hair on her.

“… Ah.”

And only then, he confirms that the helmet he was wearing on his head his is gone.

“Are you looking for this?”

When Medjed approached Vera Stoll, who was looking around, approached with a tin helmet in his hand her, Vera Stoll snatched the helmet with a snort and threw it over his head her.

“I’ve already seen your face, do I need to?”

“This body is an iron shield that protects the pope… I, as an individual, should not let others know.”

Mejed shrugged her shoulders at Vera Stoll’s words and spoke while handing her a full canteen.

“You’d better say thank you to Cleon, the foreign warrior. He endured the burns on his arm to bring you here.”

“…”

What comes to her mind is the ugliness of the past.

After she got drunk and was carried on the back of the black horse clan, she was carried to the front desk.

The day I was beaten up and woken up by Esca, who was completely pissed off.

I couldn’t forget the shame at that time, and the feeling of not wanting to talk to Cleon flowed into the atmosphere.

And again, at the fact that he had helped him, Vera Stoll shut his mouth and looked down at her hand.

– It was to look up again and see Cleon happily talking with Quon.

“Cleon… Why are you?”

The words that followed disappeared like echoes that lingered in her mouth and eventually dissipated.

It was too disjointed feeling to bring it out of her mouth and make it sound.