Chapter 582 – The Hearth Room and the Promise of Reunion

000

The sound of the chains shaking and colliding echoed throughout the large room.

And, what is heard mixed with such a harsh sound is the ‘chiiik’ sound produced when something is rolled with a hot iron.

In the center of the dark room, only a large brazier gave off light and no other lights.

That is why, the center of such a heterogeneous space where everything is submerged in the shadows even if you step away from the furnace.

Two men sat facing each other next to the fireplace.

One was a man in a black robe holding a hot iron in his hand.

Another is a half-naked man wearing only bottoms.

The man who seemed to have no hair left on his body was a muscular man with no hair, eyebrows, or beard.

His body his, which has a truly brutal appearance, has burn marks here and there, and scars that cannot be erased from being pressed down by chains crawl all over his body his.

However, even compared to those scars and wounds, what is so ferocious that it does n’t look inferior at all is his strangely powerfully developed muscles his.

His appearance his, as if he had trained all the muscles of his whole body endlessly, was enough to make an adult man’s legs loosening up just by standing in front of him.

It was to the point where if I reached out to stroke his head, I might explode his head.

He, who had a rugged appearance that barely differed from the mask of Geumgang Station placed next to him, and his bare face his, sat in a calm posture, drinking alcohol from a glass with the other hand.

“Is this alcohol… Water or something? It’s weak.”

“There is no such thing as alcohol to make you drunk, not even in our warehouse. Dharma.”

Once again, chiiyik! Just when he thought he heard a voice, another burn wound was etched on his arm.

The burn was a cut near the cut where the flesh and muscle were separated to the extent that the bones of the arm were visible.

The shape of the pharynx is an ancient language that is no longer used.

The meaning was created by combining words with the meaning of healing, reinforcement, and accumulation.

And his arm, carved into his body his, began to heal as if time were going back, and the cracks stuck together, leaving only burns behind.

It wasn’t only that, the muscles in the arms swelled up even more while healing the injured muscles, as shown by compression of ‘excess recovery’.

In addition, the image engraved by the iron remains as a simple circular image as the letters of the iron are gradually erased.

The power contained in the language must have disappeared after the task was completed.

“Okay. Let’s move.”

When the man sitting across from Dharma spoke like that, Dharma bent and opened his wounded arm, then clench and opened his fist.

He grinned and immediately swung at the man who had taken the pharynx to cure himself.

That fist was like an attack that a large beast like an elephant wielded in anger.

Even compared to Dharma, the man in front of me was dwarfed, and his body was full of cracks, so the sudden punch pierced the man’s body and blew his head off.

Then, the body of the man wearing the robe loses its strength and collapses backwards.

The peculiar thing is that even though the head is exploded, blood does not spurt from the body.

After smashing the man’s head, Dharma examines his hand once again, and he laughs and talks in a good mood.

“Ohhh. It’s working fine. No problem.”

“I never asked you to attack me, but… “

And, the robe that had just fallen down wriggled and got back up on the spot.

When the head that seemed to have exploded was regenerated, the face was shaped like a black egg, and white cracks were engraved on the surface of the body, so it looked like his face or expression his.

Looking at him who doesn’t look like a human no matter where he looks, Dharma talks.

“Your body won’t break no matter how much you beat it, so it’s just right to test it out. ‘Yama’.”

Then, the man called Yama became a frown as the cracks in his face he moved by himself.

“I’m not your punching bag. I admit that your fists can pierce mountains… But even with your fists, I couldn’t kill the ‘dark horse from my previous life’. Rather, I came back wounded.”

“Hey. It’s because there was an ‘exceptional incident’. Besides, that guy… Did n’t do his best at all. I’m the type who enjoys fighting. I hate fighting with restrictions attached to this and that. Hey.”

As Dharma says that, he opens his clenched fist and swings it like it’s not funny.

“Assassination is originally a law that is performed when the opponent is unable to generate full power.”

“It must be wrong to send a fighter like me to assassinate in the first place. All your subordinates say they can’t move because they are scared of him?

The moment the man said that, countless black arms stretched out from under Yama’s robes, aiming at Dharma’s whole body with memorization.

Daggers, needles, scythes, and spear blades were precisely aiming at Dharma’s vitals.

“Oh. Would you like to try? Right here and now.”

For a moment, thinking that the tension between the two had flowed, Yama let out a sigh as he drew his weapon back under his robe his.

“…No, it’s just as you said. The current ‘Yeomma’ is so weak. It can’t be compared to what it was in its heyday.”

“You’re willing to admit it. What’s the point?”

“The subordinate who attacked him and returned told me that that man was really like a ‘sweet horse.’

After hearing Yama’s words, Dharma spoke while stroking his chin.

“Hmm. That guy is the judge of the underworld… He seemed to have a lot of lingering attachments in this world. He was so strongly bound by those things that he couldn’t use his power his.”

If I want to show my skills, I have to release those restraints…

Muttering the same thing, Yama once again frowned at seeing such dharma.

“If you’re going to think anything stupid, stop. Our order is to take the girl he’s with… Princess ‘Amelia Chaldearis’ to Lord Enrai. Even if you provoke Cleon in the process, it won’t be good. ” I don’t have anything. I’d rather not know if I took that colleague as a hostage.”

“Kek, I don’t get along with you either. After working together for hundreds of years, we disagree like this.”

“I agree.”

Dharma said so and got up from where he was sitting.

And when you turn around and try to walk out of the room-

“Wait a second. Did you report to Enrai-sama?”

“Leave it to you. I have no memory of being that fool’s subordinate. The only thing I swear allegiance to is the ‘Father of All’. Should I bow down?”

“Oh dear… Anyway, stop looking for the dark horse from your previous life right now. …I already sent other subordinates to him. If you go and rampage, it will only get in the way.”

“What?”

At Yama’s words, Dharma looked back at him with an expression like ‘Are you out of your mind?

Then Yama will speak quietly.

“If his subordinates his feel fear of him, they can erase it with greater fear. It is enough for them to remember who they are originally supposed to serve and fear.”

“Ha. How many more incompetent guys’ lives will go back to their father.”

Dharma shook his head as if he couldn’t understand and left the room.

Then, Yama looked at Dharma’s back for a while, and then he raised his voice and called someone from the room where only he was left.

“…Now that’s it. What are you going to do, Owl?”

Then, another man suddenly appeared in a space where there was nothing before.

Similarly, he is wearing a robe, but wearing an ‘owl’-shaped mask, he is talking quietly.

“No problem. The most efficient way to use that man is to let him do as he wants. And… I also have ‘su’.”

Saying that, he glanced away, and there was the figure of someone who had fallen unconscious.

“Is he… Okay?”

To Yama’s question, the owl mask disappears with the man without answering anything.

“Oh my gosh… The entire organization lacks communication.”

Yama sighed at such behavior, thinking that he was the only normal person in the organization.

001

“Then, to make it easier for you to come here next time, give me the coordinates of the portal…”

As Lyla says that and tries to open her scroll, Kanon, the owner of the shelter, is started and stops Lyla from doing so.

“Ah, ah, no way! If I do that, I could be tracked down by the flow of magic power! To those guys!”

When her pale face she catches the scroll that Lila was holding in her hand her, Lila panicked and let go of her own scroll from her hand her.

“Hey, wait! Being tracked… By whom?”

“There were these strange guys… Perverts who wore animal-like masks on their faces…”

Kanon trembled with his arms wrapped around his body as if just thinking about him gave him goose bumps.

Hearing her words of her, Cleon and Layla talk to her with a surprised face at the same time and her serious attitude of her.

“Do you know what kind of guys they are?”

“Oh, no…Well…”

Apparently, Kanon himself didn’t know why he was being targeted or even their identities his.

“That’s the guys called the Exile Church. Do you know?”
“Chu, the Exiled Church…? No… Is it something, human religious people or something like that? So, then, what followed me was also a religious invitation…?”

At Kanon’s words, Cleon shuts up for a while and then looks around.

“The Exiled Church and the Regressors are organizations that have had an impact on the East since a long time ago. If they say they’re targeting you, the reason is… The video you have. .”

When Cleon muttered while looking at the video on the wall, Layla nodded.

“That’s right. No matter how much they move in the shadows, these records- if they are recorded over hundreds of years, their existence can be revealed to many people based on that video. —This is amazing, Cleon! If we do well… We can forcibly bring the Exiled Church, which has been shrouded in darkness until now, to the stage!”

When Leyla looks at the video, saying ‘why didn’t I think of that until now?’, Cleon talks to Kanon.

“The next time you come back, I want you to show me some videos related to those guys. Can I ask you a favor?”

“Ah, yes. Well, then, I’ll sort it out. Those guys suddenly appear and disappear, so it might be a bit difficult to find them from hundreds of years, but…”

Kanon muttered in a slightly insecure tone while lowering his head gradually.

Then, Cleon held Kanon’s hand and spoke again.

“…The only thing I can entrust right now is you. Kanon. I’ll ask you.”

“Haha! Please don’t ask me to come that close again! Oh, okay!”

She lets out a strange scream as she is once again attacked by her special move in the face of her.

Cleon sighed as if she was happy, but Layla looked at the two with a cold expression, as if she were dumbfounded.

“Then, where should we go? To the entrance we came in? Or, how would you live if there was no transmission magic?

“Come to think of it…”

Speaking of obvious things, Kanon said “Ah, that’s it”, Looked around for a while, and dragged something stuck in the corner.

It was a metal automata in the form of a humanoid.

I don’t know how old it is, but it’s rusted here and there, and there’s a lot of writing on it, but it’s mostly been erased.

Wearing a rag-like robe, it seemed almost indistinguishable from a human being, as it became invisible when its face darkened.

“…I, on this automaton, I put a robe over it… I’m making it buy the necessary things from Asteris… This, the entrance is in another place… The top one is, the emergency exit. Go…”

“Isn’t this automata being pursued by the Exiled Church guys…?”

“Ah. That. I think this is a stealth type…”

Again, when jargon pops up, Cleon turns her head to Lyla, but she shakes her head as if she doesn’t even know Lyla.

“Ah, s, being a stealth type. Not only does it leave no sound or footprints, but it also doesn’t leave a ‘magical response’ in the optical camouflage. That’s why, if you hide, you can’t be tracked , according to the manual…”

“Is it possible to do something like Cleon’s ‘curtain of darkness’? As expected, the ancient automata’s performance is beyond imagination…”

Lyla put her tongue out while looking at such automata, and Cleon could easily guess that the original use of the automata was not just for ‘errands’, but for combat specializing in tracking someone, reconnaissance, or infiltrating.

But even if I told Kanon something like that, it would only scare me.

“Then, guide us to the entrance the automata uses. Can we come there the next time we come? I can do at least hide myself.”

Saying so, when Cleon uses the veil of darkness, camouflage magic, to hide himself, Kanon also makes a surprised expression, but nods his head.

“Yes, yes… That, I think that’s fine. The upper door is open only when you get paid… As much as possible, I don’t want to use it…”

When Cleon smiles bitterly at her words, she adds that dirt may fall inside, and Lyla shrugs her shoulders.

“Well. You have to be careful not to be followed when you come here… I see.”

002

The official entrance Kanon guided was another metal door that existed if you walked in a straight line along a passage other than the emergency exit, one of the only passages in the space they were in.

Just like when he entered, Kanon skillfully manipulated it with a lot of valves and buttons.

Then, as the metal door creaked open slowly, what was visible outside was the inside of a dark cave.

“I-If you walk all the way to this cave… Go out the doorway on the other side of the hill… Beeing, go around the hill and you’ll see Asteris…”

“Thank you. Then.”

With Cleon saying that, she goes through the door with Layla and when she tries to go outside-

“Hey, over there!”

From the back, Kanon squeezed out his voice, calling out to them.

When the two of them look back at Kanon at the same time, Kanon hesitantly hesitates before talking to Cleon.

“Heh, heh…! Heh, Mr. Cleon and Mr. Layla came… Oh, today, it was fun! Please come again!”

“… ? Didn’t I tell you about coming again?”

In response to the sudden confession of feelings, Layla makes a face as if asking what she’s talking about.

“Ah. Next time, I’ll buy you something as a present. See you later.”

When Cleon responds like that, Kanon raises his head as if moved by something.

Between her swaying bangs, the first thing she saw was her gold glittering pupils with a slightly sharp impression.

“…Heh, hehe. It’s the first time I’ve had guests like this…”

When the corners of her mouth she softened and gave a slightly insipid expression, Cleon and Lyra couldn’t help but smile bitterly as their eyes were once again covered.

“I-I’ll be waiting for you…!”

Saying that, leaving her behind her as she waved her hand, the shelter door slowly closed as the two of them made their way towards the cave.

Looking back, I saw a camouflaged wall that, no matter how I looked, could only be seen as a dead end in the cave.

“There are also interesting elves.”

When Layla utters such sentiments, Cleon shrugs her shoulders and walks forward.

“Well. There are many different people. In the world. More than that.

“When guests come, don’t let them into my room.”

“Hey hey…”

At Layla’s firm words, Cleon sighed, and when the two of them left the cave, the sun had already risen in mid-heaven.

Just as Kanon had said, after confirming that they had succeeded in coming out to the plain on the other side of the hill, the two of them moved their steps along the bottom of the hill once again to return to Asteris.

003

“What is this.”

“I wonder if it’s a horse… I wasn’t followed, but as soon as I came back, it was a grand welcome ceremony.”

After Cleon and Layla entered Asteris, Cleon deliberately walked towards an empty place in order to thread them through the constant feeling of presence after walking a little.

After entering an alley where people could not reach, as if to block the escape route, assailants wearing four or five masks would appear and surround the two.

“Could you have seen Shelter?”

“No. Seeing that they started following us as soon as we returned to Asteris, it feels like we lost track of where we were and then managed to find it again?

At Cleon’s words, the bodies of the surrounding flames swelled with life, but Cleon sighed and pulled out the standard longsword of the East – no, a long sword.

“Hey, Cleon. Speaking of which, what about Galatea and Caliburn?”

“Ah. I have something else to ask for.”

“Are you okay? Without the magic sword…”

When Layla speaks with a teasing expression, Cleon snorts ‘ha’.

“Don’t worry. …Now this one fits my hand.”

“…?”

At Cleon’s words of her, Layla made an expression of not knowing what he was saying for a moment, but the next moment, Cleon’s body her disappeared leaving behind an afterimage.

And, immediately after the arm of one of the flame horses was cut off and fell to the ground, blood gushed out and at the same time Cleon was standing behind him.

“…!”

As if surprised by Cleon’s sudden attack, the demons scattered in an orderly manner and tried to distance themselves from him, and Layla looked at Cleon and the demon in turn-

“Well. Okay. Anyway, just burn it up!”

It raised the mana of the whole body, opened a barrier that prevented sound and damage from leaking out, and started spewing flames at the same time.