Chapter 373: PTSD (1)
‘Eight days…’
It was a pretty long time.
It would be flustering to think that Laios had been completely excluded during those eight days. Of course, there may be minimal troops left, but Laios had still gotten abandoned on the battlefield.
I don’t know how crazy she had gone for the situation to become like this, but…
‘I understand.’
Considering that Cha Hee-ra’s strength had risen to 117 during the Castle Rock crisis, it was natural to avoid it.
Even if I were the Republic, it would have been difficult to take some action.
In order to safely subdue it, it is possible to cope with it by sending at least someone as strong as one of the Eight Seats of the State or the Five General Tigers.
‘And that’s not easy.’
In the current situation where the front line was still tightly maintained, it was almost impossible to pull back the named names.
Even if they were on the way to recapture Castle Rock and do the Eberian isolation operation simultaneously, they wouldn’t be doing anything stupid as focusing on Laios.
“Is there anything that the State is doing?”
“All they can do is wait… In fact, on the outskirts of Laios, the Red Mercenary is in charge of the front. Probably they want to get their queen back when everything is done. Something similar must have happened before we came in. At that time, I heard that she was in that state for twenty days…”
“How was the situation then?”
“I don’t know in detail, either. No one knows it, and all they did was to bring the queen who was passed out.”
I wondered if it had a possibility of happening,
‘It is possible if there’s no survivor.’
“It’s because there were no survivors. I don’t know what the queen was doing in the past and what’s going on in Laios now. Seeing that she is still alive, the queen must be doing well. I want to give it a little more weight, but what can I do about it? Castle Rock is more urgent right now. On the Laios side, you will do something, well.”
‘Do what? You mean bitch.’
Light Kiyoung was not a suicide seeker.
When the Castle Rock Monster Wave had occurred, I remembered it was a nightmare.
Moreover, Cha Hee-ra at that time had been in a normal crazy state.
Now that she had gone completely insane, my body would be torn as soon as she was to see me. Perhaps my pelvis would get smashed and chopped like tofu.
Just imagining it made me have goosebumps behind my back.
When I shook my head, Lee Jihye opened her mouth again.
“Shall we move to another place and talk?”
“It would be better. I also wanted to see the front line.”
“I wanted to show you. I asked to go out because of that.”
As I slowly opened the door, I could see the Black Swan guild members waiting. They were the escort group of Lee Jihye.
Seeing that their level wasn’t too bad, I could tell how much the Black Swan Guild Master, Park Yeon-joo, cared about Lee Jihye.
Of course, it was a bonus that Lee Jihye considered her own safety to be the most important.
The soldiers around me still looked anxious. They must know that the battle would begin within a few days. No one wanted to die. And, whether you liked it or not, war created casualties.
I had begun to understand the situation, but it did not make me any happier. It was because our opponents seemed determined, and had decided to block the Eberia side.
Despite having the advantages of a castle defense battle, they had no choice but to enter the field first.
It looked like we would have to do a siege battle. This was the type of work that could not be built in a short period, but if there was magic, it was easy to build a city wall.
Of course, this was incomparable to Castle Rock’s walls, but the fact that there was a wall of that kind was indeed great pressure from the opponent’s perspective.
“Who is the opponent’s commander?”
Perhaps a wizard.
“We haven’t confirmed it yet. Well, still, one of the Five General Tigers will be with them, right? Judging by what I can see, he will be in the rear rather than the front line. As you can see, the situation in front of us is not very good. The troops are also inferior, but it is in a situation where we have to even a siege battle. We were on the inferior side, but now that you’ve joined, it’s going to be better. Hyunsung is also here. Oh, come to think of it, there’s also Hayan.”
“Hayan can’t be used here.”
“Why?”
“We have to look at things in the long run. I ordered her to recover as quickly as possible, but in her current state, she will fall back by using magic only a few times. Even that, magic with a large range should be avoided as much as possible. And our Guild Master…”
‘I want to hide it much as possible…’
If there was a person who had the most information that had not been released yet, of course, it would be the lovely returner.
Still, unlike me, who held the title of Honorary Cardinal, there was no information about Kim Hyunsung at all. I bet the Republic didn’t even take Kim Hyunsung at a high level.
To them, he was only a child who has been on the continent for less than five years.
Jin Qing, who knew that I was a scammer, might think that Kim Hyunsung was a similar kind of guy. It was important that they had the least information about him as possible.
I could recognize the urgency of the situation, but we must avoid putting in the strongest from the first fights. Though everyone apparently wanted to end this as fast as possible, it would be inevitable to prolong the fight eventually.
‘Who uses their weapon from the beginning in the first place?’
“You want to save them for later?”
“If possible.”
“You know that simply pushing out isn’t a good thing, right? It is important to push it properly without damage. If we don’t have the troops to get to Castle Rock after the battle, the fight itself will be for nothing. All they have to do is to hold on.”
“I understand that, too.”
Their role was not to do a castle defense battle, but to hold back the ones from this side. For them, the city wall is a kind of thing that doesn’t matter at all.
‘But what can I do?’
Whatever it was, we had to push our own troops forward.
“So, you were here.”
Kim Hyunsung’s voice came just in time. As I turned, I could see him and the commander.
It looked like everyone had gone on a tour together.
Elios, the dwarf, Volgor, and those I had not memorized the names of yet were valuable workers who would eventually move on the battlefield.
“Oh my, Volgor.”
“Oh! It’s the little human woman.”
“I was looking around for a moment. I also explained the situation a little to the Honorary Cardinal here.”
“I see. How have you been?”
“Good. Thanks. Volgor-nim is still reliable.”
Lee Jihye, who immediately adorned an inviting smile, felt surprising even to me.
However, she was not much different than me. Kim Hyunsung, who was asking me questions, had forced me to wear the same kind of smile as well.
I felt a sense of shame, but there was nothing I could do.
“Have you heard of it?”
“Yes. The situation seemed a little complicated. I was able to figure out the rough composition as well. Jihye explained in a lot of detail.”
“What do you think, Kiyoung-ssi?”
‘Think what, you bastard?’
“I don’t know.”
This was the line I wanted to ask him. For now, it was the most important to open the road unconditionally.
“I heard that the command team is setting the next five days as the timing. If it is delayed, Castle Rock could become dangerous…”
‘The faster, the better, but…’
It was quite interesting that his face looked like it was asking for permission from me.
In fact, I was not strong in martial arts, either. Everything I had learned just scratches the surface.
As I felt like I had been lying too much, they seemed to think I had some knowledge in that as well. Of course, the important thing was not that he asked about my opinion.
I felt that how Kim Hyunsung looked was more important to me. He looked very nervous.
‘Is it obvious?’
The demon in the first round was crouching in the meantime.
Jin Qing, the masked trash, finally revealed his nature and reached out the demon’s grip to the camp of light.
For Kim Hyunsung, who I believed in having suffered a lot in would not be unreasonable to become nervous suddenly.
‘How many times has he been backstabbed?’
Interestingly, I felt that he was being reliant on me.
By now, he should have solved the problem somehow if Light Kiyoung had not been contaminated by the demon’s grasp.
He delayed a lot of time, and he seemed to think he had given time to the masked villain. He seemed to be pretending to be okay, but his face itself was stained with anxiety.
My eyes, who were always closely watching Kim Hyunsung’s face, could not be deceived.
“Of course, I am aware of the fact that we have to get through the road as quickly as possible, but maybe there is a trap… my opinion is that it would be better to approach it a little more carefully.”
“What? You mean a trap?”
‘There’s nothing that looks like a trap… well, was there such a thing?’
However, upon closer inspection, there was nothing in here that looked like a trap.
Rather, this was a very plain and simple problem. This was a fight over whether or not we could get rid of our opponents and attain victory. Even if he were the first round’s masked trash, it would have been impossible things in this situation.
There was not enough time, and the range of motion was still limited.
What could be done was, at best, something using a secret agent or inducing friction between groups. Of course, it was far from Jin Qing’s style.
When I looked at the mini-map again, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.
However, Kim Hyunsung’s face was stained with unknown anxiety.
“There may be something for sure, definitely.”
“Ohh. Yes…”
“It would be better to take at least a little more time to watch more. Of course, it’s just my personal opinion…”
‘No. I don’t think we need to look into it in detail…’
“I think it would be nice if you could also find out a little more, Kiyoung-ssi.”
“Yes. Okay.”
For now, I had to answer Kim Hyunsung’s request, which he had brought out very carefully.
We all had to look before we leap. However, the behavior Kim Hyunsung was showing was no different than analyzing before leaping.
He had a face that showed he was still convinced that there was a trap lying underneath,
‘Is this bastard suffering from PTSD?’