“Are you okay?” Shadia asked Chi-Woo, who was crawling with both his hands tied up like a caterpillar.
‘Urgh.’ Chi-Woo barely managed to lift himself up and smiled bitterly at Shadia, whose shoulders were still bleeding. “I should be asking you that.”
“I’m all right,” Shadia responded with an equally bitter smile as Chi-Woo looked at her with concern. “I can regenerate my arm by making new medicine. Of course, in order to do that, I need to get out of this place first…” She let out a short sigh and asked, “What happened though? Why are you alone?”
“Something unexpected happened,” Chi-Woo said. “We were unable to force our way through, so I split up from the others and acted as bait.”
“Ah…What happened to the rest of the group?”
“I heard they met up with the eighth recruits.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I got a message. Nangnang’s guesses were right.”
“That’s a silver lining at least. How is it on their side?”
“Well…It doesn’t seem that great.”
From Ru Amuh’s messages, a few points could be extrapolated:
1. Originally, the total number of the eighth recruits was 511. Among them, 185 people had either died or gotten captured, leaving 326 members now.
2. Five of the twelve families who lit up the Celestial Realm had participated in the eighth recruits. They were Ho Lactea, Nahla, Afrilithl, Mariaju, and Eustitia.
3. The eighth recruits’ mission was to recover the forgotten god in a ruined city and help revive the city so that it could become a godly territory.
4. The eighth recruits were currently locked in the center of the city, but they had no intention to give up their mission.
5. The above point was partly due to pride, but the fact that the hero from the Mariaju family got captured played a part. The heroes from the Afrilithl and Eustitia families insisted that they had to save the Mariaju hero using the prophecy’s mission as justification.
Shadia looked dazed. She was stunned above all that the five of the twelve families had come to Liber.
“Wow…The Celestial Realm is serious. What a crazy line-up…” Then she looked a bit sad. “If they are members of the twelve families, they must have been raised as heroes from their birth. But it seems like even they can’t do much. Well, that’s how this world is…” Shadia hung her head low again in helplessness.
“Don’t worry too much,” Chi-Woo said calmly. “We would all be able to live here.”
“Not get out of here alive, but live here… Are you not planning to escape from this place?” Shadia asked in surprise and added, “Why? Are you going to come up with some trick like last time?”
Instead of answering, Chi-Woo stared at her quietly.
“Boss…you know what? When you say something is going to happen…it really feels like things will turn out that way… Weird, isn’t it? There’s no basis at all.” It seemed Shadia had many things she wanted to ask, but she didn’t. Her voice became quieter, and she blinked drearily with a small smile, her eyelids growing heavier. Rather than sleepy, it looked like she was about to faint from the blood loss.
“…Sleep now.”
Shadia closed her eyes at Chi-Woo’s words. She began to breathe evenly, and Chi-Woo let out a long sigh.
‘A trick.’ He had no such thing. All he could do was to struggle with all he had for survival; he had to continue clashing with the problem because he knew he would die otherwise. But he thought he understood better now: why heroes risked their lives to act as heroes.
* * *
Chi-Woo thought he would just spend the rest of the night like this, but then the half-demon returned as it had promised. Thus, Chi-Woo got out of jail by himself with his hands tied and moved under heavy surveillance. He was led to a place where five monsters were waiting for him in their seats. Chi-Woo had to work hard to hold back his surprise.
He had trouble calming down as he faced monsters he had only seen in pop culture content before. From the left, there was the walking and talking tree he had met before, and to its left, there was a dark green monster who looked to be about a meter tall. There was also a bright jade-colored spirit in the shape of a tall woman with her eyes closed, and a massive giant with long flowing hair and beard. Lastly, there was a creature that seemed also half human: a centaur with a human torso and a horse’s lower body. With the half-demon behind Chi-Woo, there were six monsters in total.
Chi-Woo gulped. Obviously, the atmosphere in the room was far from relaxed. He felt like an unwanted guest, and the monsters seemed wary of him.
“Is that the human?” the green monster with unfittingly scholarly glasses asked, his eyes sparkling with great curiosity. “I heard about what he did, but it’s surprising. To mobilize the Abyss… Let’s dive in right away. Could you tell us who you are first? And the reason you came here?”
Chi-Woo answered honestly for now; he told them that he was a hero from the Celestial Realm, and the rescue team had come to save the heroes stranded in the city. He didn’t think he should lie or purposefully misspeak since there was a mysterious tree that could tell lies, especially in a situation where he needed to gain even a little bit more trust. But of course, Chi-Woo didn’t reveal everything. He spoke the truth, but only as little as possible.
The monsters were surprised to hear this. “To think heroes from other worlds are coming in rows like this… They used to be sent one by one on a regular basis. What surprising news. It seems this place called the Celestial Realm considers the situation on Liber very seriously.”
In other words, heroes had been summoned to Liber before. Chi-Woo recalled how the growth system had been implemented before but decided to focus on the current situation for now.
“I heard you captured a god,” another voice interjected. It was the centaur. “Please tell us the situation in more detail.”
“Well…it’s hard to say that I caught the god.”
“Hm?”
“It’s true I annihilated the god I was fighting, but that was because of the god’s will.”
“The god’s will.”
“Yes. I felt that way, because…” And Chi-Woo began to explain what had happened at that time. He was telling them that the god wanted to be annihilated and that the god resembled a wolf when someone blurted out an exclamation.
“Ah! How could that be!?”
“Doesn’t make sense…”
There were gasps everywhere.
“Is that human really, really telling the truth?” The green monster checked with the tree, and the tree answered in a low voice, “…It’s the truth.”
The tree’s heavy voice brought about a sweeping silence.
“Then, the reason why the Fenrir tribe was so easily annihilated…”
“With this, it became even more important to secure this place. We need a new power to replace the void created by the Fenrir tribe’s absence. Even if it’s calm right now thanks to the Abyss, we don’t know when…”
The monsters began to discuss among themselves.
Although Chi-Woo pricked up his ears to the conversation, he couldn’t understand everything. He needed more information to sway the situation to his favor.
“How are you all related to that god?” asked Chi-Woo. “Also, in relation to the war surrounding this city—”
“Shut up!” Chi-Woo couldn’t finish his sentence as the half-demon yanked on the rope tying his hands hard and yelled, “I warned you. Know your place.” Its voice was icy cold. “You can only open your mouth when spoken to. And it’s now your turn to tell us about the temple you found.”
Chi-Woo clenched his teeth.
“This is a warning. You’ve made yourself our enemy with what you just said. Even though I want to immediately kill you, I’m only letting you live because there are still things we need to hear from you. If you speak out of turn again, I’ll—”
‘Enemy?’ Chi-Woo was about to refute when another monster intervened.
“Isn’t that too much? Why did you label the human our enemy?”
“What? Didn’t you hear him? This human killed the god we made an important allia—”
“It was because of unforeseeable circumstances,” said the green monster. “The god desired to die, and the blame for that is completely on the Demon Empire and the Sernitas. He’s more of a benefactor to us.”
The half-demon was rendered speechless by the logical remarks. Based on appearance alone, the green monster looked like a dirty goblin that would spend all of his time attacking adventurers in a shady cave.
However, the green monster was actually wise and smart. “And we’re all here to talk. Don’t you think we should let this human speak as he wishes?”
“He’s not even worth listening to!”
“No, that’s not true.” The green monster lifted its spectacles. “What he said was interesting, and most of all, he was telling the truth, wasn’t he?”
The tree monster expressed its agreement. The green monster continued, “Then it’s definitely worth listening to. This is what I think.”
However, the half-demon didn’t seem to think the same. “So you’re saying that you’ll trust a human’s words?”
“It’s not a matter of trust. Are you questioning the ancient tree?”
The tree monster called the ancient tree showed its displeasure, and the half-demon realized its mistake. It had spoken out of anger. However, it went on to snarl at the green monster, “…Damn it, you’re just a menial laborer.”
“What did you say?” The green monster shot up from its seat in anger. Its pride was greatly hurt.
“Stop! Stop!” As the atmosphere quickly became tense, the centaur hurried to stop them. It said to the half-demon, “You should calm down. Let that human go and step back for now, and refrain from making such remarks again.”
The half-demon gritted its teeth at the centaur’s warning, but in the end, it let go of Chi-Woo and withdrew. The centaur then said to the green monster, “You should calm down as well. You’re right. We’re all gathered here to talk. I’m curious about what you and that human may talk about.” The centaur expressed its desire to hand over the dialogue to the green monster in a round-about way.
The green monster understood the centaur’s intention, and after steadying its breath, it sat back down. Since many different races of monsters were gathered here, Chi-Woo had a feeling that there wasn’t a strong sense of solidarity among the Indigenous Monster Alliance.
Then, the green monster said, “…As you may have just heard, the god you defeated is probably the god we originally worshiped—or to be more precise, the god that the Fenrir worshipped.” After a pause, he continued, “Originally, the Cassiubia League kept the Sernitas in check with the cooperation of the Abyss and Demon Empire.”
“The Cassiubia…League?”
“Cassiubia is the name of the mountain range where our base was situated. It was originally called the Dragon Mountain.”
‘Ah, the mountain has a name.’ Chi-Woo nodded.
“Well, other groups seem to call us the Indigenous Monster Alliance though.” The green monster coughed and continued, “Anyway, the Demon Empire launched a surprise invasion against us. Since we had focused our forces against the Sernitas during that time, we received significant damage.”
As a result, the Cassiubia League lost nearly half of their vast mountain range, and the Fenrir tribe was completely annihilated. An extremely diverse number of races were part of the Cassiubia League, but there were some that stood out and led the league with exceptional strength. The ‘Last Dragon’, who created the federation, stood as the center of power. Other races among the leadership were the giant race, ‘Gigas’, ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’, who could control spirits, and some other races, the Fenrir being one of them. The Cassiubia League took a heavy blow with the loss of such a powerful ally. But there was more to that.
The green monster continued, “The Demon Empire took over the area that the Fenrirs were defending and abducted the god they worshiped.”
The god was then delivered to the Sernitas, and after being forcibly transformed, it appeared at the Abyss’ border. By this time, there was no doubt that the Demon Empire had suddenly changed sides and joined the Sernitas. Evelyn’s hypothesis was correct.
“After losing a brave ally who always stood at the front of battle, our league was left in a difficult position in the war against the Demon Empire…but of course, with your help, we were able to take a breather.”
Most of the territory taken away from them had been recovered thanks to the Abyss Faction. However, even if they recovered their land, they couldn’t make up for their lost power.
“The reprieve didn’t last, however. The Abyss soon withdrew, and the League and the Demon Empire warily watched each other with bated breath.” They didn’t know when the Demon Empire would attack again. After the Fenrir tribe, who was one of their main pillars on the battlefield was annihilated, the Cassiubia League had an urgent meeting to come up with countermeasures, and the conclusion they came to was to find a new source of power. Thus, even while stretching their resources thin, they had formed an expeditionary force and arrived here.
“However, there was a spy among us, and the Demon Empire was right on our tail. They arrived at exactly the same moment as we did.”
A war thus broke out around the city. In all honesty, the Cassiubia League was having a difficult time here. They couldn’t find what they wanted no matter how much they searched, and it was getting more and more burdensome to deal with the Demon Empire. Just when they were considering whether they should retreat, a third party suddenly appeared.
“Our goal is to find the ancient god who is said to be asleep here.” The green monster looked intently at Chi-Woo and continued, “I’m curious. How were you able to find what we’ve been so desperately searching for…?” Even though it didn’t finish its sentence, Chi-Woo felt pressured by the green monster to talk. He felt as if the green monster was saying, ‘Since I’ve given you so much information, it’s now your turn to talk.’
‘He’s harder to deal with than the half-demon,’ Chi-Woo thought. He wondered how he should reply. He thought about saying, ‘I don’t really know.’ That wouldn’t be a lie; he could only make speculations about what had happened between Kabal and Balal. However, Chi-Woo recalled the prophecy’s mission that Ru Amuh messaged him about—to find and resurrect the god in this place and establish a godly territory. The former made sense somewhat, but what about the latter? He needed to figure out the prophecy’s intention. Just as the seventh recruits had successfully improved their situation by fulfilling the mission given to them by the prophecy, there must be a reason behind this mission as well.
Why did the prophecy tell them to establish a godly territory in this city and not the capital? Chi-Woo did have a guess, but he wasn’t sure if his interpretation was correct. However, the water had already been spilled. He hadn’t thrown the die yet, but it was now time for him to make his move. With bright eyes, Chi-Woo opened his mouth to respond.
* * *
At the same time, Chi-Hyun was flying across the night sky.
“?” While looking up, he inadvertently saw that the sky was fluctuating. The same phenomenon that he had observed before was happening again. Chi-Hyun looked straight ahead and blinked quickly. “Shit, what is it again?”