Chapter 4

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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After walking for fifteen more minutes, Tie stopped among the towering trees and thought.

‘This is bad!’

She had set out for now because she had to get to the imperial capital.

But no matter how much she walked, the imperial capital did not appear.

‘Hiiing, in Jongno District there was a huge city if you just walked a little.’

It seemed the imperial capital in this world was much farther away than she had expected.

“What should I do……”

Birds chirped overhead as they flew around.

‘If only Tie had wings too, I could zoom right over there.’

Wait a second, wings?

“……”

Both her eyes lit up.

Tie slowly turned her body toward Kkamangi.

Kkamangi was standing about five steps away, leaning against a tree with his arms folded.

“Kkamangi, you know.”

“I can’t carry you.”

“I, I see……”

Tie’s face immediately fell.

She had been hoping maybe she could ride on Kkamangi’s back, so it was disappointing.

Now that she looked, for a legendary Puppetmon, Kkamangi’s wings did seem a little small.

But Tie did not give up and thought of another method.

“Kkamangi, then……”

“I can’t use teleportation either.”

“Gasp…… really?”

That was a bit shocking.

Kkamangi was a legendary Puppetmon, wasn’t he?

He had even helped her cross over from the Republic of Korea to here.

As she stood there with a troubled expression, Kkamangi added,

“I’ve already pushed my power to its limit. Do you think bringing you here was easy?”

Tie was so surprised that she closed her mouth.

Now that she looked, Kkamangi’s complexion did seem somehow pale.

“I had to tamper with dimensions to save your daddy, and in the middle of that, you fell asleep, so even getting you a place to sleep……”

Kkamangi stopped talking, then muttered to himself, “……Why am I even saying this much.”

But soon she looked at Tie again as if it did not matter.

“Anyway. Right now I can’t do anything.”

Tie pursed her lips.

Because she suddenly felt sorry toward Kkamangi.

Kkamangi was Tie’s benefactor.

The benefactor who had saved Daddy, whom she had almost lost forever, and had even brought Tie back to her hometown.

‘……I shouldn’t keep pestering him without knowing gratitude.’

It was enough that she had done that to Daddy. She did not want to become a burden to Kkamangi too.

Tie hesitantly walked over to Kkamangi.

“Kkamangi, should I massage your shoulders?”

Kkamangi made a strange expression.

“What?”

“I learned filial piety massage at kindergarten! Number one in Quail Class!”

“Forget it.”

She reached out her hand, but Kkamangi quickly stepped back.

Then, still wearing an uncomfortable expression, he added,

“There’s no need for that. Even if I had power left, I wouldn’t have been able to use high-grade magic anyway.”

“Mm?”

“High-grade magic. Especially magic that leaves traces, like spatial movement, is easy to track.”

At the word track, Tie’s face went blank.

It reminded her that whenever the word track appeared in newspapers or on the news, Daddy always wore a dark expression.

In fact, Tie knew why Daddy made that expression.

‘If that happens, you get deported……’

Deportation meant getting thrown out.

She did not know why Daddy had to be thrown out, but according to what the adults said, if she got deported, Daddy and Tie could end up far away from each other.

Tie shook her head hard.

Tracking, deportation, absolutely could not happen.

How had they come all the way here.

How had they returned to the hometown where Daddy was alive.

Tie hurriedly raised her head.

“Kkamangi!”

She had been about to tell Kkamangi that he absolutely must not use magic, but

“Kkamangi?”

The place where Kkamangi had been standing just moments before was empty.

When Tie ran over in a hurry, she saw a black stone left alone between the leaves.

Tie stared at the stone in shock, then quickly picked it up.

After that she opened the kindergarten bag she had brought just in case.

“Kkamangi……”

He had said he had used a lot of power, so it seemed Kkamangi had fallen asleep.

When Puppetmons ran out of power, they returned to their Puppet Ball and rested too.

‘Kkamangi, don’t worry about things here.’

With a solemn face, Tie put the stone into the inner pocket of the bag and zipped it all the way up.

After that, she checked carefully twice and then put the bag on her back.

“Even if it’s hard, I still have to go!”

She remembered the teaching of Grandma in unit 107, who used to say that life was about going for it even if you might fail.

Tie took a very, very brave step forward.

Without expecting at all what would happen next.

* * *

“This tastes damn awful.”

Basto muttered as he crunched on a wild carrot.

He knew it was not the time to be picky about food, but after chewing the same thing for three days straight, he was starting to get tired of it.

Leaning his back against a tree trunk, he quietly looked around.

It had been two hours since he had set traps nearby, but there was no sign that any prey had been caught.

“……Those damned demonic beasts.”

Once, it had been a forest full of rabbits, deer, and other wild animals.

The monsters had certainly played a large part in turning that forest empty.

“Mercenaries, imperial soldiers, no matter how many they kill every day……”

If one magic stone was conquered, then from that magic stone.

If that magic stone was conquered, then from another new magic stone that had appeared.

The monsters that deserved to be slaughtered for good just kept pouring out without end.

“Tch.”

Spitting out the carrot he had been eating, Basto rose from his place.

When he twisted his stiff body this way and that, his joints kept making cracking sounds.

After running a hand down his thick overgrown beard, he pulled a map from inside his armor with a rough hand.

[Briowood]

The place where he was was a medium-sized forest five days from the southern edge of the imperial capital.

The forest, stretched long across the width as if surrounding the imperial capital from afar, had three bright red dots marked on it.

Basto took out a piece of charcoal and marked an X over one of them.

That was the spot where the small magic stone he had finished conquering last night had been.

‘I really almost died yesterday.’

A hollow laugh escaped him as he recalled yesterday’s fierce battle.

Even though it had only been a small magic stone, it was still a magic stone, and when a flying monster suddenly appeared, even he had been flustered.

Sometimes he grew sick of this work that required staking his life on the line.

But……

“……Enough.”

Basto put his armor back on in order to shake off his thoughts.

Whatever the case, what mattered was the fact that he had once again survived instead of dying.

The life of wandering alone as an itinerant mercenary, and the life of killing monsters like a butcher and getting drenched in their blood.

Someday, when his breath stopped, all of that would end with him.

“I should dismantle the traps and start heading back to the imperial capital.”

Just as he was putting away the map and about to move.

Ting-

A small but familiar sound pierced his ears.

That sound of the taut rope coming loose was the signal that prey had been caught in his trap.

Basto grabbed his weapon, the war hammer leaning against the tree, and started running toward the trap.

‘I thought the wild animals had all been wiped out.’

A rabbit, maybe?

Or a rat or a weasel?

A boar or a deer would be best of all, but honestly even a rat would do.

It was not especially tasty and it was hard to strip the bones, but rat meat was more edible than people thought.

But just then,

“……Hic.”

This time, his hearing picked up a different sound.

It was definitely coming from the direction of the trap.

His steps slowed slightly.

‘That really sounds like something a person would make……’

“Hic!”

Basto furrowed his brow.

He was right.

The sound coming from the trap was unmistakably the sound of hiccuping.

Suppressing all noise, he lowered his posture and quickly started moving through the trees.

If there was someone in a forest where as many as three magic stones were stationed, there was a high chance it was a mercenary or a knight.

But he could not let his guard down.

If the thing caught in the trap really was a person, they would have screamed or shouted for help.

Or they would already have cut the net with the weapon they had brought and escaped.

But without any cries for help, without any screams.

He had never seen a case where all they did was hiccup.

At last Basto reached the trap and quietly secured a view through the bushes.

The net he had woven himself was hanging from a high tree branch.

He tried to see what was inside it, but soon froze stiff.

“……Hic.”

Inside the net.

His eyes met a pair of vivid green eyes.

Someone inside the net was looking at him while trembling all over.

It was a little child who looked thoroughly terrified.