A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 53
Chapter 53
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Translated by Sylph
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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“Do you know how many companies Krazar wiped out 35 years ago? No fewer than two, two.”
“……”
“What I mean is, Krazar devoured 200 holy knights.”
Veil’s eyes sharpened.
Olek sighed, then continued with a troubled face.
“Though it was so long ago, there is one thing I remember for certain. The skeletons pouring out from the red mist.”
Within Olek’s memory.
The outskirts of Populosa as they had been 35 years ago, smaller in scale than now, rose before him.
“‘Everyone, rest easy! House Luminen has come to lead the whole holy corps and conquer the magic stone!'”
That day, the people of the Populosa region were excited. At last the knights had arrived to drive away the monsters encroaching on their land.
“‘Once they conquer the magic stone, this hunger will end too. We’ll be able to go out hunting in the forest again like before, and the furnaces and the mines will begin operating again……'”
But the people’s hope did not last long.
Because after all the countless monsters pouring out of the magic stone had been cut down, the strongest and most troublesome foe of all finally revealed itself.
“……That creature literally had no fixed form.”
The ultimate enemy that appeared inside the magic stone.
Krazar’s body, in a word, was like fog.
Dimly glowing red mist spread like water across the floor of the deep forest.
“Only when the knights who charged in fearlessly began disappearing one by one did everyone realize. That they had been dragged into Krazar’s subspace.”
The monster Krazar had neither sharp teeth nor honed claws.
And yet the creature began killing people faster and more accurately than any monster.
“Once Krazar’s subspace opens, it cannot be accessed from the outside. To break it, you have to tear through the veil of space and come out from inside.”
“The veil of space……?”
“The invisible boundary surrounding the subspace.”
But tearing through the veil of space was by no means easy.
Because anyone dragged into Krazar’s subspace would, without exception, come face to face with the fear they dreaded most.
In fact, while Krazar digested nearly 200 people, only one person overcame the confusion and came back out.
“The Luminen young lord.”
Valentis Luminen, the young holy knight who had been twenty at the time.
“Can you even call it reasonable that among two companies wiped out, there was only one survivor? Back then, truly……”
Olek’s body shook faintly as he recalled the past.
“The mist was spreading as if there were no end to it. It was moving so fast that it looked as if it would cover not just Populosa, but the surrounding area as well.”
If Valentis Luminen had not torn through the veil of space and come out after five days, perhaps Krazar would still be alive even now.
“So what does that mean. You’re saying our little commander has been sucked into that so-called subspace now?!”
At Veil’s exasperated question, Olek nodded anxiously.
“Why do you think the religious order or blacksmiths like us buy monster cores?”
Fingering the whetstone at his waist, he continued quickly.
“Because even after a monster disappears, the mana it handled in life remains in the core. The problem arises when that residual mana is too strong.”
Basto’s brow narrowed.
“As Krazar was such a tremendous creature, a considerable amount of mana remained in its core too.”
“And?”
“Just now, for some reason, the core broke and the mana sealed inside began to be released! And once outside the core, that mana lost control and instinctively tried to return to its former form!”
“Former form?”
“Krazar! You all saw that vile mist that drags its targets into subspace!”
Basto’s lips parted slightly.
The red stone cracking in Tie’s hand, and the smoke flowing out from inside it, rose vividly in her mind.
“Then what do we do?”
With the color drained from his face, Basto opened his eyes wide.
“You said once Krazar’s subspace opens, it isn’t easy to break it from outside.”
“That’s right. As far as I know, the only way is to tear through the veil of space from the inside……”
“What if she can’t come out?”
Veil cut Olek off.
“If our little commander can’t come out from in there, then what happens? If she can’t tear through the veil or whatever it is, what happens?”
Olek closed his mouth.
Before long, he muttered in a sunken voice.
“……She will slowly melt away and disappear in there.”
Inside his mind, the horrific sight he had seen as a child was replaying again.
The dark-red mist at the edge of the forest, vomiting out 200 people’s worth of skeletons in a clattering heap.
“God damn it!”
With Veil’s curse as the last sound, a terrible silence fell over the armory hall.
* * *
“Ow ow.”
Meanwhile, Astie opened her eyes somewhere dark.
And immediately frowned at the pain she felt in her bottom.
“That huuurt……”
It was not only her bottom.
For some reason, her waist and back ached too.
Tie first got to her feet and looked around with a frightened face.
“Where is this……?”
At that moment, plop, a cold raindrop fell on her cheek.
When she raised her head, dark thunderclouds covered the entire sky.
Rumble-
And then, with a terrifying crash of thunder, the rain began coming down harder.
Honk-!
At that moment, the loud sound of a horn rang in her ears.
As she stepped back, an old gray car shot right past the tip of her nose.
Tie wiped the muddy water dripping from her cheek with a flustered face.
Then, after looking around, she muttered in disbelief.
“Jongno District……?”
A rainy night street.
The place where Tie was now standing was unmistakably the Republic of Korea.
Splash, and then another splash.
Every time she took a step, the muddy water in the street made a splashing sound.
Trying to ignore the sound, Tie murmured in a voice that was already shrinking away.
“Chocolate, pizzaa…… fried chickennn……”
But no matter how many delicious foods she listed, the fear did not disappear.
And for good reason, because a truly chilling scene had been unfolding before Tie’s eyes for some time now.
Rusty iron gates tossed about along the roadside, buildings with bare cement showing.
Broken windows and flooded roads, and even cars occasionally driving down the street with no one in the driver’s seat.
“Sweet tomatoes…… Vienna sausage…… meat, dumpliiings……”
The voice that had stubbornly continued slowly started getting smaller at last.
“Mister Basto……”
Wiping away the tears starting to leak out, Tie called for Basto.
“Oppa Veil! Grandpa Nordix!”
But once again, no answer came back.
The only thing she heard was the pounding sound of the torrential rain.
Staring blankly at the muddy water that had risen to her calves, Tie sniffled and turned around.
Behind her, the street she had come through stretched away without end.
Bzzzt-
At that instant, a crackling sound came from behind her.
Startled, she saw a red light flashing from atop an unattended street stall some distance away.
“What is that……?”
Looking more closely, it was a radio sitting there all by itself.
The frightened Tie took one step backward.
[Cur- current…… influence……]
Then, after blinking red a few times, the radio crackled and began giving a weather forecast.
[-Due to the current influence of the typhoon, heavy-rain advisories have been issued for most areas of the country. Strong rain and wind are expected…… and in the central region, heavy rain of 100 mm per hour is expected……]
Tie’s face darkened.
“A typhoon……?”
Rain, thunder, lightning.
And on top of that, a typhoon.
An empty night street and a crackling radio.
Her body trembled, and she swallowed hard on her own.
Because every single one of these things were things Tie was afraid of.