165 – The Artisan’s Promise – 4

Gi-jun was dumbfounded upon hearing the overly innovative notion that a being who had reached the legendary rank might run away.

Even as he poured spiritual power into Ur to expand the domain of flames the creature ruled over, he shook his head.

“No, but it’s still a Divine Beast.”

Gi-jun still could not forget the majestic presence of the Divine Beast that had appeared as if to cover the entire sky inside the wolf’s ruins and swallowed the moon.

“Anyway, it seems to be true that the guy has started moving, Hyung.”

“But you’re saying he doesn’t seem to be coming here.”

“I’ve lost track of his movements now as well—probably.”

“I don’t know how long he has been staying here, but if he took up position in the volcano so sneakily without anyone knowing, it wouldn’t be hard for him to sneak away just as easily.”

Tilla seemed to think that Nabinya’s words held some realism.

She continued speaking as she swung a whip of fire, tearing to shreds the lava and wolves that were lower in rank than her own.

“If he intentionally triggered the overflow, it’s certainly a convincing argument, isn’t it? Just look at us right now.”

With just the strength of two people, Gi-jun and Tilla, nearly half of the fire wolves rushing toward the city from all directions were being smashed to pieces.

The other Summoned and Letans, who had prepared themselves for a grueling battle, were able to stably maintain the front line thanks to the terrifying performance shown by the two elite members of the Lumen party, and they occasionally looked back at them as if looking at monsters.

But conversely, it meant that if those two left now, a massive hole would be punched in the battlefield.

“‘He was trembling in fear from the moment he learned his brother had died. And when he sensed we were coming to catch him, he got scared and caused the overflow. He plans to run away while we are held back…’ Yes, it makes sense.”

“It seems we need to make a decision, Lord Jun.”

“There’s not even anything to decide.”

Gi-jun shrugged his shoulders and replied.

“If we pull out of here, more people will die or get hurt. Catching the Divine Beast is all well and good, but right now we have to stop the overflow. Besides, as long as we have this pass, we can find him again anytime.”

“No, the guy now knows that you can track him, Jun. If I were him, I would find other ways.”

When Tilla flatly denied it, Gi-jun twitched his eyebrows and asked her.

“For example?”

“Like finding an ally and attacking us together. Didn’t you say you failed to kill and lost the legendary-grade vampire who invaded the royal palace recently?”

Teaming up with a vampire to attack Gi-jun was not something a monster would do no matter how one thought about it, but it was also true that a Divine Beast was no ordinary monster.

“That could happen… Yes, but it’s still impossible. We have no choice. Let’s end the overflow as quickly as possible and track him down.”

“Ugh, I knew you would say that, Jun.”

Gi-jun was the kind of person who would choose that path without hesitation if he could save many by taking a loss himself.

As Tilla nodded powerlessly in acceptance, Eun-shin, who had been waiting for a conclusion, wore a determined expression.

He spoke with an attitude as if he had been waiting for this very moment.

“Then I can just go ahead first and hold him off so he can’t run away.”

“Nabinya will go too, nya! Did you know from the beginning that Master wouldn’t move from here, nya?”

While Gi-jun was wondering how he should stop them from their absurd plan of two Rare-grades holding back a Divine Beast, Lora stealthily joined them.

“I will join them. If it’s just buying time until Lord Jun arrives, it should be possible.”

“No, it’s fine if only the two of us go.”

“It will set Lord Jun’s mind at ease more if I join you.”

“By the way, if I use Stealth, will you even be able to follow me properly?”

The two of them clearly stood at odds with each other even while exchanging polite smiles.

However, starting to feel that even the time spent talking like this was a waste, Gi-jun immediately made a decision.

“Alright, then it will be dangerous, but I’ll leave it to the three of you. And Lora, take this.”

“Ah, this is…!”

Lora blinked as she took the sharp thrusting sword—the Estoc—drawn from Gi-jun’s coat.

Since it was the sword that had absorbed half of the Lord of Thorns’s purification alongside her, there was no way she could fail to recognize it.

“What about the evil spirit that was residing inside…?”

“It is still quiet, but the ability of the upgraded sword itself will be enough to reinforce your Blood Power. I think it’s better for you to hold onto it until the evil spirit awakens.”

“…Understood. Then I will borrow it for a short while!”

Clutching the Estoc dearly as if it were Gi-jun himself, Lora hurried Nabinya and Eun-shin.

“Then let’s track him down quickly!”

“This feels like a power-up event… Hyung, I know it’s shameless, but do you happen to have a dagger or something?”

Looking at the beaming Lora with a dubious face, Eun-shin turned to Gi-jun and asked.

At that moment, he uttered the words that could motivate Eun-shin the most.

“Once we catch the Divine Beast this time, I will make you a dagger using its materials.”

“I will hold him down for sure!”

It was super effective!

As Eun-shin kicked off the lava and began to run faster than anyone else, Lora and Nabinya also hurriedly gave chase.

Leaving the battlefield in the midst of a hectic battle raging in all directions would have normally drawn curses from others about a party fleeing, but no one dared to doubt the party members of Gi-jun and Tilla, who were performing spectacularly.

―How unexpected. I thought the contractor would attach me to their side again.

Gi-jun nodded and replied to Lucy, who spoke while watching the backs of the departing three.

“I did ponder it for a bit… but actually, if it’s you, Lucy, you can block him on your own, right?”

―Well, of course. The contractor has finally realized my greatness.

“I knew you were great from the beginning. But if I did that, it would be hard to build up self-confidence in those three.”

Lucy shook her head in disbelief.

―Your way of building confidence is quite extreme.

“They are actually talented kids, aren’t they? But I can’t stop them from doing anything just because it’s dangerous. Besides, I also wanted them to properly experience a battle with a Divine Beast without me and Tilla.”

“You have a mischievous side to you as well, Jun.”

Tilla giggled as she had Rodim sweep the area ahead with his breath.

“Honestly, didn’t you just want to make those kids, who talk so cheekily, realize to their bones how dangerous a Divine Beast is?”

“Hmm.”

Gi-jun closed his eyes gently and recalled the moment he first encountered the Divine Beast.

That overwhelming power, the pressure and thrill that felt as if even the air was freezing…

Nodding slowly, Gi-jun spoke.

“One can only improve after experiencing such things.”

“I knew you would say that.”

Convinced that the three of them wouldn’t die since he had handed over the Estoc as insurance anyway, Tilla poured out her power more actively to sweep away the wolves and picked up the pace.

Imitating her, Gi-jun added Ur’s power to trigger explosions in the center of the wolves ahead while silently scanning the surroundings.

‘As expected… it’s too easy. It’s not just because it is an overflow caused by the Divine Beast. It hasn’t even properly begun yet.’

In truth, Gi-jun had not left Lucy behind just to play a trick on his party members.

The chilling sense of crisis he had felt the moment he sensed the occurrence of the overflow.

That sensation was warning Gi-jun.

That the overflow triggered by mobilizing even the latent power of Uralta’s volcano could not possibly end at this level.

That something more intense—something no one could have imagined—was lurking behind these wolves.

And it revealed itself much faster than he had expected.

[The beast occupying the volcano has vacated its position, and with sufficient heat gathered in the area, the seal on Uralta Volcano has been completely released. The true body of the volcano, which was sealed borrowing a god’s power ages ago, reveals itself once again.]

[The god who protected Uralta is angered by his followers who failed to properly perform the sacrificial ritual, and adds his power to the volcano.]

[The beast occupying the volcano has vacated its position, and with sufficient heat gathered in the area, the seal on Uralta Volcano has been completely released. The true body of the volcano, which was sealed borrowing a god’s power ages ago, reveals itself once again.]

[The god who protected Uralta is angered by his followers who failed to properly perform the sacrificial ritual, and adds his power to the volcano.]

“…Oh my god.”

―Boom!

A terrible explosion echoed from beyond.

Although he really did not want to check, when he had no choice but to lift his head, the lava clouds that had been filling the sky just a moment ago had vanished without a trace.

Instead, lava bursting out from the volcanic crater shot up as if drawing a straight line toward the sky, spreading a massive wave of energy in all directions.

Gi-jun stood aghast with his mouth wide open.

“Wait, hold on… this is.”

“Jun, should we evacuate Glittertoss first?”

“What’s the point when all the other dwarves are about to die?”

It was true that the dwarves had subdued the volcano’s heat with the sacrificial ritual until now.

If the reason the volcano had not run wild immediately despite the failure of the ritual was thanks to the Divine Beast that had settled inside it.

And if, now that the Divine Beast had vacated its spot out of fear of Gi-jun, the timely overflow had caused the heat in the area to boil up endlessly, creating the perfect environment for the volcano to run wild――

―I am getting tired of the situation changing constantly, contractor—so what are we supposed to do now?

“We have to protect it.”

Gi-jun narrowed his eyes as he watched the lava, which was shooting endlessly into the sky, stop at a high altitude and transform into a giant sphere.

Fortunately, thanks to their diligent efforts in repelling the enemies, it was a comfort that the number of wolves rushing toward the city had decreased significantly.

―You have broken the promise.

A low and deeply resonating man’s voice echoed throughout Uralta.

―Now is the time to pay the price, so meet your end together with the volcano, or—

The sphere eventually transformed into an eyeball.

Clearing away the clouds filling the sky all at once, gathering the heat of the area into a single point on the pupil, ‘it’ focused its gaze onto Gi-jun, who was fighting at the front line of Uralta, and declared.

―Offer the hero Jun, the incarnation of the hardest god’s iron in this world—Adamant—to me, and perform the ritual once more.

“Wow, that bastard is openly demanding a living sacrifice.”

“In the end, what we thought when we entered Uralta turned out to be correct, didn’t it? …Though this is not the time to be marveling so calmly.”

Because Gi-jun’s attitude was so nonchalant, even Tilla ended up joining in on his nonsense.

It was the moment that what Gi-jun had been vaguely worrying about from the beginning became a reality.

He had already recognized early on that the gods governing Leta were paying attention to him.

He had even thought that the possibility of the gods descending into Leta in the form of avatars was entirely possible through his conversations with Biche.

Whether that guy was actually Ptah or not, he wouldn’t be a god who had been demanding living sacrifices since the old days.

It was clear that he had seized the opportunity to directly lay his hands on Gi-jun now that all circumstances aligned perfectly, prompting him to reveal himself like that!

“Offer a hero? To a god?”

“What is that, an evil god?”

“Shh, watch your mouth. It’s probably the god the dwarves here worship.”

“Wait, wait… sacrifice that person right now? Then we won’t even be able to stop the overflow, and we’ll all be wiped out.”

“Doesn’t it mean that if we sacrifice the hero, the overflow will stop too?”

“What kind of bullshit is that, seriously? Has a god ever handed down a divine message in this manner in the past?”

“The ritual… the sacrificial ritual!”

While the Summoned, shocked by the absurd situation, stopped fighting and murmured among themselves, one of the dwarves who had come to the front line to fight alongside the Summoned raised his voice.

“To protect Uralta, we must offer a sacrifice! The opportunity to correct our past mistakes has come!”

“So we are going to offer the hero who stepped forward to protect Uralta as a living sacrifice? We cannot do that, that is not the god we worship! That is not Lord Ptah!”

“What blasphemous talk!”

“This overwhelming heat, this divine power! He is without a doubt Lord Ptah!”

If the god had wanted to sow discord in Uralta, his intention worked brilliantly.

However, Gi-jun was not exactly empty-headed either.

He was already prepared to fight against a god.

Rather, he knew that the being was not Ptah.

“Look at this!”

His hand went in and out of his inventory.

The moment they saw what was held in his hand, the breath of every dwarf in Uralta hitched.

As expected of artisans, even though no one had told them, they immediately saw through its identity in an instant.

“You are not Ptah! I am the true representative of Ptah!”

What was held in his hand was a hammer.

Even up to this very moment, it was the sacred relic of Vulcan that was adding power to all the flames Gi-jun manipulated.