The Scorched Desert's Sand Mage (Novel) - Chapter 123

Chapter 123

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Aleksandro was furious. The reason he had led the caravan all the way to this distant place was to conduct fair trade. The goods he had brought were as good as the lifeline of the people of Akutsk Colony. And Kim Jae-gyeong and Brixton had tried to seize those precious goods through a skill called brainwashing. It was an act he could never forgive.

“I’ll kill you.”

Bang!

His fist slammed into Brixton’s chest.

“Kuh!”

In an instant, Brixton’s face twisted. That was because a tremendous shock had struck his whole body.

If the heavy armor had not protected him, his chest bones would have been completely caved in.

It was truly incredible force.

Aleksandro’s attack was not over yet.

“Hyaaat!”

Another fierce strike followed immediately.

Brixton hurriedly swung his hammer.

Bang!

His fist and the hammer collided, and a metallic sound burst out.

Brixton’s body slid backward, while Aleksandro’s huge frame jolted.

One side was holding a weapon called a hammer, while the other was using his bare fist.

And yet it was the one holding the hammer who was pushed backward.

It was clear who was above and who was below.

But Brixton could not accept it.

“A desert merchant being stronger than me? Don’t be ridiculous.”

In that instant, the black in his eyes began disappearing.

It was the phenomenon that occurred when his skill, Berserker, activated.

Once Berserker fully activated, his offensive power rose to more than double for a moment.

In exchange, he completely lost his reason and could no longer distinguish friend from foe.

He had to be stopped before that happened.

Kim Jae-gyeong shouted, “You idiot. Don’t activate your skill. This is the time to withdraw.”

But her cry came too late.

The black had completely vanished from Brixton’s eyes, and the whites were bloodshot red throughout.

His Berserker skill had fully activated.

“I’ll kill you.”

Having lost his reason, Brixton charged at Aleksandro with terrifying momentum.

Bang!

With a thunderous impact, this time Aleksandro was pushed backward.

Anger appeared on Aleksandro’s face at having taken the worse end of the exchange.

It was just as he was about to fight with his full strength.

“Step back.”

A youthful voice entered Aleksandro’s ears.

The moment he heard it, Aleksandro retreated at once without even thinking.

Then that same youthful voice rang out again.

“Direction Disturb.”

A red light shot down onto Brixton’s body.

Having lost his reason, Brixton failed to avoid the light and was fully engulfed by it.

At that instant, Brixton’s senses were thrown into confusion.

Though the opponent was clearly right before him, he could no longer judge how to approach him.

A skill that disrupted an opponent’s senses and threw them into confusion.

For someone like Brixton, who had entered a Berserker state and could no longer make proper judgments, the effect was multiplied.

The more Brixton tried to attack Aleksandro, the farther away he ended up getting.

“Captain.”

“Goddamn it.”

The warriors who had come with Brixton called out anxiously, but by then he had already gone outside the fortress.

Kim Jae-gyeong shouted, “Everyone, retreat.”

In the end, the Dongdaemun Awakened suffered heavy losses and escaped the caravan.

“Those sons of bitches.”

“Khaaak. Ptooey.”

The White Bear Caravan Awakened, having won the fight, gasped for breath and spat on the ground.

Even after winning, their anger had not subsided.

The one who soothed them, unexpectedly, was the young-looking handsome youth.

“Good work, everyone. Let’s all calm down. We expected a certain amount of trouble like this anyway.”

In an instant, the White Bear Caravan Awakened regained their reason as if someone had cast a spell over them.

That was one of the powers the boy possessed.

Among the White Bear Caravan Awakened, he was the youngest, yet he was the one who felt more dependable and trustworthy than anyone else.

The boy’s name was Damian.

Aleksandro walked over to Damian and patted him on the shoulder.

“Good work.”

“It was nothing. Not even a big deal.”

Damian smiled, revealing his white teeth.

“You know you always make us feel secure, right? I hope you continue guiding us well from here on too.”

“People will get the wrong idea if they hear that. You’re the leader of our caravan, Captain.”

“But everyone knows the one truly guiding it is you. Without you, we wouldn’t even have made it here.”

“Don’t say that. There are other people here too.”

“All right.”

Only then did Aleksandro remember that there were others inside the caravan.

Aleksandro’s gaze turned toward Zeon’s group, who were watching from one side.

Naturally, Damian’s gaze followed his.

The moment Damian looked at Zeon’s group, his eyes widened.

“Hyung?”

That sudden title came out of Damian’s mouth.

“Hyung? What are you talking about?”

Aleksandro, who was beside him, asked, but Damian did not answer.

Or rather, he could not.

That was because his gaze was fixed on Zeon.

Zeon opened his mouth.

“So it was you, Damian.”

“It really is you, hyung. I thought I was seeing things, but it really was you.”

“I thought I was seeing a mirage too. You appeared way too suddenly.”

“Haha.”

Damian burst out laughing.

It was laughter that came from both joy and disbelief.

He had truly never imagined he would see Zeon here.

He knew that Zeon was from Neo Seoul.

But Zeon had been wandering the world, and there had been no telling when he might return to Neo Seoul.

Naturally, Damian had never expected he would meet Zeon.

Because it was a meeting he had never expected at all, it felt both strange and welcome.

Zeon walked over to Damian.

“You’ve grown a lot.”

“It’s already been seven years.”

“You’ve changed a lot.”

“Really? Everyone says I look the same.”

“That’s not how it looks to me.”

“Then I guess your view is the accurate one. Anyway, I’m really glad we got to see each other like this. When did you come back to Neo Seoul?”

“Not long ago.”

“I see. That’s why I didn’t know.”

Damian nodded to himself.

At that moment, Aleksandro stepped up beside Damian.

“Won’t you introduce him to me as well?”

“Ah. This is the hyung I told you about once before, the one I met in the desert seven years ago.”

“Ah, so it’s that person. It’s a pleasure. I am Aleksandro Purchenko, captain of the White Bear Caravan.”

“I’m Zeon.”

Aleksandro and Zeon shook hands.

Aleksandro sharply looked over Zeon’s whole body, but he did not find anything particularly unusual.

Damian asked Zeon, “Did you come to buy goods too?”

“I just came along because this one wanted to look around.”

Zeon pointed toward Brielle, who was standing with Eaton’s group.

Then Brielle walked over to Zeon and greeted him.

“I’m Brielle. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. But somehow, you don’t feel like an ordinary person.”

“What?”

“Just a feeling….”

“You don’t look ordinary either.”

“Then I guess it’s the same for both of us?”

Damian smirked.

By contrast, Brielle glared at Damian with eyes full of wariness.

Fortunately, her gaze was hidden by her pointed hat.

‘This guy is strange.’

She was a High Elf.

Though the drugs had dulled her senses greatly, the instinct unique to a High Elf was still alive.

She sensed something strangely unpleasant from Damian.

As a High Elf, there was almost no chance she was mistaken.

At that moment, Damian said to Aleksandro, “Captain, just open up to the third floor for these people. If there’s anything they need, give it to them first. I’ll take responsibility.”

“Understood. I’ll do that.”

Aleksandro nodded.

Zeon said to Brielle, “I’ll talk with this guy for a bit, so you go look around and see if there’s anything useful.”

“Be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Damian. I have a bad feeling about him.”

“All right.”

When Zeon nodded, Brielle went off at a quick pace.

Zeon said to Damian, “Want to walk a bit?”

“Sure.”

The two of them left the fortress together and walked out onto the sand.

The first to speak was Zeon.

“You came from Akutsk Colony?”

“As you know, I couldn’t go back to Kamchatka Colony. So I had to find another colony.”

Damian was from Kamchatka Colony.

His father, Belof, had operated a caravan out of Kamchatka Colony, and Damian had grown up there.

But Belof had lured Dayeoden and Zeon into a trap because of threats from the other races, and then he was killed by the other races.

There was no way Damian could return to Kamchatka Colony.

In the end, Damian had to find a colony other than Kamchatka Colony.

Damian wandered the desert alone.

And after wandering for several months, the place he barely managed to reach was Akutsk.

When Damian arrived, Akutsk had been broken beyond all hope.

Under the constant attacks of demonic beasts, the wall was on the verge of collapse, and they lacked food, weapons, and spirit.

The fall of Akutsk Colony was only a matter of time.

At that time, the one who offered a solution was Damian.

He operated a caravan to trade with other colonies and brought the materials obtained that way back into Akutsk.

It sounded simple enough, but the process had been harsh beyond words.

There were almost no people willing to trust a boy who looked so unimpressive.

On top of that, the boy had not even been born in Akutsk.

Naturally, people distrusted Damian.

The only person who trusted him then was Aleksandro, the captain of the White Bear Caravan.

At the time, Aleksandro was the head of the vigilante force that protected the colony from the attacks of demonic beasts.

Even when everyone else despaired, he kept fighting the demonic beasts without letting go of hope.

Believing that someone would surely find a breakthrough.

The one who appeared then was Damian.

Everyone thought Damian’s words were nonsense, but for some reason, Aleksandro trusted what he said.

In the end, Aleksandro built a caravan together with Damian, and that was the beginning of the White Bear Caravan.

Damian showed astonishing ability.

Even in a desert where a compass did not work, he could accurately find the way.

And he sensed the movements of the demonic beasts in advance, letting them avoid danger.

He had awakened perfectly as a navigator.

His ability grew stronger and stronger as time passed.

In the end, he succeeded in finding another surviving colony far from Akutsk Colony.

“To be honest, the first time was hard. After that, it wasn’t that difficult. Fortunately, that colony had quite a few things we needed, and the things from our side were helpful to them too.”

After the first trade succeeded, trust in Damian rose dramatically.

The White Bear Caravan rapidly expanded in size, and along with it, the environment of Akutsk Colony improved even further.

The walls grew higher, and weapons to counter the attacks of demonic beasts were placed atop them.

The residents became safer, and their lives gained a little breathing room.

“Once it got to that point, I wanted to expand the scale of trade a little more. That’s when Neo Seoul came to mind. If I could open up trade with Neo Seoul, I thought Akutsk could grow even more.”

“It couldn’t have been easy getting here.”

“It really wasn’t. The route to Neo Seoul was on a completely different level of danger.”

“I can imagine.”

Zeon nodded.

Near Neo Seoul, there were no demonic beasts.

But once one went beyond the range affected by the anti-demonic force, that changed completely.

There were countless demonic beasts swarming there.

Among them were monstrous demonic beasts even high-rank Awakened could not handle.

Finding a safe path through the threat of all those demonic beasts was close to impossible.

And yet, the boy who had made the impossible possible was standing right before him.

Damian was smiling as he looked at Zeon.

And that smile felt oddly ominous.