Chapter 20

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Tracking Dayeoden was not all that difficult. That was because traces he had left behind could be seen everywhere. There were corpses of demonic beasts that ruled the desert scattered all around. Every corpse had been hideously mutilated or completely shattered and strewn apart. Dayeoden had butchered every demonic beast that lay in his path. It was power so immense it denied common sense itself. Thanks to that, Zeon was safe from the threat of demonic beasts.

“Just how strong is he? S-rank?”

Zeon soon shook his head. He could not know for certain because he had never seen one directly, but it did not feel like even S-rank Awakened could display this kind of power.

In truth, even Neo Seoul’s S-rank Awakened were reluctant to act alone in the desert.

The desert close to Neo Seoul was one thing, but traveling the distant desert alone was something even S-rank Awakened feared.

And yet Dayeoden had been doing exactly that since long ago.

He roamed the desert alone and faced countless demonic beasts.

He did not fear demonic beasts.

If anything, the demonic beasts feared him.

Zeon had never seen an Awakened like this before.

“An Awakened above S-rank? Do the leaders of Neo Seoul know this fact?”

He was genuinely curious.

Whether Neo Seoul’s leaders knew of Dayeoden, and if they did, just how they reacted to him.

Dayeoden was, in many ways, a being who surpassed common sense.

That was when it happened.

Smoke rose in the far distance within Zeon’s sight.

From the place where the sky and horizon met, a single column of smoke was rising into the heavens.

There was no need to confirm it with his own eyes.

That was where Dayeoden was.

Zeon poured mana into his body and increased his speed.

Srrrk!

His body crossed the desert as though gliding.

After running like that for more than thirty minutes, Zeon finally reached an oasis.

It was not one of those shifting oases like the one where he had encountered the sand fangler before, but an oasis fixed in one place.

Places like that had no sand fanglers living in them, making them ideal as bases or villages.

And it was because of that that the village of the Desert Elves had come into being.

The small village painstakingly built by the Desert Elves had been destroyed beyond recognition, and chunks of flesh that were clearly once elves were strewn everywhere.

The moment he saw the horrific sight spread before his eyes, Zeon’s mouth fell open.

“Crazy…”

The arms and legs scattered all over looked like the broken remains of toys smashed apart by angry children.

Every bit of this had been done by Dayeoden alone.

Zeon hurriedly searched for Dayeoden.

Finding him was not difficult.

He was standing not very far from where Zeon was.

In front of Dayeoden, a middle-aged man who looked like an elf knelt with a young girl clutched in his arms.

The middle-aged elf was weeping and pleading.

Though Zeon could not hear the words, the atmosphere made it obvious that he was begging for the girl’s life.

The girl still looked very young.

Her real age was unknown, but in human terms she looked no older than around twelve.

Zeon did not think Dayeoden would truly harm a child elf.

No matter how great the grudge one bore, killing someone who had not yet reached adulthood was a kind of taboo.

Puhwahaak!

But as if mocking Zeon’s expectations, Dayeoden cut down both the middle-aged elf and the young elf girl in a single stroke.

The blood that sprayed from their bodies dyed Dayeoden red.

The moment he saw that sight, the thread of reason in Zeon’s head snapped with a clean crack.

“Hey, you damned old man!”

Having lost his reason, Zeon shouted.

At once, the sand rose like a wave and crashed down upon Dayeoden.

An enormous quantity of sand pressed down as though it would crush Dayeoden to death.

Then, from Dayeoden’s whole body, a blood-red force exploded outward.

Kwaaaang!

The red light blew away both the sand and Zeon in an instant.

When Zeon came to his senses after tumbling across the ground, the first thing he saw was Dayeoden’s legs.

Lifting his head, he saw Dayeoden looking down at him.

His eyes still held that same savage light.

Zeon did not avoid his gaze and glared right back at him.

“Aren’t you ashamed, killing a child who hasn’t even grown yet?”

“A child?”

“She was a young girl.”

“Even so, she was probably older than you.”

“That…”

Crack!

In that instant, Dayeoden drove his foot down onto Zeon’s back.

Under the crushing pressure, as though a giant boulder were bearing down on him, Zeon’s face turned bright red.

It felt as though his spine and ribs would shatter apart, and he could not breathe.

Grrrk!

The breastplate made from the queen wolf ant’s shell screamed as though it might break at any moment.

“Ggh!”

Zeon struggled desperately to free himself from beneath Dayeoden’s foot. But no matter how much he fought, Dayeoden’s foot did not move.

“Yaaah!”

Thrashing, Zeon unleashed Sand Blaster.

Boom, boom!

Sand Blaster struck Dayeoden squarely. But though it was the very same Sand Blaster that had burst open wolf ant heads, Dayeoden did not even flinch after taking it head-on.

Dayeoden pressed down even harder on Zeon’s chest.

“Kuhk!”

Zeon spat blood.

Dayeoden silently looked down at him.

It was not the gaze full of madness from a moment ago.

It was a sunken gaze of such depth that it seemed impossible to measure.

It was hard to believe that this was the same gaze of the man who had just slaughtered elves in a frenzy.

Then he loosened the pressure of the foot on Zeon’s chest slightly and asked, “Do you think I’ve gone too far?”

“You… didn’t have to kill a child too, did you?”

“And why should a child be spared? Just because she’s young? Because other people say so? That brat grows up and becomes an enemy.”

“But…”

“Those elf bastards are a race that cannot be trusted. To save themselves, they ruined the world of others. And you’re saying they should be spared just because they’re young? Don’t make me laugh. Those things have no value in living. I will kill those bug-like creatures every time I see them from now on as well.”

“…”

“Do you want to say I’m wrong? Do you want to stop me? Then stop me with your strength, not your mouth. Understand? You mouthy idiot.”

Dayeoden lifted his foot from Zeon’s chest.

“Kuhk! Kuh-heok!”

Zeon coughed violently.

His eyes were bloodshot red.

If Dayeoden had pressed only a little harder, not only the capillaries in his eyes but his heart and organs too would have burst.

Zeon had known from the start that he was no match for Dayeoden.

He had never even considered them as comparable.

Because he had thought of Dayeoden as a star high up in the heavens, far beyond where his hands could ever reach.

But now his thoughts had changed.

‘I’ll become as strong as Dayeoden. No, stronger.’

He wanted to become strong enough to say what had to be said.

Rather than cowering like a wretched dog like this.

For the first time in his life, Zeon now had a clear goal.

That goal was Dayeoden.

Zeon set becoming stronger than him as his task.

***

Zeon searched through the elf village.

It was to see whether perhaps there might be any survivors.

But there was not a single elf who had survived Dayeoden’s hands.

Of every lifeform living in the elf village, Dayeoden had left not one alive.

The sight of more than a hundred elves reduced to lumps of flesh made bile rise in his throat.

At the same time, a question came to him.

He remembered what Dayeoden had said.

‘They ruined the world of others in order to save themselves? Then does that mean the elves also bear responsibility for how the world ended up like this?’

If that were true, then Dayeoden’s rage was understandable.

Zeon himself had been born after the world was already ruined.

That was why he knew nothing of the previous world.

Most of the people now living in Neo Seoul were the same.

Though it remained in records, because they had not seen it directly, they could not truly feel how radiant and prosperous that former age had been.

But Dayeoden had been born into that previous world.

He had seen that age, and the process by which it was destroyed, with his own eyes.

The sense of loss and fury he must have felt in that process might, perhaps, have been only natural.

“Hoo.”

Zeon let out a sigh.

Dayeoden was alone far beyond the elf village.

To him, remaining even for a moment in the elf village was unbearable.

Simply breathing the same air the elves had breathed was, to Dayeoden, little different from torture.

Zeon looked around the elves’ village.

Their dwellings were clay-like houses made from hardened sand.

Given the nature of the desert, where there was no way to obtain proper building materials, it was probably an unavoidable choice.

It was only because they had an oasis beside them that they had been able to survive until now.

Without even that, the elves would have died out long ago.

Zeon entered one of the few houses that was still mostly intact.

The inside of the house was quite plain.

There were only the things absolutely necessary for daily life.

But the style of the objects was not one Zeon had seen in Neo Seoul.

They somehow carried the patina of long years and gave off an antique air.

They must have been objects the elves had brought with them from the beginning.

Bows and arrows, beautiful accessories, and robes caught his eye.

Zeon examined the objects one by one.

“These definitely aren’t things made recently.”

What drew his attention most was an extremely old book.

Characters of unknown meaning were written in it.

It was surely something the elves had brought from the world they originally came from.

Zeon stored the book, along with the other objects, in subspace for the time being.

They were not things he personally needed, but if sold, they would surely bring in money.

Zeon put every useful object he could find into subspace.

While searching through the house, he discovered a small storeroom hidden behind a wall.

As he peered into the storeroom, Zeon’s face twisted.

That was because everything stacked inside belonged to humans.

Unlike the elves’ antique styles, these had efficient designs and materials.

Most things made in Neo Seoul had exactly this style.

There was blood on the items that clearly belonged to humans.

“These bastards. They robbed travelers.”

There was no way elves hostile to humans had obtained these items in exchange for proper payment.

It was obvious that they had attacked passing humans and stolen their belongings.

Until just moments ago, Zeon had still felt a slight sense of guilt toward the elves Dayeoden had killed.

Now, even that was cleanly gone.

These were scavengers, only with a different appearance.

There was no way they had stolen the items and left the people alive.

To keep their secrets safe, they must surely have killed the humans and silenced them.

Judging from how many items were here, the number of people they had killed was likely enormous.

“They killed a lot of people.”

Shaking his head, Zeon searched through the storeroom.

It was to see if there were any items he might need.

But the elves must have already used up everything worthwhile, because only junk remained.

Even if he took things like this, they would only become extra baggage.

Zeon cleanly gave up and went back outside.

He searched a few more houses, but once again, there was nothing useful.

Zeon raised his control over sand.

At once, the sand all around the area shifted and rolled.

Ssssss.

The sand writhed and covered the entire village.

The broken houses and the elves’ corpses all vanished beneath the sand.

In an instant, a fairly large village became a single grave.

Even so, no trace remained.

Unlike ordinary soil, desert sand left no mark even when shifted or piled over something.

Now, even if someone stumbled upon this oasis by chance, they would never know elves had once lived there.

After filling his water skins with the oasis water, Zeon approached Dayeoden.

By then, the long night had passed and the sun was shining over the desert.

Without saying so much as a word, Dayeoden began walking.

Zeon followed behind him in silence.