Chapter 228
『Translator: RainTL』
༺ Northern Walls (4)༻
At the center of the city was a temporary accommodation constructed thanks to the cooperation of 30 mages, where the members of Korin Guardians were staying.
It was finally time for a little break and a meal after a long and arduous day of hard work. Enjoying the high-class tea purchased from the capital, Alicia was babbling about what she experienced during the day.
“The planks that were placed on the walls suddenly started falling down. It almost ended up hurting a bunch of people but—”
She was essentially bragging about how she saved a bunch of people that were in danger. The person sitting on the other side of the table was Marie, who was nibbling on boiled potatoes with her eyes blankly gazing at the rippling surface of her tea cup.
The ripple on the surface of the tea, by the way, was due to her quivering hands.
“Marie-sunbae?”
“...”
Noticing that she wasn’t really focused on the conversation, Alicia found it strange and asked for her attention, since she was usually the nice kind of person who would say, ‘I see!’ and ‘Well done!’ to commend her for her actions.
“Sunbae? Sunbae!”
“H, huh? Huh?!”
Marie woke up from her stupor with a flinch.
“Are you okay?” Alicia worriedly asked. “You seem out of it today.”
“Y, yeah… A, actually…”
Her mind was preoccupied by the conversation between Hua Ran and Josephine that she overheard from the side.
‘Pregnant? Hua Ran? There’s no way. I must have misheard it.’
It was that Hua Ran we were talking about. It was a different story for Ran, but Hua? Really?
It had to be a misunderstanding. Marie constantly told herself that she must have heard it wrong.
It was then.
– Creak!
They turned towards the entrance and found Hua Ran walking in with an indifferent look on her face.
“Hua Ran-ssi! Are you done with your night shift?” Alicia asked.
“Un.”
Hua gave the usual curt response, oblivious to Marie staring deeply at her with a gulp.
“Did you eat already?” Hua Ran asked.
“Yes. There is a set time when dinner is served so we ended up eating ahead of time.”
“Okay. I’m just going to sleep… Actually.”
She suddenly stopped her feet and changed her mind, which was a rare thing for her to do.
“Are there… beans?”
“W, why beans?”
“I heard it’s good for the baby… I mean, body.”
“...!”
W, what did I hear just then? Marie was doubting her ears, refusing to believe what she heard, when something dropped on the ground with a bump.
A cylindrical container was rolling towards them.
“Hua Ran-ssi. You dropped somethi—”
Alicia picked it up and was in the middle of reminding Hua Ran but… she couldn’t help but pause after realizing what it was.
“Hnn? Baby milk?”
Swallowing the burning question of ‘Why’, Alicia threw a glance at Hua Ran. She calmed herself down as much as possible before asking the inevitable question.
“Umm… Hua Ran-ssi? What is this?”
“Baby milk dispenser. I bought it nearby.”
“Uhh… Was there a baby among the orphans?”
“No?”
Then why…?
Before Alicia could ask that question, Hua walked towards Marie, who was trembling like there was no tomorrow.
“Marie.”
“Y, yeah?”
“Do you have breast milk?”
“Huh?”
Both Alicia and Marie were lost for words from that sudden and completely unexpected question.
“W, why are you asking that?”
It was a blunder. She was supposed to reply, ‘No’, but the sudden question added to the blocks of doubt made her inquire the reason instead.
“...I heard breast milk was better than powder milk. You look like you have a lot of milk.”
“H, huh? Huh? Like…”
So why do you need it? Why!?
Hua mumbled, ‘Is there none in there?’ before turning around and walking away.
“Umm… uhh…”
At this point, even Alicia was able to tell what was going on.
…
…
The living room without Hua Ran remained silent for a very long time, with two people glancing at one another the whole time.
****
“Fuu~. Done on this end.”
Erin Danua was a person with incomparable loftiness, perseverance and diligence.
Ever since her arrival at the city, she had been zealously engraving runes all over the walls without taking a single rest. In total, they amounted to more than a hundred thousand runes.
“I want to see Korin~”
She had been so busy these past few days that she hadn’t been able to see Korin. Korin and herself were the only rune mages in the entire city, and Korin was busy keeping the Sun up whilst dealing with the nearby demonic beasts, so Erin had to engrave the runes in his stead in preparation for the upcoming monster waves.
‘It’s time for the valkyries to arrive as well.’
The most ideal turn of events would be Erin coming to contact with them before anything else. A confrontation between the anti-Tates tribes of the Northern Kingdom and the kingdom’s army had to be kept at a minimum casualty.
“Clara. We are done here. Can you teleport me to the other side?”
“...”
“Clara?”
“Ah… yes! W, what was that again?”
Erin stopped for a while, upon seeing that Josephine was a bit all over the place.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“N… No! Nothing!”
Her actions were much more exaggerated than usual. As a 100-year-long acquaintance, Erin was able to see through that disparity in an instant.
“Something did happen, huh.”
“Ugh…”
Similarly, Josephine knew that she wouldn’t be able to deceive her. Seeing the warm and benevolent light in her eyes, Josephine felt her heart ache for some reason.
“Tell me. I might be able to help you.”
‘No… I don’t think you should know about it though…’ Josephine swallowed those words back in.
“Uhh…” she replied. “I’m pondering whether I should act as your friend… or as an educator…”
As someone who hoped for the best of Erin’s love, Josephine wanted to share the information as quickly as possible, but at the same time, she was Korin and Hua Ran’s teacher. It felt like it would be going against her moral standards to talk about their sensitive relationship without their consent.
“That is an interesting thing to be troubled about. Go with the latter,” Erin suggested.
“Uhh… Is that okay?”
“Of course. We are the teachers of those children. We have the duty to choose what is best for them.”
She said that with such a benevolent smile on her face that it was painful for Josephine.
****
The northern regions of the current kingdom, was originally an uninhabited land.
The lands were full of gravel, making it impossible to farm, and there was also the constant downpour of barbarians and demons.
It was none other than the El Rath Kingdom, which forced its inhabitants to those harsh, under-developed lands of the north. They were essentially serving the role of a meat shield, staying there for the safety of the entire kingdom.
However, despite the amount of money and manpower they were willing to put in, conquering the north was not an easy feat.
In the end, the barbarians even formed a union called the ‘Northern Kingdom’ to stand up against them, and after several failed attempts and fruitless ventures, the El Rath Kingdom soon gave up after building the ‘great wall’.
The kingdom neglected the north, which eventually gave birth to more demons.
The Frost Walker.
Talons of Northern Wind.
The Great Bear.
Those three were the infamous demonic beasts residing in the north of the great wall.
Although Beyon had been drinking his days away in these remote lands of the harsh winter, he had long heard of how monstrous the so-called 3 great demons were. One of his memories of them was based on that one time when he witnessed one of them from a distance in the middle of a rare expedition to a nearby nest of demons.
- KUWOOOOOOOOO—!
[B, Boss. It’s here! That’s the Frost Walker!]
[We have to run!]
Back then, Beyon had been fully confident that he could slice any of the three demons to pieces the moment he saw them.
However, the moment he faced them in real life, he realized how stupid he had been.
The Frost Walker was a real monster.
Telling himself that, he ordered his group a full retreat without even thinking of fighting it.
- KUWOOOOOOOO!
And yet that monster – one of those horrifying 3 great demons…
“Vanguards, hold your ground. Mages, attack one group at a time.”
“Don’t push yourselves! You can fall back if you don’t think you can take it!”
It was being hunted.
The hunter was being hunted one-sidedly before the overwhelming might of the guardians.
“There’s nothing they can do before a number’s game.”
Even the War Mammoth, Frost Walker, which trampled on everything with each of its steps—
The Talons of Northern Wind, which camouflaged in the snowy lands with its white fur, to hunt humans—
“GUWOOOO…!”
“Sir Korin! Be carefu—”
- Kwakk!
“UWOO?”
And even the Great Bear, which could shred half-giants to pieces with its overwhelming strength…
“I need your hide, so I’ll be gentle. Don’t worry.”
“UWO?”
- Kaduk!
The monsters, who had been protecting their territories with full confidence in their own might, were crumbling down one by one before the true display of power.
****
The hunt of named demonic beasts around the walls ended without an issue.
The three named demonic beasts of the north, that were supposed to wreak havoc in the kingdom along with the monster wave, were a tough foe to beat even with a maxed out party.
However, they still stood no chance before hundreds of knights and legions of mages.
“With that, we’re done dealing with all the dangerous ones.”
The white snowy plains were filled with the dead bodies of the monsters. Their innards were frozen and the stinky scent of fresh blood was the only remaining sign that they had been alive just moments ago.
[Battlefront Flag Bearer]
- You are the symbol of the battlefield. You are the brightest flag bearer of every war, and a central figure that must not fall.
- You will be at the center of attention during a war. Your stats will change depending on your ally’s faith.
- All your allies will become psychologically anxious if you fall.
※ You have reached 60% of Attention. All of your stats have increased by 20%.
Right. It was about time for this passive skill to finally get to work.
This was one of the reasons why I was leading the monster hunt myself. Becoming the center of attention in a battlefield, the player would shoulder the hope and admiration of the ones behind them to become stronger.
That was the nature of the passive ability, [Battlefront Flag Bearer], and was one of the top passive skills aside from [Precepts], which wasn’t a part of the game.
‘I’ll be getting stronger the more active a role I play in a battlefield.’
Beating the Great Bear 1-on-1 in a battle of pure strength increased the Attention gauge by 20%. This was probably the reason why Park Sihu had intentionally done those eye-catching actions in large-scale battles.
“Boss. Can I ask a question,” asked Dorron after walking up. It was obvious what he was going to ask so I replied without even waiting for it.
“Cut out the hide and share it among everyone to weather the cold. You can make sure it’s split up equally.”
“I love how you treat the lower-ones like us so well, Boss.”
“Leave the by-products from the Great Bear and the Talons of Northern Winter. I need them for something.”
“What about the War Mammoth, Frost Walker?”
“Deal with it however you want.”
There were over 3,000 demons that we hunted today. Sharing them up equally would amount to quite a lot of profit for everyone.
They had to make use of this time well, because this was the only time we could spend gathering up the remains of the monsters. We won’t even be able to leave the gates once the monster wave actually begun.
“You can head back first, Boss. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Enjoying the special right of a higher-up, I left the chores to everyone else and headed back to the city.
“Fuu~. Quite exhausting.”
It has been a week since I’ve held the Sun up in the air, and I even had to go hunt demonic beasts. However, it was all worthwhile because all that was left was to meet the valkyries. I decided to take a rest until then.
I limped my way back to our accommodation, and laid down on the tough wooden bed in my room.
“...”
Despite it being not even remotely close in terms of comfort to the elegant bed we had back in the office… I fell asleep straight away.
I entered a very deep sleep.
****
These past few days, Hua and Ran learned everything about raising a baby under Josephine.
They bought toys that the baby would use to play as well as food that was easy to digest.
Apparently, it seemed that breast milk was better than powdered milk. They could find a nanny but the best would be the mother breast-feeding the baby.
But there was a problem.
[Would there be enough milk coming out from our breasts?]
The two of them were concerned whether their breasts would be sufficient enough to feed a baby.
Compared to the peers of her age, it wasn’t like Hua Ran was incredibly slow in growth or anything, but the only comparable people she had near her were Marie and Alicia.
Especially Marie’s breasts were so big that it sometimes made her wonder whether those were that of a human or a cow, so it certainly wasn’t a healthy comparison for her.
The two had a vague assumption that bigger breasts would equal more milk.
[We are perfectly prepared. Tonight is the night.]
“Un.”
They were ready to raise a baby – all they needed to do now was have one. Who could have guessed that there were storks in this area?
These past few days, Hua Ran was able to confirm that neither Marie nor Alicia had noticed the existence of storks.
They were fools. They were wasting this perfect opportunity.
Hua and Ran scoffed internally at their love rivals, who didn’t even know about the storks in this area that would be carrying the babies to them.
- Creak!
She walked up the stairs in large strides.
Hua Ran had spent several nights with Korin hand-in-hand already. Korin should know what that meant, so he shouldn’t be surprised by it either.
Tonight; in this city, often visited by storks…
[We will hold his hands to sleep.]
“Un.”
After spending the night like that… a stork will surely be bringing them a beautiful baby.
- Click!
Normally, Hua Ran would have knocked on the door, but she was slightly more nervous today and opened the door abruptly without even a knock.
“Korin. Today, can we also—”
The moment she entered the room, she found a brown-haired girl trying to squeeze her way in through the window…
“...Woof?”
And inside the room was a large red dog carrying the sleeping Korin on its shoulders, as well as a girl with water-colored hair, frozen stiff on the spot with her eyes wide open.
“...”
“...”
“...”
In the middle of the night.
With everyone else asleep.
The three criminals trespassing the room of a single man awkwardly stared at each other in silence.
“Woof.”
Doggo summed up what was happening in one simple sentence.
What a clown fiesta.