Ch.270270. Reunion

Wudududududu!

It was like a drumbeat announcing an advance. A noise that flaunted their presence while intimidating the opponent.

As the blood demons began charging all at once, the trembling ground made everyone above tense.

A cavalry charge of knights.

Watching the hunters rush in, Darius had exactly that impression.

“Move behind the palisade! Defend the palisade at all costs!”

At Darius’s shout, the soldiers moved in perfect unison. They entrusted their bodies to the stacked palisade; they just needed to block the enemy’s charge once.

Even though blood demons were threatening creatures closer to magical beasts than other war horses, a horse was still a horse.

If they failed to break through on their first charge, they would only flounder and die on the spears thrusting up from below.

“Get down! Arrows incoming!”

Some of the hunters were skilled enough to shoot arrows while riding their blood demons, and their accuracy was considerable, but the palisade blocked them from causing significant damage.

Among the charging hunters, at the very front was a man with murky blonde hair holding a spear.

His hair, swept back to reach his shoulders, resembled a lion’s mane, and the rippling muscles visible on his upper body, covered only by a fur vest, were truly beast-like.

“Is that Ranhart?”

He matched the description Weilbelter had given. Darius understood why he had been described as a lion-like man.

He had an aura that refused any modifier other than “king of the jungle.”

Recognizing that this was no ordinary opponent, Darius swallowed hard and fidgeted with his hands.

As a warrior, he felt the desire to face him in combat, but unfortunately, he was standing here as the Margrave of the border region.

It was only natural that the enemy’s strongest force would be met with their own strongest.

“Huu.”

Beside Darius, Findenai released a white breath. Her blood-red eyes had taken on the form of a predator who had already chosen its prey.

A fierce chill emanated from Baekseol in the snow.

With smoke rising from her Warshoes, Findenai charged forward.

“Huh? W-wait a minute!”

Darius was flustered seeing Findenai suddenly rush forward, but she had already dashed ahead.

“F-Findenai-nim?!”

“Captain!”

Findenai had passed the palisade and taken the lead. Not only Darius’s soldiers but also the members of the Junk Shop were bewildered by her eccentric behavior.

Kwadeuk!

She thrust Baekseol, gripped in both hands, into the ground.

At that moment, a freezing chill began to spread.

Soon it froze over, turning into sharp ice crystals in the air or rising like spears to form another wall blocking the enemy’s charge.

“Haa, haaa.”

The sweat flowing down Findenai’s cheeks as she gripped Baekseol with both hands froze instantly, and her body visibly trembled from the cold.

Why?

He wondered why she had suddenly taken such a reckless action. But soon, watching the blood demons charge, he understood.

Even with wounds from the ice crystals in the air, even with hooves pierced by ice spears on the ground, they didn’t stop.

If Findenai hadn’t gone ahead to reduce the enemy’s charging power even slightly, they might have been trampled to death by those who pushed through the palisade.

“Finden…ai…”

Darius was amazed.

Thanks to her quick judgment, Findenai had prevented the battle formation from collapsing.

Her ability to gauge the enemy’s capabilities and act quickly came from her beast-like instincts and the crisis detection skills she had developed while working as part of the Resistance.

“Charge! Charge! Charge!”

“Ignore everything and push through!”

The fierce cries of the hunters mounted on blood demons.

“Hold them back!”

“Stick to the palisade! If we give way here, we won’t be able to face the captain!”

The soldiers of Norsweden and the members of the Junk Shop resisted, shouting as if competing to see whose voice was louder.

Kwaaang!

Even though the blood demons’ charge had somewhat subsided before impact, part of the palisade broke and was pushed back.

A splendid signal for the battle to begin.

However, the man who had been leading the hunters at the front of the blood demons had stopped abruptly in the middle rather than charging.

In front of the embedded axe.

Ranhart dismissed his blood demon as he faced the white-haired woman whose pale snow-like hair fluttered.

“Excellent judgment. You can’t even count how many lives you just saved.”

“Huuu.”

Findenai pulled Baekseol out of the ground and took her stance. Her long breath looked as if she had tobacco in her mouth.

“You came to kill the Mountain Lord? You’ve got some nerve.”

“I’m just here to kill him while I’m at it.”

Ranhart spoke of killing the Mountain Lord, whose power far surpassed humans, as if it were nothing.

Ignoring the weight of his own statement, he stroked his chin and asked:

“So you’re the wolf guarding the mountains he told me about? Quite an accurate description.”

“Beast friends? How dare you act familiar…”

Findenai was trying to catch her breath while openly showing her irritation when her movement suddenly stopped.

It was so abrupt that even Ranhart found it strange.

“Wait, he?”

Who had told Ranhart about her?

Since she had lived as Deus Verdi’s maid after leaving the Junk Shop, there was almost no way for her existence to be known.

Yet it meant someone had told Ranhart about Findenai.

“Someone knows about me?”

“Hmm, you’re curious about an interesting detail. Indeed, who would think such a skilled person would be hiding here.”

“Don’t change the subject. Who was it?”

Ranhart’s eyebrow twitched at Findenai’s somewhat persistent questioning, but.

Since he highly valued the judgment and ability she had just demonstrated.

“You showed me something good, so I’ll tell you as a reward.”

A story about a man flowed from Ranhart’s lips.

Very short and simple.

“Someone who appeared from nowhere.”

But what Findenai had been longing for.

“A necromancer told me.”

Findenai’s eyes trembled. The information was so shocking that she momentarily forgot to breathe.

It was what she had been yearning for all this time.

“Huuuu.”

The atmosphere changed drastically.

Heat emanated from Findenai’s entire body, overwhelming even the chill of Baekseol.

She had long forgotten the stamina she had just expended using Baekseol.

A distorted smile formed on Findenai’s lips as she grew increasingly excited.

“What else did that bastard say about me? Like I’m pretty, fucking sexy, want to fuck me, stuff like that.”

“Hmm? He didn’t say anything else.”

“Ah, is that so? I see.”

Buuung!

Findenai swung Baekseol widely and took a big step forward.

Ranhart, whom she had considered a formidable enemy until just now, was already of no concern to her.

“Move aside, let me go see that dog of a master’s face.”

* * *

The fierce battle was in full swing.

A desperate struggle between those guarding the mountains and those trying to break through.

While they might seem somewhat ridiculous, I was already climbing the mountain.

“H-how did you know about this path?”

Soho, following behind me, made a fuss about how amazing the path I was taking was. The mountain range itself was so treacherous that climbing without a mountain path was nearly impossible.

That’s why they were fighting so fiercely over the entrance.

But I was climbing through a secret path in this mountain.

“I just learned about it a long time ago.”

Because I had heard about these hidden paths from the Mountain Lord several times.

I had never actually used them before, but I was glad I hadn’t listened carelessly back then.

“But what are you planning to do by entering the mountain range?”

I couldn’t leave Soho behind, so I brought her along, but I hadn’t explained why we were here.

Without stopping, I continued upward and answered:

“I’m going to meet the Mountain Lord directly.”

“What?! T-that’s dangerous! The guardian deity must be in a very bad mood!”

Soho made a face like she wanted to turn back immediately. But since she knew we couldn’t just go back now, she continued to follow while grumbling.

“Y-you have a plan, right?”

“Of course. Don’t worry too much.”

“Hmm?”

At the snort from above, Soho’s body stiffened quickly. The nervous girl immediately hid behind me.

While Soho was tense from hearing an unfamiliar voice, for me it was all too familiar and longed for.

Click.

“I thought it might be.”

The sound of a shotgun being loaded echoed. Slowly looking up the path, there was a short-haired woman wearing a coat with a shotgun slung over her shoulder.

Deia Verdi was looking down at me.

“So there’s a bastard who knows this path?”

I almost called out her name involuntarily, but only intense hostility flowed from Deia’s voice.

“Raise your hands if you don’t want your head blown off.”

The gun barrel didn’t waver.

She would pull the trigger at the slightest wrong move.

I knew it would be right to greet her. But my mouth wouldn’t move properly.

‘Ah.’

Now I understood why I didn’t want to meet them with this current body.

I was afraid.

Afraid that they might not accept the current Shinwoo Kim.

While I felt ridiculous for having such childish concerns, I also realized how important they were to me.

“Is your head just decoration? Or is it hard enough to deflect bullets?”

“W-what are you doing!”

Between Deia’s sarcasm and Soho’s urging from behind.

I was terrified in a different sense, but I had no intention of running away.

“You haven’t changed.”

I uttered a meaningful sentence.

In truth, this alone couldn’t reveal anything. Normally, she would have frowned and asked if I knew her.

“Huh?”

The moment she heard my words, Deia seemed to sense something as she stared at me with wide eyes.