Chapter 127: Lunatics

Her words didn’t really make sense.

He could understand if those villagers were harmful to the Transcendent Race, but to humans?

Rianna and Sharen stared at Nameless with a puzzled look.

Meanwhile, Isaac was eager. He felt that he could finally find out what this strange sense of unease that he had been having was about.

“Just why were they called Sin—”

“Not now. There are too many people here.”

Isaac’s words were cut off.

At that moment, a group of merchants passed them by, entering the village.

The only sound that came from them were their heavy footsteps.

It made them look like pilgrims more than merchants.

Their bent backs that made them look like they were bearing the weight of the world only further strengthened that impression.

“There’s a place where we can talk quietly. Let’s go there first.”

The cattle shed came to mind.

By now, the Northern soldiers were probably waiting for them, so Isaac figured that they’d stop by to report and listen to the story about the village together.

“Pressing Stone, you stay here.”

“…Can’t I leave now?”

“Do you want to taste my sorcery?!”

“Hiiieek! I-I’m sorry, I-I’m sorry!!”

Sharen swung her finger in the air as if it was a wand, making Pressing Stone cower and look like an ordinary large rock at a glance.

“Wait here and call us if something happens!”

“U-Understood!”

Strangely enough, those two got along well.

Pressing Stone was a rock, but if Isaac could be honest, he found it and Sharen…

They’re similar.

Is it because Helmonts’ heads are as hard as rock?

On their way to the cattle shed, no particular conversation ensued.

At least, until Isaac started one cautiously, after glancing around warily.

“Do the merchants in this world usually act like that? It doesn’t feel like they’re trying to sell us anything.”

“Hmm. Well, let me tell you this first. This place is called ‘Naraka’, the home of the Transcendent Race. They also called this place ‘Hell’.”

“They call the place they live in… ‘Hell’…?”

“To make your world look better in comparison. They degrade their own world so that they’d covet your world even more.”

Isaac could understand that. The human world was like heaven compared to this world.

So, they called their homeworld ‘Hell’ so that they’d covet the human world more.

Such petty hatred was in line with the Transcendent Race that he knew.

“As for the merchants… They aren’t usually like this. In fact, they’re like this due to the nature of this place. Let’s say that they aren’t ‘trading’ here, but ‘passing by’ here. They’re only here to rest for a while before continuing on their journeys.”

“Passing by, huh…?”

He would ask for more details, but they had already arrived at the cattle shed at that point.

Noticing the group, the soldiers who had been waiting for them instantly got up.

Their complexion had noticeably improved as they got enough rest and ate proper meals, and seeing this, Isaac let out a sigh of relief.

“Isaac!”

Among them, Silverna was the one who was the most ‘enthusiastic’, seeing how she—who had been loitering around the cattle shed entrance—immediately ran up to him the moment she saw him.

She noticed Nameless next to him and threw him a puzzled look.

“This is…?”

He tried to give her and the soldiers a simple explanation on who she was, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t just dismiss the fact that they were enemies once and that she was part of the Transcendent Race’s army.

Thanks to that, they instantly surrounded Nameless, but the woman just wiggled her eyebrows at Isaac.

“Is this why you brought me here?”

“I don’t have the confidence to stop you on my own if you change your mind.”

“Touché. It hurts my feelings a little, but I get it.”

She said that with a laugh, as if she was a master who had been ambushed by her students out of nowhere.

“Anyway, about the village—”

“Not yet. There’s something else I’m curious about.”

Isaac took control of the conversation as if it was a natural thing for him to do. Uldiran, Silverna, and Rianna just stared at them, not saying anything.

“Is there a way for us to go back?”

In fact, this was the most important information out of them all.

Compared to any kind of information they could get about Benheim Village, this was a more pressing matter.

At Isaac’s question, everyone stared at Nameless with nervous expressions.

As if relishing on the gazes that were thrown at her, a smirk bloomed on the woman’s lips.

“Of course. You guys can go back to your world.”

She deliberately left out the details, seemingly enjoying her current situation where all their attention was focused on her.

“But of course, it won’t be easy. Even the Transcendent Race couldn’t cross over as they liked.”

“Can you elaborate?”

Isaac asked.

“Well, how did you all get here? Sorcery, that’s how. So, all you need to do is to get to the center of that sorcery.”

“The center…?”

“Where the Primordials live. The city that houses a tower that reached the sky. The place where the Silver Clock stopped. As long as you go there, you should find a way back.”

The land of the Primordials.

Just by hearing those words, he could already tell how dangerous going to such a place would be.

But, they had to go there.

After all, they couldn’t just wander around Naraka for the rest of their lives.

They could pretend to be Primordials, but one day they were bound to be caught by the real thing.

“You probably won’t need a guide. I told you earlier, didn’t I? These merchants are just passing by. Follow them, you’ll naturally reach your destination.”

Nameless shrugged her shoulders, as if saying, ‘What a nice timing, isn’t it?’.

Silence fell over them.

They finally managed to find the answer that they were looking for, but…

No one here was unaware of the Primordials’ strength.

This is hard…

They were already exhausted from fighting the Transcendent Race over and over again.

And now they were about to fight an even fiercer battle, there was no way they could just feel happy about this.

A gloomy atmosphere enveloped them.

To go back, they had to risk their lives, there was no other choice.

What should I even say in this situation…?

As he was mulling over that, Isaac’s gaze met Uldiran’s.

On his lips was a wide, playful smirk, like that of a child’s.

“We’ll go.”

That one sentence melted the frozen air.

The greatest man decided to stand at the forefront.

There was something in his words that managed to reassure the people.

Then again, this was the man who protected the North for the longest time.

The man that even the arrogant Arandel Helmont had acknowledged as his equal.

“Understood!”

“I will follow you to the end, my lord!”

“You bastards, it’s time for us to fight back!”

The soldiers’ voices filled the cattle shed.

Their loud shouts were their way of encouraging themselves.

Like a current, their morale gradually surged up.

With that, they decided their next destination. The Primordials’ land.

At first, it was hard for Isaac to tell whether it was night or day.

Well, at least before he discovered one peculiar thing.

The night’s sky was one where he could see the stars in the sky.

One could argue that it might be day instead when one could see the stars, but seeing how he got more exhausted under the starry sky, he could safely assume that it was nighttime.

The stars in the sky were shining faintly.

Except for one star in particular that stood out, ‘Silver Clock’; one that was named after a human.

Silver Clock…

Someone who existed in the past.

The only human who reached out to the Transcendent Race first.

Someone who bore hope and ideals.

[Long ago, a woman came to our territory. The Primordials worked with her for the sake of the world, and at the time, we followed that ‘hope’.]

[Indeed. It was a different time; it was a world where even the weak and the fragile could survive…]

Rankelon’s words that were carried by the night wind.

Did she really believe that she could become the link that connects the Transcendent Race and humans?

He was about to mull over the question more, but Sharen cut his thoughts off.

“Isaac, Rankelon is here.”

“Okay.”

He followed Sharen and entered her and Rianna’s lodging from the yard.

There was Rankelon, bowing while staring at Rianna.

“What’s going on…?”

He tilted his head in confusion.

Seeing Isaac enter, Rianna regulated her breath.

All this time, Isaac and Rianna had been matching their breaths so Rankelon wouldn’t notice him being here.

Their plan was to surround him so that if he were to try to escape, they could catch and kill him.

Standing at the entrance, Isaac placed his hand on his hilt.

Rankelon’s ears naturally perked up in response.

Feeling as if his death approached him, he swallowed his sticky saliva nervously.

“Rankelon, do you know the reason why we came here?”

“Y-Yes? You are just passing—”

“No. We have a proper goal.”

Hearing Rianna’s indifferent words, Rankelon tilted his head.

His expression implied that he couldn’t understand what she was trying to say at all.

Rianna ignored him, her tone added much more weight into it.

“Senseless destruction, blind massacre, it’s as if the current Transcendent Race chooses to worship ‘futility’.”

“…!”

On the surface, their story sounded good.

They said they had no reason to hate humans.

That the massacres and destruction their fellow Transcendents committed were meaningless drivels.

But, if one were to put it in a different perspective.

If there was a meaning behind the hatred, massacre, and destruction…

“I share your view, Sinner.”

As Nameless had stated, there was a reason why those creatures were branded as ‘Sinners’.

“I, too, wish that the human world to be turned into Naraka.”

After all, they were creatures who wished for nothing but complete and utter destruction.

“To turn it into a world where the weak and the fragile cannot survive. As long as we could weed out those who are unworthy of living and make a world where strength is the law, the world’s order would naturally be maintained.”

Rianna’s expression stiffened as she said that.

Even though she was just pretending to sympathize with these disgusting criminals, the disgust she felt was real.

“Yes, we’re gonna turn it into Naraka!”

Isaac quickly chimed in with a follow-up.

“If everyone lives in the same world, there would be no more senseless killing! We could coexist and let the strongest among us survive!”

By now, he could understand what part of Rankelon’s words that bothered him.

[A world where even the weak and the fragile could survive…]

That part.

Any other person would mean those words in a positive way, expressing their wish for a world without conflict.

But, Rankelon meant it in a negative way.

This was the reason why Isaac felt the discomfort he felt.

And that reason was directly related to the reason why Rankelon and the others were branded as ‘Sinners’ and were driven out by the Transcendent Race.

“Indeed! If the human world becomes similar to ours, there will be no more reason for the massacres and destruction we commit to exist!”

Because they were crazy, deranged doomsayers.

Tears flowed from Rankelon’s eyes.

He was probably overwhelmed by joy since he finally found a Primordial who sympathized with his cause.

The corners of his mouse were raised, as if he was looking at the savior of this world.

A terrible irony, so to say.