episode_0007

“I…if you kill me, you won’t be able to handle it…”

Feredin struggled to survive somehow, but his story could not continue.

“I should have begged for my life instead.”

Although he had already become a corpse, I, as a former teacher, gave my student a piece of advice. Threats are made to someone who has something to lose. I lost my title, my position, my reputation, and even my place in the empire.

But now, if I become a dog that does as the Empire tells me, they will clear all my false accusations?

Don’t be a jerk. If they had been the ones to do that in the first place, they wouldn’t have kicked me out like this, even though it’s safe to say that I’ve dedicated my life to the empire. I recalled Fereden’s words again.

‘Aren’t you afraid of the empire? Why should I be afraid of the Empire? They are scum who can’t even close the Red Gate.’

Clearing out the Red Gate does not mean that it can be sealed. In the end, unless the gate is sealed, monsters will continue to respawn and pop out there. The situation is urgent, not mine, but theirs.

“Tsk”

I clicked my tongue as I looked at the blood all over my clothes. Because there was a terrible smell of blood, I was filled with the desire to quickly put on new clothes, but the clothes worn by the fallen corpses around me were also all covered in blood.

There was enough food in the shelter, but there were no extra clothes. Of course, I didn’t have any clothes with me, so I went back into the shelter.

“Are you okay? What happened!”

Hericia, who was waiting for me in the bomb shelter, urgently looked at various parts of my body and shouted.

“There were intruders.”

“If there are people like that, they should talk to me! What should I do if I go out for a while and come back hurt so badly? Where’s the medicine? I’ll treat you quickly!”

“Don’t make a fuss. I’m not hurt.”

When I took off my top, she blushed furiously. However, after checking the smooth body without any wounds, he immediately asked as if he was embarrassed.

“No… Then all that blood came from the enemy? I had a fight with a few people…”

“Ten people. My head hurts so stop asking. Because I want to rest a little.”

Hericia closed her mouth and said nothing more. Then she quietly took the clothes I had thrown away, put them in a basket in the corner, and paused before opening the faucet. When I looked at where Hericia was as if asking what I was doing, she spoke as if explaining.

“Here…I saw an artifact that looked like a rainwater tank! After smelling it, I thought it would be difficult to use it as drinking water anyway… I think it would be good to use it like this when washing clothes or when you need water separately. Since you don’t seem to have any clothes, I’d like to do your laundry for you. Is that okay?“

“Do that. In the future, when using the resources inside the bomb shelter, you can use them without asking. If you’re hungry, eat whatever you want.”

“Still, it seems like a bit of a nuisance…”

I lay down in my seat, not paying any attention to Hericia, who was shivering. It may be awkward now, but you will get used to it over time. So I wasn’t particularly worried.

He stretched out his hand and began to look at the weapons the attackers were carrying one by one. After searching and checking everything I had in my arms, there were 7 long-distance interception artifacts called magic cannons. There were 20 daggers and only 1 distance.

‘The harvest is greater than expected.’

Of the seven small magic cannons, two had to be discarded as they were inoperable as they had exhausted their lifespan during the battle, but despite this, there were still about five left. It may not be used often, but it can be useful in many situations. It was expected that the numerous daggers could be used for various purposes.

After putting all the harvested items into my inventory, I checked the distance Feredin was holding.

‘It’s encrypted so that the location cannot be tracked.’

As befits the distance used by the Empire’s shadow group, upon closer inspection, several encryption devices and magic nullification formulas were applied indiscriminately. Even if Feredin fails the mission and dies, this is a measure to prevent the information from being passed on to others.

[In order to view data normally, you must input registered mana.]

I tried to access internal information by pressing various distance buttons in the hope that I might be able to obtain information about the Empire’s shadow group, but it was impossible without Feredin’s mana. Since there is no way to channel the mana of Feredin, who is already dead, this distance is no different from stolen goods.

‘Should I throw it away?’

That time when I was feeling regretful. Before I knew it, she came next to me and spoke with a surprised expression.

“Wow…is this a completely new model? There are even a lot of security devices installed. Who did this?”

“Can you recognize this?”

Distance is a device that is no different from a cell phone when compared to the Earth. Just like on Earth, people who are not interested in electronic devices tend to not know much about devices other than certain expensive brands. It was especially surprising to know that only such a small quantity of Distance was produced.

“Yes! Of course, I’m an artifact fanatic! I usually read a lot of books, search on the Internet, search through communities, and take things apart, so my knowledge is excellent!”

“Is there a way to cancel this distance?”

I’m good at combat and fighting, but I don’t know much about the internal structure of these artifacts. Even in the novel, the only part that gave information about the structure of the artifact was a short sentence, so it was good news that Hericia was an artifact fanatic.

After all, Distance was one of the artifacts made with magic stones.

“Hmm…this…is probably going to be difficult. I made it so that no internal information can be viewed unless the user’s mana is sent. Even if you can destroy the distance, you will never be able to remove the internal data.”

When I gave her a regretful look, she spoke.

“But the devices inside this thing are useful! There are a lot of anti-tracking spells installed. In terms of security, it’s really top notch.”

“Then what do you do? I can’t even write it anyway. Artifacts that cannot be used are trash.”

In “? You can reset it. Just initialize it and use it!”

“…”

When I looked at her in silence, she spoke as if it were absurd.

“No, were you just going to throw this away? This precious thing? How about resetting it instead?”

“Distance that the enemies had. There is a risk of being tracked.”

“No! never. Absolutely not. It is structured so that even the person who created it cannot be traced. It’s a little difficult to explain, but it’s physically impossible to track at all.”

“I don’t know how to reset.”

Unlike regular distances, the distance Feredin was holding had the basic initialization function blocked. Perhaps measures were taken to prevent the person who acquired it from using it as he pleases.

“Don’t worry, leave it to me! Now I can pay for food!

Herecia looked at me with a grin in her voice. I spoke to her like that.

“Then, please reset it.”

“Yes! There are related artifacts in the bag, so please wait a moment and I will reset them for you. I’m glad I can be useful too. If you have anything like this in the future, please bring it to me! I’ll tell you everything!”

What was so exciting? Hericia ran to the corner and rummaged through her bag. I talked to her quietly.

“Aren’t you asking who you fought with and why you fought?”

“…If he was near the bomb shelter, he was probably a looter. I didn’t think there was any need to ask. It’s already been a few weeks since the monsters came out of the gate. Even for me, there were people who came up to me trying to do bad things, and there were people who attacked me with knives trying to take the food that was in my backpack. It’s all like that. Because in situations like this, the ugly nature of humans is revealed.”

Hericia’s eyes sank coldly.

She seemed to have remembered something and shook her head with an expression of boredom.

“Leos, even before the Red Gate incident occurred, you risked your life to close the gate for people without any compensation. It’s already been more than 5 years, but…if a person who devoted himself to people without compensation got into such a vicious fight with someone, there must be a reason.”

“When working as a gatekeeper, I never worked for free. I received all the money as I paid.”

When I spoke bluntly for no reason, she smiled and answered.

“You closed almost all the gates across the country by yourself, so of course you should get a lot of money. Leos even helped people who got lost at the gate or people who were harmed by monsters around them, right? The mission is to clear and seal the gate, but if you really only focused on money, you would have ignored those people. When I talk about devotion without compensation, I am talking about these aspects.”

“…”

Before she knew it, Hericia was laying out the devices she had taken out of her bag, fiddling with them, and talking.

“Do you know why I started writing for places like Leos Gallery? I also received help from Leos.”

“I don’t remember.”

It wasn’t a lie when I said I couldn’t remember. If I were to count the number of people I saved when I was working as a gatekeeper in the past, it would easily be in the thousands. Because remembering each and every face of the countless people I had saved in urgent situations where they were on the brink of death was virtually impossible.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember! What’s important is that I remember.”

“Can you tell me what happened? If I explain the situation, I might remember it.”

She paused for a moment, then shook her head with a sad expression.

“Later, Leos, please remember it yourself. Got it?”

I looked at her sad eyes and said nothing more. As I stare blankly at the ceiling, I can hear the sounds of Herecia fiddling with various devices.

‘Something bad must have happened.’

I decided not to delve any deeper into her inner circumstances. However, after hearing the story, I felt somewhat reassured. Because it didn’t seem like she was following me for no reason.

There is nothing more fearful and suspicious than man’s unreasonable favor. However, if there was a reason, there was nothing I would be more willing to do.

‘Looking at Feredin’s reaction, it’s clear that he doesn’t know my exact position in the empire. The bodies were cleaned up, and we confirmed that no separate communication was sent to Distance, so it will probably take a few days for the Empire to understand the situation. There would be no way to know where I was unless I called or texted my existing distance. ‘Right now, it’s better to hide inside and watch the situation than to move around and show up.’

After finishing my judgment, I spoke to Hericia.

“I’ll be sleeping for a while, so wake me up if anything happens.”

“Yes! I will!”

I fell asleep looking at the empty sky of the bomb shelter.

Even though the world was falling apart, I slept more peacefully than ever that day. You have to save the world. The burden that had been bothering me until now, such as having to save the people, is gone.

*

Leader of the Imperial Secret Service. Kelthasar spoke.

“Is there any news from Feredin?”

“Not yet. It seems like tracking takes quite some time.”

“There is a saying that no news is good news. I’m looking forward to it, Leos. I saw that bastard coming with one of his arms and legs cut off. If I bring you here, I will make it clear to you that if you abandon the empire and run away, you will pay the price.”

Velin was listening to the story next to him and then spoke to Kelthasar.

“Captain. It’s taking longer than expected to bring in Leos, so I think we’ll have to establish a gate management headquarters at least temporarily. The people of the empire are already heavily criticizing the Red Gate for effectively neglecting it.”

“Oh, don’t worry.”

Kelthasar replied and then lightly gestured. Then, the people waiting behind began to come out one by one.

Knights wearing iron armor and all radiating tremendous energy.

“These are Gate Management Headquarters personnel newly recruited from the Empire. It is made up of volunteer knights. Leos, that bastard of a city administration mastered the gate brilliantly, and was trained by the empire directly! Those who have grown up from the beginning in the arms of the empire will be able to destroy the Red Gate with utmost excellence. The sealing can be done by capturing Leos later, and for now, the communication will be done by them.”

Kel’Thazar spoke to the person in front of the men wearing iron armor.

“Tepirian. Your mission is to clear the Red Gate. Can you do it right?”

Tefirian spoke with a wry smile as if it was obvious.

“I heard that Leos, the former gatekeeper manager, was a very poor bastard. There is a difference between those who have only captured monsters without ever being properly deployed on the battlefield, and our knights, who have gained practical combat experience by fighting numerous wars. Would we be able to do what even someone who has never killed a person could do? Even if I can’t seal the gate, once I kill all the monsters inside the gate, the place will be empty for 24 hours, so I will destroy 10 red gates within a day.”

Tefirian spoke while holding the sword in his hand.

“We will show you that our empire is strong even without the help of scum who abandoned the empire and ran away!”

*

[Pajik…Pajijik…]

A strange sound begins to echo from the Red Gate. Subsequently, the system’s warning message is loudly emitted in all directions.

[More than 300 hours have passed since the Red Gate was created. The energy of the internal monsters becomes stronger, and mutations begin to occur.]