episode_0152

The decisive moment is drawing near.

Soon, I will have eliminated all four Heavenly Kings, destroyed the dungeon completely, and engaged in a battle with Draken.

Of course, the gap between Draken and me is still immense.

Just entering the hidden world renders me almost incapable of fighting.

Thanks to my enhanced mental strength, I barely manage to hold on, but if others were to enter, they would either become invalids or tremble at the mere mention of Draken’s name like Tran Sylvia.

To increase my chances of success, I must lure him out of his comfort zone.

The Dimensional Transference Device, Longinus’s Spear.

I will use it to pull Draken into a rift in dimensions and face him there.

The timing of this confrontation is uncertain.

I must hurry and complete Longinus’s Spear as soon as possible.

There is only one part left to acquire.

The navigator that adjusts dimensional coordinates.

Before heading out to find it.

“Ah…”

“This is completely ruined.”

First, I stopped by the Leaf City.

Upon entering the mansion with Kein, we were greeted by Linda, who had a hole in her chest.

It seems she had pierced her own outer shell with her hand and destroyed her engine.

“Do you have any idea why Linda ended up like this?”

“What are you expecting? Just because I created this thing doesn’t mean I can read its mind, right? This thing is no longer human. You should ask at the scene, not the creator.”

He’s right.

There’s no way Linda had a self-destruct function.

She must have made the decision to shut down her functions herself.

Kein is not her biological father, so asking him won’t help.

“Could there have been a hacking attempt?”

“Nonsense. How could a Leaf Doll be hacked? It’s made up of a perfect closed circuit. To hack Linda, you would have to physically tamper with the circuit…”

As Kein examined the inside of Linda by opening her lid, he froze.

With his mouth agape.

Kein, with wide eyes, spoke in a trembling voice.

“The circuit has been altered…”

“Someone has infiltrated. Let’s collect footprints and fingerprints.”

“No. No. Someone else didn’t alter it. Linda herself did.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she used magic to alter the circuit that should have been fueled by the engine.”

“… ”

My head hurts.

The reason Linda ended up like this goes back to the night when ‘some kind of change’ occurred worldwide.

In my own conclusion, that phenomenon was about ‘restoring’ monsters to their ‘normal’ state.

The monsters were weakened.

Mijung regained the Blessing of Oblivion.

But why did Linda suddenly experience a circuit alteration?

‘Draken had his eye on her enough to receive an offer from the Four Heavenly Kings. It’s not surprising that Linda is being treated specially.’

Draken tried to control Linda, but failed due to her choosing to shut down her functions?

That possibility seems most plausible.

If the shutdown had failed and Linda had fallen into Draken’s hands…

“Ah…”

Just imagining it sends shivers down my spine.

Right now, Linda is serving as a relay station, connecting me with crucial information and contacts.

If Draken could distort all of that at his whim, I would have fallen into the trap of the Four Heavenly Kings without a second thought.

Just like Velfegor fell into a trap set by me.

It’s chilling.

“Can you repair her?”

“What do you take me for? I’ll try to repair her within a month.”

“Why is it taking so long?”

“The design needs to be fixed so that the mana flowing into the engine doesn’t leak inside the circuit. If the experts say so, then so be it.”

“······.”

It seems like Linda’s repairs will take quite a while.

At least for a month, she won’t be able to fulfill her role as an intermediary······.

Someone needs to take her place.

“Kern. While you’re repairing, can you compile the letters that come here and transmit their contents to me through the communication device?”

“Are you asking me to be a postman? I don’t have a hobby of watching you and the girls flirt, so I’ll pass.”

“It’s not like that. It’s important, so please do me this favor.”

“Alright, I got it. But, um······. The communication device is broken too. Tsk.”

Kern rummaged through Linda and clicked his tongue.

The communication device is also broken.

With that, the intermediary station is in a state of suspension.

“How long will it take to fix that?”

“It might take about a month. What do you want me to fix first? The communication device? Or Linda?”

“Hmm······. Please repair Linda first.”

“Got it.”

Priority goes to Linda.

We need to repair Linda quickly to find out what happened.

It’s dizzying to think that we won’t receive any contact for a month, but it’s something we have to endure.

I can’t afford to stay idle in Tape City for over a month, fearing what might happen if I can’t be reached.

Now is the time to move quickly.

“Please. Come back in a month.”

“Alright. But······. Your sister. She seems more lively than before.”

“······Not my sister. My older sister.”

Mi-Jung, who links arms with me and looks up with a proud smile.

But her smile still seems unfamiliar, as if she’s not used to it yet.

“Well, it seems nice. There may be those who don’t see it that way, but don’t worry too much. It’s not a problem that you look younger than your actual age. I support you.”

“Yes. Well, thank you.”

“······Huh?”

Kern, who lightly taps my shoulder and smiles with a slightly puzzled expression.

I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I just give a vague answer and move on.

Who sees us in a bad light?

Even after thinking it over again, I still don’t understand.

“But what is this little guy?”

“Him? What should I call him? He’s like a pet spider.”

“A pet······ spider······?”

Kern frowns as he looks down at Moomyung.

The term “pet spider” sounds a bit strange.

But surprisingly, the intelligence of spiders is quite high, comparable to that of cats or dogs.

Of course, aside from that, Moomyung seems to have human-level intelligence······.

“Look.”

“He’s making noise! What a strange spider.”

As I stroke his head with my fingertips, Moomyung melts and lets out a chirping sound.

At first, I was creeped out, but now he looks quite cute.

He’s so attached to being petted that he goes crazy asking me to pet him first.

“Hoo. Huhuh.”

“Hey, you. You’re not a dog or anything······.”

Moomyung rolls around my fingers, tickling them with his four pairs of legs and chirping cutely.

I lightly press his belly, and after a while, a white liquid-like substance squirts out from his spinnerets.

I only realize what it is after touching the sticky substance.

It’s spider silk.

“He can finally produce spider silk! Amazing!”

“Huhuh!”

Proudly raising its head as if to show off, the nameless creature.

I lifted the nameless creature in my hand and gently stroked it.

For a while, it seemed like it was just whining alone as if it needed to relieve itself, but it turns out it was practicing to shoot spider silk.

Now, the nameless creature has grown quite a bit.

From a baby spider to an adult spider, it is growing.

It hasn’t been long since I started raising it, but I feel quite proud.

When I reached out my finger with spider silk on it, the nameless creature quickly rose up and licked my finger, eating up the spider silk.

It seems that a lot of energy goes into spinning the spider silk, so when retrieving it, they consume it like this to turn it back into nutrients.

Seeing that its instincts are working properly, it doesn’t seem to be a problematic individual.

“Well… You’re cute… But, have you heard a lot of people say that your tastes are quite unique?”

“No. I haven’t really heard that much.”

“…”

Alternating between looking at the nameless creature and Mijung, Keren looked at me with a suspicious look.

My taste is perfectly normal.

I have no idea what they are talking about.

Since Linda and the communication device are broken, it seems that the contact has been cut off, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go all the way to the remote Oji at this point.

The destination is the San Francisco Maritime Fortress.

Located on a small rocky island in the vast ocean.

Being a rocky island, self-sufficiency is impossible due to the inability to farm.

It is also small, with only a few ships that can dock at once.

The seemingly useless maritime fortress serves the purpose of research.

It is better to have a fixed ground than a swaying ship to constantly monitor and research the underwater world.

Above all, most of the researchers suffer from severe seasickness.

Of course, if it were a peaceful underwater biology research, there would be no need to build a noisy maritime fortress…

The problem is that the research subjects are dangerous creatures such as sea dragons and sky whales.

If the boundaries are even slightly neglected, the entire island could be wiped out by sea dragons, so a sturdy fortress had to be built.

The last part needed to serve as Longinus’s creative navigator is in the San Francisco Maritime Fortress.

Well, strictly speaking, it’s not there yet…

By the time I arrive, it will be there, so it’s not a lie.

“I’ll have to wait until the supply ship docks here.”

Finally arriving at Liang, a port city on the western coast of the Gallia Kingdom.

It is a bustling trading city with large and small ships constantly coming and going.

Since the island of San Francisco is unable to be self-sufficient, regular supplies are needed, and the supply ship comes and goes once a month.

The supply ship, filled with goods, docks in Liang for a day of rest before heading to San Francisco.

The day the supply ship arrives in Liang is two days away.

With two days to spare, there is plenty of time.

It’s enough time to clear about ten dungeons nearby.

“There haven’t been many opportunities to come to the Gallia Kingdom. Maybe I’ll go ahead and defeat the black dungeons in succession.”

The black dungeons in the Holy Kingdom are practically dried up now.

But in the Gallia Empire, there are still several black dungeons remaining.

Since I have to leave in two days, I can’t travel around the entire country.

I’m thinking of just clearing the dungeons near Liang.

“Shall we start with this one?”

I randomly chose the closest dungeon.

Until then, I had no particular thoughts.

But the moment I stepped into the dungeon.

Feeling a chilling cold enveloping me, I realized that something was wrong.

[The monsters in the dungeon are strengthened by the blessing of the holy maiden Jill.]

[The monsters in the dungeon have a weak poison due to the curse of the witch Yulia.]

[The cold in the dungeon is aided by the grudge of the Frost Lord Yerina.]

Even if it’s wrong, it’s still very wrong.