I Killed the Player of the Academy-Chapter 246: World Tree (3)

→ World Tree (3)←

There were tons of armors across various myths and legends with resistance to magic. The silver plated armor crafted by Goibniu, the Danann of Smithing, was at the pinnacle of magic resistance.

“Hmm~”

Eochaid grinned as he stared into the darkness.

That attack at the level of a grand spell was certainly intimidating, not to mention the fact that it contained a bleeding curse.

They had to be quite skilled to pull that off… and Eochaid assumed they were mages from the Tower who had recently been enslaved.

“Anyway, I wasn’t expecting him to run away like that. Should I say he’s too shy, or too devious.”

Even Eochaid couldn’t move straight after getting hit by that bombardment, and Korin Lork used that time to escape with the soldiers and knights.

‘Should I go after him?’ he pondered, but decided not to after hearing the echoing footsteps of an entire army coming his way.

“Quite a lot of people they’ve brought.”

Although he wasn’t afraid to be put against a large number of foes, there was still no reason for him to play according to the cards of the enemy.

“These aren’t going to be enough to fight against all of them. I guess I will have to go back and scrape up everything in my arsenal.”

Retrieving his weapon, Eochaid carried his feet away.

Defending the wells wasn’t his mission in the first place. His job was that of the final gatekeeper, and defending this place was what the druid had to do.

“But Valtazar though. Using me as a gatekeeper huh. Can’t believe it.”

However, it’s not like he couldn’t understand what he was thinking. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Everything was for the final war.

If he had to become a cornerstone of the new world… Eochaid felt kind enough to fulfill that role for him.

****

We immediately ran away after shooting missiles at Eochaid.

There was no reason for me to waste my energy going against him by myself. All we had to do was simply break through with sheer force.

He would have soon retreated as well, because he wouldn’t be that inclined to go against an entire army.

“The enemy is nowhere to be seen!”

“He seems to have escaped!”

As expected, Eochaid was gone by the time we arrived at the scene with the main army.

“Fuu… What a shame, dongsaeng. I would have given him a slap for hurting you.”

“I know right. I was hoping he would have his ego fired up and fight us head-on.”

We would have smacked him together.

However, Eochaid Bres was not stupid, and he obviously wouldn’t try to fight against an army of this size by himself. Especially now that he no longer had the Sun.

“Why did he show himself so soon, I wonder?”

“Probably to buy time,” I replied. “The World Tree was not supposed to grow this fast. I’m sure they had to push themselves a lot to make this happen.”

This fight was happening much earlier than how it went in the original game. It was faster by around 6 months, so it was safe to assume that they had to take on some amount of risk.

“He’s not even the biggest threat here though.”

“Really? Eochaid Bres? Isn’t he a King of Gods like Chairman Erin?”

“As an individual being, he is one of the top powerhouses just below Valtazar but… it’s a bit different with the World Tree.”

The one, who had been quietly doing his work behind the lines, was what we really had to worry about. Supported by the enormous field of nature, that is the World Tree, that old man was not to be looked down on.

Lawmaker Dumnorix.

One who seeks balance with mother nature.

This was the most dangerous time to be fighting him.

“Let’s keep the scouts to a minimum. How many do we have on our side right now?”

“Except for the backline, we have about 3,500 that can fight.”

“That’s not as much as I thought.”

“But we have a lot of knights and mages instead. It’s around 20% of that number.”

Following the roots all the way up to the wells was important, but it was also crucial to regroup with all the soldiers scattered about this place.

“Let’s group with the valkyries or barbarians and increase our numbers.”

Traveling in a large group would allow us to freely pass by most of the enemies. In turn, that meant we could save our energy unlike the player party of the game, where they would have to take breaks and waste potions after encountering every single group of enemy.

“Sure. We never know when Eochaid might show himself again so let’s not waste our energy.”

“Saintess…!”

That was when a soldier ran up and kneeled towards Estelle.

“U, urgent news! A group of enemies has appeared, but it’s unclear whether they are demonic beasts or spirits! The vanguards have started fending them off!”

“…About time huh.”

It was true that we had a large number of manpower in our army, but that didn’t mean Valtazar didn’t have any himself.

“Let me go up.”

“Are you sure? Don’t you have to save your energy?”

“I don’t even have to worry about that against Shadow Demons. I’ll stay at the front for the time being as well.”

Heading to the front, as I expected I found some of our soldiers fighting against Shadow Demons.

It seemed like they were defending without an issue, thanks to the large number of soldiers on our side.

We had several more skirmishes after that, but I started seeing more and more corpses on the side.

They were either soldiers of the kingdom or northern warriors.

“It appears they died very recently. It’s most likely the demons we were fighting just then.”

“They died fighting these monsters, so I’m sure the lord will look after them.”

“Of course. They died a valiant death for a sacred purpose.”

“Fuu… Yeah.”

I didn’t deny their faith as that would further instigate their uneasiness. Instead, I agreed with them.

“We unfortunately don’t have time to bury them so let’s have a minute of silence. I’m sure they will understand.”

Drawing a cross with my finger, I prayed for their afterlife. It was funny of me to be doing this despite knowing the truth about the gods of this world but… it had to be done for the mental wellbeing of the ones alive.

Praying that their souls were headed somewhere peaceful.

Praying that the lord will find mercy in their courage.

The living prayed for the dead and found peace. Hoping that the souls of the dead were heading to a place better than this world, at the same time they hoped that their own deaths would also be received with prayers.

Religion was a shelter in which people could find peace during tension and urgency.

After that, we led the way once again before coming across a new group.

– Crunch crunch!

Hearing the sound of thick leather shoes stepping across the snow, we came to a stop. It definitely wasn’t a sound that the kingdom’s military boots would make.

“Hmm? Southerners?” said the one at the lead.

What appeared from the front was a group of approximately hundreds of northerners.

“Barbarians, huh.”

“Shh. Don’t provoke them for no reason.”

Reproaching one of our soldiers who blurted that out, a small group of us slowly approached the group.

“Which tribe are you from?”

“We’re from Axehead! Don’t you remember fighting together at the wall?”

“Kuhum… You see, it’s a bit hard to see everything.”

With the light gone from the world, we had to rely on torches and light magic to see around us. It was hard to tell the tribes of the northerners in the darkness because the only way to tell were the small symbols on their armor.

Our troops appeared delighted to come across allies after several long and arduous battles against demonic beasts, but I flinched when the group of northerners came a bit closer.

The axehead of the barbarian at the front was dripping with blood.

Was that from a demon? No – Shadow Demons were monsters who couldn’t form a proper shape and unlike demonic beasts, it was impossible for them to bleed.

Of course, you could come across other demonic beasts and monsters from mythologies later down the line, but for some reason, I couldn’t erase that hint of uneasiness.

“Wait.”

First off, I told them to stop their feet.

The northerner at the lead stopped his feet and looked at me with a scrutinizing gaze. Similarly, I carefully observed them in deep thought.

Indeed, there were symbols on their leather tunics and helmets representing their tribe, but we couldn’t be certain that those belonged to them. They could have massacred the actual Axehead Tribe and stolen their armors.

“What’s wrong, Sir Korin?”

I whispered back at the knight who asked that question.

“There are a lot of northern tribes following the enemy leader. There’s a chance they are one of them.”

“…!”

After realizing what I was worried about, the knight carefully scrutinized the northerners just like me. However, seemingly unhappy from that gaze, the Axehead Tribe started to grumble among themselves.

“Are you doubting us?” the leader of the group asked.

“We have to be careful of everything in times like this.”

“We are participating in the war because you asked for our cooperation! We risked our lives and fought on the walls!”

“Now now, let’s calm ourselves down and introduce ourselves just in case. I’m Korin Lork.”

“Korin Lork?”

The warrior in the lead titled his head.

“You know me, right?”

“Hmm… So you’re the warrior chosen by Skjaldmaer Brunhild. You look like a young man though…”

Holding onto his horned helmet, the man greeted with respect.

“Berik Jogerson.”

It was a name I wasn’t familiar with, but I couldn’t reject them just because of that. After all, I couldn’t possibly remember the names of the 150,000 northern warriors on our side.

“If I may ask, can you tell us how you got all that blood on your weapons and your armors?”

“You mean this?”

He replied after casually brushing off the blood from his ax.

“We were attacked by our kindred.”

“Your kindred?"

“But they were those who sided with the enemy. We had no choice but to kill them.”

“You killed your kind, but you don’t seem very sad about it.”

“Huhahaha!”

Berik let out a hearty laughter in response.

“Unlike southerners, we lack everything in the north; whether it be food, water or women! It’s common for our tribes to point our axes at one another. Well, they died like warriors so I’m sure they’re headed to Valhalla.”

That made sense. Although we were grouping them as one by calling them the ‘Northern Kingdom’ and such, the northerners moved around in tribes. There was no concept of a ‘country’, and they only formed a group around the biggest tribe when something dire was happening to them.

Even the Valkyries seemed to encourage fights between tribes for the purpose of raising esteemed warriors, and it was something difficult for me to understand as someone from modern Earth.

“By the way, where were you guys going?”

I threw in a trick question.

“We were following up the roots. Wasn’t our goal about finding the wells?”

It seemed they knew that too. That was the objective we had previously mentioned to everyone in our army before we had to separate. We had told everyone to travel up the roots, find wells and destroy them if they came across the roots of the World Tree.

Judging from how they knew that, were they really on our side? It was still hard to tell. Basically every soldier was aware of that objective, and even just one or two spies would have been enough for them to find out about it.

“Oi, first off, let go of your weapons.”

One of the knights who had similar concerns as me suddenly commanded the northerners to disarm themselves.

“What?”

As if they heard something unimaginable, the Axehead Tribe began to tremble in fury. Paying little regard to that, the knight continued with a condescending gaze and a commanding tone.

“I told you to drop your weapons. Let go of your weapons, and then we will confirm your identities.”

“These bastards…”

“Weapons are like souls for warriors! How dare you tell us to let go of them!”

Naturally, the northerners weren’t going to let that slide.

“Wait. Calm dow—”

Even the same meaning could be portrayed in very different sentences. Why was he saying it like that? Of course they’re gonna be mad!

“These damn barbarians. Just do what you’re told and stop talking back!”

“What? This fucking southerner trash!”

– Clink!

They immediately unsheathed their swords and axes.

Ahh, it turned into a war of ego.

The northerners and southerners glared daggers at each other with swords and axes in their hands. Although we were on the same side right now, they had been confronting one another for a long time. It was hard for that long conflict and discord to go away after a short truce.

‘…We would beat them in a frontal fight but…’

There were hundreds of enemies, but they were all simple warriors. On the other hand, there were thousands on our side with quite a few knights.

It would be a massacre if we did fight, but what if they were on our side all along? That would make us the most stupid people in the world, who killed allies just because of a heated debate.

For now, I had to step in and calm them down. There was no way that northerners, who would rather die than bend down and swallow their ego, would back off so—

“Wait, calm down, southerners. I understand where you are coming from but there is no need for allies to shed blood.”

“Huh?”

He was swallowing his ego? A northerner? Really?

Was he really taking a step back instead of chucking an ax at our faces?

“Let’s first calm down and get to know each other.”

He was… trying to talk it out!

But there’s absolutely no way you guys are this civilized!

It’s impossible that you guys, following valkyries who try to cut off people’s heads from behind whenever they have a chance, could be this cultured!

This was strange.

Very very strange.

His attempt to talk this out amplified my suspicion even further than before.

If he was indeed hiding something… Was there a secret strategy that could immediately make them reveal themselves?

There was still a hint of uneasiness lingering inside me. Besides, this was a serious problem because I would have to doubt them every time I came across northerners.

Confronting every single group of northerners like this would eat up too much time.

Was there a strategy… a quick and swift one that could magically tell apart allies and enemies…

“There is one.”

“Huh?”

“Sir Korin?”

“E, Eureka…”

If it was that strategy… in a world with its citizens aware of the existence of gods and divinity… there was a taboo that they definitely could not break!

“Fuu… Are you still harboring doubts against us? How can we—”

“…Say it.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

The leader of the Axehead Tribe tilted his head as if he didn’t catch what I said. Walking closer, I urged them in a loud voice.

“‘Tates is a son of a bitch.’ Say it.”

Come on! There should be no problems unless you’re a communis… I mean, someone on our side!

[TL NOTE]

* Referring to an old meme in South Korea where they would tell people to say ‘Kim Jong-il is a son of a bitch’ to see if they are a spy from North Korea or not.