Chapter 84 : Chapter 84
Chapter 84. Red Eyes
I was swallowed by the darkness.
But, fortunately, it seemed I had kept my sanity.
The rope made of Shalman's sinew must have helped protect my mind.
Since I couldn't see anything, I couldn't check on my companions' situation.
“Van—! Lucas—!”
No answer came.
My head spun.
I clenched my teeth and checked the state of the rope.
An unpleasant feeling of being pulled by someone.
The rope wrapped around my waist felt suffocating, as if it were choking me.
My head ached.
The throbbing grew worse with time.
I felt like I had forgotten something.
“…It's suffocating.”
I felt like the rope was binding my entire body.
The headache must have been because the rope was tied too tightly.
I irritably untied the rope.
But still, my head ached.
I clutched my head and sat down on the spot.
At that moment.
“Here.”
Lucas’s calm voice was heard.
I raised my head.
I couldn't find Lucas in the darkness, but I could see a light from the direction the voice came from.
A brightness, like a ray of hope, illuminated the inside of the gorge.
The exit of the gorge began to appear before my eyes.
“We're here. We just have to get to that light.”
“Light…?”
“Didn't you say we have to go to the light? Have you forgotten?”
Right. The light.
I remembered what I had forgotten.
It was the path to the light.
I took a step.
Something pulled me taut.
Looking down, the untied rope was still wrapped around my waist.
Grip—
Even more, the rope was tightening with increasing force.
In the incomprehensible situation, my eyes became bloodshot.
I felt suffocated and out of breath.
“Quickly! Get out of there!”
I mustered my strength at Lucas’s urgent shout, but I was getting farther and farther away from the light.
Away from the exit of the gorge.
It felt like I could reach it if I just stretched out my hand, but I couldn't.
We were almost there…!
Anger flared up like a fire.
To tear off the rope, I gripped it with all my might.
The rope, in turn, wrapped around my hand.
And a strange sound began to ring in my ears.
“…Tha…t…dire…tion… is… no…t.”
A tearing, cracking sound echoed in my head.
My head hurts.
I didn't want to hear it.
I grew farther from the light.
I covered my ears.
“Ge…t… a… gri…p…”
Even though I covered my ears, the sound grew clearer.
I felt like I had forgotten something I shouldn't have.
In that instant.
—Hyuuuunwooooooo—!!!!!!
The intermittent sounds became a long, drawn-out cry.
And.
Tinkle—
With the clear sound of a bell ringing in my ears, the scene before my eyes shattered.
Crash—!
Like shattered glass, everything that met my gaze broke apart.
The bright light before my eyes was swallowed by the darkness.
It was the polar night.
Because there was no sun in the sky.
Tinkle—
‘What is this…?’
In the true world where the light had disappeared, a pure white tree with a rough texture came into view.
And even the white corpses embedded in the tree.
The ‘Nameless Tree’, which had lost its light, was right in front of me.
No, I was the one who had approached the tree.
The footprints dragged on the ground and the thick arm wrapped around my waist proved that fact.
Realizing that it wasn't a rope but Van’s arm that was holding my waist, I turned around.
“…Van?”
“Are you awake?”
Van, with a worried expression, was shaking the bell attached to the rope.
Tinkle—
Only then did I realize that I hadn't heard the sound of the bell at all until just a moment ago.
‘…Was I captivated by the darkness?’
Lucas was being carried on Van's back.
It seemed Lucas had also been consumed by the darkness.
The one who had saved them was Van.
Van’s eyes were glowing red.
“Your eyes…?”
“No time to explain. Take my hand.”
Red eyes were the precursor to a High Orc's awakening.
I realized he had overcome a wall.
My consciousness began to fade again.
But seeing the red-eyed Van, I felt a sense of relief.
Grip—
As soon as I grabbed Van’s hand, I must have relaxed, as I began to lose consciousness.
“Leave this to me.”
With Van’s dependable voice as the last thing I heard, my consciousness sank deep into the darkness.
* * *
My mind slowly began to wake up.
When I lifted my head, it was dark all around.
The thought that I was still inside the gorge filled my mind, and my body instinctively tensed up.
I felt something dry in my clenched fist.
I opened my hand to see what was inside.
‘Soil…?’
It wasn't the hard, rocky floor of the gorge.
As the red soil of the Demon World came into my view, the tension in my body finally began to release.
I never knew I would miss this red soil so much.
“Success…?”
“You're awake?”
As I spoke, Van’s voice came from over my shoulder.
I hastily sat up.
Van was checking on the fallen Lucas.
“Van!”
“Yeah. We made it out of the gorge.”
Van, who had come to my side, began to explain what had happened.
Shortly after Hyunwoo and Lucas had fallen, Van had miraculously regained consciousness.
The ‘Shalman's Rope’ was still tied around his waist.
In the end, as Hyunwoo had thought, that rope had become their lifeline.
His explanation ended with him saying that after regaining consciousness, he had found Hyunwoo and Lucas returning to the ‘Nameless Tree’ and had managed to drag them out.
In the end, we had succeeded in surviving.
I felt a cold sweat run down my back.
‘…That's a relief. That was really dangerous this time.’
I had thought I had prepared enough for the ‘darkness’ of the Kerno Gorge, but since we were being chased, I hadn't been able to use everything I had prepared.
It was something that happened because I had skipped the time-consuming preparation processes.
If it hadn't been for Van, we wouldn't have survived.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Hoo—
As if the remaining energy had escaped with the sigh, a terrible exhaustion washed over me.
In front of Hyunwoo, who had collapsed from exhaustion, Van held out something.
“Take it. You said you needed this.”
“This is…?”
“Have you forgotten? It’s the item you said you needed. I kept it separately just in case.”
Van waved the red branch in front of my eyes.
The Branch of Ramus.
How could I forget?
In the end, I had gone through all that trouble to get this.
I took the branch from Van.
Seeing the red color of the branch up close, I remembered Van's red eyes from before I lost consciousness.
His eye color had returned to its original black, so I had forgotten.
“You've awakened, right? ‘Divine Possession’, was it?”
“That's right. Though I wonder what use it is now…”
“That’s great. Don't you now have the qualification to get your tattoos carved?”
“……”
It was a silent affirmation.
A High Orc’s awakening was the process of having the power of their ancestors engraved.
In other words, ‘Divine Possession’.
The spiritual power left behind by the ancestral High Orcs.
The evidence of that power's manifestation was the appearance of red eyes.
Normally, upon becoming an adult, they could receive divine possession through the ‘shaman’ of the High Orc tribe.
High Orcs were considered adults around the age of 10.
Van's awakening could be said to be very late.
As I looked at the Branch of Ramus intently, Van spoke.
“…You know too much.”
“I am quite smart. So what are you going to do?”
“What?”
“The tattoos. Are you going to get them carved?”
“That’s not something I can do as I please.”
For a High Orc, red eyes were a kind of license to get tattoos carved.
Van had obtained that license.
“I don't know if you know this, but High Orcs are not a race that stays in one place for long.”
“So?”
“I don't know where my kin are either.”
“What if I know?”
Van raised an eyebrow.
“Don't tell me… you're not thinking of going to find my kin, are you?”
“Well, for now, that's the plan.”
“Even if we do meet my kin, there's a problem.”
“What problem?”
“I…”
Finally, it seemed Van had decided to tell his story.
The reason he had kept his mouth shut all this time.
It was a chance to hear about that secret history.
As I was focusing and waiting for his next words.
A groan that broke the mood was heard.
Ugh—
It seemed Lucas had woken up.
As Lucas made a sound, Van fell silent.
That clueless bastard.
He was no help at all.
Lucas sat up from where he was lying and slowly spoke.
“…I want to drink some tea.”
“Seeing as you're talking nonsense, you must not have been on the verge of death.”
“Where am I?”
“The gorge exit. We're outside.”
“How… I can't remember.”
Lucas clutched his head and tried to remember.
The same thing I had experienced.
It seemed Lucas still had aftereffects.
I glanced back at Van, and he didn't seem to want to talk anymore.
It seemed I had to try for the next opportunity.
I got up from my seat, brushing myself off.
It was dangerous to stay in one place for too long in the Demon World.
Now that Lucas was awake, it was time to move again.
‘…Huh?’
I was about to get ready to leave, but there was a problem.
The Ghost Horses were nowhere to be seen.
“Van. What happened to the Ghost Horses?”
“I don't know. I was busy taking care of you two in the middle of it. Ah, come to think of it, I think I heard a thud near the tree.”
“……”
It seemed the Ghost Horses had become one with the ‘Nameless Tree’.
Still, it was fine.
Although we had lost all the Ghost Horses, we had gained more.
‘The Branch of Ramus. And…’
I looked at Van.
“How does it feel to be awakened? Does your body feel full of strength?”
“I don't know.”
“Has anything changed?”
“I feel like I've gotten stronger…”
Van scratched the back of his head.
Seeing him talk about ‘strength’, it seemed he didn't know anything.
A High Orc’s awakening was an ability related to the mind.
It seemed Van needed some practical experience.
“Awakening? What's that about?”
Lucas, who had been clutching his head, interjected.
Come to think of it….
I thought that the color of Van's awakened eyes was similar to Lucas's eye color.
Red and crimson.
I imagined Van and Lucas standing side by side, their eyes glinting.
“Soulmates. You two would look good together.”
“What does that mean? Something feels unpleasant… Ugh!”
Lucas clutched his head again.
From behind, Van added, ‘Don't talk nonsense’.
I lightly ignored their reactions and took out the map.
‘To get to the rocky mountains from here…’
Since we had passed through the Kerno Gorge, which was a shortcut, it was a short distance to the rocky mountains.
As I was tracing the map with my hand, I felt dizzy.
‘…Are there still aftereffects?’
I had intended to move right away, but the aftereffects of being captivated by the darkness still remained.
Lucas's complexion didn't look good either.
I judged that it would be somewhat difficult to move immediately without the Ghost Horses.
“We'll have to rest here for today.”
“Will it be okay? That Modric guy or whatever is still out there.”
“If we were going to run into him, we would have run into him in the gorge.”
“True.”
“It seems he gave up. He probably thought we would die on our own in the Kerno Gorge.”
Talking with Van, I was able to look at the situation more objectively.
The biggest threat right now was Baron Modric.
Seeing that there had been no news of him so far, it seemed he had chosen to take a detour around the Kerno Gorge.
‘Or he failed to break through.’
In any case, there seemed to be no need to hurry.
I led the party to a low hill a short distance from the exit.
After roughly finishing the camping preparations, I lay my head down on the spot.
Lucas was already fast asleep, as if dead.
“Van. Please take the night watch.”
As soon as my head hit the ground, my eyelids drooped shut.
A long day.
The long day where the white night and the polar night had unfolded one after another had come to an end.