Chapter 237
Chapter 237
The people of Aislard began to converge in one place.
"Oh, oh......"
"Termo? Is that you? How long has it been—four years since we last met?"
"Five, I'd say. Your youngest had just been born."
"Has it really been that long? But that wound...... you too?"
"Then you as well?"
Everyone gathered here shared something in common.
Each had a critical wound somewhere on their body, yet none had died.
Their children all wore dazed expressions, watching the uniformed strangers with gazes split between fear and awe.
"Who on earth are they......"
"They said they're from something called Akarind Academy."
Those who'd arrived earlier shared what they knew.
"Akarind? Where's that?"
It wasn't much help.
People who'd never left Aislard had no reason to recognize the name of a third-rate academy tucked into a corner of the Belmein Kingdom, let alone the Empire.
What caught their curiosity instead was a different word.
"An academy—so they're students?"
Looking again with that in mind, indeed.
The people in white uniforms looked excessively young.
Most appeared to be around fifteen at most.
The person who'd rescued them—Cassian, was it?
He and a handful of others seemed older, but even they were merely young adults.
"What in the world......"
What were these people, to possess such martial prowess at such a young age?
Their combat skills defied comprehension even after witnessing them firsthand.
Why did an icy light flash when they swung their swords?
Monster hides were tough beyond measure—so why did their blades slide through like water through cracks?
Why did they slay monsters so effortlessly, without breaking a sweat?
Before that astonishment could even fade.
"Survivors."
Another group of survivors arrived.
Their faces bore the same expressions.
The wonder would continue for a while.
"Here's the situation."
Hati, having returned with survivors, drew circles on a map inside the command tent where Cassian and Rozalin waited.
The circles covered the entirety of southern Aislard.
"The people living in the gaps between monster zones were mostly scattered fragments."
"Any villages?"
"From what people say, there used to be some, but they're nearly impossible to find now."
"They can't be completely gone."
Cassian said that and fell into thought.
Before he'd lured the enemy out, Avril had been hiding somewhere on the Aislard continent.
Merea had even relayed information to Avril.
That meant there had to be a location that could serve as a base.
"Somewhere unrelated to demon activity or monster migration patterns...... that's where a settlement would be."
While Cassian was saying this.
Zelta, who'd been listening nearby, ventured a maybe.
"Teacher. What if that approach is fundamentally wrong?"
"Wrong?"
"I mean...... we've been barking up the wrong tree entirely. The settlement isn't outside the demon's range—it's the opposite."
"Inside the range."
A plausible thought.
Demons appeared by inverting the concepts of human history and life.
That meant a concept had to precede the demon's emergence.
And considering Avril, it made even more sense.
Avril's body had been transformed into something demonic through dealings with the Underground Magic Tower.
If that was where Avril had been, it wouldn't be strange at all for it to have become a demon or monster habitat.
"Or we can think about it from a different angle. Why the demon chose to settle there."
At Zelta's words, Cassian nodded.
"Humans are hiding there, and the demon is guarding the location."
"A siege, essentially?"
"In terrain like this, it's entirely possible. For example, people might have built walls and hidden inside an ice-canyon formation."
If that weren't the case, there'd be no reason they hadn't been found despite four days of combing southern Aislard's border region.
"Then we'd have to go directly into the monster zones......"
The path deeper into Aislard's interior.
That space was crammed with countless monsters jostling for survival in narrow territories.
Yetis, sasquatches, Dire Wolves, frozen yetis, ice mountain goats, ice golems, ice gargoyles, wendigos.
One misstep could mean a melee against two, possibly three species simultaneously as they stumbled across territorial borders.
"If a melee's inevitable, we split into formations."
But as a single force, the most powerful presence in Aislard right now was the Akarind Academy expedition.
Two thousand strong.
Eighty percent were Aura Walker or above, with dozens at Sword Expert level or higher.
A force that could reduce "countless monsters" to "mere monsters."
"We divide into five teams and advance along separate routes."
Rozalin, Cassian, Pan, Duke Crownhardt, and the Spear God would each lead a team.
Each formation would charge straight at the monster habitats.
If crossing territorial boundaries was a concern—
The plan was simply to drive the monsters out through brute force.
"Drive them out, not kill them?"
"We're herding them."
Why did monsters defend territories?
Because different species couldn't coexist.
If they chased the monsters out, the fleeing creatures would inevitably run into other species and fight amongst themselves.
Pitting one against another.
And one more thing.
"There'll be places they absolutely refuse to go."
The reason monsters were clustered in southern Aislard in the first place.
It was because demons had appeared.
Monsters with strong survival instincts wouldn't flee toward a demon.
"We'll reverse-engineer the routes."
Tracking the tangled movements of monsters was no easy task, of course.
But there was someone who specialized in exactly that.
"Don't you worry. This is what I've done my whole life."
Hati.
"You need to carry him well."
Cassian scratched the feathers near the Griffon's beak as he spoke.
The Griffon shook its head reluctantly, irritated.
Its former owner had entrusted only Cassian to it.
Not that bald, musclebound idiot.
"Please. It's important."
But it couldn't ignore its current owner's request, either.
In the end, the Griffon scratched at the ground with its talons, broadcasting its displeasure, and let Hati mount.
"Let's go."
The Griffon climbed, and Cassian gave the word.
The formation split into five.
The survivors were divided into manageable groups and placed behind each column.
"Stay with us."
"You're marching into monster territory? I thought we were escaping!"
"No need to worry. We'd like to send you ahead, but we can't afford to either."
"Can't afford to...... then why are you deliberately going after such terrifying enemies?"
"Ah. When we said we can't afford to, we weren't talking about the monsters."
"What?"
The Aislard nomads couldn't comprehend what the expedition members meant.
That was fine.
They saw it for themselves soon enough.
"Run! Don't slow down!"
"Hah, hah......"
The Akarind students navigated Aislard's terrain more adeptly than people who'd lived there their entire lives.
They assessed geography in an instant, identified thawed ground, and dispatched monsters.
With every sword swing, dozens of creatures were slaughtered where they stood, unable to resist.
Yet even that paled next to the swordsmen at the vanguard.
"Bwahahaha! Is that all you've got?!"
The Spear God whirled his two-meter-plus spear like a windmill, bounding through the monsters.
His stooped back was belied by the elastic spring that launched him skyward, and each time, every monster in a wide radius was reduced to pulp.
Anyone who gaped at the spectacle and then refocused would find the Spear God already a hundred meters ahead.
"Don't fall behind on the escort!"
The only ones lagging were the Aislard people.
The Academy formation's middle column stretched long, with dozens assigned to guard them.
Their position stung acutely.
Baggage.
They were dragging the Academy people down.
"S-sorry......"
"It's fine—spend the time you'd use talking on running!"
To provoke the monsters' territorial instincts, the advance needed to be even more vigorous.
Southern Aislard's territorial map was being redrawn.
Monsters that tried to flee south were actively pursued and slaughtered.
Those that fled now would inevitably head south later anyway.
Those that ran north were left alone.
If they holed up in the north and formed a power base, they'd serve as a buffer preventing northern monsters from migrating south.
'Where is it?'
Hati stared down from the Griffon's back.
The movements of humans and monsters below looked like watching ant colonies from above.
Thousands danced in beautiful coordination.
And within that dance.
'Found it.'
A single corridor was completely empty.
The monsters at the front recoiled in panic and veered away desperately.
Some tripped mid-stride; others reversed direction so sharply their paths tangled.
Two different monster species, pressed toward that corridor, fought each other tooth and nail to avoid being pushed in.
"Found it!"
Hati shouted and flew toward Cassian's position.
Seeing him descend, the other four formations gradually converged.
"Straight ahead!"
From about three meters up, Hati leaped to the ground.
Almost simultaneously—
"Go!"
The Griffon swooped alongside Cassian, who launched himself onto its back mid-flight.
And in that moment.
The Aislard people who'd been barely keeping pace understood at last.
The vanguard that had raced ahead, leaving them behind.
Was all this relentless running really necessary?
Had they forgotten the survivors existed?
They'd wondered.
"Going ahead. Follow!"
But even that pace had been consideration.
Cassian and his Griffon shrank to a dot and vanished in an instant.
"Pre-designated personnel, follow! Clear the path!"
Dozens who'd been loosely spread across the vanguard surged after him.
At speeds no human should have been capable of.
"All right, you can ease up a bit now."
The remaining members gradually slowed and drew close to the Aislard people.
Unlike the gasping nomads, not one of them was sweating or winded.
Even the Aislard people revered as great warriors had gone pale with exertion.
The nomads now looked at these strangers with something beyond surprise or curiosity—something closer to reverence.
"How...... how does one become like you?"
The students understood the question immediately.
"Enroll in our Academy, and it happens naturally."
Strictly speaking, enrollment alone didn't guarantee it.
But if you scrambled to keep up with Cassian's classes and all the others at the Academy......
Before you knew it, this was simply what you'd become.
"Could I become like that too?"
A small Aislard child asked with innocent eyes.
The students nodded silently and ruffled the child's hair.
Meanwhile, a massive ice wall entered Cassian's view as he flew ahead.
It looked like a fountain—ice surging skyward in a towering column.
"Found it."
A demon, blocking the people of Aislard from leaving.
It looked like the edge of the world—a boundary line.