Chapter 213: East, Hwaseong (1)
Do you know why Hwaseong is called Hwaseong?
Hwaseong, the country on the far western edge of the elusive border of the East, you’ll find it if you head straight south from Ishay.
It is commonly referred to as the Land of Fire, not because of their indigenous belief in a God of Fire, nor because they are skilled in the magical and arcane arts of fire, nor because they are known for their forges.
It’s because the heat of the sun is burning. In other words, hot.
It’s not that I haven’t experienced weather like this before, but it’s worse in Hwaseong.
Oh, and hot in another way.
When you’ve got a bunch of houses blazing away in front of you, you’re bound to feel the heat on your skin.
“Help… Give me…”
“Help is on the way! Hang in there!”
“Cadets, start evacuating the residents!”
As soon as I set foot in Hwaseong, the town I arrived in was burning like it was in the middle of a war.
This is why it should be called Hwaguk, not a country of fire, but a country on fire.
From children sobbing for their lost parents in the chaos, to an old man on the ground, to a nameless ninja slumped against a broken wall in a pool of blood.
Yes, that was a ninja.
He may not have worn a mask to hide his face or a headband with the symbol of his country of origin on his forehead, but he was a ninja.
Although Hwaseong is considered to be the origin of ninja and the country with the largest number of ninja, it is not the only country that trains ninjas.
Information about ninja training and the laws they follow are strictly classified as state secrets.
I’m not sure if they should be proud of this, but ninjas are the identity of the country.
What are these ninjas fighting against?
Their enemy is that guy over there, whose whole body is covered in flames, burning tirelessly.
It looks like a fiery fox. That’s what they call a ‘divine beast’.
It is said that they will not harm humans except under special circumstances, but the problem is that this is a special circumstance.
For years, Hwaseong has been struggling with the indiscriminate aggression of the divine beasts in their care.
One wonders how they were ever able to manage such sensitive beings in the first place.
“Zetto, right!”
I hear Aizel’s urgent voice and at the same time, I see flames trying to engulf me from the right.
– Boom!!!
I slice the flames vertically to disperse the force, but I can’t completely destroy it, so the heat that follows is borne by my left arm, which is now all metal.
‘It’s not exactly magic, so I can’t see any weaknesses.’
The flame is her arm.
The spewing ash is her legs.
This was one of the poems written for the fiery fox, who should have been reduced to charcoal long ago.
‘Annoying…’
I smirked, inhaling the heat against my nose.
Things were going so smoothly that I was actually getting aroused and stimulated by the challenge.
I sheath my sword, and at the same time, I slashed out of thin air and blocked the divine beast with a single backward slash.
-Shit!!!
The creature must have sensed my sword strike, which should have been completely unreachable to the naked eye, and the fireballs hovering around him immediately formed a shield to protect her.
“……”
The fox, who had been running across the roofs of the village, stopped and glared at me.
She’s been rampaging, oblivious to her surroundings, and my earlier attack seems to have made her watch me closely.
“Orphele, are you ready yet?”
“……”
I ask, but Orphele doesn’t answer as he gathers mana from all over his body.
“Looks like we’ll have to buy some more time.”
Yuri stepped forward, pulling a small sphere, an orb, from her arm.
“Her flames have a way of hitting even Miss Yuri, don’t they?”
Yuri’s talent with fire magic was unrivaled, and she naturally had the fire resistance to match, but the blue flames that the divine beast was emitting were not the same as the flames she knew so well.
One of the blue orbs of flame that had been hovering by her side rose into the air and exploded, sending sparks falling from the sky in a rain of flames, the glass crackling and bouncing off her fingers.
-Quack, quack, quack!!!!
The rain of fire raining down on us explodes in the sky and disappears.
“I’ve already adjusted, I don’t know if my fire magic will be able to hit it, but I’ll try my best.”
Confidently stepping forward to block the creature’s attack, Yuri takes the blow and feels a bit grassy, but quickly gets back to her feet.
I wonder if she feels like she’s fighting fire with fire.
“I’ll leave the air to Yuri, then, while me, Kaen, and Aizel, who’s fast on her feet, will rush him as hard as we can. Crank and Amon, stay here and protect Orphele.”
“…And the instructors, by the way?”
Crank asked, raising his massive shield.
He had only just awakened, and was a little slow to catch up.
“They’re evacuating the residents. Instructor Edward told me that his illusion spell isn’t working on the creature, so we’re stalling for time.”
“So we’re supposed to stop that monster on our own…?”
“Why not. You’re a good shield, Crank, and so am I.”
Amon chuckled and tied his hair back into a tight bun, then quickly built an earth wall around Orphele, who was preparing her magic.
Edward was usually so suspicious and quick, but alas, for once he seemed to have a point.
Considering he was a divine beast, it wasn’t surprising that his illusions didn’t work.
‘I’m sure Lucia is helping the instructors transport the wounded… The six of us are all that’s left.’
Maybe this is my chance to increase the progress of the ‘King’ in the status window.
With one swipe of my sword, I took a step towards the fox, who glared at me.
My brow furrowed at the heat that grew stronger the closer I got to the creature, but I heard Kaen and Aizel’s voices as they followed me.
“I’ll match Cadet Zetto’s movements.”
With these women, what could I be more afraid of?
“Then let’s see… Let’s make it rain in a dry sky.”
I could make lightning in a dry sky on my own, but I needed Orphele help with the rain.
***
‘What are they…?’
Daijin, one of the ordinary low-level ninjas of the Hwaseong Kingdom, was speechless as he witnessed a rare sight.
An extraordinary divine beast, Miho, had unexpectedly stormed into the village where he lived, and while he had desperately tried to stop her, injuring his leg in the process, he had collapsed on the spot and was unable to stand up, but now he was unable to stand up in a different sense.
TLN: Miho= fox divine beast name
“Miss Aizel!”
“Leave it.”
As the black-haired blind man who had just dodged Miho’s tail shouted that, the platinum-haired girl replied with a stern voice and swung her spear with a thunderbolt, striking Miho’s tail.
-Kiiii!!!
A bolt of golden lightning surged through Miho’s body, causing her to writhe in pain for a moment.
An enraged Miho then bared her fangs at the black-haired blind man.
-Aaang!!!!
Together, the blind man and the pink-haired girl beside him blocked Miho’s fangs with their swords.
‘They’re withstanding Miho’s power…?’
The strangers who suddenly appeared were pushing Miho away.
-Aaahhhh!!!!!
“Ugh…”
Daijin frowned at the roar that came from the air.
“You’re persistent… If you’re a divine beast, this is a dragon…!”
He followed the sound of the shout and caught sight of the captured girl with her palms facing upwards.
‘Miho’s flames are bursting in the air.’
The indiscriminate bombardment of Miho’s flames had stopped, and she was now single-handedly deflecting all the flames from Miho’s fox orb.
‘But what are they doing back there?’
Behind her, she saw a wall of dirt and a man with a shield.
As a lowly ninja, Daijin couldn’t even begin to guess what they were doing.
From the way they moved as one, it was clear that they had a plan, a strategy, and Daijin was trying to figure out what it was.
“…Did you hurt your leg?!”
A bluish-haired girl, who he didn’t recognize, approached him.
“Oh, yes… my left leg…”
“Do you think you can walk? If not, I can carry you.”
The girl snapped her fingers, and Daijin’s body floated in the air.
“Ohhh…”
Daijin was awestruck, experiencing magic for the first time, but this was not the time for such an idle reaction.
“…But I think I can walk, I just need some support, so we can move the other residents…”
“They’re already being moved.”
“Ah…”
The wounded floated through the air, visible behind her sunny smile.
‘Is she creating a wind…? Moving that many people at once…’
Daijin stared at the girl in front of him, mesmerized, as she seemed to be enjoying herself despite the fact that it was a task that would seemingly take quite a bit of energy.
“By the way, it looks like they’re busy over there too.”
The girl turned her head and looked toward where Miho was.
“Are they your colleagues…?”
“Yes, they’re my friends!”
“In that case, please stop them.”
“Stop them?”
The girl tilted her head as if she didn’t understand.
“I know that their skills aren’t extraordinary, but they’re still in danger… After all, Miho is an extraordinary divine beast.”
“An extraordinary divine beast…”
“Whatever they were planning… Unless the shrine maiden is coming, they won’t be able to stop Miho.”
The only way to capture Miho was for a ‘shrine maiden’ to arrive, who could manage all the divine beasts of the Hwaseong Kingdom and control their powers.
“Unless it suddenly rains from the sky…”
The scorching sunlight of the Hwaseong country hit Daijin’s face as he looked up.
The sky was too clear to be cloudless.
Daijin looked at it and shook his head.
“…But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
It was hard to hope for rain, which was Miho’s only weakness but the girl who looked up at the sky with him said something else.
“It’s going to rain.”
“What does that mean…?”
“It’s going to rain.”
Daijin furrowed his brow in disbelief, but the girl smiled weakly.
“Just wait and see. Um…By now…”
The girl’s words trailed off as she clenched her jaw.
-Thud!
With a splashing sound that came from nowhere, a giant water drop appeared from the earth wall in the distance and shot into the air.
“Uh, now!”
The girl clapped her hands as she realized this, and a nameless man’s shout could be heard from within the earth wall.
“Zetto!!! I’ve got it!!!”
“I’ve been waiting for you!”
The black-haired blind man who had been confronting Miho on the other side of the earthen wall shouts back, and he rushes to the earthen wall.
“Amon!”
“Oooh!”
In response to the blind man’s call, a large man with a rock hanging from his arm emerges from the earth wall.
The blind man jumps into his arms, and he throws the blind man straight up.
In the same split second, the blind man’s body disappeared from Daijin’s sight.
“Oh…!”
The girl exclaimed as she watched, her palm blocking out the sunlight as if she could see something unlike Daijin.
‘What about Miho…?’
Daijin, who had no idea what was going on, asked that question.
-Aaahhhhh!!!!!!
An earth-shattering roar rang out from the air above the giant water droplet.
Then, countless splintered and cracked droplets fell from the sky.
-Aaah…
The tiny droplets hit Daijin’s clothes and skin with a thudding sound.
“What the…”
Rain was indeed pouring down from the cloudless sky.