ocean-life Chapter 355: Peace - Aftermath (3)
Chapter 355: Peace - Aftermath (3)
[translator - night]
[proofreader - gun]
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chapter 355: peace - aftermath (3)
magnarein was incredibly vast.
so vast, in fact, it could rival a major city in size.
judging by the scale of the underground area, it could easily accommodate thousands of people.
the mere existence of such a place underground astonished ketal.
but there was no trace of any presence in the wide expanse.
it was filled with nothing but silence.
magnarein was in ruins.
“am i too late?”
ketal clicked his tongue as he stepped forward.
everything that once made up magnarein had been destroyed.
it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a wasteland.
however, it wasn’t the result of ordinary destruction.
“what... is this?”
ketal stared at something in front of him.
judging by its location at the entrance of magnarein, it was likely a checkpoint or something similar.
but it was hard to tell what it originally looked like.
the structure was twisted and shriveled, like a rag wrung dry to its limits and then left to rot.
and it wasn’t the only one.
the fences that should have stood guard beside the checkpoint.
the countless buildings within magnarein.
all of them were the same.
twisted and distorted structures jutted out of the ground like ancient, withered trees thousands of years old.
“what the hell is this?”
ketal grimaced.
it wasn’t just because the sight was grotesque and alien.
he recognized what caused this devastation.
[...what is this?]
even the monstrosity murmured softly, as if it had a guess.
[judging by its form... this is that creature’s authority.]
“it certainly looks like it, but weren’t they too busy fighting each other?”
[that’s what i thought as well. there’s no way their battle has ended. what is this? a mimicry?]
“it’s too exact to be an imitation.”
shriveled, ancient tree-like appearances.
it was hard to believe anyone could replicate such a sight.
ketal reached out and touched one of the twisted structures.
he felt a strange energy emanating from within.
“...it seems like it’s them, but...”
something was off.
it felt like something else had been added.
ketal withdrew his hand after contemplating the sensation.
“for now, i need to figure out what happened.”
to do that, he needed to talk to someone who had witnessed the events firsthand.
hundreds of twisted things lined the streets, which were likely once living people.
they must have been struck directly by the authority of something, leaving them distorted.
most of them were dead.
but not all.
ketal’s senses told him there were survivors hiding within the twisted buildings.
he began moving.
near the outskirts of magnarein, he found a door embedded in the ground.
it led to a basement.
ketal grabbed the door and opened it.
rumble!
with a rattling sound, noise emerged from inside.
“eeeek!”
“d-don’t come closer!”
a man’s voice.
and a woman’s voice.
ketal spoke calmly.
“relax. i am not your enemy.”
“ah, aaaah!”
“ugh, eek!”
but they showed no sign of believing ketal’s words.
with a resigned expression, ketal descended into the basement.
his eyes widened.
the reason was simple.
the survivors in the basement were people ketal knew.
“kasan? and cassandra.”
the man was kasan hawk, a thief from the thieves’ guild with whom ketal had first formed a party in the barkan territory.
the woman was cassandra, the bandit leader he had fought when heading to the sacred grounds of kalosia.
the aftermath of the battle alone destroyed magnarein.
“in the end, the master dragged the entity deep into magnarein. whether they won or lost, i don’t know.”
“it seems they didn’t win.”
ketal turned his gaze toward the depths of magnarein.
although his view was obstructed, it posed no issue to him.
“i can’t sense any human presence. it seems they sacrificed themselves to seal it somehow.”
“...ah, ah.”
the master of magnarein was dead.
kasan and cassandra’s expressions crumbled.
“still, you managed to survive.”
“...senior members of the thieves’ guild sacrificed themselves to help me escape to this place.”
“the same for me. my father risked his life to seal me here. haha. he should’ve just let me die with him.”
their relatives, their affiliations—everything was gone.
kasan and cassandra wore expressions of emptiness.
but they had survived.
as survivors, they had a duty to fulfill.
ketal opened his mouth to speak.
“it would be best to leave this place for now.”
magnarein was already ruined.
there was no reason to remain.
the survivors had to go outside and inform others of what had happened.
“ah...”
“u-uh.”
but the two found it difficult to move.
the immense fear kept them from stepping out of the underground chambers.
only after ketal cast a protective spell on their bodies did they hesitantly start moving.
they followed ketal and headed toward the entrance of magnarein.
as they reached the broken passageway, kasan looked back and noticed ketal wasn’t following them.
“mr. ketal, aren’t you coming with us?”
“you go ahead first.”
ketal gazed at magnarein and spoke calmly.
“i think i need to settle things here.”
“what?”
just as kasan was about to ask what he meant, magnarein began to tremble.
a powerful vibration resonated.
“...ah.”
“uh, ah.”
kasan and cassandra’s faces turned pale.
“stand back. i’m not sure what will happen.”
ketal closed the shattered door and stepped further into magnarein.
soon, the sound of destruction erupted, and something emerged from within.
“hahaha! hahaha! that was quite entertaining, grand mage!”
it was a middle-aged man.
at first glance, he appeared human.
but ketal could tell it was only an illusion.
its essence was twisted and broken, no longer something that could be called life.
ketal muttered,
“something that was once human, now corrupted. looks like an apostle.”
the creature, laughing maniacally, glared at ketal.
“...and who are you?”
“i am ketal.”
“ketal? i don’t care! what’s a barbarian doing here?”
“you don’t know who i am?”
ketal was famous on the surface.
even cassandra, a resident of magnarein, had recognized him as the one who fought the demon king.
it was almost unthinkable that someone didn’t know of him.
the only explanation was that the creature wasn’t of this world.
or it had come from a place completely cut off from the war against hell.
“since we can talk, let me ask you a question. you don’t have to answer. i’ll make you talk.”
ketal asked,
“what’s your connection to the old man?”
the middle-aged man before him carried the old man’s authority.
at ketal’s question, the man tilted his head.
“old man?”
“maybe that’s not the right term.”
ketal started to speak but then shook his head.
“no. it doesn’t matter if you don’t answer now. you won’t answer anyway. that’s fine.”
after all, he could simply break the creature’s limbs and force it to answer.
ketal smirked as he gripped his axe.
his killing intent rose sharply, piercing the air like blades.
[translator - night]
[proofreader - gun]
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