Paladin of the Dead God - Chapter 363



Only Krnovel

Episode 363. The one who calls calls (5)

The giant water serpent with bronze scales looked familiar.

‘That water snake that was watching me when I ate the flesh of the one who called.’

Isaac opened his mouth as something suddenly occurred to him.

“Are you Amundalas?”

The bronze serpent flickered its tongue, then answered Isaac with a mental wave.

[Yes. We end up meeting each other often.]

It was only this evening that I met Amundalas at Urbansus, and Isaac has been to Urbansus and back twice.

Even considering that this was Mirmia, the holy land of the Salt Council, there were too many.

Amundalas spoke with a voice that contained a complex emotion.

[I came in a hurry because I knew you were involved in a call. I don’t know the reason, but I want to tell you that it was definitely not intentional.]

Isaac felt that Amundalas was answering particularly politely. Although he was normally a polite angel, he now felt embarrassed. Instead of thinking that his status had increased, Isaac thought back to the vision he had just seen.

That what almost happened to Isaac triggered some trauma in Amundalas.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

Amundalas seemed relieved by Isaac’s calm answer. She was thinking back to the Salt Council’s fate after they betrayed Ruaddin in the past. Of course, Isaac was not yet a lighthouse keeper, but at least he seemed to have accomplished as much as Ruaddin had in his lifetime.

[I forced you to the beach so that you wouldn’t be caught up in the call. However, you didn’t wake up, so I was about to call the lanternfly when your retinue showed up.]

Isaac looked back at Hesabel once more. She couldn’t hear Amundalas’ words, so she was only guessing from Isaac’s answer. In any case, Isaac seemed to have accepted the apology, so she seemed to have decided that it was okay to be proud in front of the angel.

‘It seems like the call wasn’t intentional.’

Isaac nodded and asked.

“Is the one calling still asleep?”

[exactly.]

It seemed that Amundalas did not know that Isaac had met Rael. Isaac opened his mouth after thinking about how to tell what he had seen.

“The truth is, when I was in the ocean… … .”

Isaac spoke of a landscape he had seen that he could not tell was a vision or Urbanus.

Mirmia flourishing, Amundalas standing on the docks, the boy priest Rael, and Mirmia being destroyed after the order is carried out.

If what he saw was Urbansus, Amundalas could not have been unaware of it. The angels are the ones who roam freely throughout Urbansus. That means what he saw was not Urbansus, but something else.

Amundalas seemed greatly surprised when Isaac told him that he had returned from seeing ‘Erased History’. However, Isaac omitted the last words that Rael had muttered, ‘I don’t know who the dreamer is, but he is better than the lighthouse keeper or the snowy owl.’

The fact that the Caller had foreseen Isaac’s existence meant that even the Salt Desert had anticipated it. It was unclear how Amundalas would accept the god who had predicted the destruction of the cult and yet had ordered it.

As expected, what Isaac saw was not Urbansus.

[What you saw is what happened in Mirmia. But it is different from reality.]

“It’s different from reality?”

[Lael… … So, the one who calls cannot speak very logically. He is stubborn and waits for a hundred or a thousand years until his desire is fulfilled. Of course, there are times when he has a deep meaning, but his ability to judge beyond cognition is something that even I, a celestial angel, cannot keep up with.]

Isaac couldn’t tell if that was a sarcasm or a grumble, but if Amundalas was right, then Rael was really just throwing a tantrum and didn’t really try to convince him.

There is no rule that a god’s personality is necessarily mature and wise. After all, even a natural object can become a god if there is worship and faith in it.

Amundalas thought back on what Isaac had said and then said:

[Perhaps you have seen the dream of the one who calls.]

“dream?”

[The one who called must have wanted to tell me that. That must be why he grumbled like that, even in his dreams. It was a valuable experience to look into God’s dreams.]

It is a precious experience to look into the dream of a god. The one who calls seems to have recalled the memory of the day Mirmia was destroyed in commemoration of Mirmia’s restoration.

But Isaac didn’t feel like this was so light.

‘The one calling wanted to tell me something.’

Showing your own doom, you are told to make better choices than the lighthouse keeper or the snowy owl.

‘What on earth did they choose?’

***

The aftermath of the salt desert’s destruction did not only affect the area surrounding Mirmia.

Almost immediately, the Salt Council captains scattered across the world heard the call, contacted each other to find out what was going on, and called a meeting. Councils were held around the world, and it was decided that the situation in Mirmia had to be determined.

“Captain Aidan, the ship is coming!”

Aidan, who was waiting at the dock in front of Mirmia, immediately recognized the quickly approaching ship.

The ship approached quickly and landed smoothly, as if it had been waiting for this moment. And before the ship could even stop, Yenkos Hare jumped down.

“Aidan! Captain Aidan!”

As soon as Yenkos saw Aidan, he jumped up and ran towards her. Her face was filled with surprise and a smile. She hugged Aidan without hesitation.

Aidan knew how she felt, so he hugged her back.

“Is this a dream or reality? I am the first captain to have sailed into the port of Mirmia in a thousand years?”

“It’s reality, Captain Yenkos. And reality, as reality goes, is full of problems.”

Yenkos was about to get angry and say something blasphemous on this wonderful day, but he looked around and kept his mouth shut. The ‘Last Day of Mirmia’ that the Salt Council believers always heard when they were growing up always contains a description of how beautiful and prosperous the metropolis was.

But the scenery she now saw was nothing but desolate and crumbling ruins. It was hard to find a single intact building, and the corpses of monsters that had not yet been collected stank everywhere. However, Yenkos soon regained his composure.

“I can’t say that this is the scenery I dreamed of. But it is a blessing enough that we have regained our holy land and the voice of God.”

“You came later than I expected. I thought you would come as soon as the desert broke.”

“You didn’t see the desert properly? The salt dam outside hasn’t completely collapsed yet. When the salt dam collapsed, the seawater rushed into the cracks with such force that ships had to risk their lives to get through. It had to be wide enough before they could get in.”

“I see… … But we have to leave Mirmia right now. There is no housing, no sanitation, and no infrastructure, so we need to bring in the necessary supplies to reuse it as a base.”

The land, long neglected under the cursed sun, had become a barren desert that had lost all its fertility. The only people around it to interact with were literally just skin and bones, so there was no way to ask for help.

“The biggest problem is food. There is no fish to be caught in the sea off Mirmia.”

“Fish? Hmm, maybe it’s a salinity issue.”

The salt flats are melting rapidly, but because of this, the salinity is several times higher than other seas. Even marine life cannot survive in salinity this high.

In fact, the reason there were no sea creatures in the sea off Mirmia was because most of them were being sucked into the mouth of the one who called them under the cracks in the salt desert. However, since Aidan did not know that, he could only think that it was a salinity problem.

At that moment, Yenkos laughed bitterly.

“But don’t worry, I didn’t come empty-handed.”

Kung. Another ship arrived at the dock. A large and ornate ship following Yenkos, with the flag of the Golden Idol flying above it. Those who were keen to catch the reaction of the Salt Council were the quick-witted merchants.

Soon a plank was struck from the ship, and the first to emerge was a woman.

It was Leonora and Sherlock who followed her as her escort. Instead of her usual dress, Leonora was wearing light armor over clothes that were easy to move around in.

As soon as Leonora gestured, a huge amount of supplies began to be loaded down from the ships. Watching the most urgent supplies, such as alcohol, wheat, medicine, and cloth, being brought down, Aidan felt as if a thousand-year-old worry had been resolved.

“Lady Leonora, how did you manage to get all the supplies you needed so precisely?”

Leonora looked at Aidan and asked as if it were only natural.

“I heard that it was a city abandoned for a thousand years. What good is it if merchants can’t even predict supply and demand?”

“… … We don’t have money to pay… … .”

“Don’t worry. I’ll put it in front of the Grail Knight.”

She looked around as she answered.

“What about the Isacrea Dawn Army? I don’t see any flags.”

Yenkos was embarrassed when he realized that he had missed something important while examining Mirmia. Aidan touched the back of his head with a blank expression.

“Lord Isaac has already headed to the Holy Land, Lua. The Uncanny Order must have known that the Salt Desert was destroyed, so we must move quickly.”

“Oh? Then you must have headed east.”

Aidan was taken aback to see Leonora looking like she was going to follow Isaac at any moment.

“Lady Leonora, do you intend to follow me?”

“I have a story to tell the Knight of the Holy Grail.”

Leonora nodded and said.

“The Dawn Army’s main force is in a serious state. They have already burned Bel Slav and are moving south. Even with the Khan’s new army joining the battle, the Red Grail’s army has been defeated. The Dawn Army’s main force is advancing faster than expected. This is even without the angels joining the battle.”

“That means… … .”

Aidan tensed as he read the nuance behind Leonora’s words.

“Yes. The Immortal Order is even sparing its strength to fight the main force of the Dawn Army. If that strength is prepared to strike down the Isacrea Dawn Army… … the Grail Knights will be in a very difficult position.”

***

Bel Slav means ‘flower of the hill’.

It’s a beautiful name, but the flowers mentioned here refer to an impregnable fortress surrounded by multiple layers like rose petals built on a hill. It was said that the Red Grail Club’s god, the dancer, named it because she found the scenery here beautiful, but now there is no trace of that flower garden.

Built on a military and economically important location, the city has been the site of centuries-long struggles between the Olkan Code, the Red Grail, and the Code of Light. Each time, the castle has been expanded countless times, becoming layered like a flower petal.

After countless changes of ownership, it was the Undying Cult that finally took possession of Bel Slav.

And as a strategic point of the East, Bel Slav served as the northernmost city of the Urdantu Empire, ruled by the Undead Cult.

Until just yesterday.

[Evacuate to the inner castle!]

Jagagagagag! The sound of scorching heat and flashes scraping against the walls resonated fiercely. One of the Death Knights who had fled and fallen on the melted rock was turned into a stone statue by his own coldness. However, the flashes from the ‘lighthouse’ melted even the Death Knight statue.

The Death Knight Commander trembled at the sight and shouted.

[Those guys, they have no intention of occupying Bel Slav! Retreat!]

Normally, when an army retreats, they would take refuge in the back gate, but these undead had a wider range of options for their ‘retreat’. They chose the inner well that led to the nearby river as their retreat route.

It was an option available to undead who could survive underwater for a hundred years.

The Death Knight Commander could not understand the ways of the Code of Light.

To prevent other forces from using this strategic location, it had to be captured and fortified. This has always been the case over the centuries, as the city has been taken and taken countless times. However, the Dawn Army outside the walls seemed to have no interest in such matters, and was literally ‘melting’ the entirety of Bel Slav.

‘As if I would never use this place again… … .’