Surviving in the 121st Century - Chapter 108



Only Krnovel

Episode 108

“What are you, you newbie?”

Doljumeok made a dumb expression at Jincheol’s sudden question.

“What is it?”

“What did you do to me, Emma?”

“Don’t you know? You just saw it. I woke you up with magic. You’ve been sleeping for a week.”

You slept for a week? Jincheol clenched his fist and tried to guess how long he had been asleep. Of course, he couldn’t guess how much time had passed. He was having a strange nightmare or something, so how could he know how much time had passed?

Jincheol raised his head and looked around the tent where he was sitting with Doljumeok.

“Where is this place?”

“It’s still where we arrived. It hasn’t moved.”

“There was no tent like this.”

Doljumeok threw the chip he was holding at Jincheol. When he caught it, the boy trembled.

[Ugh! You damn Jincheol! I thought you were really dead!]

“Huh? No, what···”

Jincheol was a little embarrassed. This crazy AI was worried about me?

[If you want to die, destroy me first and then die! This gorilla baby is too stupid to figure out a way to destroy me! Next time, if you want to die, destroy me first and then die! Do you understand? Kang Jin-cheol!]

“···Then that’s right.”

[Anyway, it’s nice to see you alive again, Jincheol.]

Jincheol laughed at Bonchip’s voice, which seemed to be crying, then getting angry like fire, and then quickly calming down. It was clearly like he had woken up from a nightmare. This crazy artificial intelligence is real.

Anyway, as I was about to put the guy back on his neck, Stone Fist opened his mouth.

“How are you feeling? We thought you might never wake up. Not because of the physical injuries, but because your mind refuses to wake up.”

“···Who said that?”

Stone Fist’s words were somewhat correct. Ten thousand years of time had strangely changed Jincheol’s body. Did the doctor who created the superhuman soldier anticipate Jincheol’s current state? He may have, or he may not have imagined it this far. However, either way, Jincheol now had physical abilities that were incomparable to those of the superhuman soldiers at the time.

However, in the nightmare, Jincheol was sinking into a deep swamp. If the Stone Fist had not awakened him, he would not have been able to get out of there. Unlike his superhuman body, a part of Jincheol’s mind was still tied to the 21st century battlefield.

“That’s the conclusion that Sho-ogi, Snow, and that demon Bonchip came to together. That’s why I entered your dream to wake you up.”

“···So how did you come into my dream?”

Stone Fist grinned again. It was somewhat unlucky for a hairless gorilla to laugh like that, but he didn’t hit the face because the explanation continued soon.

“There was a silver blood flowing inside me. Snow said it was the silver blood left over from the last time Sandesiya’s Haitha saved me. It woke up during the last Avaganth attack, and I became a sorcerer.”

“···Is that how wizards originally awaken?”

Stone Fist shook his head with a meaningful expression.

“He said that this kind of thing is rare. Snow said that even in his family’s records, cases like mine were nothing more than legends. He also said that it was probably because I had so much silver blood in my body at the time.”

“What? So now you too can manipulate artifacts with hand gestures like Haita?”

“I’m not at that level yet. It would take a lot of training to get there. However, I’ve reached the level where I can enter the dreams of sleeping people after just one week of awakening, so it won’t take long for me to be able to use such difficult magic. Hehe.”

Jincheol laughed along because it was so absurd. The confident smile on Doljumeok’s face was unfamiliar. When I first met him, even at the bare-knuckle fighting arena in Siol’s bar, he had never acted this arrogant.

“Haha, you’re really good. So what’s this tent for? What happened during the week I was sleeping?”

“No, let’s go out and watch together. There is someone waiting outside.”

Doljumeok stood up as he said that, and Jincheol also stood up and left the tent with him. After removing the tent and going outside, he could see the person Doljumeok had been waiting for.

“···Jincheol.”

White hair and red eyes. Pale skin. She, Snow, approached Jincheol with strides.

“You’re awake now.”

“Huh? Hey, hey. I’m fine. You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

Snow shook her head slowly without taking her eyes off Jincheol’s face.

“doesn’t exist.”

“I see? That’s fortunate.”

Snow had an owl mask halfway over her head, and a thermal windbreaker covering her body. She was staring at Jincheol. Jincheol awkwardly opened his mouth again after seeing her gaze.

“Uh… um. Nice to meet you again?”

“I thought you didn’t want to wake up.”

“No, well. I didn’t really have that kind of feeling, but···”

“I’m glad you woke up.”

Jincheol, who had been scratching his head and awkwardly looking away, stopped his hand and faced her. Red, calm eyes were looking at him. Jincheol also looked into those eyes and spoke.

“···Yes. I’m glad to see you again too.”

The corners of Snow’s expressionless lips slightly rose. Jincheol also smiled slightly as he watched her faint smile that he couldn’t tell if she was smiling or not.

At that moment, the stone fist that was nearby intervened.

“Snow taught me magic. The magic that went into your dreams, Jincheol, was also taught to me by her.”

Jincheol said, slightly surprised.

“What? You can use magic too?”

“No. But I know the method. Because of my mother.”

“aha···”

Snow’s mother was Ishanka. Although I don’t know much about her, she was said to be one of the few great sorcerers in Sioux. It might have been natural for Snow, her child, to know the sorcerer’s training methods.

Suddenly, Stone Fist put both hands together in front of his stomach and bowed to Snow, greeting him politely.

“She is a great teacher. I have never seen anyone as patient and calm as she is.”

Snow wiped away her faint smile and bowed to receive the greeting. From Jincheol’s perspective, it seemed like he felt a little uncomfortable receiving the greeting. Regardless, Doljumeok continued to praise him.

“She has a lot of knowledge. She has no shortage of knowledge when it comes to talking about the shougi she learned from her mother. If it weren’t for her, we would have had a really hard time understanding your condition, Jincheol. I wouldn’t have been able to target your spirit with my magic. She is that knowledgeable about gods and spirits. So if you, Jincheol, ever establish a new family, or rather, a southern-style family, you should definitely make her your mistress-”

A lightning-like fist cut off Stone Fist’s chin. It was Snow’s fist. Stone Fist trembled, clutching his stomach with a breathless expression. However, Snow continued to speak, looking at Jincheol with an indifferent expression as if the lightning-like movement was a lie.

“I woke up after a week and I think I’ll be hungry. Should I prepare a meal?”

“···Rather than that, I want to know what happened during that week.”

Jincheol turned his head with a bitter smile. From the top of the high hill, tents and flags lined up along the ridge came into view. It was similar to the gathering of tents I had seen in Karakol last time. Of course, it was much more chaotic than the place where the road was open.

Looking at the shape of the land and the surrounding hilly landscape, it was indeed the campsite where Jincheol and his party had arrived a week ago. At that time, there were only a few Olog warriors and armored tanks standing there, but somehow, it had become a semi-nomad city.

“The Gars are gathering. Including the Gars around Karakol.”

Stone Fist said this while trying hard to hide his pain. He straightened his back and continued speaking with half-clouded eyes.

“Ahem, ahem. Remember when we first got here, the raiders who claimed to be Ol-Gar started to split up little by little?”

“That’s right. They split into small groups and scattered in all directions.”

Doljumeok nodded at Jincheol’s answer.

“In the past week, each of those small raider gangs has taken in new raiders and grown into a large raider gang. I’ve never seen so many wanderers in this wilderness. What’s worse is that as the raiders’ power grows, some gangs are joining them rather than fighting them.”

“Join? There are tribes that have become marauders, or rather, Gars?”

“Yes. In just a week, Ol-Gar’s forces have grown larger than anyone else in this wilderness. They somehow move as if they are all one body, and they know this wilderness as if they are looking down from the sky. That’s why even the giant Gars who tried to fight them were helplessly torn apart. More than five Gars have already been destroyed by them. Naturally, the Gars’ opinions are divided into two. Those who join them, and those who want to join forces to fight them. The Gars gathered here are those who want to fight them.”

Stone Fist either forgot the pain in his stomach as he spoke, or he was taking the current situation in the wilderness very seriously, and his expression was stern. The arrogant expression he had on when he woke up Jincheol was nowhere to be found.

“I think the looters who claim to be Ol-Gar have been preparing for this situation for a long time, since before this week.”

“···why?”

“It was too fast. It is impossible for the Wilderness Raiders to have gathered together as if they had been waiting for it, or to have attacked by surprise before the other Gars could react, unless they had been prepared in advance. It must have been a plan that had been in preparation for at least several months, or perhaps even over a year.”

“···”

Jincheol turned his head and looked at Doljumeok’s face. He was looking at the tents lined up along the ridge with a serious expression, but he felt Jincheol’s gaze and turned his head. Then, he noticed Jincheol’s strange expression and raised one eyebrow.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“···Does that secret awakening also develop intelligence?”

The arrogance from before returned to the face of the stone fist that had been making a puzzled expression.

“Are you surprised? Sorry, but this is the insight and intelligence I’ve always had. It’s just that I never had the chance to show it before. Hehe.”

Jincheol, who was glaring at the stone fist with narrowed eyes, whispered to Snow.

“Is it true?”

“···I’ve never heard of a sorcerer who awakened the Silver Blood becoming smarter than before. However, sorcerers originally need sufficient knowledge and strong will to awaken, so it may just be that the difference from before awakening was not so noticeable···”

Unlike the Esai sorcerer, the Stone Fist’s gap was much larger, so it could be noticeable. Jincheol wanted to give that theory some more strength. Especially since Jincheol knew that Stone Fist was a back-alley fighter in Shiol. At that time, he was nothing more than a drop in the bucket of an underworld organization.

Jincheol, who had been staring at the stone fist for a moment, shook his head and said.

“I’ll listen to your wise opinion a little later. So where did Sho-ogi go?”

“Ah. Shogi is in the Gar conference room right now.”

“Gar conference room?”

“This is where the hunting fathers and mothers of the tribes gather. Of course, there are many cases where both are dead and only one representative enters. That’s also the case with Shouji.”

Doljumeok looked at Jincheol as if he had just remembered something while speaking.

“I asked Shogi to come when you wake up.”

“In the conference room? Me? Why?”

“You are a warrior from the south who drove out the immortal giant Avaganth. Of course, you are qualified to attend the meeting. And… there is another reason why you must go.”

Another reason? But Doljumeok didn’t explain further. He just asked to go to the conference room together. Since it had only been a week, it seemed right to see the face of Shougi, who had been with him, so Jincheol accepted for the time being. There was also a part of him that was a little bit attached to Doljumeok’s actions, which were acting meaningful for no reason, because they were funny.

As they began to move past the tents and chariots set up along the ridge, the eyes of the Ologs there immediately gathered. The Ologs who were lighting a fire and eating something, the Ologs who were repairing the chariots, and even those who were inside the tents heard the commotion outside and came out to look at Jincheol.

They didn’t say anything to Jincheol. They just stopped what they were doing and watched him walk to the conference room. Jincheol, who was following Doljumeok, turned his head and saw that they were all slowly following him.

Jincheol asked Snow, who was following him from the side – who was already wearing an owl mask covering her face.

“Why is everyone staring at me?”

“···As Galtharullo just said, he is the warrior who drove out the immortal giant.”

That’s really burdensome. Let’s go on like that for a moment. The group was soon able to arrive in front of a tent that was unusually large among the tents set up there. The entrance to the tent had a curtain down, covering the inside, and three large Ologs were standing there again, covering the curtain.

The three were unusually large, even among the Ologs, who were large compared to other races. The one in the middle was surprisingly large, comparable to an Avagant. He looked like a red-skinned giant.

The stone fist standing before them opened its mouth.

“The black dragon from the south has come. Get out of the way.”

Jincheol, who was standing behind, stared blankly at the stone fist and the giants for a moment. What’s with the black dragon? Wasn’t this kid’s nickname Stone Fist? He asked to be called Stone Fist because his fist was as hard as a rock.

But soon, as the giants’ gaze turned towards him, he realized who the black dragon of the south was referring to.

“···Fuck. Who gave you such a childish nickname?”

Doljumeok glanced at Jincheol and gave him a thumbs up. What did this kid do well? But before Jincheol could say anything, the giant who had been looking at him opened his mouth.

“If you are truly the black dragon of the rumors, you must first prove your power to me, Ullranus.”

“···”

The stone fist standing between Jincheol and the giant quickly stepped aside. It was absurd, but that alone made Jincheol the one who faced Ulanros. The eyes of all the Ologs gathered there were focused on Jincheol.

“No shit, I came here to see Shogi, what proof is there···”

Whether Jincheol muttered or not, Ulanros raised both his fists and prepared to fight. It seemed like he was saying that he would fight after saying something like “proof”. Jincheol opened his mouth, clearly feeling tired even though he had slept for a week.

“Hey, I just woke up and I’m not feeling well right now-”

“Do the weaklings of the South fight with their mouths?”

The giant named Ulanros immediately flew towards Jincheol and stretched out both his hands. It seemed as if he was going to grab Jincheol and tear him apart to the sides.

Jincheol reflexively struck the man in the middle with his fist.

After a slow breath, there was a cracking sound like the air was being torn apart by a whip, and Ulanros, who had been rushing forward, suddenly stopped. Then, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he fell to his knees.

“···”

All of the watching Ologs fell silent as the red giant’s body fell forward with a thud.

Jincheol said, shaking his hands.

“Still, it’s easier to control my strength than before. I still have my head.”