Surviving in the 121st Century - Chapter 97



Only Krnovel

“Ugh···”

The leader of the raiders trembled and rolled his eyes instead of answering. The raiders surrounding the skeleton tank received the look and quietly raised their weapons. Of course, Jincheol could clearly see their secretive movements.

“these guys···”

Jincheol tightened his grip on the nape of his neck. The leader, Olog, let out a muffled scream, “Geuk!” At the same time, as if it were a signal, the other raiders also ran towards Jincheol.

Jincheol’s response to them was simple. He aimed the futuristic pistol he had taken from the leader, Olog, at Olog who was running the hardest and pulled the trigger.

“Meat! Eat meat-”

With a swoosh, a blue light shot out and blew off the heads of the looters who were running towards them. The moment the looters stopped in their tracks at that sight, the muzzle of the futuristic pistol was pointed at the steel truck. The same swoosh, blue light, and the open engine compartment. Immediately afterwards, flames shot out from there and it exploded.

“Kwaaah! Fire! Fire!”

Jincheol also fired his pistol at a few other guys. In a short while, three or four bikes and trucks were destroyed. The looters who were trying to rush in were in panic and began to scatter in all directions as cars and heads exploded here and there.

Seeing that sight, the leader Olog muttered even as the back of his neck tightened.

“Those··· idiots, those··· little guys···”

While the looters were running in all directions, Jincheol was looking not at them but at the futuristic pistol in his hand.

“Why is it like this again?”

As I fired excitedly like the boss, a vibration like grinding metal, heat, and faint smoke came out of the body of the pistol.

Jincheol quickly threw it away as he felt his palm burn. The futuristic pistol that fell to the dirt floor soon melted into red-hot molten metal from the inside and exploded with a small bang. If he had been a little later, it would have exploded in his palm.

“What the heck. Is this a defective product?”

“Ugh···”

Jincheol raised his head and looked at the stone fist tank and Shogi that were slowly approaching. Shogi looked at Jincheol with a face that couldn’t hide his bewilderment, while Snow looked at him with a calm face that seemed to think, “That’s it.”

As the looters all ran away and Jincheol saw them approaching, he grabbed the leader, Olog, by the scruff of his neck and threw him out of the tank.

“Eww!”

The leader, Olog, let out a single scream and rolled around on the dirt floor. He even grabbed his leg with a pained expression, as if he had twisted his leg while falling. However, he soon found Jincheol getting off the tram, and he quickly turned around and started crawling away.

Jincheol got off the tram and walked behind the leader, Olog.

A red-skinned giant desperately crawling away, dragging his injured leg, and a shabby-clothed wanderer slowly following behind him. Jincheol suddenly raised his head and looked up at the brightly sunlit sky, muttering with a frown on his face.

“This looks like something out of a Western movie.”

“Eek, eek···”

Regardless of what Jincheol muttered or not, the leader Olog fought hard as if he was going to get out of here alive. However, before he could leave the scene, the Stone Fist tank approached and stopped, and the other groups approached even faster.

Sho-o-gi, who had come running, stabbed the injured leg of the crawling man with the blade on the end of his rifle.

“Ugh!”

“Are you sick?”

“Ugh, that, that’s right… it hurts…”

“Okay. I said it hurt. It hurts more.”

Shogi twisted the blade he had stabbed with, and the boss screamed again, “Ah!” Blood flowed out from the torn wound. The boss held onto his leg and begged.

“Ah, it hurts… Stop it…”

“You were the one who tried to eat us first. Would you have stopped if we had told you to?”

“···No. I’m hungry right now. I need to eat something.”

“That’s right. That’s why I don’t stop either.”

“Eww! It hurts!”

Jincheol, who heard the conversation between the two, laughed out loud in disbelief. What kind of conversation is that? Snow, who came up next to Jincheol, muttered as if he had the same thoughts as Jincheol.

“···But you still don’t lie.”

“You’re more positive than I thought. I can’t believe you thought that after seeing that conversation.”

Snow just shrugged his shoulders with a blank expression. It was like a scene from a black comedy, with an albino elf with no change in expression. A futuristic fantasy western black comedy? A genre that would never sell.

Shogi twisted the inserted blade once more.

“I should cut off your head and put it on display. It will serve as a lesson to other wanderers.”

“···I, I am not a wanderer···”

“You’re not a vagabond?”

The leader, Olog, shook his head even in pain.

“Didn’t you see just now? I have many subordinates. A wanderer is someone who wanders around in groups of three or four. I’m not a wanderer. I’m the king of my class.”

“Where are those men now?”

“···”

They all ran away. So, the leader Olog just blinked and couldn’t answer. Sho-ogi snorted.

“Even if a few more wandering gangs join together, wanderers are still wanderers. Those who have no hunting father or tribe mother and just try to prey on people passing by cannot be called Garra. You are nothing more than a starving thief at best. That is why the others ran away as well.”

“···”

Even in the midst of his pain, the eyes of the chieftain Olog, who had been gleaming with bloodshot energy, suddenly lost their strength. He could not answer Shogi’s words and simply lowered his eyes. Could this be the appearance of a castle lord who realized that his castle was a sand castle?

Suddenly, Jincheol turned his gaze and looked at Doljumeok. He had stopped the tank and was watching the conversation between Shogi and the leader. Then, as if he sensed Jincheol’s gaze, he quickly turned around and started picking up the weapons that the looters had thrown away as they fled.

Jincheol, who was looking at his back that was somehow cowering, shook his head and approached the boss and Shogi.

“Stop this conversation where the viewer’s intelligence is low. Let me ask a question too.”

Shogi meekly stepped aside. Jincheol approached the leader, who was looking at the floor with his legs held, and crouched down in front of him. Then he snapped his fingers in front of the bastard and spoke.

“Hey. Come on.”

“···What is it?”

Only then did Jincheol speak, seeing the leader looking this way.

“Do you remember what I asked you earlier?”

“···what?”

“You’re asking me twice, kid.”

Jincheol rolled his fingers that were flicking in front of the bastard’s face into a circle and brought them to his forehead. Then he lightly tapped them. With a “pop” sound, the boss’s head jerked back. The boss didn’t respond for a moment, but then he used all his facial muscles to contort his face.

“Ugh···”

“Do you remember now what I asked you?”

When the boss didn’t answer and just held his forehead, Jincheol reached out his hand again. The boss saw the finger and spoke quickly.

“I remembered! The fireworks! I asked where the fireworks came from!”

“You call that a firework gun?”

“That’s right! It’s a firework gun because it shoots blue flames!”

Hopeless naming skills. But Jincheol wasn’t that good either, so he didn’t bother to take it upon himself.

“So? Where did that sparkler come from?”

“Oh, that··· I, got it···”

“Take it? You just took it? An artifact like that?”

Jincheol’s fingers moved again. Seeing that, the boss tilted his head back and continued speaking urgently.

“There are merchants! They are gathering information on Barun Hoyd! They sell information to them and receive the goods! I just didn’t accept it!”

Jincheol’s hand stopped at that urgent tone. However, he did not pull it back completely.

“What do those merchants do?”

“The merchants are… merchants. They are the ones who bring southern goods and sell them to the merchants, or buy goods from the merchants and go to the South to sell them.”

“Hey, you just had an artifact like that in the hands of a merchant? And you gave it to me?”

“Well, what can I do if it’s true···”

“What race were the merchants?”

The boss answered with a look on his face as if asking why he was asking such a thing.

“Of course… Ologda. Southern tribes rarely come to this land….”

As he spoke, he glanced at Jincheol and Snow. Jincheol shook his head. Some were nomads, some were cannibal raiders, and some were merchants. No, maybe all those occupations were synonymous. When things were stable, they were nomads, and when they were hungry, they were raiders. Those who wanted to go south were merchants. That must be how the Olog tribe lived.

“Then what information did you sell that you got an artifact like that?”

“That, rice, it was nothing. Just a conversation···”

“So what’s the story?”

The boss’s mouth opened again at the threatening touch of Jincheol’s fingers.

“It’s just a story I heard when I was still living in Gar. Somewhere in Barun Hoyd, there’s Tolkan’s tomb…”

“What? Tolkan?”

He led the first garrison, so what? Jincheol narrowed his eyes and glared at the leader. The leader, unable to bear the gaze, lowered his gaze and continued speaking.

“T, it’s nothing special. The Gars who live near Barun Hoyd all have similar stories. Tolkhan, who had led life out of the land of death, returned to Barun Hoyd with his old body. And he built his tomb where the typhoon of hatred was thickest, where the lightning of rage struck most fiercely. One day, when all that hatred and rage has dispersed, he will be reborn and return to this land…”

Jincheol, who was listening to the guy’s story, raised his head and looked at Showogi.

“Have you ever heard a story like this?”

“It’s a common story. It’s a little different for each tribe’s mother, but ultimately the same story is passed down from mouth to mouth.”

“So the real Tolkan is buried somewhere in that Barun Hoyd?”

Shogi shook his head.

“No, it is not. For many years, countless warriors and mothers of Gar have wandered through Barun Hoyd in search of the tomb. But none of them have ever found it.”

Jincheol’s gaze turned to the boss again.

“Is that so?”

“···Huh, huh?”

“Where the hell are those guys who would just throw out artifacts for such a common story?”

“Oh, that··· I told you one more thing···”

“Yeah, tell me something like that.”

The man spoke slowly, glancing at Jincheol’s eyes and the finger he was aiming at.

“That is… In order to find Tolkhan’s tomb… First, we must find the path leading to him. The black path, the black path of the forgotten empire. Somewhere in Barun Hoyd, there is a black path leading to Tolkhan’s tomb…”

The black road of the forgotten empire. Jincheol remembered the road thanks to his sharpened memory. When he left for Siol from the tribe of Atukai, the road he took from the tribe’s mother tree to the dock was that black road. I heard that it was a road that would never be erased, except for a little bit of fallen leaves.

Jincheol, who had been thinking quietly, looked at the leader who had kept his mouth shut.

“Is that all?”

“···uh?”

“Is that all?”

“···Everything.”

“Where do I have to go to find that path or something?”

“No. It was just said that Barun Hoyde was somewhere.”

The next moment, Jincheol’s finger was pointed at the boss’s forehead. The boss’s face suddenly distorted when he saw the finger and his neck shrank like a giraffe. However, Jincheol’s finger only lightly pushed his forehead.

“···?”

“Where did you meet those merchants?”

“···Caracole.”

Were the guys that Sho-ogi saw the ones who had dealt with this guy? We can go and check. Jin-cheol got up from his crouching position. Then he pulled out the gun that was stuck in his thigh and threw it at Sho-ogi. Sho-ogi who received the gun back, the boss who groaned at the sudden blade being pulled out, Snow who was quietly watching, and even Dol-ju-fist who was picking up things all looked at Jin-cheol.

Jincheol quietly looked at the leader looking up at him, then turned around.

“let’s go.”

“···Who is this guy?”

Jincheol didn’t answer Shogi’s question and climbed onto the tram. Doljumeok, who was collecting scraps, saw this and quickly ran to the tram. Snow, who had been watching the two of them, also climbed onto the tram quietly. It really seemed like they were going to leave like this.

“···”

As Sho-ogi quietly watched the three people, he put his rifle on his shoulder and got on the U-hu-ru, wondering what was going on. Then he started to move forward without saying a word. The Stone Fist tank followed behind him, its engine roaring loudly.

“···”

The leader of the raiders blinked and watched them leave with a blank expression. Then, when it seemed like they were really moving away, he laughed.

“What, what? You’re not going to kill me? You’re going to spare my life just because I answered some questions? Hahaha! You idiots! The Southerners are so weak! I’ll definitely get my revenge someday! I’m Olotaki! I won’t forget a grudge···”

The corners of his mouth, which had been laughing loudly, became stiff. He saw Jincheol and his party moving away from him, and at the same time, his subordinates, the looters, slowly approaching from under the sand dunes here and there. His expression, which had been delighted at discovering them, soon hardened as he thought about something.

“···”

After a while, Jincheol and his party completely moved away. However, the looters all came up to the boss and stood there blankly. The boss looked up at them with a pale expression.

In contrast, the faces of the looters were expressionless. Their blades were blackened with dried blood.

The Ologs do not eat their own comrades, much less their own kind. But the chief could only see the predators in the faces of the marauders looking down on him.

There were no children of Gar there.