Chapter 225: Northern Walls (1)

༺ Northern Walls (1)༻

Merkarva Academy temporarily closed its doors and stopped its classes due to the 'unending winter'. It was true that it was so cold outside that it was difficult to move around, but the biggest reason was to have the two of them join the party.

"Master. Professor Josephine."

Master Erin and Lady Josephine. They were the top two powerhouses of Merkarva Academy, but they couldn't leave their post frequently as the chairman and the senior professor of the academy.

"Is it time for the rotation already?"

"Yep. You can take a rest inside, professor. I can hold the leash. As for Master, I have something to talk to you about for a second."

Lady Josephine nodded in response before teleporting away to the movable container that was being carried by the Hresvelgr, which I was currently controlling by the leash.

"Did you have something to talk about?" Master asked.

"Yeah. There is something I wanted to discuss with you regarding the north."

"I'm assuming you are talking about what is past the walls."

"I am. Specifically the remnants of the era of gods that are still there."

Master was the only one I could have this kind of conversation with. I had experience from the future and knowledge of the game, but those were nothing but limited pieces of knowledge gained from a third-person perspective.

You could say I knew nothing compared to what Master Erin knew, as someone who had personally experienced that era.

"Tell me what you know about them first," she asked.

"The Frost Giant. Valkyries and the dwarves."

"How many valkyries were there in the future you had experienced?"

The walls had been breached and the valkyries were hostile to us. But there weren't that many of them in the first place.

"About forty... half of them were on Valtazar's side, and most of the remaining half fell along with the northern walls."

"...That's terrible. I remember there being 540 of them before."

She added after biting her lips.

"The valkyries are messengers drafting the legion of the King of Gods. They were supposed to contend against the titans and demons with the epic legion in the final war."

"That's similar to what we have here."

"I suppose the fall of gods had been prophesied by many."

As one of them, Master couldn't hide the bitter look on her face.

"We had a few exchanges with them. We used to be enemies at one point, but we joined forces after having a common enemy."

"The titans?"

"Exactly. They were immortal and were the closest forms of the primal beings. The descendents of the great Sky Titan were a powerful enemy for us who people referred to as gods."

Just like how the main enemy for the Danann before the appearance of Goidels had been Demon King Balor and the fomorian titans, the gods of the north were in a similar situation.

Frost Giants including the Frost Giant, Utgard.

Flame Giants including Surtr.

It ended in the damnation of both forces. The eras of both the Danann and the north came to an end, which gave rise to the 'golden era' for humans.

Both cases followed the same trajectory of the end of the mythological era followed by the monopoly of humans.

"Since it's so close, was there really no interchange at all for a whole 1,000 years?"

"It looked like there were only a small fraction of gods who survived just like us. I heard there were a few of them left but..."

"There were?"

This was my first time ever hearing about this.

"But the previous previous previous God King, Eochaid Bres, seemed to have killed all the survivors."

"..."

No wonder.

A god from another land, Tates Valtazar, had taken his place there for 80 whole years. Someone would have tried to stop him, but it seemed that Eochaid had killed all of them.

"No wonder he was using the Hammer of the God of Lightning and the Sword of Victory."

The countless treasures in Eochaid Bres's arsenal had included many treasures of the Danann, but there were also those belonging to the gods of the north.

"Master. From what I know, the valkyries have the power to open the 'door'. Is that correct?"

That was what made the valkyries annoying. Them opening the 'door' had played a shocking role in the final war, after all.

"I see. So they... really followed and worshiped Tates in the future considering how that is only allowed to two gods... Oh right. There was a time when I came here briefly 800 years ago."

She started talking about her distant past and what she had discovered north of the walls.

"That's... interesting."

Those were leads that could potentially flip the situation on its head.

****

Northern Walls.

It referred to the walls stopping the plunderers of the Northern Kingdom and the demons, who grew incredibly large in size despite the harsh climate here.

In the past, people stationed here were praised as guardians of the north, and protectors of the final defense line of the kingdom. However, as time went by, the praises gradually diminished, and they had to suffer increasingly more due to the constant shortage of food and constant external threats.

Less and less people volunteered to come here. Recruits were few and far between, and the budgets were always tiny. Due to all that, they were constantly suffering from a lack of talents, munitions and food.

"Scari! I told you to put your damn kids back in the house!"

"O, okay man. Chill!"

There were people making love even in a place as disgustingly cold as this. Senior Guard Direk grumbled to himself while waiting for a certain group to arrive at the gates of the northern walls.

"Fuu... So freaking cold. When is it going to get warmer...?"

It was already mid-March. It was supposed to have become much warmer a lot earlier, but this hateful weather was showing no signs of such things.

As such, the guards of the north felt horrendous. A longer winter meant the barbarians of the north would have fewer animals to hunt, which would directly correlate with plunder.

Naturally, for that plunder to work, at least one section of the walls separating the Northern Kingdom from the El Rath Kingdom had to go down. And obviously, if the wall were to be breached, those bastards living a peaceful life in the capital would create a fuss so the guards had to make sure that didn't happen.

"Hey Captain. When are they coming?"

One of his men complained. Direk threw him a glance before rubbing his ice-cold cheeks with the wool gloves.

"How would I know when that 'climate investigation group' or whatever is gonna get here?"

"So why the heck are they coming all the way here for something stupid like that?"

"Don't ask me, man."

"For goodness' sake. I hope they don't nitpick everything. The old-man chief guard was drinking his ass off when I saw him just then."

"Tell me something new. By the way, have we repaired the gates in the south?"

"It's been 3 years since we just put some planks over it, Captain. No-one is bothered to repair that. It just needs to be sturdy enough to stop a few demons."

Since the walls were aimed at stopping intruders from attacking from the north, they repaired only the northern walls and gates, and were sloppier with the southern gates which connected to the capital.

Sometimes, whenever they had an audit from the administration, those people would say a few things about the southern barricades, but were lenient because they knew the shortage of budget that they were suffering from.

- KURAAAAA...!

That was when he heard the faint roar of a flying beast from a distance. Along with that was the fluttering of wings.

'Huh? Wait, how the hell is that even possible?'

Around this area, even normal wyverns couldn't fly in the air during winter. The wyverns had to be meticulously bred, and the wyvern riders had to wear specially made anti-cold jumpers on top of that to fly.

How many wyverns did it have to be for him to feel the sound of their fluttering wings with his skin?

"C, Captain! Look! What the fuck is that!?"

One of his men yelled out while pointing at the horizon. Direk was similarly flabbergasted upon turning towards the same place.

"W, what the hell is that?!"

There were a lot of wyverns.

A crazy amount of them, at that.

There were at least 50 wyverns, surrounding 3 massive creatures like bodyguards.

- KURAAAAAAAAAAK!!

- KURAAAAAAAAAAK!!

- KURAAAAAAAAAAK!!

3 Hresvelgrs.

Those monsters, who would eat a similar amount of food to the daily consumption of all the citizens of an entire border village combined, were flying towards them for some reason.

"A, are those wild monsters?!"

"What the...! We don't even have anything here!"

"Emergency! Emergency! Activate the cannons! Now!"

Direk quickly gave out orders to the soldiers to activate the defensive measures of the walls. Seasoned through their experience against the half-giants who tried to trample through the walls and beast tamers who tried to fly across the border on an eagle, the soldiers quickly set everything up.

"Uhh, Captain? Those aren't... wild monsters."

"What do you... Huh?"

He picked up his binoculars and looked at the wyverns flying towards them.

"Umm... Are those riders?"

The Hresvelgrs and wyverns had people sitting on them.

'What? Wasn't it just a baron coming here for an investigation of the climate?'

Three monster carriers and 56 wyverns. At that point, it wouldn't be strange even if the king himself was personally within that group.

After a while, they slowly started to descend on the wide plain in front of the walls. Although there were landing zones for wyverns inside the border city, it certainly wasn't big enough to accommodate a group of this size.

"U, uaah..."

Almost 60 flying monsters landed on the ground. Three of them were massive monsters, and the amount of high pressure air being pushed to the ground was therefore incredible.

"W, wait!"

By the time Direk was reminded of the planks of wood replacing the southern gates, he realized that the gates had already crumbled down from the wind.

"..."

"..."

A young man, who seemed to have seen that from the rider seat of a monster carrier, said in a strangely audible voice despite the distance.

"Even more of a mess than I thought."

He frowned but didn't say much of anything else, as if he hadn't been expecting much in the first place. Direk thought he was just a normal rider, but he seemed to be a celebrity, because one of his men immediately recognized his face.

"I, isn't that Sir Korin?"

"The one that's famous these days?"

"He's not just 'famous'! He's the youngest in history to reach Unique Grade, and he's the strongest knight in the entire country!"

His evaluation was slightly off.

There were 3 people who were officially proclaimed by the Association to be Unique Grade guardians. They were Marie, Hua Ran and Korin. Alicia was also acknowledged for her capabilities and was proclaimed a semi-Unique Grade.

Whatever the case, it was true that he was a massive bigshot that normal people wouldn't even catch a glimpse of.

"Wow..."

People started alighting from the monster carriers and the wyverns. There was a shocking number of them in total.

4 people were getting off of each wyverns. 200 was already an incredible number of guests for the border city, but the monster carriers had been boarding triple the amount.

"H, holy..."

And the ones alighting from the monster carriers... were the 'real deals' that were each wearing glistering armors and robes.

"L, look at those plates..."

Each and every one of their equipment was extraordinary. They were newer than the newest pieces of equipment you could get in this city.

"L, look! Are those all mages?"

Lastly they were dumbstruck seeing 300 mages leaving the containers.

This was a small city where a single mage was hard to come by. Even in the capital city, it wouldn't be easy to find 300 mages like that!

A total of 800 of them lined up in ranks like soldiers of a military in front of the gates.

Seeing that, the guards couldn't help but feel intimidated. Although it would never happen, a barren city like this would fall in less than 5 minutes if they wanted to reduce it to ashes.

"W, wasn't it just an investigation of the climate?"

"That is what it said..."

The man, who appeared to be the leader of those 800 men, smiled at Direk standing on the walls before casually jumping over the walls. In one simple jump, he jumped over 13 meters and reached the top.

"There we go~"

"Uooh...!?"

How could a human jump this high up? Despite being greatly shocked by the Unique Grade Knight in front of him, Direk couldn't get his eyes off of the amicably-smiling knight.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Korin Lork. I have the official document so please take a look."

"Uhh... Ah! Yes, of course!"

Direk opened the official document.

[Royal Decree]

I hereby dispatch a group to investigate beyond the northern walls regarding the recent abnormality in climate. Each official within the nearby cities is to fully cooperate with Captain Korin Lork.

— David Joseph El Rath.

Basically, it was telling everyone to listen to whatever he said. Direk carefully folded the king's message, which he had received for the first time in his life, and gave a deep bow.

"W, welcome to the northern border city, Bifrost."

Korin Lork was basically the new lord of the city.

****

"It's even worse than I expected."

"Indeed..."

Master couldn't help but agree.

The border city of Bifrost was in a worse state than what I could have possibly imagined.

Putting aside the fact that a part of the wall and the gates crumbled down from a Hresvelgr landing nearby, even the most important state of the northern side was horrendous, and the guards were in a total mess.

"500 guards with minimal equipment protecting walls reaching 400 kilometers? Is this a joke?"

On top of that, there was only one knight serving as the Chief Guard with not a single mage in sight.

The northern walls were basically like the Great Wall of China. The only difference was that there was only one gateway with the rest being tall walls.

It was incredible how they could have possibly built something of this level, but the problem was that those immensely long walls were being guarded by 500 soldiers, which wouldn't even be enough to protect the gates properly.

"How was it like in the future?" Master asked.

"It fell before we could even do anything, so we didn't have time to prepare for it. Looking at how it is right now, it makes a lot of sense."

It wouldn't be a problem if they were just being attacked by a small number of barbarians or demonic beasts. The long walls were connected all the way to the steep mountain ranges, and the weakest part of the border, right in the middle of the wide plain of nothingness, was where the tall gates were.

However in large-scale wars... especially ones that involved knights and mages, it would only be a matter of seconds before the borders collapsed.

Considering how this was a decently-sized city of 10,000 residents... it was probably at the fault of the higher-ups that it was in this state.

From what I heard, there wasn't a mayor in this city, and most were just guards with a small number of them being administrative officials.

"I have gone around the whole city but I'm yet to find the Chief Guard."

When I said that while looking at Captain Direk, he became extremely flustered, not knowing what to do.

"Where's your boss?"

"S, sorry sir!"

"I don't care if you're sorry or not. I am asking where your boss is."

"G, Garden of Fairies! T, the bar! He's probably at the bar!"

"Oh my days."

Is this guy drinking in broad daylight? Let me crush this guy real bad.

.........

......

...

The most popular place in a border city as cold as this was, naturally, the bar. Due to how cold it was, there was a common culture of drinking strong booze, and it was in fact recommended for the soldiers to drink to warm themselves up.

However, the Chief Guard of Bifrost and Grade 1 Knight, Beyon, had easily exceeded the recommended level of consumption.

"More! Give me more booze!"

Ever since he was dispatched to this place, he had been constantly living under the effect of alcohol.

There were very few citizens and few supplies. The city didn't even have a mayor and only had a small number of administrative officials, which made him the top powerhouse of this city.

He was at a position where he had full control and unsurpassable authority in this countryside city, but he spent everyday drinking booze and refusing to work.

"Do you know who I am?! Huh! I am a top knight who even fought a massive dreak!"

"You mean a drake, sir?"

"Yeah! That thing! It was breathing out flames! And yet...! I'm not some random guy! Who should decay in a place like this!"

The people, who were trying their best to communicate with the top authority in the city muttering in his drunkenness, somewhat agreed to his words.

Although he lived everyday drowned in alcohol, they knew how strong he was with the sword. Back when a half-giant was about to break through the gates last year, he jumped down and bisected the half-giant with a single slash.

Seeing the severe alcohol-addict cut a half-giant in halves, despite being 6 heads shorter than it, even the citizens that didn't like him had to admit that knights were indeed built different.

"Is this okay, though? Weren't there some investigators or whatever coming from the capital city today?"

"It's okay, it's okay! They're just nerds who only know how to do paperwork! I don't need to go out!"

- Kwang!

That was when someone walked into the bar after kicking the door open. It was a young man with a wild appearance... and behind him was Captain Direk, fidgeting with a pale face.

"Yo. Direk. Are you off already..."

"Where is that bastard?" the young man asked.

"I, it's that bald... I mean, person with no hair."

The young man walked forward in large strides until he was right in front of the Chief Guard.

"...Beyon?"

His face, which looked like he was ready to punch someone to death, suddenly turned into that of confusion. However, it quickly vanished as the young man asked with a stiff look on his face.

"Are you the Chief Guard of this city?"

"Who is this... young brat...? Not very polite, are you!"

"I hereby start a trial against the Chief Guard of Bifrost, Beyon Solberg."

"Trial? Triaallll? Who are you?"

The young man... Korin Lork replied with a cold gaze.

"Justice of the Peace."