To achieve my objective,
I had to gain their favor.
Judged objectively,
since I couldn’t play the card of “a soldier who came over from Gangwon,”
I, this guy, was pretty, very, extremely, massively suspicious.
‘Was with criminals, doesn’t know a single piece of information everyone in Gyeonggi would know, and is still decently strong.’
Identity unknown.
Origin unknown.
Past unknown.
Even to me, it looked insanely suspicious.
‘Honestly, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t have let a guy like this inside the guild’s territory in the first place.’
First thing I’d do would be trigger traits to check whether he was a humanoid monster.
Therefore,
gaining trust about me should have been extremely hard under normal circumstances.
‘But actually, that’s fine—better, even.’
If the opponent is a woman
with a busted skill that discerns truth from the other party’s words,
then I can dress up my identity,
my origin,
and my past
plausibly.
In that case—
‘How should I dress it up?’
My first thought
was to hide my strength and blend in naturally among them.
Their average power is below the Legion’s,
and I was among the highest levels even within the Legion.
Even with some penalties, from their perspective I might display abilities hard to comprehend.
‘That would arouse suspicion.’
If I hid those strengths,
I’d draw that much less suspicion,
and by blending in I could quickly grasp their situation.
But......
that thought faded quickly.
Gyeonggi is just a brief stopover anyway.
My main base is with the Legion.
The faster I wrap things up here, the better for me.
“Ever since the day of ruin, I’ve been staying only beyond the place you call Monsterland or the Demon Realm.”
“......Th-that’s impossible!”
It wasn’t a lie.
‘Because Gangwon really is beyond that Demon Realm.’
Right—rather than a strong man hiding his strength,
‘What am I, an idiot? Why hide strength I have? On the contrary—’
I decided to become
a swaggerer pretending to have strength I didn’t.
****
“H-how could that be.......”
The head of the “Awakeners’ Association, Northern Branch,”
an Awakened [Shaman],
Han Iseo’s expression warped grotesquely with shock.
‘Since the day of ruin began, it’s now almost a full year.’
Ruin started in spring and has continued into winter,
so more than two-thirds of a year has passed.
And during all that long time—
‘He stayed only inside that Demon Realm?’
Such a thing......
is absolutely impossible.
Monsterland, where countless monsters gathered from the earliest days of ruin.
Of those, the place where the most monsters massed is the Demon Realm itself.
Obviously,
it’s not that the humans of Gyeonggi never attempted to conquer that Demon Realm.
‘As soon as winter began and the bizarre cold wave blew in, the Association’s elites tried to conquer it.’
The place least affected by the cold.
Humans are also greatly affected by environment,
so if they reclaimed that area it was obvious it would immensely aid survival.
And the result was simple.
‘A dreadful, abject defeat.’
Endless waves of monsters.
In those waves, the moment there were casualties from fighting,
monsters who smelled blood relentlessly targeted the injured weak.
After the Association’s Awakened approached Monsterland,
they gained exactly one thing:
‘Humanity cannot survive there.’
Not only that Demon Realm—
even the lesser Monsterland itself
was, for humanity, an unconquerable...... hell.
Just that single piece of information.
‘It’d be hard to believe even if someone claimed to have survived there for over a month.’
From the day of ruin until now—
he’d endured for months?
‘There can’t possibly be a human...... who could do that.’
Her rational mind clearly screamed so.
But—
[Truth]
“Th-this can’t be......!”
Her skill kept telling her
that what he said was factual.
“H-how did you even eat!”
“You asked why I came from that Demon Realm, didn’t you?”
Flustered, she couldn’t hide it as she asked,
but the man reeking of blood folded his arms and answered thus:
“I answered your question sufficiently by saying I never came down from up there. Do I have to answer more here?”
“......Ggh.”
If he never came down from Monsterland,
then from the day of ruin he was beyond Monsterland.
That means he wasn’t there with some intention.
He was simply someone who had been there from the start
and stayed without going anywhere else.
“I’ve answered your question, so now it’s mine. You said ‘Association,’ right? What is that?”
Having finished his answer,
it was her turn to receive a question.
“Is this Association some government agency?”
“A government agency......”
In a world where over 99% of survivors are convinced the Republic of Korea government has long since perished,
she trailed off, dumbfounded at the question.
‘That’s the kind of question only someone who time-traveled out of pre-ruin civilization would ask......’
The absurd [Truth] her skill was reporting
made her think it might actually be true:
the other party really hadn’t contacted humans after the ruin,
and might truly have lived only beyond that Demon Realm.
“The Association is short for the Gyeonggi Survivors’ Association. It’s a united organization formed by the survivors and Awakened who lived on in Gyeonggi. In System terms...... it corresponds to a [Guild].”
“A guild.”
“There used to be more varied factions and guilds in Gyeonggi, but under the chair’s leadership we unified quickly. Now all forces in Gyeonggi are allied under the name [Association].”
At that,
the blood-scented man listened as if fascinated,
then nodded.
“Understood. It’s your turn now—ask.”
“......In that case.”
Carefully,
she chose her next question.
“Are you really human?”
The very first doubt she’d had on hearing him:
‘There’s no way a human could survive in that Demon Realm.’
Right now, her mind
was fixated on whether that impossibility was true or not.
“Yes. I’ve been human since birth,”
“......”
“and right now as well...... for the moment, I’m human.”
He trailed off slightly at the end.
“I’m definitely not a monster, so—rest easy.”
[Truth]
He was still
speaking truth.
‘So it’s not that a humanoid monster settled in the Demon Realm and came down......?’
Whether to call it fortunate—
the hypothesis she most feared wasn’t true.
It was still unbelievable, but—
“Next is me. Please explain that Association in detail. Is this place something like a headquarters?”
“......No. Right now, between the southwest and northeast where humans can’t live...... there’s a human domain. We’re the force corresponding to the northern stronghold among those. Besides us, there are major strongholds in the central, eastern, and southern sectors.”
“What about the person you call the chair? To have led and formed a force of that scale, they must be incredibly strong.”
“......As you said, an extraordinarily strong person. From what I’ve heard, they were the first in Gyeonggi to form a ‘party.’”
At that, the man’s eyes widened a little in surprise.
“A party—first in Gyeonggi?”
“......Ah, if you truly never met others, of course you wouldn’t know. A party refers to a group with five or more Awakened. I heard they were not only first in Gyeonggi, but second fastest in all of the Republic of Korea to form a party.”
“Second in all of the Republic of Korea......”
Blankly, the man repeated his own words—
he looked quite surprised.
‘Well. If he really lived alone...... the very concept of a party would be novel.’
She took his expression that way and moved on.
“As a reward they gained a lot, and used that as the baseline to build power. Now they’re missing...... but before they disappeared, their level had reached a full 30. In ordinary times, that would be the point winter had just arrived—hitting Level 30 by then...... it was an achievement worthy of being called a monster.”
“......I see. Understood.”
“Then, it’s my turn.”
Hard to believe though it was,
it seemed true that the man before her had acted only beyond Monsterland.
If so, there were more than a few puzzling points.
“You said you stayed only inside that Demon Realm? But that’s impossible.”
“I actually did, even if you call it impossible.”
“Setting aside everything else...... food!”
Right.
If not a single fruit grows properly nearby because of ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) the cold—
“Until this winter came...... beyond that Monsterland, due to the heat emitted by the black wall, trees would have had difficulty bearing proper fruit. There’s no way there was anything edible in such a place.”
Only now, with the cold intensifying abruptly, had Monsterland become something like a normal temperature.
There,
there would have been nothing you could procure
as edible food......
“Mm. I mainly ate monsters.”
“Y-you...... a m-m-monster—y-you ate......”
[Truth]
At the man’s offhand remark,
she couldn’t help but be appalled.
“I-if you eat monsters, you become another monster. Did you—did you know that......!”
“Mm. Maybe it’s because I have my own sort of know-how. I turned out fine.”
“What on earth......”
If her skill was telling the truth,
he was still speaking only truth.
Those absurd statements—
all of them were true.
‘I-is it broken? Isn’t my skill broken?’
While her mind reeled,
the man gave her no time to compose herself and brought up the fourth question.
“I’d like to hear details about that chair being missing.”
“......When winter began, the first thing we attempted was a conquest of Monsterland.”
“You said that failed.”
“Yes. But we couldn’t just sit still and die. The Association decided to resolve the situation in a different direction. Namely—”
If you can’t flee to a warm place to avoid winter,
then you remove the cause that created winter.
“The southwest, where the cold intensifies. To strike the cause of the abnormal weather there.”
“......”
“In that process, most of the elites of the Association’s central branch went missing. Now...... the remaining people lead this place together.”
“That sounds fairly sensitive. Is it really okay to tell me something like this so easily?”
“Not exactly. This might sound odd, but it’s common enough knowledge no one doesn’t know it. When the chair went missing it was such a hot topic.”
The man nodded.
Now again,
it was her turn to question him.
‘At most five questions.’
In other words, this question
was the last one she could ask.
“Won’t you speak?”
“......”
She couldn’t toss away that precious question lightly.
Monsterland overflowed with monsters.
If he truly spent a long time there,
‘it means this man is little different from a monster.’
Only the species was human—
but likely,
he possessed strength little different from a monster.
Perhaps the moment this pact ended and attacking became possible,
he’d laugh that it was an amusing game and slice off her neck in an instant.
To such a man—
what should her last question be?
After careful deliberation,
she decided and opened her mouth.
“You said you stayed only inside that Demon Realm......”
“Yes.”
The first question she’d thrown him
was why he was in that Demon Realm.
Then,
the final question should be......
“Why did you...... come down from that Demon Realm into the human domain?”
As if it had to be this—
she had a Shaman’s intuition.
“......Hm.”
At that question,
the man seemed to ponder briefly......
“Since the day of ruin......”
“?”
He looked down at his own hand
and began to answer.
“Beyond there, I fought an enormous number of monsters.”
“......”
“Driven by the thought that I didn’t want to die, I repeated unending struggle.”
[Truth]
“I nearly died more times than I can count. Had I been a little less lucky, I’d already be a corpse.”
“Th-that......”
“As many times as I nearly died, the number of monsters I killed directly or indirectly...... is probably beyond counting.”
[Truth]
“I filled my belly with the flesh of monsters, and monster blood now flows through my body.”
[Truth]
Countless monsters, endless fighting.
And though this world
had become a realm of Asura that forced ceaseless struggle—
“Because of that...... I was able to gain strength, in my own way.”
When it came to rewarding that struggle,
this place was not stingy at all.
‘If he fought the monsters of that Demon Realm through all that time...... just how strong is this man?’
While she trembled with fear,
the man lifted his head and spoke.
“Once I had strength of my own, it kept getting on my mind.”
“What got on your mind...... what......”
“Other people.”
Maybe it was her imagination,
but there seemed to be a red tint in those eyes.
“My family, my friends...... other surviving humans who might be in Gyeonggi. They weighed on me too much— that’s what I’m saying.”
“......”
“Why did I come here from beyond there? There’s only one answer.”
Faced with that ominous glow, she wanted to squeeze her eyes shut in fear,
but mustering courage, she barely managed not to.
“With this strength, I—”
Thanks to that courage,
she was able to learn one thing.
A being who reeked unbearably of blood,
who emanated an aura worthy of fear,
who must have crossed over countless deaths day after day—
that monster-like existence
“I came down to help the people here.”
[Truth]
“......Pardon?”
was their ally.
