Chapter 123
Alexandro was furious.
He had led the caravan all the way here for fair trade.
The goods he carried were no different from the lifeline of the people of Akutsk Colony. Yet Kim Jaekyung and Brixton had tried to seize them through a brainwashing skill.
It was something he could never forgive.
“I’ll kill you.”
BANG!
His fist slammed into Brixton’s chest.
“Ugh!”
Brixton’s face twisted instantly.
The impact that struck his entire body was immense.
If not for his heavy armor, his ribcage would have completely collapsed.
That was how powerful the blow was.
And Alexandro wasn’t done.
“Chaah!”
Another fierce strike followed.
Brixton quickly swung his hammer.
BANG!
Fist and hammer collided—and a metallic clang rang out.
Brixton’s body was pushed backward, while Alexandro’s massive frame shook.
One held a hammer as a weapon, the other used bare fists.
Yet the one wielding the hammer was the one pushed back.
The difference between them was clear.
But Brixton refused to accept it.
“A desert merchant stronger than me? Don’t make me laugh!”
At that moment, the black in his eyes began to fade.
It was the sign of his skill—Berserker—activating.
Once fully activated, his attack power would more than double.
But in exchange, he would completely lose his reason and be unable to distinguish friend from foe.
He had to be stopped before that happened.
Kim Jaekyung shouted,
“You idiot! Don’t activate your skill. We need to retreat now!”
But her warning came too late.
The black in Brixton’s eyes vanished completely, and the whites turned bloodshot red.
The Berserker skill had fully activated.
“I’ll kill you.”
Having lost all reason, Brixton charged at Alexandro with terrifying force.
BANG!
With a thunderous crash, this time Alexandro was pushed back.
A flash of anger appeared on Alexandro’s face.
Just as he was about to unleash his full strength—
“Step back.”
A youthful voice reached his ears.
The moment he heard it, Alexandro didn’t hesitate and immediately retreated.
At that instant, the same young voice rang out again.
“Direction Disturb.”
A red light descended upon Brixton.
In his berserk state, Brixton couldn’t dodge it and was engulfed completely.
Instantly, his senses became distorted.
Even though his opponent stood right before him, he couldn’t tell how to approach.
A skill that disrupted the target’s senses, throwing them into confusion.
Against someone like Brixton—already unable to think properly due to Berserker—the effect was amplified.
The more he tried to attack Alexandro, the farther away he ended up moving.
“Boss!”
“Damn it!”
The warriors who had come with him shouted desperately, but by then he had already run outside the fortress.
Kim Jaekyung shouted,
“Everyone retreat!”
In the end, the Dongdaemun Awakeners suffered heavy losses and fled the caravan.
“You bastards!”
“Haa—ptoo!”
The victorious White Bear Caravan Awakeners spat on the ground as they caught their breath.
Even in victory, their anger had not subsided.
The one who calmed them down was, unexpectedly, a young boy.
“Everyone, good work. Let’s calm down. This level of trouble was expected anyway.”
As if under a spell, the White Bear Caravan Awakeners regained their composure.
That was one of the boy’s abilities.
Though he was the youngest among them, he was someone they trusted more than anyone.
The boy’s name was Damian.
Alexandro approached Damian and patted his shoulder.
“Good job.”
“It was nothing.”
Damian smiled, showing his white teeth.
“You know we always feel reassured because you’re here, right? Keep leading us well.”
“If others hear that, they’ll misunderstand. You’re the leader of the caravan.”
“But everyone knows you’re the one truly leading it. Without you, we wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“Don’t say that. There are others here too.”
“Alright.”
Only then did Alexandro realize that there were other people inside the caravan.
His gaze turned toward Zeon’s group, who had been watching from the side.
Naturally, Damian’s gaze followed.
And at that moment, Damian’s eyes widened.
“…Hyung?”
The unexpected word slipped from his lips.
“Hyung? What are you talking about?”
Alexandro asked, but Damian couldn’t answer.
His eyes were fixed on Zeon.
Zeon spoke first.
“Damian… it’s you.”
“It really is you, hyung. I thought I was seeing things.”
“I thought it was a mirage too. You showed up so suddenly.”
“Haha!”
Damian burst into laughter.
It was laughter born from both joy and disbelief.
He had never imagined he would see Zeon here.
He knew Zeon was originally from Neo Seoul.
But Zeon had been wandering the world, with no telling when he might return.
Naturally, Damian had never expected to meet him.
That was why the encounter felt so surreal—and so welcome.
Zeon stepped closer to Damian.
“You’ve grown a lot.”
“It’s already been seven years.”
“You’ve changed a lot.”
“Really? Everyone says I look the same.”
“It looks that way to me.”
“Then you must be right, hyung. Anyway, I’m really glad to see you again like this. When did you return to Neo Seoul?”
“Not long ago.”
“I see. That’s why I didn’t know.”
Damian nodded.
At that moment, Alexandro approached and stood beside him.
“Won’t you introduce me as well?”
“Ah! Let me introduce him. I told you about him before, right? The hyung I met in the desert seven years ago.”
“Ah! So it’s him. Nice to meet you. I’m Alexandro Purtchenko, the leader of the White Bear Caravan.”
“I’m Zeon.”
Alexandro and Zeon shook hands.
Alexandro scanned Zeon from head to toe with sharp eyes, but couldn’t find anything particularly unusual.
Damian asked Zeon,
“Did you come here to buy something too?”
“I just came along with her to take a look.”
Zeon pointed toward Brielle, who was standing with Eaton’s group. Brielle then approached and greeted him.
“I’m Brielle. Nice to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you too. But somehow… you don’t feel like an ordinary person.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just a feeling…”
“You don’t look ordinary either.”
“Then I guess we’re the same.”
Damian smirked.
Meanwhile, Brielle stared at Damian with clear wariness in her eyes.
Fortunately, her gaze was hidden beneath her pointed hat.
‘Something’s off about this guy.’
She was a High Elf.
Although her senses had dulled due to drugs, her innate High Elf instincts were still intact.
And from Damian, she felt an unsettling aura.
As a High Elf, it was almost impossible for her instincts to be wrong.
At that moment, Damian turned to Alexandro and said,
“Leader, just open up to the third floor for them. If they find anything they need, prioritize giving it to them. I’ll take responsibility.”
“Alright. I’ll do that.”
Alexandro nodded.
Zeon then said to Brielle,
“I’m going to talk with him for a bit, so you go look for anything useful.”
“Be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Damian. I don’t have a good feeling about him.”
“Got it.”
Zeon nodded, and Brielle hurried off.
Zeon then said to Damian,
“Shall we take a walk?”
“Sure.”
The two left the fortress together and walked out onto the sand.
Zeon spoke first.
“You said you came from Akutsk Colony?”
“As you know, I couldn’t go back to Kamchatka Colony. So I had to find another place.”
Damian was originally from Kamchatka Colony.
His father, Belov, had operated a caravan there, and Damian had grown up in that environment.
But Belov had been coerced by other races and lured Daeyoden and Zeon into a trap—only to be killed by those very races.
There was no way Damian could return to Kamchatka Colony.
In the end, he had no choice but to seek out another colony.
He wandered the desert alone.
After months of drifting, the place he finally reached was Akutsk.
At the time Damian arrived, Akutsk was in ruins—without hope or future.
Constant monster attacks had brought the defensive walls to the brink of collapse, and they lacked food, weapons, and even the will to survive.
It was only a matter of time before the colony fell.
At that moment, the one who proposed a solution was Damian.
He suggested forming a caravan, trading with other colonies, and bringing back supplies.
It sounded simple—but the process was unimaginably difficult.
Hardly anyone trusted a boy who looked so insignificant.
Moreover, he wasn’t even from Akutsk.
Naturally, people doubted him.
The only one who believed in him was Alexandro, the leader of the White Bear Caravan.
At the time, Alexandro was the captain of a militia defending the colony from monster attacks.
Even when everyone else had lost hope, he never let go and continued to fight—believing someone would find a solution.
That someone turned out to be Damian.
While everyone else dismissed Damian’s ideas as unrealistic, Alexandro found himself trusting him for some reason.
In the end, Alexandro and Damian formed a caravan together—and that became the beginning of the White Bear Caravan.
Damian displayed astonishing abilities.
Even in a desert where compasses didn’t work, he could accurately find the path, and he could detect monster movements in advance to avoid danger.
He had fully awakened as a navigator.
And his abilities only grew stronger over time.
Eventually, he succeeded in locating another surviving colony far from Akutsk.
“To be honest, the first time was the hardest. After that, it wasn’t so bad. Luckily, that colony had many of the things we needed, and our goods were useful to them as well.”
After the success of the first trade, trust in Damian skyrocketed.
The White Bear Caravan rapidly expanded, and the conditions in Akutsk improved alongside it.
The walls were reinforced, and weapons to repel monster attacks were placed along the ramparts.
The residents became safer, and their lives gained a bit of stability.
“As things improved, I wanted to expand the scale of trade even more. That’s when I thought of Neo Seoul. If we could establish trade with Neo Seoul, we could develop Akutsk even further.”
“The journey here couldn’t have been easy.”
“It really wasn’t. The danger level on the route to Neo Seoul was on a completely different scale.”
“I can imagine.”
Zeon nodded.
There were no monsters near Neo Seoul. But beyond the range of its protective force, the situation was entirely different.
Countless monsters roamed the land.
Among them were creatures so powerful that even high-ranking Awakeners couldn’t handle them.
Finding a safe path through all that was nearly impossible.
Yet the boy standing before him had made the impossible possible.
Damian looked at Zeon and smiled.
For some reason, that smile felt ominous.