Chapter 298

As expected, there wasn’t a single survivor left in the underground village that had been attacked by the Scavengers.

When they searched underground, they found ten corpses.

Every single one of them was an elderly person who clearly looked sickly.

Zeon lowered himself onto one knee and looked at the bodies.

At first glance, they all appeared to be over seventy years old. But Zeon knew the truth.

None of them were actually older than fifty.

People living in cities like Neo Seoul, where civilization’s benefits still remained, looked younger than their real age.

On the other hand, those forced to live in underground villages like this one, where survival was the only concern, aged rapidly and looked at least ten to twenty years older than they really were.

The village looked crude at a single glance.

They had somehow built this underground settlement to survive the demonic beasts, but everything was lacking.

Water, food—there wasn’t a single thing they could consume freely.

They must have rationed every scrap they had.

Bodies deprived of proper nutrition aged quickly under the harshness of time. Naturally, their immune systems weakened as well, making them easy prey for disease.

Just like these people.

This was the reality of those living in survivor villages.

Brielle asked in a trembling voice,

“Why didn’t they come to Neo Seoul? They could’ve at least lived in the slums, couldn’t they?”

“More accurately, they couldn’t come.”

“What do you mean, couldn’t?”

“You know too. The desert is crawling with demonic beasts. For ordinary people to avoid all of them and make it to Neo Seoul is practically a miracle.”

Even for Awakened, crossing the desert was a life-risking endeavor. For ordinary people, it was even more hopeless.

“To you and me, a few hundred kilometers isn’t much. But to them, it’s a road filled with death. They probably would’ve become prey to demonic beasts before even traveling a few dozen kilometers.”

“I… see.”

–Beii!

Brielle bit her lip until it bled.

Her reddened eyes looked ready to spill tears at any moment.

The survivor village was in terrible condition.

At best, it was only the size of three or four houses, filled with crude handmade furniture and tools.

The tools weren’t even medieval—they were closer to something from the primitive era.

Just imagining people gathering together to live in a place with no ventilation and no light brought tears to her eyes.

Compared to this, even her tiny room in the slums felt like heaven.

“Haa…”

While Brielle shed tears in sorrow, Zeon examined the walls of the survivor village.

“This is interesting.”

Sand had no cohesion.

Naturally, if you dug into it, it should collapse or cave in.

Unless it was sandstone like the Steel Fortress.

But this place wasn’t sandstone terrain.

It was made entirely of pure sand.

Under normal circumstances, creating an underground space like this would’ve been impossible. Yet somehow, these people had managed to carve out a livable space within soft sand.

Zeon was curious about the secret behind it.

Thunk! Thunk!

When he knocked on the wall, he felt a solid resistance beneath the sand.

It clearly looked like ordinary sand, yet it had hardened. That was why the village could endure without collapsing.

“It seems they had a special method for hardening sand.”

“But why does that matter?”

Brielle, having barely calmed herself, asked with a puzzled expression.

“Think about it. What’s the biggest problem in Neo Seoul?”

“Aren’t there too many problems?”

“There are. But the biggest one is the severe lack of housing. More people keep coming in, but there aren’t enough buildings. And there aren’t enough materials to construct new ones.”

“Ah!”

“They mine stone from the existing mana stone mines, but it’s nowhere near enough. Land is limited too, but since there are no materials, no new buildings have been constructed for a long time now. But what if there were an easy way to harden sand and build with it?”

“Ah!”

“Maybe not inside Neo Seoul itself, but they could easily build homes on the outskirts of the slums. There’s plenty of land there. Then even if more survivors arrived, there’d be enough housing for them.”

People in Neo Seoul looked down on the slums, but to those struggling to survive barehanded in the desert, even the slums were a blessing beyond measure.

At the very least, if they lived in the slums, they wouldn’t have to fear attacks from demonic beasts.

Neo Seoul’s anti-demonic power protected the area. They wouldn’t have to dig underground and hide like this.

“What a shame. If someone who knew the secret to hardening sand had made it to Neo Seoul, they would’ve been treated incredibly well.”

“Doesn’t something feel strange?”

“What does?”

Zeon turned to Brielle at her sudden remark.

“If it’s a village, shouldn’t there be young people and children too? But all the corpses here are elderly people. So where did everyone else go?”

“You’re right.”

Brielle’s words jolted Zeon awake.

Since the Scavengers had attacked, he had naturally assumed they killed everyone. But Scavengers didn’t always slaughter all their victims.

If there were young people or children, they could’ve abducted them and sold them somewhere else.

Brielle spoke.

“They took them, didn’t they?”

“They probably did.”

“What are you going to do?”

Brielle carefully watched Zeon’s expression as she asked.

“We’ll save them.”

“Really?”

“If I didn’t know, that’d be one thing. But now that I know the truth, I can’t just ignore it.”

The desert had its own way of survival.

A brutal law of survival unimaginable within civilized worlds like Neo Seoul.

Zeon did not deny that law.

The strong devouring the weak in order to survive was only natural.

Even if it violated morality.

That was the kind of era they lived in.

An age of barbarism where everything was scarce.

The existence of an ultra-advanced civilization like Neo Seoul in such an era almost felt unfair.

But even Neo Seoul couldn’t spread its influence very far.

The current environment of Earth was simply too hostile to humanity and all living creatures.

In such a cruel world, it was impossible to protect everyone.

Even for someone as powerful as Zeon.

That was reality.

And so Zeon had never entertained the idea of saving every survivor scattered across the desert.

But neither had his emotions dried up enough to coldly ignore suffering happening right before him.

Zeon, Brielle, and Gaia eventually came back outside.

By then, darkness had fallen over the world.

The sun had set, and night had arrived.

“We’ll start tracking them as soon as the sun rises tomorrow.”

“We’re not going right away?”

“It’s too dark. We could lose their trail and end up searching the wrong place. It’s better to track them once daylight comes.”

“Ah! That makes sense.”

Brielle nodded.

In the desert, no one could escape Zeon’s tracking.

Even if they were Scavengers who had spent their entire lives surviving in the desert.

Zeon and Brielle settled down a short distance away from the survivor village and rested.

Normally Brielle would’ve been chattering excitedly, but the tragedy of the survivor village had left her heart heavy, and she remained silent the entire time.

–Beii!

Gaia comforted Brielle gently.

Without a word, Brielle hugged Gaia tightly.

Men wearing turbans around their heads and white desert robes called deshadas sat gathered in the middle of the desert, tearing into meat.

Crunch! Crunch!

The men greedily ripping apart the meat with grease-covered hands were the Helbrin Mercenary Company.

Though they called themselves mercenaries, they were no different from Scavengers.

They wandered the desert, raiding survivor villages or carrying out missions for whoever hired them.

The leader of the Helbrin Mercenary Company was Hashim, seated at the center.

Hashim was a man in his early fifties.

Like a typical Arab, he had dark skin and a finely groomed mustache.

His eyebrows were thick and bushy like caterpillars, while his sunken eyelids gave him an especially fierce appearance.

As Hashim gnawed on a bone, he muttered,

“This haul’s terrible. We robbed a bunch of beggars.”

His gaze turned toward over a dozen people crouching on the ground with ropes binding them together.

They were the survivors from the village the mercenaries had attacked.

The sick and elderly had all been killed, but the younger and healthier ones had been abducted instead.

The oldest among them looked to be in his early thirties, while the youngest child seemed around seven years old.

All of them trembled in terror.

Just this morning, they had been living peacefully.

Though they lacked everything, they had at least survived the desert together by relying on one another.

They thought today would be no different.

But somehow the Helbrin Mercenary Company had discovered their village, slaughtered the elderly, and kidnapped the rest.

There had been two Awakened in the survivor village.

One was the village elder, and the other was a man in his early thirties.

The elder had been a martial-type D-rank Awakened.

In his youth he had been fairly powerful, but age and illness had weakened him.

The old man, once the steadfast protector of the village, had died helplessly beneath Hashim’s blade.

The captured Awakened was a magic-type Awakened.

But not all magic-type Awakened possessed combat abilities.

The man was an F-rank alchemist.

If he had lived in Neo Seoul, he might’ve developed his abilities somehow, but in the barren desert, his power was almost useless.

To improve his alchemy, he needed materials to experiment with, yet such things were impossible to obtain here, leaving his growth completely stagnant.

The one useful thing he had managed to create from his meager resources was a sand hardening agent.

Thanks to his invention, the survivor village had remained standing without collapsing.

‘What’s the point of that now? I couldn’t even protect the village.’

When the Helbrin Mercenary Company attacked, all he could do was tremble in a corner while watching the villagers die.

After the slaughter ended, he too had been dragged here alongside the survivors.

“Hic!”

“Sob…”

The captured people cried quietly.

No matter how desperately they tried to suppress their tears, they couldn’t stop them from spilling out.

These were people who had hidden underground in fear of demonic beasts and Scavengers alike.

For the sake of safety, they had chosen lives worse than animals, yet the result was still this miserable.

And because they had no idea how much worse their future would become, their fear only grew greater.

At that moment, Hashim tossed aside the bone he had been chewing and spat.

“Tch! Too damn tough to eat.”

“Demonic beast meat’s always like that.”

One of his subordinates replied with a grimace.

The meat in his mouth was so tough it barely chewed.

Hashim’s gaze shifted toward the captives.

He looked at them not as humans, but like livestock.

“Should we just slaughter one?”

“Heh! Want me to?”

The subordinate forced down the tire-like demonic beast meat as he answered.

Compared to tough demonic beast meat, tender human flesh was unquestionably tastier.

They already knew the taste of human meat.

At Hashim’s words, the mercenaries’ eyes gleamed.

One of the subordinates stood up while drawing a massive blade.

“I’ll do it.”

The village survivors trembled violently at their conversation.

Then—

Beeeep!

A high-pitched sound suddenly rang out from the necklace hanging around Hashim’s neck.

Hashim raised a hand, stopping his subordinate.

“Wait a moment.”

“Yes, sir.”

The subordinate reluctantly sheathed his blade.

When Hashim infused mana into the necklace, someone’s voice emerged from it.

—Boss! It’s Etli.

Etli’s voice flowed out from the necklace.

It wasn’t an ordinary necklace, but an item discovered in a dungeon.

The communication was coming from hundreds of kilometers away.

It was a one-of-a-kind unique item that perfectly solved the communication interference problem even Neo Seoul had failed to overcome.

“Right. What happened with the business in Neo Seoul?”

—The Spider Queen wants us to secure a hundred slaves within ten days.

“A hundred? The survivor villages are already drying up. And you accepted that?”

Hashim’s voice turned cold, causing Etli to hurriedly answer.

—She said the payment would be worth it…

“What payment?”

—Weapons made in Neo Seoul.

“Now that changes things.”

Hashim’s eyes gleamed with madness.

Because the Steel Fortress kept absorbing survivors, Scavengers like him had been struggling badly lately.

If they could obtain weapons used in Neo Seoul, they might even be able to attack the nuisance known as the Steel Fortress.

Hashim ended the communication and spoke to his men.

“From now on, treat the slaves carefully. They’re all going to turn into weapons for us.”