Chapter 423. Variable, and Variable (1) (1/2)
“Yun Seora…!”
Yun Seohui’s face contorted with pain. She tried to scream with a venomous expression, but she couldn’t finish her sentence. That was because Yun Seora’s longsword swung down without hesitation.
“You bi…!”
Chop. The blade slashed Yun Seohui’s throat, a fountain of blood spurting out along with her head.
Tk! Drrr…. The severed head spun in the air before falling on the ground and slowly coming to a stop.
Yun Seohui’s long, silky hair was spread across the ground, her face distorted like an evil spirit as her eyes looked up at the sky.
Yun Seohui’s death was swift and clean.
Seol Jihu scanned his surroundings in secret and quickly realized what happened.
Valhalla members weren’t the only ones around. There were some who had managed to escape the city.
Yun Seora had to be one of them.
She gasped for breath, standing in the same posture that she swung down her sword. Eventually, her arms went limp.
After a moment of silence…
“Unni…”
She spoke with a trembling voice and slowly looked back at Seol Jihu.
Her face was red from the blood of her older sister. Her eyes were glistening as if she would break out into tears at any moment.
“…Unni… was always like that….”
A hoarse voice came out.
“Whenever she did something wrong… she would always find someone to blame… or think of ways to avoid taking responsibility alone… ever since she was young….”
Yun Seora bit her lower lip after mustering up an explanation. Though she tried to hold it in, a teardrop fell from her teary eyes.
“To be honest… I knew it too….”
“….”
“The things Sinyoung’s executives have been doing… I tried to stop them… and correct their wrong….”
“….”
“But there wasn’t anything I could do by myself….”
Eventually, two streams of tears rolled down from Yun Seora’s eyes.
Clang. Her longsword fell to the ground.
“I’m sorry….”
Yun Seora lowered her head and cried like a child.
“I’m sorry…. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything…. I’m so sorry….”
What should have come out from Yun Seohui’s mouth came out from Yun Seora’s instead.
For something she didn’t do, for something she tried to stop, Yun Soera cried and apologized for a long time.
*
The first person to arrive at Scheherazade was none other than Philip Muller.
After hearing about what happened, he judged the situation to be of utmost significance and used Teleport consecutively to lessen the travel time.
After blankly staring at the transparent barrier surrounding Scheherazade, Philip Muller turned his head and discovered Valhalla’s members gathered in one spot.
He became speechless as soon as he ran up in a hurry.
Yun Seora was crying quietly, Seol Jihu was looking up at the sky with a sour face, the remaining members of Valhalla were standing still with their mouths shut, and there was one corpse with its head and arms detached.
“Just what….”
Tightly held in the severed hands were two items—a Thunder and a scroll imbued with the ancient Empire’s short-distance teleportation spell.
Neither were easily obtainable items.
Seeing Yun Seohui’s corpse, the words, ‘just what happened here?’ were swallowed back.
He could guess what had happened from the information that was relayed through the communication crystal.
Seol Jihu wasn’t late by just a step but by several steps.
It was then. Seo Yuhui flinched amidst the heavy silence.
She then turned towards Scheherazade with a look of disbelief.
“…It broke.”
She muttered quietly.
Seol Jihu came to his senses at her words, asking for clarification.
Seo Yuhui’s eyes shook.
“The barrier I cast inside Gorad Boga… just broke….”
What this meant was obvious.
[I prayed for a hundred days inside the ruin to set up a barrier. I even left behind a holy artifact to keep it semi-permanent.]
[I’ll be notified if anyone tries to forcefully break the barrier. And it’s not easy to break the barrier through normal methods.]
One of the two barriers protecting the stele had just been broken through.
The barrier Seo Yuhui spent a hundred days to cast had been shattered all too easily.
Though there was no way to be sure, the five Army Commanders likely had a hand in it.
What mattered the most was that the enemy was on the move.
Seol Jihu clenched his teeth.
*
After confirming Yun Seohui’s death, Seol Jihu left the vicinity of Scheherazade and set up camp.
That was all he could do at the moment.
When time passed, and dusk fell, reinforcements began to arrive one by one.
Odor, Haramark, Eva, Caligo… By the time reinforcements from Grazia arrived, humanity had formed a giant encirclement around Scheherazade.
While familiar faces showed up one after the other, Seol Jihu chose to leave the area. He wanted some time to think after remembering something he had forgotten about until now.
“…Sorry.”
A voice entered his ears while he was absorbed in thought.
Looking back, Seol Jihu saw Philip Muller standing dejectedly.
“It’s my fault.”
“….”
“If I didn’t oppose you back then… things probably wouldn’t have come to this.”
Before the Valhalla Attack Incident, Seol Jihu and Philip Muller had argued about how to settle the matter afterward.
Seol Jihu wanted to wipe out every traitor and their organization while Philip Muller wanted to leave them without a way to survive.
If they had gone with Seol Jihu’s idea and destroyed every involved organization, including Sinyoung, things indeed might have turned out differently. Surely that was what was weighing on Philip Muller’s mind.
“…No.”
However, Seol Jihu shook his head. As far as he could tell, there was no way of knowing what would have happened.
“I’m the one who accepted your idea and carried it out. Even if we had gone ahead with my idea, there’s no guarantee this wouldn’t have happened. We couldn’t have predicted what Yun Seohui would have done either.”
“….”
“Perhaps the situation might have become more dangerous than it already is.”
Philip Muller smiled bitterly, thinking Seol Jihu was just trying to cheer him up.
He heaved out a deep sigh and stiffened his shoulders.
“I know it’s not my place to say this, but why don’t you go back to the camp? Things are getting pretty intense.”
Seol Jihu nodded his head. He knew now wasn’t the time to be sitting around in a daze. He had to do something.
Moreover, if the plan he just thought of was possible, they would now have a race against time on their hands.
Seol Jihu followed Philip Muller back to the base camp. Despite it being the early hours of dawn, a light was shining from the tent at the center of the camp.
Loud voices leaked out from time to time. Both Baek Haeju and Seo Yuhui were participating in the meeting, as was Teresa Hussey, Cinzia, Agnes, and the Star of Wrath, Wu Lei.
Beastman King White Tiger, who had arrived with Eva’s forces, was also present at the meeting, and Yun Seora was sitting in the corner with her head down like a criminal.
Just like Philip Muller said, the air inside the tent could only be described as intense.
“There’s no choice. We have to gather up a stronger force, even if we have to give up on the city…”
“That’s absurd. Don’t you know how difficult it is to reclaim a city that’s been taken over? Recouping the production power is one thing, but a city that’s been contaminated by Nests is…”
Some were in heated debates…
“That damned Sung Shihyun. In the end, he ruined everything he achieved with his own hands…!”
“Sinyoung is a piece of work too. How do they plan on taking responsibility for this?”
While some were criticizing Sung Shihyun and Sinyoung.
Seol Jihu stared at Yun Seora as she silently endured all the criticisms. Then, he walked over to the empty seat at the head of the table.
The moment Seol Jihu sat down, the chattering disappeared like a lie.
It was because Seol Jihu’s complexion was just as grave as the air inside the tent.
As Seol Jihu was someone who usually had a stupid grin on his face, he gave off a different aura when he was this serious.
Though it might sound ridiculous, Seol Jihu was called the Problem-solver or the Enforcer of Victory due to leading every expedition and war he had been a part of to success.
This was Seol Jihu’s first failure. Since the cause of his loss was an enemy from the inside, it made sense for him to be mad.
“How’s the situation?”
Seol Jihu asked in a low voice as soon as he sat down.
“Not good. It’s complicated.”
Philip Muller pressed his forehead.
“We just got a call saying that the Parasites have begun to arrange their forces along all border regions.”
Teresa swept her hair up angrily.
“We launched all sorts of attacks on the barrier just to be sure, and it didn’t budge even a bit. This is the first time I’ve seen a barrier unfazed by a Thunder.”
Wu Lei grumbled softly.
“The Federation’s military headquarters also organized their troops and are running over… They let us know that they discovered Unsightly Humility’s army and the Parasite Queen near the Hiral Mountain Range.”
And White Tiger murmured while smacking his lips.
Everyone gasped at this news.
The Parasite Queen had lifted her heavy butt.
Of course, she wouldn’t be able to leave the Empire’s territory, but her intentions were clear.
She was holding Tigol Fortress in check.
Seol Jihu tapped on the table with his finger while organizing his thoughts.
They had succeeded in besieging Scheherazade for now, but that was it. To break Gorad Boga’s barrier, they would need to expend an incredible amount of firepower.
Even if they somehow succeeded, that would only be the start of their problem as they would need to face five Army Commanders and their armies, all the while attacking them on their home turf.
Breaking the barrier and defeating the Parasites’ elite forces before they could secure the stele… To be honest, it didn’t sound plausible.