Chapter 222

The way they slipped past the Empire’s border checkpoint was stupidly simple. They’d bought an adventurer’s pendant with cash, then walked straight through the gate like they belonged there. Once they were completely out of the areas managed by the Empire and the Adventurers’ Guild, the real monster territory began.

While they were moving, the sun went down. Finally, when a pitch-black night settled in with no moon in sight, the Rumanus group quickly changed into black clothing. One of them moved to hand Do-Jin a spare set, then stopped after noticing his outfit was already dark enough.

“Night’s gonna be dangerous,” Do-Jin said.

Everyone knew monsters got stronger at night, though common sense didn’t always apply in this territory.

Pulling her mask up to cover her nose, the woman answered, “Our route is actually safer at night. We’ll only pass through areas where the monsters are active during the day.”

“Is that so? Well, that’s fine by me.”

“Don’t fall behind.”

A nighttime mountain run began. They melted into the darkness dressed entirely in black. The woman hadn’t snapped at him for no reason. Running that kind of terrain in daylight was hard enough, but doing it at night was brutal. It chewed through their stamina like a meat grinder.

This kind of forced march is borderline insane for a mage. It’ll be strange if he doesn’t collapse.

Part of the group thought he might pass out halfway through. If that happened, they considered whether to silence him. Just how far could they really trust Do-Jin? Altos and the others probably thought they might get a chance to make a move if he weakened. But that was a mere fantasy.

“Hah... hah... hah...”

“Huff, huff... ngh...”

One by one, the Rumanus people started breathing hard as they continued at a constant pace. Meanwhile, Do-Jin’s movements stayed light, and his breathing was disturbingly calm. Even when they stopped to confirm their route, Do-Jin showed no signs of fatigue. And when a scorpion-type monster sprang out of an ambush and got turned into grilled scorpion in seconds by him, any funny ideas died on the spot.

Are all mages this fucked up?!

After traveling with Do-Jin for several days, the Rumanus group found themselves stuck in a constant state of confusion. The danger zone between nations was usually a place people crossed with their life on the line. Yet on the return trip to the Republic, things felt strangely safe, unlike when they’d entered the Empire.

There were multiple occasions where they’d been ambushed by monsters, but the mage handled them cleanly every time. Battles that would’ve definitely cost them lives ended without a single casualty. Before long, some of them started feeling like they owed Do-Jin their lives.

“H-here... please take this.”

The youngest of the Rumanus group, Denik, nearly got dragged under by vines that burst up from the ground. Do-Jin pulled him out, and Denik started treating him with respect after that. From then on, Denik also began offering Do-Jin meals whenever he ate separately.

Do-Jin let out a small chuckle as he looked at the dried salted meat floating in the soup. Someone had clearly gone out of their way to pick off and add extra bits.

For a seventeen-year-old kid, Denik had a surprisingly thoughtful side.

However, he commented, “It tastes like shit.”

For several days, he survived on rubbery meat that tasted like regret. Eventually, they made it to the Rumanus Republic.

“We’ll enter through a collapsed mine,” one of them explained.

Their infiltration route was a mine shaft. It was a place that had been abandoned after collapsing and had basically turned into a dungeon. The hidden tunnel entrance leading to the mine was carefully concealed. Even knowing it was there, it took forever to find.

After crawling through the narrow tunnel, they reached a much wider passage. It looked like somewhere around the middle of the collapsed mine. Inside, some sections were still intact, while others had completely caved in. The entire mine looked like a disaster zone that no one had bothered to clean up for years.

What made it even worse was the bones scattered everywhere. These were the remains of people who had been crushed when the mine collapsed or trapped when the tunnels sealed off and left to die like garbage.

No one had buried them. No one had cleared the passages. The dead had been left exactly where they fell, turning the mine into a place that stank of old blood, rot, and neglect.

It was the kind of place that made it obvious how cheap human lives were. People didn’t just die here. They were forgotten, their bodies left to rot like they had never mattered in the first place.

Do-Jin’s eyes stopped on a set of small bones. Her skeletal frame marked her as female, and her slight build made her look closer to a child than a grown woman.

Noticing where he was looking, the only woman in the group, Kate, spoke. “It was a disaster caused by shoddy safety measures and reckless mining. Many people were killed or injured. In the middle of that, the government gave up on rescue entirely. They decided they’d already mined enough, so reopening collapsed tunnels wasn’t worth the trouble. Human lives probably never even made it into their calculations.”

Her voice sounded calm on the surface, but anger flickered in her eyes. It was then that something like blue mist began to rise in the distance.

“Wraith!”

At Denik’s shout, it became clear that monsters born from the dead’s resentment were forming. Do-Jin reflexively activated his Magic Circuits. However, he saw Kate’s hollow expression and pulled back his attack spell.

She stood there biting her lips, looking like she’d seen a ghost. As Altos reached for his sword, Do-Jin grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back.

“Huh?”

“Fighting here won’t end anything. It’s a waste of time. Let’s get out and I’ll handle the rear, so don’t worry about it,” Do-Jin said, giving him a hard shove forward.

After seeing Do-Jin’s glowing Magic Circuits, Altos shouted, “Move fast! Get out of the mine as quickly as possible!”

They started moving. The Wraiths tried to surge after them, but a wall of fire Do-Jin raised blocked their path and kept them back.

The mine had a narrow passage that only allowed one person through at a time. It looked like a route the resistance had carved out themselves. They eventually reached a spot where the path branched off to the side instead of straight ahead.

Huh...? Sounds like water...

It turned out to be a sewer, and they charged into it headfirst. After navigating a complicated route, Do-Jin and the rest finally emerged above ground by breaking through the floor of a house. Even above ground, it was still dark. Inside the unlit house, it was much darker.

“Sigh...”

For this group that was unable to walk out in the open, the darkness was very welcome. Relief spread through the group at the thought that they’d finally reached a safe place, and most of them sank to the floor.

However, Kate and Denik were still standing there, breathing hard, their eyes filled with anxiety. Kate moved toward the bed, trying not to draw attention to herself. She reached under it, pulled something out, and gripped it tightly.

Is that Bella’s...?

She tried to be subtle, but since Do-Jin had been watching her since the mine, he saw it clearly. It was a pendant engraved with Bella’s crest.

The Rumanus Republic didn’t allow freedom of religion. It was more than a lack of freedom, as religion was strictly forbidden. If someone was caught carrying the blue star that symbolized Bella, they were dragged away and disappeared without a trace.

As Kate held onto that pendant, Denik carefully approached her and placed his hand on her shoulder. It was obvious that they had a story of their own.

Do-Jin quietly walked over to them and said, “No one died again today. So don’t worry about that.”

Kate and Denik both looked up with their wide eyes.

“Thank you.” Denik spoke softly, barely loud enough to hear.

After that small interaction, Do-Jin settled into a place to rest and passed the rest of the night without a word.

***

When morning came, Do-Jin went outside with Altos’ group. The first thing he felt when he saw the Rumanus Republic was how dry and lifeless everything looked. People moved to their assigned labor with faces that showed no expression at all.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the adults. The kids looked the same. The depressing scene of children walking toward work with dead, fish-like eyes seemed worse than anything he’d ever seen in a movie. In the distance, a painfully thin child dragged a pickaxe that looked too heavy for his body.

Denik explained, “In the Republic, labor duty starts the year you turn ten.”

So that’s why there were so many small bones in the mine.

“Even if they make kids work, that still looks fucked up,” Do-Jin replied. “They should at least give them jobs they can actually handle. It’s inefficient too.”

“Most children inherit their parents’ work. That child is the son of a fourth-class citizen, so he can only do work assigned to fourth-class citizens. If parents and children do the same work, they receive preferential treatment in rations.”

The more he saw and heard, the more irritated Do-Jin became. As they kept walking, dull thudding sounds came from near an alley.

“You little bastard. How dare you try to steal my money!”

A large man was beating a boy who looked about fifteen. From the shouting, it sounded like the kid had tried to pickpocket or steal.

Do-Jin caught the boy’s eyes, which didn’t seem to be begging or crying. They were the eyes of someone waiting for it to end, hoping the other person’s anger would burn out faster. No matter who was in the right or wrong, watching it all play out pissed Do-Jin off. He started to turn toward them, intending to settle it with money.

“Oh, no!”

The situation ended on its own when police approached from down the street. The man bolted, and the boy ran in the same direction.

“At least that ended with a beating. That’s pretty mild here. If you’re caught stealing, you’re sent straight to a reeducation facility. Once you’re taken there, you’re forced into labor for at least two years. Even after you’re released, you’re permanently fixed as a fifth-class citizen. It’d practically be living in hell.”

As Denik guided Do-Jin through the streets, everything he described only grew bleaker.

“Here.”

The unpleasant tour ended at an empty bakery. Following Altos inside, Do-Jin saw stacks of bread that looked worse than the dough eaten by migrant laborers.

“I’d like to order a sweet cake,” Altos whispered to the owner.

The owner nodded. “It’s downstairs.”

The hidden passage was in the kitchen floor. They went down, and another hidden passage waited behind a wall.

After moving through multiple concealed routes, they finally reached the organization that dreamed of freedom for the Republic. Their greeting to Do-Jin came in the form of multiple gun barrels aimed straight at him.

“Lord Altos, who is this man?” one of them asked, finger still on his trigger.

“He’s a mage I brought from the Empire. He claims to have information on the mages cooperating with the Consul.”

“Going to the Empire on your own is one thing, but bringing an unidentified person all the way here is reckless. Don’t you think that’s too much?”

Altos bit his lip, unable to argue against that logic. Finally, he said, “I judged him to be trustworthy.”

It was a weak answer, but not entirely baseless. At the very least, if Do-Jin had meant them harm, Altos and his group would already be screaming in a torture chamber by now. Beyond that, there was little to support his claim.

The resistance officer stared at Altos for a moment, then sighed and raised his hand. At his signal, the others lowered the guns and blades trained on Do-Jin all at once.

Altos let out a breath of relief without realizing it and glanced at Do-Jin. His stomach felt like it was twisting itself into knots. He wondered whether any of them realized that they had been the ones in danger, not the mage.