Chapter 23 – Returning the Favor (3)️

Of course, he planned giving them their new hope anonymously. It was something he had learned from the dragon.

'Unless their lord has nothing to do and reveals me to them, there is no way that they will recognize me.'

It was impossible for them to learn of his identity. How great was that? He should have done everything anonymously until now. Cale stepped into the ruins feeling like a massive weight had been lifted off his chest.

He could see people praying all around the area.

At that moment, Hans stealthily approached Cale and whispered to him.

"I just saw the eldest son of Marquis Stan's household."
"…How do you know about that person?"

Cale was truly surprised. Hans smiled before pointing to his eyes.

"Pretty much any and all information about the nobles is in my head. I could see a man being pushed on a wheelchair. It was weird that there was only one person with him, but I was able to see that there was a red snake crest on the wheelchair."
"Hans."
"Yes, sir."
"You're better than you look."
"Thank you?"

Hans shrugged his shoulders with a satisfied expression as he finished his report. He then asked Cale.

"What do you plan on doing?"

Cale could feel the left side of his face heating up, and looked in that direction. Choi Han was looking at him. Cale shook his head and answered both of them.

"Ignore them."

Both of them nodded their heads without saying anything else. Only then did their tour officially start. After looking around, Cale was shocked at the appearance of the rock towers in the ruins.

"They are …"

Cale seemed to be in disbelief.

"Uglier than I had expected."

Cale could not understand the ancient sense of style. He was expecting piles of rocks, but there were rock towers of all kinds shapes in the ruins.

They looked interesting. However, they were definitely not beautiful. Cale peeked at the kittens in Hans's arms. They seemed to be extremely disappointed as well.

However, there was someone who seemed to be more serious than Cale expected. Choi Han had his head bowed like the other people who were praying, and seemed to be praying as well.

'I'm sure he's praying to return to Korea.'

Choi Han had grown up in a happy family environment. He was a different kind of person than Cale, Kim Rok Soo. Choi Han had grown up in a happy family with positive influences. That was why he was able to survive in a disastrous situation while still remaining a good person.

Cale was staring at Choi Han when Choi Han lifted his head up and made eye contact with him.

"Cale-nim."
"What?"
"I have a question and something to report."

Cale had a bad feeling about this.

"Start with your question."

Choi Han seemed to be thinking about something, as he looked toward the rock towers standing in this wide plain and started to speak.

"Cale-nim, are you not going to make a wish?"

'Is that what he wants to know?'

Cale just casually answered.

"I don't do things like making wishes."
"Why not?"
"It makes you have higher expectations."

Choi Han, Hans, and even the kittens all turned to look at Cale. Cale looked at the rock towers like Choi Han had done, and slowly continued to speak.

"It's so much easier to live without high expectations."

It feels great if you scratch a lottery ticket hoping for $1 and end up winning $5, but if you scratch it hoping to win the grand prize and only end up with $5, you are bound to get annoyed.

Tap. Cale turned his gaze after feeling the tap on his shoulder, only to see deputy butler Hans smiling and starting to speak.

"You are right, young master. There is no such thing as dreams or hope in this world."
"…Just stop talking."
"Yes, sir!"

Hans responded loudly, but seemed to be a bit disappointed as well, as he took the lead with the kittens. Cale leisurely followed behind Hans, when Choi Han quickly approached him and whispered in a voice that Hans could not hear.

Choi Han had not given his report yet.

"The dragon has entered the city."
"Ignore."
"I understand."

Cale took a look around. The dragon must have made itself invisible, as he could not see it. The only thing he could see was the people praying toward the rock towers. The Rock Tower Festival was still a week away, but there was still a large amount of people here. Cale's gaze turned to the opposite direction of the rock towers in the plains.

The upscale area, the area that the wealthiest citizens in Puzzle City resides. Behind that area was a small mountain, and somewhere on that mountain was the grave of the person who had lived until they were 150 years old.

The next day, Cale was ready to head to the grave. Naturally, he had to get rid of the humans and the kittens who wanted to follow him. Thankfully, everybody stopped voicing their complaints once he said only a single person was going to come with him.

"I will only be taking Choi Han with me."

Choi Han was the strongest person there. With Choi Han tagging along, both the Vice Captain and Hans had nothing to say.

The Vice Captain just frowned and said he needed to train the knights, before he quickly started to gather them. While Cale was watching the knights who were following behind the Vice Captain with looks of despair on their faces, Hans just said one more thing before disappearing.

"I will take care of our kitten-nims."

Cale turned away from Hans, who seemed to be very excited about being with the kittens, and headed out of the inn. Choi Han followed behind him.

"Are we doing something again today?"
"Again? Someone might get the wrong idea if they heard you."

Choi Han did not respond. Cale did not care however, and just headed toward the mountain behind the upscale area and continued to speak.

"I need to go to that mountain over there. You can just wait for me at the mountain entrance."
"I understand."

Choi Han did not say anything else. Cale preferred someone like this. Choi Han did not ask Cale any questions. He was someone who seemed to follow Cale, but did not have any curiosity about what Cale did. This was probably only possible because Choi Han thought that he could figure it out if he really wanted to, and because he thought that he would not be in danger no matter what Cale ended up doing.

Cale arrived at the small mountain after passing through the stereotypical upscale area, before stopping after hearing Choi Han call out to him.

"Cale-nim."
"What?"
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
"I know. I was the one who told you to leave tomorrow."

Choi Han made eye contact with Cale, who was standing impatiently at the mountain entrance. Cale was someone who said that he, Choi Han, was enough for protection. Choi Han had been thinking about this act of protecting the last few days.

"I've been debating this for a while, but there is something I need to tell you."

The report about the dragon yesterday was not really what Choi Han had wanted to report. He hesitated for a moment, before looking back toward Cale and starting to speak. Choi Han's gaze was looking past Cale's shoulder to a tree near the entrance of the mountain.

"Mr. Ron is a dangerous person."

Cale flinched for a moment at this straight that landed on him without any warnings. Should he pretend to know or pretend not to know? He quickly made up his mind. Cale had not expected a question like this, but he calmly responded back.

"Is that so?"
"You are not surprised? There is a dangerous stench of blood on him. He is a strong person who has shed a lot of blood. At first, I thought that Cale-nim knew about it already and still had Mr. Ron by your side."

But if Cale had known, he would have taken the strong Ron with him to rescue the dragon. But Cale had not done that. Choi Han thought that to mean that Cale either did not know about Ron's strength or did not trust Ron, but there was no way Cale wouldn't trust someone who had been with him for 18 years.
That was why Choi Han had come to the conclusion that Cale was not aware of Ron's strength.

"But neither Cale-nim nor anybody else seemed to know about Mr. Ron's strength."

Choi Han had debated about this for a while. Honestly speaking, the fact that Cale had said that he did not have any expectations made him decide not to say anything about Ron. However, the fact that Cale had chosen him to be the guard today made Choi Han feel guilty.

"That was why I thought I needed to tell Cale-nim."
"Oh really? I didn't know Ron was strong."

Choi Han asked once more after hearing Cale's calm response.

"Will you still keep him around you? He seems like he is an evil person."

Cale snorted at Choi Han's words. Keep Ron around him? Cale was planning on pushing Ron over to Choi Han the moment they arrived at the capital.

"Whether it is you or Ron."
"Excuse me?"
"You say that he has a dangerous strength, but why do you leave Ron alone?"
"That is because-."

Choi Han suddenly could not say anything.

"It is probably because he has not done anything to you."

Choi Han could not retort Cale's words. There was the initial misunderstanding had that led to their small battle, but Ron had helped him find a sword after that, and even helped take care of the issue with Harris Village.

Cale silently observed Choi Han.

It was not just to Choi Han. Ron did not do anything to anybody. The only thing that Ron did was giving Cale lemonade every so often or making fun of Cale with rabbit meat. But that was nothing.

"Ron has been my servant for 18 years."

No matter what, Ron was dedicated to his act as a servant. Even the Vice Captain, who cared a lot about hierarchy, did not get angry when Ron, a servant, was walking shoulder to shoulder with him. Even deputy butler Hans did not get angry when Ron did his job for him.
It was because Ron was skilled and well-liked throughout the estate.

"Do you hate Ron?"

Choi Han shook his head after debating it for a moment.

"No."
"Then?"
"I just thought it would be better for you to know that he was a dangerous person, and thus decided to report."
"Whether it is you or Ron."

Choi Han looked at Cale after hearing that once more.

"You are both the same to me. In that aspect, you are dangerous as well."

Cale looked at Choi Han with a stoic expression and continued to speak.

"You are strong as well."
"Ah."

Choi Han let out a gasp. Cale didn't know the reason behind it, but continued to speak.

"It's all the same to me."

He didn't know the reason, but Ron, who had come over from the Eastern Continent, was living in the Henituse territory while hiding his identity. If someone like that was to touch the son of the Count? That would spread like wildfire in the kingdom.

Ron was someone who did not care about anything or anyone else, other than his son and himself. So why would someone like that cause a ruckus? Cale was just scared because he knew that Ron was a dangerous old man. He wanted to get rid of that dangerous old man as soon as possible so that he could live in peace.

"As long as he is my servant, he is just my servant. Just like you are Choi Han, who needs to pay me back."

Cale checked his watch. The strength of the wind in the cave was different based on the time of day. He needed to hurry.

"You have nothing else to say, right? Don't follow me."

Choi Han silently nodded his head in respond. Cale did not even look back as he headed to the small mountain.

After seeing that he could no longer see Cale, Choi Han looked back at the tree at the mountain entrance and started to speak.

"You heard him, right?"

Ron smoothly jumped off the tree. He glared at Choi Han and started to smile. A blunt voice started to flow out of Ron's mouth.

"I changed his poopy diapers and raised him since he was young."

That was the truth.
Choi Han stood in front of the path to the mountain and started to speak.

"Cale-nim had said that nobody is to follow him from here on."
"I know, you little punk."

Ron turned his back to the mountain with no regrets. After hearing that Cale was only going with Choi Han, and even leaving the Cat Tribe children behind, Ron had followed, just in case something happened.

"I shouldn't have come."

They say that you get more fickle the older you get, and this fickleness was such a pain. Ron walked back to the inn at a much slower pace than when he had left, and Choi Han watched Ron disappear before sitting down on a boulder to wait for Cale to return.

Cale was standing in front of a cave just off of the mountain path. The cave entrance was covered with vines, such that it would be difficult to find unless you were looking carefully.

"Damn it."

Cale started to frown.

The cave entrance was pretty small. He looked down at his clothes. He had worn simple clothes, but they were still baggy.

"Sigh."

Cale let out a long sigh before crawling into the cave. Whether it was the man-eating tree or this cave, everything related to ancient powers seemed to be crazy. The ground by the cave entrance now had the traces of Cale crawling in.

A moment later, there was a small reptile footprint on the same spot.

Cale could see the cave becoming wider after crawling in for about five minutes.

'Taylor must have been really desperate. He crawled all the way in here, even with his disabled lower body.'

Since you had to stack the rock tower with your own strength, the eldest son Taylor had to personally come here. What took Cale five minutes to do probably took Taylor much, much longer.

Cale stood back up once it was wide enough and started to walk farther in. The farther he went in, the clearer the noise in his ear became.

Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish. Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish.

It was the sound of the wind. The sound that appeared when the winds were hitting each other became louder as he walked farther into the cave. Finally, Cale located some cloth and a pillar that was probably a hut a long time ago.

After taking a single look at it, Cale continued to walk farther inside.

Swiiiiiiiiiiiish.

The sound of the wind became even stronger. Boom. Boom. He could even hear the wind crashing into the cave walls like a giant fist. Cale started to walk even faster.

'The wind. I wonder if it will sound like this when I get the, 'Sound of the Wind,' ancient power later.'

Shield. Then Recovery. Then quick feet. That was Cale's plan of action. Cale finally had to stop walking after thinking about the next ancient power he would be trying to get.

It wasn't that he stopped walking, it was that he was forced to stop walking.

"Wow."

This was even worse than Cale had expected.

A large underground area had appeared in front of Cale. At the same time, a vicious wind tornado filled his gaze.

Boom, boom!

The rocks on the cave walls were slowly crumbling because of the tornado. There were quite a bit of rocks on the ground that let Cale know that this area was consistently getting larger.

Cale looked back and forth between the underground area and the path that he traveled to get here. He felt like he would be pushed back by the wind if he went inside. Well, not just pushed back, but smashed against the wall, which would probably seriously injure him.

That was how strong the wind was.

"Mm."

Of course, the center of that tornado will be calm, as it is the eye of the storm.

'I guess it would have been impossible for Taylor without Cage's help.'

He now understood why the novel said the two of them had struggled for a whole week. However, Cale started to smile. It was now going to be a battle against time.

Cale stepped into the underground area, into the vicious tornado, without any hesitation. Cale's red hair started to flutter along with his clothes.

At the same time…

"N, no! You will get hurt! You are extremely weak!"

The dragon appeared at the back of the path and shouted urgently.

Also at the same time …

"…Huh?"

The dragon could see a large shield with silver wings appear and surround Cale.

The wings, that were shining so brightly that it could be called holy, surrounded Cale while the large shield blocked the wind. The shield and the wings were keeping Cale safe.

Cale turned around. His eyes opened widely as his gaze landed on the dragon.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

The Black Dragon could not say anything in response.

***

If you find any errors or have suggestions, please feel free to provide feedback.

Thank you for reading!

[Author – Yu Ryeo Han]

[Translator – Anowa]

[Proofreader – Rai_Mayank]