Chapter 514 – Delicious (6)

However, that hope quickly turned into fear and uncertainty.

Clack clack.

They heard horse hooves behind them.

Those hooves sounded like thunder to the allies who were moving forward while remaining as quiet as possible.
There was also a low voice that could be heard in between those 'thunders.'

"They're coming."

It was a single sentence from Bud.
The air around the allies quickly started to fill with tension.

The black Knights Brigade on black horses was approaching them.
They were not coming from only one direction.
The noises were loud as if a tsunami was coming toward them.
It was at that moment.

"A decent level of nervousness is good, but uncertainty is useless."

Cale Henituse's stern voice pounded into the allies' ears.
They looked forward.

Slash. Slash.

Choi Han and Hannah were in the front quickly slashing the bushes and branches away as quietly as possible.
However, they could not see far because of the fog.

Plop.

They heard a different voice.
It happened as everybody felt nervous.

"Over here! I can feel the power of the Sun God ov-"

It was an enemy shouting.
It came from the left.
All of them looked toward the left.
They couldn't see them because of the fog, but they presumed that their enemies were very close.

Shhhhh.

Sorros quickly nocked an arrow and looked toward the direction of the voice.

'Hmm?'

But something was weird.
He could not hear the enemy's voice anymore.
The voice had cut off at 'ov-.'
Cale stopped walking at that moment.

"On. Please clear the fog."
"Meeeeeow."

Shaaaaaaa-

The allies could see the fog clearing in front of them within a certain radius.
Highest-grade mage Glenn Poeff clenched his injury and held himself back from laughing.

"…Haha."

However, he ended up laughing in the end.

He could see fallen enemies all around them.
They were wearing Arm uniforms.
He was certain that some of them were people from the Poeff household who had betrayed them and joined Arm.

Glenn heard one of his fellow mercenary mage's voice.

"…Who did this-"
"Who else? It was the Molan household."

The reason the enemy who was talking earlier became quiet was most certainly because of the Molan household as well.
Glenn answered as if it was obvious.

"Excuse me? But there is nobody here?"
"That is why it was the Molan household."

The enemies had fallen but there were no traces of the people who had taken them down.
Nobody was there such that it seemed as if the enemy had been defeated by ghosts.
Cale started to speak at that moment.

"You did well, Ron."

Someone responded from an empty spot in the fog.

"It wasn't much, young master-nim. There are no hunters who cannot catch their prey when they are completely camouflaged."

Beacrox appeared from within the fog with his greatsword in his hand as well.
He quietly appeared and stood in front of Choi Han.
He then started to speak.

"The path to the beginning of the snowy region. It has been cleared."

Cale's eyes clouded over.
After hearing Pan's story, Cale had not told Raon to tell Ron to attack the enemies anywhere in the rear.

'Clear a path.'

He had asked Ron to clear a path for them to escape.

Clack. Clack.

They could still hear horse hooves behind him.
The enemies did not show any signs of hiding themselves. They were confident in their victory and just considered this as using battue once more.

Cale planned to use that to their advantage.
However, there was someone who became anxious after hearing Beacrox's comment.

"Commander-nim."

It was Elf Sorros.

"The snowy region? Were we not heading down from the mountain?"

Honestly speaking, Sorros had found it to be weird from the start.
They had followed Cale's lead and charged through the area the Dark Elves had been stationed.
However, they were moving higher up the mountain and not down.

Sorros could not help but ask Cale about it after hearing Beacrox say that they had cleared a path to the snowy region.
Even with the enemies chasing behind them, the snowy region was difficult for the allies in their current condition.

"Commander-nim. Isn't it better to go down the mountain? If a chase happens in the snowy region-!"
"Heading down is not possible."

Choi Han was the one to respond.

"A large number of enemies headed down the mountain before us as soon as we started to run."

Bud added on as well.

"…There are many scents heading down the mountain. The enemies knew that we would escape to the bottom of the mountain. That's what any normal person would do. Who would head up to the snowy region?"

Bud calmly continued to speak.

"That is why we need to head to the snowy region."
"But aren't there many enemies chasing behind us as well?"

Sorros turned around to look at the injured people.

"There are enemies who headed to the bottom of the mountain, but there are still a lot of enemies chasing behind us right now as well. It is physically difficult for us to cross through the snowy region to escape in our current condition."

Cale turned around and started to speak to the allies at that moment.

"Reinforcement will be coming."

Who else was coming?
Sorros could see Cale's eyes start to sink as his eyes opened wide.
He could see Cale's gaze was full of anger.

"And, as I mentioned earlier… I don't plan on just being on the receiving end."

Sorros hesitated before responding.

"…Then what do you plan on doing, sir?"

There were two things Cale wanted.
There was something the Wind Elementals had told him while talking about the other Elementals being herded to the center of the mountain.
He shared that information with the others.

"The mountain to the west that is connected to the top of this mountain. There's nobody there. That's where we are going."

They were not walking north to the top of the snowy region but slightly off toward the northwest direction.

"We will escape from there. And once we enter the snowy region and get past it…"

Cale continued to speak as the allies thought that the anger in Cale's eyes was cold rather than hot.

"We will cause an avalanche. No, we will destroy the snowy region."

Bud, Sorros, and Glenn. No, all of the allies' eyes opened wide.
They understood the trap Cale mentioned.

"The snow will sweep away anything it can sweep away."

Cale calmly said that before heading northwest once again.
Based on the layout of this mountain, they would soon reach the snowy region once they passed a large boulder.

The allies gulped and followed behind him.
They could see the people from the Molan household joining them without making any noise.
Their numbers were not small anymore.

* * *

"It should work if you do that."
"I understand."

The call ended.
Alberu Crossman felt fatigue instantly overwhelm him.
He recalled the urgent call he received not too long ago.

'Please. Hyung-nim. I trust my smart hyung-nim.'

Cale Henituse had hung up after saying that.
Alberu Crossman brushed his face with both hands.
His tired blue eyes were full of fire.

"Miss Rosalyn."
"Yes, Your highness?"
"You heard, right?"

The red-haired red-eyed mage put the hood of her robe on in order to cover her face.
She then looked toward Alberu and started to speak.

"Yes, sir, I heard. I will be on my way now."

He looked at Rosalyn who was about to leave and asked after hesitating for a moment.

"Will you be okay?"

Rosalyn smiled and responded.

"See you later, your highness."

See him later.
Alberu chuckled at that amazing response and responded.

"I'll see you later."

Rosalyn soon left and Alberu who was left alone looked around.
He had sent his close confidants out and had been alone with Rosalyn.
Eruhaben-nim had been here before Rosalyn.
Alberu was left alone now that both of them were gone.
He recalled Cale's words again.

'Please. Hyung-nim. I trust my smart hyung-nim.'

The corners of Alberu's lips twisted up.

'He trusts my smart brain?'

He opened his mouth to speak.
His low voice echoed on top of the empty table.

"Sure. I will use my brain."

He immediately got up and opened the door to his office.
He could see his close confidants waiting for him a bit away from the door.
They were also the chief executives of the Roan Kingdom.
Alberu called them in and started to speak.

"We will share all information about the Roan Kingdom's northwest region in real-time."

He would not only share the information about the people who had secretly infiltrated the Roan Kingdom's northwest region, but all information.
What was this, 'all information,' that the future king was talking about? As the chief executives realized that there was only one thing he could mean by it…

"We are considering the Roan Kingdom's northwest region as a battlefield starting from this moment onward."

A battlefield.
The chief executives gasped after hearing that word, but Alberu was serious.
If there were four different battles going on right now as Cale Henituse mentioned, shouldn't he at least resolve one of those with his hands so that he could save face as Cale's hyung-nim?

But most importantly, they were aiming for the Roan Kingdom's land?

Alberu had no plans on falling for such ploys.

"Gather the troops."

Cale's friends were moving on the Western continent as well.

* * *

"The snowy region is to the left past that boulder and the path to the next mountain is there as well."

Choi Han who was following behind Beacrox looked back after seeing Beacrox's calm explanation.
Cale's expression did not look good.

"Cale-nim."
"…Something is weird."
"Excuse me?"

Cale raised his hand and pointed to the back rather than responding to Choi Han.
Ron who was in the rear quickly came to the front.

"Ron, isn't it weird?"
"It is weird, young master-nim."

Ron was saying that it was weird as well.

"Young master-nim. The Dark Elves have not attacked anymore. The Elementals should have been able to find our traces past the fog."

'Ah.'

That was the case. They should have been able to find them.
Bud subconsciously gasped, thinking that the enemies must be planning something.
Ron continued to speak at that moment.

"It is weird. Why is the bomb not going off?"

'Hmm?'

Bud's eyes opened wide.

"We purposely left our tracks behind so I thought there would be quite the chaos as they chased after it."

Ron and the people of the Molan household had purposely spread fake tracks in order to cause chaos within the enemies minds.
They were skilled in doing that as they specialized in stealth techniques and tracking.
The enemies who were chasing after them should have looked into those fake tracks.

"Hey, Cale! What is Mr. Ron talking about?"

Hannah looked back and shouted as well.
It was at that moment.

Baaaaaaaaaang!

They heard a loud noise in the distance.

Cale's gaze headed toward them.
The injured mages who were breathing heavily could see fire shooting up through the fog.
It was a dark blue fire.

Baaaaang! Baaaaaang-

They heard some more explosions before they thought they could hear the enemies screaming.
They could not hear the horse hooves that had sounded as if they were shaking the ground.

"I will destroy everything!"

Someone's excited voice was drowned out by the explosions.
However, some of Cale's group had heard it and knew that it was Raon's voice.

– Human! I used every last one of the one gramps gave us in the past!

Ron started to smile.

"The magic bombs tied the enemies down as planned."

There were magic bombs along the fake tracks that looked even more real than the real tracks.
This should give them some breathing space from the enemies chasing them.

Originally, Cale's plan was to use the opening they got from the explosions to quickly enter the snowy region. They would meet their reinforcements there and land a blow to the enemies as they escaped.

Ron was worried that they would discover the bombs too late or that the enemies would ignore those tracks, however, he was relieved that things were going according to plan even if it was a little later than he had expected.

"Something is weird."

However, Ron could see that Cale's face was still stiff.

"Young master-nim."

Cale could not see Ron's benign smile properly.
He asked the question that was on his mind.

"…Why have we not seen any Vampires?"

The reason he had chosen this path to escape was because he thought that their chances of escape were highest in this direction because the Sun God's powers would work well against the Vampires and the Dark Elves.
However, they had not seen any Vampires.

"…Cale-nim."

He heard Choi Han's stiff voice at that moment.
Cale started to frown after hearing the voice that was full of wariness.

He looked toward the large boulder that they needed to pass in order to get to the snowy region.
There was someone standing on top of that boulder.

Nobody had been there just a moment ago.

"Are you Cale Henituse?"

Cale could see a young boy standing on the boulder and smiling at him.
The smiling boy had some sharp fangs.
Cale's intuition was telling him something.

'That bastard is a Vampire.'

***

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]