Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 42

Kang Chan wanted to scream at the sight of the burning house.

The thought that Jaina might be dead inside, suffering a similar fate, flashed through his mind.

“Jaina! Jaina! Jaina, answer me!” he yelled, his voice cracking with desperation.

Kang Chan, like a madman, charged through the flames, searching every corner of the house for Jaina.

But he couldn’t find Jaina or her mother’s body anywhere.

Kang Chan breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

A small hope flickered within him – she might still be alive.

Kang Chan hurriedly left the burning house.

However, outside, dozens of green elves, their weapons dripping with blood, were waiting for him.

Around their necks and waists, they wore grotesque necklaces made of the severed, delicate ears of other elves.

Kang Chan’s eyes narrowed, a cold fury igniting within him.

“You bastards! I’ll kill you all!”

“Kill the last human!” the apparent leader of the green elves shouted, and the soldiers surged towards Kang Chan.

Without hesitation, Kang Chan raised his railgun and mercilessly pulled the trigger.

The tiny, 3mm iron beads were accelerated through the electronic barrel, hurtling towards them at an incredible speed of Mach 6.5 [approximately five times the speed of sound].

Impacted by the bullets, their bodies didn’t just get pierced; they were utterly shattered and exploded.

In an instant, the thirty green elves struck by the railgun were gone, leaving behind only their lower bodies, chunks of flesh, and scattered pieces of armor.

The few surviving green elves screamed, their courage broken, and began to flee in terror.

“Ah, a demon! A demon has appeared!”

The terrified green elves, seeing Kang Chan in his black combat suit, branded him a demon.

But Kang Chan had no interest in these insignificant foes.

He had to move quickly to find Jaina as soon as possible.

Kang Chan mounted his air bike and began to scour the area, desperately searching for any sign of Jaina.

However, as if sensing Kang Chan’s burning urgency, the green elves swarmed around him like a pack of rabid dogs, showering him with arrows.

With his anger reaching a boiling point, Kang Chan leveled the railgun at them and roared, “If Jaina has even a hair out of place, I will wipe your entire race from the face of this world!”

The railgun roared, tearing through the swarming green elves, their bodies exploding like watermelons.

Then, the grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel unleashed its payload into the most densely packed area, triggering a massive explosion that sent the arms and legs of the green elves flying in all directions.

“Ah! My leg!”

“He’s a wizard!”

“He’s a demon!”

The grenades, though only the size of a person’s little finger, were high-performance explosives with a lethal radius of 20 meters [approximately 65 feet].

Each grenade instantly killed or maimed nearly fifty green elves.

Even those far from the blast were seriously injured, struck by stones and branches propelled by the explosion.

Despite the horrific scene, Kang Chan’s eyes remained cold and merciless.

He had reverted to the ruthless Kang Chan of the former special forces unit, Red Mars.

Kang Chan relentlessly poured bullets and grenades upon the bewildered elves.

It was an absurd battle – one against thousands – but the elves on the ground couldn’t hope to catch Kang Chan, who was flying around on an air bike.

Moreover, they were defenseless against the magical-seeming attacks of unbelievable power raining down from the sky.

Only their corpses piled up higher and higher.

As time wore on, the elves seemed to realize they had no chance of winning and began to abandon the fight, retreating in disarray.

Kang Chan simply let them go as they fled with their tails between their legs.

The 200-round magazine was almost empty.

Only one grenade remained.

As the green elves retreated like a receding tide, numerous corpses littered the ground.

Kang Chan increased his altitude and began to scan the surroundings using the suit’s high-magnification lens.

Then, he spotted dozens of elves who had died en masse on a distant hill.

They appeared to have been attacked by other green elves while trying to escape into the mountains.

Holding onto a fragile hope, Kang Chan flew towards them.

‘Please don’t be there… please,’ he prayed silently.

Kang Chan checked the faces of the dead elves one by one, desperately hoping that Jaina wouldn’t be among them.

Finally, he found a woman writhing in pain.

Kang Chan landed, removed his helmet, and spoke to her.

“Hey! Hey! Wake up!”

“Ugh!” the elf woman screamed in pain at the slightest touch.

Kang Chan glanced at her side and saw a broken arrow deeply embedded in her flesh.

If left untreated, she wouldn’t survive.

Kang Chan decided to help her, hoping she might hold a clue to Jaina’s whereabouts.

“I’ll help you. Stay awake!”

Hearing that he would help her, the elf woman struggled to look up at Kang Chan.

Then, her eyes widened in recognition.

“Oh, no… you are…?”

“…”

Kang Chan recognized her too.

She was Jaina’s neighbor, the one who usually treated him and Jaina with disdain.

‘This is awkward…’ Kang Chan thought.

He felt a pang of embarrassment, but her situation was dire.

She was dying alone and lonely in the forest, and despite her usual dislike of him, she burst into tears at the sight of a familiar face.

“I’ll treat you. But first…”

Kang Chan broke off a thick branch from a nearby tree and placed it in her mouth.

“If you want to live, bite down on this and bear it.”

She understood his words and actions perfectly.

Her face paled with fear and horror.

But she knew she would die if she remained still.

So, as Kang Chan instructed, she bit down on the branch and nodded with difficulty.

As she bit down on the branch, Kang Chan nodded in return and slowly reached out to examine the wound.

A blue light emanated from his palm, scanning the affected area.

*Weeeeing.*

“That’s a relief.”

After checking the shape of the arrowhead with high-sensitivity ultrasound, he was relieved to see it was a simple design.

It didn’t appear to be entangled with any internal organs, so pulling it out shouldn’t cause further damage.

If the arrowhead had been barbed like a fishhook, he wouldn’t have dared to touch it without proper surgical equipment.

In that case, he would have had to push the arrow further into the body, piercing through to the other side, before cutting off the barb and pulling the arrow out.

If he had simply pulled it out with force, the hook-like end of the arrowhead would have caused even more severe damage to her internal organs, potentially even pulling them out of her body.

Kang Chan slowly gripped the arrow shaft and began to apply force, and the elf woman convulsed in agony.

The pain she felt seemed unbearable.

A tremendous amount of cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

“Just a little more, try to bear it a little longer.”

“Kkeueueueueueup!”

The branch in her mouth was on the verge of crumbling.

Kang Chan encouraged her and continued to pull the arrow, and soon the arrowhead began to emerge.

Fortunately, just before she lost consciousness, he managed to pull the arrow out safely.

However, as he removed the arrow that had been embedded almost half a hand’s breadth, a torrent of blood gushed from the wound.

Kang Chan stemmed the bleeding with his hand and began to inject micro-machines into her body.

The medical micro-machines were made of proteins and minerals, not metal, making them more akin to microorganisms than machines.

But they were, in essence, tiny robots built with intricate mechanisms.

These medical micro-machines would be absorbed into the patient’s body, dissolving in the blood after completing their work.

“Heueueue…”

Even in her dazed state, the elf woman watched Kang Chan’s actions with suspicion, wondering, ‘Surely pressing is not all he’s doing?’

She flinched as she felt something ticklish being pushed into her side through Kang Chan’s hand.

Then, Kang Chan spoke, his tone firm, “No! Stay still. My friends will heal your wound.”

At his words – that something strange being pushed into her body would heal her – she had no choice but to endure it and remain still.

As the medical micro-machines entered her body and began to repair the wound, she felt a mixture of pain and ticklishness, resulting in a complex and subtle expression on her face.

After about five minutes, Kang Chan slowly removed his hand from her side, which had been covered in blood.

Now, only a faint scar remained on her wound.

The elf’s eyes widened in disbelief as she stared at her wound.

“H, how? I didn’t even use magic…”

“Don’t be too surprised. It’s less amazing than magic in our world.”

Tears welled up in her eyes again.

“T, thank you. For saving me like this. I haven’t done anything good for you all this time…”

“You haven’t done anything good? The elves saved my life.”

“Kang Chan-nim… sob.”

Suddenly, she threw her arms around Kang Chan and began to cry.

She was overwhelmed with emotion, having survived such a close brush with death.

But Kang Chan didn’t have the luxury of accepting her tears of relief.

He had already spent too much time with her.

Kang Chan only wanted one thing from her: Jaina’s whereabouts.

“Excuse me, but have you seen Jaina, who lived next door?”

At Kang Chan’s question, she forced back her tears and said, “If you mean Jaina, I was running away with her towards the village shrine, but after that, I don’t know. I was climbing this hill when I was hit by an arrow…”

Her expression darkened as she recalled being struck by the arrow.

“Shrine? Where is that?”

She hesitated for a moment, then raised her hand and pointed in one direction.

“If you go through this forest to the end, there is a cave under the cliff. Inside, there is a shrine that commemorates the souls of the elves who died protecting the forest. When a crisis strikes, we go there to seek protection from the spirits of our ancestors.”

Kang Chan was overjoyed by her words.

He had finally found a lead on her whereabouts.

A flower of hope bloomed on Kang Chan’s face.

“Can you walk?”

“J, just a moment. Ah, ouch!”

She tried to force herself up, but her face contorted in pain as if the wound hadn’t completely healed, and she slumped back down.