Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 54

“P-Princess. Even if you go up there now, it’s too late to expect good treatment from them. So, let’s just go back to Bellareen.”

“No! I can’t go! No, I won’t go! I’m going to show that bastard what’s what!”

Her words, more venomous than usual, made Zaijen feel a creepy chill, as if all the hairs on his body were standing on end.

“Just you wait. I’ll make him pay the price for disrespecting the Imperial Family!”

“If you’re going to do that, you might as well go back to the Imperial Palace and tell His Majesty, huck!”

Zaijen couldn’t continue speaking. Edeline was glaring at him with terrifying eyes.

“I won’t rely on Father anymore. I will solve this with my own strength. I’ll make him pay for making a woman cry…”

Edeline deliberately trailed off at the end, but Zaijen didn’t miss it.

And he sighed quietly.

‘Oh, Princess, your way of loving is as unique as your personality. But don’t you know that what you need now isn’t cold venom, but warm affection? Affection that can warmly embrace the heart of a man lost in sorrow.’

Even Zaijen, who was born in a family of martial artists and had little experience with romance, thought Edeline’s behavior was like watching ten-year-old children dating.

Like kids who obsessively bully the person they like and get angry when spoken to.

But looking at her like that, Zaijen somehow found her even more adorable and innocent.

While climbing the slope, Kang Chan inadvertently looked back.

Then he saw Edeline and Zaijen trailing far behind.

Edeline was almost dead, on the verge of collapsing and foaming at the mouth.

“Princess, I’ll carry you on my back!”

“Eek! Let go! I will, huff! Huff! I’ll climb up on my own… Just you wait, I’ll climb up on my own and, huff! Huff… show that bastard what’s what…”

“Princess, you’re going to kill yourself. Please, just let me carry you.”

In Kang Chan’s eyes, she seemed to be severely lacking in exercise.

Among the tens of thousands of dwarves and elves gathered here, no one was out of breath, but only she was panting as if she were about to die.

The sandals she was wearing didn’t seem suitable for climbing such a steep slope either.

They were simply made to be pretty, without any practicality.

Kang Chan approached her.

Edeline, seeing Kang Chan approaching her again, glared at him with fiery eyes and spat out venomous words.

“Huff! Huff! What is it? Do you have any more, huff! Huff! evil words you want to say to me?”

Kang Chan didn’t listen to her words and abruptly sat down in front of her to examine her feet.

As expected, her feet were covered in blisters from the thin sandal straps.

Kang Chan began to forcibly remove her sandals.

“Hah! What are you doing?”

In this continent of Erkanndor, a man touching a lady’s feet was considered a very scandalous act.

Edeline’s face exploded with redness.

“Kang Chan, what are you doing?”

Zaijen, unable to tolerate such behavior any longer, tried to stop him.

But he was rendered speechless by Kang Chan’s next words.

“You can’t climb any further with these sandals.”

A part of Kang Chan’s combat suit extended from his hand and slowly began to envelop her foot.

The micro-machines built into the suit moved as if they were alive, causing Edeline to scream softly in surprise as they wrapped around her foot.

“Kyaa…”

However, as the pain in her foot gradually subsided and an excellent black shoe was created on her foot, she could only stare at Kang Chan with surprised eyes.

“Next foot.”

When Kang Chan asked for the other foot, Edeline obediently held out her left foot.

Kang Chan removed the sandal as he had done with the right foot, treated the wound with medical micro-machines, and then created the same shoe as on her right foot.

Then he slowly stood up and said to Edeline.

“It’s just a little further. That’s all.”

Kang Chan left only those words and returned to his place.

Edeline’s face, as she watched Kang Chan’s back, was as red as a persimmon.

Edeline, who had changed into new shoes, began to climb the slope again.

But her movements were very different from before.

The shoes that Kang Chan had made for her were not as uncomfortable as sandals. They didn’t feel heavy at all, and the elasticity was very good, so she didn’t get tired as easily as before.

After climbing the steep slope without rest, she finally set foot at the entrance of the dwarves’ kingdom, Mine Kingdom.

It was the first time in her life that she had climbed so high with her own strength.

She felt like her heart would burst with joy.

She realized today for the first time that achieving something with her own strength was such a joyful thing.

She looked at Kang Chan’s back with a flushed face.

Her heart was filled with indescribable and subtle emotions.

* * *

As they arrived, the massive steel gate of Mine Kingdom slowly began to open.

Gugugugugugung!

It was a truly unbelievably huge and thick steel gate.

After passing through the massive steel gate and following a dark and long tunnel for a while, what appeared inside was an astonishingly huge underground cavity.

Its width was almost as large as a giant city.

High above the ceiling were beautiful stalactites, and in the middle was a huge hole through which the sky was visible.

Right below it was a beautiful lake with shimmering silver waves, and the light that came in from above reflected on this lake, brightly illuminating all directions.

The walls of the giant cavity reflected the undulating silver waves of the lake, creating a fantastic sight, and along the walls were densely packed with the dwarves’ charming houses.

They were structures that were almost vertical, making one wonder if it was okay to live in such a place.

Artheon, looking around the giant cavity, exclaimed with sincere admiration.

“It’s truly a beautiful city, no matter how many times I see it.”

Craxion, pleased with her sincere praise, laughed heartily and said.

“No need to say it twice! Now! My subordinates will take care of the place where the elves will stay, so come with me to the castle. And let’s discuss what to do in the future.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, right! It would be good for that friend from another world to come along too.”

At Craxion’s words, Artheon asked back.

“Why him?”

“I heard a lot about that friend on the way here. They say he’s a hero who played a decisive role in stopping this invasion? If so, it’s only natural to have him at the upcoming strategy meeting, wouldn’t you agree?”

It was a reasonable point.

It was clear that he had played a significant role.

“Yes, that’s right. If it weren’t for Kang Chan’s help in this crisis, Eladion and I wouldn’t be alive like this.”

“Then I’ll assume that he will attend the meeting and take action.”

“Yes, Craxion.”

As Artheon agreed to Craxion’s words, Craxion ordered his subordinate to find Kang Chan and bring him to the conference hall, and hurriedly headed to the conference hall with the two.

As they were heading to the conference room, Kang Chan, who was looking around Mine Kingdom, couldn’t shake off a strange feeling.

This place felt strangely familiar.

As if he had been here before.

But Kang Chan had never left the Elves’ Forest since coming to this planet.

So it was truly a mysterious thing.

* * *

Craxion’s palace, located in a scenic spot overlooking the Silver Lake, was smaller in scale than human palaces, but it was a beautiful castle that refused comparison in terms of artistry.

Even the patterns engraved on each brick were works of art that would fetch a high price if brought to the human world.

Inside the conference room located in such a palace, Craxion, five dwarven elders, Artheon, and Eladion were sitting around a round table, exchanging close-knit conversations.

The stories they were discussing were about the formidable monsters and the meticulousness of the dark elves that the enemies had shown in this invasion.

Among them, the dwarven elders were speechless with surprise at Eladion’s statement that an army of over 200,000 had ambushed through the underground.

“My goodness, how could so many troops come through the underground…”

“It’s absolutely impossible without preparing for an incredibly long time.”

“That’s right. Anyone who has dug the ground knows how difficult it is.”

Eladion deeply agreed with their words.

“Perhaps the dark elves have been preparing that invasion route for a long time to attack our Elves’ Forest. And the green elves must have stepped in to help those guys. Would you like to take a look at this too?”

Eladion took out a palm-sized, hard black shell onto the round table.

It was the shell of the Black Centipede.

“What is this?”

At the dwarven elder’s question, Eladion said as if he was disgusted.

“It’s the shell of the monster they mobilized in this invasion.”

“This is a shell? A monster with a black luster… Could it be?”

The dwarven elder who received the shell took out a small hammer from his chest and lightly tapped the shell of the Black Centipede.

Then, the dwarven elder’s expression changed seriously at the clear sound that echoed.

That was a clear sound that only came from an incredibly strong metal.

The dwarven elder again took out a necklace with a small golden pendant from his chest and scratched the shell.

Then, a grating metallic friction sound echoed in the conference room, and exclamations burst from the mouths of the other dwarven elders who were watching the scene.

“No! How can this be!”

“Oh! My goodness, good heavens!”

The other dwarven elders, who had been watching silently, put their heads together with them and repeatedly exclaimed, and Artheon, nodding as if he knew it would be so, looked at Eladion and said.

“It was terribly hard, wasn’t it?”

Eladion was slightly embarrassed by Artheon’s somewhat extreme expression and replied.

“Yes? Ah, yes, it was really hard.”

If a somewhat extreme expression came out of Artheon’s mouth, who never used vulgar language, it meant that it was really amazing.

“Good heavens, it didn’t even scratch when scratched with a gold dragon’s scale! Could it be that the Black Centipede, which has only been passed down in legends, actually exists?”

It was the moment when the existence of the giant centipede Black Centipede, the strongest in the subterranean ecosystem after the Deep Dragon, was first revealed on the surface.

“Black Centipede?”

“I remember reading about this creature in an old book when I was very young. At that time, I just thought it was an imaginary creature, but it’s amazing. According to the old book, there are countless terrifying creatures we don’t know about in the very deep and dark abyss. Among them, the most famous and strongest monster is the Deep Dragon, which everyone knows so well, and the next strongest is the Black Centipede. But that monster is still an unknown creature whose identity has not been properly revealed. It’s just that a long time ago, our ancestors went very deep to find new minerals and suffered a great deal from it, and the story at that time remains in the book and is passed down from generation to generation. According to the story, the monster had a huge body and was covered with a black metallic shell, and no weapon was useful in front of that hard shell, and the strong acidic solution spewed from its mouth even melted metal.”

As the old dwarf groped for his memories and muttered, Artheon and Eladion looked at each other again and said.

“That’s the monster.”

“Oh my, there’s not even an inch of error.”

When Artheon and Eladion said that the monster the dwarven elder spoke of and the monster that invaded the Elves’ Forest matched, the dwarves began to tremble with fear.

They seemed afraid of meeting such a powerful monster in the mine.

“Good heavens, how can they control such a powerful monster at will…”

“I fought that monster with my disciples on an Elven Knight [A type of combat mech], and one of them easily took on two Elven Knights.”

At Eladion’s words, exclamations burst out again from the mouths of those who designed the Elven Knight.

Since they knew the performance of the Gigantes [Another name for Elven Knights] they had created better than anyone else, the shock was bound to be even greater.