Weapon-Eating Bastard [EN]: Chapter 114

Weapon-Eating Heir 114

Was this moment truly reality, or just a fleeting dream?

The goblin’s incarnation, leaving Mirinae Village, with starlight over its shoulder.

Its appearance was so dreamlike that it didn’t feel real.

Between the unkempt, drooping hair, its eyes sparkled, reflecting the moonlight.

I quietly met the goblin’s gaze.

Suddenly, I remembered the story of the Elder Goblin I had heard from Ryeo.

-Even though he owed a debt, it’s hard for me to talk about it much.

-But I can tell you this much.

-The Elder… loved humans more than anyone else.

That was Ryeo’s answer to my question about the Elder.

Ryeo continued the story calmly, with eyes full of sorrow.

-But the horrors of war made him that way.

-Don’t hate him too much.

-He is just a goblin with a tender heart.

That was all I heard.

As if drawing a line.

Ryeo didn’t tell me much.

Although she acknowledged and accepted me, it was as if she was saying that she couldn’t cross this line.

I understood Ryeo’s words, so I didn’t press further.

And now, that Elder Goblin had come to find me.

“Humans are always so stubborn.”

Though he said that, the goblin’s voice didn’t have the hostile tone it had when we first met.

The goblin turned his head and looked up at the sky.

Could he see something in his eyes?

He looked back at me and said.

“I clearly told you not to enter my territory.”

I took a long breath and answered calmly.

“I came as a rightful successor of the Black Night, according to the oath.”

“I know. The reason I didn’t bother to drive you out again was because of that. It’s just an old promise, but it was my promise that I couldn’t deny.”

I knew it.

Unlike Ryeo’s reassurances, if the Elder Goblin had wanted to drive me out, it would have happened so quickly that I wouldn’t have noticed.

But while I was learning ssireum [Korean wrestling], and even while taking the test afterward, the Elder Goblin left me alone.

“And since that child in the village has fulfilled the oath, there is no reason for you to stay either.”

The goblin’s eyes sank deeply.

And he slowly opened his mouth.

“So, leave now.”

His voice echoed as if I were hearing it in a dream.

I instinctively knew that I couldn’t resist that voice.

Before I knew it, the scenery of the goblin and Mirinae Village was blurring.

And.

Whoosh!

As if waking from a light sleep, I felt something pulling me.

And when I came to my senses, the scenery of Mirinae Village that had been before my eyes was nowhere to be found.

“Here…….”

What I saw before me was the scenery of Hallasan Mountain [a shield volcano on Jeju Island, South Korea].

As if Mirinae Village, the bustling festival, the ssireum with 100 people, and all the words of the Elder Goblin were just a midsummer night’s dream.

Only dense thickets and pale moonlight were present.

-This is just my own will… Even if you leave like this, don’t hate the goblins here.

The trees swayed in the blowing wind.

A stream of voice scattered through the branches and into my ears.

* * *

“Elder Seop.”

Ryeo spoke calmly in front of a large boulder overlooking the entire view of Mirinae Village.

“Have you come?”

The Elder Goblin was sitting on the boulder.

Ryeo looked at Seop with bitter eyes.

“……Did you have to go this far?”

Seop said nothing.

Ryeo carefully placed the small table she was holding next to Seop.

On the table were a few bottles of alcohol and a few snacks.

When Seop looked at Ryeo with a puzzled expression, Ryeo smiled bitterly and replied.

“That human brought it for you, Elder.”

“……Is that so.”

Seop didn’t touch the alcohol.

He just stared at the white porcelain bottle for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the scenery of the village.

Silence ensued again.

Seop’s hair fluttered in the blowing wind.

“I hate humans.”

Then he spoke those words.

We were having the same conversation again, but the atmosphere was different from before.

“But I feel sorry that you all live as if you are trapped in the mountains because of me. Maybe… you might resent me.”

“No. There are no goblins who don’t understand your heart, Elder. But… that human is different. That’s why you didn’t drive him out, right?”

Seop didn’t respond to Ryeo’s words right away.

He just quietly looked at the scenery of the mountain spreading out below and Mirinae Village quietly located within it.

“……I have no intention of denying the bonds you have built with that human. My feelings are, after all, just those of an old man.”

It was quite different from his tone so far.

But his voice still contained an unidentifiable complex emotion.

Mixed in his voice, which was mixed with the sound of the gently blowing wind, were anger, regret, and deep fatigue.

“The two of them might also be saddened by this side of you, Elder.”

Seop’s eyes flashed open at the words that didn’t know who he was talking about.

“I can’t forgive you for even mentioning that story, no matter who you are.”

“But you don’t really hate humans, do you, Elder? It’s just because of the two of you…….”

“Child.”

Seop cut off Ryeo’s words.

And Ryeo realized that she shouldn’t open her mouth recklessly any further.

“I…….”

Seop slowly opened his mouth.

But at that moment.

Thud-

A heavy vibration echoed through the mountain.

No, there was no actual vibration.

Only Ryeo and Seop felt it.

The two’s gazes intertwined in the air.

“Could it be…….”

Seop hurriedly began to move.

Ryeo followed behind him.

Their bodies, which had disappeared as if scattered in the air, had already reached the summit of the mountain.

A huge crater.

Small ripples were spreading over the calm surface of Baekrokdam (白鹿潭) [a crater lake on top of Hallasan Mountain] lying below.

* * *

Hot.

That was the first thing ‘it’ thought.

Red, blood-like lava was engulfing its entire body.

……Hot.

Again, it continued to think.

Once started, thoughts continued intermittently.

But no matter how hard it thought, it couldn’t remember anything.

Why it was here, where this place was, or even what it was in the first place.

It only felt pain from an unknown heat and thirst, and the unfreedom that weighed down its entire body.

Creak!

A sound of something being released is heard.

The unfreedom disappears.

It has to move.

Then where to?

It turns its eyes.

The countless stars and the moon floating in the sky are shining.

But what it looked at was not the moon and stars, but the vast spiritual energy flowing in this mountain.

Kuuuuung!

A heavy vibration echoes.

It stretched.

Grin!

And, an unknown black figure in the lava let out an ominous smile.

* * *

Seop and Ryeo headed to the very center of Baekrokdam.

When Seop waved his hand in the air, a path leading underground unfolded there.

“You go back to the village as you are.”

Seop looked at Ryeo and spoke.

Ryeo shook her head.

“You may feel that I am still young, Elder, but I am also a goblin who has grown old now.”

“Don’t you have to tell those who live in the village?”

“That’s something that can be done by creating a doppelganger with magic.”

“…….”

“As an elder of the village, I need to see this place. Elder.”

Seop looked at Ryeo for a while.

But soon, he nodded.

“Follow me.”

Seop slowly descended down the large entrance.

Ryeo swallowed hard, looking at the path that was submerged in the dark darkness like the mouth of a beast.

Woo-oong!

An ominous energy was gushing out like a wave.

Was it because of that, the wind sounded like the wailing of a ghost.

Ryeo took a deep breath, braced herself, and walked into it.

And at that moment.

Thud!

Ryeo felt a rising sense of rejection.

A disgusting sensation as if her insides were turning inside out.

Then Seop turned around.

“Are you okay?”

Ryeo nodded, keeping her mouth tightly shut.

And I thought.

This Elder, for that long time, endured in such a terrible place?

“Wasn’t the seal still strong?”

Ryeo asked, suppressing the rising nausea.

“A negative energy has been appearing from the north for several years, and it has been affecting the seal. I expected something to happen in the near future, but I never thought it would happen so quickly…….”

“……What about what you were making? Can’t you hold out until it’s finished?”

“It failed.”

Ryeo’s eyes fluttered.

Seop had been constantly hammering here to strengthen the seal that had kept ‘something’ locked up for a long time.

He wanted to complete it before the seal was broken.

But as always, things in the world didn’t seem to go as he wanted.

Woong!

The deeper they went, the more ominous the energy became.

But compared to that ominous feeling, the darkness around them was definitely fading.

In the depths of the cave, a bright light flickered.

Flash!

Soon, a wide space was revealed in front of them at the end of the cave.

A huge joint with red lava spread out like a lake on the floor.

It was an unrealistic landscape.

It was impossible for there to be a space with lava like this just because they had fallen a long distance vertically, or walked down a cave that was almost flat.

But this place was not a space created realistically in the first place.

That lava, this space.

Everything was intentionally created for the seal.

And Ryeo looked at the wide space above the lava.

“……Did you have to go this far?”

An alien object that did not fit into this space was visible in Ryeo’s eyes.

It was a huge anvil.

A huge lump of iron the size of an average person.

And countless lumps of iron were rolling around on the ground around it.

The objects that Seop had hammered for hundreds of years.

Seop’s time was contained in these failures.

“It was impossible to create something to replace the seal with me alone. It was the same even if the subterranean people helped me. I…… I have failed after all.”

Ryeo slowly lowered her gaze to the place overlooking the lava river.

Splash!

Suddenly, a part of the lava burst out.

Seop and Ryeo looked at the lava in surprise at the same time, and a dark black magic began to smolder from there.

“Already like this……!”

Seop widened his eyes as if they were about to tear.

The lava, which had been flowing gently while being laid on the floor, suddenly began to bubble.

Kwaaaaaang!

And in an instant, a shape that looked like someone’s arm burst out of the lava.

Grrrrrr-

A cry that seemed to flow out of hell echoed in the joint.

It had no flesh.