Chapter 827: Familiarity
FWAAAAASH!!!
“Prince!”
A being appeared in the sky above the battlefield, releasing an enormous surge of energy.
The Prince of Death.
Until recently, he had been forced to fight against the Legion after another divinity forcibly seized his body.
-I will support the battle.
“......!”
And now, he too was participating in the Legion’s advance.
However, his objective was somewhat different from that of the other Legion members.
The Legion members’ objective was to secure as much land as possible and join up with the survivors.
His objective, on the other hand.......
'The salvation of more of my kind.'
His own kind, still rushing toward destruction without even having awakened reason.
To gather them under him and offer them a choice other than destruction.
Their ultimate objectives were different, but the process was the same.
That was why he had decided to accompany the Legion.
And among them, he was moving together with the Continental Expeditionary Force.
He had once become the vessel of that divinity and had seen what it saw.
And according to the memories he had seen at that time.
'There are almost none of my kind left on the archipelago across the sea.'
A country that had been completely submerged beneath the sea.
There were already none of his kind left there.
He could at least sense the presence of his kind on another continent that the Pacific Expeditionary Force would eventually cross over to, but even the monster currently occupying that archipelago was considerably powerful, so there was no telling when they would be able to cross over there.
At this very moment, his kind were probably devouring other living beings and accumulating karma, while those whose strength had been exhausted devoured one another in mutual slaughter, reducing their own numbers.
If he wanted to reduce even a little of that meaningless waste, he had to hurry as much as possible.
Powerful subordinates, including the [Chancellor], had also gone with the Pacific Expeditionary Force, but that was the reason the Prince, the most crucial one among them, had joined the Continental Expeditionary Force.
“......Thank you!”
However, because their objectives differed slightly from one another, while their general routes of movement were shared, they basically operated separately.
Until recently, the Prince had also been acting separately from the Legion, heading toward places where he could sense many of his kind and bringing other members of his kind under his command, or dealing with those who had already awakened reason and resisted him.
And now he had appeared like this to help the Legion.
It was not...... merely to assist the Legion in its great undertaking.
'Revenge.'
His kind, the zombies, were also perpetrators from the perspective of the living beings of this land.
He knew the price of those sins and intended to repay it while accompanying the Legion.
But separately from that, his kind were also in a position where they were being hunted by other races on this land.
The countless members of his kind that should originally have occupied this extreme land had been eliminated by those monsters.
It was only natural for him to feel anger toward the enemy that had eliminated so many of his kind whom he might have been able to save.
And also.......
'Prevention.'
Those monsters spread at an incredibly rapid rate while devouring everything in the land they occupied.
If they were left alone, they would spread into even more territory and devour even more of his kind.
Even if only to delay that by a little, he had decided to join the Legion’s battle.
FWAAAAASH!
The last time they had headed to Pyongyang.
Corporal Jeon Gwangil and the other soldiers had left the city first in order to search for other threats that might exist within North Korea.
Because of that, the only time they had witnessed the Prince fighting had been when they first entered the city and saw him fighting the rock giants.
Even that battle had ended in an instant, so this was the first time they had seen him fight properly.
'As expected...... that Prince is strong.'
Corporal Jeon Gwangil broke out in a cold sweat as he watched the Prince’s attacks.
Every time a wave spread from his hands, an enormous number of monsters were swept away.
The evolution he had achieved as a zombie and the levels he had gained as an awakened.
Through those two methods of growth, he had achieved tremendous power at an unbelievable rate.
Even though there should no longer be a divinity dwelling within that body, his strength was unbelievable.
But at the same time...... Corporal Jeon Gwangil could not help feeling something strange.
'There’s something oddly familiar about it.......'
And while Corporal Jeon Gwangil was fighting with those thoughts in mind.
'......I felt it even while watching their advance from afar.'
The Prince as well.
While fighting the enemies, he looked down at the Legion members on the ground.
He too had not seen the other Legion members fight in Pyongyang, and when Avaritia had descended into him, he had been submerged deep within himself and had been unable to properly observe what was happening outside.
All he knew about the Legion was the Legion Commander, Shin Youngjun, who had helped him during the battle in Pyongyang, and the man’s cooking ability.
It was only after this advance began that he had properly seen them fight.
'They are strong.'
The Legion members were far stronger than he had imagined.
The Prince himself was strong as well, but that was because of the special characteristic that allowed him to grow while simultaneously possessing both evolution as a zombie and levels as an awakened.
Those people, on the other hand, had grown as pure humans, supported only by the System.
And yet the fact that they could display such strength was astonishing.
And among them.......
'That man.'
The Prince sank into strange thoughts as he watched the huge man leading those Legion members in battle, Corporal Jeon Gwangil.
He was one of the exceptional powerhouses even among the awakened.
There was a large difference between their levels, and if it came to the firepower needed to deal with large numbers of enemies, he probably could not even be compared to the Prince.......
But there was something about the officers of that Legion that transcended simple levels.
Their own experience, honed while surviving in this ruined world.
It was enough to make him think that perhaps, in a one-on-one battle, that man might even be able to threaten him.
'......And for some reason.'
Even as he watched him with those thoughts.
The Prince too looked down at Corporal Jeon Gwangil and sank into strange contemplation.
'That energy...... feels strangely familiar.'
He too was a being who possessed the System.
Perhaps it was some sense of kinship shared between awakened...... but it somehow felt subtly different from that.
Corporal Jeon Gwangil did not know the reason.
But the Prince had one suspicion.
'What created me and my kind was malice that sought to destroy everything.'
And according to the being that had occupied his body last time.
That malice was the very existence that had pierced holes into every world and neutralized the power of those worlds.
But...... after hearing that story back then and later hearing from the Legion members about the current state of this world.
The Prince had come to wonder about one thing.
'Perhaps our creator did not merely stop at creating us.'
Zombies were life-forms created with unmistakable malice.
They were made to gnaw away at the barriers of a world, enter it, devour everything inside, and then ultimately destroy even themselves.
But...... among the things that had happened in this world, there were also events in which those zombies had played no part.
'The suppression of military force.'
The military power of the existing civilization, which under normal circumstances should have been capable of resisting this destruction to some extent.
It had not been the zombies that suppressed that power.
The powerful monsters that, for some reason, appeared only at military bases, and the powerful restrictions embedded within those monsters’ minds.
And...... as one of the zombies born from that malice, the Prince could be certain.
'That had absolutely nothing to do with our kind.'
Perhaps their creator.
Perhaps what that malice said to exist somewhere in the universe had done was not limited merely to creating zombies.
The suppression of those military bases, along with countless other things.......
That malice might have been exerting a harmful influence on every universe through far too many different methods.
And perhaps.
'That energy as well.......'
That energy was not something unique to this world.
The world that had passed martial arts down to the Legion members...... the Forest of Beasts possessed the same energy.
The reason Corporal Jeon Gwangil was able to handle that energy was also because attempts to control that energy had already existed in the Forest of Beasts.
But just as zombies had been unable to naturally consume energy in this land.
The probability of the same type of energy existing in completely different worlds was lower than one might think.
Especially something as unusual as that energy.
'And this familiarity I feel right now.......'
Perhaps that energy and he himself fundamentally originated from the same place...... the Prince suspected.
'Well, it no longer matters to me.'
As long as they cooked according to the recipe created by the Legion Commander, even if there was the condition that the cook had to be someone capable of handling mana.
Even ordinary people had become capable of making food for zombies.
They had obtained a way to escape the fate their creator had forced upon the zombies.
After that, his objective was nothing more than the revival of his kind.
He had no interest in anything else.
Even if it was something related to his own origin, it was the same.
And for the sake of that objective.......
FWAAAAAAAAASH!!!
He continued wielding that power, eliminating the enemies swarming toward them.
Even for him, the number of monsters spread across this land was simply too great.
The fierce battle continued for a long time, enough that even the Prince could feel his strength gradually being consumed.......
“......Over there!”
Then.
Some of the soldiers fighting opened their eyes wide and shouted.
The moment they heard that shout, the other soldiers noticed it as well.
Beyond those countless monsters.
Beyond all of those monsters.
BOOM-BOOM.......
“It’s them!”
Someone was fighting.
And approaching them.
***
“Over there, those explosions are.......”
“It’s the Legion!”
“Finally!”
Even when they had decided to abandon the position they had struggled to secure and begin moving south.
There had been awakened who wondered whether this was truly the right thing to do.
Oymyakon was one of the coldest lands in the world.
It was the region where the Witch of Snow, who was at the core of the power they wielded, could display her greatest strength.
No matter how the people called the Legion were capable of manipulating even the System...... there had still been doubts about whether leaving this land was truly the right choice.
But...... at the moment they encountered the Legion members, the awakened thought.
'To encounter them this quickly'.
'The Legion knew our location precisely.'
'And...... even if they knew where we were, they came this deep while breaking through those monsters.'
'How in the world?'
Could they really trust the force called the Legion enough to leave that frozen land behind?
That doubt quickly faded.
And...... at the moment they confirmed each other’s existence, the Russian awakened were not the only ones who were surprised.
'We encountered them much earlier than the point where we expected them to be.'
'They knew we were approaching and moved to meet us.'
'At this distance...... they must have come a long way south from the expected location. We were told they had been greatly weakened from fighting those monsters, and yet they can do that.......'
It was a situation where both sides were astonished as they looked at each other.
𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Not only the Russian awakened, but even the Legion’s awakened were astonished after estimating the capability of the other side.
In truth, there was nothing particularly complicated about why such a situation had occurred.
Not long ago, the [Stat-Boosting Potions], [Martial Arts], and [Blessings] had been distributed to every awakened.
As a result, the strength of every awakened had become incomparably greater than before.
But not much time had actually passed since then.
The problem was that they had become explosively stronger in far too short a time.
It was a period when even the awakened themselves could not properly grasp just how much stronger they had become.
That was why their standards were still based on the time before all those powers had been granted to them.
The strength currently possessed by the Russian awakened was far greater than that of the Legion members before all those powers had been granted.
The Legion members, who still judged things according to their former selves, therefore had no choice but to be astonished when they saw the Russian awakened far exceeding those standards.
But that was not a disadvantage.
'There was still a human force this strong remaining!'
There had once been times when humans fought among themselves over ideologies and other things, but not in this apocalypse.
Everyone who had survived until now had ultimately realized that cooperation among humanity was essential for survival.
Although both forces were astonished by each other’s strength, they rushed toward one another with tremendous joy.
“We are Russia’s united guild! We are called the [People’s Council]!”
When the distance between them had become reasonably close.
An awakened from the Russian side shouted first.
The awakened of the [People’s Council] already knew that those Legion members were approaching from another country.
That was why they had brought an interpreter with them...... but there was one problem.
“......Chinese?”
The Legion members had entered Russian territory from China.
All of North Korea’s infrastructure had been destroyed by the battle against Avaritia, while infrastructure built by Chinese awakened still existed within China.
Because of that, it was much more convenient in many ways to replenish supplies there first before advancing.
The Russian awakened, who knew neither the Legion’s location nor its nationality, naturally had no choice but to assume they were Chinese.
“......Please respond!”
Perhaps realizing that their words were not getting through.
The interpreter looked considerably flustered.
And at that moment.
“One moment.”
One of the Legion members approached them.
Then reached into a pocket and took out an item from inside.
The Legion’s objective was to join up with awakened scattered throughout the entire world.
But most of the Legion’s main forces were Korean.
Even though they had Chinese collaborators, they were only a small portion of the force...... so there was an extremely high possibility that language problems would arise once they joined up with awakened from other countries.
Gulp.......
And naturally, the Legion had already prepared for that highly probable situation.
'......?'
A soldier suddenly began eating something in front of them.
The Russian awakened looked at the soldier in puzzlement.
[The effect of Absolute Taste has activated.]
[Effect 2 (Active) - For the user alone, it becomes possible to draw out a minor [Characteristic] contained within the dish.]
[Please select the characteristic you desire.]
[Characteristic - Mental Language has been selected.]
“We are the Legion! What is your current situation!”
When that voice finally reached them.
The awakened of the [People’s Council] could not help opening their eyes wide in shock.
'What reached our ears was a foreign language.'
'But we understood it.'
And there was a reason for that.
They too were people who had survived for a long time in this harsh world.
Because they were such people, they were fully capable of realizing what had just happened.
'Mental Language!'
A technique for communicating through the mind rather than through sound.
A power that allowed people who spoke different languages to converse with one another.......
'A power only occasionally seen among the highest-ranking boss monsters...... how can a human use it!?'
Because an ability that had only been handled by beings ranked among the most powerful in this ruined world.
Was being displayed by an ordinary soldier.