The Hero Returns

Act 5

Children and the old would inevitably move at a slower pace.

They had nothing to ride on, and their strides weren't that fast either. Even then, this group of villagers, numbering around 30 people, were continuously moving ahead despite running out of breath.

Plop—

"Mommy, my legs hurt."

"My child! You must hurry and stand back up. Hurry!"

"But my legs…"

"Excuse me! What are you all doing there instead of hurrying along?!"

The mother, left with no choice, picked up her child. It was then that someone began scolding her.

It would be normal for at least one person to help them, but no one showed even a hint of thinking about doing that.

But it was understandable.

Never mind a young child, even the burly adult men were currently feeling the strain of forcibly marching forward without a break in between.

Trying to help a child and exhausting what little stamina that remained in the process could realistically threaten your own survival at this stage.

"If you don't get up right away, we'll just leave you here. No, wait. Let's just get going. They'll catch up to us on their own."

"Let's not be like that. Waiting for a few moments won't be—"

"If we dawdle around, those bastards might suddenly show up behind us! Don't you know that if we don't quickly join up with the lord wizard who's supposed to be residing in the village over yonder, we'll all be dead meat in no time?"

"However, aren't we all too exhausted? Now that things have come to this, let's just take a break for 10 minutes. Just 10."

"Ten minutes, huh? Hmm…"

Shouldn't 10 minutes be fine?

The middle-aged man who was acting as the group's leader fell into a dilemma. He too was exhausted by now. The other members of the group also didn't seem too averse to the idea of taking a short break.

"...Shall we rest up a little?"

"Yes, we should."

"I mean, it's only 10 minutes, so..."

"I'm sure nothing will happen during that time."

The majority seemed to be in agreement.

The middle-aged man pondered briefly before nodding slightly. "In that case, let's."

Although he felt this unexplainable foreboding, he figured there's no helping it. The situation they were in was perfect for feeling nervous, after all. Besides, the group just couldn't continue with the relentless march when taking into consideration the remaining distance.

It might be the right call to take a short break before continuing.

"I'm sure it will be fine. Surely..."

No one said anything.

Even saying something was too taxing for them at the moment.

The same applied to the middle-aged man. Not much water remained in his container, but he took a mouthful and sloshed it around for a long while before gulping it down.

Pah-suk—

The sound of sand stirring up suddenly came to him. The middle-aged man quickly glanced in the direction of that sound.

The child who threw a tantrum earlier was there.

"Stop messing around, kid."

"But, it wasn't me, though?" the child replied like that before pointing in a direction with his finger. "He did that."

"…He?" The middle-aged man shifted his gaze to where the child was pointing at. And almost right away, he shot up from his spot and cried out, "E—everyone, run away, now!"

Bang, psuhi—!

As soon as he broke into a sprint, a huge pair of pincers suddenly exploded out from the spot where he sat on the sand a second ago.

At the same time, a huge needle-like tail erupted from the direction the child pointed at before it threateningly waved around this way and that. The appearance of a giant scorpion threw everyone into a panic.

"I—it's here!"

"Everyone, get your weapons ready!"

"How many of them are here?!"

All the men capable of fighting quickly picked up spears and swords to aim at the scorpion. If it was only one monster, they believed they could do something about it by themselves.

However, they soon realized that their thoughts were incorrect.

"…Huh?"

"What's wrong with this creature?"

The giant scorpion that was rising out of the sand was staggering around. Green-colored blood streamed down its carapace.

Plop—

Soon afterward, the giant monster collapsed on the soft-looking sand.

It had already been killed by someone else.

"Just who…?"

"Hi, everyone," a bright and pleasant voice that didn't suit the situation suddenly came to them. "How are you all doing?"

Su-hyeun, who was previously obscured by the scorpion's corpse, stepped outside into their view and waved his hand at them.

But his audience had frozen up like a paused video clip.

"Maybe I should've acted more naturally," Su-hyeun thought as he smiled awkwardly at them.

Should he keep smiling away like this, or should he just nonchalantly slip in among the crowd? Or maybe he should've made a worried expression and asked if anyone was hurt. He couldn't quite figure out which was the right course of action to take.

Normally, in cases like this, people's reactions would either be one of the two: they would thank you for the help and welcome you in, or grow very wary of the powerful stranger.

However, these people chose neither of those options.

"Excuse me..." In the end, Su-hyeun opened his mouth first. "Are you alri—?"

"Lord wizard?"

"Oh, he's the lord wizard?"

"W—we're saved!"

Someone muttered out the word "wizard," and that prompted the rest to break out into cheers one by one.

Su-hyeun had no clue what was going on here, but the reaction didn't seem to be bad overall. He figured that this was actually better than these people getting scared of him and keeping him at an arm's length.

"Are you really the lord wizard?"

A middle-aged man approached him and asked, so Su-hyeun replied without much hesitation. "Ah, yes."

"Thank you so much. Really, thank you!"

"Oh, no, it's alright. Don't mention it. I shall protect you all from this moment onward. By the way..." Su-hyeun looked over at the deeply moved people and asked, "Where were you headed?"

"Oh. We were on our way to meet up with you, lord wizard. We heard that a village has been established in that direction, so..."

"Ah. Aaah, so that's what it was."

Su-hyeun thought that acting oblivious now would be most unwise, so he ended up smiling awkwardly again.

"At least now I know the rough direction," he thought.

Since he had already observed from afar which direction this group of people was heading to, it wasn't all that difficult to figure out where he should lead them to.

"Miru."

Gya-ong—!

At Su-hyeun's call, Miru peeked his head outside.

The middle-aged man was taken by surprise, and he hurriedly stumbled back but soon calmed down once he realized that Miru wasn't all that big and that Su-hyeun was busy patting the creature on the head as well.

"Hey, can you give all these people a ride?"

Gya-ong—

Miru nodded at Su-hyeun's question, and almost right afterward...

Hiiiiiiek?!

The villagers became terrified once more after witnessing Miru's giantification.

* * *

Miru, after going through the giantification, was large enough to have dozens of people ride on its back.

It was almost a respectably sized mature dragon now. The villagers were initially scared of riding on Miru, but once they accepted the fact that it was Su-hyeun's summoned creature, they began climbing up on the dragon's back one by one.

They didn't have much of a choice, anyway. If they didn't ride on Miru's back, then it would mean they would be abandoned in the middle of this desert teeming with monsters.

"Mm…"

They must've flown for about 10 minutes or so.

Fearing that some people might get scared, Su-hyeun had kept their flight speed to a minimum. Yet, he still got to see a village in a not too far-off distance up ahead.

"Looks like they were headed there, but they almost got killed off just around the corner from their destination, weren't they?"

Regardless of what happened, though, it wouldn't be a bad thing to arrive early at their destination.

Su-hyeun turned his head and looked back at the scared people riding on Miru's back. "We've arri—"

Whoosh—

He looked up ahead again, and right at that moment, he shouted in surprise, "Miru, stop!"

Grrrr—

Kkyahk!

"W—what's going on?!"

At Su-hyeun's shout, Miru flapped its wings and came to a sudden halt. The recoil caused the people riding on the dragon's back to cry out in alarm and hold onto the dragon's skin for their dear lives.

Thankfully, no one fell off.

Miru let out a low growl and stared ahead. Just like Su-hyeun did, the dragon had realized that something transparent was right in front of their eyes, blocking them.

"There's a wall here."

Giii-iiing—

Su-hyeun extended his hand forward, only for an unknown powerful repelling force to shove him back in the opposite direction.

It was a transparent wall made with magical means.

"Excuse me! Can you hear me?"

Su-hyeun shouted out as loud as he could.

He waited for a while, but no reply came his way.

He looked at the people behind him. "Are you sure this is the place you were trying to reach?"

"Pardon? Y—yes, we're sure. But I thought you created this village, lord wizard?"

"Ah, my apologies. The truth is, I'm not the wizard that you think I am."

"Sorry?"

"I deceived you to calm you all down. Whatever the case may be, by now, I'm sure you all understand that I don't mean to harm you," said Su-hyeun while pointing ahead of him. "However, there's a wall before us, preventing us from getting inside. And as you've noticed, no reply has come our way."

"But that's not possible!"

"We definitely heard that anyone will be welcomed…"

The villagers all wore similar expressions of despair.

It seemed that the dual revelation of Su-hyeun not being the wizard they were talking about and the village with the real wizard not letting them in had greatly disappointed them.

Su-hyeun looked back at the wall. There was still no response.

"They don't want us to enter?"

The village might be right in front of them, but the wall surrounding it ensured that none could enter.

The wall was surprisingly sturdy. The power he briefly sensed coming from it was quite considerable.

"There's supposed to be a wizard in there..."

It seemed that this mystery wizard was no ordinary one, judging from the wall before Su-hyeun's eyes which happened to be sturdier than any magical barrier he had come across so far. As a matter of fact, even Su-hyeun would find that breaking it down would be not that easy.

"I might get a lead or two from this wizard."

The 103rd floor's trial—its backdrop seemed ordinary and so did the contents of the trial itself. He was wondering where he should go to find a lead, like some kind of a clue, but now, a lead had practically presented itself.

Was that why? Rather than feeling flustered, he actually welcomed this development.

"For now..."

Squeeze—

Su-hyeun, still in his sitting position, clenched his fist tightly.

"Let's break it."

Su-hyeun focused magical energy on his fist and assumed a punching posture. People behind him tilted their heads from side to side, wondering about what he was trying to do here.

And right at that moment.

CLAAAAAANG—!

Crack, pa-susususuk—

Kkyaaahk—!

"W—what was that?"

A loud noise that reverberated throughout the heavens shocked the villagers.

However, Su-hyeun wasn't planning to stop at a single punch.

Clang, claaaang—!

Boooom—!

[Strength: 101]

A second strike and then a third.

He landed several punches, causing cracks to gradually spread on the transparent wall. The repelling power that resisted his fist also gradually got weaker.

"It's seriously tough, isn't it?"

Su-hyeun received Hercules's grace during the 102nd floor's trial, and as a result, his strength stat had reached 101 points.

On top of that was his qualification of godhood that had risen by another step recently, so he believed his physical strength to be quite close to that of Hercules.

The reason he didn't bother to unsheathe his sword and chose to use his bare fist was to experiment with his strength stat of 101 points.

He didn't hold back and continued to punch away.

As a result, cracks appeared on the wall after three consecutive punches.

"This is making me more curious."

Ruuuumble—

Su-hyeun lit his fist on fire. Rather, more correctly, his entire arm had turned into a mass of flames.

[Flame—Transformation]

Whooooosh—

Su-hyeun's flaming fist extended forward.

At the same time, the arm of the divine Flame shot out a huge pillar of fire.

Ka-booooooom—!

Crack, craaaaack—

Shatter—!

The wall shattered into bits.

The Transformation came undone, and Su-hyeun's arm reverted to normal. While lightly clenching and unfurling his fist that was still permeating with heat, he took a look down below.

Countless gazes were looking up from the ground because of the loud commotion. Even screams filled with terror could be heard among them.

It seemed that people on the ground perceived Miru as a monster.

Their misunderstanding wasn't that surprising, though.

"Okay, let's go down, Miru," Su-hyeun asked Miru after he lightly patted the dragon's back, wanting to quickly show the people that he had no intention of attacking.

But then...

Grrrr—

"Miru?"

Miru's response seemed a little off. Usually, the dragon would have instantly reacted to Su-hyeun's orders, but right now, it was focusing its attention elsewhere.

And right at that moment.

Split—

Giii-iiiing—

The crimson-colored Cintamani emerged from Miru's forehead and began glowing brightly.