Return of the Apocalypse Knight

Chapter 7: Reconnaissance (2)

Is this a dream?

I can’t believe I’m seeing Korean in front of me.

Or is this the Earth of my previous life, and Korea?

It can’t be.

It’s not a novel, and the coincidences are too good to be true.

Am I hallucinating?

A trick of the Demon King? Or maybe I’ve been in the war too long and my mind has gone to hell.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and channeled mana throughout my body.

A trick I’d invented to fend off the Demon Army’s mental attacks and survive them.

It was a simple trick, but it had gotten me out of many close calls.

This time, however, it didn’t work.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the words ‘Gangwon Hometown Association’ on the tee again.

I’m back? I’m home?

Dozens of thoughts raced through my head.

Am I in South Korea?

What year is it now?

Will my family and friends from my previous life still be there?

While I was still in a daze, someone spoke to me from the side.

“Hey…….Are you okay?”

It was Soldier Hoffman.

His words jolted me back to reality.

The memories of my previous life that had been flooding my head subsided and my knightly instincts returned.

“That’s right, we’re still in the middle of an operation.”

We were now on the trail of the fleeing Demon King.

There are many animals that have become undead due to the demonic energy spread by the Demon King.

It was no time for idle musings.

Besides, I wasn’t yet convinced that this was the Korea of my previous life.

It could have been a foreigner wearing a Korean T-shirt because I only saw Korean characters or, even more absurdly, this could be an alternate Earth with Hangul.

So I had to be extra vigilant until everything was clear.

Besides, even if this was Korea from my past life, now was not the time to get excited.

I tore my gaze away from the T-shirt with the Korean writing on it and scanned my teammates.

The older soldier looks at me with a puzzled expression while the others check out the wreckage and then I see myself, clad in plate armor and holding a sword, and I am reminded of my current predicament.

My face stretched, and a blood curdling sneer escaped my mouth.

It was true.

I was no longer a Korean, but a free knight of the Kingdom of Sorvia.

As I had decided after remembering my previous life, I would live as the knight I was now.

The sight of the Korean letters did not change that decision.

With a renewed resolve, I was able to answer Hoffman’s question.

“That’s fine. No problem.”

Hoffman nodded at the stiff words and turned his head toward the body.

I looked where he was looking, where my teammates were gathered.

While I gathered my thoughts, they were talking over the remains of the body.

“I’m glad I volunteered. I’ve never seen that otherworldly text before…….What does this mean?”

The wizard’s eyes flashed as he looked at the ragged clothes and the scribbles and symbols on them.

“The corpse looks like a normal human.”

“Certainly…….more like you than us.”

The Shiny Knight and the Eared One were looking at the corpse and discussing what kind of race it was.

In truth, the discussion was unnecessary now that I had seen the Korean language, and the wizard’s efforts to analyze the writing were pointless but I said nothing to them.

Partly because I wasn’t sure, and even if it was Korea in my previous life, I couldn’t tell them the truth.

The world I lived in my previous life…….

Even if the world I was reborn into was a magical place, my words were bound to sound like nonsense and even if it didn’t sound like bullshit, that was a problem too.

If I was unlucky, I could be labeled a demon spy, and there was no telling what Allied leaders, barbaric medieval nobles, and other such people would do to extract information from me.

For now, it seemed best to pretend I didn’t know.

“Anyway, we must have gotten the direction right. There’s a dead body, so maybe if we follow this path, we’ll find someone ‘alive’ in this world.”

I nodded in agreement with Hoffman.

The wizard picked up the tattered T-shirt, and then we started moving along the path again.

However, we were immediately stopped in our tracks.

-Shhhhhhh.

We looked behind us, in the direction we’d come from, and saw a bright flash of light.

A light source that shot up into the sky and changed colors. It was the wizard’s signal.

“What, a homing beacon?”

“It is a homing beacon.”

Hoffman nodded in agreement with the glitter knight.

The color of the light confirmed that it was indeed a homing beacon, but the flashing light explained the Glitter Knight’s doubts.

The signal was too erratic to be a homing signal.

I’ve rarely seen a signal that messed up, but was that the signal the mage had fired at the annihilated troops?

“Looks like he was in a bit of a hurry…….His mana array is quite disorganized.”

The mage’s words confirmed my suspicions.

At his words, I drew my sword again and spoke.

“We’d better hurry.”

Everyone quickly realized what I meant.

The source of the magical light was the gate in the main camp.

The main camp was in danger.

I don’t know why the main camp was suddenly in danger, but we had to get back as quickly as possible now.

We were quite far from the main camp, but everyone on the team had mana.

If we hurried, we wouldn’t be late.

“From the looks of things, we’re not going to be able to keep up, so you guys go ahead, and the rest of us who are slower will follow safely behind.”

The wizard tapped Soldier Hoffman on the shoulder and told us.

He was right.

Despite his mana, it was impossible for the wizard to match the knight’s stride.

And Hoffman, a mountain soldier with mana but no way to utilize it, would not be able to keep up with us on these flat mountain trails.

“We’ll do it.”

The wizard agreed with our temporary team leader, the ear man.

The knight, I and the ear man, who was known for his speed, decided to leave first.

Glitter was the first to move.

As the stomped ground it caved in he shot forward like a bomb.

As if a chariot made of iron was being propelled forward, dirt and dust rose up behind him.

It was an ignorant move that normally wouldn’t work unless you had a lot of mana.

As I clicked my tongue at the sight, the ear man took off running.

The way he ran was different from the other humans, and different from the knight who had started first.

He ran like a mountain goat running up a mountain pass, bouncing for more than ten meters.

What the hell happened to his muscles?

Seeing that, I realized once again that the eared race was different from humans.

After watching the two of them run off, I checked the remaining two and started running as well.

I pushed mana into my legs without overdoing it, lowered my body to shed the wind’s resistance, and ran forward.

I heard the sound of air rushing past my ears, and my vision quickly narrowed.

A narrow, winding mountain path was fast approaching, and the branches and potholes that lined it blocked my path.

I didn’t slow my pace on the trail, but made quick work of it.

I cut down branches with my sword and reflexively jumped over potholes.

My speed grew faster and faster.

It felt like I was riding a mountain bike down a mountain pass.

A normal person would have tripped over something and fallen off the road.

Of course, a normal person wouldn’t be able to run this fast.

This is why becoming a knight by awakening mana was not unlike becoming a superhuman.

Sure, I didn’t have the ridiculous strength of the heroes in the movies from my previous life, but I still couldn’t compare to a normal person.

My strength, speed, and reflexes would be many times beyond the average person’s level.

In my previous life, knights were often compared to medieval chariots, but in my eyes, a knight who had awakened his mana was no different from a real chariot.

After running for a while, I saw Leopold, the shiny knight who had disappeared from my sight.

He was still running, but it wasn’t the same frenetic pace he’d displayed at the start.

It made sense.

No matter how much mana he had, there was no way he could keep running like that, throwing mana around so recklessly.

That’s how I caught up in the middle.

By the way, I hadn’t yet seen the ear man who started later than Leopold.

Surely Leopold was the first to run?

What if he passed him?

If that’s the case, I’m sorry I left him behind…….

I looked at the running glitter knight with a wistful expression, and then ran past him.

I turned away from him, feeling sorry.

“Damn.”

But he didn’t seem to appreciate my consideration.

As I passed by, he let out a small curse.

Surely he wasn’t swearing at me?

I thought about asking him, but decided to keep running.

I decided to be gracious and forgive him, since he was probably blaming his own lack of skill.

To show my forgiveness, I kicked my feet even harder.

I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

As I expected, when I got far enough away from him, I didn’t hear any more grunts.

It’s quiet.

It felt better to hear my own breathing and my own footsteps instead of the chatter.

And the forest, tainted with demonic energy, but familiar.

Now I understood why it felt familiar.

It’s a forest I’ve always seen in my previous life, so it must be familiar.

As I ran, I became somewhat convinced.

That this is Earth, and that this is Korea.

Moreover, even though it was so uninhabited and flat compared to the continental mountain ranges, the only rugged mountain range in my previous life was a branch of the Taebaek Mountains.

Jirisan or Sobaeksan?

Or maybe Seoraksan, given the coniferous trees?

Either way, it shouldn’t be hard to tell now that I’m here.

If so, the sign I had just seen shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary.

I continued on my way, praying to the gods of my previous life and the gods of my current life.

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch up to the ear man until I reached the gate.

I finally saw him on the hill overlooking the gate.

Luckily, he still had mana flowing from his body.

He had only just arrived.

I didn’t seem to be too far behind him.

As I approached the ear man, I could smell the odor of blood wafting over the hill.

There was no sign of a fight…….

Am I too late?

I quickly stalked over and stopped beside him.

He flinched as I landed beside him.

Then, he looked up at me, a little surprised.

What’s wrong?

Did I come sooner than he expected?

Or did I sneak up on him quieter than he expected?

At any other time, I would have found it very satisfying to have surprised him, but right now, the situation at the base was more important.

“We’re late.”

I muttered, and the eared man nodded.

Sure enough, he and I were late.

The fight was already over as countless undead and skeletons lay in front of our makeshift base.

Fortunately, the base was intact.

Many of the soldiers appeared to be dead, and the base appeared to be in pieces, but the outpost was still standing.

We were late, but it wasn’t a bad result.

I could reinforce through the gate anyway.

However, my expectations were immediately shattered.

“No more support.”

I asked the first mage I saw down at the base, and he replied.

When I stared at him in disbelief, he pointed to the swinging gate.

“It’s a trap. The gate is closing.”

I stared at the gate at his words.

It was closing?

Come to think of it, it seemed to be smaller than when I first saw it.

“A trap?”

“Yes. I thought it was a fixed gate using artifacts, but it’s a gate that can be controlled remotely. They’re closing the gate.”

“And we can’t stop them?”

“No, we can’t. I haven’t even finished analyzing it yet…….If we have time, we might be able to replicate it, but right now it’s out of our control.”

It was ridiculous.

We’d walked into a trap.

Plus, the gate was still there, which was a little odd for a trap.

“Can’t we just go back now?”

They said they could clone it, so we could just come back.

“But…….The Hero is not back.”

Come to think of it, I didn’t see any members of the hero party at the base.

Surely, if they were there, the base would not have been destroyed by an attack from ordinary skeletons.

“Didn’t the hero party return to our world?”

Seeing that they weren’t here, I assumed they had gone back through the gate, but that wasn’t the case.

One of the vanguard teams had returned first after discovering the Demon King’s tracks, and the Hero must have left the base with them.

And now, the Hero hadn’t returned yet, and the gate was closing.

As the wizard had said, this was a trap set by the Demon King to capture the Hero.