Chapter 28

As the field commander, I stood in front of the gate first.

I had planned to walk out boldly so that the squad members behind me could follow without worry, but it was my first time teleporting, so I hesitated for a moment due to an instinctive reluctance.

Still, as they say, the position makes the man.

The hesitation lasted for only a fleeting moment.

When I reached out my hand first, a strange sensation of passing through a thin membrane was transmitted through my skin.

Logically, a well-ordered path stretching straight ahead should be visible beyond the gate, but all I could see was thick darkness.

I walked into a space where I didn't know what was waiting.

Even without seeing it with my own eyes, I could feel that the surrounding space had completely changed.

The stuffy and musty smell of dust that pierced my nose, the cold air, the surrounding sounds, and even the feeling of the floor that was transmitted with every step.

I had only taken a single step, but everything had changed.

"W-wait! Don't push!"

"Hurry up and get in, hurry up! What if 5 seconds pass!"

"Uwaaaah!"

The group that poured out from behind pushed my back.

Was it because I had scared them too much beforehand?

Even though 5 seconds was plenty of time, they were making all sorts of a fuss as if their feet were on fire.

With them behind me, I looked around.

The first space we teleported to was a narrow, dimly lit room that smelled nothing of human habitation.

Two windows, two doors.

One was a door leading to the living room, and the other was a door leading to the backyard we had just passed through.

Of course, even if we passed through that door again, we couldn't return to the gate.

"Uh.... Where should we go next?"

"Since it's random anyway, can't we just go anywhere?"

As I kept my mouth shut, Lirisa and Sergel naturally exchanged opinions.

"Let's go this way."

I pretended not to hear their opinions and opened the door leading to the living room.

I had explained to the group that the direction of the teleportation was completely random, but in fact, there was a certain degree of regularity.

It was just that it would have been a hassle to explain this regularity, which only the old-timers who could boast of having poured a part of their lives into D&K knew, so I just skipped over it.

When I opened the door and went through, this time, the hall of a spacious restaurant greeted me.

There were quite a few doors, including the kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and a door leading to the outside of the building, so it took a lot of time to calculate, but we moved on to the next place.

This time, it was a public restroom.

If there had been someone with a plump figure in the group, we would have been forced to split up due to the space's capacity limit.

After jumping through spaces a few times like that.

"...Tsk."

Suddenly, an unpleasant smell pierced my nose.

I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I knew what this smell was.

A disgusting, gamey smell.

This is the smell that comes from burning human flesh.

"Waaak!"

Byan, who was the first to discover the corpse, screamed.

There was one corpse that had been torn to shreds by something sharp and left unattended.

I could confirm through the clothing that he was a White Hero soldier.

There wasn't just one corpse.

On the opposite side of the torn corpse, there were two more corpses that had been burned black, making it impossible to identify them, and they were the source of the disgusting smell.

"...I really can't stand this.... Ugh!"

Byan gagged, and Sergel squeezed his eyes shut.

When mixed with the smell of blood, an unbearable urge to vomit rose up.

I had become somewhat accustomed to the act of ending someone's life, but this was the first time I had come face to face with a corpse that had been burned to death.

I barely suppressed the feeling that my stomach was about to turn over with my mental strength.

"Ryan. Let's hurry up and go to the next place."

Lirisa grabbed my clothes as if she couldn't bear to look at it with her own eyes.

I too was itching to move to the next place right away.

But there was one thing that bothered me.

"Just a moment."

With my eyes closed, I sniffed and focused all my senses on my sense of smell.

I could feel Lirisa and the other members of the group being horrified next to me.

A situation where the smell of blood and burning corpses was vibrating.

It was a reaction of complete incomprehension towards me, who was focusing on my sense of smell in a situation where it would not be strange to run away with my nose plugged.

Of course, it wasn't that I wanted to be doing this.

'It's faint, but...'

Amidst the disgusting and unpleasant smell, there was a faint, fragrant smell of something.

Hoping it wasn't a mistake, I followed the smell.

And.

"Found it. They must have been too busy fighting tooth and nail to have found it."

A smile spread across my lips unintentionally.

A vanity table located in the corner of the room.

On it were a variety of discarded makeup tools.

They were all just garbage covered in dust, but there was one, an old bead that held a faint magic power.

"This is..."

Should I say this was lucky?

A rather precious item was found.

As I held it in my hand, Dragon's Eye activated as if it had been waiting.

Information: Clump of Magic Power

A bead created by magic power gathering in one place due to an abnormal phenomenon.

It is a very precious item, but it can be used in various fields.

Magic Power Amount: 6.

Special Effect: Mentality +1

The exact information has not been revealed.

"It's not bad. It's not bad, but..."

It's ambiguous.

A clump of magic power.

It's an item that can be found in the ruins with a very low probability, and it's said that you're lucky if you find one.

However, its value is not very high compared to its rarity.

This is because the amount of magic power it holds and its special effect are only not bad, and it's not at a level that can be confidently asserted as outstanding.

As the description says that it can be used in various fields, it is known to be used somewhere, and its price is quite high, so it is known as an item that is actually a loss to use directly for nurturing.

"What is that?"

Lirisa, who was curious about my sudden impulsive action, came to my side and asked a question.

Her pronunciation was a bit slurred because she was trying hard to turn her eyes away from the burnt corpse and was even plugging her nose, but it wasn't to the point where I couldn't understand her.

"An artifact. To be precise, it's similar to an artifact."

"An artifact?"

"Have you forgotten already? Our original purpose was to search for artifacts in the ruins. Of course, it was changed to rescuing the isolated Unit 450, but if there's an artifact on the way, there's no problem in picking it up, right?"

"That's true. But how did you know there was an artifact here?"

"The smell. Artifacts emit a faint but unique scent around them. Do you want to check?"

I held out a wooden comb in front of Lirisa's nose.

Lirisa, who hesitated for a moment with her eyes half-closed, soon shook her head.

"Next time. At least after we've moved to the next place..."

"That would be better, wouldn't it?"

Not only Lirisa but also the other members didn't seem to want to take a deep breath in this place.

Since the atmosphere was one of wanting to leave this place quickly, I hurriedly walked into the door leading to the next place.

With a dizzying light, the surrounding scenery changed rapidly.

"Hic!"

A short scream was heard from the front.

A strange voice.

I reflexively protected my body with my shield and at the same time, aimed my sword at the front.

There was a young man covered in blood.

It was hard to recognize him because of the red-stained blood, but on his chest was a symbol of the Alliance.

However, I couldn't let my guard down.

In a combat situation, clothing is not a means of proving one's identity.

Because you can take off the clothes of the person you've defeated and wear them.

"...Affiliation?"

"...Affiliated with the Alliance. 450th Unit of the Mergan Kingdom. I am Private Barrius."

"Field commander of the 917th Unit of the Mergan Kingdom, Ryan Kaltz. I demand that you disarm."

The man dropped his weapon without the slightest hesitation.

It would be more reasonable to see it as him not having the strength to hold a weapon anymore rather than him completely trusting me.

"Lirisa. Please treat him."

"Okay."

As if she had been waiting for the order to be given, Lirisa ran over and treated the man's wounds.

Lirisa, who had a high level of empathy, contorted her face as if she had been injured herself.

In fact, the treatment was just pouring the supplied healing potion on the wound and wrapping it with a bandage.

It was just that Lirisa was the most delicate, so I entrusted her with that role.

In the meantime, I extracted information from the soldier.

"What's the situation?"

"...I was separated from my group 30 minutes ago, so I don't know the details. However, when I last saw them, there were two civilian survivors. And three survivors from the 450th Unit, excluding myself."

"How did you get separated from your group?"

"When we were crossing the door, an abnormal phenomenon happened, and I got caught."

Even as he contorted his face in pain every time the healing potion touched his wound, the soldier calmly continued his briefing.

"The survivors of the White Hero are two heroes and three regular soldiers. One hero is a martial artist, and the other uses an authority whose identity is unknown. It is presumed to be a binding-type authority. All heroes are like that, but.... the one who uses martial arts was particularly strong."

"...There's a possibility that he's level 2."

The gap between a level 2 hero and a level 1 hero is large.

However, if we exclude the three regular soldiers on their side, we have the upper hand in numbers.

If it had been before I had just started receiving the benefits of the Nurturing System, I wouldn't have even thought of fighting a level 2 hero, no matter how superior our numbers were.

But now it's different.

Both I and the other members.

We have been granted a decent level of magic power.

I judged that now, even if the opponent was a level 2 hero, we would at least not lose.

'It depends on how many authorities that guy has...'

And there's no guarantee that we'll encounter them and fight.

If we search this area and encounter the remnants of the 450th Unit and the civilians they are protecting first, we just have to retrieve them and go back.

"Continue the exploration. That soldier, Lirisa. You take care of him. If he can walk, let him walk on his own, and if not, help him so he doesn't fall behind."

"Okay."

After confirming Lirisa's reliable answer, I set out to re-explore.

Although exploration just meant repeatedly going in and out of doors in search of survivors whose whereabouts were unknown.

Of course, it wasn't like we were just wandering around this wide ruin.

Kwaang!

Occasionally, an explosion occurred in the distance.

Every time that happened, I headed in the direction of the explosion, and I could feel the sound of the explosion getting louder little by little.

And when I passed through the wide-open gate of a certain house.

"Uwaaaah!"

With a terrible scream, the smell of burning clothes and skin pierced my nose.

"Kuhahahaha!"

A ferocious laugh mixed with the scream.

A large man, who looked to be at least 2 meters tall, was holding the head of a woman who looked to be about two heads shorter than him in his hand and bursting into laughter.

The woman's legs, who was holding onto the man's thick arm with both hands, were at least 40-50 centimeters off the ground, and she was desperately struggling.

Flames erupted from the man's hand.

The flames, which were emitting high heat, did not harm the man at all, but they were steadily burning the woman who was caught in his grasp.

Her hair was burning, and the skin on her face was melting in real time.

"...Crazy bastard."

A curse came out, regardless of my will.

Only then did the man's gaze turn this way.

His pupils dilated widely in surprise for a moment.

Soon, the man smiled like a demon.

"A new toy that I didn't even order has arrived."