Return of the Apocalypse Knight

Chapter 6: Reconnaissance (1)

Fortunately, the battle mage’s wayfinding magic worked on this side of the world as well.

It was a simple spell that only gave a bearing, but without it, it would have been difficult for the search party to divide the territory.

This is a different world than the one I’m used to.

I don’t know where the sun rises and sets, and there’s no way I could have gotten a bearing by conventional means.

We headed east as the wayfinding magic told us to at the gate.

“I don’t know about the rest of the world, but the terrain here is pretty flat for a mountain range.”

The rest of the party, including me, nodded as Hoffman, the mountain soldier in the lead, scanned the terrain.

He was right.

From what I could tell, this was a dense forest and it was easy to move around.

We were in a mountain range, no doubt, with layers of peaks and ridges, but there were no giant boulders blocking our way, no endless cliffs or bottomless pits to stop us in our tracks.

There were just small rocks and stones, and a slope that was difficult to walk on normally.

Of course, a normal person would have a hard time climbing a mountain like this, but my party and I were all mana users.

Even a battle mage with no physical enhancements would have no trouble with this path.

“I see. It feels like we’re walking in the backwoods of the academy.”

As expected, Gustav, the battle mage, patted his back and agreed with Hoffman.

The old wizard was right, these were not the mountains of the harsh continent, but mountains I had traveled before.

Like, mountains I’d climbed in a previous life…….

I laughed inwardly at another thought.

Not the mountains around my childhood estate, but the mountains of my previous life.

Even if I was nostalgic for my previous life, this was bad enough.

Perhaps I’d spent too much time in the war, seeing as how my useless thoughts kept coming back.

Shaking off the useless thoughts, I continued to walk westward with my party in the direction that the wizard Gustav had told me.

After a few hours and several hills, we came upon the first trail we could call a road.

Hoffman, a mountain soldier on one knee surveying the trail, pointed to a severed tree and spoke up.

“This must be a man-made path.”

He was right, and instead of animal tracks, there were several signs of sharp objects along the trail.

“Lucky.”

Leopold, the shiny knight, nodded with satisfaction.

He didn’t sound like he knew what he was talking about, but I was thinking the same thing.

In the boreal forests of the southern continent, it would have taken me days to find my way around, even with a proper guide.

But I found my way in less than a few hours. Apparently, this mountain range is smaller than it looks.

What’s more, unlike the yellowed forest, there was no sign of the undead for hours.

Maybe it was because the Demon King had just crossed over, or maybe…….

“Surely, it can’t be.”

Fortunately(?), after entering the road and passing a small hill, I saw a group of cursed things gathered on the road.

With wounds everywhere, rotting skin and guts exposed, they were dead animals, tainted with demonic energy.

“Looks a lot like Havelina…….”

The shiny knight feigned familiarity again, and Hoffman shook his head.

“Unlike Havelina, it doesn’t have spiky fur. Instead, it has very large molars.”

The animals contaminated with the demonic energy blocking the road looked to me more like wild boars from a previous life than havelinas.

“Havelinas of this world, perhaps. Anyway, they don’t look too dangerous, so let’s make quick work of them and pass on.”

The sparkling knight ignored Hoffman’s words and stepped forward, sword raised.

There was a group of beasts in the middle of the road, large enough to crush a man, but they didn’t look dangerous.

I could sense no mana from the undead.

Ordinary animals without mana didn’t pose much danger as undead unless they were gathered in large numbers.

It would be the same on this side of the world.

Besides, the undead weren’t even looking in this direction right now, they were gathered in the road, eating something.

“Let’s do it.”

The makeshift team leader nodded at the knight’s words, then fired an arrow.

It moved so fast I almost missed it.

Somehow, the arrow shot soundlessly, piercing the butt of the first undead in front of me.

Oddly enough, the arrow pierced through the undead ass and exploded the undead body, leaving the undead boar with only its upper body remaining.

The remaining undead pigs simultaneously lifted their heads and looked at us, then ran towards us, clicking their glistening tongues.

At the same time, the middle-aged mage’s staff pointed forward.

“Shield.”

With a small mutter, a cloudy membrane covered the body of the running glitter knight.

It was a shield, the support magic of a battle mage.

“I don’t think I’ll need any help against these guys.”

It was the kind of support a seasoned battle mage would give, but Glitter didn’t appreciate it.

He was right, he didn’t need help.

He arrived at the undead pigs and began to unilaterally wipe out the undead.

The undead boars were decapitated, their legs severed, and their bodies sliced in half by his mana-filled sword.

It seemed like a waste of mana, but at least it was a one-sided battle, with the undead unable to even touch the shield.

Glitter was definitely worthy of being the vanguard.

The wizard who was about to cast an offensive spell stopped, and the soldier who had been holding his stance stretched his back with a grimace.

The ear man who was re-stringing his arrows lowered his bow and I stepped back too.

However, my reason for stepping back was different from my teammates’.

It was the goosebumps creeping up the nape of my neck and the pressure I felt from all sides.

It was my skill at surviving a war with a demon that had killed everyone else.

“Are we surrounded…….?”

I spun around and looked checked.

-Grrrr.

I could hear the breathing of the beasts on the left and right of the narrow mountain pass.

The sounds of dead beasts I’d heard many times in my dealings with demons.

“There were more?”

“I can’t believe they came in such large numbers, and I can’t detect them with my detection magic…….Is it because they are otherworldly beasts?”

No, it was because they had no mana at all.

A wizard’s detect spell is a spell that detects the mana of a creature.

It would be difficult to identify the beasts of this world, which had so little mana.

I wouldn’t have been able to recognize them if it weren’t for my specialty.

However, it didn’t matter.

After all, the opponents were just mana-less beasts.

“I’ll take care of the rest.”

I said to my teammates and ran into the forest.

Through the tall bushes, I saw several blood-armored beasts.

Beasts unlike any I’d seen on the continent, antlerless deer-like beasts, giant rats, and another tusked pig.

They were all dead, otherworldly beasts, but strangely familiar.

I couldn’t help but wonder at the recurring déjà vu I’d experienced since crossing over, but now was not the time to question it.

I charged into the beasts, energizing my sword.

My tumultuous charge drew the undead beasts that had formed a circle around me.

Dozens of dead beasts that normally wouldn’t die charged at me, but I was a knight who had survived years of war.

I dodged the open mouth of a pig, cut off the leg of a deer bleeding black blood, and slicing through the fleshy rats that rushed toward my face, I was able to kill all the undead that charged at me.

I brushed off the black blood that clung to the blade of my sword and looked around.

There was no more danger around me.

The hairs on the back of my neck didn’t stand on end, and I felt no pressure to live.

This was the end of the undead around me.

It seemed like it wasn’t a trap, just aggro drawn to something.

After making sure I was safe, I returned to my teammates.

They didn’t seem to be worried about me at all. They were huddled around the fallen pig.

Apparently, there was something else there.

As I approached them, Hoffman, the soldier standing guard at the back of the group, greeted me with a smile.

“You handled it so quickly? As expected of the Skull Slayer.”

It was a nickname I hadn’t heard in a long time.

Any knight who survived years of war against demons was bound to have a nickname.

As for me, I was called the Skull Slayer because I was always bashing skulls.

I had other nicknames, but this one was the most famous.

However I didn’t expect a stranger to know my nickname.

“How do you know my nickname?”

Hoffman looked puzzled at my question.

“Who in the Allied army doesn’t know Lord Jansen the Skull Slayer?”

At Hoffman’s words, I looked around the team.

Everyone must have heard him, but no one said anything.

Sure, they were all preoccupied with looking at the pig carcasses, but they all seemed to know my nickname, even the shiny knight from the rear and the ear man from the front.

Was the party given a heads-up from above?

Or maybe my nickname was more famous than I realized.

Did my nickname really get me into this lineup?

I thought I’d gotten in because I’d gotten picked for something, but now I’m here because of my unnecessary fame.

I sighed.

“What is everyone looking at, anyway?”

“Oh, there’s a dead body where those havelinas were gathered, and I guess the reason they were blocking the road was to eat it.”

As I turned my gaze to Hoffman’s words, I saw a severed human hand peeking out from among the pig carcasses, a hand with five fingers like mine.

It was the first human corpse I had ever seen on this side of the world, though I had expected it.

I approached them.

Behind the wizard, who was squatting on the ground, face down, I saw a human corpse.

A human corpse, head, waist, and many other places.

It had been dead for a long time, unrecognizable, and mangled beyond revival.

It was the kind of thing that would shock a normal person, but no one would be shocked to see it here.

“It looks like a middle-aged man…….It’s hard to make out much of anything, and the clothes he’s wearing are more like rags.”

The wizard was actually examining the corpse, and the rest of the team was looking at it with interest.

I froze in my tracks, staring at the corpse.

It wasn’t because I was as intrigued by the corpse as the others. I wasn’t examining the corpse like a wizard.

I was just shocked to see it.

No, it wasn’t the body that shocked me.

It was the clothes they were wearing.

It was the symbol on the front of the ragged tee.

I stifled a laugh.

That wasn’t a pattern, it was letters, letters that no one around me recognized.

‘Gangwon Hometown Association.’

The tattered clothes had Korean writing on them.