Book 1 Chapter 386
“Okay, then let’s first go to the Elven Forest to meet Luna. It’s closest to Gadethron.”
Risynas said.
“Alright. And then we go to Reisar to meet Agon, right?”
“Yes.”
Risynas nodded, looking at the map, at Leo’s words.
“Finally, I think we should go to meet Dweno.”
They planned the order and route to meet their companions.
“Alright, then. Since we’ve finished our discussion, how about we rest for today?”
Risynas folded the map and stood up.
“Kyle, are you planning on drinking more?”
“I should rest today too.”
Leo and Risynas stood up and went upstairs to the second floor.
They parted ways in the second-floor hallway and headed to their respective rooms.
Before entering the room.
Risynas smiled at Leo and said,
“Please take good care of me from now on, Kyle.”
After saying that, Risynas entered the room.
“Risynas.”
“Huh?”
Leo called out to Risynas.
Looking at Risynas who peeked out of the room with a puzzled face, Leo said,
“You are not a fool.”
At the sudden remark, Risynas’s eyes widened.
At that time, Risynas was being mocked as a fool.
A foolish lizard who chased after impossible hopes and prattled on about unattainable ideals.
Kyle at this period also evaluated him similarly.
Nevertheless, Risynas persistently tried to recruit Kyle into the party.
He never gave up and pulled Kyle, whose heart was consumed by darkness, out of the darkness.
The reason he held Risynas's hand was.
It was the beginning of the path to save the world, but it was also the beginning of his own salvation.
‘If it weren’t for him, I would have rotted away like that my whole life.’
He would have had to watch the world’s destruction without any hope.
Now he knows.
How much pain the wise king, who truly tried to save the world,
felt during the days he was mocked as a fool.
“You are wiser than anyone.”
“Just because we’re in the same party, you’re suddenly buttering me up?”
Risynas smiled faintly.
“Well, it’s a good attitude. Unlike yesterday, your eyes today are clearly looking towards hope.”
The wise dragon said, looking into Leo’s eyes.
“That must be a positive sign.”
Smiling faintly, Risynas went into the room.
Seeing that, Leo entered his room and smiled bitterly.
‘Please take good care of me, huh….’
Thump-thump- Leo approached the bed, flopped down, and looked out the window.
‘Simply saying that isn’t enough.’
They were companions who had overcome countless life-and-death situations together.
Leo looked down at his hands.
Great heroes are saviors to each other.
They had saved and been saved countless times.
‘If even one of us had been missing… we would never have been able to do it.’
He had met Arion, and he had met Luna and Dweno.
He thought he had become accustomed to meeting companions who could no longer be with him.
‘That’s not quite right.’
While feeling immeasurable joy at being able to hold the hand that pulled him out of the darkness long ago,
the fact that they could never be together again weighed heavily on his heart.
Suddenly, images of his companions came to mind.
The very first time.
Was it because he had returned to the starting point?
Today, he missed his departed companions even more.
Leo, recalling Luna, Arion, and Dweno, slapped his cheek.
And Leo took a deep breath.
‘Now is not the time to be lost in thought. Understanding the situation comes first.’
The current situation was completely unexpected.
‘I clearly entered Rhodia’s world.’
Rhodia’s world was a formally opened world, not a hero dungeon.
It was even a world Leo could leave anytime he wished.
But currently, Leo was in Risynas’s world.
‘What on earth is this?’
Leo narrowed his eyes and tried to close the hero’s world inwardly.
But no message appeared.
Leo knew this phenomenon all too well.
‘Hero Dungeon.’
A situation where the Hero’s Record went berserk within the hero’s world.
It was when Leo furrowed his brow.
Tap- tap-
A sound of tapping on the window was heard from the windowsill.
When he turned his head, Rhodia was there.
As Leo approached and opened the window, Rhodia cautiously asked,
“You are… the future Kyle-nim, correct?”
“Yes.”
At Leo’s answer, Rhodia let out a sigh of relief and entered the room.
“I was surprised. This world is clearly an possession-type world, so I thought you had also entered in your original form.”
Listening to Rhodia, Leo said,
“I heard that such errors sometimes occur in Hero Dungeons.”
The hero’s world originally has a set capacity for entry.
However, in the case of Hero Dungeons, the player limit sometimes disappears.
‘Since the Hero Dungeon itself is created due to a rampage.’
“Hero Dungeon?”
At the unfamiliar term, Rhodia looked slightly flustered.
Seeing Rhodia like that, Leo paused and nodded.
“You wouldn’t know.”
The Heroes of Genesis sealed Erebus within the Hero’s Record and, to completely block the entrance, divided the Hero’s Record and entered their own worlds.
As such, they had never experienced ‘Hero Dungeon,’ a side effect caused by the division of the Hero’s Record.
Over the past thousands of years, there were those who challenged the Heroes of Genesis’s world and met them, but there wouldn’t have been time to discuss the various problems that arose in the present world.
After briefly hearing about the Hero Dungeon from Leo, Rhodia showed a troubled expression.
“I never imagined such a thing would be happening.”
“The heroes of later generations are tackling it well, so you don’t need to worry too much about that problem.”
“Yes.”
“Then, returning to the main point. Why are you and I here? I’ve never even seen Risynas’s Hero’s Record in the present world. So the question is,”
Leo wore a serious expression.
“Was it possible to open a Record within the hero’s world when the Hero’s Record was intact?”
“No, it was not.”
Rhodia shook her head firmly.
“When it was revealed that through the Hero’s Record, one could enter the hero’s world—the trials experienced by past heroes—and obtain rewards, the world’s most renowned mages and scholars tested the possibilities of the Hero’s Record. In that process, strong warriors and excellent summoners were mobilized.”
Leo had also learned about that fact in history class in Lumern.
“Opening a Hero’s Record within the hero’s world. That would be the beginning of another infinite possibility. Therefore, countless experiments related to it were conducted, but not once has a Hero’s Record been opened within the hero’s world.”
At those words, Leo fell into thought.
“Then and now. The difference lies in the state of the Hero’s Record and whether I, the owner of the Hero’s Record, am present or not.”
Leo formed a hypothesis.
‘An impossible event has occurred because of me.’
The Hero’s Record is in an unstable state.
It is an item created by divine power, but it imprisoned the primordial evil, which can be called the nemesis of gods, within it.
And the current Hero’s Record was created by destroying the old Hero’s Record and reassembling the pages scattered across the world in that process.
“As such, the function works, but normal operation is impossible. In the midst of that, I, the owner of the Hero’s Record, reincarnated in the present world.”
“You mean that an impossible event occurred due to the singularity that is Kyle-nim.”
“Yes.”
“This is going to be a headache.”
Rhodia sighed.
Seeing Rhodia, Leo said,
“No, it might actually be a good thing.”
“Yes?”
“Rhodia. You clearly said earlier that Risynas’s record, where we are now, is the first hero’s world, right?”
“Yes.”
“When I saw it in the history books, you failed to clear the first hero’s world.”
“Yes. After that, I tried to clear this page multiple times… but I failed every time.”
“Right. And you entered your final chapter to stop the fragment of Erebus. Originally, you shouldn’t be able to enter the hero’s world anymore.”
“That’s… wait a minute.”
Rhodia’s eyes widened as she was answering.
Seeing Rhodia, Leo smiled meaningfully.
“That’s right, Rhodia. You are now inside the ‘hero’s world.’ Do you understand what that means now?”
“…If I clear it… it means I inherit Risynas-nim’s power. That means…”
“That’s right, it means your power, which has been stagnant for thousands of years, can progress.”
As the loops repeated, Erebus’s flame grew stronger and stronger.
In contrast, the Heroes of Genesis remained stuck in the same place.
That is also why the Heroes of Genesis, who endured for 3000 years, are running out of time.
But if Rhodia clears Risynas’s world here and obtains the clear reward, Rhodia could take a step forward.
“Of course, the clear won’t be easy.”
Leo and Rhodia looked at the message that popped up before their eyes.
[Clear Objective: -]
Hero Dungeons do not have a clear objective.
Like solving a puzzle.
One must find the clear objective.
And the moment the clear objective is recognized, a new message appears.
But Leo and Rhodia don’t need to find the objective.
Rhodia had already challenged this record countless times.
And Leo was the one who achieved the feat in this record.
Rhodia parted her lips.
“The Gluttony King… Jormungandr.”
[Clear Objective: Subdue the Gluttony King.]
The clear objective was updated.
Risynas and Kyle.
The first feat they achieved together on their page.
And even now, having subdued Erebus, Leo could say.
The battle with the Gluttony King Jormungandr was one of the most memorable among countless feats and trials.
It was one of the most desperate battles.
Rhodia swallowed dryly.
Leo stared intently at the clear objective.
The Gluttony King Jormungandr.
The Necromancer King Hel Kaiser is the supreme commander of Tartarus.
He possesses immensely powerful strength, of a different caliber than other legion commanders.
He was grouped with the Monster Queen Shilatura and the Giant King Gias as the three great legion commanders, but that was only because they were the only surviving commanders after the Age of Calamity.
In terms of strength alone, the Monster Queen Shilatura and the Giant King Gias were considered to be a step below the Necromancer King Hel Kaiser.
He was, literally, the terrifying ruler of Tartarus.
The most formidable threat, who commanded death, was more insidious than anyone, and wielded an endless army.
But the Gluttony King Jormungandr was dangerous in a different sense than Hel Kaiser.
“The true terror of a legion commander is the legion they lead.”
The demonic forces led by a legion commander are immense.
“But Jormungandr is different.”
Leo recalled Jormungandr.
“He doesn’t lead a legion.”
Despite being a demon with the title of legion commander, he has no legion.
No, he even devoured his own legion.
“There were countless monstrous creatures in Tartarus. But among them, the most truly terrifying monster was him.”
The reason Jormungandr is called the Gluttony King.
He devours everything.
Like a hungry ghoul.
He is a monster that eats everything in sight.
A monster that devours everything and scatters darkness.
“A monster that doesn’t even need a legion, despite being a legion commander. No, a monster that could be called a legion by itself.”
Rhodia said with a trembling voice.
The reason for her endless failures.
It was because the Gluttony King Jormungandr was the ‘strongest’ demon.
Recalling how many times she had failed to clear it before his terrifying power, Rhodia said,
“Can we do it?”
“We have to.”
Leo said, looking down at his palm.
“Because that’s the only way.”