Chapter 118
The Magic Crystal Mine was the most strategically important facility in Neo Seoul.
If the supply of magic crystals from the mine were cut off, all facilities in Neo Seoul would come to an immediate halt.
There were cases where magic crystals could be obtained from magical beasts, but it was extremely dangerous, and not all beasts carried them.
Even after killing dozens of magical beasts, you would only get one or two crystals at best. The efficiency was abysmal.
The only place that could supply large quantities steadily and regularly was the magic crystal mine.
Because of this, Neo Seoul paid special attention to managing the mine.
Awakeners were dispatched to eliminate the magical beasts inhabiting the surrounding area and to clear out any dungeons that suddenly appeared, reducing potential threats as much as possible.
Given the circumstances, there was even a bitter joke going around that, aside from Neo Seoul itself, the safest place was the magic crystal mine.
“Damn it! It’s hot as hell.”
A blond man with a delinquent look grumbled, his brow deeply furrowed.
His name was Logan.
He was an Awakener dispatched from Neo Seoul.
A C-rank martial-type Awakener, his main weapon was a massive greatsword.
Behind him, more than a dozen Awakeners rode in two buggy cars.
All of them were under Logan’s command.
“Not a single Great Horn Hyena in sight today.”
“I heard their habitat has been shifting south lately.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s what the other teams are saying.”
The team members’ expressions turned serious.
Great Horn Hyenas lived and hunted in packs.
The leader of the pack was always a female, far larger and stronger than the males. Like a lion, she even had a mane around her neck.
From forelegs to shoulders, they stood over two meters tall, and from head to tail, they reached nearly five meters in length—a monstrous size.
They lived in groups ranging from dozens to hundreds, and many of them were the offspring of the alpha female.
It was a matriarchal bloodline society.
Naturally, every Great Horn Hyena obeyed the alpha female absolutely.
Individually, they weren’t that strong. But when dozens or hundreds gathered, it became a different story.
Under the command of the alpha, the pack could exert power dozens, even hundreds of times greater.
In the past, they were usually found far from the magic crystal mine, but recently, one or two had begun appearing near it.
They were clearly scouts.
“If scouts are showing up, that means the main pack isn’t far. We might be in for a major fight soon.”
“Ugh! I hate dealing with pack-type monsters like Great Horn Hyenas or Flame Wolves. Fighting them one by one just drains you…”
The Awakeners already looked exhausted at the mere thought.
Logan smirked as he watched his subordinates.
He felt the same way.
It was far better to face a single strong enemy than to deal with creatures like Great Horn Hyenas that moved in packs. Fighting them one by one inevitably left your body covered in wounds.
If you ever got isolated within the pack, survival wasn’t guaranteed, which was why most Awakeners dreaded them.
Logan himself had once been trapped within a pack of Great Horn Hyenas and had fought desperately to survive. That was why he didn’t like the rumors about them moving south.
“If a full pack really has moved near the mine, we won’t be able to handle it alone. We’ll need to mobilize every Awakener stationed at the mine.”
“Yeah, boss! No way we’re taking that all on ourselves.”
“Gotta share the pain. Heh.”
At Logan’s words, his subordinates laughed.
At that moment, Logan’s face suddenly stiffened.
A massive cloud of dust had appeared in his field of vision.
He shouted,
“Enough chatter—prepare for combat!”
A dust cloud that large meant either a massive group or a gigantic magical beast was approaching.
“Shit… it’s not really a Great Horn Hyena pack, right?”
“No way…”
Tension spread across the Awakeners’ faces.
They drove their buggy cars toward the dust cloud, readying themselves for battle.
As the cloud drew closer, their tension reached its peak.
And then, when it finally approached—
someone let out a baffled voice.
“What… is that?”
“What the hell…”
Expressions of disbelief spread across their faces.
The source of the dust cloud was a magical beast.
A mammoth—an enormous creature over five meters tall.
The problem was the long line of cargo wagons trailing behind it.
The wagons had wheels but no engines, each as large as a warehouse. Dozens of them were strung together behind the mammoth.
Logan muttered unconsciously,
“A… caravan?”
“A caravan?”
“I’ve heard about them a lot… but this is my first time actually seeing one.”
Caravans appeared without warning.
They didn’t come regularly, so ordinary people almost never saw them.
Even among Awakeners, very few had actually seen one in person.
Recently, caravans had completely stopped appearing.
Because of that, contact with other colonies had been cut off.
Caravans didn’t just trade—they also served as messengers, delivering news between colonies.
Without them, there was no way to know what was happening elsewhere.
After several years without a single caravan, people began to believe that all colonies near Neo Seoul had been wiped out.
Even so, it wasn’t easy for Neo Seoul to send people out to confirm whether those colonies still existed.
Traveling between colonies required a highly skilled navigator, and unfortunately, Neo Seoul didn’t have one.
And there was no real reason to expend manpower just to check on other colonies.
Even without them, Neo Seoul could survive just fine.
Logan stared at the long-awaited caravan in shock.
“A caravan…? Then that means there are still surviving colonies?”
His voice trembled slightly.
The realization that there were still functioning human settlements besides Neo Seoul gave him a strange sense of relief.
They weren’t alone.
The fact that other human groups still existed somewhere in this ruined world filled him with an odd sense of reassurance.
The caravan, having spotted Logan and the Awakeners, slowly came to a stop.
Warriors who appeared to be Awakeners began revealing themselves one by one on top of the cargo wagons.
They wore protective gear and clothing clearly different from those of Neo Seoul’s colony.
Logan shouted,
“I am Logan, an Awakener dispatched from Neo Seoul. The person in charge of this caravan—step forward and identify yourself and your origin!”
At that moment, a man in a black robe appeared atop the mammoth’s head.
He opened his mouth and spoke,
“We are the White Bear Caravan from the Yakutsk Colony. Is this the territory of Neo Seoul? If so, it seems we’ve arrived at the right place.”
***
“Zeon! Zeon!”
Brielle came crashing into the house, calling out for Zeon.
Zeon, who had been relaxing on the sofa, simply turned his head to look at her.
“I’m not deaf. Call me more quietly.”
“Zeon, did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“So you haven’t heard yet.”
“What’s got you so worked up?”
“They say a caravan is coming.”
“A caravan?”
Only then did Zeon show interest.
“Yeah! It entered the magic crystal mine the day before yesterday. They say it’ll arrive in Neo Seoul this afternoon.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Uh, at the Goblin Market.”
“Is that so? Then it must be true.”
Zeon stood up from his seat.
Caravans weren’t that unfamiliar to him.
He had encountered one once in the desert seven years ago. But for most people, that wasn’t the case.
They knew other colonies existed, but they had never made direct contact, so they had no way of knowing how those colonies built, defended, or developed their cities.
With caravans no longer arriving, even the fragile connections they once had were completely severed.
People assumed the reason was that those colonies had been overrun by magical beasts.
Unlike Neo Seoul, which was protected by anti-magic force, other colonies had to rely solely on human strength for defense—and that was extremely difficult.
Because of that, they hadn’t been able to rebuild modern civilization like Neo Seoul. Their progress had stalled somewhere between the medieval and early modern eras.
For such unstable colonies to be destroyed by magical beasts wasn’t surprising.
If a caravan had truly come from another colony, it meant contact with another civilization for the first time in years.
It was only natural for people to be excited.
“They’re coming this afternoon? Then if we go now, we’ll be able to see them.”
“Yeah! Let’s go watch.”
“What about Levin?”
“He went out earlier. If the caravan shows up, he’ll come on his own.”
“True.”
Zeon nodded and put on his robe.
The two stepped out into the street together.
Since most people still didn’t know the caravan had reached the magic crystal mine, the streets were relatively quiet.
Zeon and Brielle found a good vantage point on high ground near the entrance to the slums and sat down.
Sitting beside him, swinging her legs, Brielle suddenly remembered something and pulled out a piece of dried meat from her pocket.
“Here, eat this. I bought it at the Goblin Market.”
“Jerky?”
“Yep!”
Zeon took it and bit into it.
He couldn’t tell whether it was dried rat meat or dried magical beast meat, but it didn’t bother him.
After all, the ingredients available in the slums were always more or less the same.
Of course, things would be different inside Neo Seoul.
As he chewed the jerky, a gust of sandy wind blew past.
“Ugh! This damn wind.”
Brielle grumbled, pressing down her pointed hat so it wouldn’t fly away.
Watching her, Zeon thought to himself,
“She’s gotten a lot brighter.”
She still occasionally lost focus due to the aftereffects of drugs, but she had improved significantly.
Her personality had brightened as well.
It was a positive sign.
Since they would be together for the time being, it was better for her to be like this.
Just then—
“Oh! Look over there!”
Brielle suddenly pointed toward the middle of the desert.
Zeon followed her gaze.
In the distance, a cloud of dust was rising.
In Zeon’s eyes, a massive mammoth approached, kicking up that dust.
Standing over five meters tall, the mammoth was imposing just to look at. The long line of wagons trailing behind it resembled an old train.
“Wow!”
Brielle exclaimed.
“What is that?”
“A mammoth… It’s a caravan.”
“A caravan really came?”
People who had only just noticed began to murmur excitedly.
A mammoth wasn’t something you saw easily.
At the very least, such a massive beast had never been spotted near Neo Seoul. Its appearance alone was enough to shock people.
But even more surprising were the long line of wagons behind it.
From that, people realized the mammoth was a beast controlled by a caravan.
“A caravan has come!”
“It’s really a caravan!”
“Woooah!”
People began gathering at the entrance of the slums.
It was a spectacle they hadn’t seen in a long time.
The road leading to Neo Seoul quickly filled with people.
Everyone eagerly waited for the mammoth-led caravan to enter.
But for some reason, the mammoth stopped a few kilometers short of Neo Seoul.
“Why isn’t it coming?”
“Did something happen?”
People murmured among themselves.
Brielle was just as confused.
“Why did the mammoth stop?”
“It’s because of Neo Seoul’s anti-magic force.”
“Anti-magic force? What’s that?”
“It’s an energy that’s incompatible with magical beasts. That’s why they avoid approaching Neo Seoul—like that mammoth.”
“There was something like that? I had no idea.”
Brielle blinked her wide eyes.
Once the mammoth stopped, the caravan stopped as well.
Instead, the leader of the caravan and several Awakeners began walking toward Neo Seoul under the escort of buggy vehicles.
At last, they entered the main road of the slums that led into Neo Seoul.
It was a long-awaited encounter with the unknown.
“Woooah!”
The crowd’s cheers echoed loudly through the streets.