Chapter 316:
The first thing I wanted to do was to find out who the traitor was.
That was what Lean said as soon as he saw Yu-hyun.
Yu-hyun and Lean teamed up again and headed to the Ice Cliff.
Thinking was one thing, but they couldn’t stop the exploration team’s work on the surface.
That’s how they started their ambush around the Ice Cliff to look for traces of the traitor. It had been five days since then.
Yu-hyun opened his mouth as he looked at the snow that kept falling today.
“So, have you made a decision?”
“…Not yet.”
“Not yet? Not yet? It’s been days since then, hasn’t it?”
“Five days have passed.”
“And you still haven’t done it?”
“Don’t rush me. I was already thinking of coming to a conclusion soon.”
During the past five days, the two of them had visited this place three times, and this was their fourth visit.
They only wandered around the vicinity whenever they came here, and they didn’t go inside the ravine like before.
It was because they thought that the traitor might show up near here again.
If the entrance was open, the traitor might hide inside.
“How is Emperor Frechen?”
“He’s the same as usual. He does whatever he wants and goes wherever he pleases.”
“I heard that he frequented this area the most. He also took charge of the exploration of this vicinity.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you think he’s the traitor?”
“I don’t know. But it’s likely that he is.”
I looked around. There was no one else in this area except for the two of us.
“Why didn’t you stop him if he was acting suspiciously for a long time?”
“He would have resisted more fiercely if we tried to stop him. And we didn’t feel the need to do so.”
“You didn’t feel the need?”
“There was no benefit in stopping him. Rather, it would be better if he harmed himself. But we didn’t just leave him alone. I selected a few people who were fast and discreet and ordered them to investigate the traces of Frechen’s faction. I told them to monitor their every move.”
“Who were they?”
“Ryan.”
“The man who called himself your right arm.”
“Right arm… Well, that’s what he said. I didn’t give him that name myself. Rather, he claimed it himself.”
I knew Ryan from the conversations I had with him in the past few days.
He was a cold and rational man who took pride in being an explorer.
He also argued that the warriors of Great Gard should not avoid fighting and should fight honorably until their death.
He had a strong sense of sacrifice, so there was no one more suitable than him to secretly investigate Frechen.
“But even after several ambushes in five days, we still got nothing.”
We spent time near the hidden entrance under the pretext of exploration to find any signs of the possible traitor.
It was not enough to prove anything with just the traces of someone staying near the exit of the ravine.
There was no way to be sure who it was. There was no name written on the remnants of the rune stones or anything like that.
So even if we suspected Frechen as the traitor, we couldn’t accuse him in front of everyone.
“Didn’t you say that there are records of who went where and when at the exploration headquarters?”
“Yes. There are detailed records of the routes that the explorers have taken for 32 years. I organized them and transferred them to a map.”
“Is there any possibility to prove Frechen’s betrayal using that? If we check his movements, we can easily tell that he was around here.”
“I thought about it, but it’s not enough. Frechen has a strong position, but we can’t corner him with just wandering around here.”
We lacked a decisive blow.
We racked our brains for a while.
It would be easier to just cut his throat and shout that he was a traitor, but reality was not so simple.
We couldn’t find a clear answer, so we had to wait here for a while.
“Well, it seems like nothing today either.”
“It does. It’s more suspicious to come out on a day like this.”
Today was a festival in Gardian.
The Soul Comforting Festival. It was an annual event held once a year to comfort the souls of the dead and boost the morale of the survivors.
On this day, even the explorers would rest from their exploration and enjoy food and drinks to relax their tired bodies. In other words, it was a day to have fun and eat.
As Leon could be considered as the leader of Gardian, he couldn’t miss the Soul Comforting Festival, so he couldn’t stay here for long.
“Can’t we just leave?”
“There are other people waiting for you too.”
Leon smiled wryly as if this was an unusual thing.
“I’ve been called a witch and shunned all this time, but this is the first time I’ve been accepted.”
“You seem to be the happiest about it?”
“…I can’t deny that. But it’s better than hearing insults from someone who looks like her.”
“What about the Soul Comforting Festival… Did it start after the Frozen Curse spread?”
“No. The Soul Comforting Festival didn’t start after the Frozen Curse spread. It existed long before that. The Gardians have been holding festivals to honor the souls of the dead every year. The world was peaceful before the Frozen Curse spread, but it wasn’t that long ago that peace was achieved. Rather, before that, there were more wars and conflicts and raids between tribes. The Soul Comforting Festival existed even then.”
“It had a long tradition then.”
“Yes. After the era of peace came, it changed from a solemn atmosphere to a festival where people could have fun and enjoy themselves.”
Leon looked at somewhere far away with a distant look in his eyes.
“It was long before the Frozen Curse spread, when I had just been chosen as a candidate and started training. She took me to a nearby minority village because she was worried about me.”
It was a humble festival compared to that of the Empire.
But Leon didn’t complain about it.
“I was ignorant and didn’t know how to fight, so I liked having fun and enjoying myself. So I reached out to her and asked her to dance with me. She was surprised by my suggestion and opened her eyes wide.”
When night fell, they lit a big bonfire in the center of the village.
The Gardians danced around it in circles.
“I hated fighting, but I liked having fun. So I reached out to Kaira and asked her to dance with me. She was surprised by my suggestion and opened her eyes wide.”
She smiled softly and shook her head, they said.
“She claimed she didn’t know how to dance. How ridiculous. She had sword skills that could raise a great warrior, and she could use rune magic more powerful than anyone else. And yet, she couldn’t do a simple dance that even the villagers could do.”
Lean found it both funny and pitiful, so he gave up on dancing and crouched next to her with his knees hugged to his chest.
Lean still remembered that time.
The beautiful night sky full of stars and the huge bonfire that seemed to set the sky on fire.
And the warmth of her that he felt closer than anything else.
“I was so regretful back then, I told her we should dance someday when we get a chance. I said I would teach her if she didn’t know, and that it would be fun if she learned.”
“What did Kaira say?”
“She said okay, and that she would look forward to it.”
It was one of the few memories he could call precious in the past, when he was chosen as a candidate and faced only hardships and pains.
But that promise was never fulfilled.
Because Kaira was gone now.
“Even so, the Spirit Festival is still an important day for me. That’s why I never missed it. For the past 32 years, I argued more than anyone else that we should continue the Spirit Festival.”
“I see.”
The conversation between the two ended there.
For a while, they waited for a possible traitor to appear, but none did.
‘It’s over for today. Maybe it was foolish to think that a traitor would come here on the day of the Spirit Festival.’
He didn’t know how much time he had left.
But he couldn’t just attack Georen without a plan. As long as there was a traitor inside, he didn’t know what they would do at a critical moment.
As he was about to leave the scene with disappointment, the two spotted a black shadow flickering beyond the curtain of snow.
“…! Could it be?”
“Shh. Don’t jump to conclusions. It could be a frost giant.”
The two lowered their bodies and watched the unidentified shadow carefully.
At first, they thought it was a frost giant. But that idea changed soon enough.
‘The pace is steady and the direction is fixed.’
Frost giants move randomly.
They have no purpose, and they only exist to kill people.
They don’t have any rules for moving.
But that shadow was clearly heading straight for this place where the entrance was hidden.
That meant that shadow was not a frost giant.
It was a person. A scout, to be exact.
The shadow suddenly stopped in its tracks.
‘They noticed something over there!’
‘I know!’
That moment, Lean moved.
Lean sprang out of the snowbank and swung his sword to subdue his opponent.
Clang!
“Hmm?”
But the opponent quickly drew his axe and parried Lean’s attack. Lean was slightly surprised by that reaction. He didn’t expect him to block it, even though he had held back his strength.
The tail swung his axe horizontally with great force.
The snow on the ground flipped over and formed a huge wave that headed towards Lean and Yu-hyun.
Lean slashed through the wave of snow with his sword, but by then, the tail was already running away without looking back.
“We can’t let him get away!”
“I know!”
Lean answered like that, but it was not easy to chase after him in the snowstorm that was getting worse.
The tail he thought was an ordinary guard warrior was not. He was one of the strongest warriors among them, at least worthy of being called an upper-class warrior.
An upper-class warrior is comparable to an upper-class collector on Earth.
He had strength, but more than that, he had a keen sense that could sense their presence and try to escape before being caught.
Yu-hyun and Lean had no choice but to follow the traces he left in the snow as best as they could.
But then.
‘There are two tracks?’
The track he thought was one overlapped with another one.
And soon enough, the two tracks split in different directions.
‘These are not his tracks from before. They are heading in a fixed direction, which means there is more than one person?’
Yu-hyun and Lean looked at each other and hardened their faces.
They thought there was only one traitor, but this meant there were at least two. And maybe more than that.
It was too risky to follow him through the torn space.
“Let’s go back for now.”
“…Yeah, we should.”
The blizzard became more fierce, as if mocking them. The world was white and it was hard to see even an inch ahead.
Yu-hyun and Lean returned to the place where they had clashed with him once.
“Wait. Look at this.”
“What is it?”
Yu-hyun picked up something that was lying on the ground. It was a piece of metal.
When Lean had swung his sword earlier, he had cut off part of the blade of the axe that he was blocking with.
“With this, we can compare the weapons and find out who he is.”
“What if he abandoned his weapon?”
“It’s easy to tell if someone changes or discards their weapon among the explorers. The number of weapons is limited, and warriors tend to cherish their own weapons.”
“There were two traces, but there must be more people, right?”
“…I thought it wasn’t just one person, but if they are that skilled and there are more of them, there is only one thing that makes me suspicious.”
“Frechen. He was the traitor after all.”
They finally got a solid clue. The two quickly returned to the Guardian.
They didn’t know what the traitors would do if they arrived before them, thinking they had been exposed.
“Huh? You two just came back?”
As soon as they returned to the Guardian, Ringug greeted them warmly.
“I was looking for you two with Mr. Rahyan. I just came back from wandering around. I thought you went far away, but you came back soon. The memorial ceremony is about to start, you should get ready. How can we do without the protagonists?”
“No. That’s not important right now. Where is Frechen? Have you seen Frechen?”
“Emperor Frechen? Huh? Now that you mention it, I heard he went out with his subordinates today. He said he would be back before the memorial ceremony started.”
“…Really?”
Was this timing a coincidence?
Yu-hyun and Lean became more certain.
“Lean. I’ll go to the headquarters first and check if anyone has entered or left today.”
“Okay. I’ll gather the explorers for now. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
They were almost 80% sure that Frechen was the culprit, but not 100% yet.
Yu-hyun planned to stop by the headquarters and check if there was anyone else who had gone out among the explorers.
If all the traitors were from Frechen’s faction, it would be fine, but there could also be spies hiding among the explorers.
“What’s going on?”
Rayon, who had seen Yu-hyun hurrying, asked.
“Oh, Mr. Rahyan. It’s just that… I’m a bit busy…”
“…Something happened. I saw Lean gathering other explorers just now. It’s something important, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then let me help you. His business is my business.”
It would be more reassuring if Rayon, who could be called Lean’s right arm, joined them.
Yu-hyun headed to the headquarters with Rayon.
Ringug received a request that was almost an order from Lean. He asked him to gather the explorers who were preparing for the festival in one place.
He didn’t ask why because Lean looked too busy, but Ringug decided to follow him anyway.
As he was wandering around, he saw a group of people running from the entrance of the wall.
The one in front of them was Frechen, who had white hair and beard like a mane.
He wondered where he was going and watched Frechen, who came closer at an incredible speed as soon as he saw Ringug.
“Explorer Ringug. Right?”
“Uh, yes. But why?”
“Lean and Kaira. Have you seen them?”
“Yes, yes?”
“Lean and Kaira. Where are they now?”
“Why are you asking me that all of a sudden?”
Ringug was wary of Frechen’s behavior, who asked for Lean and Kaira’s whereabouts out of nowhere.
As he stepped back slightly, Frechen’s face became even more frightening.
“Tell me quickly. There’s no time.”
I scanned the paper quickly with my eyes.
“Freechen? What did he do?”
“I found some suspicious activity from him.”
“Suspicious activity?”
“Yes. He went out with his group again today, but one of them approached an area that had already been explored.”
“An area that had already been explored? There are so many of those that I get confused.”
“You know the mountain range that crosses the northern continent, right? The one that has become an ice cliff. I found traces near there. No, not traces, but evidence. Of at least two people.”
“Two people? Are you sure it was two?”
“Why do you keep asking that…”
I was about to say something, but I stopped myself without realizing it.
-By the way, Mr. Rahyan came back just now after wandering around looking for the two of you.
That was what Ringug said when I returned.
I tensed up and rolled my eyes.
‘Wait a minute. How could I have missed this?’
When I first thought I had caught the tail, there was something strange about its behavior.
It moved cautiously and quietly. If it had come to check the entrance, it wouldn’t have needed to act like that.
Its behavior was like it was chasing something else.
And then, the two traces that followed.
What if.
What I thought was the tail, was actually not?
What I thought was the tail’s companion, was actually the one that the tail was chasing?
Lean said that he sent someone to secretly monitor Freechen in case he did anything suspicious.
That meant.
That person was the one who had wandered around the ice cliff area the most after Freechen’s group.
“He stopped moving all of a sudden. Why is that? Did you find something?”
That person was right behind me.
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