Light of Arad: The First to Walk - Chapter 94



Only Noblemtl

094

The now deceased Eighth Apostle, Long-Footed Lotus.

His special skills include manipulating and attacking the mind and memories, including telepathy, brainwashing, and mental destruction.

What happened when you dealt with him after he was transferred to the GBL Church above Behemoth?

[Emily… …Emily, no!]

What was the word that Ban shouted while hallucinating through Lotus?

‘Emily.’

Wife of the leader of the Iron Wolf Knights, Van.

Cousin of Iron Wolf Knights’ Vice-Captain, Harts von Kruger.

The woman who went from Emily von Kruger to Emily Wallstedt.

The woman that Ban loved and cared for so terribly.

‘You just called that name… … . I see, is that so?’

Jinseong knows.

Above all, as someone who is quite familiar with the background settings that are incorporated into the flow of the main scenario quest, I wonder why Ban muttered Emily’s name a little while ago.

The exact time is unknown, but it is roughly known.

Adventurers and Imperial troops, eventually Van Walshteit arrived in Heaven, and not long afterwards… … .

‘Emily is dying. The fact that you’re calling Emily’s name now means you’ve already confirmed her death. You already know half of it.’

How many times has Magatha, who is connected to Arad, come and gone?

Since the people of Arad have come up to Heaven to the point where they can be called ‘adventurers’, most of the news that has occurred in Arad since they came up to Heaven will have been delivered.

And one of those pieces of news would have been Emily’s death.

‘If I remember correctly, it’s one of the things that Ban regrets. When his wife died, he couldn’t be by her side because he was in heaven… … and he couldn’t bury her.’

Even in the settings of Dungeon & Fighter, the game that Jinseong enjoyed until the end, not all information about Van Balshteit was revealed.

Therefore, it cannot be said that Jinseong himself actually knows everything about Ban’s original disposition.

But at least he knew one thing: Emily’s death was the starting point and the main trigger for his actions and choices.

‘Maybe that’s why I was so rude to Vivi and me in front of Zeldin. I regret that if I had resolved this sooner, I could have returned to the Empire and stayed by Emily’s side… No, wait a minute.’

As Jinseong was thinking about how to understand such class behavior, something popped into his head.

It’s hard to imagine how sad he must be to lose Emily, but isn’t it common sense that his wife’s death, the death of his family, would have had a significant impact?

The problem is now.

Even if he was shocked, why did he mutter his dead wife’s name now, in the middle of a battle?

‘no way…….’

An ominous plan came to Jinseong’s mind.

Knowing the background setting of the game Dungeon & Fighter all too well, it was one of the worst situations I could imagine.

The first basis for this imagination is Emily von Kruger’s past.

Although now deceased, Emily von Kruger was once the target of revenge by those dissatisfied with the Empire.

The worst was averted when Ban rushed to her rescue just before the incident broke out, but the shock at that time left Emily with symptoms of mental confusion and aversion to men.

‘Ban, however, pushed for the marriage with Emily, and after much coaxing and persuasion, they eventually succeeded. That was how deep his affection for Emily was.’

At this point, Emily is dead.

Second, Jinseong, who knew what Ban would do next, could guess what he would think.

‘Ban joins hands with the nobles of the celestial realm and sparks a rebellion by following the orders of the empire.’

The weapon used in the process was a humanoid weapon, or robot.

Above all, the power used in the humanoid weapon is the power that Ban had secretly gathered, the energy and power extracted from the dead apostles.

‘You could say it’s the energy core of a robot called [Queen Destroyer]. It’s also an incident that clearly sets Ban and the adventurers at odds.’

A class that loved Emily dearly.

One of the things such a class will do in the future is to help create humanoid weapons.

And what the Heavenly Realm is currently interested in is a means of generating electricity. Also, DNA mutant life forms.

If we draw a conclusion based on these three, what Van wants is… … .

‘Emily resurrected… in a new body? And not in a fragile woman’s body either-.’

A body infused with overwhelmingly strong power.

It also gives you the power to protect yourself from being involved in another unfortunate incident.

Even though it’s humanoid, isn’t it half-considering the possibility of recreating a literal, living, breathing human body, rather than a robot-like fighting machine?

Could it be that they are pondering the possibility of reviving the dead Emily more perfectly?!

‘More than anything… … Damn, we’re about to encounter monsters that are half-assed to be possible!’

There was another reason why Jinseong suddenly felt anxious.

This is the existence of the enemies you will encounter when you move on to the next dungeon area after clearing all of the Antwerp Canyon in this dungeon area.

‘They’re not just mutated life forms with DNA combined. They have a clear sense of self and memories from their past lives, but their bodies are robots. After seeing that… … I’m halfway convinced. I’m sure we can resurrect Emily, too.’

Now Giselle has created a DNA mutant life form.

However, among the enemies you will encounter later, there are monsters such as androids.

‘Even so, in order to obtain more perfect technology and data, they eventually join hands with the nobles of the heavens in the future and create something like the Queen Destroyer. If you think that even that was just a test to obtain more perfect data.’

Could it be that half of them are dreaming like that?

For the woman he loved more than anyone else.

‘… … No. No. That’s very unlikely. Above all, there has never been a hint of anything like that in DnF, let alone any mention of it. If you jump to conclusions, you’ll only end up falling into the trap of confirmation bias.’

Jinseong swallowed dry saliva and shook his head.

This is neither the correct answer nor his true intentions have been clearly revealed.

‘More than anything, even if Ban were actually dreaming like that, the people surrounding Ban wouldn’t just let it go.’

Considering the background setting of the game Dungeon & Fighter that Jinseong himself knows, and the situation of the De Los Empire, it is safe to say that the possibility of such a thing occurring is rather low.

‘-If you still have to be careful, there is one reason for this. Even if it doesn’t happen as I expected, if something similar happens… … .’

That’s because there is a .

Jinseong let out a small breath.

There are three things that made me doubt things after coming up to heaven.

The Iceborne Berserker.

Giselle’s Secret.

And half.

Jinseong is still not sure which of the three his own guesses and suspicions fit and which one contradicts them.

But at least one thing is certain: things that were considered nothing special in the Dungeon & Fighter games that I enjoyed playing can be truly squeezing here.

Because we can only conclude that it all has to do with the .

“What are you doing, Jinsang! Come quickly!”

As I was thinking about the puzzle that had now completely fit together, I heard Vivi’s voice.

Jinseong suddenly came to his senses and saw the two people who had already cleared out all the enemies around them.

“Oh, yes, I’m going. Let’s go.”

Jinseong and Ban’s eyes met for a moment.

The two people didn’t say anything.

However, both sides must feel that the way they look at each other is not always kind.

* * *

“Ipkiss! That’s it! Right, Jinsang-nim? You look like a total joker! Why so serious~?”

“But the name and the attack method are actually Mask- well, anyway, the pattern is the same as what I told you.”

“Don’t worry! I’m not the boss, so there’s no way I can be defeated by something like that!”

On the way to the UM-0 Ultimatum, they lightly defeated the named monster Ipkiss, and Vivi, Jinseong, and Ban headed toward the inside of the supply base.

Several UM-9 Electons and AM-0 Biters joined in to help Ipkiss, but Bibi was not harmed.

At this point, with her weapon replaced, would there really be any normal monsters that could pressure her?

‘No, not a normal mob or anything. It probably won’t be a match for any monster in the Antwerp Valley. I’ll have to take the sea train and go hunt some Anton-related named monsters to feel a little nervous.’

Jinseong was certain that even in the future dungeons, Vivi would not be easily stopped.

It wasn’t just that she had replaced her equipment, but Vivi was using the skill combo that Jinseong had taught her so far with the replaced equipment, so it was hard to find any fear like before.

‘You should encounter something like ‘Almighty Mateka’ when you go to kill Apostle Anton, no, maybe it won’t be a problem until ‘Something Contaminated’ appears.’

Unless some unpredictable variable occurs, it shouldn’t be a big problem.

“……You really are a monster.”

“Then it’s a real monster! I’ll deal with the big ones, so you take on the small ones!”

“That big machine seems to be giving that guy some power, but won’t it break the machine?”

“We have to analyze it, analyze it! Let’s check the power generation first- Mr. Jinsang! Can we catch it without breaking this?”

When we see the unknown, what emerges is not fear, but curiosity.

The desire for ‘analysis’.

Now that her main tendency, which had previously been hidden due to her fear of battle, has been revealed, it will be much easier.

“It’s possible. But you do know that there are cases where it recovers once it enters the range, right, Vivi? Like the UM-7 Blaster we fought last time!”

Jinseong was about to tell me the pattern strategy he had been using from memory, but then he changed his subject.

As long as Ban is here, talking as if he knows everything about a monster he’s seeing for the first time is likely to arouse suspicion.

Vivi also ran out without saying another word.

“all right!”

“How dare you trespass here!”

And the UM-0 Ultimatum pounded the ground and roared.

The voice coming from a giant creature that was probably three times the size of Vivi might have sounded eerie… … .

“Wow, this kid can talk too, just like UM-9! Blaster could only yell! Do you have any data or anything?”

As expected, Vivi was different.

Jinseong smiled happily at that sight.

────, ────, ────!

It didn’t take long to cleanly use the first awakening and defeat the Ultimatum.

The Electons that escorted the Ultimatum, no matter how many there were, were not even able to withstand the firepower of the that Jinseong wielded, let alone Ban.

Of course, for Vivi, it wasn’t important that she had killed all the monsters and completed this quest without any problems.

“Let’s see, the power generation capacity is…….”

Her only interest is in the generator’s capacity and the data on the UM-0 Ultimatum, as she managed to destroy the Ultimatum without blowing up the giant generator in the end.

Ban also walked slowly towards the giant generator.

“This is a machine that generates electricity? It wasn’t magic, it was made by human hands?”

A group of people admire the giant generator while touching it.

Although it may have been a soliloquy, Vivi answered sincerely.

“Huh? Oh, of course. It’s basic in heaven. There are things much bigger than this-.”

“Ms. Vivi.”

“-That is……true, and you will all find out anyway, right?”

It was the same even if Jinseong stopped him for a moment. In fact, what Vivi said itself was not wrong.

As we move to deal with the Apostle Anton soon, we will come across a power plant that is incomparable to these ‘mobile generators’, so there is no need to hide this.

Jinseong focused on checking the subtle nuances coming from the body, not just the hand gestures, facial expressions, or words.

Ban muttered again.

“Wow… It was worth coming to heaven.”

In the past, I would have thought that it was just an exclamation, but now it had a different, genuine meaning.

For a while, I searched for Ultimatum’s corpse, generator, and experimental data.

“Shouldn’t we report to the captain here first? It won’t look good if the three of us try to do something together.”

“I, I guess so? Well, I think I’ve checked everything… Then let’s go.”

Was it a check on Vivi, who was looking into something she couldn’t understand?

Or maybe it was because he felt the gaze of genuineness looking at him so perfectly.

Ban urged them to report back after their return, and Vivi and Jinseong had no reason to refuse, so they had to go back.

And on the way back, Vivi said to Jinseong.

Why else would she want to analyze it so thoroughly, other than out of curiosity?

“Unfortunately, I don’t think that will be enough power to do what you said.”

“Huh? What…?”

“That’s it. What kind of self is being inserted into a robot body as software-.”

“ah!?”

“-I’ll talk to Melvin first and calculate again based on Geumgangrang.”

“Thank you so much….”

“Huh? Thank you! It’s between Jinsang and me, so it’s a given.”

At that point, Jinseong realized something new.

‘Maybe Vivi hasn’t really changed much… … .’

She may have always been the same, ever since she first modified Bentinck’s Flamethrower.

And finally, the final chapter of the dungeon area: Antwerp Canyon, the Pursuit and Annihilation Battle, is ready.