The Time-Limited Leader Makes the Raid a Success - Chapter 483



Only Noblemtl

Episode 483

#483. You can’t eat me.

“I know you are here.”

It’s been several days already.

Ayla closed her eyes and took a deep breath, unwavering in the face of the creepy voice calling out for her.

“It’s no use trying to hide your presence. You’ll just be a little bit slower. You can’t escape my grasp.”

If fear had a voice, it would be like this.

It was a voice that would make her tremble just by hearing it, but Ayla hid herself in the crevices of the numerous stalagmites jutting out from the cave floor, and kept her knees together without moving an inch.

“Do not be afraid. You are the one who will convey something very important to me. If you wish, I will make you the queen of my kingdom. You do not have to be afraid anymore. Show yourself quickly.”

When he couldn’t get them to surrender through fear, he tried to persuade them this time.

“I will let you taste the power I have gained. When you and I become one, we will be reborn as gods. You will become the ruler of the new world.”

A soft and sweet temptation.

It was the voice of a siren who charmed creatures living on land with her voice.

For a moment, Ayla wavered.

‘That power is a power that should not exist in this world.’

A disturbance caused by fear rather than temptation.

At the same time.

“There you are?!!!”

Muhammad came running. There was a loud crash and the sound of a part of the stone pillar collapsing. There was a violent footstep and a heavy breathing.

But Ayla did not move hastily.

‘It’s okay. I’m not sure.’

I started breathing more deeply than before, and eventually I stopped breathing.

The secret art of the elves was ‘nature-friendliness’.

Originally, this secret technique was a training method to cultivate mana by becoming one with nature, but it was also excellent for completely erasing one’s presence.

There was no better way to hide in the darkness of this vast cave.

Ayla quickly regained her composure and turned into stone.

Muhammad’s feet, which had been running furiously, stopped.

“It’s not coming over? They say you’re an elf of harmony, is that really true?”

An ordinary human voice came out of Muhammad’s mouth. He walked leisurely through the stalactite forest and muttered to himself.

The target of his monologue was Ayla.

“Aren’t you curious about how I know about you?”

Of course, there was no answer.

Muhammad continued speaking regardless.

“The name is Ayla Frigga. All I know is that she’s been alive for hundreds of years. Oh? The hunter who taught me this was really tight-lipped. I had no choice but to eat some of her brains to find out. Compared to the heart, brains don’t have a great texture, so I don’t really enjoy them, but what can I do? You have to eat a variety of foods to stay healthy.”

I am a stone. I am a stone. I am a stone.

Ayla tried to erase even such thoughts.

Muhammad’s mouth continued to murmur.

“In that hunter’s memory, elves are a species that specializes in spirits and magic. That’s exactly the ability I need. It could be an important piece of my evolution. That’s why I haven’t killed you yet. If it weren’t for that, this place would have been scorched earth already.”

lie.

‘Because I’m going out.’

Ayla spent several days listening to Muhammad talking to himself, gathering information.

Whether it was simply a whim or a feeling of boredom due to having no one to talk to, Muhammad kept talking about this and that.

For him, who was becoming a monster, perhaps speaking through his mouth was an act that reminded him of his identity as a human.

He treated Ayla like a fish he had caught, so he told her secrets without hesitation.

Thanks to this, Ayla was able to deduce what kind of place this cave was.

‘This is the Naga’s sanctuary. It is what the Nagas call their cradle. Muhammad, who wants to use the Nagas, can never destroy this cave.’

The king of the Naga race born here escaped from the rule of Muhammad.

This was not because the Naga King escaped on his own. Muhammad had purposely freed him halfway.

‘It was because of the way they brainwashed the Naga King.’

Muhammad made the Naga king recognize himself as a Naga, a very strong Naga.

Thanks to this, the Naga King designated Muhammad as his successor, and Muhammad was able to approach the Naga King and brainwash him.

The problem here was that Muhammad’s role was limited to that of a successor.

He wanted to rule Naga himself. But he could not kill the Naga King. The moment he attacked Naga King, he would become a traitor, not a successor. Naga, branded as a traitor, was perceived as a rival.

If that happens, the brainwashing will be lifted, and I will have to go out and fight a war.

‘If you go to war, you will have to use up the Nagas you worked so hard to keep under your command, and your own Naga kingdom will collapse. It will take a long time to rebuild it.’

Civil wars among the race were common, as the Naga King himself was a being who had defeated numerous rivals.

Muhammad was averse to such consumption.

‘This time, the Naga King was so strong that he won the match in an instant and became the king, but since he evolved for a short period of time, he was very weak in other areas besides strength, right?’

In particular, he had almost no resistance to mental skills, so he fell for Muhammad while he was letting his guard down.

But as time passed and Nagawang developed skills worthy of his name, the brainwashing gradually began to wear off.

Muhammad had no choice but to send the Naga king to attack the Mediterranean coast of Europe, completely releasing his brainwashing along the way.

From the Naga King’s perspective, the situation was such that the Hunter was in front of him and the Successor was behind him, and he had no choice but to retreat rather than fight.

‘That was probably the deciding factor in Naga’s move to Asia.’

Although she was unable to deduce the process of how they settled in Northeast Asia, this was the full story of the incident that Ayla knew.

“I can sense your thoughts. You’ve been starving for a long time, so your stamina is low and your concentration is at rock bottom. How long do you think you can hold out? Take it easy. Just accept your fate.”

Muhammad concentrated on detecting the subtle tremors that occurred when one was agitated.

If we pushed a little harder, it seemed like their location would be revealed.

“!!”

Then I sensed a strange presence outside the cave. It wasn’t too far away.

He looked up at the ceiling. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it.

“There are a lot.”

At least a few dozen.

It was also a group made up of high-ranking hunters. There were also non-hunters, but only one.

“Did your father send you a lunch box?”

The Hunter’s Heart was a delicacy. There were things that contained mana that were not delicious, but there were few that contained mana in such a thick concentration.

Muhammad looked down at his clawed hands, clenching and unclenching his fists as if he was weighing something.

“If I just fill it up a little more, I think I can move on to the next step.”

Thinking about it made my mouth water. If I become even stronger than I am now, wouldn’t an S-rank be ridiculous?

Once they had that much power, they would no longer have to hide. They would start a war right away, absorb the neighboring countries, and advance into the Central African kingdom, even taking down Mugabe…

“There’s no hunter in the world who can stop me. Even if a horde of S-ranks come rushing in.”

Muhammad, filled with confidence, turned around and left the stalactite forest, saying a few words.

“Give me time to think, Ayla. You’d better get things sorted out before I get back. Then you won’t be able to hide any longer.”

After Muhammad left, Ayla sensed that the time had come for her to leave her fate to chance.

‘This is my limit. Next time, that monster will find me.’

Death wasn’t scary, but it was a shame to die without letting the outside world know about this place’s existence.

However, that does not mean that they could become food for Muhammad.

‘It doesn’t matter if you eat it, but you must not hand over the power and knowledge of the elves.’

A monster that evolves the more it eats living things.

I couldn’t make this monster, which grew stronger by absorbing the power of ‘it’ that was created inside this cave, any stronger.

Ayla made up her mind.

‘Fine. If you want me, I’ll make it so you can never find me. You monster, even if that’s the end for me, you won’t be able to eat me.’

Ayla’s consciousness sank deeper.

That’s literally nothing.

It was a space where not only thoughts but even existence disappeared.

* * *

Iron Will, the Eagles mercenary unit, and the Federation Greek team hunters, including Kang Mu-hyeok, finally reached the Atlantic Ocean.

The tangled, jumbled coastline was a complex terrain that made it difficult to detect monsters hiding right below the cliffs.

The sea, with its reefs and mysterious phenomena, did not permit access by ship.

Kang Moo-hyuk stuck out his tongue as he looked at the sea with dozens of whirlpools on the coastal cliff.

“Coming towards the sea would be suicidal.”

“That’s something that’s far removed from normal natural phenomena. There are many other dangerous things besides Medusa’s head, perhaps because it’s a terrain that didn’t originally exist.”

Alex listened to Kang Moo-hyuk’s words, recalling what he had seen in the Federation materials.

He paused for a moment, then brought up the matter he had intervened on.

“The coastline is quite long. How do you plan on finding Lady Ayla here?”

“Well, how did Lady Ayla interpret the information from the Celestial Vision? It would be impossible to search this vast area.”

“If it’s Lady Ayla… she can search through this whole place.”

Kang Moo-hyuk’s eyes widened at the completely unexpected answer.

“Everyone here?”

“Yes. All. Possible.”

Alex continued to speak at Kang Moo-hyuk’s gaze demanding an answer.

“Do you know about spirits?”

“I know. Isn’t that one of the characteristics of a sorcerer?”

“A hunter is a skill. But to an elf, he is a friend.”

“friend?”

“There is a difference in that it is a Hunter’s skill that works with spirits and elves.”

“What difference does it make?”

Alex thought for a moment, then organized his thoughts and opened his mouth.

“For example, while the power of a skill varies depending on the hunter’s ability and proficiency, elves can borrow much more powerful and diverse powers just by asking their friends, the spirits. It’s said that if you make strong friends, you become that much stronger.”

Kang Moo-hyuk immediately understood the difference and asked back.

“Does that mean there are no limits to skill?”

“That’s right. In theory, if you’re close to a friend, you can ask them anything. The elves call this affinity. Of course, it costs mana to summon a spirit, but it’s said to be a very small amount of mana compared to summoning a spirit with a skill.”

Kang Moo-hyuk didn’t know exactly what the elves’ powers were. The information the Federation provided to the commander didn’t contain much about them.

When I mentioned that part, Alex nodded as if it was obvious and said,

“Information about the Elves and other Ain races is managed directly by each race. Most of the information about them is gathered through personal acquaintances. What I know about the spirits is only what Lady Ayla told me.”

Kang Moo-hyuk was slightly taken aback by Alex’s words.

‘I knew it to some extent, but I didn’t think it would be this much. It seems like the wall between the Federation and Ain is thicker than I thought.’