EP.238 Dark Zone
The inside of the meta conveyor belt is called the Dark Zone in other words. Unlike the Mist Principality, its name was entirely symbolic. The Dark Zone is not at all chewy. Rather, it is much brighter than other areas.
Lighting to keep you working at night.
A searchlight to track down a fugitive.
A lighthouse that watches over laborers from a tall spire.
Even at night, the front is bright, but paradoxically, this land is a dark area. Members of the inner circle cannot leave the belt until they have served their sentence. Therefore, what happens inside the belt is not transmitted outside the belt.
So it’s a dark area. The gap created by the absence of information.
Unlike the outside of the idyllic belt, the inside is a land of slaves brought in for rule-breaking or transgression. There are many people who continue to work as punishment without even enjoying the minimum freedom.
“Hee hee hee hee.”
Chimera beans, one of the 7 greatest inventions of the military, are growing in the communal farm. Beans with large seeds were very desirable, and the farmer who raised them seemed to be full just by looking at them.
However, the laborer was not a farmer, and he did not feel any reward in cultivating the fields and harvesting crops. This field doesn’t belong to him, and I didn’t want to have it, but I was forced to leave it.
Chimera beans have a fast growth rate and high yields, but require a large amount of pollination and a lot of labor. If the twigs are not trimmed regularly, the vines will run wild and fall headlong under their own weight. It is his job to drive away birds and insects that aim for the soybeans that have grown so thickly.
As a prisoner and laborer, he desperately broke the branches of Chimera Beans even in the midst of exhaustion. I remembered how I got here while doing simple labor.
He beat the supervisor who was asking for a bribe with the power of a speck of dust. He was full of blood and couldn’t stand it. Even when a hard fist struck the supervisor’s chin, he had no regrets.
But now, a year later, he regrets that day every moment.
If I hadn’t used my hands at that time, I wouldn’t have gone through this now.
He can’t even find a piece of the emotion called anger that brought the situation to this point. I just want this day to pass quickly and this hard labor to end sooner.
Rather, as soon as I think of the word run away, fear strikes me. Escape should not even come to mind. It was because, apart from the searchlights that were monitoring all directions, I had seen over and over how those who disobeyed orders were being dragged further inward.
I don’t know what’s on the inside, but one thing is for sure… the fact that no one has returned after a year. That made him even more afraid.
At least one consolation… the fact that the supervisor who dared to take a bribe in the military country he beat was dragged into the depths and disappeared. It’s just a small consolation.
The only thing that can exploit someone in a military state is a military state. Thinking so with a clouded mind, he cut down the bush with a blunt scythe.
It was then.
『Military communications officer Io informs all laborers. All laborers must stop what they are doing and return to their lodgings immediately. repeat. All laborers currently on labor must return to their lodgings immediately. This is a command. Strange.”
He doubted his ears. For military workers, early termination of labor is like a god. In the sense that it always seeks but never finds. But all of a sudden, I came to accept God.
Perhaps he had heard it wrong, he looked up at the sky. it was still bright It took a long time before the work was finished.
The supervisor wrote evil. It was enough to cause cognitive dissonance in ordinary laborers to shout that they could be disadvantaged if they did not go to rest immediately. He packed his tools and moved with all his might to rest.
“There are days like this because I live.”
Unexpected luck that came by chance. That’s all, and somehow he felt more livable.
A musketeer without a musketeer is powerless. It is not even a check against the enemy. Intermittent bullets hit the outer wall of the wagon, but the otherwise impenetrable body was currently under Tyr’s control. The bullets that hit the alchemy steel reinforced with Saihan’s magical power only bounced back in vain.
As I grabbed the steering wheel and ran forward, I found an obstacle blocking the road ahead. It was a grid of alchemical iron caltrops and a large barricade.
I immediately called out.
“Miss Shay! The road is cut off!”
“I know.”
The regressor immediately kicked off his seat, jumped up, and planted his feet on the front bonnet of the wagon. Stretching Jizan to the side, she stretched out her arm and threw Jizan as the wagon got close enough to the barricade.
Jigon-style clay scythe.
Jizan flew round and round and collided with the barricade.
At that moment, barricades and caltrops roared out in all directions. The sword, which is light only to those who are acknowledged, feels more weight than a large carriage to other beings. What if it spins around and flies?
He was nothing more than a scarecrow in front of the barricades and spinning Jizan. The heaviest threshers the earth has ever forged ferociously harvest steel crops.
A roar, an explosion, and a flurry of steel fragments. In the midst of that gruesome scene of destruction, I stepped on the pedal even more.
“Break through! Everyone, prepare your heart… Kkeuk!”
The car rattled loudly and hit my head. This is because the remnants remained even after the regressor cleared them away.
Even the smallest irregularities give only a shock like kicking in the butt… Is this something made for people to ride? No, in the first place, the military does not see military people as people.
“This bastard’s automatic carriage…! Mr. Shay! Isn’t there a better means of transportation other than this cheap wagon? It’s a thrilling thing to run with all of this!”
“Is there anything like that?”
The regressor stepped on the side of the wagon, stretched out his body, and grabbed Jizan from the ground. It was like a feat.
The regressor who retrieved Jizan returned to the passenger seat again. I grumbled while behind the wheel.
“Or a flying tool! I saw earlier that it flew well with the wind!”
“There are a lot of people now. The heavier it is, the harder it is to ride the wind.”
“You just have to work harder!”
“They just told me to use it because it wasn’t my own strength…”
The eyes of the regressor who had been snoring widened. She immediately reached out and pulled me back.
“Dangerous!”
The regressor who had removed me from the line of fire stretched out his cherry blossoms through the gap.
Four days of the heavenly sword.
An intangible sword shot from the cherry blossoms passed right in front of my nose. My vision was momentarily blurred, and I heard a loud explosion in the distance. A shell that flew towards us exploded in the air. For a moment, I felt a warm feeling on my left cheek.
“Those bastards must have been tied up with a barricade and were trying to snip! No excitement! Who said that would fit that!”
The regressor who spoke confidently with a snort was a little cool today. I said my honest impressions.
“Shay is a little cool. I think you will fall in love.”
“Yes?! Stop talking nonsense until this dangerous moment! Concentrate on driving!”
When I was told to focus on driving, I slightly turned my gaze to see a mobile cannon with a cannon mounted on a carriage, aiming its barrel at this direction. It must have been a strategy to isolate us from the road and then fire shells unilaterally, as the returner said.
I pedaled further.
“It’s not on the road over there. I don’t think I can follow you very far. Why don’t we keep intercepting and getting away like we are now?”
“That’s a bit reluctant.”
“I can not? Was it a coincidence that you just did it?”
“no it’s not! It’s a good trick. You know because I’ve explained it too, right? It’s not difficult to hit something in the empty air if you use the trick of clothing. That’s why we can’t fly in the sky for fear of being intercepted…”
The regressor murmured regretfully.
So, if there was no danger of being intercepted, it would have flown through the sky. It was not a miser. I must have misunderstood you.
“But it consumes energy and concentration, so I don’t want to knock them out one by one. How can I trust Tyrkanjaka and endure it with my body?”
“My body?”
“I meant the car body, but it’s better if your body has the ability to withstand it too.”
“Nonsense. I am a weak creature. If you get hit by a shell, you can’t stand it, and even if you get hit by a car, the shock will disrupt your driving! Cherish it!”
“Tsk, I can’t either.”
“Of course! Hurry up and take care of it!”
Hearing my urging, the regressor seemed to want to do so, but he looked ahead anxiously to see if something bothered him.
“I’d like to, but if I’m out of here.”
“Oops! You can’t break through the next barricade! Then I’m in danger! Please continue to be by my side! You can’t go anywhere!”
“That’s it. Why do you always say that… whatever. I don’t want to use magic, but let’s call a thunderbolt…”
It was the time when the regressor was trying to summon a thunderbolt. With a hissing voice, the white horse that had been following the wagon broke away from the ranks and started running toward the other side. On top of it, the princess and Shiati were riding side by side.
The regressor said as if he had just remembered.
“right. Wasn’t there a resistance too? Let’s leave it to them.”
“Can I be the two of you? The princess doesn’t seem to be strong enough…?”
I said in an unreliable tone.
Of course. Shiati seems to have acquired new abilities while participating in the resistance, but the princess with pink hair used to step into danger as if she had a flower garden on her head, without any special force. You have to be unreliable. If you believe that, you’re an idiot.
Seeing me suspicious, the regressor reacted like it was fun.
“Is there anything you don’t know? Whoops. Well, this isn’t easy to figure out. Even the princess herself won’t know.”
“What is that?”
“Shall I tell you? Could you tell me if I politely ask you?”
I was annoyed at being condescending, so I just read my thoughts first.
The knowledge gleaned from previous rounds was invisible to my mind reading, but thanks to the regressor recalling those memories now, I could read them as well.
‘The princess is a member of the royal family of Grandiomor. The royal family of Grandiomor was one of the five monarchs who drove out the human kings. In particular, the last remaining blood relative, the princess, has the ability to avoid human enmity.’
The ability to evade hostility? I saw the white horse again running in a straight line towards the enemy.
The artillery was a little worried. Will they intercept the white horse running toward them or attack the chariot running toward the headquarters?
In the automatic wagon, the eyes of the regressor who exploded the flying shells in the air are still shining. It would have been a reasonable decision to intercept the white horse even to protect oneself.
However, the artillery did not change the guns. He persistently aimed only at this side and prepared for the next shot.
I said, confirming that feeling from the side of my eye.
“Is it an ability that is not subject to attack?”
“Are they pretty similar? how did you know?”
“Because the muzzle is still facing only this way, even though the horseman is looking for it!”
Artillery, like musketeers, is not recognized for its effectiveness. Loud and slow cannonballs are useful when the opponent is densely packed, and even in the meantime, those who say they are a bit strong can hit or catch the cannonballs.
Still better than a gun. At least, the cannon had the power to smash the walls of the castle or the wagons on the road.
Just like now!
“To be precise, it is the ability to avoid enemies. The power to feel the least dangerous when betrayed and attacked, and to be kind to her. It is an ability possessed only by those who inherit the lineage of ancient kings. It is also the reason why the lineage of the royal family of Grandiomor has been able to continue for so long…”
“Now that’s not important! The hostility that avoided the other side is heading this way! We are in danger!”
It was when I cried out like that.
Shiati, who was running behind the princess, took off the glove on her left hand. Instead of the right hand with a prosthetic arm, the left hand with various scars was revealed.
Among them, the most outstanding thing was the twisted knuckles of the left hand.
Unsightly fingers that stand out even from a distance. when everyone watches her act.
Shiati held her hand up for all to see and bent the pinky of her left hand ‘up’.
At the same time, the barrel of the main gun broke. Clapping upwards, much like Shiati’s fingers.
There was a roar. The gun barrel, forged from steel to withstand the aftermath of the explosion, bent upward in an ugly way like Shiati’s fingers, looking skyward. Red flames and smoke rose as if an inner shell had exploded.
Shiati put the gloves back on. When she announced something, the princess turned around and returned this way. The enemy’s goal was overthrown, but the princess’ expression did not look very good.
