“At this rate, it looks like we can clean up the mounted bandits within a week.”

“It seems the main reason is that the Mage Tower hasn’t acted rashly since the first clash.”

“It’s about time we sent out a reconnaissance team to secure the area near the ruins…”

Swish!

Cliff raised his hand.

At that, the lively and organically flowing reports came to a halt.

“Securing the ruins is premature. Do not act rashly.”

At his command, some averted their gazes, a bitter taste in their mouths.

They were the ones who had gotten greedy and prepared for the next task in advance.

Cliff didn’t bother to point them out one by one and blame them.

If they had overstepped their authority, it would be a different story, but if they had merely stopped at preparations, he could turn a blind eye, chalking it up to a show of loyalty.

“But this is unexpected.”

Cliff tapped his temple with the hand propping up his chin.

“For the Mage Tower to show no movement at all.”

“Ah, that’s because, as the captain said, while the first clash might have been impulsive, after grasping the situation in detail, they would be reluctant to clash recklessly…”

“Hey, you, be quiet.”

“Yes?”

He was a newcomer, newly appointed to replace the executive who had been purged last time.

Looking around in bewilderment at the surrounding admonitions, he discovered that everyone was silently staring at Cliff’s lips, their own mouths shut.

“I thought they would provoke us at least one more time.”

Cliff’s remark was not a question expecting an answer.

It was a monologue, a self-inquiry to organize his thoughts, relying on his intuition.

His intuition, close to precognition, had always found the right answer.

It would be the same this time.

His subordinates remained quietly silent, creating an environment where he could focus on his thoughts, and waited for a conclusion.

“……Tsk.”

In a flash, the frown on his brow turned into a contortion of his entire face.

“I don’t know. What their intention is.”

Cliff knew that his intuition did not necessarily find the right answer in every situation.

His intuition was evaluated as being close to precognition.

Close, but different from precognition.

In essence, it was the product of rational judgment based on circumstances and evidence.

There were not enough clues to solve this particular question.

“Aren’t they just trying to be cautious?”

“It’s possible the Mage Tower hasn’t decided on a policy yet.”

“Right, it’s not important anyway.”

The policy of not paying much attention to the Mage Tower had been nailed down at the last meeting.

It was truly puzzling that there was absolutely no reaction like this… but if, as his subordinates said, they were refraining from rash movements, then nothing could be better.

However,

“……”

Cliff felt an unease stirring from deep within his chest.

It was different from intuition.

This was instinct.

A similar experience… was not unheard of.

“Is it similar to when I was planning this ruin exploration?”

He had ignored the anxiety he felt back then.

It was because he knew what a huge achievement it would be when this ruin exploration succeeded.

Fortunately, he hadn’t faced any major adversities since then.

He had found out that the Mage Tower was involved during the preparation process and even lost his second-in-command, but this was the kind of thing he was used to.

In the end, the anxiety he was feeling now could also be called an illusion.

It was nothing more than a fear of the unknown that even his intuition could not predict.

“I just need to succeed.”

Cliff muttered as if casting a suggestion on himself.

No matter the sacrifice, no matter how much hardship, as long as he succeeded, everything would be resolved.

The ruins held that much value.

It was worth betting the fate of the Thorson Expedition on.

Krrrrrumble!

It was then that a suspicious vibration rang out.

“What’s going on?”

A vibration that started from under their feet and shook even the heavy table.

It was an incomprehensible situation.

He had never heard of an earthquake occurring on the land of quicksand.

If a disaster were to occur, it was fortunate that they had set up the camp in a safe place so they could evacuate in advance.

“I’ll check right away!”

The newcomer was the first to get up and go outside.

“It’s probably nothing.”

“A vibration that shakes the ground in the desert… the mounted bandits?”

“No way. We’re tying up and hunting every one of them we see. They don’t have the capacity to lead a large force our way.”

“……”

Listening to his subordinates’ carefree chatter, Cliff’s face hardened.

The anxiety that had been stirring in his chest was, for some reason, growing in scale.

“But why is this guy taking so long to come back?”

The time that had passed was at most a minute or so, so it wasn’t long.

But since it was a task that only required a quick look at the situation, it was a subtle amount of time.

As the meeting had been held early in the morning, the attendees were even letting out small yawns, gradually showing signs of relaxed tension.

“……!”

Suddenly, Cliff shot up, knocking over his chair.

“Damn it!”

“What’s going on…”

His startled subordinates asked, their eyes wide.

There wasn’t even time to explain.

They too had vaguely noticed.

An intense flow of mana had, at some point, covered the area.

Whoooosh!

A desert whirlwind, appearing without any warning, struck their barracks.

***

There is little moisture in the desert.

Therefore, it does not rain much.

Sand, being in the form of small particles, never cracks like a drought-stricken land, no matter how dry it gets.

The land of quicksand was also a desert.

As its name suggested, quicksand was the biggest nuisance, but the greatest natural disaster in the desert was something else.

“Good work.”

A giant whirlwind was blowing at the barracks built on the hill.

At a glance, it had the shape of a vermilion tower.

Unlike its appearance, the inside was a scene of pandemonium.

Pillars were torn apart by the formidable wind speed, and everything, people and furniture alike, was swallowed up into the whirlwind.

Magic, a man-made disaster.

“What good work? It was an easy job where all I had to do was unleash my magic at maximum output without any interference.”

Colin said with an indifferent face.

He was a villainous figure, watching the scene of people dying like insects without any particular emotion.

“……Incredible.”

Batu, the chieftain of the Ulfirin tribe, glanced sideways with a fed-up expression.

Colin’s charisma was terrifying enough to make even him, a proud warrior, tremble.

“Ahem.”

When Sage poked him in the side, Colin let out a dry cough.

He stepped back and subtly leaned his body against his staff.

It wasn’t that he was so aloof that his expression didn’t change; he was simply running out of strength.

It was not a scale of magic that even a school master-level mage could easily handle.

But its power was immense.

A mage unleashing their full capabilities was not lacking to be called a strategic weapon.

“The whirlwind’s momentum is dying down. Should we set off now?”

“Yes, there will be no reinforcements joining them.”

The Thorson Expedition had divided its forces into squad units to try and clean up the Ulfirin tribe.

It was a suitable strategy for defeating the enemy, but not at all for defense.

As long as the squads were prevented from joining up, the mounted bandits alone could inflict sufficient damage on the main force.

Furthermore, I already knew from experience that I could block their reinforcements by hijacking their communications.

Beta had all the radio waves in the area under control.

They would be unable to send or receive wireless messages.

They were isolated.

“Good, I’ll trust you and run wild.”

Batu, who had beaten his chest like a drum, mounted his horse.

The troops were ready.

It was all the warriors of the tribe, excluding a few troops left to delay the approach of the squads just in case.

They waited for the command with their spears and swords raised.

Neigh!

I, too, mounted a horse after Batu.

It was a horse provided by the tribe.

Perhaps because it was well-trained, it showed no signs of rejection even when a stranger mounted it.

“Let’s go!”

With a resounding shout, men and horses charged forward.

A massive sandstorm, comparable to the disaster created by magic, followed behind them.

The raid of the mounted bandits, the masters of the land who ruled the quicksand desert, did not fall short in grandeur compared to Colin’s magic.

‘They’ll do their part in stirring up the battlefield.’

I ran with them, but my purpose was different.

Even a wounded tiger is still a tiger.

The mounted bandits’ strength was their collective ferocity; their individual combat power was not high.

They might be sufficient to mop up the remnants who were in tatters after being hit by magic, but against skilled individuals, they were no different from a disorderly mob.

That was why I was following them.

They were my share.

‘I’ll cut off the meddlers here.’

Winner takes all.

It was a rule there was no need to refuse.

***

Splaaat!

“Gaaah!”

“Kill them! Don’t leave a single one alive!”

The mounted bandits began to ravage the expedition’s ruined camp.

These were the same mounted bandits who were being massacred by mere squad-sized units, but the Thorson Expedition’s condition was far too poor.

There were few who could stand properly on their own two feet, and even they were a mess, with a broken bone somewhere or unable to even hold a weapon.

Overall, a battle couldn’t even be established.

The mounted bandits reaped the lives of the expedition members as if harvesting rice.

I left them behind and gradually advanced deeper.

My destination was the place where the largest barracks had been erected.

“……”

That place was not outside the influence of the magic either.

On the contrary, it had been devastated as if it had suffered concentrated damage.

All that could be seen were materials that had been crushed into almost powder.

I stood before it.

I drew my gun and fired.

TANG!

The bullet did not pierce its target.

“……You’re a cautious one. Hiding without even stopping the bleeding has become useless.”

Woooong!

The clumped-together debris of the building was floating in mid-air.

It acted like a shield, blocking the bullet.

‘Telekinesis?’

For magic, the flow of energy was too fast and natural.

It was either his innate power or an ability imbued in an artifact.

A man emerged from between the debris.

“I’m the type to double-check even an extinguished fire.”

“A model citizen. Unlike a contractor.”

“This line of work feels like walking on thin ice every day, just like yours.”

He was not in a good state.

Blood was flowing from a gash on his head, covering one eye.

His shirt was torn to rags.

But that was all.

Compared to the other expedition members, among whom it was rare to find someone who could even support their own body, he was relatively unscathed.

“Are you the head of the Thorson Expedition?”

“Yes, Cliff Burton. You seem to be a contractor hired by the Mage Tower.”

“I’m Allen.”

“For a celebrity famous enough to be hired by the Mage Tower, I’ve never heard your name. Are you a newcomer who started making a name for himself around the time I began preparing for the ruin exploration?”

Cliff pushed his blood-soaked hair to one side and stood up.

“Contractors are closer to crows or rats, but sometimes monstrous ones appear. I was unlucky. If I had been paying close attention, I wouldn’t have ended up in this state.”

“Would anything have changed if you had?”

“A lot would have changed.”

Unable to endure the humiliation, the blood vessels in Cliff’s eyes burst.

“At the very least, my subordinates wouldn’t have been ambushed like this and died like dogs.”

“Is that your famous intuition?”

It was the first time I had met the captain of the Thorson Expedition in person, but it wasn’t that I didn’t know anything about him.

The possessor of an intuition that was said to always choose the answer closest to the truth.

The Thorson Expedition’s track record of repeated successes in ruin exploration, where failure was the norm, stemmed from his ability.

“Nothing would have changed.”

“……Ha! You got one hit in and now you’re looking down on me.”

It seemed all the leaders of the expedition, except for Cliff, were dead.

This would be the greatest failure he had experienced while leading the expedition.

Until now.

“An intuition that isn’t a prophecy can’t possibly choose the right answer every time.”

I knew the failure he was about to experience.

His intuition had a high hit rate, but it did not guarantee success unconditionally.

Due to just one failure, the Thorson Expedition would enter the process of dissolution.

“Whether you knew my name or not, you wouldn’t have expected the Mage Tower and the mounted bandits to join hands. Especially that a mere contractor could succeed in an attack so quickly.”

“……”

Unless one was a prophet, it was impossible to know the unknowable.

The limit of his vaunted intuition was, at best, just that.

“You should have known when to stop, but you got greedy beyond your station.”

He was a guy who would have died in the ruins anyway.

Even if I hadn’t intervened, the fact that Cliff would meet his doom in the end after being excessively greedy was the same.

“……As I thought.”

Cliff, who had been unable to hide his dismay, suddenly lit up his eyes.

“It seems the Mage Tower has also judged that there is a clue to transcendence in those ruins.”

He muttered a meaningful phrase.

“Transcendence? What does that mean?”

“Kh-khk, did the Mage Tower keep it a secret? You don’t need to know. It’s a secret of the world that the likes of a contractor will never know even if they live a lifetime.”

His sneer, steeped in a sense of superiority, was puzzling.

This request was, in fact, led by me.

It was a personal exploration that only the Tower Master and his disciple, Colin, were continuing in the first place.

There was nothing for the Mage Tower to hide about the secrets of the ruins.

In the first place, transcendence.

The word itself was ordinary, but I had never heard such a keyword in the game FP.

‘Is the reason Cliff tried to break through the ruins, even at the cost of sacrificing the Thorson Expedition, related to transcendence?’

It was possible that he had believed a groundless rumor, or that there was truly a tremendous secret hidden in the ruins.

Whatever the answer was, my actions did not change.

“I’ll just have to kill you and find out.”

That place was a druid’s ruin.

Whatever was in the ruins, it was all an arrangement for me.

(End of Chapter)