“Chinese characters... no, more precisely, it looks like Chinese.”

...Chinese.

“Hm. Then this must be foreign land close to your country, my lord?”

“Yes. I didn’t learn it properly, so I might not be accurate, but... I think it says Qingdao.”

Qingdao?

It was a city I’d heard of.

“Let’s see.”

At that, I pulled out the map I’d been carrying, frowning as I checked it.

“...It’s hundreds of kilometers west of the Korean Peninsula.”

What we’d learned, in the end, was this:

This wasn’t Gangwon Province or Seoul.

...Beyond that, it wasn’t even the country I’d been in.

“...That spatial movement thing—can it really move you this far?”

Why we were here was obvious.

The spare body that doctor had made.

And the spatial movement embedded in that body—

the power to cross space that the monster called the [Wandering Clown] used.

As a result of that spare body going berserk, we got caught up in that power and dragged along.

{...Back when I was handling that body, it wouldn’t have been possible.}

“Then what is this situation?”

The power to cross space itself was incredible, but with that power, the Wandering Clown’s limit had been hopping tens of meters at best.

That doctor could make a much larger hole, but the distance itself didn’t seem that long.

But now.

We’d flown at least hundreds of kilometers.

{It’s because the one controlling that body now isn’t me.}

“...?”

{Didn’t I tell you? I recognized that body as nothing more than a tool. But the mind newly born inside that body will be recognizing that body as its own. It may be only natural that its ability to use the body is superior.}

“Superior enough to move this far?”

{It wouldn’t have been easy even for that body. Most of the tremendous mana embedded in it likely burned away, and the mana circuits would have suffered major permanent damage as well. This is truly... a distance you could only call ‘possible in theory.’}

Come to think of it, based on what I heard through communication with the unit members, that monster was rampaging like crazy inside Seoul, but it also looked like it was gradually being pushed back in fights with the monsters scattered throughout Seoul.

‘Considering the power it showed, it’s hard to imagine it being pushed back.’

Just like it said, it must have burned enormous mana on that.

The fact it wasted that mana flinging us this far away was ridiculous, if anything.

‘...Now that I think about it, even that barrier blocking regional borders could be crossed as long as you endured the opening.’

If you jumped space like this, you could move to another region before the barrier even opened.

It wouldn’t be easy—since the ability to leap space itself was absurd—

but.

“Is there no way to get back?”

{There is.}

At my question, the doctor pointed to one spot.

{Fortunately, the sense for handling that hole still remained in me.}

What was there was not the black hole I’d seen before, but a hole that had turned a rippling ashen gray, like it had gone slack.

{The authority to create holes itself came from Lopol’s hide. Now that I’ve lost that hide, I can’t create that hole—but... manipulating a hole that already exists seems to be possible.}

“So that’s why it looks like that right now.”

{I can’t do anything else, but I arranged it so that returning to where we originally were through that hole itself is possible. But if there’s a problem...}

“A problem?”

{Mana.}

We’d come from a place at least hundreds of kilometers away.

When we fought the body Luca made, I felt that power was at least comparable to a “dark blue” class monster.

Not only the strongest power among any monster I’d met so far, but a presence that even carried abnormal, out-of-spec mana.

And it said that even such an existence could only move us this far after suffering major permanent damage to its mana circuits, and only after spending all the mana it had.

In other words—

{I left the hole behind, but to go back, we’ll need mana comparable to what it took to come here.}

“Hm.”

{It’s hard to say it myself, but that body had dozens of mana holes so large it was absurd. It held an incredible amount of mana. We’ll need at least an amount equal to what that body had.}

Meaning:

A way back to Korea existed, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Well, we’ll just have to make it work.”

{I’m sorry. I wish I could have maintained the mana inside that hole as well...}

“What are you apologizing for? Thanks to you, we have a way to escape. Thanks.”

At my words, it spoke with a hesitant air.

{Is it something you can thank me for?}

“Hm?”

{In the end, we came here because I lost control of that body. You and everyone with you got caught up in my mistake. What I did was no more than barely cleaning up that mistake...}

“What are you talking about.”

I understood what it was trying to say, more or less, but I just shrugged and answered lightly.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? There’s a different soul born inside that body now.”

{That’s true, but...}

“Then that isn’t something you did. ...Just like lying to you wasn’t something your god did, either.”

{...Is that so.}

“You set up a way out for us when we almost could’ve been trapped here forever. You did well.”

When I praised it honestly, it lowered its head like it felt awkward.

“Then what will you do, my lord?”

Ariella stepped up beside me and asked.

Right.

Now that we were already here, picking apart the reason didn’t matter.

What mattered was—

‘What do we do next.’

***

Where we were now wasn’t Korea.

We’d confirmed it was China.

A land far from Gangwon Province, where the Legion’s base was—and even a different country.

‘We were planning to expand overseas someday, but not this soon.’

I’d thought there was a good chance we’d go abroad someday, but getting separated like this from the Legion’s main force wasn’t something I’d expected.

‘It’s too dangerous.’

By now, I had strength that made me unlikely to feel threatened by ordinary monsters, and I had unit members, and Ariella still had retainers.

But—

‘Without a stable base here, we have no idea what kind of situation we’ll get thrown into.’

To put it bluntly:

No matter how strong Ariella’s force was, her retainers had a clear limit.

Right now, it was fortunately night, so Ariella seemed able to move around—

but once day came, you’d have to treat her strength as nonexistent.

And the unit members were people specialized in infiltration, not pitched battles.

If we ended up clashing with a monster group stronger than we expected during the daytime...

We wouldn’t go down easily, but the chance we’d take heavy losses was very high.

In that case—

“First, we secure a way back.”

The one fortunate thing was that it wasn’t true that there was no way back.

“If it’s like that kid said, the mana needed to return will be enormous.”

But.

Even that wasn’t free of problems.

“Even if you pool your mana and your retainers’ mana, it’d be hard?”

“I want to tell you it’s possible, but... mm. It’ll probably be hard. I never had that much mana to begin with. And we lost a lot of retainers in this battle... so we’re in an even weaker state.”

Ariella and her retainers were certainly strong, but they weren’t monsters specialized in sheer mana reserves.

‘Mountain would be hard, too.’

Mountain had fought the most intense battle against Luca.

Right now, it was replenishing the cold it had lost inside the [Shadow Veil].

But the power it stole was pure cold.

It was power far removed from mana.

‘And the royal guard are all specialized for covert operations, too.’

They could hide mana better than any mages, but their absolute mana reserves were, if anything, on the low side for Awakened.

“...Tch. If this were Gangwon Province, it wouldn’t even be something to worry about.”

Just going into the gate that opened underground in Bimana and coming back out would’ve been enough.

No matter how immense the mana inside that body was, compared to the mana accumulated over long years in that underground mine, it would be no more than a grain of sand in the desert.

Even if not—

if I gathered all the unit’s mages and inflated that mana as much as possible with my cooking, we might have been able to barely meet the conditions somehow.

But not now.

‘There’s a way... but...’

In fact, there was one single way to return immediately without even agonizing over this.

[Borjin]

The fragments of power it had given me.

If I used that, activating that portal would be nothing.

But—

‘Borjin has to be conserved.’

A power with a limited number of uses.

If it turned out there was absolutely no other way to escape, it would be worth considering—

but for now, searching for other methods came first.

“Securing enough mana to return, huh...”

I frowned and looked at Luca.

“How are we supposed to secure that mana?”

{An object containing tremendous mana would work, or capturing a living being with strong mana would be good as well.}

At that, with a cautious thought, I pulled something out of my hardtack pouch.

[A very high-purity mana stone]

“You mean something like this?”

{A mana stone of such high purity...? You were carrying something precious. With this much mana, it should help, at least.}

A mana stone mined in the underground mine.

It was something issued to every unit member, one each, in case of emergency.

The problem was—

“...Maybe I should’ve carried more.”

Each unit member had one mana stone.

Even adding up all the unit members here, that was 100 stones.

And even then, I had the highest-purity stone because I was the Legion commander, while the stones the unit members carried were lower purity than mine.

“Anyway, it’s simple, then. We gather as many mana-containing objects like these mana stones as possible, or monsters with mana.”

And then.

If that was the case—

“Jeong Sua!”

“Yes.”

“Find a large city area nearby.”

Monsters mainly showed up where there were a lot of people.

And if we needed to find monsters carrying things like mana stones, we’d have to go where they were.

“What do we do after that?”

“First, collect mana as fast as possible. And then...”

Our goal was:

first, to establish a way to leave this place.

‘Getting flung here suddenly is definitely shocking, but...’

But that wasn’t all.

‘It’s not all downside.’

This was China.

A foreign country we’d wanted ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) to visit someday.

We’d come sooner than planned, but—

“Check the situation in another country.”

It was also an opportunity to see what state other countries outside Korea were in—

something we’d been curious about for so long.

***

“A relatively nearby city with decent size is visible.”

Eyes shining with watery light.

Jeong Sua, activating [Spirit Eye], stared into the air as she spoke.

“...It’s too dark since it’s night, so I can’t confirm the inside of the city with my own eyes, but... there are a lot of presences moving around nearby. Probably...”

“Monsters entrenched in the city.”

Unfortunately, the current time was deep into the night.

With [Spirit Eye], it was possible to grasp the area through spirits’ vision, but without a light source, it was impossible to see inside with the naked eye.

Meaning we couldn’t make out exactly what kinds of monsters were there, which was a bit of a shame, but—

‘Night isn’t bad for us, either.’

Night meant, in other words, it was also the time Ariella and her retainers could operate.

“First, we move close to that city, then make a temporary base somewhere relatively safe.”

“Yes.”

“After that, hunt monsters and capture them alive, or gather any objects that could be mana sources. If we can understand this country’s situation, that would be good, but... investigating that far could be dangerous. Put it lower priority.”

Normally, setting up near a monster-filled city would be suicide.

But thankfully—if you could call it that—

the unit members here were specialized in covert operations and reconnaissance.

Not only could they detect enemy intrusion quickly, but infiltrating the city, stealing mana-scented objects, or ambushing monsters to capture them alive—those were their specialties.

It would take time, but there shouldn’t be much problem with securing mana sources little by little.

And so, after treatment for the injured unit members had wrapped up to some extent, we began moving right away.

‘If we’re going to move somewhere and build a temporary base, moving at night—when we can use Ariella’s strength—is the safest option.’

We needed to secure a base while we still had time to use her retainers, so we could keep safety even when we couldn’t use them.

And then.

While we were moving toward that nearby city...

{Legion Commander.}

Someone came up to me and spoke.

The doctor who’d agreed to join our unit.

{I have something to say.}

It was Luca.