Chapter 111: 59.1

Chapter 59.1: The Desert (1)

No matter how you looked at it, a cloak bristling with fur stood out in a sweltering desert.

But the solution to this was simple. Among the various enchantments built into it, the Cloak of Darkness also had a simple transfiguration enchantment. It was only at the level of removing the fur and reducing its thickness, but that alone was enough. In this Nahama desert, where sandstorms blew constantly and the temperature dropped to below freezing at night, there were many travelers who wore such clothes.

‘Although it would reduce its dignity.’

But this wasn’t Eugene’s opinion. Melkith El-Haya, the original owner of this cloak, had informed him about the transfiguration enchantment while adding these words at the end.

Naturally, Eugene didn’t care in the slightest about reducing the cloak’s dignity.

“Aroth and Kiehl really are first-world countries,” Eugene muttered to himself as he brushed the sand out of his hair.

The reason Aroth was called the Magic Kingdom wasn’t just because of the Five Towers of Magic and all the wizards congregating in that country. It was also because everyone in the country was extremely familiar with the use of magic.

Aroth used magic for all kinds of things. From the floating stations and flying carriages soaring through the sky to the magically created street lamps that illuminated the ground below. Except for Helmuth, Aroth was the only country that was integrated with magic to this level.

No other country was as familiar with magic as Aroth. This fact stood out most strongly in the matter of warp gates. It may have been difficult to make all of those warp gates that connected the sprawling streets of Aroth, but maintaining them was even more challenging.

Since Aroth was chock-full of excellent wizards, it was possible for them to maintain these hundreds of warp gates, but other countries weren’t able to do the same.

Honestly speaking, even if they could, they wouldn’t do it. Although warp gates were convenient, their installation came with several risks. Even in modern times, dozens of people died each year, disappeared, or lost their minds due to warp failure.

Here, for example, there weren't that many warp gates in his current location of the Desert Kingdom Nahama. The few warp gates that existed were reserved for the country’s high-ranking nobles, and foreigners were not permitted to use them.

Of course, if he used the Lionheart name, it was possible for Eugene to get permission to use these warp gates. However, since not only his master, Lovellian, but even the Blue Tower Master had advised him against it, Eugene had no intention of revealing his family name any time soon.

“Ptew.”

Eugene spat out the sand stuck to his lips and inserted his hand into his cloak. He pulled out two pieces of paper from among the various things stored within the cloak.

One of them was a map of all the restaurants that specialized in serving cactus scorpions that Hera had hurriedly prepared for Eugene when she had heard that he was going to Nahama to sample the cactus scorpions.

Although Eugene felt grateful for this, it was useless to him. Because he hadn’t come here to this swelteringly-hot, constantly-sandy desert just to do something like eating some scorpions. Still, as he felt grateful for her kindness, Eugene couldn’t just throw it away.

The other piece of paper was a map of Nahama that he had received from Lovellian. It wasn’t just any ordinary map. It was a magical map that had been linked to the spatial coordinates of wherever Eugene was standing, allowing him to know precisely where in the world he was.

Currently, Eugene was in the western end of Nahama. If he went quite a ways north from here, he would eventually arrive in Turas.

Usually, if he was hoping to look for his lost tomb, Eugene should have sought entry into the borders of Turas to visit his hometown. However, there was no longer any need for that.

Three hundred years was a very long time. The Nahama Desert was gradually expanding its territory during this time. About once every few decades, horrendous sandstorms appeared here sporadically, advancing unnaturally and engulfing the lands beyond the desert.

After three hundred years of this, Hamel’s hometown, the village in the frontier region of Turas, had already become part of the desert.

Turas was just a small kingdom. They had no choice but to retreat in the face of these calamitous sandstorms and the desertification of the land, so these desert expansions inevitably became new territory for Nahama.

‘I guess that’s one way of conquering another country,’ Eugene mused.

And with this method, there was no real need to go to war.

Only an idiot would be ignorant of the fact that humans were behind the desertification caused by these sandstorms. The ones responsible for these sandstorms weren’t as infamous as the black wizards, but even three hundred years ago, they were already fairly notorious.

In the era when the Demon Kings were gathering their power, the demonic beasts were being spread throughout the world, and the monsters were being driven mad. Some countries gathered their troops to face the Demon Kings, while other countries gathered their troops to take advantage of the opportunities left by this chaos.

Nahama was one of the latter. They took advantage of the war and stationed their troops on their border with the Kiehl Empire. If Vermouth hadn’t come to Kiehl, Nahama would have been able to invade Kiehl and ascend into the ranks of empires.

Nahama was a country that Eugene hadn’t particularly liked even in his previous life, but even after three hundred years had passed, his impression of them hadn’t improved in the slightest. This wasn’t because he had lost his hometown to them, however. On the contrary, he even felt a little grateful to Nahama for this.

Thanks to that, Eugene had no need to try and cross the borders into two countries.

* * *

There were a few things bothering Eugene.

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The first was the desert. The heat was no big deal, but the non-stop gusts of sand felt like shit.

Fortunately, Eugene’s situation wasn’t too bad, thanks to the Storm Sword Wynnyd. Using the sword, Eugene was able to summon wind spirits who helped him shed all of this sand without having to take a bath.

However, the gusts of sand weren’t the only problem in this desert. The desert was both vast and barren. No matter where you turned to look, there was only sand. After passing by the warp gate on the western border, he hadn’t seen a single village, let alone a city.

This didn’t really matter that much. He already had a map that would keep him from losing his way even in this vast desert, and he had plenty of food and water packed in his cloak.

As for the lack of shelter? Well, that certainly might be a difficult challenge for a young master of the prestigious Lionheart clan who had grown up in the lap of luxury; but for Hamel, who had been forced to live the life of a wanderer from a young age, he was already used to it. So even though the desert was cold as hell at night, when he lay down covered by the Cloak of Darkness, Eugene was actually put into a cheerful mood as he recalled the good old days.

‘It’s nice to be able to see the stars so clearly,’ Eugene thought positively.

Wrapped up in his cloak, Eugene stared up at the night sky. Although the night skies of Kiehl and Aroth were also quite beautiful, they couldn’t compare to the sky of a desert without a single source of illumination.

If it weren’t for those bastards hovering in the distance, he would have been in an even better mood to appreciate the night sky than he was now.

‘How many days has it been?’ Eugene wondered.

It was about four days after he had passed through the final city’s western gate.

Usually, when crossing a desert, normal people would never think of doing it alone. At the gate, which all foreigners needed to go through in order to leave the city, there were a lot of travelers looking for companions to cross the desert together. That way, they could cooperate with each other, or even form a temporary caravan. They could also collectively hire guides and escorts familiar with the desert.

These were some of the safest ways to cross the desert, but Eugene didn't choose any of them. Instead, he decided to just cross the desert all by himself, and that was literally what he did. Without even riding a camel, he set out to cross the desert by relying solely on his own body. This was because Eugene had judged that walking on his own two feet would actually be faster than riding a camel.

Back to the present, Eugene thought to himself, ‘Are they really thieves?’

That had been his first suspicion. But for thieves, their behavior was strange. They had been following behind Eugene since two days ago, but instead of attacking him to steal his belongings, they had just kept following Eugene’s trail while maintaining a long distance between him and them.

‘Identity cards are convenient, but at times like this, they sure are a fucking pain.’

Three hundred years ago, fake IDs were common. As long as you handed the guards a few pennies along with an identity badge you picked up from somewhere, you could easily pass through any gate you liked. However, in this day and age, since it was common for identification cards to be linked with your blood, it wasn’t so easy to forge one’s identity.

Since it was so hard, and things would just get annoying if he got caught, Eugene had decided to forego such an attempt.

‘So who are they?’

Eugene had had no choice but to present his real ID at the city gate. He had also given quite a bit of money to the person in charge who had been on the verge of making a fuss about it. Eugene had thought that he’d managed to convince the guy with his threats and bribery to just keep quiet and let him through, but it looked like that damn bastard had just pocketed his money and then reported it to his superiors.

That was probably why he now had a tail. Being a member of a prestigious family wasn’t always a convenience.

With a click of his tongue, Eugene took out his map. For the past four days since he had left Kajitan, he had moved quite quickly. This body of his didn’t tire easily, and his mana was also up to snuff. Thanks to that, he was able to move faster than he would have while riding a camel. If he kept up this pace, Eugene would arrive at his past life’s hometown in three days at the very latest.

But he had no intention of dragging this troublesome tail home with him.

Eugene had left them alone for the past two days to better check their intentions, but since these guys were keeping quiet, it looked like he would need to make them speak up, even if that meant using force.

Openbookworm's Thoughts

Even in modern times, dozens of people died each year, disappeared, or lost their minds due to warp failure.

OBW: This sounds scary, but then you remember how many people die due to car accidents each year, or even from airplanes.

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