CHAPTER 74

Bellium’s Tear

✦ ✦ ✦

The task was straightforward: clear out the remaining monsters that had fled into the woods yesterday while safely escorting Adil, the caretaker of Lord Bellium’s statue, back behind Elysium’s walls.

Upon learning about the mission, I immediately told Estelle I wanted to join the search party.

“You want to come with us, Mr. Minjun?” Estelle gasped, her big eyes widening in pure surprise.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Wouldn’t having an extra set of hands make things safer and faster?”

“But… you must be exhausted! You spent all night drinking—you really don’t need to force yourself on our account.”

Estelle voiced her worries, pointing out that I couldn’t possibly be in top shape after last night’s festivities.

“I’m fine, really. I genuinely want to help.”

After everything that had happened, I felt a deep, warm bond forming with the people of Elysium. I wanted to pull my weight. But beyond my desire to help, I had another personal reason for joining.

I wanted to see if that mysterious strand of light would manifest again today. On top of that, it was a great chance to gain valuable real-combat experience.

Besides, it was just a simple escort and cleanup job—it didn’t sound particularly dangerous.

Seeing my unwavering determination, Estelle finally relented with a soft smile.

“Alright… We’d certainly be honored to have you, Mr. Minjun. I’ll take you to the escort team right now. Just promise me you won’t overexert yourself out there.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

After finishing our meal, I followed Estelle toward the main city gate where the escort squad was gathering.

The moment we arrived, the waiting warriors recognized me and called out enthusiastically.

“Hey there!”

“Hello! Judging by those unique clothes, you must be our visitor from another world!”

“You were an absolute legend on the battlements yesterday!”

I had only been in Elysium for a single day, yet yesterday’s fight had clearly made my face famous among the guard.

“I wanted to thank you properly for saving the lower district, but things were so chaotic,” one soldier said warmly. “Thank you for everything yesterday.”

“Please, it was nothing.”

“By the way, what brings you out to the gate?” asked an elf mage who appeared to be the squad leader.

Estelle stepped forward and answered on my behalf. “Mr. Minjun volunteered to join the escort team for Adil.”

The elf mage raised an eyebrow. “You were practically flying across the battlefield yesterday. Aren’t you exhausted?”

“Exactly,” a nearby swordsman chimed in. “Mr. Minjun, we have plenty of swords for this run. Why don’t you stay in the city, rest up, and enjoy the sights?”

Their concern was sweet, but my mind was made up.

“I specifically asked Estelle to let me come,” I explained with a polite smile. “I have important questions I need to ask Adil about the statue. The sooner I can talk to him, the better, so I’d like to meet him as quickly as possible.”

The elf mage chuckled softly and gave an approving nod. “In that case, we’d be fools to turn down an extra hero!”

“Thank you for having me.”

“Not at all. Looks like we’ll be leaning on your strength again. We’re moving out in five minutes, so please gear up!”

I reached into my spatial storage ring, summoned my gear, and strapped everything on in seconds. Once everyone was ready, we stepped through the heavy wooden gates and ventured into the forest outside Elysium.

Since I hadn’t stepped foot outside the fortress during yesterday’s siege, this was my first real look at the outer walls. Up close, the ancient stone fortifications surrounding Elysium were colossal, built to withstand centuries of dragon fire.

However, something else immediately caught my eye.

Scattered all along the forest path leading to our rendezvous point were unrecovered monster carcasses.

“Didn’t the cleanup crew finish clearing the area yesterday?” I asked, stepping over the scorched tail of a lesser wyvern.

Max, a human swordsman walking beside me, let out a heavy sigh. “We couldn’t clear everything. Yesterday’s priority was burning the massive wyvern corpses before they rotted and spread disease. We had too many wounded soldiers and simply didn’t have the hands for the smaller beasts.”

“That makes sense,” I nodded. “Yesterday was the first time in my life I’ve ever seen that many monsters crammed into one place.”

Even remembering the chaotic sky was enough to send a slight shiver down my spine. I doubted any Gate on Earth could pour out a horde of that size.

“Once we sweep up the stragglers today, the main garrison will finish burning the rest of the bodies,” Max added.

“I see.”

“Oh! I don’t know if anyone mentioned this to you yet,” Max grinned, tapping his chin, “but a fair chunk of the bounty money from processing these monster corpses will automatically be credited to you, Mr. Minjun. There are so many bodies that calculated payouts might take a few days, though.”

I blinked in surprise. With everything going on, I hadn’t given a single thought to monster bounties.

A substantial payday sounded pretty sweet. I had put on the performance of a lifetime yesterday, so the reward was bound to be impressive.

“Well, that’s great news!” I chuckled, feeling a renewed surge of energy. “I’m definitely motivated now. By the way, I never caught any of your names.”

“I’m Araven,” the elf mage leader introduced himself. One by one, the rest of the six-man squad introduced themselves as we trekked deeper into the woods.

“So, Araven,” I asked, looking up at the dense canopy, “how far is Adil’s rendezvous point?”

Araven pulled a silver pocket watch from his vest and checked the hands. “At our current pace, just over an hour.”

“Good. I really need to speak with him.”

If Adil truly knew more about Elysium’s history and Lord Bellium’s statue than anyone else, I had a mountain of questions waiting for him.

We continued down the shadowed dirt road, chatting casually about life in Elysium. But as time ticked by, a subtle, prickly feeling began crawling up the back of my neck.

“…Is it just me, or does something feel horribly wrong?” I muttered, coming to a sudden halt.

Araven stopped and turned to me. “Wrong? What do you mean?”

“You said the monsters that escaped yesterday were hiding along this specific trail… but we haven’t seen a single living beast.”

We had passed dozens of rotting corpses, yet strangely, not a single living monster had crossed our path during the entire hour-long hike. In a forest supposed to be crawling with terrified, fleeing stragglers, the silence was unnatural.

“They might have fled deeper into the thickets,” Max reasoned, though he looked around uneasily. “Or… maybe they got spooked and ran miles away.”

“Maybe,” Araven agreed slowly. “Once we secure Adil, we can decide if a full forest sweep is necessary.”

The others tried to brush it off, but I could tell they felt the unsettling shift in the atmosphere too.

The forest was dead silent—no birds chirping, no wind rustling the leaves, no insects buzzing.

Furthermore, looking closely at the muddy ground, there were far too few monster tracks leading deeper into the woods. It didn’t add up.

Where the hell did hundreds of monsters vanish to?

An icy chill pooled in my stomach as we pressed onward. Moments later, my dreadful intuition was proven horribly right.

“Adil…?!” Araven gasped, snapping his hand to his staff.

Up ahead in a small clearing, a lizard beastfolk was on his knees, his entire body tightly bound in thick rope and his mouth gagged.

Standing right behind the helpless scholar was a towering figure completely draped in a pitch-black cloak, radiating a suffocating, unnatural aura.

✦ ✦ ✦

Adil was a lizard beastfolk, Elysium’s premier historian, and the official caretaker of Lord Bellium’s statue.

He had temporarily left the safety of the city under the guise of ‘personal business.’ However, that cover story was strictly for the general public.

The elders and those in power knew the truth: Adil had left on a covert mission to retrieve a legendary artifact known as Bellium’s Tear, which had been lost to the city centuries ago.

Recently, Adil had received a credible tip regarding its whereabouts and set out to recover it. Because it was an irreplaceable treasure, many suggested sending an elite guard with him. Unfortunately, manpower shortages prior to the wyvern attack made an escort impossible at the time.

Luckily, after securing the relic, the city’s defense situation stabilized, allowing the elders to send an escort team out to guide him home safely.

Adil had successfully recovered the relic and was patiently awaiting his escort in the woods.

Tragically, before the city guard could reach him, a dark spellcaster ambushed him.

At first, Adil assumed the intruder wanted to steal the priceless Bellium’s Tear. But the intruder’s true goal was far more twisted.

What he really wanted was Lord Bellium’s physical remains.

The man was a powerful necromancer who had spent decades obsessing over the idea of unearthing Bellium’s dragon skeleton to create the ultimate undead calamity. Learning that the caretaker of the statue was out in the open, he had struck without mercy.

Which brought the situation to its current, tense standoff.

“Who the hell are you?!” Araven hissed, raising his staff as the squad drew their weapons.

“As you can plainly see,” the cloaked man sneered from beneath his hood, his voice sounding like grinding stones, “I am a kidnapper with a rather valuable hostage.”

“You’re remarkably arrogant for a pathetic bandit,” Araven snarled, his eyes narrowing. “Why did you kidnap Adil?!”

The necromancer’s crazed, sunken eyes swept over Minjun and the escort team before splitting into a dark, sickening grin.

“For Bellium’s bones.”

“How dare you speak that sacred name with your filthy mouth!”

The entire escort squad erupted in white-hot rage.

Lord Bellium’s remains were no ordinary historical relic. To every single citizen of Elysium, the dragon founder’s bones were the most sacred, holy object in existence. Even Bellium’s Tear paled in comparison to the spiritual importance of the founder’s skeleton.

“I believe I could conduct some truly fascinating research with a piece of Bellium’s spine,” the necromancer cackled maliciously.

“You foul bastard… You’re a Necromancer!”

“I would love nothing more than to drag his entire dragon skeleton out of the city vault and reanimate it,” the necromancer continued, ignoring their fury. “But that seems a bit impractical right now. So, I will be generous and compromise. Bring me just one piece of Bellium’s remains. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee the safety of this precious relic… or this pathetic lizard’s life.”

He arrogantly crooked a pale, decayed finger at them.

Adil, despite being gagged and bound, glared at the cloaked monster with eyes burning with pure hatred. Surrendering a piece of their dragon founder was a blasphemy no citizen of Elysium would ever consider.

“Adil, hold on just a little longer!” Max shouted. “We’re going to get you out of there!”

“Mmph! Mmmph!” Adil thrashed wildly, desperately trying to scream something through his gag, his eyes wide with frantic warning.

“You truly think you can save him?” the necromancer chuckled darkly.

With a single flick of his bone-adorned wrist, the ground beneath the forest floor began to violently quake.

CRACK! RUMBLE!

Dozens… then hundreds of decayed, skeletal hands burst through the dirt. An army of undead monsters crept out from the shadows, surrounding the clearing in a tight ring.

Max’s eyes went wide with shock. “Don’t tell me the reason we didn’t run into any monsters on the way here was…”

“Bingo,” the necromancer snickered. “I happened to need quick material for my vanguard. I hunted down every last beast that fled your pathetic city yesterday and raised them to serve me.”

In less than twenty-four hours, he had slaughtered hundreds of fleeing monsters and reanimated every single corpse. His arrogance wasn’t baseless—he was a high-tier master of black magic.

“So,” Araven spat, though sweat was dripping down his temple, “that rotten attitude of yours actually has some power behind it.”

“It’s not a rotten attitude, elf. It’s called absolute dominance.”

Seeing the sheer size of the undead horde encircling them, an oppressive weight settled onto the squad’s shoulders. This monster was a nightmare opponent.

“This is your final warning,” the necromancer hissed, reaching into his robes. “Offer me a fragment of Bellium’s remains, or I will turn every last one of you into hollow corpses and force you to butcher your own families behind Elysium’s walls.”

To taunt them further, he pulled out a shimmering, tear-shaped blue gem—Bellium’s Tear—and mockingly waved it in the air. His twisted smirk practically invited them to try and take it.

“You think we won’t?!”

Levi, a rabbit beastfolk warrior at the front, lost his temper completely. Fueled by rage, he burst forward with insane speed, his blade flashing toward the necromancer’s neck.

SWISH!

Before Levi could close half the distance, a jagged spike of blackened bone shot out from the shadow beneath the necromancer, piercing straight through Levi’s chest.

PFT!

“Ghk—!” Levi choked, coughing up a spray of crimson before collapsing motionless onto the dirt, blood pooling around his body.

“L-Levi!”

“I didn’t even see an incantation… How?!”

The necromancer looked down at the fallen warrior with utter disgust. “To charge forward with such pathetic strength… You don’t even deserve the right to be angry.”

An overwhelming, suffocating pressure washed over the remaining guards. The sheer gap in power filled them with a paralyzing terror, freezing their muscles in place.

Only one person in the clearing reacted differently.

Minjun.

Strange… Minjun thought, staring at the necromancer.

He could clearly feel the oppressive, terrifying aura the necromancer was projecting. Yet, instead of fear, an unexplainable, surging confidence began filling his heart.

I can win this.

At the same time, his chest began pounding violently, his dragon-imbued blood roaring through his veins like a tidal wave.

Is that Aura blessing me again like yesterday…?

Thinking the thread of light had returned, Minjun quickly glanced behind him toward the direction of the city.

Nothing. The shimmering light he had seen yesterday was nowhere to be found.

Then what is this feeling…?

Before he could process the thought, Minjun’s eyes were naturally drawn toward the glowing gem in the necromancer’s hand.

Driven by an irresistible, primal instinct, Minjun involuntarily raised his right hand toward Bellium’s Tear.

BUZZ!

Suddenly, the blue gem in the necromancer’s grip vibrated violently!

“W-What?!” the necromancer gasped, his smirk instantly shattering into confusion.

Before the dark mage could react, Bellium’s Tear tore itself free from his hand!

“Stop it! Seize it!” the necromancer shrieked, commanding his undead guard.

Three massive skeletal warriors jumped to intercept the flying gem. But the moment Bellium’s Tear touched them, a pulse of radiant, divine force exploded, shredding the skeletal beasts into dust like paper in a hurricane.

Drawn by an invisible, unbreakable magnetic force, the ancient tear-shaped gem flew straight into Minjun’s chest.

FLASH!

The second Bellium’s Tear made contact with Minjun’s body, it melted into a blinding burst of azure light, sinking directly into his heart as if it had finally returned home.