Chapter 75

Chapter 75

“This crown… It’s definitely the work of our dwarves!”

“So what? It’s completely ruined.”

“Sari! Who do you think I am? I am the Dwarven tribe’s all-around genius, Lord Oson Ironhammer!”

“Genius? Pfft. You can’t even ride a horse.”

“Heeh? You…! With just hot fire and a sturdy hammer, crafting a crown like this is no trouble at all! No? I’m confident I can make it even more beautiful and magnificent!”

Sari and Osun bickered loudly.

Dojae straightened his back and came to his senses.

“Waaah! Dojae! Dojae! Waaah!”

After squabbling for a while, Sari spotted Dojae and ran over to hug him.

She cried her eyes out, sniffling and sobbing uncontrollably.

“Sniff… Master…!”

Osun also sniffled and wiped away tears.

Dojae gently patted Sari’s back and gave Osun a faint smile.

“I’m fine.”

Dojae nodded his head and flexed his fingers.

The pain from moments ago was nowhere to be found, replaced by a refreshing feeling.

Not only that, but the mana within his body overflowed, and he could feel his strength had grown even greater than before.

“Are you really okay?”

Sari asked, her eyes glistening with tears.

Her eyes, sparkling in the sunlight, were as beautiful as black pearls.

Dojae looked at Sari with a gentle expression.

“Yeah, I’m really fine. In fact, I feel full of energy.”

As their eyes met, Sari jumped up abruptly.

She turned her head and roughly wiped her disheveled face.

“Thank goodness.”

Then she reached out her hand to Dojae.

Dojae took her hand and stood up from his seat.

“We completely wrecked it.”

Dojae looked around.

Piles of pure white bone mounds and dust scattered here and there, walls completely collapsed by the storm.

The fierce battle had reduced the palace, which had been relatively intact, to ruins.

“It’s an abandoned castle anyway. Dojae, you don’t need to worry about it.”

“That’s right! Didn’t our master wipe out every last monster?”

Sari and Osun showed concern for Dojae and offered encouragement.

Dojae felt a fresh wave of emotion at their expressions of concern.

He found it not entirely unpleasant to be trusted by a race other than humans.

“Where’d Old Man Tahul go?”

Come to think of it, Tahul was nowhere to be seen.

He wondered if he had left ahead of them, but the question was quickly answered.

“He’s coming!”

Sari pointed to a corner of the palace.

There, where the floor had caved in, was a staircase leading underground, and Tahul was just then climbing up those stairs.

“Human youth! Have you awakened?”

“Yes… But what on earth is that?”

Tahul grunted as he climbed up, carrying a heavy bundle.

Soon, Tahul discovered what was inside.

Thud.

“Kekek! Ugh, this is exhausting.”

As Tahul set the bundle down, a cloud of dust rose, revealing dozens of books.

“What are all those books?”

“Ah, these? Heh heh, I wonder if there’s a secret library hidden beneath this.”

“A secret library?”

“I suppose it’s because this was a nation that flourished through magic—they had things like that too.”

Dojae looked at the books Tahul had brought.

Their sizes and covers were all different.

“Is it okay to just take those like that?”

“Huh? Finders keepers. They’d just rot away down here anyway. Better for someone to take them than leave them to rot, right?”

“…I suppose you have a point.”

“Heh heh heh! Thanks to you, I get to see some fine magic! I picked out a few volumes to my taste, but if you go down there, you’ll find not just magic books, but many profound and mysterious ones too.”

Tahul pointed down the stairs.

Dojae felt his interest piqued.

Magic books were fascinating enough, but the idea that there were all sorts of other books too made his curiosity bubble up.

Especially for Dojae, who had been so interested in this field that he had read the complete ‘Monster Encyclopedia’ series multiple times, there was no reason not to go down to the secret library.

“Let’s go down and take a look.”

***

Whoosh-!

Bright light flooded the underground library.

Thanks to Tahul turning on Youngjin’s LED flashlight.

“Wow… I’ve never seen so many books before….”

Sari, who had entered the library, let out a string of exclamations.

Elves, being a long-lived race, tended to be less concerned with the value of books compared to humans.

“What material is this made of… Oh. Quite a well-drawn picture!”

Osun’s appreciation, however, was a little different.

He showed more interest in the book’s material and the cover art.

Dwarves were even more casual about books than elves, partly because their craftsmanship couldn’t be fully expressed in books.

Swish.

Dojae pulled a book from the shelf.

It was in surprisingly good condition, unimaginable for something that had been in a ruined city.

Though it was somewhat dusty, that dust had fallen as the entire palace shook from the battle Dojae had waged.

“The magic circle was destroyed, but this is a library where various methods were prepared to prevent the books from being damaged. The wisdom of the humans of the Magic Kingdom is truly remarkable.”

As Tahul said, it was a library equipped with devices to prevent the books from being damaged, despite being underground.

Being a secret library within the palace itself, its importance was undoubtedly immense, and it was a repository crafted with that level of dedication.

“Sari, what does it say here?”

Dojae opened a book and showed it to Sari.

But she shook her head.

“I don’t know either. It’s definitely not the common language, though.”

“Huh. Should the old man take a look?”

Tahul, who had been examining the books, approached and peered at the one Dojae had pulled out.

“It says ‘Magical Reflections on Mental Collapse and Pleasure,'”

“What kind of book title is that… But wait, you can read it?”

“Why would I have brought it if I couldn’t read it? This is the language of the Western Continent used by humans. I learned it long ago.”

Dojae methodically circled the library, examining the books.

They were all written in unrecognizable languages, but they were too valuable to simply leave behind.

“Everyone, come out.”

Dojae moved Sari, Osun, and Tahul toward the stairs.

Then he opened his pocket dimension and swallowed every bookshelf in the library at once.

“Wow! That’s amazing!”

Tahul clapped and cheered at the sight of the secret library, now an empty warehouse in an instant.

Even if Dojae couldn’t read them himself right away, didn’t he have such a great translator?

He could have Tahul read the contents or ask him to teach the language of the Western Continent.

“Come on, let’s go. There’s too much dust here.”

***

Dojae pulled out a book at a time from inside the carriage and showed it to Tahul.

“A method for constructing an air purification system using wind magic.”

“Hmm… And this one?”

“Religious meanings and historical representations of gods and demons.”

“…This is difficult. Let’s stop here for now and rest a bit.”

Dojae pulled out the thirtieth book and showed it to Tahul.

Checking each one individually took longer and was more tedious than expected, but it was the best method available for now.

“It says ‘Dynamic Mana Circulation Theory Regarding Non-Living Summoned Objects’.”

“Oh ho…”

At Tahul’s words, Dojae’s eyes flashed.

Finally, a plausible book had appeared.

A book that could be read immediately and prove useful.

When it says non-living summoned creatures, it must mean golem types, right?

Dojae opened the book and asked Tahul.

“Could you read it for me?”

“Huh? All of this?”

“Yes, you can read it all, or just summarize it for me.”

“Either way, it sounds like you’re telling this old man to read it all.”

“Haha, you were bored anyway during the carriage ride.”

“Eeeh….”

Tahul stared at the book for a long while.

Judging by its thickness, even if I read it all day, it would take several days.

He lifted his head and looked at Dojae.

The look in his eyes suggested he was determined to make him read it somehow.

“Wait and see.”

Tahul flung open the rear window of the carriage.

He had placed the books he’d brought from the secret library into the carriage trunk for the first time, and now he intended to retrieve them.

Then he stuck his head in and began rummaging around inside the trunk.

A moment later, he emerged holding a single volume.

“What is that book?”

“I need to concentrate now, so don’t touch it.”

Tahul quietly began reading the book.

Dojae tried to say something, but Tahul was completely absorbed in the book and had told him to wait, so he decided to just watch quietly for now.

***

“Whoa!”

Osun stopped the carriage.

Curious why the carriage had stopped when the sun hadn’t even set yet and no monsters had appeared, Dojae stepped outside.

“Ohson, what’s going on….”

Only when Dojae looked ahead did he understand why Osun had halted the carriage.

“Master, what should we do?”

There was no road ahead of the carriage.

Up until now, the road had been well-maintained, allowing them to follow it without trouble, but ahead, there was nothing that could be called a road.

The ground was uneven and overgrown with weeds.

The ground was too uneven for the carriage to travel.

“It’s unfortunate, but we’ll have to walk or ride horses.”

Dojae ordered Osun to unharness the horses and spoke to Tahul inside the carriage.

Knock knock.

“Sir, we’ll be walking from here on.”

“Huh? Walk?”

“The road is impassable for the carriage, so we’ll have to ride or walk.”

Tahul also got out of the carriage to check ahead.

Meanwhile, Dojae stowed the carriage away in his pocket dimension.

“Master, wouldn’t it be better to release the horses here?”

Osun said as he tidied the harness.

“As you can see over there, if we keep heading northeast, we’ll come to a massive mountain range. There are many rugged mountains too steep to cross on horseback. Since wild horses often come here to graze, I think it would be best to release them here and move on.”

Osun pointed to a circular patch of grazed grass ahead.

“Alright, let’s do that.”

Dojae nodded.

Although they’d only been traveling by carriage for three days, he reasoned that since they couldn’t store the horses in the pocket dimension, releasing them would be better for the animals.

“Once we cross the mountain range, another kingdom lies ahead. We can get new horses there to pull the carriage again.”

“Understood. Release the horses and come back.”

Osun led the horses away and disappeared in the distance.

Dojae pondered deeply.

‘If we just keep walking like this, we won’t be able to get the last leaf in time.’

If he were alone, it wouldn’t matter, but Sari, Osun, and Tahul moved at a pace significantly slower than Dojae’s.

Of course, they were incomparably faster than ordinary humans, but to Dojae, their pace was frustratingly slow.

‘If only there was a way to keep moving without resting, even if I didn’t run at full speed… Right, why didn’t I think of that?’

Dojae pulled the carriage out of his sub-space again.

He also pulled out the four golems.

“Everyone, get inside the carriage.”

After seating Sari and Tahul inside, Dojae commanded the golems.

“Lift the carriage.”

The golems approached the carriage and lifted it effortlessly.

‘That’ll do.’

Dojae nodded, then began removing the carriage’s wheels.

The structure was simple, so he could remove one wheel without much difficulty.

“Ohson, remove that wheel over there.”

He instructed Oson, who had returned after untying the horses, to remove the wheel on the opposite side.

Once all four wheels were removed, only the bare carriage frame remained.

“Alright, grab the corners!”

Dojae positioned the golems where the wheels had been and had them lift it again.

“Quickly turn it around once, keeping the carriage as steady as possible.”

At Dojae’s command, the golems began to move.

The four of them moved their arms in perfect, coordinated rhythm to prevent the carriage from jolting, completing a full rotation.

“How’s that, Sari? What do you think, old man?”

“Comfortable! Hardly any shaking at all!”

“Better than horses.”

Dojae grinned.

Thus, the problem of transportation was solved.

The carriage—no, the golem carriage—could now move faster than before.