Chapter 351

I briefly finished the prayer and opened my eyes, however, my mind didn’t settle. It was the same for everyone standing around. We had prayed for now, but our faces were half-doubting.

Actually, it was understandable. We weren’t holding a proper ceremony, and merely suggesting we do the exact same thing just because we had a bizarre experience once before sounded like fairly crazy talk.

No, thinking about it now, the fact that everyone was startled and followed along just from seeing the axe fall once seemed bizarre in itself.

Originally, the pilgrimage route wasn’t a difficult path in the slightest.

The Saturn Desert was an area with a Mana concentration of at most 20mp to 40mp. The monsters wandering the desert were stronger than those in the Dunmel Canyon, but they weren’t formidable opponents for us.

Wasn’t it said from the beginning that the Sword Masters of the White Lion Mercenary Group easily traveled this path along with civilians?

However, after killing the Sandworm, meeting a god, and even seeing Jiangshis, half my mind slipped away. Anxieties about whether it was right for this strange calling to continue, whether the one looking for us was a good god or an evil god, and what to do if it was something other than a god, filled the silence heavily.

Who could have predicted such a thing?

It is useless to regret past events now.

Leon, who was rubbing the axe blade with a rough cloth scrape, scrape to wipe off the dirt, grumbled.

“If I had known this would happen, I should have tried a few more times next to the First Goddess back then.”

“…Mm.”

“It would have been nice if the Oasis god had wisely solved everything…”

Then Benjamin, who had been silent all along, abruptly interjected.

“I liked it more that the god was sloppy.”

“Because it’s more fun that way?”

“No, it’s that… I don’t like my future path being already decided by someone.”

“That is also… Stating it like that makes it seem not so good…”

“Right?”

How good could it be to just walk every day rummaging through an unknown future.

I knew well that life was always like that, but for my part, I greatly missed the days when I peacefully and faithfully mapped out each day according to the academy schedule.

As the trivial talk dragged on, Hugh Benson waved his hand to stop the chattering guys.

“Well, anyway, that’s in the past. So, this time, what does East mean and what does West mean?”

Leon answered like declaring without an inch of hesitation.

“If it’s East this time too, we return to Owen, and if it’s West, we go look for divine relics.”

“What about the holy site?”

“Somehow it feels like a path to our graves.”

A small chuckle burst out at the half-serious, half-joking words. His tone and gestures were exceedingly pleasant, but how could his insides be just fine. The attitude of passing off hard times with laughter filled my heart fittingly.

Leon deliberately leveled the floor flat with a reverent attitude as before and planted the axe upside down. After taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, Leon carefully let go of the axe handle with exactly the same attitude as before.

And thud, the axe tilted to the south. Everyone blankly stared at the shape embedded diagonally along the axe blade. Marianne looked at the sky, looked at the axe, calculated the directions again, and asked.

“Is this side the direction of the holy site of the Sun this time?”

“Uh-huh… Yes.”

Then Benjamin, who had been watching with his arms crossed, suddenly raised his hand.

“Perchance, may I try?”

“Pardon?”

“If you don’t mind me touching Leon’s… weapon…”

“Ah, ah. Of course. It is fine for you to try, Sir Claudian.”

Benjamin slurred the end of his words as if treating Leon with lower respect was awkward. Then Leon smiled with his narrow eyes curving even more and handed his weapon to the child’s hand.

Hugh Benson and Elwin Brooks held the title of Count, but the remaining four did not. Therefore, the mercenaries respected us as knights and called us with the title of Sir. That was enough for everyone.

Benjamin abruptly lifted the axe with one hand as Leon did, and leveled the floor flat with his foot. Then he changed the angle so both sides of the axe pointed North and South respectively, stood it up, and let go of the axe.

Thud. The axe lay down to the south again. This time, seeing the axe lie straight down without overcoming the weight of the side decorations, everyone let out a despondent laugh.

“Did they smear honey on the holy site…”

“At this point, I’m getting stubborn.”

Several nodded their heads at Peter and Anne’s added comments.

A god faced directly right in front of one’s nose was a being that evoked abysmal fear. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] However, several weeks had already passed since that guy abruptly said only what he wanted to say and vanished. Whether because the long time had soothed us, or because we had continuously chattered making it a topic of jokes, both the fearful mind and the startled mind had calmly subsided long ago.

What’s more, the memory of running while suffering for seven days and nights was still engraved in our bodies. Interest in this bizarre phenomenon preceded fear of the god.

“Me too.”

“Ah, yes. Please try.”

Elwin received Leon’s axe, weighed it this way and that, and tossed it up whoosh.

Fearing the child might get hurt by the sudden threat, I gathered Ruben under my arm and hid him. Ruben wrapped both his arms around my waist and was hugged snugly.

Because everyone was relatively agile, the sight of them dodging this way and that causing a commotion was exceedingly funny.

“Ack!”

“There are people here!”

“Mm.”

The thrown axe spun round and round three times in mid-air. And lay flat on the empty floor.

Falling with this much force and speed, it would be understandable if the blade got stuck in the sand, but the axe handle, lying nicely on its side, was still pointing south this time too.

Everyone stared at the axe with dumbfounded gazes.

“Really…. there isn’t some kind of device in it, is there?”

“Would it be the same if we did it with a sword?”

“Oh, let’s try!”

So now everyone drew their own weapons.

Some stood them up and let go, some threw them and let go. Grumbling if perhaps some magnet was embedded in it, Marianne brought wooden tent poles or magic firewood instead of her metal magic staff and tested them.

All of them fell in the exact same direction, south.

Even if we deliberately threw our swords east, they went and stuck in the south. At this point, it was astounding. Does this even make sense? Marianne took out various items and scrutinized them for a long time, then explained that currently the Mana around us was convecting in a normal state and no specific magic was acting.

“At this level, isn’t it not an oracle or a divination or whatever, but just a magnet attached over there?”

“That’s why I tried, but even the wooden blocks fall exactly to the south.”

When Hugh Benson made a sullen sound again, Marianne promptly refuted.

The mercenaries also added silly remarks one by one.

“No, if you’re going to talk, talk straight…? What is this? It’s not even throwing a tantrum.”

“Heave-ho! Before this, there was nothing like this, not at all.”

“Yeees… If there was something like this, rumors would have spread completely.”

Throwing a sword a few times is not hard work in the slightest.

Those who had rested deeply for the first time in a while repeatedly threw or tilted their weapons to make them fall this way and that while conversing with each other. John tossed his meteor hammer whoosh. Even that, both heads overturned nicely pointing south.

Seeing that sight, the mercenary guys jokingly insisted that since the hammer heads were round, it didn’t fall pointing south but was pointing east.

Did we play like that for about forty minutes?

Suddenly, the unknown force was cut off.

A sword thrown high got stuck straight into the sandbank. Leon’s axe now lay only to both sides following its decorations. The wooden blocks Marianne tossed with a huff fell exactly in the direction they were thrown. Peter’s dagger, thrown high randomly, barely grazed between John’s legs and stuck into the floor.

Seeing how utterly shocked John was, we all got startled together.

In the silence, I also picked up a sword that had fallen far to the east and brought it back.

“…”

“…”

Just in case, the sword I tossed up again fell perfectly straight. I easily caught the sword that didn’t bend in any direction in mid-air and secured it. Everyone gathered their weapons, put them in their scabbards, and slung them on their backs.

Giselle looked around with a tense look and asked.

“…Did the god sulk?”

“…If they’re that petty, is that a god?”

“I don’t know… Probably, I don’t think they would do that.”

Anne and Leon barely, barely managed to give answers that weren’t really answers.

The Third God we saw last time was like a young brat. Didn’t they say the ninth god also sulked and left for somewhere? What kind of guy will the one we meet this time be?

Even dry grass moving around from a cow’s breath wouldn’t be more powerless than this. If it were the Head of the Family’s order, I would have at least declared I would hold out and not listen to a single word.

Everyone stopped laughing and joking.

Being anxious right now is no use. We gathered our voices saying that if the god truly has a purpose and is calling us, they will also provide a way to overcome it, so let’s stop worrying.

Still, didn’t they say we have three or four more days left to escape the Oasis’s domain. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] I wished a good clever trick would come to mind during that time, or a guide more skilled than those Sylphs would appear.

******

Everyone stood tall, staring at a distant place.

Doubting my eyes, I blinked them without realizing it.

[Wow!]

The exclamations of the Sylphs were deafening.

Even though I blinked my eyes several times, the flickering shapes in front of my eyes wouldn’t disappear.

It was the boundary of the domain we had reached after leisurely driving the camels for four days. Even though there were no walls or fences, the line of the boundary was clearly visible. Beyond it, all sorts of Jiangshis were swarming like a colony of ants attracted to sweets.

I wanted to say something, so I opened my mouth and soon closed it. Marianne, whose eyesight wasn’t as good as the martial artists’, shook the guys around her asking what was going on, then dropped her jaw after hearing a whisper from Benjamin.

I reflexively looked toward Ruben. The child deeply covered his face with both hands, then swept them down and showed a smiling face. It was plainly obvious it was a trick to not reveal his troubled insides.

I also looked back toward Hugh Benson. The guy was sitting straight up, glaring ahead. His eyes, bloodshot, were already red.

I observed how Leon’s expression, which usually acted deliberately light, was stiffly hardened, and also calmly scanned the guys behind him drooping limply on the camels’ humps, each making sobbing sounds.

After that, I looked ahead again.

“…How many did you say?”

The ones who answered Marianne’s question weren’t Benjamin, but the Sylphs.

[Five! Five! Five! Five! Five!]

[Five is a lot again! Ten and five! Five and ten!]

[Five is ten?]

[No, more! Five is five!]

[Five!]

Anne, half-crying, mumbled pitifully.

“…If you’re going to kiss before dying, do it now. I’ll keep my eyes closed from now on.”

Without realizing it, heat rose in me and I touched the back of my neck. Ruben looked back at my side in surprise, then hurriedly placed his gaze forward. I bit my tongue; I felt so pathetic for my heart abruptly surging towards such ridiculous nonsense that I couldn’t say anything for a while.