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Chapter: 60

The path deeper into the cave was damp and chilly. It felt like the dampness of the mountain had been concentrated in this place. An unpleasant sensation lingered in the air.

At least there didn\'t seem to be any bats.

Splash. I couldn\'t see properly in the dark and stepped into a shallow puddle. The sudden sound of water made Chaos jump.

Then, after a long silence, Deokbong called out to me.

"Y-Your Highness."

"What?"

"I-I\'m sorry, but... it seems we\'ve come back to the same place we were before..." Deokbong said.

I denied it at first, but the second time he said it, I had to admit he was right. This was the third time we had arrived at the same spot.

Splash. I stepped into the puddle again. It felt exactly like the one I had stepped in earlier.

Damn it.

It seemed Deokbong was right.

It was the same path.

After walking for a long time, we realized we were lost.

We had wasted our energy needlessly, especially when we had no strength, food, or place to rest.

Suddenly, everything went dark.

Chaos’s flame, our only source of light, had gone out.

And then Chaos said, "We\'re going to die."

"What?"

"...I was wrong. We\'re all going to die now. It\'s the end."

...What\'s wrong with him? Is he crazy?

"The end? Why the end? Who died?"

My voice echoed in the darkness, bouncing off the cave walls. It created a wonderfully eerie atmosphere.

"We\'re all going to die now."

"Who\'s going to die? You? Me?"

"Everyone."

It seemed he had even forgotten to use honorifics. It was ridiculous that someone called Chaos was scared.

I scoffed.

"We\'re not going to die."

"We will."

I argued with Chaos for a while. Repeating the same thing over and over was starting to get on my nerves. Even pleasant words can become tiresome, let alone negative predictions about death.

Even though I was in a better situation than them, I was also worried about what lay ahead...

If one of the four strongest people in the vast Northern Region was like this, how weak were the other warriors?

I asked irritably, "Why do you say we\'re going to die?"

"Everyone\'s dead, everyone..."

"Who\'s dead?"

Chaos didn\'t answer. Instead, he reignited the flame.

After hearing Chaos’s last answer, I pondered for a moment and recalled something one of my comrades from Blood Cloud Fortress had told me. He was someone who had lost his entire family to bandits near the border when he was young. He would lose control whenever he saw bandits who looked similar.

Was Chaos like that? I didn\'t know what kind of person he was, but it seemed possible.

But even if that were the case, there was no need to be so scared.

First of all... there couldn\'t have been just one magical beast that laid so many eggs in that cave.

How could one magical beast lay dozens of eggs alone?

The fact that there wasn\'t just one meant they hadn\'t wandered in here by accident. The group must have designated this cave as their nest and been coming and going.

That meant there had to be a proper entrance somewhere. The only problem was that we didn\'t know where it was.

We were certain there was an exit. So all we had to do was find the way.

And I had a way to find it.

The reason I was calmer than Chaos or Deokbong was that I had a way to escape this situation.

What was my special ability? I was the one whose senses were so overly sensitive that I was on the verge of going crazy.

That\'s why I was taking the bellflower drug.

Honestly, I had tried to reduce my dosage, but it hadn\'t been easy. In the end, the dosage had only decreased slightly and remained almost the same. Especially after leaving the capital, I hadn\'t been able to reduce it at all.

But yesterday, I hadn\'t taken the bellflower.

Of course not. I had no eunuch to prepare it for me, and I didn\'t bring the bellflower with me. How could I take it while sharing a space with others?

As a bonus, I had also confirmed how long its effects lasted. I might be able to use this cycle to my advantage later.

"We\'re going to die..."

Meanwhile, Chaos kept muttering to himself. It\'s over, we\'re doomed, we\'re going to die.

I couldn\'t hold back anymore.

"Are you crazy?"

"Ugh..."

Tsk tsk tsk.

"You\'re crazy, completely crazy..."

I should have known from the time he stole the sword in the middle of the night.

"I should have known from the moment you, who aren\'t some beggar on the street, stole from a stranger..."

I sighed deeply and grabbed Deokbong.

"Let\'s rest for a bit. Here."

"Yes, Your Highness."

We had left our luggage outside the cave, so we didn\'t have any food. I could feel myself getting more and more exhausted. Hunger was contributing to the fatigue.

At this rate, it seemed like we wouldn\'t last long.

"...Your Highness," Chaos said.

"What?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Let\'s see."

Chaos whipped his head around to look at me. His expression was as if the sky was falling and the earth was opening up.

It was such a funny expression that I couldn\'t help but laugh.

"I\'m thinking."

"What if we die while thinking?"

I heard sniffling again.

Why is this guy so easily moved to tears?

Definitely no real-world experience whatsoever. No doubt about it.

"Even if we die, it\'ll take a few days."

Even if we held on desperately, we wouldn\'t last even ten days. Chaos’s fear might be exaggerated, but he wasn\'t wrong.

"Let me ask you something."

Chaos didn\'t answer. It seemed like he wanted me to continue.

"You, no, you."

Would he answer honestly?

"You don\'t have any real-world experience, do you?"

He might not be a kind person, but he did seem naive. Perhaps because he thought this was the end, Chaos answered truthfully.

"...I\'ve never been on the front lines."

He couldn\'t hide his embarrassment.

Who would believe that one of the four strongest people in Wolhan Fortress had never actually fought properly?

The court and the royal family didn\'t pay much attention to the Wolhan Fortress\'s military power. That\'s because its purpose was already set. But I was different.

Wolhan Fortress was too valuable to be used only for repelling magical beasts.

The Northern Wall, which doesn\'t bow to anyone.

The cold, iron fortress that doesn\'t easily yield even to the king.

That\'s why it could become a more powerful symbol than any other asset.

It was like winning the hearts of the North, which no king had ever conquered.

"Are the other three like you?"

Chaos hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. Seeing him like this made him seem younger than his apparent age. Well, his apparent physical age, that is.

So, does that make it the same in the end?

"The others have some experience on the front lines, then?"

"...That\'s classified information."

"What\'s classified about that?"

"It\'s classified."

"Who says so?"

"The Fortress Lord ordered it."

"Oh, really. Is the Wolhan Lord higher in status, or am I?"

Chaos answered immediately without hesitation.

"Of course the Wolhan Lord is higher."

It was an answer that left me speechless.

Nowhere else in Mokryeo would you hear someone say that.

Only in the North, and even then, only in Wolhan Fortress, would you hear such an answer.

It was a very Wolhan Fortress-like answer. The North was indeed not an easy place to conquer.

"...It\'s been a while since I felt this fired up."

"Pardon?"

"Someday, you\'ll take back those words."

Chaos lowered his head again.

"There\'s no \'someday.\' We might die right here, right now."

"Oh, really? Who says we\'re going to die here?"

"There\'s no way out."

"How can you be so sure there\'s no way out?"

"I believe only what I see."

"I\'m right in front of your eyes, why don\'t you believe me?"

Chaos asked with hope in his eyes.

"Is there a way out?"

My empty stomach growled. As the effects of the bellflower wore off, I started to shiver.

It wasn\'t that my body was actually unwell. This damn body was so sensitive that it interpreted even the slightest chill as a bone-deep cold.

And it wasn\'t even that cold.

At times like this, it was a wonder the delinquent died from bellflower addiction.

Anyway, I didn\'t have much time left.

I closed my mouth.

"Let\'s go."

And I started walking again.

The second time my stomach growled, Chaos and Deokbong\'s footsteps sounded like they were right next to my ears.

"Your Highness..." Deokbong said hesitantly. But after calling out, he seemed to regret opening his mouth, having nothing to offer.

I waved my hand at Deokbong. Even the energy to speak was becoming precious now.

The chill seeped into my bones. I desperately tried to calm my mind and body to stop myself from trembling. Not only my own heartbeat but also Chaos and Deokbong\'s echoed loudly in my ears.

The third time my stomach growled, my senses became so heightened that even the fabric of my clothes brushing against my skin felt rough and irritating.

I could no longer control my shivering body. I trembled intermittently. Thankfully, because of the darkness, Chaos and Deokbong didn\'t seem to notice.

When I get back, I\'ll ask for a feast fit for a king. I\'ll eat two, no, three bowls of rice. And of course, meat dishes are a must.

I\'ll eat without any pretense. I\'ll order them to prepare a feast that\'ll empty the Wolhan Lord\'s pantry.

If I\'m too embarrassed to order it myself, I\'ll have my eunuch do it for me.

Thinking about trivial things like this helped alleviate some of the suffering.

And as more time passed, my stomach stopped growling. Hunger was forgotten, and all that remained were my senses, heightened to the extreme.

I could feel the moisture dripping somewhere in the cave and even the faint flow of air within it.

Cold sweat trickled down my forehead.

A bead of sweat rolled down my chin and fell to the floor.

“Ah.”

I stumbled and almost lost my balance.

Without the bellflower, I couldn\'t even last a moment. I was realizing my limits. This was the limit of what this body could endure without the bellflower. I was truly reaching my end.

If I had to rely on medicine to survive, what would I do when war breaks out?

Would I even have the luxury of procuring medicine then?

The wars I had experienced were nothing but chaos, with corpses strewn everywhere. The thought filled me with sudden worry.

But that wasn\'t the immediate problem.

I dragged my exhausted and aching body forward, I suddenly felt a different kind of air brush against my nose.

"...This is it."

With conviction, I took a step forward.