The moment the familiar signal came in, the airship responded at once.
BEEP, BEEP, BIP, BIP, BIP.
The airship, which had been waiting in silence, gave off an odd signal tone and pushed through the sand as it oriented itself. Then it carefully began to burrow beneath Han-eol's body.
The streamlined airship had a sharp, hard nose, so it pierced the wasteland soil easily.
Once it had slipped completely under Han-eol's body, the airship poured blue light out on every side and slowly rose.
WHOOOOSH—.
Sand and dirt cascaded off the top of the airship.
Han-eol's limp form was revealed within.
In this state, the airship changed direction one more time and burrowed slightly into the ground.
As a result, soil surged over and covered Han-eol's nose and mouth.
Each time it did, the eyeball embedded in the full-color hand fired off a brain wave.
At that, the airship shuddered with vibration and shook the soil that had piled onto Han-eol's body clean off.
After repeating this several times, the corpse of the dead three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast was loaded onto the airship as well.
As a result, Han-eol and the dead demon beast ended up lying side by side.
WHIIIIRR—
Having finally achieved its goal, the airship rose fully into the air. Carrying Han-eol and the demon beast's corpse, it flew carefully toward some destination.
Perhaps because it worried that Han-eol might slip and fall, the airship's speed was not very fast. It did not gain altitude, hugging the ground as closely as it could in low flight.
Time passed again.
Two months had already gone by since Han-eol fought the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast. That had been in early summer, in June, and before he knew it, August had arrived.
For the past sixty-odd days, Han-eol had lain in a half-comatose state atop a swaying bundle of nerves.
The one who had laid him there was none other than the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast's airship.
It seemed the airship had recognized Han-eol as its master and had been tending to him devotedly.
Its devotion was so admirable that, had Han-eol not been comatose, he would have stroked the airship in thanks.
But Han-eol had been unconscious for two whole months, so he had no capacity to spare for the airship.
This was not due to injuries from the fall. His crushed body had healed completely a mere ten days after his fight with the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast.
That was thanks to the remarkable potency of the A-grade recovery potion and to Han-eol's outstanding Vitality.
Even though his body had recovered, his mind alone did not return easily.
The cause lay in the eyeball that had sprouted like a pimple on the full-color hand.
Digesting the vast knowledge that had surged in from that eyeball had left Han-eol's brain in an abnormal state for nearly sixty days.
A person cannot survive two months without eating or drinking water.
That is common sense.
But among ability-holders, whose Vitality far surpassed that of ordinary people, there were frequent reports of cases where someone fell into a trap in a Highland ruin, went utterly without food for a year, and survived without trouble.
Han-eol fell into this category.
Lying still for two months had stripped the muscle from his frame and hollowed out his cheeks, but his life was in no danger.
Nor had Han-eol developed bedsores.
That was because the bundle of nerves he lay on served as a well-ventilated hammock.
Come to think of it, this space was truly bizarre.
When Han-eol first cracked his bleary eyes open, the scene before him was of red and blue nerve bundles crossing one another in a tangle as intricate as a spiderweb.
Those nerve bundles filled the space from the height at which he lay all the way up to dozens of meters overhead.
“Ugh.”
When Han-eol tried to raise himself, the nerve bundles swayed. His field of vision rocked from side to side, and the high ceiling swung back and forth, again and again.
“Urgh.”
Han-eol's head suddenly spun.
A pain followed, as though a sharp beak were pecking at his skull.
Meanwhile, an electric current ran along the nerve network woven crosswise above his head.
CRACK! CRACKLE!
The current flowed intermittently, and each time it traveled along the nerve bundles, it seemed a signal was being transmitted.
Han-eol thought that the sight spread out before him was ‘like someone dissected a human body, scraped up every last strand of the nerve network, extracted it, and then hung it all out on display like laundry on a line.’
Then he poked his head out from the hammock(?) and looked around.
‘Huh?’
The corpse of the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast came into view.
That corpse, too, had been carried here by the airship.
With all three eyeballs burst and two tails jutting out past its throat as though they had surged back up, the corpse was horrific to look at.
Han-eol frowned and turned his face away.
‘It really does look like the airship moved me and that corpse here…….’
Han-eol turned his gaze to the airship.
At that, the airship blinked its mana stone as though offering him a cheerful greeting.
Han-eol had no way of knowing what the airship intended.
But an enormous store of knowledge now lay stacked in layers inside his brain.
Because of that vast knowledge, Han-eol had come to understand the language spoken by the three-eyed, eight-tailed beast's race.
The difference in vocal cord structure meant he could not pronounce that language properly, but hearing and understanding it was possible.
He had also gained a considerable amount of knowledge about the Highland.
According to that newly acquired knowledge, the region Han-eol was now in was the Highland's Seventh Continent.
The areas humanity had pioneered within the Highland were mostly confined to the Ninth Continent. Considering further that only a handful of pioneer cities, Mid-Land Seoul among them, had just begun planting their flags on the Eighth Continent, Han-eol's exploration of the Seventh Continent was a truly astonishing achievement.
Of course, Han-eol had only just begun exploring, and setting up a proper base camp on the Seventh Continent was still a long way off, but even this much was exceptional.
So why did advancing into the Seventh Continent matter?
Frankly, the Seventh Continent was far more dangerous than the Eighth.
In exchange, correspondingly rich rewards waited there.
That being so, every piece of information, every new material, and every relic Han-eol collected on the Seventh Continent would become an important detonator for humanity's future development.
Even the knowledge Han-eol could call to mind right now was full of useful things.
— The rough geography and terrain of the boundlessly vast Seventh Continent.
— The characteristics and distribution of the major demon beast races that inhabited the Seventh Continent.
— Mana crystal deposits, and so on and so forth.
But there remained in Han-eol's brain one piece of knowledge far more important than all of this.
The fact that there was an ascension passage leading up past the Seventh Continent to the Sixth.
This, above all, was information of the utmost importance.
Something Han-eol had learned recently: the demon beast that had ridden a disc, the one he had killed earlier, and the three-eyed, eight-tailed beast were not offspring and mother, but mates.
The three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast was the female.
The small demon beast killed the previous time was the male.
According to the knowledge Han-eol had awakened to, the three-eyed, eight-tailed beast had originally been a resident of the Sixth Continent, not the Seventh.
But the male she had recently taken in was unusually small and weak and could not hold his own among the mighty members of their race on the Sixth Continent, so she brought him down to the Seventh.
Once he had hunted his fill here and recovered his self-esteem, she would cross the ascension passage with him and go back up to the Sixth Continent. Such was the three-eyed, eight-tailed beast's pure and devoted plan.
And then she had the misfortune of meeting an Irregular (Irregular: abnormal, anomalous) like Han-eol and died on the spot.
‘In any case, I should put this knowledge to good use.’
The ways to use it were endless.
The moment Han-eol returned to Mid-Land Seoul, releasing even a fraction of the knowledge he had acquired here would surely earn him an enormous reward.
Of course, Han-eol had no intention of emptying out his insides and showing them off like that.
‘Am I crazy? Pulling a sucker move like that.’
Han-eol snorted inwardly.
Then, all at once, his expression went stiff.
‘Huh? Huh, huh, huh?’
His pupils trembled because one item out of that vast pile of knowledge had suddenly surfaced in his mind.
The precise name of the three-eyed, eight-tailed beast's race was the ‘Girit’ tribe.
They were a demon beast race that had brought a splendid civilization into bloom across both the Fifth and Sixth Continents (in truth, humans classified every race of the Highland as demon beasts, but many of them had built civilizations of a far higher order than humanity's). Their numbers were not large, but each individual was tremendously strong, and they were famous for the deep bonds they shared with their own kind.
For example, if a single Girit was killed by another race, their kin would without fail swarm out and extract a blood price of tenfold or more.
The Girit tribe could also learn of a kinsman's death immediately, through a special supernatural ability.
Astonishingly, the nerve bundles where Han-eol now lay could leap staggering distances to exchange signals as far as the Sixth Continent, even the Fifth. Which meant the three-eyed, eight-tailed beast's death had certainly been relayed to the Girit tribe of the Sixth Continent through these very bundles two months ago.
‘Damn it. That current flashing up there was the gallows rope that's going to strangle my neck.’
Han-eol shot to his feet and glared at the bizarre nerve bundles draped loosely overhead.
According to the knowledge in his brain, the Sixth Continent was enormously vast.
Then again, the Seventh Continent boasted a size beyond imagination, no less than the Sixth.
No matter how advanced a civilization the Girit tribe had built, leaving their nests on the Sixth Continent and flying all the way here would take a good few months.
Even so, fear seized Han-eol.
‘I have to get out of here as fast as possible. Damn it.’
Han-eol hurriedly packed his things.
He slung his tattered backpack onto his back and shook out his mind to review the list of relics the three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast had left behind.
‘Even if I'm running, I should take the valuable things with me.’
The three-eyed, eight-tailed demon beast had possessed a considerable quantity of relics.
Most of them were things she had gathered after coming down to the Seventh Continent, and they were largely gifts for the male.
The young male had not yet opened his third eye, and he had only a single tail, so he was not up to using the powerful relics of the Sixth Continent.
So she had personally procured relics suited to her weak mate here on the Seventh Continent.
The relics she used herself, however, were ones she had brought directly from the Sixth Continent, and their performance was incomparably superior to anything from the Seventh.
Han-eol ransacked his knowledge and picked out the usable items among the relics she had left.
Fortunately, he could skillfully handle more than half of them.
Of course, being able to use something did not make it necessary to him.
‘I mustn't get greedy for no reason. Time is short, and hauling off things I can't even use is pure excess.’
So Han-eol chose only a few relics, the best ones and the ones he truly needed.
He intended to leave the rest here for the time being.
Of course, if he left them behind, the Girit tribe of the Sixth Continent might storm in and collect every last one.
But letting that regret push him into greed he could not manage would put his life at risk. Han-eol's desire for safety and self-preservation was stronger than his desire for possessions.
In a sense, that made him wise.
Even so, leaving behind such a heap of relics could not help but feel like a waste.
‘Haa. If fate wills it, they won't be plundered even if I leave them here.’
Han-eol consoled himself with that.
In truth, his thinking was awfully selfish.
Frankly, the one who had plundered the relics was Han-eol himself.
And the Girit tribe would merely be collecting the belongings of their dead kin, so it made no sense for Han-eol to feel wronged about it.