After that, Han-eol continued his march, treading through the night dew.
As a result, it was around five in the morning when Han-eol reached Base Camp No. 1 on the Eighth Continent.
Far off stood a structure that looked like a medieval European castle. Roughly gauged, the castle had to be at least two kilometers across.
On the structure's sharp spires, the flags of Shinseong Group's Pioneer Corps and the 1st Assault Corps were planted side by side, fluttering in the wind.
As it happened, Han-eol's watch hands all pointed toward that structure in unison.
“I finally made it.”
Tears welled up in Han-eol's eyes. The fatigue piled up over that time and the tension drawn so taut felt as though they dissolved the moment he saw the castle.
The 1st Assault Corps' base camp was enclosed by a solid wall ten meters high.
The ivory bricks that composed the wall were mined only in the Highland, and their distinguishing feature was that they were harder than any rock on Earth.
To give an easy example, these ivory bricks possessed a marvelous hardness such that repeated strikes from Earth's 155-millimeter self-propelled artillery would never break them.
So on the strength of its walls alone, the 1st Assault Corps base camp deserved to be called an iron fortress.
A deep moat had also been dug directly beneath the wall to impede the approach of demon beasts.
Mana cannons were placed atop the wall at intervals of about 30 meters.
A mana cannon was a weapon driven by mana stones, distinguished by its ability to spray 360 rounds of new-material ammunition per minute.
In the early days of Highland pioneering, Shinseong Group and the world's leading cities had worked to bring the existing weapon systems humanity had developed into the Highland: long-range guns, self-propelled artillery, tanks, fighter jets, cruise missiles, even nuclear bombs and other such firearms.
At the time, the ability-holders of each city packed disassembled weapon parts into their backpacks, carried them into the Highland, and attempted to reassemble the weapons there.
But the results were poor.
That was because the explosives detonated with a bang on the way over from the Mid-Land to the Highland.
Fuel for tanks and fighter jets tended to catch fire as well.
‘In that case, might it be possible to mine gunpowder materials or petroleum in the Highland?’
At the time, the ability-holders of each city considered procuring gunpowder and petroleum locally.
But this plan also ended in failure.
Not only were energy sources such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas never found in the Highland, but raw materials for gunpowder were harder still to come by.
At least within the regions humanity had pioneered, this was so.
In the end, humanity came to the conclusion that ‘existing mobile firepower weapon systems are difficult to use in the Highland.’
Afterward, the ability-holders of each city newly developed weapon systems that used mana stones (mana crystals filled with energy).
The mana cannon was one of them.
The advantage of this weapon was that it used mana stones instead of gunpowder, so it had almost no recoil. And even firing 360 rounds a minute produced almost no heat in the barrel.
Mana cannon rounds were made from Highland-produced metal, which surpassed Earth's metals in destructive power, penetration, and heat resistance, to the delight of the ability-holders.
Apart from the mana cannon, however, other weapon systems had yet to produce results worth noting.
In the case of fighter jets using mana stones as an energy source, development had been completed, but their mobility fell short of the Highland's flying demon beasts, so they were of little use.
The same went for missiles.
A missile is fundamentally a weapon that works only when the target's coordinates are known precisely.
But the Highland had so many powerful flying demon beasts that patrol aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft could not be put up.
Satellites were even more out of the question.
For this reason, humanity abandoned the development of Highland-dedicated missiles as well.
The same went for tanks.
Most ordinary Highland demon beasts moved faster than the speed of sound.
Face beasts like that with tanks?
This was a fantasy with no answer to it.
In the end, apart from defensive mana cannons, humanity had no choice but to pioneer the Highland relying purely on the combat power of ability-holders.
The Fourth Highland Expedition II
The place Han-eol was assigned to was a mine several kilometers from the base camp.
With the special metal produced there, Shinseong Group manufactured a variety of industrial goods, mana cannon rounds among them.
It was that useful a mine, but the metal produced there was unexpectedly common, so the mine's importance was not especially high.
That was precisely why only three guard squads were stationed at the mine.
What is more, people did not do the metal mining themselves. Dozens of mining robots driven by mana stones dug the metal out in two shifts of twelve hours each.
So the mine required all the less manpower.
Then reports came in one after another that the movements of the demon beasts had recently turned ominous.
In the end, the 1st Assault Corps Leader recalled two of the three squads stationed at the mine to the base camp.
Then, two days ago, an order came down to draw half the personnel from the one squad remaining at the mine and send them to the base camp as well.
As a result, the guard force left at the mine now came to five ability-holders in total.
Han-eol was among those five.
In fact, the one who had dumped Han-eol into the mine guard squad was Kim Hyu-in.
Kim Hyu-in, the red-haired flame mage, was the man who had shared a drinking table with Han-eol at a Gangnam club not long ago and had been humiliatingly driven out by the Artemis Knights.
Kim Hyu-in's reason for shunting Han-eol off into a dead-end post was simple.
‘What a petty man. Why take out being shamed by the Artemis Knights on me? Tch.’
Han-eol stuck out his lips.
Frankly, Han-eol felt wronged.
Kim Hyu-in's disgrace at the club was not his fault.
And yet Kim Hyu-in was taking it out on Han-eol.
The reason was that Han-eol had watched from right beside him while those overbearing women of Artemis utterly humiliated him.
‘Hah. What can I do? When a senior takes it out on you, you just have to take it.’
Han-eol soothed himself with the heart of a Buddha.
But now and then a lament burst out of him regardless.
“It's so idle here that it's stifling instead. Hoooo~.”
Han-eol let out a great sigh as he stood watch duty up in the watchtower erected at the mine entrance.
‘Hah! No, wait.’
Then Han-eol came to his senses with a start.
‘I must be crazy. Being this idle is a good thing. What if I run my mouth for nothing and the demon beasts come swarming in? Then it's really trouble.’
Han-eol promptly changed his tune.
But it was already too late.
Far off in the direction of the base camp, dust rose along with a thunderous roar.
The mana cannons lined up at regular intervals atop the wall were spitting fire, and it was visible even from the metal mine several kilometers away.
‘Damn. Demon beasts. It looks like they're coming at us in a horde.’
The crown of Han-eol's head prickled.
Judging by the noisy roar that would not stop, the demon beasts attacking the base camp were not one or two.
‘Would that many demon beasts target only the base camp?’
There was no chance of that. This metal mine was not far from the base camp.
Which meant there was a high chance the demon beasts would come crashing in here before long.
‘This mouth of mine is the problem. An accident breaks out the instant I run it. Damn it.’
Han-eol pressed the emergency bell installed in the watchtower hard and slapped his own mouth with his hand at the same time, smack, smack.
A mere few seconds after the emergency bell rang out its clamor,
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE—.
The earth shook violently.
Far off, a horde of demon beasts beyond counting appeared. Kicking up dust like billowing clouds, the beasts charged in a straight line toward the metal mine.
“Aaaghh.”
There were so many of them that the strength drained clean out of Han-eol's legs. He rather thought he had leaked a little urine into his underwear as well.
The worse news was that the ability-holders of the guard squad dispatched to the metal mine were fleeing and leaving Han-eol behind on his own.
“Nooo—. You bastards.”
Han-eol hurled curses at the seniors running away with all their might.
Left to his own wishes, Han-eol wanted to run too.
But it was already too late.
With a cracking sound, demon beasts burst out of the ground around the watchtower. They looked like leopards, and their bulk was double that of an Earth leopard. From the beasts' shoulders sprouted two long tentacles shaped like great scythes, resembling the forelegs of a praying mantis.
These beasts, called the Leopard Wolf tribe, burst up through the earth and in the same motion leapt over five meters with ease, lashing the watchtower window with their mantis-foreleg tentacles.
CLANG!
With that sharp noise, cracks split across the watchtower's bulletproof glass.
‘Oh, shit! What a fright.’
Han-eol instinctively covered his head first.
The Flayed Skin protected his whole body, but the head was the exception. And the A-grade vest Han-eol wore did not protect his head either.
So Han-eol had developed the habit of wrapping his arms around his head whenever a crisis struck.
While Han-eol hesitated, another Leopard Wolf leapt high and struck the watchtower window with its mantis-foreleg tentacle.
CLAAANG!
More cracks in a spiderweb pattern formed in the bulletproof glass.
Han-eol hurriedly reached out and switched the watchtower's mana cannon to automatic fire mode.
RATATATATATAT—.
From the mana cannon barrel mounted below the window, 360 rounds a minute sprayed out. Two more mana cannons rose WHIRRING out of the ground to the left and right of the watchtower and unloaded their rounds. Hundreds, thousands of rounds flew faster than the speed of sound.
But the Leopard Wolves dodged that high-speed fire handily.
A few of them, of course, were hit by the mana cannons and bled.
A few more were struck in vital spots and died instantly.
But the Leopard Wolf tribe knew no fear. Using their dead companions' corpses as footholds, they sprang up and charged straight at the watchtower.
Han-eol left the distant beasts to the mana cannons for now. Then he focused his whole mind on catching the souls of the Leopard Wolves that had closed in on the watchtower.
The Leopard Wolves' burst speed exceeded the speed of sound, so catching their souls was impossible with ordinary dynamic vision.
But when they ringed the watchtower the way they did now, that was another story.
‘Come on, then. I'll kill every one of you.’
Cornered, Han-eol bit down hard on his lip.
The instant the Leopard Wolves' souls formed in Han-eol's vision, those souls flattened into figures drawn on a two-dimensional sheet of paper.
The Leopard Wolf's soul as it appeared to Han-eol's eye was as follows.
A fortress of a square and a rhombus overlaid.
Attack mechanisms evoking sharp scythes.
‘The Leopard Wolf tribe certainly looks stronger than the Twin-Headed Bird. But a bit below the Snow Wolf.’
This was the assessment Han-eol reached.
By then the full-color hand had already sprung out of Han-eol's Image and pushed its way into this world. Bursting into the real world, the full-color hand caught the soul of a Leopard Wolf that had leapt as far as the watchtower window between thumb and forefinger and plucked it out with a POP~.
YELP!
One Leopard Wolf died instantly.
The corpse, stripped of psyche and anima, dropped to the ground.
HRUNGH? RRUFF?
The surrounding Leopard Wolves looked back at their companion's corpse with bewildered eyes.
In the meantime, the full-color hand moved several more times.
POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!
In the blink of an eye, five Leopard Wolves died instantly.
HRUNGH? HRUUNGH? RRUFF?
Only then did the Leopard Wolves start in alarm and pull back from the watchtower.
“Yes. Run like that. Not here. Go over there, to the base camp, I said.”
Han-eol wished for it desperately.
That wish was not granted.
GRRRAAAOOOR!
From the distance burst the booming roar of the Leopard Wolf leader. Lurking in that eardrum-splitting roar was an energy that sent chills through a person.