Thrymr’s eyes widened in disbelief.
"…!"
"Pardon?" Jeong In-Chang asked while the strength in the hand that was holding his greatsword diminished.
“Growl!”
On the other hand, Fenrir snorted that he didn’t care as he had gotten to run freely as much as he had wanted.
“Oorah…?”
The giants were perplexed. Even the Nar stopped moving after hearing Lee Jun-Kyeong’s last statement. The whole absurdity of the situation kept them still.
“Please drink these.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong handed potions to the three fallen Hunters, which was Liu Bei’s group.
“...”
Even they had expressions of bewilderment. This was an enemy who had attacked them like a beast a while ago and had defeated them. But, now, he was giving potions to them.
Moreover, after having won the battle, he raised his hands in surrender.
Why?
That was the question on everyone’s mind.
"There is no reason to fight,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said as if he was reading their minds. "The commander of Utgard has fallen."
Lee Jun-Kyeong looked over at Thjazi and continued, “Now that I’ve learned the reasons of what had happened…”
Lee Jun-Kyeong raised his palms again and reiterated his point. "As just mercenaries, we will remove ourselves from the battle."
Sheer bewilderment descended upon everyone in the field.
However, Thrymr was different.
“Good.”
He had almost become the chief of the giants, so he possessed extraordinary observation skills and insight. He understood the meaning of Lee Jun-Kyeong's surrender.
"I accept your surrender."
With a simple sentence, the entire atmosphere of the battlefield changed.
“Oorah! Oorah! Oorah!”
It may have only been the surrender of a single mercenary, but the morale of the Utgardian warriors, whose commander had fallen, dropped to the ground.
They had been defeated.
As they began to realize that they had suffered a complete defeat, eventually, one by one, they began to fall to the ground.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Don't kill them!" Thrymr exclaimed.
It was bad enough that they had to kill their fellow giants in the Utgardian Civil war, their kin. Having already won this victory, he didn’t want to force his warriors to bear the burden of the blood of those who used to be friends and kin to them.
Eventually, the battlefield cleared up.
Fenrir and Jeong In-Chang had left after Lee Jun-Kyeong’s surrender, and naturally, the balance had also been overturned.
"…"
Liu Bei, the Hunter, was looking at Lee Jun-Kyeong. Lee Jun-Kyeong looked back at Liu Bei, who was staring at him in disbelief and said, "I will watch over your cause."
The reason Lee Jun-Kyeong had declared surrender was because of what Liu Bei had said while they had been fighting.
‘I never meant to abandon them!’
Liu Bei had no choice but to betray Utgard. However, then why had he joined the side of the Nar, leaving the humans at the mercy of the King of Utgard, who had indiscriminately slaughtered them?
‘Because only then was it safe for them.’
The King of Utgard had said that he felt uneasy due to the existence of the Hunters. Since the number of Chinese Hunters had been quite large at first, the king was afraid that their forces would threaten him.
They had thought that the other humans would be in danger as long as they were with them, so they decided to side with the Nar. Basically, they believed that if the giants believed that the normal humans hated the Hunters, then they at least would be kept alive.
‘We will kill the king. We will find an opportunity, take down the king, and save the people.’
They had lacked strength at first, so they had no choice but to obtain help from the Nar.
Rather than the King of Utgard, who definitely wasn’t on the side of the people, they chose to side with the Nar, who lent them strength as their goals were the same.
“Show me.”
That was why Lee Jun-Kyeong had surrendered so easily. He had already thought from the beginning that he would only be able to save the humans with the Hunters’ help anyway.
“Oorah! Oorah!”
Morale began to rise due to the victory among the Nar. Conversely, the remnants of the Utgardians stared at him.
"There was no reason to fight with my life on the line in the first place."
However, Lee Jun-Kyeong hadn’t been on Utgard's side from the very beginning.
"Mr. Lee."
Jeong In-Chang was next to Lee Jun-Kyeong, as were Fenrir and Hyeon-Mu. Lee Jun-Kyeong’s party had gathered together again.
What was unusual was…
“...why is that person like…?” Jeong In-Chang asked.
He was referring to Won-Hwa, who was being held in the arms of one of Hyeon-Mu’s skeletons.
Lee Jun-Kyeong shrugged.
"I…"
Next to them, Liu Bei and the other two Hunters approached.
“Guan Yu.”
“They call me Zhang Fei.”
They had finally introduced themselves even though it was a bit late.
They looked pitiful as they still showed marks of being scorched by the Monarch of Fire.
Lee Jun-Kyeong handed them another potion, and Thrymr gathered all of the Nar and shouted, “Let’s go! We will advance straight to Utgard!”
It was the best time for them to aim for Utgard. All of Utgard’s troops had been defeated, while the Nar was still in good shape.
‘Now…’
There were only a handful of giants defending Utgard.
“The King…” Thrymr murmured to himself. “We will take down the King.”
He was the last barrier that protected Utgard and their greatest enemy.
However, Thrymr never thought for a second that he would lose. Although there was the chance of great danger because that being’s base was in Utgard…
“We will take down Loki!”
“Oorah! Oorah!”
The giants shouted in response to Thrymr’s rallying cry.
“Loki…?”
Moreover, alongside hearing the name of the King of Utgard for the first time, Lee Jun-Kyeong heard the messages from <The Sky of the Apocalypse>.
[<The Sky of the Apocalypse> looks down at everyone with an uncomfortable gaze.]
[<The Sky of the Apocalypse> forms a sneer on its face.]
[<The Sky of the Apocalypse>...]
Lee Jun-Kyeong was embarrassed by the sudden reactions of <The Sky of the Apocalypse>.
***
The march of the Nar had begun, and only a few Nar had been left behind to protect the defeated giants.
Among the fallen Nar lay Thjazi, still groaning and unable to come to his senses.
“Ugh…”
“Are you betraying them?” Thrymr said while looking down at Lee Jun-Kyeong with his gigantic head. Lee Jun-Kyeong and his companions were riding on Fenrir’s back.
Lee Jun-Kyeong corrected him, “In the first place, we were only mercenaries."
There was no such thing as a side for a mercenary. Moreover, they hadn’t even gotten anything in return for it either.
Therefore, Lee Jun-Kyeong’s mouth lifted into a smirk, and he continued, “If you give me a little bit of remuneration, I’m even thinking of possibly fighting as well.”
Thrymr turned his head and said, “How amusing.”
Tadak! Tadak!
With Thrymr’s order, the Nars' troops began to advance. Their speed was neither fast nor slow. Now that almost all of Utgard’s forces had already been defeated, there was no reason for them to rush.
“Mr. Lee…” Jeong In-Chang whispered into Lee Jun-Kyeong's ear. "Is this really okay?"
Jeong In-Chang seemed flustered and worried by the sudden situation. However, Lee Jun-Kyeong smiled and responded, “Is there something that wouldn’t be okay about it?”
“But…”
“Didn’t I tell you before? From the very beginning, we weren’t on anyone’s side. Our purpose of coming to China has already been achieved…”
Lee Jun-Kyeong pointed toward himself and also at Won-Hwa.
“Now that we have also obtained the help we needed to help those that remained in Utgard…”
"Did you not tell me? From the beginning, we were not on anyone's side. The purpose of coming to China has already been achieved... ."
“...”
Lee Jun-Kyeong’s finger turned toward the silently advancing Hunters.
"Isn't this the best ending?"
"That’s true,” Jeong In-Chang said, nodding as if he understood it now. There was only one thing that still bugged Lee Jun-Kyeong.
‘Thjazi.’
At least among the giants, he was the one with whom Lee Jun-Kyeong had the most encounters with. A small part of him was worried about the giant.
“Thjazi… don’t worry about him,” Thrymr said as if he had read Lee Jun-Kyeong’s thoughts.
Thrymr was as kind to him as how Thjazi had been when they had first met. Lee Jun-Kyeong wondered if that was a proper representation of the characteristics of a giant who respected the strong.
‘Or is it because he cares about Thjazi?’
Thrymr seemed to know that he and Thjazi had a good relationship. Lee Jun-Kyeong wondered if that was why the giant was treating him well.
Tadak. Tadak.
Whether it was the white fangs, the ice drakes, the frost giants in black fur, the Nars=, or even the Hunters, they had all reached their destination.
Thrymr announced, “We have arrived.”
Before their eyes was a giant fortress, Utgard.
Booooooh!
At the posts of the Utgard Fortress, the few remaining warriors blew their horns to signal the attack of the Nar. The number of giants standing on the walls of the fortress was exceedingly few.
“Break through the gates,” Thrymr commanded.
“Growl!”
“Growl!”
At his command, the white fangs surrounded the stronghold.
Boooom–
The ice drakes began to use their breath as well.
***
Inside the Utgard Fortress.
Tadak. Tadak.
The ice drakes were leisurely walking through the fortress.
“Oorah! Oorah!”
The Nar in the black fur were advancing slowly, looking around the city they had returned to.
Although there had been a small battle, the Nar had been able to subdue all the Utgardian warriors without any casualties and entered the fortress. The giants looked at the approaching warriors in black fur with anxious eyes.
“...”
People went into their houses to hide and hold their breath, while some were even watching the advance of the Nar, glancing from the alleyways.
Then, Lee Jun-Kyeong woke Won-Hwa.
“It’s time for you to wake up now.”
However, the physician still hadn’t regained consciousness and didn’t respond to Lee Jun-Kyeong. Eventually, in order to wake him up, Lee Jun-Kyeong had to use a large amount of mana.
“Keheuk!”
Won-Hwa woke up screaming, and all eyes fixed on the sudden outburst.
After he woke up, he looked around for a while and then looked up at Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“...”
No matter how much he thought about it, nothing made sense. Not only did he wake up suddenly in Utgard when he had been teaching internal qigong to Lee Jun-Kyeong in the formation outside of the fortress, but around him, the place was also full of Nar and the Hunters who had betrayed them.
“This…”
Moreover, it didn’t even feel as though Lee Jun-Kyeong had been taken prisoner. Rather, he seemed to be proudly riding Fenrir and marching along with the Nar. Won-Hwa's expression was terribly distorted.
"There’s no way…"
There had been one thing he had doubted about Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“Were you a traitor from the very beginning?”
He came to the conclusion that Lee Jun-Kyeong had been a spy sent by the Nar.
“I… I can't believe I didn’t know that…” he sputtered.
Therefore, he felt as though he had been used in order to learn internal qigong.
Won-Hwa mustered up his energy, and he could tell that it had grown even greater than before. Although it could be said that Lee Jun-Kyeong had taken away a lot of the effects of the apple of Idunn, a considerable amount of mana had still been passed on to him.
Won-Hwa felt the increased power and wondered where it had come from for a moment, but twisted with rage, he didn’t seem to have the space to care about that at this moment.
Lee Jun-Kyeong spoke calmly to the physician who was trying to attack him by pulling out an acupuncture set.
"What are you talking about? I told you."
"…"
Wonhwa's anger subsided for a moment at his unnervingly calm response.
Lee Jun-Kyeong smiled brightly at him and pointed around.
"The rescue team has increased a bit."
“...”
Won-Hwa blankly kept looking at his surroundings, not knowing how to react.
Thrymr’s eyes widened in disbelief.
"…!"
"Pardon?" Jeong In-Chang asked while the strength in the hand that was holding his greatsword diminished.
“Growl!”
On the other hand, Fenrir snorted that he didn’t care as he had gotten to run freely as much as he had wanted.
“Oorah…?”
The giants were perplexed. Even the Nar stopped moving after hearing Lee Jun-Kyeong’s last statement. The whole absurdity of the situation kept them still.
“Please drink these.”
Lee Jun-Kyeong handed potions to the three fallen Hunters, which was Liu Bei’s group.
“...”
Even they had expressions of bewilderment. This was an enemy who had attacked them like a beast a while ago and had defeated them. But, now, he was giving potions to them.
Moreover, after having won the battle, he raised his hands in surrender.
Why?
That was the question on everyone’s mind.
"There is no reason to fight,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said as if he was reading their minds. "The commander of Utgard has fallen."
Lee Jun-Kyeong looked over at Thjazi and continued, “Now that I’ve learned the reasons of what had happened…”
Lee Jun-Kyeong raised his palms again and reiterated his point. "As just mercenaries, we will remove ourselves from the battle."
Sheer bewilderment descended upon everyone in the field.
However, Thrymr was different.
“Good.”
He had almost become the chief of the giants, so he possessed extraordinary observation skills and insight. He understood the meaning of Lee Jun-Kyeong's surrender.
"I accept your surrender."
With a simple sentence, the entire atmosphere of the battlefield changed.
“Oorah! Oorah! Oorah!”
It may have only been the surrender of a single mercenary, but the morale of the Utgardian warriors, whose commander had fallen, dropped to the ground.
They had been defeated.
As they began to realize that they had suffered a complete defeat, eventually, one by one, they began to fall to the ground.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Don't kill them!" Thrymr exclaimed.
It was bad enough that they had to kill their fellow giants in the Utgardian Civil war, their kin. Having already won this victory, he didn’t want to force his warriors to bear the burden of the blood of those who used to be friends and kin to them.
Eventually, the battlefield cleared up.
Fenrir and Jeong In-Chang had left after Lee Jun-Kyeong’s surrender, and naturally, the balance had also been overturned.
"…"
Liu Bei, the Hunter, was looking at Lee Jun-Kyeong. Lee Jun-Kyeong looked back at Liu Bei, who was staring at him in disbelief and said, "I will watch over your cause."
The reason Lee Jun-Kyeong had declared surrender was because of what Liu Bei had said while they had been fighting.
‘I never meant to abandon them!’
Liu Bei had no choice but to betray Utgard. However, then why had he joined the side of the Nar, leaving the humans at the mercy of the King of Utgard, who had indiscriminately slaughtered them?
‘Because only then was it safe for them.’
The King of Utgard had said that he felt uneasy due to the existence of the Hunters. Since the number of Chinese Hunters had been quite large at first, the king was afraid that their forces would threaten him.
They had thought that the other humans would be in danger as long as they were with them, so they decided to side with the Nar. Basically, they believed that if the giants believed that the normal humans hated the Hunters, then they at least would be kept alive.
‘We will kill the king. We will find an opportunity, take down the king, and save the people.’
They had lacked strength at first, so they had no choice but to obtain help from the Nar.
Rather than the King of Utgard, who definitely wasn’t on the side of the people, they chose to side with the Nar, who lent them strength as their goals were the same.
“Show me.”
That was why Lee Jun-Kyeong had surrendered so easily. He had already thought from the beginning that he would only be able to save the humans with the Hunters’ help anyway.
“Oorah! Oorah!”
Morale began to rise due to the victory among the Nar. Conversely, the remnants of the Utgardians stared at him.
"There was no reason to fight with my life on the line in the first place."
However, Lee Jun-Kyeong hadn’t been on Utgard's side from the very beginning.
"Mr. Lee."
Jeong In-Chang was next to Lee Jun-Kyeong, as were Fenrir and Hyeon-Mu. Lee Jun-Kyeong’s party had gathered together again.
What was unusual was…
“...why is that person like…?” Jeong In-Chang asked.
He was referring to Won-Hwa, who was being held in the arms of one of Hyeon-Mu’s skeletons.
Lee Jun-Kyeong shrugged.
"I…"
Next to them, Liu Bei and the other two Hunters approached.
“Guan Yu.”
“They call me Zhang Fei.”
They had finally introduced themselves even though it was a bit late.
They looked pitiful as they still showed marks of being scorched by the Monarch of Fire.
Lee Jun-Kyeong handed them another potion, and Thrymr gathered all of the Nar and shouted, “Let’s go! We will advance straight to Utgard!”
It was the best time for them to aim for Utgard. All of Utgard’s troops had been defeated, while the Nar was still in good shape.
‘Now…’
There were only a handful of giants defending Utgard.
“The King…” Thrymr murmured to himself. “We will take down the King.”
He was the last barrier that protected Utgard and their greatest enemy.
However, Thrymr never thought for a second that he would lose. Although there was the chance of great danger because that being’s base was in Utgard…
“We will take down Loki!”
“Oorah! Oorah!”
The giants shouted in response to Thrymr’s rallying cry.
“Loki…?”
Moreover, alongside hearing the name of the King of Utgard for the first time, Lee Jun-Kyeong heard the messages from <The Sky of the Apocalypse>.
[<The Sky of the Apocalypse> looks down at everyone with an uncomfortable gaze.]
[<The Sky of the Apocalypse> forms a sneer on its face.]
[<The Sky of the Apocalypse>...]
Lee Jun-Kyeong was embarrassed by the sudden reactions of <The Sky of the Apocalypse>.
***
The march of the Nar had begun, and only a few Nar had been left behind to protect the defeated giants.
Among the fallen Nar lay Thjazi, still groaning and unable to come to his senses.
“Ugh…”
“Are you betraying them?” Thrymr said while looking down at Lee Jun-Kyeong with his gigantic head. Lee Jun-Kyeong and his companions were riding on Fenrir’s back.
Lee Jun-Kyeong corrected him, “In the first place, we were only mercenaries."
There was no such thing as a side for a mercenary. Moreover, they hadn’t even gotten anything in return for it either.
Therefore, Lee Jun-Kyeong’s mouth lifted into a smirk, and he continued, “If you give me a little bit of remuneration, I’m even thinking of possibly fighting as well.”
Thrymr turned his head and said, “How amusing.”
Tadak! Tadak!
With Thrymr’s order, the Nars' troops began to advance. Their speed was neither fast nor slow. Now that almost all of Utgard’s forces had already been defeated, there was no reason for them to rush.
“Mr. Lee…” Jeong In-Chang whispered into Lee Jun-Kyeong's ear. "Is this really okay?"
Jeong In-Chang seemed flustered and worried by the sudden situation. However, Lee Jun-Kyeong smiled and responded, “Is there something that wouldn’t be okay about it?”
“But…”
“Didn’t I tell you before? From the very beginning, we weren’t on anyone’s side. Our purpose of coming to China has already been achieved…”
Lee Jun-Kyeong pointed toward himself and also at Won-Hwa.
“Now that we have also obtained the help we needed to help those that remained in Utgard…”
"Did you not tell me? From the beginning, we were not on anyone's side. The purpose of coming to China has already been achieved... ."
“...”
Lee Jun-Kyeong’s finger turned toward the silently advancing Hunters.
"Isn't this the best ending?"
"That’s true,” Jeong In-Chang said, nodding as if he understood it now. There was only one thing that still bugged Lee Jun-Kyeong.
‘Thjazi.’
At least among the giants, he was the one with whom Lee Jun-Kyeong had the most encounters with. A small part of him was worried about the giant.
“Thjazi… don’t worry about him,” Thrymr said as if he had read Lee Jun-Kyeong’s thoughts.
Thrymr was as kind to him as how Thjazi had been when they had first met. Lee Jun-Kyeong wondered if that was a proper representation of the characteristics of a giant who respected the strong.
‘Or is it because he cares about Thjazi?’
Thrymr seemed to know that he and Thjazi had a good relationship. Lee Jun-Kyeong wondered if that was why the giant was treating him well.
Tadak. Tadak.
Whether it was the white fangs, the ice drakes, the frost giants in black fur, the Nars=, or even the Hunters, they had all reached their destination.
Thrymr announced, “We have arrived.”
Before their eyes was a giant fortress, Utgard.
Booooooh!
At the posts of the Utgard Fortress, the few remaining warriors blew their horns to signal the attack of the Nar. The number of giants standing on the walls of the fortress was exceedingly few.
“Break through the gates,” Thrymr commanded.
“Growl!”
“Growl!”
At his command, the white fangs surrounded the stronghold.
Boooom–
The ice drakes began to use their breath as well.
***
Inside the Utgard Fortress.
Tadak. Tadak.
The ice drakes were leisurely walking through the fortress.
“Oorah! Oorah!”
The Nar in the black fur were advancing slowly, looking around the city they had returned to.
Although there had been a small battle, the Nar had been able to subdue all the Utgardian warriors without any casualties and entered the fortress. The giants looked at the approaching warriors in black fur with anxious eyes.
“...”
People went into their houses to hide and hold their breath, while some were even watching the advance of the Nar, glancing from the alleyways.
Then, Lee Jun-Kyeong woke Won-Hwa.
“It’s time for you to wake up now.”
However, the physician still hadn’t regained consciousness and didn’t respond to Lee Jun-Kyeong. Eventually, in order to wake him up, Lee Jun-Kyeong had to use a large amount of mana.
“Keheuk!”
Won-Hwa woke up screaming, and all eyes fixed on the sudden outburst.
After he woke up, he looked around for a while and then looked up at Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“...”
No matter how much he thought about it, nothing made sense. Not only did he wake up suddenly in Utgard when he had been teaching internal qigong to Lee Jun-Kyeong in the formation outside of the fortress, but around him, the place was also full of Nar and the Hunters who had betrayed them.
“This…”
Moreover, it didn’t even feel as though Lee Jun-Kyeong had been taken prisoner. Rather, he seemed to be proudly riding Fenrir and marching along with the Nar. Won-Hwa's expression was terribly distorted.
"There’s no way…"
There had been one thing he had doubted about Lee Jun-Kyeong.
“Were you a traitor from the very beginning?”
He came to the conclusion that Lee Jun-Kyeong had been a spy sent by the Nar.
“I… I can't believe I didn’t know that…” he sputtered.
Therefore, he felt as though he had been used in order to learn internal qigong.
Won-Hwa mustered up his energy, and he could tell that it had grown even greater than before. Although it could be said that Lee Jun-Kyeong had taken away a lot of the effects of the apple of Idunn, a considerable amount of mana had still been passed on to him.
Won-Hwa felt the increased power and wondered where it had come from for a moment, but twisted with rage, he didn’t seem to have the space to care about that at this moment.
Lee Jun-Kyeong spoke calmly to the physician who was trying to attack him by pulling out an acupuncture set.
"What are you talking about? I told you."
"…"
Wonhwa's anger subsided for a moment at his unnervingly calm response.
Lee Jun-Kyeong smiled brightly at him and pointed around.
"The rescue team has increased a bit."
“...”
Won-Hwa blankly kept looking at his surroundings, not knowing how to react.
