Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! Chapter 119: 119-Bait And Ride

Read chapter 119 of Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! by A_Random_Turtle on NovelPedia.

The crew packed up their bags the first thing at dawn on their third day within the Tower. A few, Merlin included, were bummed about the fact that they had to journey in the opposite direction of the forest after what they had gone through to get themself to it, as well as the effort they had put in to construct their tents. However, they had known it was long coming, even if they hadn’t met Krieger. They had not ventured into the Tower for a vacation after all. They would eventually have had to move, figure out what they had to do to clear the Tower, leaving their initial efforts behind. It had just come a little bit quicker than they might have expected—thankfully, too. After Krieger’s explanation, and Merlin’s translation, their mission became clear. The first floor of the Tower had once been a land sprawling with vast greenery, spring waters, and flourishing with life anywhere one could see. There had been countless villages then, and more than enough beasts to hunt to feed on. However, things changed a decade ago. Their god, the benevolent dragon, Xéros, and the being that encompassed their world, died. Which had come as a surprise. After all, He was immortal. There was no way a godly being was otherwise. The Drachens had prayed for days for answers, but none came. Their flourishing world began to dry up, and before they knew it, the greenery that spread out everywhere was slowly drowned out by the quartz sand that filled the lands now. At first, all the villages came together to figure out a way to survive on what they had. But every year the quartz sand grew more, not for once relenting. Before long, it sucked out the life from most of the flourishing lands that remained, leaving only a few that was not enough to sustain the villages. Because of that, the treaty between the villages was broken; war broke out, and the Drachens killed themselves faster than the sand might have, leaving only the two villages of Blatt and Stein. Krieger’s mission had been to convince the Drachens of Stein to join hands with the villagers of Blatt to ascend the Tower, journey to the second floor in hopes that it had not met the same state as the first floor. However, the Drachen Chief of Stein had called the attempt a fool’s journey. Ascending the Tower was perilous and harsher than trying to survive on what was left on the first floor, he’d said. They were not going to be joining hands with the villagers of Blatt on their fool’s errand. They would survive on what was left on the first floor and gratefully let themselves be taken when death came. “Then what was the need for them to attack Krieger and the others? They were going to end up leaving the first floor all to them at the end of the day,” Man-Shik asked as he trudged beside Merlin, flanking him to his left while Sofia flanked his right along with the other two first years, Park Yuri and Daniel. Merlin was narrating all the lore Krieger had told him to them. Besides Merlin, they had been tasked with guarding the camp by Senior Sun-Hee and Senior Hyunwoo when the conversation with Krieger had gotten into the deeper phase. That way, they were not blindsided by Krieger’s attackers while they were questioning him. And, well, the rest of the night had been used to rest up in preparation for the journey they were undertaking now. Merlin had no choice but to repeat all he’d learned to his mates after they had kept pestering him. He sighed, looking straight ahead at Senior Sun-Hee and Senior Hyunwoo as they led the march with Krieger in the lead. “They were not planning on leaving just yet,” Merlin replied to Man-Shik’s question. “They needed three hundred days of preparation…” He noticed he sounded too sure of the timeline then for someone who had been translating based on just body tics, so he added, “...I think.” “And so they attacked them because the time was too long and they couldn’t be patient,” Sofia said with a sigh. “That’s low.” “It’s war,” Park Yuri joined in the conversation. “Un