The Foreigner on the Periphery (English Translation)

176. Love Yourself (2)

"Welcome! Mr. Solada, we've been waiting for you. It's an honor to finally meet you!"

Solada disembarked from the rural train station. A slender Shutan stood on the shabby platform, greeting him with a polite posture.

"My name is Kulesh. I've been informed by Mr. Darkvara. I will be your host at the mansion starting today."

Darkvara is the name of the agent who prepared the hideout.

Solada was inwardly surprised. He had expected a life of solitary confinement in an empty mansion before coming here. He hadn't anticipated being assigned a servant as well.

He was further surprised by the next statement.

"There are other staff members at the mansion who are waiting for you as well, Mr. Solada."

Even more?

During the transfer from the station to the coastal mansion, Kulesh showered Solada with obvious flattery.

"I've heard of your reputation. You've made outstanding contributions in every dimension you've been assigned, and are one of the top weapon masters in the country! Truly enviable. You are indeed a real man among the Shutan, unlike people like me."

Kulesh spoke with a speed that seemed to be insincere. To Solada, it sounded like a sarcastic remark, questioning why someone of such high repute would be hiding alone in a mansion without a partner or children.

"It's everyone's dream to be born a man and make a name as a warrior, isn't it? Unlike someone like me who does insignificant work. In that sense, I truly envy you."

Solada wanted to change the subject.

"Is it always like this around here? The fog, I mean."

"Yes. It's a view not seen in the capital, isn't it? Being a seaside town, the sea fog (海霧) comes and goes at will. On days like this, it's so dense that you can't even tell if someone is walking just a few meters ahead. We've arrived, Mr. Solada."

As Kulesh pulled the luggage, the gatekeeper opened the front gate. The staff members inside greeted Solada in unison. Kulesh said in a lively tone.

"Actually, we arrived here just a few days ago as well. Since the mansion had been vacant for a long time, we've been cleaning and waiting for the new owner. Oh, by the way, you missed a very rare sight by just one day. If you had arrived yesterday, you would have seen it with us."

Solada replied casually.

"What was it?"

He was only thinking about getting into the water and washing away the fatigue. Unaware that the other party was hardly listening, Kulesh continued to talk.

"There was a very strange event at sea last night. The fog was as thick as it is now. Even though the visibility was poor because it was night, this was something you couldn't miss."

Solada, though curious, didn't respond due to his exhaustion. Kulesh continued enthusiastically.

"I've never seen such a large lightning bolt before. It pierced through the fog. But it was strange, wasn't it? Normally, lightning flashes here and there unpredictably, right? But this lightning kept sizzling in one spot. It seemed to pull and tug at itself persistently. It must have lasted for several dozen seconds. Then suddenly, it burst into light. And then there!"

Kulesh turned his head abruptly, as if trying to create suspense, but Solada remained indifferent. The servant, maintaining a serious expression, said:

"…There was a black star there!"

Fortunately, Solada's mind was clear right after his release, or he might have punched Kulesh in the jaw to shut him up if he had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Instead, Solada asked indifferently.

"A black star?"

"Yes! It was a black star. Ordinary stars shine by piercing the black sky with sharp light, right? But this star was different. It darkened the entire sky full of flashes while revealing itself. And it was much larger than other stars. Some people say it looked like a starfish with many sharp tentacles, but… to me, it looked more like a star!"

Nonsense.

Arriving at the bedroom, Solada wanted to dismiss the overly enthusiastic servant.

But the attempt was unsuccessful. It wasn't because Kulesh continued to talk without taking a breath. The cause came from outside the mansion.

---!

A chilling scream from one of the servants.

After meeting Min-jun, Ha-eun-sung had never seen him with such an expression.

No matter what he faced, he always maintained a calm demeanor, but now his face was filled with horror.

He had forgotten to exhale after taking a deep breath, frozen like a statue.

'What's wrong with him?!'

Standing beside him, Ha-eun-sung felt the fear was contagious. What could cause someone to react like that?

Unless it was a catastrophically improbable event like waking up to find the country, family, relatives, and all assets gone, what could possibly make Min-jun react with such shock?

At that moment, Min-jun was thinking.

"Damn, where did it all go?"

He was frozen by the unexpected loss.

Upon arriving at the location Ha-eun-sung had scouted, he saw a scene different from what he remembered. As described by the ghost, there was only one mansion standing on a desolate land.

It was absurd.

Upon closer inspection, there were traces of a massive region from ancient times. Modern people might refer to it as a ruin.

'How could this happen? I had prepared thoroughly.'

When the Shutan princess he met on Earth a few months ago described the beautiful nature of Gelango for about ten minutes, he had listened with one ear and let it out the other. He wasn't interested at all. He didn't know if he would ever visit.

But now Min-jun knew. He had been here before, a very long time ago.

'Where did everything go? How did they break the barrier?'

The surroundings were shrouded in sea fog, making it hard for ordinary people to distinguish the terrain, but his sharp gaze pierced through and observed everything.

And the moment he saw the mansion.

"I see. Only that house remains. It's been expanded into a trivial structure, but it's a disguise."

What about the rest?

At that moment.

Whoosh!

"Oh, oh?! Agent! Agent!"

The dragon, whom he had encountered before, was horrified and fled.

Min-jun's agitation seemed to have caused the shadows binding Del on his back to lose control, writhing uncontrollably. This wasn't something that could happen when controlling the monster form. Unlike before, what had been pulled out now was the essence that formed the monster—a kind of concentrate.

"Shh! Calm down. Stop."

Whoosh!

The mass of tentacles, neatly tied like a bundle, began to loosen and squirm again.

"Stay still. That's right."

The shadows soon calmed down, but Min-jun, as if realizing something, canceled the summoning. Instead, he took out a long leather strap from his clothing. It was a magical tool used to subdue criminals.

Infusing power into it, the strap wriggled like a living creature and bound the tentacles on his back. However, it wasn't as perfectly and neatly bound as the shadows, leaving a few strands protruding. Min-jun left it as it was.

"Let's go."

His focus was solely on the mansion. Before getting closer, he did a final check on his companions. Clothing, okay. Polymorph, okay. Everyone had changed their appearance, and Yumtus had even used polymorph to become human.

Although everyone had perfectly transformed, there was one exception.

Wriggle!

A few unbound tentacles from the leather strap wriggled on his back, making Min-jun look like a medusa who had spilled hair tonic on her back.

'Del…'

As of the last check, the magical power within her body was a mess. Her already imperfectly solidified form rejected the polymorph spell cast by others.

As a result, Del was in a state where she couldn't escape her half-human, half-tentacle form for the time being.

So Min-jun had come up with a plausible explanation for this situation.

"Hmm? Who's there?"

As they approached the mansion, the Shutan guarding the front gate sensed their presence and asked. Contrary to Ha-eun-sung's scouting, the place was not empty.

Just as Min-jun was about to reply in the common tongue.

"Hu, huff?!"

The gatekeeper, who guarded Solada's mansion, felt his entire body's scales tremble at the sight of the shadow through the fog.

The unidentified group consisted of three people, two of whom appeared to be ordinary human silhouettes. This type of race was also quite common in this kingdom.

The problem was the one leading the group.

The gatekeeper swore he had never seen such a creature before. The shadow in the fog had a structure similar to a human. But logically, a human has only one head. This individual had an additional relatively small head on the left shoulder, apart from the ordinary head. Even more horrifying were the 'things' writhing on the back. They resembled thick serpents in the fog.

With two heads and thick serpents on its back, this creature was… definitely…

The gatekeeper screamed.

"Demon!"

Hearing the scream, Solada hurried to the front gate before even unpacking his belongings. Despite his long imprisonment and a life dulled by drugs and alcohol, he was the first to arrive. It was a reaction befitting a once-renowned weapon master.

Solada then witnessed the strange presence pointed out by the terrified servant.

The first thing that came to his mind was.

"Chimera?!"

It was a misunderstanding. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't. Although the ordinary Shutan's vision was similar to that of a human, the physical abilities of a weapon master were different.

"A human man is carrying someone else."

However, the condition of the woman being carried was anything but ordinary.

He pondered. After all, for the time being, Solada was the master of the mansion. How to handle the situation was up to him.

"Don't come any closer; stop there."

The people in the fog complied. The man carrying the woman spoke.

"Please help us."

After a moment of silence.

Without relaxing his tension, Solada said.

"...What happened to that woman?"

A woman with tentacles instead of legs on her lower body.

The man answered as if it was an anticipated question.

"As you can see, her condition is very poor. We came here while looking for a place to rest."

"I asked what happened to her."

"She fell victim to a terrible spell. It's magic."

"Magic?!"

So she was originally a normal human woman. Having experienced various trials, Solada quickly recalled a particular term.

"A curse! Was it a curse?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Then the culprit must be!"

The weapon master's gaze pierced through the fog to meet the man's expression. He was clenching his lips in frustration and lowering his head. His eyes were burning with a desire for revenge.

"Just as you guessed. An evil dark sorcerer cast such a dreadful curse…"

"Dark sorcerer!"

Solada shouted like thunder. The echoing sound made the servants stagger or fall on their backs.

A dark sorcerer!

Those who use ordinary people as sacrifices, inflicting pain and draining their blood, are considered criminals in most dimensions. Solada, who had worked as an alien mercenary, was well aware of their malice and shuddered just at the thought.

In his mind, dark sorcerers are abominable beings who should not be categorized as humans.

"Are those abominable creatures wandering around here, even though it's not enough to rip out their spines and shove them between their buttocks?!"

Shouting like that, he looked at the servant. Kulesh waved his hands, saying he didn't know as he had only arrived a few days ago.

"Damn, I'll have to take a look around sometime. Even though I came here to meditate, I can't sleep comfortably with such creatures in the front yard!"

The grudge he held against dark sorcerers from his mercenary days was immense. His suspicion of them grew increasingly faint. He couldn't imagine that such a curse was intentionally staged. If he wanted to fake an injury, there would be much more reasonable and plausible ways.

A curse that turns one's lower body into tentacles was an unimaginable and horrifying act if one wasn't insane.

He asked one last question.

"What's the relation?"

Truth sometimes requires excessively detailed explanations. Min-jun knew that a much simpler and intuitive answer was likely.

"She's my wife."

Solada's eyebrows twitched.

After a period of silence, he said.

"Throwing out a man suffering because of his ill wife is not right. Come in."

Min-jun smiled faintly for the first time. To Solada, it appeared to be a smile of relief.

"Thank you. However… though it is shameless of me, I have one more request. I need to make some soup for my wife. Could I possibly use your kitchen?"

End of chapter 176