Memorize Chapter 247

As I lifted the Wailing Girl by her hair with one hand, the kids flinched and took a step back.

“I told you earlier, right? This is the Wailing Girl. It’s my first time seeing her in person, too.”

“O-Oppa!”

“?”

“Please… ugh…”

Yun-Jung, looking at the Wailing Girl, grimaced and let out a groan. It wasn’t just her. Most of the clan members wore expressions as if they’d seen something they wished they hadn’t. Only Go Yeon-Joo maintained her initial composure. She glanced briefly at the girl before walking steadily toward the corpse.

'Is she really that scary?'

I tilted my head in curiosity. Releasing the hair I’d been gripping with my left hand, I brought the impaled sword closer. The Wailing Girl retained her grotesque appearance. But to me, she didn’t evoke much revulsion.

Looking back at the others, I saw their faces still tinged with fear. Fear. Surely, every human harbors some latent anxiety about fear. I was no exception. As a human, I, too, felt fear and dread.

The only difference between me and the kids was the threshold at which fear kicked in.

'When I fell to the lowest layer of hell. That was when it really got me.'

The lowest level of the Eight Hells, the Avici Hell, is reserved for the most heinous beings. There, I experienced every sensory aspect of terror a human could feel. Personally, I considered surviving and escaping hell the greatest stroke of luck during my first run in Hall Plain. That place was utterly horrific.

Honestly, compared to the hounds of hell that constantly threatened my life, the Wailing Girl was no more than a pet rabbit.

I twisted the Sun-Moon Divine Sword half a turn and pulled it out, causing the Wailing Girl to drop to the ground with a thud. Immediately, her remaining upper body began to rot rapidly. When I lightly kicked the now fully gray body, it crumbled into a handful of dust and scattered into the air. For such a grandiose entrance, it was a pitiful exit.

“Hyung, is it dead?”

“Who knows.”

“Huh?”

“Go Yeon-Joo, find anything?”

Go Yeon-Joo was crouching, examining the corpse. At my question, she braced her thighs and stood up with a deep sigh.

“Nothing particularly unusual. Given how badly it’s been bitten and torn, it’s clear the Wailing Girl did this…”

“Anything worth salvaging?”

“Nothing but scraps. The body’s too mutilated to begin with.”

“Tch.”

As I clicked my tongue, licking my molars in frustration, Go Yeon-Joo approached me with a light step and spoke.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t expect you to take down the Wailing Girl so… uh, I mean, so efficiently. The immediate danger’s gone, but it doesn’t seem like this guy was alone.”

“Hm…”

She had a point. Unless they were completely unhinged, no user would venture out alone at night like this.

After a moment of thought, I spoke in a low voice.

“Then we should be able to trace the path the Wailing Girl took to get here.”

“No question about it.”

“Well, since it looks like we won’t be sleeping tonight anyway…”

The kids who were awake, as well as those rudely roused from deep sleep, all looked wide awake now, their faces drained of any trace of drowsiness. Going back to sleep wasn’t a bad idea, but something about the situation felt off. It seemed better to follow the trail for now and stop if it stretched too far.

'If it comes to it, we can just march through the night.'

Smirking inwardly at the thought that would make the kids scream, I nodded slightly toward the campsite.

“Pack up the camp.”

*

After breaking camp, we followed Go Yeon-Joo as she retraced the path the Wailing Girl had taken. Her tracking skills were genuinely impressive. Despite it being the dead of night, she led the march without a single pause.

Fortunately, the tracking didn’t take as long as I’d feared. Just as I was considering giving up, Go Yeon-Joo reported that she’d spotted what looked like a campsite.

She sniffed the air, closely inspected the ground, and then pointed in one direction.

“See that? The grass is pressed shorter than the rest. I think it’s over there.”

“Alright, let’s check it out.”

Following the direction she indicated, a scene that clashed starkly with the quiet plains gradually came into view. As we drew closer, the sight of scattered corpses and shattered camp mana stones became increasingly vivid.

“Whoa.”

“Ugh!”

As we approached the campsite, a foul stench of blood stung our noses. The horrific scene before us left some speechless, while others let out faint screams. Even Baek Hangeol, who had held it together so far, couldn’t handle this and collapsed, vomiting on the spot.

Three users lay dead at the campsite: two men and one woman. Including the man from earlier, that meant a caravan of four had been in the plains.

One of the men had his throat ripped open, while the other’s abdomen was torn apart, his intestines spilling out. Still, their bodies were in better shape compared to the woman’s. The woman, dressed in white priest robes, was missing her head entirely. Her torn robes revealed a breast that had been savagely bitten. Scattered fragments of eyeballs, flesh, and other debris around the site gave a rough idea of how they’d met their end.

“Something’s off. Their gear doesn’t suggest they were particularly skilled.”

“The Wailing Plains are well-known. They couldn’t have been unaware that provoking the Wailing Girl is a bad idea.”

“Provoking her is difficult to begin with, isn’t it? I heard she rarely shows herself.”

“There are some recorded incidents. Old records in Babara’s library mention a few cases of harm caused by her. That’s why people say not to provoke her.”

Go Yeon-Joo nodded at my words. But even as I countered, I shared her confusion. Something felt wrong. Given the situation, it was hard to believe these people had deliberately provoked the Wailing Girl.

At that moment, Kim Han-Byeol, who had been patting Baek Hangeol’s back, spoke cautiously.

“Could these users be victims, too?”

“Hm? Victims?”

“Yes. I don’t know the details, but it feels like that’s the only way this makes sense…”

“Victims, huh…”

If that were the case, it meant someone had deliberately provoked the Wailing Girl and redirected her aggression toward these people. It was a plausible theory. But then, who could have the ability to pull off such a stunt?

A myriad of thoughts swirled in my mind. There was too little information, and the possibilities were endless. For now, I decided to be satisfied with what we had. Staying here longer didn’t seem likely to yield more clues. Rather than wasting more time, it was better to get our derailed plans back on track as much as possible.

Still, leaving empty-handed felt like a waste, so I looked around for anything worth salvaging. Unfortunately, there was nothing but scraps. Most of the gear they were wearing was so badly damaged it was practically trash.

With a sigh of regret, I turned away.

*

The dim dawn light was gradually illuminating the plains, pushing back the darkness. The morning mist slightly limited visibility, but not enough to hinder our march.

After leaving the campsite littered with corpses, I decided to proceed with a night march. Since things had come to this, the goal was to escape the Wailing Plains as quickly as possible.

The clan members’ faces were etched with exhaustion, and the mood was heavy. Having just seen brutally murdered corpses a few hours ago, everyone followed me in silence, focused solely on keeping up.

“How about we take a break here?”

The night march, which involved nothing but walking, must have been grueling and tedious, because the moment I spoke, Sol collapsed onto the ground with a thud. In the past, she would’ve whined about how tired she was or how she couldn’t keep up, but seeing her follow without complaint this time made me feel a small sense of pride.

“Uh, Clan Lord, here’s some water.”

“Oh, Hangeol? Are you feeling okay now?”

“Y-Yes, I’m fine. Trying to get used to it. Don’t worry about me. Heh.”

“Ha, alright. Thanks for the water.”

Baek Hangeol was clearly aware of his current standing. Even with the powerful Secret Class, Divine Shield, he seemed to have realized his abilities were the weakest in the group. Perhaps because of that, since he couldn’t contribute in combat, he was finding other ways to be helpful.

“Ugh, I’m beat.”

An-Hyun, taking a water bottle from Baek Hangeol, plopped down beside me with a groan. As I took a sip of water, I suddenly recalled the conversation we’d had by the campfire.

“An-Hyun.”

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t you say earlier you had something to ask me? By the campfire.”

“Oh, that? It’s no big deal. I was just wondering if there’s really a ruin in the Gorge of Hallucination.”

An-Hyun laughed lightly, as if it truly was no big deal. Looking around, I saw the clan members sitting here and there, silent. Their faces were uniformly shadowed with gloom. To lift this dreary mood and pass the break time, I decided to share a story.

“Speaking of the Gorge of Hallucination, there’s an interesting story about it. Wanna hear it?”

“Of course, if it’s from you, Hyung. It’s bound to be useful. What’s the story?”

“An ancient record of Hall Plain.”

“Ancient record? You mean like a myth or legend?”

Glancing around, I noticed eyes turning toward me and ears perking up. With a faint smile, I began the story slowly.

The beginning was nothing special. Like any common fairy tale or novel, it went like this: In ancient times, the continent of Hall Plain faced a crisis, and heroes gathered to resolve it. A human swordsman, a human priest, a human mage, a fairy archer, a dragon mage, and other skilled heroes.

They overcame countless trials and hardships, ultimately facing the forces of evil in a final battle and emerging victorious. In the end, the continent of Hall Plain regained peace.

An-Hyun listened intently at first. But when he heard that, after peace was restored, the human swordsman who led the heroes and the fairy queen who served as the archer held an engagement ceremony, he let out a deflated sound.

“Ugh, what? That’s such a generic story.”

“It is up to this point. But the really interesting part is that the story doesn’t end there. Remember the human mage I mentioned earlier?”

“Uh, yeah. Most of the heroes died in the final battle, and he was one of the survivors, right?”

“Right. The hero, the fairy queen, the great mage, and the saintess—four survived in total. But according to the records, the great mage secretly loved the fairy queen.”

An-Hyun hadn’t taken a single sip of water yet. He moved to open the bottle but stopped again at my next words.

“What? Didn’t you say the great mage was super old? Oh, are fairies old too? Still, they’d look pretty different, wouldn’t they? Anyway, what happened next?”

“After their engagement ceremony, under the pretense of congratulations, the great mage invited the hero and the fairy queen to his stronghold. That place was supposedly the Gorge City in the Gorge of Hallucination.”

“Oh, I see. And then?”

“That’s it.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

The response didn’t come from just one person. Everyone, despite their complaints, had been engrossed in the story, and the abrupt ending left them visibly disappointed.

“The hero and the fairy queen gladly accepted the great mage’s invitation and went to the Gorge of Hallucination. That’s the end. There’s no more to the story. Now you see why it’s not called a myth or legend? Since no one knows what happened afterward, the record stops there.”

“Hyung, so those three just went missing?”

“No way! That’s ridiculous. Why didn’t someone go to the stronghold to find the missing heroes…?” Sol whined.

As I was about to respond to her, I suddenly stopped and turned my head forward. The moment I caught a faint presence at the edge of my detection, for the first time since the expedition began, I furrowed my brow.

'This… the sound of four footsteps?'