Chapter 9: Sanctuary Forest (2)

“I am the chieftain here. Lund. In the past, I was known as ‘Iron-Vine Cantor’ Lund. On behalf of all our people, I welcome the divine envoys.”

He took a few unsteady steps forward and bowed—well, he tried to bow, stopping halfway with visible effort.

“Forgive me, my old bones won’t let me move as I used to. In any case, welcome. I will do my best to answer all your questions. Please, have a seat.”

His beard twitched slightly. He was probably smiling at us.

I suddenly noticed that, despite being the oldest among them, the rot on his face was much lighter than that of the other rotted-face people. And his speech was clear and fluent. No stammering.

***

“So, uh… let me get this straight.”

Booker rubbed his temples.

“This really isn’t Earth anymore? We’re in another world now? And the name of this place is Yaadelan?”

“It’s Yardelan, Mr. Booker. In the old tongue, it means ‘Land Bathed in Radiance.’”

“Pfft. Radiance, huh.”

Booker glanced up at the sky. Though it was night, a faint gray mist hung overhead, casting everything in a dull, murky gloom. ‘Bathed in Radiance’ couldn’t have felt more ironic.

“A cruel irony, isn’t it?” Lund gave a weary sigh. “Yardelan was once truly bathed in sunlight. But for the past ten years, we haven’t seen a clear sky. It’s always been like this, clouded and gray.”

Even Booker, usually one to blurt things without thinking, fell silent at the weight in Lund’s voice.

“Let me explain everything now. What I’m about to tell you may go against everything you understand about the world, but I ask you to listen patiently.”

***

Yardelan, the Land Bathed in Radiance, was once an ordinary world. Like Earth, it had wars, natural disasters, and hardships, but it endured for ages in relative peace.

Until ten years ago.

The gray fog, said to pierce dimensions, appeared in this world.

No one knew where it came from. No one understood its nature. At first, people assumed it was just strange weather. But then, ominous things began to emerge from the fog—foreign artifacts, bizarre filth, and worst of all, creatures that had never existed in Yardelan.

These monsters came to be known as fog fiends. They took on all manner of grotesque forms, destroying towns and slaughtering people. Fortunately, their numbers were not overwhelming—at least, not at first. Just as the rulers of Yardelan began preparing to unite against this new threat, disaster struck.

The Wall of Fog appeared.

There were five initial sites where the fog first emerged, called ‘eruption points.’ These were the thickest, most dangerous fog zones. 

A few months after the first monsters appeared, the previously formless fog began to congeal around these points, rising high into the sky and plunging deep into the earth, forming impenetrable barriers that split Yardelan into isolated sections.

These fog walls could not be crossed. Anyone who approached would be repelled. Some even died attempting it. 

They truly reached sky and earth—their tops higher than any man-made structure, their bases deeper than any measurement could reach. Yardelan had been fractured into scattered, unreachable fog disaster zones.

After the walls rose, fog fiends no longer roamed freely. They emerged only from the walls. Humans could not enter, but the fog fiends could come and go at will. Even if they were destroyed, new ones would crawl from the fog shortly after. The monsters could not be exterminated.

“It feels as though Yardelan has become a dumping ground,” Lund said bitterly. “Foreign objects and creatures tossed here like garbage. It’s tragic.”

In the face of this nightmare, the people of Yardelan despaired. They prayed to the gods for salvation, but heard nothing in return.

Until one day.

—Children of man, take heart. One day, envoys from another world shall arrive, and from the depths of despair, they shall bring salvation.

Everyone heard it. The voice of the world’s god.

And so, the seed of hope was sown.

Countless people waited… waited… waited… And just as faith began to wane, just when people began to think it had all been a lie—

“You appeared. Just as the god foretold. You are the divine envoys from another world.”

Lund’s gaze fell on us, eyes glowing with reverence.

We looked at one another, unsure what to say.

A world in crisis, heroes summoned from another realm to save it—it was the standard setup for a fantasy isekai novel.

But…

“Um, when you say save the world… do you mean fighting those fog fiends? Killing them?” Jelena raised her hand timidly.

“Exactly so.”

Lund answered without hesitation.

Again, we looked around at each other.

Words like ‘fight,’ ‘kill monsters,’ and ‘save the world’ sounded perfectly normal in a novel, but this wasn’t fiction.

It was real.

I hesitated, then spoke.

“I’m sorry, Chief Lund. But I think we might be disappointing you. We’re not some kind of divine envoys. We’re just ordinary people. We don’t have any divine powers.”

The others nodded in agreement. Lund simply smiled gently.

“But Mr. Zhou Yuhong,” he said, “you’ve already slain more than one fog fiend. We saw it from afar. Others confirmed it as well.”

“That was just luck! I’m just a student who just finished the college entrance exam back on Earth. Sure, I practiced a little sanda, but I’ve never had any real combat training. The others are the same. We’re just regular people, not martial artists, not special forces, not soldiers, and definitely not heroes.”

“He’s right! We don’t know anything!”

“Why should we have to help you?! Can’t you fix your own problems?”

“If it comes to a fight, we’d just be dead weight!”

Everyone voiced their frustration at once. But Lund’s expression didn’t waver; he kept smiling warmly.

Then he simply repeated, “But Mr. Zhou Yuhong, you have slain more than one fog fiend.”

The same line.

My head ached. Was this guy really that convinced we were world-saving superheroes? That couldn’t be right.

“You seem to have misunderstood me,” Lund said. “That’s alright. We anticipated this, and we’ve prepared something to show you.”

At his signal, several rotted-face villagers appeared, reverently carrying a large iron cage.

The moment I saw what was inside, my reflex was to reach for my butcher knife—of course, it wasn’t there. Jelena and Booker jumped back, haunted by memories of death. Felice stepped a little closer to me, while Rena and Mizan—who were seeing this for the first time—nearly screamed.

It was a lizard-like humanoid monster, the same kind we encountered in the abandoned town.

It had been tightly bound inside the cage, but was still thrashing, its jaws snapping in an attempt to bite. The villagers opened the cage, dragged it out with ropes, and threw it onto the stone ground in front of us. We all instinctively stepped back.

“We captured this one during our retreat. That’s all we could do. We can’t do anything beyond that.”

Couldn’t do anything beyond that?

“That, dear envoys, is the reason why you are our only hope. Jols, please demonstrate.”

“Yes, sir.”

At Lund’s call, Jols stepped forward, now holding a spear. Crude, but far better than the farming tools we’d had.

He aimed carefully at the monster’s head and drove the spear down with all his might. 

Crack!

I was sure the spear would pierce the lizard’s skull. He hadn’t held back, and his aim was perfect. The strike should’ve been lethal.

But it wasn’t.

The lizard was completely unharmed.

In that instant, I saw it—the moment the spear touched its skin, the faint gray fog surrounding the monster came to life, rippling and repelling the weapon to protect it.

Jols showed no surprise. He stabbed again, and again—nothing.

Other villagers joined in with axes, knives, clubs—even fire. But none of it worked. The gray fog guarded the creature, and despite the assault, it was barely injured.

“Do you see now, divine envoys? As long as that cursed fog remains, we cannot harm the fog fiends. Not just us, the entire population of Yardelan is powerless against them. But you…”

Jols turned to us, bowed deeply, and held out the spear with both hands.

I glanced around. Everyone was watching me, hope shining in their eyes. The plaza had quietly filled with more villagers, all staring.

I sighed quietly and took the spear.

“Please.”

“Alright.”

I gripped the weapon, its cold weight solid in my hand, and approached the lizard. The villagers gave me room. I could feel dozens of eyes on me.

I took a deep breath, mimicked Jols’s stance, and drove the spear down.

Maybe it was adrenaline, but everything slowed.

I saw it clearly.

As I struck, a mist rose from my body—not gray, but a dark navy, nearly black. The blue mist wrapped around the spear, coalescing at the tip. When it touched the monster’s fog, the two mists collided.

Navy met gray.

They clashed, mingled, and then both vanished.

As if canceling each other out.

And then, the spear struck home, sinking into flesh and tearing through. The lizard howled in pain.

But its cries were instantly drowned out by cheering.

A wave of joy surged through the crowd. Every rotted-face villager, even the chieftain, was shouting, laughing, and dancing. Their joy was raw and uncontainable, like they had just witnessed a miracle.

“There is no doubt now. You are the divine envoys! Only those from another world can harm the fog fiends; only you hold the power to save this world!”