LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 139
Chapter 139 Season 2 – Never Seen the Sky
“At least have this for now.”
After all, we were technically guests.
Dorothy, out of courtesy, offered us some tea…
“…Hot water?”
“It’s precious water.”
“Ah, right…”
There was no tea, of course. She simply gave us warm, clean water.
“Thankfully, this underground village is connected to an underground water source. So, at least the drinking water problem is solved.”
“Well, that’s fortunate.”
Yeah, these kids were living 1,000 meters underground, digging tunnels. Thinking they’d have tea was absurd.
I figured even this warm water wasn’t something everyone could drink.
So, after taking a sip of the warm water.
“Whew…”
“…Shall we get to the main topic now, Shin-woo?”
“Yes, Miss Kurumi. I was just about to.”
Now that we had entered the rebel base, the only group still resisting my future self, it was time to prepare for the next move.
“Dorothy, we’re here to rescue Sophia, who was taken to the future, and to defeat my future self.”
“Defeat… You mean Han Shin-woo?! That’s impossible! Even if you could somehow rescue Sophia, that Demon Lord is a completely different kind of monster!”
“Why are you so certain, Dorothy?”
“Because I witnessed that monster crush the last hopes of humanity one by one! …And now, we barely have any fighters left in this underground village.”
It was clear.
The rebel group, originally organized to fight against my future self, had lost its strength.
This underground village seemed like a place created just to survive while avoiding the gaze of my future self.
According to Jae-won, the village had been discovered once before, and key human figures like Che-ran, Jin-ah Lee, and Katarina were wiped out.
“We’d love to help, honestly! But, to be frank, we’re barely surviving ourselves.”
“Dorothy…”
“Captain…”
“Even if you include me and Jae-won, there are barely 10 fighters. At our current strength, if even one of Han Shin-woo’s divisions attacked, we’d all be annihilated.”
“I’m sorry, Father, but I have to agree with the captain on this.”
Jae-won wore an expression of deep apology.
After all, he had been born and raised in this underground village.
No matter how much it involved his mother, he couldn’t treat the people who had raised him carelessly.
“No, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Realizing my mistake, I apologized.
If most of the fighters from the underground village joined our cause, the village would be left without any support.
These people were already surviving by eating monster corpses.
If we took the fighters who hunted those monsters, everyone would likely starve.
Therefore.
“Let’s talk about this another time.”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
“W-What?! You’re just backing off like that? How are we going to defeat your future self on our own?”
I had decided to hold off on asking for help from Dorothy and the rebels for now.
Kang Mi-rae, the saintess, began protesting in disbelief.
“But we can’t just take the underground village’s fighters. If we do, these people might all starve to death.”
“Th-That’s true… but do you have any other plan?!”
“Not really…”
I hadn’t realized how dire the rebels’ situation was.
In this state, far from being strong allies, they would end up becoming a burden to us.
Maybe because I felt stifled in the small, stuffy mud house, I decided to step outside for some air.
However, even stepping outside didn’t allow me to see the sky—this was still deep underground.
“Has Jae-won been living in a place like this all this time…”
Now that I thought about it, when I first met Jae-won at the department store, he had kept looking around in amazement.
I understood now.
To a kid who had grown up in a world surrounded by nothing but brown earth, the bright, glittering department store must have been an incredible sight.
“Sophia… I need to get you back soon, but we’re already facing obstacles.”
If we were going to replenish our forces from the underground village, we needed to solve their problems first.
That meant resolving their food shortage and developing their infrastructure to a point where they wouldn’t need fighters for a while.
But how long would that take?
While I was lost in these spiraling thoughts, sighing repeatedly, someone spoke to me.
“Mister, are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“A-Are you really from the outside?”
“Wow. Look at that! His clothes are totally different from ours!”
Three children, draped in tattered clothes like capes, walked up to me.
Each of them was holding a wooden stick, trying to make it look like a weapon, with worn-out pots on their heads like helmets.
Looking closely, I realized they were the kids who had greeted Dorothy when we first arrived at the underground village.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Park Hyuk!”
“I’m Alfonso!”
“I-I’m Aya…”
One kid looked like a street leader, another looked smart, and the last was a timid girl.
A classic trio.
“So, why did you come to see me?”
“W-Well, we wanted to ask you something…”
“You wanted to ask me something?”
“Y-Yes, um…”
“Should we ask?”
“C-Come on, why are you so scared?”
I wondered what they were so nervous to ask.
After hesitating for a while, the street leader-looking kid, Park Hyuk, pointed at me with confidence and asked.
“Mister! The sky!”
“…The sky?”
“Have you ever seen the ‘sky’? Just tell us that!”
“…!”
I see.
It made sense.
The children born in this underground village had never once been outside.
After all, the surface was crawling with dangerous monsters that could kill ordinary humans as easily as swatting a bug.
So, these kids had lived their entire lives without ever seeing the sky.
But the human instinct to explore the unknown, especially children’s curiosity, was unstoppable, even by adults.
Smiling.
“You want to see the sky? I’ve got tons of pictures of the outside world on my phone.”
“P-Pictures?”
“Ah! I know what that is! It’s a way to capture what you see with your eyes, right? I read in a book that people used to do that!”
“Really?! That exists?”
“I-I want to see it too…”
“Come here. I’ll show you.”
“””R-Really?!!”””
These kids should have grown up seeing the sky like any other children, but because of me, they hadn’t.
At the very least, I could ease the burden of my future self’s sins by granting them this small wish.
And maybe a little more.
“Here, this is the sky.”
“Wow!”
“It’s really blue! This is my first time seeing it!”
“But what’s that under the sky?”
“Ah, that’s a house. In the outside world, people live in houses made of wood and bricks.”
“Wood? Bricks? Aren’t those super rare?”
“Yeah, especially wood. We need it for cooking, so it’s considered really precious.”
“I’ve barely ever seen bricks before, to be honest.”
“Is that so?”
Well, it’s not like they would have gas stoves down here in the underground village.
I thought to myself that if I could get out to the surface again, I’d bring back a bunch of wood and start improving the village.
As I continued showing the kids photos, their eyes sparkling, someone suddenly interrupted.
“What is this nonsense?”
“Huh?”
“Oh! It’s the hunting captain!”
“Hunting captain! When did you get here?!”
“I just arrived. What are you all doing? I’ve told you not to look at things from the outside world!”
“Ugh…”
“B-But we were curious!”
A voice suddenly spoke from behind me.
I turned, along with the kids, to see a woman with bright cherry-red hair.
She wore a torn red kimono, modified for easy movement, in the style of a samurai outfit.
Her eyes sparkled like amethysts.
Even though she looked more mature and carried a different aura than before, how could I forget someone I’d met in Japan?
“Kitsune Asuna…?”
“Huh…? W-What? Oh… Ohhhhhh?!?!”
The youngest direct descendant of the Kitsune family.
Princess Kitsune Asuna.
She was the one who had supported Kurumi when she declared she would become the head of the family at the underground arena, even though Asuna herself could have been her opponent.
But to think she was now the hunting captain of the rebel forces in the future.
“It’s been a while, Princess Asuna!”
We had even exchanged phone contact info back then, so I waved at her happily.
But for a moment, Princess Asuna, who met my gaze, just stood there frozen.
“Come forth, Tengen.”
“Huh?”
Suddenly, she summoned a samurai monster dressed exactly like her.
I watched in confusion as she accepted a sword from Tengen, then took the same sword-drawing stance as the monster.
“Die, Han Shin-woooooooo!!”
“W-Wait, what?!”
With fury, she drew her sword.
*Clang!*