/

Chapter 198




Hitume Ikar was only two days away from Lesha.
As he looked at the most mysterious country among the islands around the continent, Frank opened his mouth.
“There is only one port in the country that can be used by outsiders. It’s called ‘Lutaha’. It’s the only place I’ve visited in the past while trading. In other words, our role ends here.”
“What about when it’s time to go back?”
“If there are no incidents, Hitume Ikar will provide you with a boat. You can come back with it.”
Ivan nodded.
At that time, the ship reached the Lutaha dock and was about to anchor.
“Halt!”
They then heard someone’s loud shout.
Ivan turned to look at the dock.
‘A little over ten men. Is the guy in the front the leader?’
Ivan looked at them and said.
“What is it?”
“Identify yourselves!”
The arrogant tone caused Ivan’s face to twitch slightly.
“My name is Ivan!”
The man felt a bit of a sting when Ivan, who had never had a good temper, shouted even louder than he had. He could feel the mana in Ivan’s voice.
Of course, this wasn’t the attitude a guest should have had.
Seeing this, Anastasia smiled and said.
“I’ll take over from here, my young friend.”
“…I’m afraid you would only be laughed at if you were to step out.”
When she heard those words, Anastasia looked down at her body before muttering in a depressed voice.
“That certainly does seem to be the case.”
She looked even younger than he did.
Dro was clearly not interested in this matter, so Anastasia could only sigh before saying.
“Then we’ll do it like this. You will tell them what I say.”
“Alright.”
Ivan nodded before repeating Anastasia’s words with a cold voice.
“We were granted permission to enter the country of Hitume Ikar by the Great Medium of Lesha.”
There was a bit of an uproar below before the man who shouted before spoke again.
“I heard that there are three entrants in total!”
Anastasia beckoned over for Dro to come and stand beside them so the man could see before saying.
“It is us three.”
The man inspected the three of them one by one.
Ivan’s expression crumpled.
“This doesn’t feel good at all. Is this how we get treated despite receiving the Great Medium’s permission?”
“It’s possible that this is the last gateway. They still need to compare our appearances to what the Great Medium gave them.”
Even though he heard Anastasia’s answer, Ivan still grumbled.
“I want to gouge out his eyes.”
“I can’t allow that.”
“Hmph. But that guy said three people were granted entry. What about Frey?”
“…come to think of it.”
Anastasia looked at Ivan with a bit of admiration.
“You’re much sharper than you look. You’re quite different from Kasajin.”
“Dammit. Stop treating me like a child.”
“From my perspective, you are a child. And you don’t need to worry about Frey. He can move on his own. Because he’s not a child.”
Anastasia smirked, not needing to add the words ‘unlike you’ for everyone to hear them.
Ivan growled, making a sound similar to that of a wild beast. He felt angry, but strangely, it didn’t go any further.
If someone else had dared speak to him in such a way, he would have punched them in the face immediately.
When he tried to think of a reason for this, his thoughts turned to Nora.
Looking at it closely, Anastasia had a lot in common with Nora. They both looked incredibly young, said and did things that didn’t match their appearances, and had tremendously terrifying power.
‘I don’t have to keep being embarrassed by a kid like this in the future, do I?”
As a sense of horror began to descend upon Ivan, the man spoke.
“You are allowed to anchor your ship!”
“Ha. Why, thank you.”
Ivan grumbled irritatedly while Frank moored the ship to the dock.
After the three of them disembarked the ship, they turned to look up at Frank, who didn’t come down.
He hesitated for a moment before saying.
“You guys are all extraordinary characters. Perhaps this was a special work of fate that a country bumpkin like me might not be able to encounter even once in a lifetime. It probably is.”
“It’s not that special.”
“Huhu. I pray that you will achieve whatever you came here to do. And please thank Frey for me.”
“Sure.”
Ivan sheepishly scratched his cheek and nodded.
In this time, the guards approached them. The man at the head of the group then bowed towards them in a strange way.
It was accompanied by the strange gesture of putting the right fist in the left palm. (TL: Think of the way martial artists bow)
“Welcome to Hitume Ikar. I’m Vajra, a Samurai of Lutaha.”
‘What is a Samurai?’
Although he had this question, Ivan didn’t ask it and instead said.
“I’m Ivan.”
“A pleasure to meet you. Hmm. I heard that your arrival was revealed in a revelation… But I won’t ask the details. The Great Medium herself has spoken.”
Revelation.
Anastasia narrowed her eyes.
Was the Great Medium just trying to assist them?
Or did she really receive a revelation from Dauns about their arrival?
“However, first, you’ll need to follow me. Any guest who comes to Hitume Ikar after receiving the Great Medium’s approval must greet our king.”
Not a lord of high-ranking noble but the king himself. This was an example of the way special guests were treated in Hitume Ikar.
“Where is your king?”
“…Ivan.”
Anastasia grimaced at Ivan’s rudeness, but Vajra just let out a short chuckle.
“Haha. It’s okay. We respect the culture of others. It is clear that you are a Warrior, but are you not from Silkid? I heard that a Great Chief leads that country…”
“…uh. Right. Well.”
Ivan wasn’t from Silkid, but he didn’t say it directly.
Vajra laughed as though he expected something like this, but then his expression suddenly changed.
“…I heard about what happened. I’m sorry.”
When he thought about Agni, Ivan’s expression naturally hardened.
“It’s okay. We will overcome it.”
“That’s good to hear. In any case, the king’s palace is not far from here. If we leave immediately, we will be able to arrive by sunset.”
“Hmm…”
“After that, we will give you an identification card. You will be captured by the guards in no time if you were to wander around the country without a card. As you can see, we do not look alike.”
Vajra pointed to his black hair and eyes as he said those words.
Ivan nodded.
“Right.”
“If you have accumulated fatigue, you can rest in this city for a day before leaving.”
“No. There’s no need for that. We can leave immediately.”
“I like that. Very well.”
Vajra laughed honestly.
When Ivan looked at him, he couldn’t help but have positive feelings. He realised that this man was stronger than Jose, whom he’d met in Lesha.
‘I thought this was just an island country, but the level of the warriors here is amazing.’
He really wanted to fight them if he got the chance.
* * *
The warriors in Hitume Ikar were unique.
This was something Ivan noticed from the first meeting.
Including Vajra, Lutaha’s Warriors… no, ‘Samurai’… wore light, fluffy clothes.
At first glance, these seemed unfit for battle. No different than being naked. After all, they were just pieces of cloth not suitable to block arrows, much less a sword.
They all also had swords at their waists.
Did they all practice hard body skills?
That wasn’t the case.
He could tell with a glance.
The muscles of these warriors were trained to the extreme, but their direction was different from Ivan’s. They were flexible. Resilient.
‘They focus on speed.’
That’s why their equipment was minimised.
Ivan subconsciously loosened his joints.
He thought about how the battle would be if they were to fight. Of course, their combat skills were no threat to Ivan, so in his virtual battles, he increased their speed a bit more.
‘It would be a long battle.’
As they focused on speed, they had no choice but to give up some power in return. And Ivan’s defense was second to none.
They would only be able to gradually add wounds to Ivan’s body. Like chipping away at a rock.
Their only shot at victory would be to attack a vital spot after digging into the flaws and exhausting their opponent.
Ivan, on the other hand, would need to wait for the right moment to overcome such annoying attacks. He would have to end the fight with one blow.
Naturally, his mind turned to the incident in Silkid.
‘Ivan’s fist.’
This was a skill that had been able to fatally injure even an Apocalypse like Agni, but it had its own drawbacks.
It required him to shorten the distance enough for him to use his fist, and it took some time to use.
The former wasn’t too much of a problem. After all, Ivan’s fighting style had always been to have fierce fights at a jaw-droppingly close distance.
However, the latter was troublesome. While he focused his mana, Ivan would be completely defenseless.
As long as the opponent was at least a First class Warrior, they would never miss such an opportunity.
But this wouldn’t be a problem as long as he had someone to momentarily block the enemy’s movements.
(TL: So I will be forthright. When I first saw the name ‘Great Medium’ I felt it was a bit strange, since the word the author used could also mean ‘shaman’ but since they used a different word for ‘shaman’ I just looked for a good alternative and added the ‘great’ in front of it(just like the author did). However, the slightly Japanese vibe that I had been getting from ‘Hitume Ikar’ always made me wonder if there might be a Japanese term for the word which would fit the setting better. However, my laziness stepped in a bit and I felt it was unnecessary to research this since I had already made a decision and the novel didn’t actually correspond to the real world. However, my guilty conscience in this chapter led me to go research and I learned that there really was a Japanese term for the word. It is ‘Miko’ or ‘Shrine Maiden’ so, in fact, the ‘Great Medium’ could be changed to the ‘Great Maiden’. Since I did the research and found the variation, and since I like reading you guys’ opinions as it feels like an interaction between us, I decided that you can help be choose between ‘Great Medium’ and ‘Great Maiden.)