Reincarnated Hero System

Cudjour Mountains

June 30th

Year 1053

The Imperial Army's advance on Cudjour began. As Evan had suggested, they split their forces into three and set off immediately.

The Third Dethatched force was going to set off a few days later, and to make the decoy more believable, Beluar was going to be leading it.

Amiyah went with the army going around East, while Lierin and Heather were with Evan as they crossed through the mountains.

The temperature fell as they climbed into the mountains, and this cold was going to be the greatest obstacle to crossing these mountains.

The Cudjour mountains were quite steep, higher than even the Alps from Evan's home world.

Mages were at work full time to divert any rocks that crumbled from the mountains above, while the melee types engaged any monsters they encountered.

All the soldiers present were at least Level 100, so their resistance to cold was quite high. However, the mountains of Aidos were cold enough that even superhumans like them could get frostbite if they didn't take proper precautions.

The thick snow also slowed their marching speed, so it took them a few days to get over the mountain pass and start working their way back down.

The farther they descended, the warmer it got and when they got to a suitable area where another of the mountains obscured them from being sighted by Cudjour scouts, they set up camp.

As they set up Camp and fed the Warhorses, Evan pulled out his guild card and sent a signal to Eliza, telling her to go meet the Emperor. He waited for her to reply and say she was speaking with him before he put away the card.

He then looked around the area before spotting where Heather was and walking up to her.

The moment he got within range, his Hero Title seemed to react and he smiled at how fate made it so that she just so happened to set up camp in the right spot.

Lierin had moved a bit of distance away to give instructions to the Colonels and if there was any time for him to act, it was now.

Looking at the ring on her hand, he guessed that it had been so long so it must've gone dormant since it had not reacted, so he decided to give it a little boost.

'Hero Authority, Activate the Key.'

The moment he gave the command, the World Laws of Aidos moved and Heather suddenly let out a surprised voice.

"Huh…?"

She cocked her head to the side in confusion, looking at the ring on her hand which was now shining. It was something she had picked up from the Imperial Treasury when she was seven because it looked 'pretty', however, ever since she put it on, she had never been able to take it off.

This was the first time in 10 years that the ring was showing any sort of reaction and she suddenly got a bad feeling.

"Is something the matter?"

Evan questioned like he wasn't the reason for the issue and she held up her hand and spoke.

"Um... The ring suddenly started shining. It's never done this before so I'm a bit confused..."

One of the nearby soldiers heard her words and looked over, seeing that there was, indeed, a white light emanating from her ring.

He didn't know much about it so his line of action was to go inform Lierin.

That's when it happened!

**RUMBLEE!!

The ground began to tremble like an earthquake, the tremors sending cracks through the ground beneath Heather's feet. The land crumbled out from under her, and she fell.

"WHA?!"

From beneath the crack, a huge amount of magic power gushed out, containing a powerful gravitational force that pulled Heather into the ground without her being able to do a thing.

The wave of magic power also stretched towards Evan and though he attempted to send a chain out to grab Heather, it was futile as it only ended up with him getting pulled in as well.

Lierin sensed the disturbance and dashed over at sonic speed, but before she could reach out to Heather, the magic power gushing out from the ground generated a reverse gravitational force that sent her and everything else around her flying.

Right before her very eyes, Heather and Evan disappeared into the ground and the cracked earth closed up, returning to the snowy surface it once was like nothing happened.

◇ ◇ ◇

The moment the hole above them closed up, the gravitational pull disappeared and Heather regained control of her body.

If there was a problem, however, it was the fact that she was now falling from a height of thousands of metres.

Even if she was a Superior Master Level, the damage from this fall would not be funny.

"Princess Heather!"

"Lord Evan...? Why?!"

"Don't ask! Just hold on tight!"

Evan used his Everlasting Chains to pull Heather towards him as they free-fell down the giant ravine to the unforgiving ground below.

Just when they were about 500 metres from the ground, Evan unfurled his wings and then used wind magic to create an updraft to slow their fall speed.

'Wind Magic: Featherweight!'

The spell activated and with that, it was easy for the updraft to slow their falling speed, allowing Evan to acquire total control of their descent using his wings.

"Wings?!"

Heather had lost count of how many questions she had asked in her shock today as Evan sped down towards the ground and landed gracefully.

He then let go of her body and retracted his wings, looking around warily to see if there was any danger nearby.

But before any potential danger, what caught his and Heather's attention was the massive Gate that was at the end of the underground cavern they were in, vibrating intensely while emitting white light.

When Heather held up her right hand towards it, the vibrations seemed to intensify and with that, it was pretty obvious why they had fallen down here.

But first, she turned to Evan and spoke.

"Thank you for saving me."

Truly, without Evan present, although she'd have survived the fall with her superhuman body, the damage would have been great.

Evan on the other hand felt a bit guilty as he was the reason she had fallen in the first place. He didn't expect that the underground cavern was thousands of metres below the ground so he was also caught off guard. Though he didn't think everything would be the same as the game, this was a bit too much of a difference.

"Don't worry about it.

He waved her off before approaching the familiar-looking gate which was tightly shut, looking around once more before speaking.

"Going up doesn't seem to be possible as the hole we fell through closed up, and this thing clearly has something to do with us being here…"

She understood what Evan was implying and walked closer to the gate, raising her hand to touch it, her expression tensing slightly.

Once she pressed the palm of her hand against the gate, the mana circle drawn on the gate let out a burst of light and the shaking stopped as the gate opened up.

"Huh?! It really opened!"

Heather could not conceal her surprise at this phenomenon.

"But this is Wolfen territory, so why would something from the Empire work here?"

"What if it originally didn't belong to the Empire?"

"…that makes sense."

She nodded in affirmation when Evan spoke, before drawing her sword as she looked at the path before them warily.

The two of them walked in while scanning the area for any dangers but besides the runes on the wall reacting to their presence and lighting up the passageway, nothing else happened.

It was a straight corridor with nothing to see but runes and murals on the walls. Heather studied the Murals and they depicted a variety of scenes; from a king being coronated to a war, and then finally—peace.

"Looks like the story of a country's foundation…"

Heather remarked as she studied the murals and Evan nodded along with her, not showing too much of a reaction as he checked the System Archive for any details.

However, all he saw was the same description as in the game, which gave him little to no explanation of what this place actually was.

All the information it had was what he was going to find at the end, and it was what he came for, but he indeed wanted to find out about all the things he was unable to see in the game.

This corridor, for example, had nothing on it in the game but here there were murals, showing that Artemisia had removed details from this place.

'I wonder if she'd have tried to divert my attention if I told her I wanted to come here…'

Such a thought passed through his mind as he and Heather walked down the passageway. Finally, they reached a wide-

open space at the end of the corridor.

They spread out their auras to check for any traps but didn't come up with anything. They then looked at one another and then both nodded before stepping foot into it.

That's precisely when it happened!

"Whoa!"

Suddenly, the ground opened up and they fell.

A pitfall!

A simple, non-magical trap which they had failed to notice because the material on the floor was one that was an insulator against magic and auras.

'Oy! This was supposed to be a flight of stairs!'

Evan quickly unfurled his wings and grabbed Heather the instant the ground opened up, but as if sensing their desire to escape, the gravitational force from before returned, coming with enough power to pull even Evan.

Now, something that could pull someone as powerful as Evan down with him barely being able to resist, was much more effective on the weaker Heather.

In fact, the pressure of the World Law energy was so great that it straight-up knocked her out.

"Whoever created this, I curse your reincarnation."

Evan muttered as he lay on the floor with his back to the ground, while the unconscious Heather's body lay on top of his, pressing 'everything' onto his chest.

Holding her arm, he sent a jolt of lightning through it and her consciousness returned instantly.

"?!"

When she realised the situation they were in she quickly got off Evan while apologising and thanking him.

"Don't thank me, curse the person who created this damn thing."

"Although I don't know anything about here…this place looks old enough that whoever made it is definitely dead."

"Then curse their reincarnation."

"Pfft…!"