*
'Why is it so sweet.'
An unintended encounter in the South.
To explain that encounter, we need to go back in time a little.
*
The hometown of my soul is Seoul, Republic of Korea, in the 21st Century.
The hometown of my body is the Capital of the Empire.
And the hometown of my heart is the Southern Front of the Empire.
The reason is simple.
The Southern Front, where I came to recover the corpses of my Biological Parents, who were said to have gone missing.
It was here that I tasted the beverage a Beastkin was drinking and obtained a clue about Quinine.
Come to think of it, it seems that was when I began to actively move as a Protagonist.
Before that, not knowing the Original Work's plot, my only thought was to figure out the World Setting until I became an adult.
But after discovering Quinine, I started to actively seek out Fortuitous Encounters.
So, when I received an invitation to the groundbreaking ceremony for the southern Railway, I visited the Southern Front with the feeling of returning home in glory...
"...It has changed a lot."
The hometown I returned to after 10 years had changed significantly.
They say 10 years is enough to change the landscape, but hasn't this changed too much?
People who used to wear turbans to guard against insect demonic beasts were now openly exposing their bare skin, roaming under the sunlight.
Not just the locals, but all the mercenaries and soldiers as well.
It felt like the Middle East had suddenly turned into Texas.
(For reference, I have been to Texas, but not the Middle East.)
I was vacantly looking around the Southern Fortress after getting off the airship.
"Have you ever been here before, Lord Saint?"
Gregor, the muscular Holy Knight who heard my muttering, asked implicitly.
It wasn't something I meant for him to hear, but I answered to not make it awkward.
"How do you think I came to make Quinine?"
"Um... Is Quinine related to the South?"
"..."
Unfortunately, our muscular Holy Knight seemed not to even know what Quinine was used for.
But does it make sense for a High-Rank Holy Knight not to know?
If he's a High-Rank Holy Knight, shouldn't he have learned at least a bit of general knowledge?
Or did he reach that position purely with muscles and Divine Magic?
If that's the case, it's impressive in a different way.
"I got the inspiration for my first medicine here. Under the guidance of the gods, I was able to find a clue to the Treatment Method for Malaria right here."
"Oh...! I see."
Gregor expressed his admiration.
But his eyes were empty; he actually seemed not to have understood properly.
I didn't bother to verify it, wanting to protect Gregor's honor.
To hide his awkwardness, Gregor blatantly changed the topic of conversation.
"Come to think of it, I heard Attendant Priest Simeon also had a Great Performance in the South."
"Yes. It would be a lie to say it wasn't hard, but it was the second happiest time in my life."
Attendant Priest Simeon answered while politely bringing his hands together.
Seeing him glancing at me, I could tell why he remembered this place as his second prime.
"Oh, then could you tell me what happened on the Southern Front? I've always had a lot of interest in the stories of heroes who protected Humanity from demonic beasts since ancient times."
"Have you never fought against a demonic beast, Lord Gregor?"
"Unfortunately, I trained in martial arts focusing on anti-personnel combat, so I have mostly faced Black Sorcerers and Demonkin."
"I see. Since this will allow you to compare how much this place has changed, I will explain it to you in detail."
Simeon said with a faint smile.
"Before the story, do you know the characteristics of the demonic beasts on the Southern Front, Lord Gregor?"
"I heard there are smaller demonic beasts than in other regions, especially a lot of bugs."
Bugs, scorpions, spiders.
Gregor was probably thinking of such small animals.
(The fact that spiders or scorpions are not insects was not an important detail right now.)
It was understandable for those who only read about the Southern Front in books to think that way.
"Hehe... 'Small,' you say..."
Simeon let out a low laugh.
I felt I knew the meaning of that laugh.
Looking at that smile reminded me of a very, very, very terrifying demonic beast I saw on the Southern Front in my childhood memories.
"The animals here are small, of course. But not 'all' demonic beasts are small."
"What do you mean by that?"
"It seems we can find the reason at the Lord's mansion we are currently heading to."
I felt I knew what Simeon was trying to show Gregor.
Unlike me, Gregor, who had never experienced the South, just tilted his head.
Soon after leaving the Airship Terminal and arriving at the Lord's mansion by car, Gregor could finally understand the meaning of Simeon's words.
"...Ardenu, good heavens... May the gods look down on me."
Gregor prayed as soon as he entered the mansion.
Because a spider head the size of my torso greeted us.
"Ardenu, please bestow upon me only trials that I can endure completely, and may I be strong at the end of those trials..."
That is precisely one of the terrifying elements of the South.
First of all, the demonic beasts are indeed small animals as rumored.
The problem is just that the 'Mother' leading those small animals is uniformly larger than the original species.
It can grow to 10 times larger at the smallest, or in some cases, up to 100 times larger like that stuffed spider head over there.
I also learned that fact when I visited the Lord's castle to recover my parents' corpses.
I heard that if you go to Australia, you can see spiders the size of a person.
It was a taxidermy that brought back that memory.
...Fuck.
While thinking, I locked eyes with the stuffed spider.
Why does it have so many eyeballs.
In the meantime, Simeon continued his explanation.
"The biggest element tormenting Humanity on the Southern Front are these Mothers."
The Mothers' strategy is simple.
They build a Nest in the swamp or Demonic Realm, then they pop, pop give birth to babies to form an army.
The babies then gather amongst themselves, giving birth to more babies, and more babies...
Like that, a Military Force of tens of thousands is created in a year.
After that, the Mother just has to hole up in the nest and wait for the humans the babies hunt down.
"Mothers never approach Humanity's fortresses. Therefore, the Lords of this region frequently open the gates once a year and head directly to the nests."
I also chipped in to Simeon's explanation.
"In particular, demonic beasts that are over 100 times larger compared to the Original Species are called 'Elders', and in the Southern Region, there is a tradition of taxidermy like this when they succeed in hunting an Elder."
The 'Mothers' in the South can grow almost infinitely.
That's why occasionally Elders like that giant spider are born,
and when a Lord succeeds in subjugating it during an expedition, they commemorate it for a long time.
It's a way of bragging to the whole neighborhood that they stopped this disaster of the South once.
Additionally, it also serves as a self-display that their family is still going strong.
"It seems Count Zarhan of this place subjugated the 'Skull Collector' Elder in this generation."
"Skull Collector...?"
What's this?
What's with that ominous name?
While I was wondering, Simeon coincidentally explained it without erasing the smile on his face.
"When laying eggs, it uses those saw-like teeth to pop open the skulls gathered in its nest like a lid—"
"You don't need to explain it to me."
Gregor, looking appalled, stopped him.
The thought of not wanting to hear about the ecology of the Southern demonic beasts was evident on his face.
That was the same facial expression I made in my childhood.
I was curious about the Southern demonic beasts and asked my father, only to regret it after hearing how Antlions hunt humans.
"I apologize. I lacked consideration."
"No. I was the one who asked you to explain it first, Brother. But in a way, the goal is clearer than on other fronts."
Gregor, who had been appalled, looked at the stuffed spider with a pale face.
"Doesn't it mean we just have to kill the Elder, or the undergrown Mother? At least it's better than other regions where we don't know the end of the invading enemies."
That's not it at all—
I was just about to answer that.
"Haha. It would be really great for me too if it were that easy."
The Lord who had momentarily stepped away for business from the back of the party—Count Zarhan—approached and spoke.
"The reason humans can defend against the demonic beast swarm is because this wall is in the middle of a plain. But the moment you go to hunt the Mother, the stance is reversed."
He's right.
The reason humans can hold out against that demonic beast swarm is because this fortress is in the middle of a plain where not a single blade of grass grows.
The places for demonic beasts to hide are limited, and if necessary, they can just set fire to it or overturn the ground.
But once you start looking for the nest where the Mothers are, all those advantages disappear.
And from then on, it's the demonic beasts' time.
"There are broadly two types of Demonic Realms in the South. The desert in the southwest and the swamp in the southeast."
In the desert, all sand is essentially an ambush spot for demonic beasts.
In the swamp, all the swamps and trees are their ambush spots.
The Southern demonic beasts gave up their individual combat power and instead invested all their stats into stealth, surprise attacks, and poison.
Therefore, dealing with them in such places was no easy task.
"The Minions guarding the Elder are at least the size of a person. In my case, I almost lost my head a few times to the Minions guarding that spider."
Antlions that only collect ankles.
Scorpions that only prick the ankle and run away.
Mosquitoes that infect with disease and run away.
Like that, these small demonic beasts repeat attacking and running away in the nest,
and when they judge that their prey is exhausted, they swarm in and enjoy a banquet.
If I had to summarize the ways of the Southern demonic beasts, they were the epitome of 'playing the game like shit.'
"So I hope you don't say that hunting the Mother is easy."
"I didn't know well and made a slip of the tongue."
"It is fine, Holy Knight."
Saying so, the Count looked at me.
"At least thanks to the Lord Saint, a large portion of the demonic beasts in this Southern region are no longer a threat."
I nodded.
It's exactly as he says.
"Thanks to the Antidote supplied by the Merkur Trading Company, handling reptiles and mosquito species has already become very easy."
Upon hearing that, Gregor's eyes widened.
"Lord Saint? Just when...?"
"As expected of the Lord Saint."
Beside him, Simeon was nodding in agreement, as if it was perfectly natural.
Since the two seemed to be urging for an explanation, I revealed it just like that, taking the opportunity to boast about my Accomplishment for the first time in a while.
"It's not that difficult of a task. If you apply the Principle of making a vaccine, making an Antidote is quick."
An Antidote is not something that grandiose.
An Antibody that can counter the poison is essentially an Antidote.
And the Principle of making that Antibody is similar to a vaccine.
You just inject attenuated poison into a living organism, extract the antibodies from the animals that survive, and that is the Antidote.
When I briefly explained that Principle, Simeon tilted his head.
"But it would be difficult for a normal living organism to undergo Adaptation to a demonic beast's poison... Ah, I'm not doubting you, Lord Saint."
"Aren't there living organisms that have adapted?"
I pointed at the Count with my chin.
The Count also let out a chuckle and rolled up his sleeves.
Countless injection marks left on his forearm could be seen.
"Those are..."
"I asked for cooperation from the Lords of the South."
There is no one living in the South who hasn't been poisoned by venom.
No matter how skilled someone of the Count's level is, they are bound to be poisoned by a demonic beast's venom once or twice during an expedition in their life.
It was just that every time that happened, they didn't die thanks to pouring in Divine Magic to an ignorant degree.
Based on that fact, I periodically received blood donations from the Lords.
In the past, even delivering blood would have been a difficult task.
But after creating Heparin, delivering blood from the distant South to the Capital was not difficult either.
"After making the vaccine, I made it when I had some free time."
It seems it was after Viagra was made that the Antitoxin was fully distributed.
I wasn't just playing around back then, you see.
"Honestly, I was disappointed when I received a letter saying my blood was no longer needed."
"It seemed difficult to discover any more Antitoxin from you, Count."
"But to whom did you conduct the Clinical trial?"
"...That's a Secret."
I did the Clinical trial of the Antitoxin on criminals.
Black Sorcerers who tried to attack me or my surroundings made up 50% of them.
A prime example would be the Lizard Man who kidnapped Freya and the Scholarship Students.
Perhaps because his Innate Quality was having a sturdy body, he had the perfect life force to test the Antidote's performance.
It was a kind of Plea Bargain.
A deal where he receives a 10-year sentence reduction every time one Antidote is created.
For reference, after doing that, the remaining sentence for that Lizard Man who kidnapped Freya is 105 years.
He wasn't a Black Sorcerer, but he was a mercenary who colluded with Black Sorcerers, so he received that kind of sentence.
Naturally, this isn't something to go around revealing anywhere, so I'm treating it as a Secret for now.
The President said it was fine to confidently reveal it since other trading companies do this anyway, but
it was the result of the Conscience left in me as a civilized person of the 21st Century wanting to keep it a secret.
Anyway.
Thanks to a definite Countermeasure against snake and mosquito-type demonic beasts being established in the South, the Southern Front was gradually regaining stability.
And what delivered the decisive blow in this situation was Penicillin.
"Now, there are almost no soldiers dying from mere bugs in the South. Would you believe it if I said the survival rate has gone up by over 30 times just in our territory alone?"
The survival rate directly leads to an improvement in productivity.
Not only is there no need to draft new soldiers, but surviving soldiers can be sent back to their families and turned back into production personnel.
The survival rate held value beyond a simple increase in military strength.
"I also cut down this spider last year. Originally, being blocked by an Elder's Minion-class or a lack of supply was a problem, but last year we had plenty of supply and a lot of personnel we could dispatch."
This was how the entire Southern Region was now.
Originally, Time was always on the side of the demonic beasts in the South.
Elders continually give birth to babies in their nests, gradually increasing the Minion-class.
Then, if about 10 years pass without culling, the Mothers and Minions invade the wall along with their babies.
To prevent this, the Lords had been trying to attack the nests even if it meant overexerting themselves.
In that process, they succeeded in culling the Minion-class but couldn't kill the Elder, and instead, the Lords also suffered severe losses in forces, often entering a state of truce with each other for a few years.
However, with the appearance of Quinine and Penicillin, the stances were reversed.
Malaria, which tormented the soldiers while passing through the swamp, is blocked by Quinine.
The personnel who returned after attacking the swamp do not die from Infection thanks to Penicillin.
Usually, the Southern demonic beasts were relatively focused on infection and poison, so with Antitoxin added to this, the Death rate dropped this drastically.
As a Result, Time became on the side of the humans,
and the Lords were able to periodically cull the nests without losing their forces.
Then, no matter how much of an Elder it was, it was difficult to continuously create Minion-class while giving birth to babies, so eventually, as Time passed, the Lords became more advantageous.
"Honestly, it's gotten to the point where a family that hasn't taxidermied a single Elder head in the South will become a laughingstock."
Haha. The Count laughed out loud, tap, tap, gently hitting the spider's head.
"That's why the talk of laying down a Railway in the South came out first like this."
Unlike other regions, the area Outside the Wall in the Southern Region had been stabilizing for a long time.
There were even Reports that some Southern Lords had maintained the fields they built outside the wall for 5 years.
Because of this, the talk of trying to lay down a Railway in the South came out first from the Military as well.
"This is confidential, but I heard the long-term goal is to reclaim everything between the Capital of the Empire and the South like this, and connect a Railway using the South as a granary."
This was the reason for the Railway Project.
"I've talked for too long. I wonder if I've taken up too much of your Time, Lord Saint."
"No. Hearing about the things I've achieved, I also feel it's rewarding."
It's fine to tell me a lot of things like this.
It's even better if they clap and worship me.
Isn't that why I'm playing the role of the Protagonist?
"I wondered what the reason was for it being so different from when I visited this place in the past, and it was for this reason."
Standing on the balcony of the Lord's mansion, I looked down at the Territory.
Citizens who wrapped themselves up tightly to avoid becoming the Targets of insect demonic beasts were now walking around in thin clothes.
Windows that had been blocked by curtains were also open, and many households could be seen where the panic room they had equipped in every home had turned into a warehouse.
The biggest change was the food.
On the stalls that had been filled with insects because there was nothing to eat, bread and meat were now placed.
Of course, there are still Slums like the Limbus Pit, and there are many other problems to solve, but...
"This was the scenery I wanted to see."
At least, seeing the children running around and playing in the streets with peace of mind, it felt like what I had achieved was hitting home all over again.
The Count stood side by side with me, flashing a pleased smile.
"It is great luck that our territory was selected as the start of the Railway Project, but to even be able to show you such scenery, Lord Saint. It is the utmost Honor."
*
Thus concluding the brief introduction to the Southern territory.
Guided by the Count, I headed Outside the Wall.
Looking at this gate brought back new feelings.
In my childhood, I couldn't pass through this gate and had to watch the coffins my parents were resting in come in only from the Entrance.
Now, thanks to the Mothers of the nearby Demonic Realm being nearly wiped out, we could head Outside the Wall to our heart's content, at least in this territory.
"It's still difficult to advance into the Demonic Realm due to the Magi, but if we lay the tracks by going around the Demonic Realms, there shouldn't be a big problem."
Saying so, the car carrying us arrived at a construction site that was in the midst of preparing for the Railway Track construction.
Under the blazing sun, the laborers constantly wiping their sweat and moving something were the first to be seen.
As we got closer, the responsible party in charge spotted us and came running over in a flurry.
"Have you arrived, Count!"
"Yes. Have you perhaps already proceeded with the Blasting?"
"No. We were waiting, hoping you would press the button, Count."
"Thank you."
The Count suddenly stopped talking and scratched his jaw.
Then, he looked this way and smiled playfully.
"Would you like to try pressing it, Lord Saint?"
Shake, shake.
I don't have a hobby of pressing bomb buttons.
It's because my romanticized idea about explosions was shattered after going on overseas volunteer work for explosion accidents in my Previous life.
They say men get excited by explosions, but whenever I felt an explosion, my heart pounded in a different sense.
"I see. Understood."
The Count didn't push me to do it either.
Like that, before the Blasting.
I formally listened to the explanation the responsible party was giving about the Blasting method.
"Using that Mana Stone Bomb, we plan to bore through this canyon..."
Mana Stone Bomb.
It was Another World's Dynamite.
How disappointed I was when I first learned of the existence of this bomb.
'If it were Dynamite, I could have made Heart Medicine.'
Right after making Quinine, while looking for a medicine I could freeload on, I learned of the bomb's existence.
Unfortunately, the bomb was not the Dynamite from my Previous life, and there was a past where my plan to freeload and make Heart Medicine went down the drain.
"After first bringing down the bedrock with the bomb..."
It's not even a medicine anyway.
I let the site manager's explanation go in one ear and out the other, and observed the construction site.
It was in the midst of that.
"Huh?"
At the corner of the site.
A grubby-looking laborer wearing shackles was shouting while holding a Glass Vial filled with yellow liquid.
"Sons of bitches! I'm telling you I'm falsely accused!"
"Stop that bastard!"
"Don't come any closer! If you do, I'll throw this bottle!"
The guards surrounded the laborer holding the bottle.
However, when the laborer was about to throw the thing that looked like a Urine Bottle at any moment, they freaked out and distanced themselves.
Watching that scene from a distance, I asked the general manager.
"Who is that person...?"
"He is the Guild Master of the Construction Trading Company in our territory, but he's someone who was sentenced to Penal Labor for causing people to die in a Factory explosion Incident."
"Then what is that bottle?"
"It's a new technology that his guild was making at the time, and they said the explosion happened because of that liquid. Because it's a liquid that blows up just by touching it, it's something we absolutely cannot use for the Blasting work."
Saying so, the manager had us step back from the laborer.
"I apologize for showing you such an unsavory sight, Lord, and Lord Saint."
"It's fine."
The Count waved his hand and said.
"I will handle it."
He slowly drew his Magic staff from his waist.
"Once I handle the Removal of that bottle, take care of that man on your own."
With those words, he twirled the staff once.
Then, that bottle looking like a yellow Piss bottle held by the laborer was blocked by a translucent film.
It was a Barrier.
It was the Count's family's Arcane Magic for gathering and confining small insects in one place.
Seeing him show Confidence, it seemed to have enough durability not to break even if that bottle exploded.
"It doesn't matter if it blows up now, so use Sniping to..."
"Please wait a moment, Count."
It was then.
I cut off the Count's words and intervened in the conversation.
"I would like to check that liquid myself."
"It's dangerous, Lord Saint."
"Because it's dangerous, I need your help all the more, Count."
I said without taking my eyes off that Piss bottle.
"For some reason, the liquid in that bottle is familiar."
"By familiar, you mean...?"
"It's my Intuition, but I get the same feeling as when I discovered Quinine."
If my Prediction is correct,
the South might truly become a hometown-like place that gives to me generously without holding back.