'I wonder what level scroll it is.'

It was a Demon Cave scroll used by someone at the Church of the Sun headquarters. It is probably at least a level 400 Demon Cave scroll.

But I wasn't that worried about it. Everybody I gathered here are strong people. Goonto and the dwarves especially should have no issues dealing with a Demon Cave of this level.

Eruni was the only one I was concerned about.

"Goonto! Take responsibility and protect Eruni! Then I will consider it as you having kept your promise!"

"d.a.m.n it! Human girl. Get behind me."

Goonto, who was just about to take out his large sword, grumbled as he stepped back.

I was a little more relieved now. With Goonto focusing on protecting her, Eruni will definitely be safe.

Now all that is left is to take care of this place.

'Alright! Might as well raise my level while I'm at it!'

Papapat-

Huff. Huff. Huff.

Umbach was huffing loudly.

The situation was terrible. They had won the battle, but there were now only three dwarves alive, including himself.

And even then, they were all covered in injuries.

"We cannot do this anymore. Let's retreat."

Umbach had the same idea. Staying here any longer would be committing suicide.

Unfortunately, even that did not go the way they wanted. They had been wanting to retreat for quite a while, but monsters continued to pour out of their only escape route.

And then another person came in through that door.

It was not a monster this time, but just three normal looking humans.

But they were not relieved. The atmosphere around these three humans was odd.

The believers they had seen until now all wore red robes. However, these three were wearing black robes.

They also were not scared after seeing the dwarves. Instead, they started to smile, as if they found some interesting prey.

"Quite interesting to see dwarves all the way out here."

The voice was really weird. It was as if they were speaking through the vibrations in the air instead of using any vocal cords.

All three of them were the same way.

"We need to hurry up and take care of them. We got an emergency message from the headquarters."
"Does that mean these dwarves were bait for us to empty the headquarters?"

That made Umbach's eyes open widely in shock.

It was not because of the abnormal voice.

'This is not their headquarters? I was used as bait?'

He finally realized that he was tricked by Kang Hwi Ram. Umbach was certain that this was their headquarters.

Now that he thought about it, Kang Hwi Ram never said anything about this being their headquarters. He just told Umbach about the location of the Church of the Sun, and told him to attack it.

But it still did not change the fact that he was tricked. Anybody in his shoes would have understood Kang Hwi Ram's request as asking them to attack the Church of the Sun's headquarters.

'Kang Hwi Ram! You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Umbach wanted to get his revenge.

But that would only be possible if he defeated the three humans in front of him.

Umbach and the dwarves clenched their fists tightly onto their weapons.

At the same time, the black robed humans ripped open black scrolls.

It was another set of Demon Cave scrolls.

But the Demon Cave scrolls used until now could not compare to the Demon Cave scrolls that were just ripped by the black robed humans. Umbach and the dwarves started to swear as soon as they saw the monsters popping out of the Demon Caves.

"d.a.m.n it!"

They did not have any desire to fight. The only thing they could do was accept the shadow of death approaching them.

The screams of the dwarves soon followed.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

The black robed believers did not stay to watch the end of the dwarves. It was obvious how it was going to end. No matter whether it was humans or dwarves, there was n.o.body who was able to survive a black Demon Cave scroll until now.

"Let's hurry back."

The black robed believers started to run as fast as the wind.

"Dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

Harrison started to frown while looking at the corpses of the monsters laying on the ground in front of me. The actions of the Church of the Sun's believers were definitely dirty, but there was also a terrible stench that forced people to frown.

It was a Giant Ghoul. They even managed to summon undead monsters.

Well, the Church of the Sun's believers were no longer considered humans anyways. Their minds were completely corrupted by the demonic aura. They themselves could be considered monsters.

"But what is your true ident.i.ty? It wasn't even a regular ghoul. How did you defeat a Giant Ghoul on your own……?"

The Giant Ghoul was close to level 600.

It also has strong endurance and vitality, making average attacks to be unable to cause it any damage. Furthermore, even if it was injured, Giant Ghouls wouldn't go down with just a few small injuries.

However, it was possible with the strength of combo. No matter how strong a monster is, how would it be able to survive 100,000+ damage per hit for over 100 hits?

But I did not answer their question.

Instead, I approached Eruni.

"Can you remember anything?"

Eruni was still shaking in fear. She also had a severe migraine. She could only continue to point at the door from before without saying anything else.

"Snap out of it. I will protect you. You have nothing to worry about. Will I be able to find out information about the Altar of the Sun if I go over there?"

"Sniff sniff."

She seemed to be really overcome with fear. Eruni could not respond with words, and just started to cry.

"Now I feel bad."

As I said that, Harrison quietly approached me and lightly pushed my shoulder.

"Let me try."

I suddenly thought about s.h.i.+one.

'Ah, mind control magic!'

Harrison was s.h.i.+one's father. s.h.i.+one's abilities must have come from him.

It was as I expected. Harrison put his hand on Eruni's head before closing his eyes to concentrate. Once he did that, Eruni's shaking shoulders slowly started to calm down.

"She should be okay for a little bit."

I asked Eruni once more. This time, Eruni was able to give me a proper answer.

"There is a hidden room deep inside that corridor. Inside the room is a large map drawn on the wall. I remember someone saying that the map was the key to finding the Altar of the Sun."

Perfect.

I started to run toward the hidden room without any hesitation. The rest of the party followed behind me, making sure Eruni was safe.

I found the room not too long after running down the corridor.

Rather than it being a secret room, it was actually a storage room. There was a stack of boxes to the side.

However, I cared more about the wall. As Eruni had mentioned, a large map was drawn on the wall.

Everybody entered the secret room and inspected the map. I could see it without any issue, but everyone else needed to use the magic lights on their foreheads to light up a small area of the map at a time.

"Where do you think this is?"

Harrison asked the question.

Honesty speaking, I was able to figure out where it was as soon as I saw the map. It was because one of the emphasized areas on the map was not far from somewhere I had recently visited.

But there was someone else who knew about it as well.

Goonto spoke as if he was muttering to himself.

"This is the Peria Desert. That must mean the Altar of the Sun is located in the Peria Mountains! s.h.i.+t, it is not somewhere we can go."

"The Peria Mountains?"

Harrison did not seem to know about the Peria Mountains. That meant he also did not know why it was somewhere they could not go.

There was no reason to explain it. It wasn't like Harrison could approach the Peria Desert, even if I told him. You needed to get past the Dwarf Village to do that.

But we still had not figured everything out.

"Just where on the wide Peria Mountain Range is it located?"

As visible on the map, the Peria Mountain Range was extremely wide. It was close to 300 km from end to end.

We needed to find the Altar of the Sun in that large area. In simple terms, it was like finding a needle in the desert.

I couldn't help but sigh.

"Sigh, just mountain after mountain."

At that moment, I heard a voice coming outside the secret room.

It was not one of our team members. There was no way one of our team members would shout that loudly.

The voice also sounded very weird.

"They are already in the secret room!"
"They are not normal!"

It was a very raspy voice, similar to the sound of the wind created by a wind elemental.

'Believers of the Church of the Sun!'

I started to think about the dwarves we stationed outside. We had left some dwarves behind at every fork in the road until we got here. They shouldn't have been able to get here without getting past them.

That meant……

's.h.i.+t! Did they all die?'

But it was too fast. How did they manage to get past the strongest dwarves so quickly?

That meant that every one of the believers outside the entrance to the secret room were very strong.

Goonto seemed to have the same idea. He clenched his large sword and worried about his fellow dwarves.

"They would not be beaten that easily."

It was possible that they used a secret pa.s.sage. The corridor was very complicated as we walked here.

Anyways, the safety of the people in this secret room was most important right now.

This secret room was pretty large, but there was nowhere else to retreat. We needed a safety net, just in case the worst case scenario happened.

That meant that we needed to deal with this outside of the secret room.

I started to run almost on instinct after hearing the voices outside.

"Goonto! I leave Eruni to you!"
"Leave that to the humans."

Goonto did not listen to me. In fact, he was running out of the secret room faster than me. It was probably because he was worried about his fellow dwarves.

It should be fine since Eruni would be safe as long as we prevented the believers from getting to the door to the secret room. There was no reason for a strong warrior like Goonto to waste his skill and strength for no reason.

And, as Goonto mentioned, there were many other skilled individuals.

"Harrison-nim, please!"

I shouted as I followed Goonto out of the secret room.

I could see many people outside the secret room.

But their outfits were different from the other believers up until this point. They were wearing black robes. They must hold special positions in the Church of the Sun.

"Intruders!"
"There are dwarves here too?!"

It was still that windy raspy voice. That seemed to be their actual voice.

But their voice was not very important.

'There are dwarves here too?'

There was a lot of meaning in that short phrase.

I sent Umbach to a branch of the Church of the Sun nearby. They must have seen Umbach.

The fact that they still managed to appear here meant that they must have defeated Umbach's group, which also meant that they were very skilled.

And one more thing.

'They must not have seen Goonto's fellow dwarves in the corridor.'

If they had to deal with the dwarves in the corridor, they would not be reacting like this right now.

But I did not feel very good about it. It was because the black robed believers took out black scrolls and started to rip them. I presumed Umbach's group lost because of that black scroll.

Goonto must have also felt danger, as he quickly rushed forward to try to stop them.

But we were one step too late. Some of the black robed believers had already ripped their scrolls. Not only that, they moved at an unbelievable speed to avoid Goonto and my attacks.

"Why is a human so fast?"

I was shocked as well. They were moving almost as fast as I was moving.

But the other side was shocked as well.

"That human's movement is not normal."
"Is it possible that that human can use Spiritual Energy as well?"
"Not possible. Now that the Orthodox Church of the Sun is gone, there are no other humans who can use Spiritual Energy other than the knights of the Church of the Sun."

These stupid idiots were just spilling information. (PR: That's the role of idiotic villains.)

That meant that their ident.i.ties were the knights of the Church of the Sun. The reason they could move so fast was because of the Spiritual Energy that was a special skill of the Knights of the Sun.

I suddenly started to feel hopeful. If I could catch a few of them alive, I would be able to learn how to gather Spiritual Energy.

But it was not that easy.

Goonto was especially in a dangerous situation. He might even lose his life if he messed up.

This was because of the Demon Caves that were created by the scrolls that they ripped. Monsters like Dark Trolls and Death Cows were popping out, but some unexpected and strong monsters were quickly crawling out of there as well.

The ground was starting to become black because of them. It was as if the Demon Cave was vomiting out black fluids.

Goonto started to frown and move backwards.

"d.a.m.n it, Desert Ants!"

The supposed Knights of the Church of the Sun started to laugh in eerie voices.

"Kekeke, now you understand? These are not just Desert Ants but Undead Desert Ants. This place will be your graves. Muahahahaha!"

Sponsor chapters are now open for Royal Roader! If you would like to support my translation and want more chapters released quickly, please help out! Thank you all in advance

Translator : Miraclerifle

Proofreader :Borderline m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t