# Chapter 57
Ion picked up the small wooden bottle placed on the table and turned it over in his hands. He could hear liquid sloshing inside.
Owen, Ion’s adjutant, explained each item he would use one by one.
“It’s dried Laical tree roots mixed with medicinal water. When diluted with water, it can turn your hair brown.”
Brown was the most common hair color on the continent. That’s why Ion wanted to change his noticeable golden hair to the common brown color, at least during reconnaissance. The same applied to his vibrant golden eyes that seemed to glow even in darkness.
“This is the juice of Slack fruit that grows in the eastern part of the Bireta Continent. One drop can dye your iris for an hour, and ten drops will last for ten hours.”
Owen pointed to a thumb-sized glass bottle on the table and added:
“However, if you use it for more than twelve hours, it may cause vision problems.”
“The reconnaissance won’t take more than twelve hours, so it should be fine.”
He was planning to do it only while the sun was down, so it would take about eight hours at most. Even if they were discovered by the enemy and had to engage in battle, they were scheduled to return within that time frame.
Owen picked up a palm-sized wooden box next to the glass bottle containing the Slack fruit juice and showed Ion what was inside. On top of the thick cloth in the wooden box lay a fingernail-sized round object that looked like a black pearl.
“As you requested, I’ve also prepared a pill to make your voice hoarse, but do you really need to use this as well?”
“We need to be cautious. Any spies who have infiltrated the Empire would recognize my voice.”
No matter how much security was tightened and checkpoints enforced, spies could never be completely blocked. As Ion frequently traveled to various regions to give speeches as both the “Holy One” and the “Only Grand Duke,” it wasn’t unreasonable that spies who had been to the Delos Empire might recognize his voice.
Ion looked at the items that would temporarily conceal his identity, then turned his gaze to the mask hanging on the wall. Besides a mask made of black cloth, there was also a lightweight black mask made of wood. The mask was designed to cover the eye area, including the bridge of the nose and cheekbones, so he planned to use it together with the cloth mask that would cover his nose and mouth.
Given all the thorough preparations, he hoped this reconnaissance mission wouldn’t be in vain.
Ion divided the thirty knights who joined him for reconnaissance into three groups, assigning them to scout the eastern, western, and southern parts of the Iron Fortress. He moved with the knights heading south.
The south had high hills on both sides of a narrow path just before reaching the Iron Fortress, making it a terrain favorable for ambushes with a small number of soldiers.
Consequently, the Delos Empire troops who had set out to attack the Iron Fortress decades ago had been especially wary of the mountains on both sides of the southern path. They had thoroughly scoured the hills to the south before advancing, according to records.
Despite such thorough precautions while passing through, nothing happened until they actually tried to attack the Iron Fortress, when enemy forces suddenly swarmed from behind, surrounding them and resulting in a crushing defeat.
‘Despite thoroughly scouting for ambushes in the south, the enemy swarmed from behind. That means there’s a high probability of a secret passage. And it must be quite deep and wide.’
Ion noted that within an hour of starting to attack the Iron Fortress, armies of 10,000 each came rushing from three directions.
It took the Delos Empire troops about an hour and forty minutes from when they started marching until they reached the Iron Fortress, and it took an hour for them to be surrounded. If you subtract the time it took to reach the narrow path with the southern hills from the total marching time, it would also be about an hour.
This suggested there must be a secret passage as wide as a tunnel, large enough for an army of 10,000 to march through in an hour. And given its size, rather than the secret passage being hidden inside the hills in each direction, the exterior was probably disguised as hills to conceal the passage.
‘The fact that there’s no mention of it means they couldn’t find the secret passage no matter how hard they looked.’
Ion thought he might not gain anything from this reconnaissance. Even the Delos Empire troops who had scouted decades ago couldn’t find it, so he couldn’t be certain either.
‘Still, I can’t just march blindly forward knowing something suspicious exists.’
He hoped to finish in one day, but if not, he planned to search for about three days. The Caron Empire troops were only maintaining a defensive position without venturing outside the fortress anyway, so he thought they probably wouldn’t send many soldiers to the hills an hour away.
Ion divided the ten knights again between the left and right sides of the southern hill and ordered reconnaissance. He moved swiftly with the five knights heading southeast.
The steep hills around the Iron Fortress weren’t just hills. As they got farther from the fortress, the area gradually became a dense forest. The deeper they went, the more lush grass and small trees typical of forests appeared.
Considering the movement of an army of 10,000 and the time of one hour, the entrance to the secret passage wouldn’t be in the forest. That’s why they focused on scouting the hills.
While scouting the wide and steep hills, Ion stopped in his tracks as he sensed the presence of others. By then, his adjutant Owen had also stopped, crouching low. The other knights, being highly skilled, noticed the presence too and exchanged hand signals.
The knights gathered silently around Ion and spotted several enemy soldiers wandering around. Even though it was night, they couldn’t move carelessly ignoring the soldiers’ field of vision. Ion, leading the knights, quickly subdued the soldiers.
“Guk—!”
“Ugh!”
Rushing in quickly, they covered the soldiers’ mouths and drew daggers, slitting their throats in one motion. The soldiers, unable to even scream properly, collapsed to the ground.
After subduing them and moving forward, they encountered a few more enemy soldiers scouting the area. They met the same fate as the soldiers before, falling to the ground. As they continued to advance, they kept running into one or two enemy soldiers. Since there were hardly any trees to use as cover, and fearing the soldiers might signal the fortress, they had no choice but to kill everyone they met.
‘More than I expected.’
The number of enemy soldiers they’d encountered so far was about 20.
Ion had thought that even if soldiers were stationed on the hill, there would be only about 10 or so, but unexpectedly, there were quite a few troops. Considering the enemy soldiers who might be scouting from the opposite direction as well, there would be at least 50 or so.
If one of the two southern hills had this many, the number of soldiers on the vast hills to the east and west, where there weren’t even paths, would probably be at least twice as many.
‘The probability of a secret passage is increasing.’
If the number of enemy soldiers reached hundreds, one might think they were lying in ambush to launch a surprise attack as soon as our troops marched. But the number of deployed soldiers seemed too small for an ambush, yet too many for simple reconnaissance.
Noting the suspicious number of enemy soldiers, Ion soon reached the entrance of the forest. There were five soldiers standing still, unlike the ones they had met so far. They were spread out slightly, guarding the empty ground inside their perimeter as they kept watch, and seeing this, Ion silently muttered, ‘Found it.’
After stealthily subduing and bringing down the five soldiers, Ion approached the center of where they had been standing. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing on the ground.
Owen, who had secured torches from the dead soldiers, approached Ion and illuminated the area. He slowly scanned the ground.
“There doesn’t seem to be any door leading to a secret passage. I thought if something existed, it would be here.”
Owen was thinking the same as Ion. But with nothing particularly visible, he seemed somewhat disappointed.
Not giving up, Ion continued to search the area, and soon his eyes caught something unusual.
“This is definitely it.”
“Pardon?”
Instead of giving Owen a lengthy explanation, Ion decided to act directly.
He noticed something strange about the grass on the hill. Though the ground was overgrown with weeds, there were signs that someone had deliberately folded parts of the grass. Looking at the folded pattern, he saw what appeared to be a fragmented image. The current form wasn’t exactly like that picture, but it was impossible to ignore that some parts precisely formed that pattern.
Ion tried changing the direction of the folded grass according to the image in his mind. A part of a curved long line, about a handspan, was pressed in the opposite direction, breaking the flow of the picture. He tried folding the disconnected parts above and below to connect them. Normally, it would be difficult for grass to completely change direction and stay fixed just by pressing with hands, but surprisingly, the grass obediently lay down in the direction Ion folded it.
Click—
Though he had only changed the direction of the folded grass, there came a very small sound that shouldn’t be heard on such a hill. It sounded like wood pieces lightly tapping, or like the hinges of a door meeting.
After Ion personally adjusted five spots of grass, the knights finally realized what the image formed by the grass was.
The picture made by the grass was none other than the emblem of the Caron Empire.
Creeeaaak—
A strange sound, like a stiff iron door moving, was heard.
Soon, the area where the grass had been gradually sank downward.
