Chapter 74
Why Are You There?
“Your Highness, Young Master!”
“Are you unharmed?!”
Dunkel and the knights rushed over in panic, examining both me and Heinkel for injuries.
Looking at the countless scratches covering his armor, Heinkel spoke to them.
“What about the casualties?”
At his question, the knights answered with bright expressions.
“Three injured. And even those are only minor wounds.”
“The undead the Young Master summoned became shields at the critical moment.”
Well, that was exactly why I had summoned them in the first place.
As things unfolded just as intended, a sigh of relief escaped my lips.
“Still… this is…”
The knights trailed off as their gazes landed on Helian’s corpse.
Even after exhausting all the life force granted by the Sacred Blood, her body continued twitching violently.
“This is… Duchess Helian?”
“I can’t believe it. How could a human body end up like this…?”
But we couldn’t just stand around staring forever.
“Do not lower your guard. There is still work left to do.”
After saying that, Heinkel signaled to one of the knights.
“Here it is, Your Highness.”
What was handed to him was the flag of Leinrant.
Staring at it for a moment, Heinkel began climbing toward the top of the fortress through the wreckage of battle.
He intended to publicly announce Helian’s death.
“Klein.”
“I’m here.”
As I answered Heinkel’s call while he climbed the stairs, his voice came again a moment later.
“You saved my life. Thank you.”
At the very last moment—
At Helian’s voice, Heinkel had stopped his blade.
If I had not been prepared beforehand, he might truly have fallen victim to the poison of the monster Helian had become.
While thanking me, Heinkel was also reproaching himself for his hesitation.
“I merely did what needed to be done.”
When I answered him that way, Heinkel silently nodded.
When they hesitate, I step forward.
He understood the meaning behind those words.
“I’ll head back down. Father, you…”
“I’ll finish the war and follow after. You’ve done well.”
After hearing Heinkel’s words, I immediately descended back below.
Battle was still raging throughout Paul Wyvern Castle.
“Uh… uh?”
“Wait, over there—!”
But soon, several soldiers pointed toward the sky as if urging everyone to look.
Thud—!
“All those engaged in battle, hear me—!”
Heinkel’s voice, infused with majestic mana, echoed throughout the castle.
“What the— why is the Leinrant flag on top of the castle?!”
“Wait… then don’t tell me…?!”
The flag of Leinrant fluttering atop Paul Wyvern Castle.
Its meaning was unmistakable.
“The leader of the rebellion and traitor to Leinrant! Helian Leinrant has fallen!”
At Heinkel’s shout, joy filled the eyes of the duchess faction’s soldiers.
In everyone else’s eyes, despair emerged.
“If you still wish to spill meaningless blood despite that, then come forward!”
In response to Heinkel’s proclamation, the knights of Leinrant advanced in formation from the center of the castle.
“The swords of Leinrant shall strike down your heads in judgment!”
The flag hanging over their headquarters, and the knights of Leinrant marching from beneath it—
“Damn it, damn it!”
“It’s over. We’re finished now…!”
With groans of despair, soldiers across the battlefield began dropping their weapons.
“Confirmed disarmament!”
“Send in the remaining troops! Capture every last one of them!”
The moment the battle’s end was confirmed, Laia’s forces moved swiftly.
The soldiers who entered the inner castle rapidly secured its strategic points, binding the surrendered soldiers together in groups.
“Damn it! Let me go! I said let go!”
And among those captured was none other than Count Pensta, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army.
“How dare the private soldiers of some mere duke bind the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army! His Majesty the Emperor will make you—!”
“Even after everything’s come to this, your mouth still works well enough, Count Pensta.”
I cut him off mid-rant.
“K-Klein?!”
At the sound of my voice, Count Pensta flinched and shrank back in fear.
“Raven.”
This was no longer something I could leave to ordinary soldiers.
After dismissing them, I immediately summoned Raven and had him point his sword at the count’s neck.
“H-Hiiik?! A Death Knight…!”
“Go ahead. Try throwing around your authority as Commander-in-Chief in front of this one.”
The authority of the living held no influence over the dead.
“If you’d like, I could silence you permanently right here…”
As if to remind him of that fact, Raven’s blade moved closer to his throat, and Count Pensta’s face turned deathly pale.
“N-No! Don’t…!”
“Then shut your mouth and answer what I ask, Pensta Landen.”
Raven’s sword hovered inches from his face, accompanied by the chilling voice of my undead servant.
Count Pensta, his complexion drained blue-white, nodded frantically.
“The Sacred Blood that Helian regularly received from the Order.”
“?!”
Ignoring his reaction, I continued tightening the pressure of the interrogation.
“I-I don’t know! I know nothing! I—!”
“A man called the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army shouldn’t be able to claim ignorance about this.”
The Imperial Army possessed the greatest intelligence network on the continent.
There was no way they wouldn’t know about the funds and personnel moving toward Paul Wyvern.
At my words, Count Pensta’s eyes shook violently.
The existence of the Sacred Blood.
And the fact that the Order was involved.
He had never imagined that I already knew all of it.
“H-How do you know that…?!”
“Good. So you do know.”
Raven’s sword edged even closer to his neck, while the voice of my undead grew colder still.
“Who made it, and where?”
“H-Hiiik…!”
Count Pensta’s face had gone beyond pale and turned completely white.
Raven’s sword moved even closer to his throat, while the voice of my undead servant grew colder and heavier.
“Who made it, and where?”
“H-Hiiik…!”
Count Pensta’s face had gone beyond blue and turned completely white.
“Talk. Otherwise I’ll revive your corpse and—!”
“A-Aaaah…!”
The moment I said that—
Bwooooooo—!
A trumpet blast echoed throughout the entire castle.
“…For fuck’s sake.”
Five distinct brass tones.
And a melody reserved for the Empire’s highest ceremonial protocol.
The instant I recognized the sound, my face twisted into a scowl.
Clank! Clank!
A group of knights marched into Paul Wyvern Castle in perfectly synchronized steps.
Their movements were so orderly it looked as though they were performing in a military parade.
The moment everyone saw the armor covered in golden ornamentation, all those blocking the way immediately split apart to open a path.
“So they finally crawl in after everything’s already over.”
I examined the knights entering the castle.
Several thousand troops.
Weapons and armor enchanted with all kinds of magic.
A force powerful enough to suppress everyone present here at this very moment.
Thunk—! Thunk—!
The knights struck the ground twice with their sheathed swords.
Soon after, they split to the left and right, and someone slowly stepped down from the carriage at the very center of the procession.
“T-That…!”
“Everyone, kneel!”
The moment the commanders recognized the crest engraved on the carriage, they shouted at the soldiers.
“His Majesty the Emperor has arrived!”
The Emperor of the Empire, Petrieus.
The moment those words were spoken, both the duchess faction and ducal faction soldiers who had been fighting just moments ago immediately lowered themselves to the ground.
“I sensed something unusual and came personally. Yet the situation is even worse than I expected.”
Looking down at the people bowing beneath him, the Emperor spoke in a completely indifferent tone.
“I never expected to meet Your Majesty in a place like this.”
The one who stepped forward as he spoke was Heinkel.
As one of the Empire’s Three Great Dukes, he alone possessed the privilege of addressing the Emperor first.
“Duke Heinkel Leinrant greets His Majesty the Emperor.”
Heinkel bowed respectfully before the Emperor.
“It has been a long time, Heinkel.”
The Emperor nodded once before slowly speaking again.
“Normally, after meeting again like this, I might suggest sharing a drink.”
As he said that, the Emperor walked past Heinkel and slowly approached where I stood.
“But one carrying my seal has committed far too grave a blunder, so there is no time for that.”
His gaze landed on Count Pensta sprawled across the ground.
The body that had moments ago trembled with relief at being saved now froze stiff in place.
“Y-Your Majesty. Th-That is…!”
“Silence.”
The Emperor’s voice shifted from that of a gentle old man into the majestic authority of a sovereign ruler.
At that single word, Count Pensta smashed his forehead against the ground without daring to speak further.
“Count Pensta.”
“Y-Yes…! Your Majesty…!”
Pensta looked as though he might faint at any moment from the Emperor’s cold voice.
“I distinctly ordered you to mediate the conflict between the two houses.”
The Emperor glanced toward the bound Imperial soldiers kneeling nearby.
“And yet, for the sake of your own selfish interests, you moved the Imperial Army without authorization and threw the battlefield into chaos.”
As the Emperor spoke, he extended his hand.
One of the knights approached and placed something into it.
Clink—!
What the Emperor tossed onto the ground with a metallic sound was… a golden dagger.
“Your crimes are beyond measure. Take your own life.”
The words struck like a bolt from the heavens.
As though all hope had vanished, Count Pensta’s lips trembled violently.
“Y-Your Majesty…!”
Just as Count Pensta’s mouth began moving as if to plead—
“Ah… aaah?!”
He made a strangled sound, as though no voice would come out.
Shrrng—!
Shaking his head desperately as if to say this isn’t right, this isn’t my will, Count Pensta trembled violently.
Yet the hand gripping the dagger moved beyond his own control, carving a wound across his throat.
And at the end of it—
Slash—!
That was not all.
As though it belonged to someone else entirely, Count Pensta’s arm moved on its own and picked up the dagger that had fallen to the ground.
“Aaaah! Aaaaah…!”
Still shaking his head desperately as though denying it all—
His own hand slit his throat open, spraying crimson blood across the surroundings.
“Hrk…!”
“Th-That’s…!”
The soldiers who witnessed the scene gasped in horror.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Empire.
And yet his death was pitiful beyond belief, wholly unfitting for a man of such status.
‘He erased the evidence. Thorough bastard.’
Of course, my thoughts as I watched the scene were entirely different.
“So, you were the true hero of this battle.”
Meanwhile, the Emperor’s gaze turned toward me—the one who had been interrogating Pensta moments earlier.
“Raise your head and show me your face.”
An imperial command directed at me.
Slowly, I raised my head and looked upon his face.
And then—
‘You’ve got to be… fucking kidding me…?’
At the impossible sight before me, I instantly lowered my head again and avoided the Emperor’s eyes.
I simply could not bear looking at that face.
“How insolent, Young Master! Until His Majesty grants permission, you are not to raise your—!”
“Haha, enough. Leave it be.”
One of the knights moved to rebuke me, but the Emperor merely laughed it off casually.
“The battle must have exhausted him. And seeing the Emperor in person would naturally make anyone nervous.”
The Emperor alternated his gaze between the kneeling Delline and me before speaking toward Heinkel standing behind us.
“You’ve raised remarkable sons.”
“It is an honor, Your Majesty.”
While Heinkel answered formally, all I could do was desperately restrain my pounding heart.
‘Why…?!’
My heart thundered wildly.
Not from tension.
From rage.
‘Why are you still here…?!’
I stared at the Emperor’s back as he turned away to continue speaking with Heinkel.
What my necromancer eyes saw was not the Emperor’s outward appearance—
But his soul.
Without even realizing my clenched fists were trembling violently, I glared murderously at the Emperor’s back.
Why.
‘Why are you still sitting on the Imperial Throne, ruling over the Empire…?!’
The one who spread the plague through my homeland, the northern kingdom of Winterfall.
The one who branded me, Archimond, an enemy of the continent and drove me to my death.
That was not the current Emperor Petrieus.
That thing was a monster wearing the skin of its own descendant.
The Empire’s first Emperor—
Merdir.