Chapter 152
Blue Blood (6)
After several days of resistance, the fighting entered a lull.
Winterband was covered in corpses.
Where once the bodies of Winterband’s soldiers and residents had been scattered throughout the inner fortress, now there was barely a place to step without treading on the corpses of Botmer’s soldiers and the horned beasts.
Finding a body with all four limbs intact was harder than finding one mutilated.
Severed, crushed, torn apart corpses—and chunks of flesh—were strewn everywhere.
“Huff... huff... huff...”
Romer pulled his sword from the heart of a dead male horned beast.
The creature stood far taller than a grown man and had wielded a greatsword in each hand.
The blades were covered in rust, evidence of their age.
Yet the number of soldiers those two swords had cut down—or rather, pulverized—easily numbered in the dozens.
No one had ever imagined demonic beasts that used weapons would appear.
This was a disaster.
Most of the soldiers filling the fortress had died without even managing to properly swing their weapons.
“Is it... over there?”
Valdrik approached the exhausted Romer.
One of his arms hung limply at his side.
“We’ve finished here.”
“I knew you bastards would survive.”
A tall, lean man with unnaturally long arms emerged from an alley within the inner fortress.
It was Arnulf.
Romer.
Valdrik.
Arnulf.
The three of them were all that remained of Botmer’s knights in Winterband.
Aldric and Clovis had been killed before they could even respond to the male horned beasts.
Chevalier had followed Rutger and never returned.
Waller had been decapitated during the siege and his head displayed on a pike.
Volte, Falkenwald, Evervine, and Giyong had gone to deal with Baron Vinfelt’s forces, but no news had come from them since.
“Grr... There must be hundreds dead at the very least.”
Valdrik grasped his dangling arm and regenerated it.
It was the power of the blue blood flowing through his veins.
“Is Father safe?”
“Yes. He ordered us to come find you.”
Romer answered Arnulf’s question.
“...I don’t know how many more times we can hold out. At least a hundred elite soldiers must be dead by now.”
Valdrik spoke while examining the bodies littering the ground.
Though they could not use aura, the elite soldiers were individually comparable to aura users.
In terms of pure swordsmanship, some even surpassed aura users.
With demonic swords placed in their hands, they became complete warriors.
The corpses of such elite soldiers were not difficult to find.
From the entrances of the inner fortress to the walls, battlements, towers, and ramparts, their remains were everywhere.
“Those monsters exceeded every expectation.”
Romer bit down on his lip.
Information about the horned beasts had been gathered.
But there were too many discrepancies between the reports and reality.
The fact that they wielded weapons.
The existence of individuals as large as houses.
No one had ever heard of such things.
And then there were their numbers.
The gigantic male horned beasts wielded weapons.
Meanwhile, female horned beasts roughly the size of humans poured in endlessly.
Even the three knights, who were not experts in strategy or tactics, could instinctively sense it.
Something was wrong.
“The military camp outside the fortress is in chaos too.”
The horned beasts had surged forward like a tidal wave.
The troops inside the fortress alone could never stop all of them.
The faster demonic beasts had already bypassed the fortress entirely and reached Vinfelt’s military camp.
“Let’s go. Father is waiting.”
Romer led the way toward the southern gate.
“Father!”
A force of roughly a thousand soldiers stood assembled outside the southern gate.
Viscount Botmer stood atop the southern wall accompanied by elite troops.
An elderly druid stood beside him.
The two appeared to be talking, but in reality they were simply staring blankly at the camp visible beyond the battlements.
Bright flames rose from various parts of the encampment that housed thousands of soldiers.
For anyone who was not an aura user, fire was the only practical way to deal with horned beasts.
Set them ablaze, then drive a sword into them while they thrashed in agony.
Even that usually required several casualties per beast.
Unfortunately, horned beasts were not the only demonic beasts present.
They made up the overwhelming majority, but Stone Blood Serpents, Black-Horned Deer, Bone-Spike Bears, and Fire-Tailed Boars rampaged as well.
Every one of those gigantic monsters slaughtered soldiers indiscriminately even as they fought each other.
KIEEEEEEE—!
A bizarre scream echoed from over five hundred paces away.
“Where are Baron Bidelstein and Baron Lübeck?”
“They fled.”
The Viscount answered Romer calmly.
“It doesn’t matter. They were merely pieces on the board. I heard the First Prince has mobilized.”
“Then... does that mean we can finally receive help from the Second Prince?”
“......”
“Father...?”
“We were played.”
The Viscount’s voice remained calm.
But only then did Romer notice it.
The blood clinging to the Viscount’s gauntlets.
The bloodstains still smeared across the frost-covered battlements.
The Viscount had punched the wall over and over.
Until his fists split open and bled.
Unlike his knights, whose blood was blue,
his blood was red.
“A letter arrived from the Noble Assembly. By unanimous decision, I am now a traitor. They intend to hold me responsible for the illegal attack against the Margrave and for the fall of the fortress.”
“The Parliamentary faction... surely they wouldn’t have stayed silent.”
“Their representatives attended the meeting as well.”
The Viscount handed Romer the letter.
It said exactly as he had described.
[...Therefore, the Noble Assembly renders the following judgment. As a traitor, you are stripped of all titles and lands and shall answer before the laws of the kingdom.
The rightful heir to the throne shall arrest you, recapture the fortress, and lead an army to drive back the demonic beasts.
You are hereby ordered to lay down your arms immediately and present yourself before a royal tribunal to confess your crimes.
...Under the grace of God and in the name of the King, the Noble Assembly proclaims this judgment and fully supports the First Prince’s campaign.]
“This...”
“This place was a giant trap from the very beginning. The Count merely waited for me to approach it of my own accord.”
The Viscount grimaced.
Suddenly, he remembered what the Count had said before the siege began.
—
“I do not fight prepared to die.”
“I fight to win.”
—
When did he start planning this?
Did he know monsters of this scale would invade?
Had everything already been arranged with the First Prince?
When?
The First Prince and the Count had never even met.
If they had made any move, intelligence reports should have reached me long ago.
The Viscount slammed his fist into the battlements again as he retraced every detail he had overlooked.
Never before had events slipped so completely beyond his control.
Maintaining his composure was difficult.
His anger at his own arrogance and foolishness prevented him from thinking even half as clearly as he normally would.
Looking back, things had been strange ever since Gutrert, his chief steward, had been assassinated during a meeting with Duke Dietrich.
The Viscount had not ignored it.
He had thoroughly investigated Gutrert’s death, severed ties with Duke Dietrich, tightened secrecy around his plans, and even eliminated minor figures to ensure silence.
And what about Winterband?
The severity of Goethe’s winters.
The overwhelming ferocity of the demonic beasts descending from the Demon Realm.
He had already spent five years gathering information through spies sent into Winterband.
Combining his elite soldiers with demonic swords, he commanded more than three hundred warriors equivalent to aura users.
By all logic, the demonic beasts that attacked Winterband should have been manageable.
Yet creatures far more numerous and far stronger than any previously reported had appeared.
Such a thing should have been impossible.
Unless the Count could somehow control the demonic beasts.
“Just where... where did it all go wrong...”
His cataract-clouded eyes were bloodshot.
In more than sixty years of life, he had never been this furious.
Minor setbacks had happened before.
But never had the great undertaking upon which his entire life rested collapsed like this.
For decades—indeed, for almost his entire life—he had prepared.
Place the reckless Second Prince upon the throne.
Control the Parliamentary faction.
Build relationships with Imperial officials.
Restore the name of House Klaus.
Return to the Republic.
Take revenge upon those who had ruined his family—or their descendants.
This war was supposed to be the foundation.
The first step.
How much wealth had he accumulated for this single war?
How many alliances had he forged?
How many Imperial authorities had he bowed before?
And now everything was crumbling before his eyes.
All because of a single demonic beast invasion.
Tap.
“Father. You’re hurting your hand.”
Romer wrapped his own hand around the Viscount’s bleeding fist.
Then he tore a strip from the shirt beneath his armor and bandaged the Viscount’s knuckles.
“Don’t worry. You still have us. As long as you remain healthy, we can begin again whenever we wish.”
“How disgusting.”
“...What?”
Romer blinked in confusion.
“Thank you.”
The Viscount said quietly.
The Viscount forced a smile.
He struggled desperately to regain his composure.
The monsters he had created through biomagical engineering, pouring his entire fortune into their creation.
They were the only ones he could rely on now.
He knew that being ruled by emotion would only lead him astray.
He had to recover his calm.
“As long as I have you, I will not fall.”
The Viscount spoke while barely suppressing the trembling of his body.
“We’ll follow you to the very end, Father.”
Valdrik said.
“I feel the same.”
“As do I.”
Romer and Arnulf answered in succession.
“Karl’s army is returning.”
The elderly druid spoke, tears of blood running down his face.
His eyes were sharing the senses of a hawk.
“What happened? Did they capture Isaac?”
The Viscount asked urgently.
If Isaac were captured alive, another path forward might still exist.
Isaac was no fool.
Rather, he was a cunning prodigy.
Perhaps even a genius.
There was no way the Count failed to realize that.
If they could make use of Isaac, perhaps they could still find a way out.
“I don’t know what Isaac looks like. But their force has been reduced by more than half. And Karl... I don’t see him either.”
Melgara answered.
***
“Brother, come on, just show me once. Just once! Those bastards keep talking about some Fire of Prophecy nonsense. I’m dying of curiosity.”
“Let me rest for a bit.”
“Hah, stingy bastard. The Granak fellows have all seen it, but I’m the only one who hasn’t.”
“Ugh.”
Shing—
Fwoosh!
Isaac drew his sword and infused it with aura.
Flames erupted from the blade.
They were not violet flames.
Just ordinary orange-red fire.
But that alone was enough to astonish Besimer.
“Wooooow!”
The bald man with the bushy beard stared with his mouth hanging open.
“You wouldn’t even need torches.”
“Now stop bothering me.”
“Hmph. I’m a busy man too, you know.”
With a satisfied grin, Besimer returned to his tent.
“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
Isaac sat down beside Carlson.
Carlson was seated in the central clearing of the camp.
And in the middle of that clearing sat Hans, shackled by the ankles and tied to a stake.
His face was covered in bruises from being beaten by the soldiers.
“Nothing much.”
Carlson answered curtly.
Without even glancing at Isaac, he continued oiling his sword.
Yet his eyes remained fixed on Hans.
“Worried about Hans?”
“......”
During the collection of spoils, Hans had started a fight.
Not with a Granak warrior or another mercenary.
With a fellow Vinfelt soldier.
Red Nose, who had once been Hans’s senior.
Isaac had already heard the full story from Besimer.
Hans had been present at the site where the Black Eyes mercenary company was annihilated.
Red Nose had tried to comfort the grieving Hans.
The method, however, had been terribly misguided.
While talking about the fallen Black Eyes mercenaries, he mocked the dead, saying they had only died because they were weak.
Hans, already exhausted both mentally and physically, had completely lost control.
Beating Red Nose wasn’t enough.
He had even tried to slit his throat with a dagger.
Had Carlson not intervened, Hans would have had little chance of escaping summary execution.
Even Isaac, as commander, could not have spared a man who killed an ally without destroying military discipline.
“You saved Hans. Thank you.”
“Wasn’t he one of the people you wanted to protect?”
“Hm?”
“The people of Goethe. Weren’t you trying to protect them?”
Carlson’s voice was low and quiet.
Yet there was a sharp edge to it.
“I was. And I still am.”
“Then send Hans home. Hans isn’t suited for the battlefield.”
“Is there anyone who’s suited for the battlefield?”
“...At the very least, Hans isn’t.”
“And have you escaped yours?”
“What?”
Carlson finally turned at Isaac’s unexpected question.
“I asked whether you’ve escaped your battlefield.”
“......”
Carlson couldn’t answer.
“Everyone has their own battlefield. If Hans goes home like this, he’ll never escape his. Even in a peaceful life, those memories will torment him endlessly.”
“If Hans decides he wants to go home, I won’t stop him. But that choice belongs to Hans. It’s not something I can force upon him.”
“Young Master.”
Carlson frowned.
Seen like this, he actually looked quite fierce.
“Hans hates his own weakness. He can’t stand the powerless version of himself that couldn’t do anything. If he can’t forgive himself, he’ll remain trapped in that prison forever.”
Isaac recalled his previous life.
He had spent his entire life imprisoned by himself.
No salvation had come.
Not from anyone.
Not from anything.
Not from the gods.
Not from magic.
Not from any profound philosophy, scholarship, or hidden truth.
They had all merely been noise.
None of them had given him the answer he sought.
One had to find it personally.
Even now, perhaps he himself was merely struggling.
Isaac had wanted to protect Hans.
Yet in the end, he had pushed Hans into the mire.
Many things in Goethe were changing, but whether they were changing in the direction Isaac desired was another matter entirely.
Perhaps only when the end of his life arrived again would he know whether the roads he had chosen were right or wrong.
Hans was the same.
Some things could only be understood by seeing them through to the end.
In Isaac’s previous life, Hans had ultimately died as his attendant.
Because of meaningless loyalty.
Caught in a mana explosion.
A pointless death.
Even if that had been Hans’s choice, Isaac could not accept it.
The more Isaac experienced war, the more he realized something.
After witnessing death again and again, he had come to understand.
Hans would die.
Gisella, Enette, Roza, Waller—
they would die.
Isaac would die too.
Everything he loved would eventually die.
One day, everyone dies.
The things he had endlessly regretted,
the things that filled him with remorse,
the parts of his previous life he could never accept—
“......”
It wasn’t that he had failed to protect them.
It was that he had allowed them to live that way.
If everyone was going to die anyway—
then what would they die for?
What would they live for until that moment came?
At the very least, Isaac hoped for one thing for Hans.
Hans would live as Hans and die as Hans.
The choices would be Hans’s.
The responsibility would be Hans’s.
The shape of Hans’s life and death would be determined by Hans himself.
That was what Isaac wanted.
“I’m going to teach Hans aura.”
“Hans doesn’t have the talent to create an aura vessel. False hope will only make things more painful.”
“Who knows? You wouldn’t know this, but technology has gotten pretty amazing these days.”
Isaac stood up.
He carried two swords.
One hung at his waist.
The other was in his hand.
Set into the pommel of the sword he held was a blue mana crystal.
It was one of the weapons recovered from the corpses of Botmer’s elite soldiers through Bill and Beltran.
“Hans.”
“Young Master... I’m sorry.”
Hans looked up at Isaac.
His eyes were empty.
“Do you want to return to the estate?”
Hans’s eyes wavered.
Yet he could not answer.
His lips moved soundlessly before closing again.
“Or do you want to see this through to the end?”
“......”
Carlson watched Isaac and Hans from a distance.
What absurd thing was he planning now?
Suddenly, Isaac untied the ropes binding Hans.
Then he placed the sword he had been holding into Hans’s hands.
“...?”
Carlson thought something had gone wrong with his eyesight.
The moment Hans gripped the sword,
a faint aura began to emerge.