Chapter 223
Chapter 223
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: EP.50 – The Knight Ruminates on Defeat (1)
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A man stood atop a platform.
He had the sort of ordinary face you could see anywhere.
Yet there was something about him that made it impossible to look away.
It wasn't because both his arms were missing.
Nor was it the countless burn scars on his face.
It was the fierce, ghostly aura blazing in his eyes—so intense it gripped you.
And with that baleful glare fixed upon them, the man spoke, his words deliberate.
"I was the head of a household, a woman's husband, the father of two children, and an ordinary accountant at a trading firm."
"I was a pathetic head of household who couldn't protect his family, a worthless husband who failed his wife, and a foolish father who let his two children die."
"I was a fool—a wretched sinner who foolishly believed in the goodness of the world!"
The man's eloquence left much to be desired.
His voice was thick and slurred, his speech awkward in every way; nothing about it drew the crowd's attention.
But his voice carried sincerity.
A plea laced with his profound grief.
A voice steeped in han—that deep, festering resentment—had the power to seize people's eyes and ears.
"I am a sinner. That's an undeniable truth! How could a head of household who failed his family be anything but? So I don't hide it or deny it. I admit my sin! ...But!!"
"Why do those who committed far greater sins—those who sold God's name for profit and shirked their duties—why do they...!"
"How can they strut around so shamelessly, claiming they're innocent!!!"
The man spat out his rage.
Even after a decade or more, the han he could never forget hadn't faded with time. If anything, it had ripened, condensing into something even denser.
His han was no longer mere resentment. It bordered on hatred and vengeance—a furnace that wouldn't extinguish until his dying breath.
And so the man declared,
"I have no reason to live like this! I've lost everything—how am I supposed to go on in this world? Living itself is torment! It's driving me mad—how...!!!"
A cry forged from pure hatred.
It was chilling, evoking outright terror.
Yes.
The man was alive, yet he was one of the departed.
With no will to live left, but a purpose that demanded he persist... He was no different from a vengeful spirit that could only vanish from the world after exacting revenge.
Someone once said that though one person can't change the world, one person's rage can destroy much.
And one person's thirst for vengeance can ignite the hearts of others.
Kindling buried deep in the chest, unknown even to its owner, can be set ablaze by another.
"Come. Let's give them grief equal to what they gave us."
Thanks to Irene Windler's efforts, the fire engulfing the cathedral had been extinguished.
But though the flames were out, human anger couldn't be doused by mere rain. The torch-bearing crowd burned with fury undimmed.
Boom!
Boom...!
Booom!
Crosses blazed, and priests were bound to stakes.
Familiar faces.
Cardinal Michael, the moderate faction leader they'd burned the day before—he hung his head, face drenched in blood. The rest of the moderates were lashed to stakes as well.
How barbaric it seemed...
"My daughter died because of you! You toyed with her! She lost her purity and died! You filthy bastard!!"
...Yet even that was luxury compared to what awaited him.
An elderly man, dragging his frail body, hurled a stone.
Even lifting it should have been impossible, yet somehow he mustered the strength, again and again.
"Do you even remember me? Do you know who I am? I'm the mother you deceived fifty years ago, you beast worse than an animal! Bring my daughter back, you scum!!"
Curses rained down on Michael.
The moment the flaws of this saintly candidate were laid bare for the world.
But...
"You! Remember when you came to our village? You ordered us burned—the plague-ridden folk who could drop dead any moment, you damned cur!"
"Why? Why did you do it? We paid you! We scraped it together...!! So why pretend we didn't exist?!"
"Aaaagh! D-Die! Die!!"
His sins—no, his atrocities—seemed only to be beginning. The crowd pelted him with stones.
What were the temple guards doing, one might wonder.
Shing.
"Don't move. Move, and you're dead."
The paladins—or rather, half-demons in paladin guise—had subdued most of them. It explained how these powerless folk had made it this far.
A scene steeped in resentment and rage.
Was hell anywhere else?
...
This was hell.
"-859,800."
"?"
"The number of people who died without priestly healing because they couldn't pay the average annual tithe."
"......"
"Isn't it ridiculous? They monopolize or suppress all medical arts like healing spells and alchemy, all for the temple's authority—yet they refuse treatment over unpaid or insufficient tithes... What kind of farce is this? That's why tragedy fails. Reality's even more absurd."
"Then those people..."
"Right. Survivors or loved ones of those 859,800 wronged by the temples."
"......"
"As you see, all commoners. A few merchants or soldiers, maybe, but to nobles or knights, they're just powerless weaklings."
Dina recited the brutal facts in a low voice.
"The organization—or rather, the Prophet—approached them quietly with an offer. 'Want revenge?' Or 'Need a place to die?' ...Surprisingly, given the chance and power, they accepted. They chose to burn their own bodies."
"......"
Crunch.
Lee Han's fists clenched tighter as he listened to Dina.
These were strangers, utterly unrelated to him. Yet her words stoked a rising fury.
She'd seen his reaction but pressed on regardless.
"The Prophet called their chance 'Flame Scrolls' and 'gunpowder.' In massive quantities... No idea where they got such precious, strictly guarded military supplies, but you can guess what they did with that power."
"......"
Lee Han surveyed the carnage around them.
Unlike moments ago, when he'd been desperate to escape, the full horror was now clear.
His keenly sensitive nose caught it despite himself.
...The stench of burning flesh.
"...Damn it all."
A smell he'd endured endlessly on the battlefield.
A torment he never wanted to smell again.
Lee Han trembled with rage.
...But the true outrage was yet to come.
"You call this human?! After all this, are you even human?!"
Boom-!
Lee Han's roar thundered through the area, heedless of being overheard. The crowd stared in shock.
Wondering what had set him off.
But Dina and Yan remained calm.
They knew why he raged.
Grab!
In the next instant, Lee Han seized Dina's collar with a brutish grip, yanking her up.
"Guh!"
Her body lifted effortlessly; pain twisted her face as she struggled to breathe.
But Lee Han ignored it. Maximus and Lark moved to restrain him.
"What the hell's this about?"
"Stop. Stay calm..."
"-[Human bombs]?!"
"......What?"
His next words left the knights frozen, forgetting to intervene.
And like a finisher, Lee Han didn't stop.
"The stench of burning flesh is everywhere! But there's oil too—thick and acrid! And that special tang! It's the exact smell from the [Britann suicide squads] I know all too well! The ones who wrapped themselves in Flame Scrolls and gunpowder, doused in oil and special agents, then slammed into city gates—that's the stench from those suicide troops!!"
"......"
A nightmare scent known only to Britann war veterans—and seared into his memory by his sharper-than-animal senses.
The man haunted by war's horrors glared at them with murderous fury.
"You used their vengeance to turn them into bombs! Let them burn the cathedral alive—you bastards-!"
Lee Han cried out, his grip slowly loosening.
He desperately wanted to kill them then and there, but a shred of reason—and the realization these were mere pawns—held him back.
"...If I may defend Dina: We only learned of this plan today."
They were just chess pieces, exploited like the rest.
"And it wasn't forced or coerced. They wanted to do it."
"That's no excuse...!"
Lark shot back.
As if to say it wouldn't have happened without them.
But.
"You're not qualified to say that, Fierce Wolf. You're a knight. A damn strong one. Can you understand the weak? Those who lost parents and children because they had no power?"
"......"
Dina's retort silenced him.
Rubbing her throat, she sneered at Lark.
"So arrogant. But yeah, it'd be weirder if you did understand. You lived as a Galahad knight, born with champion talent—how could you grasp the powerless?"
"......"
"Sure, to the world, what the Prophet or we did looks evil. But we reached out to the wronged, gave them a shot at vengeance. A chance to punish those above the law, hiding behind power and God's name. Is that wrong? If your child, friend, or woman died, you'd seek revenge too. So why can't they? Is that so evil?"
"That's..."
"Yeah, it's selfish. We know we're filthy. Still, let me say this: Your Duke Galahad slaughtered for his wife's vengeance. So we're the same—villains both. You have no right to judge us. To someone, we're all evil."
"......"
"Oh, and I'm not insulting you. Just saying positions differ. You can't understand them. The only one here who can is someone who suffered powerless for years... and lived righteously."
Slap.
"Him."
...Lee Han, suddenly singled out. All eyes turned to him.
"......"
But he ignored the stares.
Instead...
"...Fuck, lost again."
He spat a curse at the no-win situation.
...The next morning.
The world turned upside down.