Chapter 16
Chapter 16
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 16
>Chapter Title: Morning Star
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5. Morning Star (6)
***
“You think I'll betray my own kind just because you spare my life?!”
This was what Ivan heard as he pressed one of Aiphelos’s shoulders down with his knee and exposed the wound.
“Hah! You want to torture me? Fine, go ahead! I am Aiphelos, Centurion of the 6th Dragon General's Guard Infantry Division!”
This was what he said as Ivan pressed around the wound, prying open the torn flesh of his chest.
But the moment Ivan started tilting the healing potion, the man’s confident voice began to tremble.
“Acid…! You vicious… urgh…!! Damn… you… humans…!”
Ivan didn’t bother correcting the misunderstanding. He was, however, inwardly impressed. The wound had completely torn open one of his lungs. Ivan’s own chest felt heavy just imagining what it would feel like to have a healing potion poured over that.
Fortunately, he had no memory of enduring a healing potion on such a severe injury.
The worst time he’d been wounded, he had passed out. He’d heard they practically bathed him in potions, but even if he hadn't been unconscious, he surely would have lost consciousness at that moment.
“Grrrgh… Urgh… It’s… no… use…”
At this point, Ivan was truly amazed. The shattered lung was knitting itself back together, which meant the residue of the healing potion would be pooling inside. The fact that he could withstand that was astonishing in itself.
But soon, a smirk crossed Ivan’s lips.
“Remember me… for I will not forget you. Even in the afterlife!”
*CRUNCH!*
The man’s eyes flashed with grim determination as he bit down on his own tongue. A sickening crunching sound followed. At that, Ivan stopped pouring the potion and sighed.
“He must have fought on the front lines. To still believe in such superstitions.”
“Mmph…?”
“Biting off your tongue won’t kill you. Humans aren’t made that fragile. In fact, the only way an immobilized person can take their own life is through cardiac arrest.”
For some reason, the myth that one could die a dramatic death by biting their tongue was widespread throughout the world.
It was baffling. Had they seen someone accidentally commit suicide while eating?
Professional agents like Ivan always harbored such questions.
The ‘brave’ warriors, knights, and generals who ran rampant on the battlefield were particularly susceptible to such superstitions. Perhaps because they considered dramatic, glorious deaths to be their idea of ‘romance’.
After staring down at Aiphelos with pity for a good while, Ivan heaved a deep sigh and checked the remaining amount of healing potion.
This was the last bottle, and now less than a third was left.
“This will only prolong the pain. I’m not trying to torture you, Centurion. This is a medical procedure, and this liquid is a healing potion.”
“Mmph… ugh…!”
“Stop. You’ll make the wound worse.”
Ivan pried his mouth open, poured in the rest of the healing potion, and clamped his jaw shut. The man seemed to be trying to spit it out, but his eyes soon glazed over.
The half-severed tongue was pickled in the healing potion, which then trickled down his throat and spread through his body.
Healing potions only treated external injuries. Drinking one wouldn’t provide any special benefits, unless one had a perforation in their stomach or esophagus.
Of course, if he happened to be suffering from esophagitis, his entire esophagus would feel like it was on fire before being completely healed, but that was beside the point.
“Mmmph…”
“Do you have the strength to speak now?”
“Petrovich, the Poison Spider…”
“Hm?”
Aiphelos, his eyes unfocused, began to mutter.
His gaze shifted to the thick beard covering the entire lower half of Ivan’s face, then flickered up to his eyes and forehead.
“I heard… you were dead… This method… ugh… The Annihilation… Squad… So that’s it… I see…”
So he was one of those who had been active on the battlefield during the war.
Ivan narrowed his eyes.
“Why did you come yourself? Your people can’t be in a position to throw away someone like you as a mere pawn.”
A centurion was merely the lowest rank of commander.
In other words, they were a dime a dozen. Not an important figure by any means.
But that was during the war, when the full might of the demons was still intact.
After the Demon King and most of the Seven Dragon Generals were killed, the remaining remnants were scattered and driven out into the world.
Years had passed since a new arena had opened, where they all vied for power based on their own ambitions.
A centurion from those days was now a precious ‘active-duty officer’—one with proven combat and command capabilities.
“Not… *cough!* Not anymore.”
“What?”
“Did you really think we would cling to plans that were doomed to fail…? The Alliance… your complacency… urgh… is sickening…”
When they attacked Esidis, the demons had hired mercenaries while concealing their identities.
Their followers remaining within the Alliance likely assisted them. And that had failed spectacularly.
Afterward, they realized the operation had been compromised before it even began. Their tracks had been discovered before they could even act.
*We can’t just rely on our followers. There is a spy among us.*
Believing they were losing the intelligence war, they had to send someone trustworthy. This mission had to succeed.
They could afford to lose others, but one person, the Hero’s daughter, had to be killed.
Yet at the same time, they had to prepare for failure. Sending someone too important would result in an unmanageable blow if they failed.
Therefore, Aiphelos was the litmus test.
*‘A commander of just the right caliber. Capable enough to succeed in most operations, yet not so valuable that his loss would be catastrophic.’*
Ivan looked down at Aiphelos with a bitter expression. This man had volunteered, fully aware of his own value.
Because even if the mission succeeded, he couldn’t return alive if they were to erase all traces.
No matter how long it had been since the war, there was no way to carry out a terrorist attack near Pricheñkaya and return unscathed.
The fact that he had walked into the jaws of death from the very beginning stirred a strong sense of kinship in Ivan.
He let out a deep sigh.
“There won’t be another attack, then. Since you’ve failed.”
“…”
“Just thinking aloud. You don’t have to answer.”
Ivan sat down beside him and looked up at the sky. He could hear Aiphelos’s ragged breathing next to him.
“When you failed and were abandoned, they could claim it was merely a terrorist attack by a ‘small group of extremists.’ That’s what your superiors will tell the Alliance.”
“…”
“Your very existence has already put the Alliance on high alert. Naturally, they won’t be foolish enough to plot another attack.”
“…”
“Is there anything you wish for?”
“What… are you going to do with me…?”
“You have three choices left.”
He could be captured and taken to Pricheñkaya.
There, he would receive the kind hospitality of the Krasilov Counter-intelligence Command. He would be charged with the attempted assassination of a state figure.
Then, the Counter-intelligence Command would fabricate a story that his superiors were part of the ‘Crown Prince’s faction’ and launch a political offensive.
Naturally, he would be subjected to harsh torture and magical restraints.
Or, he could be released and return home.
The Krasilov Counter-intelligence Command would put a tail on him.
No matter how quickly he fled, there was no way he could return to his barracks from the vicinity of Pricheñkaya without being compromised.
Therefore, even if he made it back alive, he would be met with suspicion.
*‘A traitor who sided with the enemy to save his own skin.’*
It was obvious he would either be shunned by his fellow demons or interrogated and executed by them.
But, finally.
“Do you understand your situation?”
“Kill me.”
“You have been abandoned by your own kind. You can neither go back nor move forward. The only place left for you is the afterlife.”
Ivan gripped his axe and raised it. Slowly, he grabbed the man’s horn tightly.
Aiphelos squeezed his eyes shut and whispered quietly.
“Though you wander through the valley of the shadow of death,
Fear not, for I shall comfort you.”
The Demon King’s prayer. He had heard it so many times.
Back when the Demon King was alive, the last words of almost every demon were the same.
They died thinking of their Demon King. Fanatically.
Therefore, Ivan also knew the lines that followed.
“I am the cross in the darkest night.
I am the lighthouse in the storm-tossed sea.
I am your cradle and your fortress.”
Fear not, for I shall comfort you.
Ivan whispered, his hand still gripping Aiphelos’s horn.
“Are your parents still alive?”
“…What?”
“If not, I run an orphanage.”
“What in the world are you talking about…?”
“I look after war orphans who have nowhere else to go. Regardless of nation or race.”
Four years ago, when the Demon King died, the order from high command when Ivan decided to retire was as follows:
*Go and kill the Seven Dragon Generals.*
It was an order to go and die. An order given to the entire Annihilation Squad.
Of the eight strike teams that made up the Annihilation Squad, only one survived that command.
When he returned successful, Elizaveta had tearfully stamped his retirement papers. She told him to live as if he were dead, to never be seen again.
She apologized for not being able to stop the order. She said she was grateful just that he had come back alive.
That even when the names of all who had gone before were forgotten, their honor would be eternal.
So.
“If all you want is to live, you can abandon your old self and live as if you are dead and forgotten.”
“I don’t deserve that.”
“Everyone deserves that. Loyalty and faith do not define your life.”
If you wish, I will break your horn. It will be the last chain that binds you.
But if you desire, I will lower the axe a little further.
That is your final choice: to live as a person, or to depart as one.
At Ivan’s words, Aiphelos closed his eyes.
He let out a long sigh.
And then, with another short breath.
“I want… to live.”
“A wise choice.”
*CRACK!*
One more person was added to the register of the Saint Vasilysha Orphanage.
Orphan, 50s, demon.
***
The failure of Esidis’s assassination had led to a sharp increase in the threat from the demons.
The fact that Isabelle’s tutorial was designed to be this difficult meant that, in other words, it was Ivan’s own actions that had caused it.
And that meant.
*‘The tutorials don’t all happen at the same time.’*
This wasn’t a game where each character had to deal with their respective incidents at the same starting point after creation. It meant there was a time difference in the events each starting character experienced.
Ivan stroked his chin, lost in thought.
The demons were not simply AIs moving according to a set script.
Like everyone else in this world, none of them were NPCs.
Even events that proceeded according to clichés could ultimately meet a fluid conclusion depending on the variables.
If that was the case, what could be predicted? What needed to be done?
Ivan turned his gaze to Isabelle.
She was looking at the survivors with sad eyes.
*‘Get these kids through this and see them graduate.’*
Because this other world was an academy genre story. Because it had to be. Even if there were no players, characters, or NPCs. That one thing, at least, should not change.
He could worry about the other things later.
“Mister.”
“Hm.”
“If I hadn’t been on this train today, would their families… would the people who were on this train have lived?”
The people who died were not just NPCs sacrificed for a cutscene.
Probably, yes.
Ivan looked up at the dimly brightening night sky and answered.
“Do you know how many people the Hero killed?”
“…Pardon?”
“Including indirect casualties, the number was estimated to be at least thirty thousand a year. The number of people who were pushed onto battlefields they were certain to lose, just to support the Hero’s operations and draw the Demon King’s army’s attention.”
The Hero’s party was, fundamentally, an assassination squad. Their purpose was to kill the Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King.
So, to make their enemies let their guard down, they had to be given a winning hand elsewhere.
As a basic grand strategy of feinting in one direction to attack another, there was a time when defeat was mandated on other fronts to support the infiltration of the Hero's party.
“Everyone in a position to know at the time was aware of this fact. The Hero, me, even the soldiers on the front lines.”
“…”
“But even in those moments, the Hero smiled.”
Because if he didn't, if he imagined his own failure, if he lamented his own shortcomings,
If he crumbled under the weight of his burden,
It would mean that the lives of all the people who died just for him would have been extinguished in vain.
So, the Hero chose to smile. Even in an era where hope was so scarce that one had to search for the morning star in a sky-splitting battle.
He himself had to be seen as hope for everyone.
Because the moment he fell, the Alliance of Kingdoms would be finished.
“Look.”
Ivan raised his hand and pointed to the sky.
In the east, the sun was rising, painting the sky a brilliant blue.
In the west, the moon had already hidden its face. But even at its edge, far in the distance.
Even at the brightest time of day, the morning star is shining.
Just as it still shone in the darkest night.
“Ah…”
“That is the star your father carried in those days, and it is the star you will now inherit. The title of Hero doesn't signify the strongest.”
“It signifies… the bravest…”
“Yes. We called the one who would not kneel under any burden, who would not lose their smile in any moment, the Hero. So now, you must become their Hero.”
Looking at the survivors huddled together in their sorrow, Ivan pressed his hand firmly on her head.
“Isabelle, daughter of Maximilian. Lift your head and stand tall. The sorrowful earn pity, but the one who always smiles earns admiration. Rise with hope, and live with gratitude for someone’s sacrifice before guilt. Live to prove to everyone that their sacrifice was not in vain.”
Like the morning star. Never losing its own light even when beside the brightest moon.
Shining clearly even next to the rising sun.
As a symbol of hope, just like that.
Isabelle stared blankly at Ivan for a moment, then suddenly came to her senses and spoke.
“Have you ever thought about shaving that beard?”
“No.”
Ivan replied with a look of distaste.
ep5. Morning Star.