Chapter 10
Chapter: 10
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 010
>Chapter Title: Red Battlefield (1)
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>—Become my one and only family, the precious one I shall love with my soul devoted to you.
When the prince from a foreign land finally took her hand and whispered those words, the girl could do nothing but nod silently, her heart too overwhelmed to bear.
This is the story of a girl who once dreamed of becoming someone's family.
* * *
She was suddenly dragged out of the tower, bound and blindfolded, and made to walk for a long time. The sensation against her thin soles was the cold, hard stone floor.
Amid the chilly morning air, Amelia caught the unfamiliar scent of iron and shivered lightly.
The sounds of people—no, soldiers. The occasional clash of weapons and a strange heat condensing like a dam on the verge of bursting.
When the black cloth over her eyes was finally removed, she realized she stood at the center of the ramparts.
“Behold, Amelia.”
She blinked.
As her eyes, shrouded for so long, adjusted to the light, she took in the archers and infantry packed densely atop the walls.
Inside the gates, Rohan’s lancer units stood ready to charge at any moment. Along both sides of the castle, thousands of infantry waited in long lines, steeped in quiet excitement for the battle to begin.
And beyond the walls, on the plain, the allied forces had set up camp like swarms of ants. Among their banners, the one shining brightest was the Holy Empire of Delcros.
Only after absorbing the entire scene did Amelia turn her head to meet the gaze of the man holding her blindfold.
King Leonard of Rohan.
The man she once believed without doubt would become the most beloved family in the world, but who had deceived and betrayed her, plunging her life into an abyss. The one responsible for framing the innocent her, stripping her of her position, and confining her for years in that frigid tower.
Leonard stared into Amelia’s utterly parched eyes before curling one corner of his mouth in a sneer.
“Well? Do you feel wronged? Do you resent me? But this is all the fitting retribution for a sinful daughter of that empire. Aren’t you the very cause of this holy war?”
Amelia showed no reaction. She knew every word he spoke was a lie, nothing more than a contrived facade.
Who was the true instigator of this war? Neither the speaker nor the listener was ignorant of that fact.
A fierce wind blew across the ramparts, scattering her pitifully shortened rose-gold hair.
Leonard gazed at the sight as if entranced for a moment, then reached out to gently stroke the ends.
“Romein’s plan didn’t succeed in the slightest. Your damned father did well to buy off those raccoons from that kingdom.”
He tousled her hair, brushed her roughened cheek, and finally gripped her slender neck.
“So you’ll pay the price in his stead. I’ll behead you now and make you the sacrifice to ignite this war.”
Feeling the hand on her neck tighten, Amelia closed her eyes. She harbored no lingering attachment to a life filled only with pain.
She wished only that the allied forces would crush this cruel man’s ambitions, ensuring he grasped none of his desires.
It was then that unrest stirred on the front lines.
Far in the distance, the allied camp began to roil. Soon, a single black shadow shot out from their lines like an arrow.
One lone cavalryman. A sudden charge without any signal of battle’s start.
Leonard squinted at the allied camp, still clumsily gripping her neck. The growing commotion suggested even the enemy hadn’t planned this impromptu action.
Moments later, a group of cavalry burst from the allied lines in pursuit of the lead knight.
“That one…”
As the lead knight drew nearer, murmurs intensified within Rohan’s ranks.
The knight’s black armor, the massive odachi slung on his back, and the several short spears at his side.
A infamous figure who had terrorized the front lines until recently was charging alone toward the walls!
“…The Black Devil!”
“It’s Delcros’s Black Devil!”
“It’s the Crown Prince! Delcros’s Crown Prince!”
Wooong—
The black-armored knight drew one short spear. As it enveloped in an ominous crimson-black aura, the entire wall shook.
Was he mad? He wasn’t even in arrow range yet, and he planned to throw from there?
“Fire! Fire! What are the archers doing? Shoot him down now!”
At Leonard’s panicked order,
Whirrr—
Arrows blackened the sky, soaring upward before plummeting down with terrifying speed.
Kwarrrkwarrrkwarrr. But they still fell short. The knight rode leisurely through the arrow field, spear still aimed.
“Damn it…!”
While the archers reloaded, the Crown Prince closed another fifty meters. At last, he hurled the spear he’d been aiming.
Kwaaaang!
The spear, scattering aura, slammed into the ground right before the gates with ferocious momentum. It hadn’t quite reached the wall, but the soldiers paled at the deep crater it left.
“Is… is that even human?”
“Ready to fire! Ready to fire!”
Hundreds of arrows launched skyward again. The Crown Prince drew his odachi, forming a broad aura blade to deflect most. But the sheer volume pouring down relentlessly was too much.
Hiiihiihing! With his horse’s scream, he was thrown and rolled across the ground. He seemed to roll once and rise,
Kuaaaang!
Another short spear flew, this time embedding squarely in the center of the ramparts.
“This mad…!”
With a couple arrows lodged in his armor, the black knight began charging the walls again.
Slower than a horse, but wreathed head to toe in crimson-black aura, his relentless advance was utterly terrifying. The knight commander awaiting reload gulped tensely.
Amelia watched it all from the ramparts, gripped in Leonard’s grasp. For the first time, her utterly numb eyes quivered with emotion.
Someone hadn’t given up on her life, one she herself had forsaken. And he charged toward certain death without hesitation.
Whirrr—
Another rain of arrows poured mercilessly toward the Crown Prince. But this time, he wasn’t alone. The knights who’d chased after their rogue prince caught up while arrows focused on him, raising shields in unison.
Tadadadadak. The shield wall they formed instantly became a pincushion.
“Hey! You crazy bastard!”
An unidentified knight hurled his ruined shield, bellowing at His Highness the Crown Prince no less.
Leonard bit his lip anxiously.
“…Can he reach? Can he reach this place?”
The knights formed a circular formation around the Crown Prince and began advancing slowly.
Now in direct range, arrows flew haphazardly, but as all were skilled aura users, they alternated aura barriers and miraculously closed the distance.
The Crown Prince, having lost his helm while rolling, deflected arrows frantically with his bare face exposed.
His fierce eyes and sharper jawline aged by years. A face familiar yet somehow strange to Amelia. Amid it, half his pale gold hair was bloodied, grazed by an arrow perhaps.
“…Mores.”
She hadn’t thought they shared any affection since childhood. So why was this boy now desperately striving to reach her?
Their similarly gray eyes met.
In that instant, Mores’s eyes widened round.
Puk—
A searing pain bloomed in her right breast.
“……!”
Amelia looked down at the dagger embedded in her chest. The bloodstain spreading over her shabby dress looked unreal, like blooming petals.
She slowly traced the hand clutching the dagger, turning to Leonard’s face. His eyes held utter despair, yet his lips curled in a venomous smile.
“If you’re so precious to them, what choice do I have? I’ll just send you off. But…”
“…….”
“…I’ll never let you go unharmed.”
Thud.
Teetering on the rampart’s edge, reliant on Leonard’s grip, she was easily shoved off with a slight push.
“Amelia!”
She heard Mores scream her name from afar as she plummeted helplessly to the ground.
Beyond her inverted vision, a deceptively serene blue sky. A bird vanished beyond the clouds, and then consciousness faded.
Shouts, screams, clashing weapons. Flesh tearing.
“…Amelia, Amelia! Sister! Pull yourself together!”
At the voice persistently calling her, Amelia opened her eyes.
Cough! She hacked, her chest burning. She rolled her eyes to survey her surroundings.
Smack in the middle of the battlefield where forces clashed. Mores knelt beside her prone form, pressing the dagger wound in her chest with his gauntletless hand.
“Mo…!”
She wanted to call his name, but no sound came. The dagger had pierced a lung; each breath whistled, and blood bubbled from her mouth.
“Shh… Don’t talk, just stay still, sister. You’ll reopen the wound. You landed okay somehow, but this stab isn’t good…”
He pressed down on her struggling form, soothing her.
“Father will be here soon anyway. Scratches like this are nothing to him, so don’t worry. You know that, right sister?”
His face was just as pale with tension. As if reassuring her and convincing himself, he kept talking to her.
“Just hold on a bit. Amelia. Hang in there a little longer, and once Father arrives, everything will be fine…”
Ah, His Holiness the Holy Emperor. Father.
Thinking of him brought tears to Amelia’s parched eyes for the first time in years.
After opposing her marriage to Leonard to the end and essentially disowning her upon her departure, she’d never once sent word to her father. Even if she saw him now, what could she say?
Sensing her guilt somehow, Mores whispered softly.
“Amelia. He’s always thinking of you, worrying about you. He’s not mad at you at all, so when you see him later, just smile like nothing happened. Got it?”
“…….”
“A while back, when we lost Logan, he was so despondent it was scary. If something happens to you too, I don’t know what he’d do. He needs you, sister.”
Amelia looked up at his face, eyes wide at his uncharacteristically gentle tone. From earlier, he hadn’t met her gaze. His unfocused gray eyes stared blankly into space.
Come to think of it, she’d chalked it up to tension, but why was his face so pale?
“…And while we’re at it, maybe I should apologize too. Sorry for being a brat and saying awful things, bullying you when we were kids. It was all my fault…”
Examining Mores closely, Amelia jolted in shock. Facing him, she hadn’t noticed, but his backplate was bristling with dozens of arrows packed into every gap.
The hand pressing her chest was soaked mostly in his own blood.
She realized he’d plunged recklessly into the arrow storm to catch her as she fell from the wall. Why she had no other wounds despite the height, why no arrows had grazed her.
In that split second, Mores had poured every ounce of his power into saving Amelia.
Only then did she register the knights surrounding them shouting their throats raw.
“Just hold on a bit longer, Your Highness!”
“You always charge off like this? Huh? Your Highness, if you die here, I won’t let it slide!”
“His Majesty is coming soon! Your Highness! Don’t lose consciousness!”
Amelia sobbed helplessly, feeling Mores’s breaths growing shallower.
Ah. It’s because of me.
Because I came to Rohan on my own, Father had to endure unfavorable diplomacy, and my brother the Crown Prince had to charge into obvious death.
And despite all their sacrifices, she would die a burden to the end.
It was then that the sky began to red.