Chapter 43
Chapter: 43
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 043
>Chapter Title: Premonition (1)
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>“Leave the rest to me.”
With those final words, His Majesty’s body suddenly collapsed limply.
“……!”
No. 21, standing beside him, swiftly caught him. The sight of him suddenly losing consciousness and going slack was clearly a gravely serious condition at a glance.
Aslan rushed to his side a step too late and checked his pulse out of habit as an apothecary. His face soon drained of all color.
“His pulse……!”
Faced with the unbelievable reality, the boy felt the world spin before his eyes.
“Bart… His Majesty’s pul—his pulse has stopped?!”
This wasn’t just fainting. This was dea……
Aslan’s hands trembled violently.
No. 21 seemed a little flustered too, but he soon calmed the group with a steady voice.
“His soul has merely departed somewhere for a moment. There’s no need to worry.”
“What happened to His Majesty Bart?”
“Didn’t I tell you? This isn’t his true self. He’ll be fine.”
*He’s someone who’s quite skilled at wandering around as a soul while playing dead in his body.*
Adding that remark, No. 21 roughly straightened his disguise before effortlessly hoisting His Majesty’s body over his shoulder and standing up. When Aslan offered to at least share the load out of anxious concern, he shook his head.
“A homunculus is far lighter than a human body.”
As he said, No. 21’s movements didn’t change much even with His Majesty Bart on his back. The group once more hurried toward the fork in the mountain path under his lead.
But that was when the group’s weakness without His Majesty began to show. Before long, old man Max’s exhausted steps noticeably slowed.
To make matters worse, they started encountering search parties patrolling the base of the mountain more and more frequently. They barely dodged their eyes for a while, but in the end, they failed to hide in time and were spotted by two members of a search party.
No. 21 charged in like the wind and slit one’s carotid artery with a dagger, but the remaining one hesitated and backed away, pulling out an emergency whistle and blowing it.
Piiieek—
With the shrill whistle sound, a dagger plunged into the bandit’s chest, and he collapsed. But from now on, their escape would turn into a race against the clock. Expressions of dismay crossed the group’s faces.
They hurriedly tried to leave, but then they noticed old man Max’s condition and gasped. He was already utterly spent, drenched in sweat.
“Huff! I… I can’t run anymore. It’s over. Huff! Leave me behind.”
No. 21 looked back and forth between old man Max and His Majesty, hesitating for a moment. But soon, as if he’d made a decision, he bit his lip with a resolute expression.
“It can’t be helped. I’ll carry you, old man. Let’s leave His Majesty here and get out of here as fast as we can.”
Wha—? Aslan cried out in shock.
“Then what about His Majesty? I—I’ll carry His Majesty!”
“That won’t work for either. From now on, we’ll run at full speed to the Asain checkpoint. We can’t carry any baggage.”
“But…….”
“Speed alone isn’t enough. We need something to hold their attention.”
The group was stunned. Not only were they abandoning His Majesty, but now he was saying to throw him to the bandits as bait?
“He must have anticipated this possibility to some extent. The fact that he specifically mentioned leaving him wasn’t just a casual request.”
*He said there’s a high chance of it happening.*
“Besides, this isn’t his true self, so there’s no real danger.”
“But, but even if there’s no immediate danger, won’t he have to return to this body eventually?”
Aslan wanted to cry.
Why had things turned out like this? Where had it all gone wrong?
Was it because, as an insider, he hadn’t known in advance that the bandits were colluding with Carthage? Or was it because, in their desperation, they stubbornly insisted on bringing old man Max along?
No, maybe it was wrong from the start—surviving tenaciously in Rohan and coming to this damned mountain village. Ah, everything was Aslan’s fault.
His Majesty Bart had once asked if he wouldn’t regret it. Now Aslan knew the answer.
He regretted every single thing he had done.
Meanwhile, No. 21 carefully propped His Majesty against a nearby rock and approached Aslan, who was still at a loss and on the verge of tears. He gripped the boy’s shoulder hard.
“Listen carefully.”
He clenched his teeth and spoke to the boy, emphasizing each word with force.
“The most useless thing in this world is worrying about that man’s safety. Do you understand?”
But it sounded so desperate, as if he were saying it to steel himself rather than to Aslan, that Aslan could only nod obediently, tears welling up in his eyes.
As he hoisted the dejected-looking old man Max onto his back, No. 21 said curtly,
“Let’s go.”
Even then, the group looked back at His Majesty several times before finally hurrying away as footsteps rushed in busily from all directions.
* * *
Meanwhile, oblivious to the group’s dire straits, Nate—who had casually discarded the homunculus—was moving at a rapid pace.
He had used a bit too much energy escaping, so he was fairly tired. Still, compared to being trapped inside the puppet, gradually suffusing with aura, this state was far more comfortable.
As he gradually recovered his strength, Nate’s speed picked up. Yet even as he shot forward like light, the presence of the barrier he had set up was fading, making him anxious. Just how far did that fearless kid plan to go?
[Holy Emperor Daddy!]
A tiny blue orb popped into existence like a bead and circled Nate at high speed. It was Hernia, always one step ahead.
[Mores killed Digory kid’s bug! But I didn’t expect the kid to get sucked into the open channel like that. Sorry!]
[No one could have predicted it. It’s not your fault.]
*And in that Digory kid’s eyes, you’re the kid, Hernia.*
[Daddy Your Majesty! The Saint Marthias Knights are coming.]
A small pink orb appeared next, gently settling onto Nate’s soul. It was Gades, always one step behind.
[Durand kid is really gearing up to drag Mores into it this time. He’s all fired up.]
[If it’s that matter, I already told Francis… Anyway, kid. No matter how you look at it, Sir Durand isn’t a kid, is he?]
*He already has a grandson your size, Gades.*
The twins utterly ignored etiquette toward their elders, no matter how many times he scolded them.
[Puppeteer—that guy’s still in the capital. Hanging around with that sleazy guy from Rohan.]
[No direct connection to Digory kid, but just in case, I told Breman to keep an eye on him.]
Hernia and Gades circled and followed Nate as if they were on a leisurely stroll.
Among Nate’s children, only the two of them could open channels. So they shared relatively more information with him than the others.
[Holy Emperor Daddy, this is as far as we go.]
[Daddy Your Majesty, come back safe.]
But they were still children and couldn’t maintain channeling for long.
Nate glanced at the blinking lights of the little twins, who waved goodbye from the edge of the star system, then accelerated toward the outer nebula.
The barrier’s presence was now extremely faint, undetectable without utmost concentration.
As he crossed between nebulae, passing five flowing melodies, suddenly a round, sparkling gray orb like a clear, transparent bead latched onto his side. Its pure gray resembled someone’s pupil.
[Your Majesty.]
Cornsium.
Nate furrowed his brow. Of all the unwelcome faces, it had to be this one now.
[You must hold your position. Do not be swayed by the temptations of the wicked any longer.]
The thought wave from the Cornsium leader carried an utterly parched tone. Just hearing it conjured the man’s rigid face and inhuman voice, filling Nate with intense displeasure.
He sped up further and shot back a curt thought.
[Get lost.]
[…You must not forget your true duty, Your Majesty.]
At the same time, gray orbs began multiplying around him one by one. The clan was attempting to connect simultaneously.
[Your Majesty, Your Majesty, Your Majesty…….]
[Your Majesty, Your Majesty…….]
Soon, dozens of round orbs surrounded Nate. They blinked in unison like winking eyes. Blink, blink.
Your Majesty, Your Majesty, Your Majesty.
They wouldn’t speak plainly yet kept calling to him demandingly. Still as insidious as ever.
[Don’t spy as you please. Close the channel. Cornsium.]
Whoosh. Reacting to his will, a powerful wave swept from his soul, ravaging the surroundings. The small orbs flinched and stopped blinking all at once.
In soul form, maintaining composure was harder than when in his true body. Or rather, closer to not deliberately suppressing emotional shifts. Now too, as displeasure rose in him, a menacing aura began emanating from his soul.
The small orbs, as if frightened, peeked at Nate warily before one by one fading away. Now only the first-arrived leader remained.
[Your Majesty. All must proceed according to the natural order. You must not cling to what has already departed.]
Light gathered in Nate’s right hand, soon forming a long staff—his sword Hodukka materializing.
There would be no further warning. Fully grasping his intent, the Cornsium leader left a small sigh and dissipated.
[Please do not blindly trust your premonition…….]
The moment he vanished, Nate was left alone in the vast outer space.
He sharpened his senses to the utmost again, but the barrier’s presence was gone. While wasting time on the Cornsium horde, his son’s soul had already slipped far beyond reach.
*Those pests, always interfering needlessly. Should’ve just left them for the inquisitors to sweep away.*
With no choice, Nate gauged the direction of the last detected presence and plunged ahead blindly.
He felt a twinge of unease, but he had some confidence. If his son called for him even once, Nate would never miss that voice.
How much time passed?
Wandering aimlessly outward, ever outward, Nate began to grow restless. Time felt vague here, but it seemed quite a while since he’d lost his son’s presence.
[Just where the hell are you and what are you doing…….?]
He couldn’t understand that child at all. At this point, shouldn’t he have called for his father at least once?
Was the kid overly independent, or just thoughtless?
It was right then.
-Father, Holy Emperor Your Majesty……
It was a faint thought that brushed past for an instant.
Not so much a call as a fleeting recollection……
But it was enough for Nate. He shot toward the direction of the thought wave.
He found his son nearly at the dimensional boundary. Oblivious to how terrifying the Ye was, the boy floated serenely in the darkness, hugging a single fragment of a soul.
Nate felt a nonexistent nape prickle.
[So why does the god who watches over this dimension just sit by while trash like that lurks for opportunities?]
Mouthing off like that in freezing cold where a puny soul fragment would shatter in moments. Nate found it absurd.
The kid always had so many questions, yet never seemed inclined to study them himself.
[It’s because the chief god who watches over Delcross isn’t a personal god, my son.]
*If you’d just properly read Chapter 1 of Theology Basics—or hell, even the foreword—you wouldn’t say such things. Always slacking off. What do you even plan to become?*
Of course, his son thought the Holy Emperor was a slacker who shirked work too, but Nate was oblivious. Well, even if he knew, what could he do? Forcing on your child what you couldn’t do yourself—that’s the so-called parental privilege.
Wrapping his wide-eyed son in light, Nate prepared to unleash a lecture.