Chapter 272
Chapter 272
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: One Empire, Three Legends (31)
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Scraaape, craaaunch—!
“Southeast! Block the boulevard by the crystal fountain!”
[This side’s gonna take a while! No idea why they paved the roads so damn solid—I've carved up the underground sewers and the ground itself, but the path won’t collapse!]
“Son of a bitch! Make it collapse somehow! If they break through, it’ll be a living hell!”
Kwachik!
Professor yanked up several ornate metal fences nearby and jammed them into the middle of the road to seal it off, then tilted his head toward the sky.
‘One. Two. Three. Four.... Shit, there’s no end to them!’
A particularly tall building nearby had Yggdrasil perched on its spire, releasing faintly glowing spirits that adorned the area around it.
If he viewed the spire as the imperial palace, the distorted sections were where crowds were gathering, while the straight ones were cleared.
With everyone yelling nonstop over message magic, the chaos drowned out the crucial info from Yggdrasil, so this was the method he’d chosen.
“What the hell? We blocked the north gate at the start! Why’s that one crumpling too?”
[I blocked it by toppling a building! There was a gap. A mob of humans. They burned all my vines and broke through the gap!]
Sinkholes carved into the ground via underground sewers. A boulevard barricaded by snapping the pillars of lavish stone mansions. Alleys sealed with tall fences made from uprooted iron railings all around.
These were desperate measures they’d resorted to in the end—essentially cracking the chessboard itself.
If things had gone according to the initial plan, they wouldn’t have needed this tedious, time-consuming hassle. They’d figured that once they blocked things off moderately, Lucilla would persuade the nobles, the emperor’s influencers among them would sway the rest, and the board would turn golden.
But those were all just inferences based on the situation. And acting on inferences meant accounting for the possibility that they could be wrong.
The assumption that persuasion would work had been spot on.
‘Ah, Lady Lucilla. My head.... it’s spinning. Thinking is so difficult.’
‘Indeed. It’s not uncommon for young ladies at parties to faint from nerves. I understand completely.’
‘That letter.... Aaaah. The imperial seal. Master of the great empire. If that’s what They desire, I shall surely meet with Them.’
Persuading them had been easy too. The nobles had looked dazed, lost in a fog. Thanks to that, evoking the emperor in their minds and steering them toward being favorable to the group had been simple.
The problem came after.
First, the witch’s influence was stronger than expected. Most of the nobles they hadn’t even met had forgotten the emperor entirely, muttering things like “For the empire” as they wandered, and the curse blossoms hiding away were slinking out, accelerating the mood.
Second,
‘What.... is the meaning of this! Baron Romero!’
‘I could ask you the same, Baron Barton. Why at this late hour are you escorting outsiders who aren’t even imperial nobles? And with guards and servants all armed?’
‘These are guests of the imperial family! What an outrage!’
‘I’m speaking of imperial law. I don’t know what’s going on, but something’s clearly happened in the capital. And if calamity strikes the peaceful capital out of nowhere.... it’s likely the work of outsiders!’
‘You.... madman! Fine, now I see! A mob armed to the teeth, threatening the imperial family’s guests under cover of night! If harm comes to those who’ve come all the way to the capital, it’ll be a disgrace to the empire! A stain on His Majesty’s honor! Everyone! Protect the guests!’
‘To dare defend intruders in the holy city on the road to the imperial capital! Treason! Imperial rebels have risen in the holy city!’
‘Kill them! For His Imperial Majesty!’
‘Kill them! For the eternal empire!’
“Uhhh, Baron, wait, hey! Not these lunatics!”
‘Professor! Grab them first! They’ll all die otherwise!’
‘Damn it!’
Nobles swayed by the emperor’s faction, represented by gold and purple tokens. Nobles swayed by the witch’s side.
When the two groups met, instead of one side converting the other, they started killing each other.
In a situation where anyone dying would spread the madness like wildfire across the city.
“This is insane.... Yggdrasil! How many more have come up from the servant district?”
[If we’re counting the newcomers, it’s more than I can number.]
The power enveloping the capital grew stronger as time passed.
The capital, where the empire-spanning force had converged.
People flocking to the capital like moths to a flame, driven by instinct etched into their souls toward the source of that power.
“....We shouldn’t have made a choice at all.”
[Shouldn’t have made a choice? What do you mean?]
“Goddamn it.... They called her a witch who toys with people’s minds.... That fucking bitch!”
Mana-using guards, deranged servants, maids, butlers.
No matter how many there were, they couldn’t stop the group, who’d been through hell and back.
What held the group back wasn’t their lack of strength, but the situation.
A situation where the emperor and the witch’s powers controlled the people.
A situation where a few short words visibly tipped the scales one way.
Curse blossoms blanketing the capital. Knowledge of the sacrificial rite. People swarming toward the capital!
And.... the endless compulsion squeezing his heart even now, the urge that “something must be done.”
“Curse blossoms blanketing the capital. Knowledge of the sacrificial rite. People swarming toward the capital! By showing my choice immediately causing massive change right before my eyes, she induced me to choose! To pick the wrong answer!”
It was like that puzzle-loving killer from some old movie.
A killer who gives the first victim a chance to grab the key, then has a blind sacrifice flush it down the drain and reveals the fact.
‘Purple from the start—no persuasion, just let everyone fill with the desire to serve the empire, and no one would’ve died!’
No choice. Just turn all the harmless civilians and soldiers into “purple token” holders. Have them chase the outsiders that we are, and since they’d all share the same goal, they wouldn’t turn on each other. Once we escaped, they’d wander off seeking ways to vent that impulse—sweeping streets like lunatics, tending gardens, or standing like statues along the roadsides.
But the pressure of “the witch might start the sacrificial rite any moment” made him want to flip those under the witch’s sway back to the emperor’s side.
The result? Through persuasion, he’d split sides, creating blind enemies for those who needed targets—the worst possible outcome.
“....Lucilla. How many nobles did we persuade?”
[Five.]
“....And the people attached to them?”
[Guards and servants combined.... looks like about 100 per noble, swarming around.]
“One hundred each, times five.... five hundred....!”
Grind!
It was as if the witch’s voice echoed in his head.
『See? Thanks to your choice, all those who got the [Emperor] back are doomed to die.』
『Did you really think you could end this without a single death? Before the sacrificial rite even began?』
Mockery. No, something even more insulting.
The witch was trying to teach them—teach him something. From the given situation, his actions, and the results that followed, she wanted him to realize something.
Craaunch—!
Professor bit the inside of his cheek to the bloody pulse of her voice ringing in his mind. The sharp pain and taste of blood cooled his excitement-clouded head a bit.
Siiiip— whoooo.
Deep breath. You can’t always find the right answer. He’d been wrong once, and got smacked hard on the back of the head for it.
The info gained as the price: the witch’s nature.
‘If she just wanted more power and deaths, she wouldn’t stage something this elaborate. Wait. Staging? Staging.... Right. She wants to express something. Not a psychopathic killer, but closer to an ideologue. That kind of person.’
“....Aldrich. You said the curse energy isn’t that strong, right.”
[Yes. It’s faint, like mist. Unless you’re used to curses, you wouldn’t sense it.]
‘Faint curse. Like with the Telldmeyer family, and now—the witch’s curses burrow into minds. More insidious, delicate, and vicious than materialized ones.’
‘Place, situation, people. All prepared by the witch. If there’s something she wants to show, then there’s an audience she wants to show it to.’
‘The emperor? No. Too many chances, too much time. The princes and princesses? Possible. But the goal’s unclear. Choice and responsibility. Unless she’s teaching imperial studies, no need. Then.... could it be me?’
The holy church’s hero, the saint called the returned light.
Her opponent: the fallen one, once the saint of light.
Until now, he’d thought the sudden escalation of the clash between emperor and witch forces reaching right up to them meant the witch felt threatened.
But.
What if the saint’s feelings toward the church of light weren’t just about her own safety, but something more? After long years, reuniting with her former self, if she harbored deeper emotions toward the church?
.
.
.
.
‘Fallen? Me?’
From the outskirts of the holy city to the center. As they pushed toward the true imperial capital, dark thoughts chained together.
Ominous suspicions began to rise like smoke. If the witch wanted to shock someone, to show something, she wouldn’t settle for mere failure.
[Hero, the walls.... the walls! Kyaaah!]
And Lucilla, who’d ordered the persuaded nobles’ group to stay far back under the pretext of escorting the maximum crowd. Her scream rang out, proving those dark imaginings true.
He raced at full speed, but before his hand could reach, arrows from the walls blanketed the sky.
Arrowheads clanging off solid granite slabs sparked like fireworks. Arrows aimed precisely at Lucilla and the emperor-faction nobles thudded down, piercing flesh with gruesome sounds, shredding people.
As if that was their sole duty, they shielded Lucilla with their bodies, but endless arrows poured over them.
The human barrier shredded, soaked in blood, revealing Lucilla—just as he barely blocked her path.
-Paaang!
From the wall, a blue flash, and something immense with enough force to swat incoming arrows flew comet-like between them.
Kwaduduk, kkagak, kiiik—
“This is.... a lance?”
The lance in his grip spun so fiercely it glowed red from friction heat.
Leading it, blue lights and silver-armored figures began appearing on the wall, one by one.
“Knights.... Yeah, I wondered where the hell they were.”
Dark night, but illuminated by the rippling essence of power, auras’ glow—the knights were visible from afar. Even as they raised lances toward this side in unison.
That was real. A volley from those railgun-like javelins would turn the whole area to rubble.
The first knight to throw took a new lance and bellowed in a resonant, aura-infused voice like a proclamation.
“We confirm rebel flames across all districts of the holy city and servant city. As of now, we Castle Knights seal All Amperia, residence of His Imperial Majesty and the imperial family. No one shall enter the capital.”
A slight lack of logic somewhere. A posture utterly devoted to their assigned duty. And the flames spreading through the holy city, carried on the wind with scattering purple curse blossom petals.
‘Catch the witch and it all ends. But really? In this situation, the only solution is for me to take on the empire’s full might alone? That’s damn near impossible.’
[Professor! Can’t block anymore! Sinking every path to the capital in this short time is near impossible!]
[Same here! Sleep, suggestion, blindness, paralysis! I’ve thrown every black magic trick, but they’re trampling the fallen and charging! Casualties are inevitable!]
[Groooar, the humans are mad! They’re setting fires in the city, pushed into the flames that burned my tree roots!]
....Kkaduduk.
The imperial capital’s knight order. All master knights—fighting them all was suicide. Blocking people drawn by the witch’s compulsion to the capital had limits too.
Madness was already spreading. The moment the incoming crowds clashed with those wall knights....
‘Every soul in the capital gets shredded by those lances.’
Completion of the sacrificial rite. A quest with no visible solution.
[How? Any way out! What do we do now!]
To Ottoman’s desperate voice, Professor turned to the fortress-like walls. The word “retreat” lingered in his throat.
Whiiiish!
Kwak!
‘....Huh?’
One knight with shoulders hunched flung an aura-charged lance not outward, but inward—toward their own rear inside the wall.
Not just him—nearly half the knights lining the wall hurled lances inward,
Chiaaaang—!
And metallic clashes blocking them echoed from within. Followed by blue sword auras flying up to the wall.
“....Knights? Imperial knights attacking imperial knights?”
In that instant. Seeing knights counter their attacks as if it were natural. Lightning insight struck Professor’s mind.
‘War for the throne! Imperial family’s inside, and most knights swore loyalty to one of them! Think what they’d do at a time like this....!’
The sudden thought solidified with countless metallic clashes from beyond the wall.
Right now, the knights were fighting like mad inside! To crown their lord emperor! With loyalty to the emperor gone from their heads, only loyalty to the lord before them remained!
‘Not fighting all of them, but breaking through while they fight each other.... doable! It has to be!’
Wooduduk!
“H-Hero.... sir? You’re going in there?”
“Yeah. Seems possible. The witch, that damn thing, twisted everything the more I thought. One clear goal from the start. Focus solely on the witch, and this mess wouldn’t have happened—she cleverly hid it, dragged out time, turned it into this shitshow.”
....Step.
Tukwagak!
Kwak! Kwaduduk!
He took one step forward from his standstill, and as if waiting, aura lances flew from the wall.
Kwajik!
“Ugh.”
[It’s piercing. Aura versus aura, huh. Shoulder’s a key joint, so the outer layer’s tougher than most spots.]
‘....Deserved that. Hide. How much mutant blood’s left in me?’
[Bursting through a swarm like that.... 30 minutes?]
‘If a stronger one shows?’
[5 minutes?]
‘Shit.’
Absolute weakness. In a prolonged fight like usual, non-mutants had limits to their power.
Professor thought of the subspatial pouch inside his collar, then shook his head. Burning mutant blood and getting isolated among enemies, or gambling on untested power. Weighing which was riskier wasn’t easy.
“Ottoman. I’m heading into All Amperia.”
[In the end, going in there?]
“Yes. Situation looks barely feasible. It’ll be chaotic inside, but breaking through without me would be tough. I’ll open the path first—dive in behind me. Prioritize avoiding combat and slipping into the capital. With the chaos, Aldrich and Yggdrasil linking up should make it plenty possible.”
[The court mages.... No, sorry, misspeaking.]
“Ignore the mages. No mage can wield personal judgment with unknown forces in their heads.”
Mage power could be considered sealed. He’d punch through the blocking knights. The group dives in after. With black mages and soul-savvy shamans mixed in....
‘Each palace assigned to empresses and consorts. Infiltrate them, find who’s the witch.’
No time to patch every hole in the plan. From here, action. Force to straighten the mess.
“But obviously—bail if it looks like death!”
Tuwak!
With the final message sent, Professor’s body rocketed cannon-like toward the wall. Into the knights’ battlefield rippling with blue auras.
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