Chapter 69
The Battlefield of Justice
Even in a world where magic exists, there is a type of intuition that defies explanation. Love is the prime example of this.
Whether it’s acting in ways that defy all reason because you’ve fallen for someone at first sight, intuitively sensing that a family member thousands of miles away is in danger, or a parent performing a feat that makes no logical sense to protect their child—the miracles born from this emotion called "love" are often more magical than magic itself.
And such an unexplainable miracle occurred on the battlefield.
'Reflected it again.'
Though it wasn't a warm, heartwarming tale like the miracles of love, the scene unfolding on the battlefield was a miracle that could not be explained by magic.
Clang!
A mere 5th-Rank girl was holding her own against an 8th-Rank King. Those who had experienced the King's strength firsthand knew exactly how absurd this was. Even the King himself was questioning his own state.
'What on earth is happening?'
The martial art she used, The Pride of the Mountain Lord, wasn't particularly special. It was common among stronger beastkin, especially those of the feline variety. But the mana she wrapped around her hands was anything but common. That technique, which ignored the difference in level and power to deflect attacks at the exact right moment...
'It's the same as mine.'
While it differed in the finer details, he felt the same origin in her technique. It was as if his very state of mind had been passed on to her.
Of course, even at this very moment, countless ways to tear the white tiger girl to shreds were flashing through his mind. He could crush her with overwhelming speed before she could even react, he could use a martial art that the Pride of the Mountain Lord style was weak against, or he could toy with her using the overwhelming skill accumulated from hundreds of years of experience.
But for some reason, King Aetherik could not bring himself to use these means. His soul was holding him back. It was as if it were telling him that he must not ignore his roots.
The King knew why his soul reacted this way. Those sapphire-blue eyes and hair as white as snow—she resembled the woman he had once loved most. Looking at that face, his murderous intent softened, and strength deserted his fists. Because of this, he couldn't attack her with full force. Whenever his fist accidentally aimed for a vital point, he would withdraw it without even realizing.
'Me? Being swayed by affection?'
Naturally, he couldn't easily accept this state. He was a man who would purge his own children to maintain power. Yet, he couldn't understand why he couldn't go all out just because she resembled the appearance of a former concubine.
Grind.
As if to deny his own thoughts, the King stepped forward hard, his heel cracking the earth, and clawed at the air. In a corner of his mind, he thought she would easily dodge such a slow gust of wind, but Ari did not avoid the attack; she took it head-on. Unable to block all the relentless blades of wind, she allowed her first blow to land.
"Kugh... Haa..."
A red wound appeared through her tattered uniform. She clamped her mana over the flowing blood and took her stance again. If he continued his attack like this, Aetherik’s victory was all but certain. But instead of attacking Ari, the King looked behind her—at the idiotic soldiers of the Principality who were foolishly sticking their heads outside the fortress. They still hadn't grasped the situation, leaving their upper bodies exposed outside the walls.
"Trash..."
Shaking his head, as if to say that low-born blood was helpless, the King looked at the girl who had shielded those soldiers.
"Why would you save things like them?"
Unlike trained knights, these idiotic soldiers, lacking education, wouldn't affect the course of the war even if they died. He couldn't understand why she had sacrificed her own flesh to protect them.
She spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged phlegm and answered.
"Because this is the power I awakened for that purpose."
This hero skill was a power she had awakened to protect the things precious to Rex. Her origin was a shield that protected everything; the spear that ignored levels was merely secondary. She hadn't wanted to save the soldiers either, but since it was her very origin, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and protect them.
Upon hearing her answer, the King looked as if he had been struck in the back of the head.
'That can't be...'
The King recalled an image he had long forgotten. An ultimate technique he had created with the singular resolve that if he ever had someone he loved, he would protect them no matter what—a shield that blocked everything, and the spear that pierced everything as a secondary consequence. Hoping against hope, he withdrew his fist and asked her.
"Do you know your maternal family?"
"I am of the branch family... of the White Mountain Lord. My father told me, so I have never met them myself."
Her answer gave the King certainty. If his concubine had merely inherited the beastkin blood without it manifesting... if she had inherited half-human, half-beastkin blood, but the human traits had dominated... then it was possible that she and the King's daughter had manifested their maternal grandmother's blood by skipping a generation.
The concept of "atavism" wasn't widely spread in this world, but one could occasionally find similar stories in plays or novels. Most people brushed them off as fiction, and the King had also considered such stories to be mere legends. But at this moment, his soul was crying out: Would you ignore your own roots?
"Ah..."
He lamented in regret. In truth, he had intuited it. As Princess Arabella grew, he saw no traces of the woman he loved in her face. She only had hair as white as snow and jewel-like blue eyes, but her face and aura did not resemble her mother at all. Even so, he had doted on her because she was the last legacy the woman he loved had left behind. He couldn't face the truth, as it would mean he was a worm who couldn't even distinguish the child of the woman he loved, so he had denied it by making up all sorts of excuses.
But love is an emotion closer to instinct than reason. No matter what logic he presented, he couldn't truly love Princess Arabella. So he had made various excuses—that she was cute because her level was low, or that every action she took was pleasing. He had rationalized that he loved the princess as a "collection piece," and that he was no different from any other superhuman. He had taken out all the stress from those precarious lies he told himself on innocent people, but now, facing the truth, he could no longer continue the lie.
"I... was a fool."
"?"
She tilted her head at the King’s monologue, but the King looked at her with determined eyes and charged at a speed she could barely react to.
"Damn it!"
She extended her fist with the resolve to "give flesh to take bones." And that fist pierced the King's heart without resistance. As she froze at the incomprehensible sight, the King spat out a mouthful of blood and uttered his final sentence.
"This is... my minimum atonement. I do not ask for forgiveness."
Thud.
The King's body, having pointlessly ended his life, fell before her.
"Wh-what..."
Unable to even fully savor the sense of accomplishment from her level-up, Ari stared at the fallen King Aetherik in a daze. Rex, who had been sharing her vision, and Hana and the other vassals who had been receiving the battle reports from other fronts—none of them understood the King’s choice.
In the Principality camp, the only person who understood his actions without knowledge of reincarnation was old man Peter. He was a hermit-like elder who had lived for nearly 800 years if you counted his time in the Empire. In the Empire, the "cuckooing" of shapeshifters was rare, but something you could see once every 30 years.
That was why, the moment he heard that Princess Isabella was a fake, Peter had dimly guessed the truth.
'If they swapped her when she was a baby, of course she wouldn't look like her parents when she grew up.'
The most decisive factor was that Peter, who remembered the energy of the King (Ari's biological father) and the White Mountain Lord (Ari's maternal family), felt a familiar sensation from Ari. He hadn't told anyone because it was merely a suspicion. But when he heard the news that the King had died in such an absurd way, the suspicion turned into certainty.
"Tsk, tsk. They say there's no parent who can beat their child."
On top of the pile of corpses in front of the fortress he was in charge of, the blind old man clicked his tongue as he returned his sword to his cane.
"It's natural, considering he started a war for his daughter's revenge."
The old man sighed, looking in the direction where the King had been.
"I will not mourn you. Past misfortunes are no excuse for your corruption."
Where is there a superhuman in this world who hasn't been unhappy? The King, however, had used those misfortunes as an excuse to justify his evil deeds. He couldn't form bonds with women, using them like disposables; he abused all his children; and not content with that, he exploited his people—none of this could be justified by any logic. The King had chosen that path, accumulated karma, and simply met the price for it. The fact that he had suffered did not give him the right to whip anyone else.
Peter said this and returned to his fortress, muttering that it was about time the war ended.
A few minutes after the King fell, the space on that front began to distort again. Soon, the army that had disappeared with Duke reappeared on the grassland.
"Ugh...!"
They were all collectively complaining of extreme motion sickness. Surprisingly, the army had survived. To be precise, about half had survived. The other half had soaked the grassland with their own blood and brains. And most of that half were those who had resisted Duke to the very end inside that distorted space.
"Congratulations. You soldiers have survived."
Duke, who had created this scene, turned his back on the army as if he had finished his work.
"The war is over. Be grateful for His Majesty’s mercy."
Of course, Rex’s official position was still Duke, but with the King dead, it was already decided who would take the vacancy. Leaving behind the army vomiting the contents of their stomachs onto the grassland, Duke returned to the fortress. While the officer compiled the survivors' testimonies to record what had happened inside, Duke returned to his room.
And...
"Urgh...!"
He clung to the wall and retched. Just in case someone might hear, he had cast both a soundproofing barrier and a monitoring-blocking barrier.
"I'm dying..."
It was the result of leaving the dungeon "loading" just to look cool. Originally, the process of making anything is the hardest part, and once it's complete, maintaining it isn't difficult. The same went for a dungeon. You have to pour in massive amounts of mana when creating it, but once built, it didn't require much mana to maintain. After it was built, that is.
In Duke's case, he had been maintaining the state of creation. Using a sandcastle as an analogy, it was like building a sandcastle on the beach during a rising tide. At first, it might hold, but as the water comes in, the speed at which it collapses increases. It was only because he was Duke that he could maintain the state of creation; normally, one would be instantly swept away by the laws of the world.
"Guuh..."
Duke slumped into his chair like a boxer who had burned himself out after a match. In his dazed state, he heard the conversation of the knights, which he couldn't ignore.
"Hey? Did you see? Duke-nim's barrier?"
"No? I was on the other side of the wall, remember?"
"Man, you should have seen this. Duke-nim reached out with his sword like this. Bam! 'To the Battlefield of Justice!' he said, and then!"
The knight lowered his voice, mimicking Duke.
"He suddenly disappeared with the army!"
"And?"
"A few hours passed? The army came out of the barrier again, but some were dead, and the ones who survived couldn't even stand!"
Usually, one wouldn't easily believe that an individual suddenly disappeared and reappeared with an army. But those who had experienced Duke's might easily accepted that it was possible for him.
"What happened inside? You said there were survivors, right? You must have heard them."
"They say Duke-nim was manipulating the space at will, selecting who would die and who would live."
Duke wanted to shake his head upon hearing that. Selecting? Maintaining a dungeon in its creation state while dealing with lords collectively was a high-difficulty task even for him. To the extent that his concept, which had been fine even when facing the Emperor, nearly shattered. (Though a large part of that was because Ophir was closer to his true nature, so it didn't require as much acting.)
The survivors had felt that way simply because Duke was the only one who had adapted to the chaotic folding space, picking off only the lord-class enemies. In reality, it was just improvisation with overwhelming physical ability, but to those inside, it had looked like a grand design. However, listening to the knights' misunderstanding, he didn't feel the urge to correct them.
"Man, should I try training that barrier thing, too?"
"Forget it. You'll tear your legs if you try to copy him."
Duke nodded weakly, even in his exhausted state of mind.
'Yeah, what does it matter if it's hard?'
He had gone hungry for half a year and slept in a graveyard for three months. A little motion sickness was well worth enduring from time to time.
'Name... name...'
While the name Battlefield of Justice was possible, shouting out skill names wasn't really his taste. His method was to set a name for the skill, but then chant something else entirely that fit the situation. Like Durendal, which he had named but never once called out by name.
'Yeah. Let's call it the Domain of Selection.'
Of course, he would only decide that in his heart forever, and continue to spit out different chants. Still, you never know. He might need to write it down if he ever had to write a secret manual later.
'Got a name for the new skill... I gained a lot from this war, too. Is this growth?'
If anyone had heard him, they would have denied it, but Duke nodded to himself, feeling satisfied. Just then, someone knocked on Duke’s door.
Knock, knock.
Duke immediately straightened his posture in the chair for a commander. A moment later, a knight entered the room.
"Duke-kyung. It is said that Rex-gakha plans to hold a victory ceremony all the way to the capital of the kingdom. I have come to ask if we might request your escort for that occasion."
"Understood. I will go right away. When is His Majesty expected to arrive?"
"Four days from now, sir."
"Understood. You should rest until then as well."
"Yes, sir! We will stand guard until then."
It was no exaggeration to say that Duke and Ari had done all the work in this war. Except for the small number of idiots who had gone out without knowing their place and ended up crushed, no one had really shed blood, so the knights volunteered for patrol. Duke, who had been turning his back to the knight, looked up at the ceiling for a moment and said, as if asking a favor.
"For the time being, make sure no one comes to this room."
At that moment, the knight recalled the rumor that Duke always prayed for the victims of the war whenever a war ended.
"Understood, Kyung."
Filled with a sense of duty to ensure that the Duke's noble prayer would not be disturbed, no matter what, the knight left the room. For a few minutes after the knight left, Duke didn't move, remaining in his posture with his hands clasped behind his back. Once he confirmed that the knight wasn't coming back...
"Did he leave?"
Rummage.
He pulled out a piece of chocolate from his subspace and ate it.
"Oh, sugar. I need sugar."
It was the second-in-command, hurriedly replenishing his sugar levels to soothe the motion sickness caused by his mana deficiency.