Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 80
Chapter Title: The Final Boss of This Area is Me.
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Dominic (Duke) admired the final boss.
He admired the freedom to defy the world's morals for what he believed was right—even more than standing in the protagonist's way with overwhelming power.
This conviction of the final boss was completed through defeat.
It contributed to perfecting an even more ideal belief after being refuted by the protagonist, or it lived on eternally by passing its conviction to the protagonist.
And today, Dominic intended to pass his conviction on to a certain lady knight and complete it.
Shring.
Holding his sword in one hand, he pondered.
What would be the perfect retirement ceremony befitting this old man?
A futile death by being stabbed in the side while ordering a flank defense—no.
Of course, any general on the battlefield could die pointlessly, but that was a death suited to war movies, not to a final boss.
Facing countless enemies alone and finally collapsing from exhaustion.
That was a fitting end for this old man.
As the first step toward that, Dominic staged a crisis that didn't exist.
"Is there still no contact from inside?"
"Yes. There's been no word for a week since Lady Jane entered."
"It seems the situation deeper in isn't good either."
"Then..."
"I'll open the path."
Dominic, declaring he would shoulder the burden so that everyone inside had no choice but to rush to the walls.
"It's dangerous, Sir Dominic!"
"Precisely because it's dangerous, this old man must take the lead."
The old man's eyes gleamed as he gazed at the gate.
"If this flickering candle can spark vibrant new lives, that's more than enough for me."
At the old butler's resolute attitude, the lord reluctantly stepped aside.
"Once I go in, send the soldiers. What ifs can happen."
= Otherwise, the chronicler won't record my exploits.
But to Lord Kraidel, it sounded different.
- "There's a high probability I'll die. But if someone learns something from me and carries on my will, nothing could make me happier."
A mere 4th-circle old man charging headlong into a fortress teeming with monsters—it wasn't unreasonable to interpret it that way.
And it wasn't wrong in the broad strokes, either.
A true elder.
The first he'd seen since old lady Baldra.
Back in the Empire days, elders had disgracefully exploited the young to cling to their remaining lives.
Old trees sustaining themselves by turning sprouts into fertilizer.
Among such old trees, this was a great tree willingly offering itself as fertilizer after so long.
Suppressing his surging emotions, the lord clasped Dominic's hand.
"Elder. My child will be born soon."
"?"
"Perhaps the child's name..."
Chills crawling up his spine, Dominic peered behind the lord.
Behind the lord loomed the illusion of a pale figure in black clothes sharpening a scythe.
Dominic hardened his expression and cut the lord off.
"To name that young master, the father must return safely first. I'll have to put in more effort."
Dominic checked beyond the lord's shoulder again.
- Hehe. Hit a nerve today.
The presence that had been honing its scythe moments ago felt gone.
After passing on final words to relay to Jane via the lord, Dominic approached the gate.
- "Mad bastard. Planning to charge straight in?"
A knight atop the wall seemed to mutter.
"No reason to bow my head to thieves, is there?"
He tossed out a retort that couldn't possibly be heard, then Dominic began to stride forward slowly.
His leisurely steps quickened into a run, then a full sprint.
Watching the old butler charging for the gate, reactions from the wall split sharply in two.
Those who had glimpsed Duke even from afar flew into a panic,
While those who had never laid eyes on him dismissed the old butler's charge as reckless bravado.
"Lower the drawbridge and send heavy infantry—"
"You idiot! Don't lower it!"
"Master, why? It's just one old geezer."
"The moment that old geezer charges, you should realize something's wrong, you fool!"
Those mocking Dominic were mostly fresh criminals from the slums here who had newly received the Angel's Blessing.
The ones panicking were the founding members—those present before seizing the Vinka household.
Most hailed from Karognar County or the Dracon Marquisate.
Especially the Dracon mafiosi, who began fleeing the walls outright.
They still remembered the mad old man who had stormed the checkpoint, batting arrows aside with his sword.
"Don't break the line!"
Reclaiming blessings from deserters and turning them into corpses, the one-armed knight bellowed at the soldiers.
"Just hold the gate! He can't chop through it, no matter what!"
He was well aware of how Dominic had breached the checkpoint, having heard the tales from comrades.
Former Four Heavenly Kings Camilla had hammered the story into his ears until it stuck, so even without witnessing it, he could vividly picture the scene.
Still, the one-armed knight had his own calculations.
'For some reason, in that form, he can't pull off those feats.'
He knew Duke had cleaved the ramparts on the night Karognar County fell.
Yet Dominic had gone out of his way to storm the checkpoint and cut his way through directly.
Whatever the reason, the one-armed knight figured that form imposed some limitation.
"If we hold the gate, we're safe..."
At that moment, vagrant-born soldiers atop the wall began hurling their weapons.
Without any order from their commander, the one-armed knight.
Crossbows, ballista bolts, spears, harpoons—whatever they had.
Vagrants lacking the refinement to learn magic, these soldiers relied on overwhelming physical prowess to chuck their gear.
Normally, raining arrows and spears from on high to prevent foes from clinging to the walls was Siege Warfare 101, so they were simply following protocol.
But for some reason, the one-armed knight tried to stop them.
"Cease fire!"
"Master?"
"I said don't shoot!"
It was pure instinct.
No rational basis, but their counterattack felt like needlessly scratching at a scab—or worse.
Unlike a drilled army or a tight-knit crime syndicate bound by loyalty, these soldiers were raw vagrants with zero training.
Discipline doesn't form overnight, and they'd overrun the city through sheer individual might.
Thus, despite the one-armed knight's order to stop firing, they kept at it.
Drunk on adrenaline from tormenting a frail-looking old man from safety above.
And that's when they learned why disobeying orders ranks as the second-deadliest sin after an incompetent commander.
"Fuck, what the hell is that!"
"He's climbing the wall!"
"Who threw that spear?!"
"Who'd guess he'd use it as stairs?!"
"Target the stairs!"
"He's batting every blade away!"
Incoming spears, stakes, and more—Dominic jammed them into the wall's crevices like makeshift stairs and climbed.
Attacks aimed at crumbling his "steps" were swept aside by his sword as he ascended.
'Quick on the uptake.'
A routine he'd done often since his Opfir days, thoroughly familiar work.
Back in the Empire era, enemies adapted by the fourth try, but after a century, it seemed forgotten.
Or perhaps the records never passed down.
'This is why we need chroniclers.'
Dominic flashed a grin at the chronicler gaping in shock, pen tumbling from numb fingers, then vanished over the parapet.
He cleaved through a handful of soldiers blocking his path, then rubbed his stiff nape.
"Back in the day, this was a walk in the park. Age dulls the reflexes."
Atop the wall, the one-armed knight and his soldiers squared off against Dominic.
Shoving soldiers forward as meat shields, the one-armed knight groaned.
"Thought you died in that blast."
"To fool the enemy, you fool your own side first. Tactics 101, right?"
"You don't seriously think I asked out of ignorance?"
"If you're wondering how I survived, just dodged the shrapnel. Explosions are no big deal—aside from the blast leaving my neck sore."
"Monstrous old bastard..."
Dominic barked a laugh, sheathed his sword, and drew his spear.
"A battlefield like this. My blood's boiling after so long."
Thud!
The old man stomped and swung his spear.
No wall-shaking quake or storm-force gales, but the sheer momentum forced soldiers back.
"Dodging gets you nowhere."
Dominic's spear plunged down, caving in a soldier's skull.
The soldier staggered, skull already regenerating.
Watching worms and tentacles knit the wound, Dominic stroked his chin.
"I keep running into folks who just won't stay dead."
In that case...
The old butler kicked over an oil jar beside the regenerating soldier.
Siege oil cascaded onto the soldier and nearby heads.
Dominic heated his spear tip in a torch, then struck the oiled floor like flint on steel.
Ting! Whoosh!
A clear ring, followed by roaring flames.
"As ever, fire's the cure-all for the undead."
The soldiers fell into chaos.
Dominic weaved through the panicked ranks, toppling oil jars left and right.
Conveniently slicing Achilles tendons to hobble any runners.
"Kill the flames! Fire!"
"No one knows a water spell?!"
No refined vagrant knew a spell to douse flames.
Superhumans by regen and stamina alone—and mediocre at that—they burned like the Tang army of old.
Not every soldier was a vagrant, of course; knights lurked among them, but...
"Gack!"
"Chanting in close quarters? Not much combat experience, eh?"
The moment a knight began incantation, Dominic materialized to skewer heart and throat.
The knights felt a touch aggrieved, naturally.
Choking smoke blanketed the wall, soldiers tangled in frenzied melee—pinpointing a deliberate ghost like Dominic was tough even for superhumans.
Yet Dominic tsked his tongue, as if reading their injustice.
"The world's gotten too soft. Empire days, you'd have died ages ago."
Not words for the fallen knight's ears—a mere grumble.
As Dominic spilled oil and set the wall ablaze, soldiers below milled in panic, staring upward helplessly.
Then came the screams: soldiers wreathed in fire plummeting from the heights.
Landing atop a stack of oil jars being hauled below.
Boom!
A near-explosion engulfed the base in flames too.
"Master! Where's the master?!"
The hunchback below, awaiting the one-armed knight, frantically searched for his superior.
But the moment Dominic swept the wall, the one-armed knight had abandoned command and fled somewhere.
A situation where "soldiers mirror their leaders" rang painfully true.
Thus, with walltops and base alike swallowed by flames and choking black smoke, the drawbridge began to lower.
"Who opened the gate?!"
As if in answer to the hunchback's shout, a handaxe whistled from the smoke to bury in his forehead.
"Kyaaak!"
"Unlike that knight, sticking it out to the end shows guts. But broadcasting your position as commander? That's not courage—it's idiocy."
The old butler emerged from the inferno, brushing soot from his shirt.
- "Gabaroo! The drawbridge mechanism's busted..."
To the soldier's cry from the smoke, Dominic hurled a dagger without turning.
- "...Guhk!"
A death rattle bubbling with blood echoed from beyond the haze.
Dominic shrugged.
"This era's too damn kind."
Creaaak...
The drawbridge descended fully.
Fresh air rushed in, fanning the flames at Dominic's back into a roaring blaze.
Meanwhile, the hunchback yanked the handaxe free, regeneration complete, and bellowed with his forked tongue lolling.
"Kind? Has this geezer lost his marbles? Seeing this and calling it kind..."
He couldn't finish.
As if extras deserved no screen time, Dominic's sword speared his gaping mouth.
Then cracked the skull wide, shook off the blood, and muttered.
"This is war. Use every tool at hand, stay cautious at the slightest opening. Fail that, you die."
Creaaak...
Through the gap of flaming ramparts and plummeting drawbridge, the evening glow peeked through.
In the acrid black smoke and blaze, the old butler's golden eyes gleamed with outsized presence.
"Now then, let's all thrash about. Here where we're equals, wagering our tomorrows on each other."
Facing a single old man, the army staggered back.