Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Subjugation Force
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Chester Earl was quicker than expected at grasping the situation.
But people like that often reveal fatal weaknesses in surprisingly trivial areas.
For example, they trust their own judgment so much that they walk right into obviously dangerous situations.
He likely judged that it made no sense for the empire's two greatest nobles to be escorting Campbell Baron at the same time.
That meant his very first response was a critical misstep.
Bringing a large armed force to greet Campbell Baron wasn't necessarily a bad move.
If the other side really were madmen impersonating those people, he could just beat them soundly and chase them off—or even execute them for their crimes. And even if there was a slim chance they were genuine, deploying armed troops wasn't a huge breach of etiquette.
He could always make excuses about territory circumstances forcing his hand.
The problem was.
Those two had decided, based solely on the fact that he'd dared bring armed troops before them, to beat down his side without a word.
"...Th-that should be enough, right?"
"No, it shouldn't."
Krat smirked as he dismissed Dawood's suggestion amid the groans of the wounded all around them.
Officially, they were visiting the territory as Armin Campbell Baron, but the young man—the earl's son—had been the one to come out first to meet them.
Perhaps the earl should have sensed something off right from there.
"A guy who rampages against others on a whim needs to learn that his own stuff can get trampled just as badly. That's the only way he'll stop."
"You're just dressing up your urge to vent as something noble, you barbarian."
"...Even when I say it nicely, you're full of shit, you little punk. Yeah?"
Veins bulging on his forehead, Krat growled those words, but Gideon—who'd said it—just shrugged without a care.
"But I agree with the sentiment."
Gideon strode up to Chester Earl, who was sprawled on all fours on the ground.
Even the emperor would struggle to treat someone of earl rank like this, but two great nobles with ferocious auras made it possible.
"If you're going to bully people, you should've dug two graves. Seeing you strut out here with no countermeasures at all just makes me sigh. At least sending a proxy to stall for time would've shown some self-awareness."
Chester Earl averted his gaze from Gideon, sweat pouring down his face.
He surely hadn't imagined, even this morning in his castle's drawing room, that he'd end up getting disciplined like this. But what could he do? This was reality.
*Why the hell did these guys show up out of nowhere...!*
Chester Earl rolled his eyes toward the two men standing on either side of him.
Until his steward relayed the info, he'd thought it was a lie, but now he couldn't even entertain that notion.
The two of them were radiating an aura that could only be explained if they were the 'real deal.'
The empire was simpler than one might think. It prioritized efficiency above all.
Under its strict merit-and-punishment system, the two great nobles who held the empire's greatest power had abilities to match.
As a result, these two were the empire's most 'capable' humans.
Monsters who could flip an entire earldom in under twenty minutes, just the two of them.
He'd heard Goldic Viscount's territory had been wrecked by those two as well, but his own earldom was several times larger, with far superior training and numbers among its private soldiers.
Even so, Goldic's had held out for hours, or so he'd heard. Yet his own crumbled in less than an hour.
"Th-there were reasons for it all! I'm sorry!"
Chester Earl rasped it out, his voice cracked from the grueling physical ordeal.
His guard knights scattered nearby might protest that these weren't even real injuries.
No joke—every single person around who hadn't had limbs broken or coughed up blood was nowhere to be seen. All courtesy of the two monsters before him.
"Reasons? What reasons?"
Chester Earl's eyes bloodshot at the young man in front of him asking so indifferently.
How dare a lowly baron's heir show such irreverence before him...!
"Guh...!"
Chester Earl tumbled across the ground.
Someone had lightly kicked him aside.
"...Guh, guh, guuuuh...!"
Of course, to the one who'd taken the hit, it was anything but light.
Flashes burst before his eyes. The dizzying pain made drool spill from his mouth.
Seeing the dark red blood flowing from his lips, it was clear a broken rib had pierced near his lung.
"...Gideon."
Dawood sighed at the sight, calling out to the culprit, but the Tristan Grand Duke replied in a flat tone without a hint of regret.
"His face pissed me off. Couldn't be helped."
"..."
"No disciple worth their salt just sits on their hands twiddling thumbs while their master gets insulted."
"..."
It reminded him of something similar with Elnor. Father and daughter were exactly alike.
As Dawood swept a hand over his face thinking that, Chester Earl—who was vomiting blood—and Krat both wore puzzled expressions.
Master and disciple? These two?
For that matter, why was a baron's heir calling a grand duke by his first name so casually?
"San-nim, since when did you start taking disciples? You were the guy who'd die before letting anyone under your wing for 'personal training' reasons."
Gideon's face soured.
"I don't know why people keep getting the wrong idea, but the disciple's on my si—"
"—Mind sharing your side of things?"
Cutting him off before useless rumors could spread further, Dawood turned back to Chester Earl.
"You used to have a bit of a delinquent vibe, but you never stooped to thug-level stuff like this. There must be some reason, right?"
"..."
It was far more insolent than before, but one kick from Gideon had drilled manners into Chester Earl.
Instead of snapping back, he stammered out an explanation.
"In the territory... central mountains... there's a mon, monster living there."
"Monster?"
It was something that could only be described that way.
No one had actually seen it, but occasionally, a 'gray wave' would emanate from the mountain's heart, devouring the surrounding space whole.
And the areas affected by it.
"They say it's like time stopping."
Everything slowed, eventually grinding to a halt.
The effect's range was widening over time, growing stronger with it.
Even his territory's residents living nearby—he was using forceful measures to seize land and save them somehow. That was Chester Earl's stance.
"Cough—!"
His body flew through the air again mid-explanation.
Krat had probably backhanded him this time.
"..."
"..."
As everyone stared at the frothing, unconscious Chester Earl, all eyes turned to Krat.
He met each gaze squarely in response to the unspoken question of whether this was appropriate.
"What."
"..."
"Bugging others is one thing, but dressing it up as justified pisses me off, so I hit him. Got a problem?"
"..."
No one did.
Seeing everyone but Gideon avert their eyes, Dawood just sighed wordlessly.
His thoughts were organizing in his head.
From what he'd heard, this was an event he knew well.
*Devil's Fragment.*
A fragment of the Gray Devil, no less.
The 'fragment absorption' event that struck all devil vessels as a random variable.
The one tied to Elnor was just about to begin right here.
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The 'subjugation force' was assembled faster than expected.
They'd properly warned Chester Earl that they'd handle it, so he should stop terrorizing neighboring territories.
[...'Handle it' by demanding the earl's family heirloom? That's your idea of a proper warning?]
"Of course."
[...]
When he answered firmly to Kallivan's question from the linker, he got dissatisfied silence in reply.
Kallivan was probably giving him an incredulous look in his spiritualized state.
"I'll need it later."
Combined with the mid-tier relic as the quest reward, the 'heirloom' from Chester Earl would yield something pretty good.
*...Time to boost my stats too.*
His stats were still stagnant except for 'Authority,' which had finally escaped F-rank after receiving the territory.
Merging those two would let him snag something genuinely helpful.
The chapter 3 boss, [Apostle of the Inverted Tidal Wave], was... how to put it.
The fight itself wasn't that tough, but in terms of sheer nastiness, it ranked among the top bosses.
Clearing it was one thing—his personal 'survival difficulty' would skyrocket.
Even during chapter progression, it'd try to kill him nonstop, using every dirty trick in the book.
[What a ridiculously broken lineup...]
Mulling that over, Kallivan sighed at the group heading out under Dawood's orders.
Members: the Kendrid Margrave's father-daughter pair, the Tristan Ducal House father-daughter pair, and Dawood.
Elnor and Eliya made sense, and apparently Gideon and Krat were going along without complaint because he'd framed it as 'something they needed to do.'
[You sure you can control this mess?]
It was monstrous enough that even Kallivan was worried.
They'd be lucky if no fights broke out en route.
But.
"We're adding the homunculus sisters too."
[...]
"I know it'll be rough."
He'd sent word via messenger bird to the saintess entering his territory, telling her to link up at the mountains Chester Earl mentioned.
That many people together was bound to spark trouble.
From his position, though, he had no choice but to gather them, weighing the risks—this was that important an event.
The following exchange proved it.
[Still, gathering this crowd to hunt that thing... bold move.]
"Pardon?"
[You seem to know it roughly, but it's a vessel with a fragment. Even with all these big shots around, it's not something you'd casually decide to subjugate.]
True enough.
However.
"It's not a humanoid vessel."
[Hm?]
"From the phenomenon described, it sounds like some hidden fragment unluckily bonded with a magic beast. At that level, this lineup has a solid shot at taking it down."
[...You know a lot about vessels, huh?]
"At least I'm relieved it's not a humanoid one rampaging."
He gave a wry smile.
"...Sorry about the Guardians, Kallivan."
The holy knight in the amulet fell silent.
As one of the key figures who'd suppressed a humanoid vessel rampage, Kallivan knew exactly the difference Dawood meant.
A humanoid vessel was a disaster that even Kallivan—a warrior on par with monstrous Gideon and Krat—had barely quelled, burning through his life alongside equally skilled comrades.
"So, to prevent that from happening again, we need to subjugate it now."
In that sense, the fragment absorption event was one he had to intervene in personally to steer toward the 'good' outcome.
Even the same absorption event could drastically alter the vessel's state depending on how you met the 'conditions.'
After this event, Elnor's personality would change, like it or not.
His job was to control it as far from 'rampage' as possible.
"..."
Watching Elnor and Gideon gear up and prepare to board the carriage, lost in those thoughts.
They were ignoring each other.
Not just ignoring—thoroughly, to the point where you might wonder if they could actually see each other.
*...Can't be helped.*
The emotional chasm between those two had built up over a decade or so.
That was the natural reaction.
But.
After this event, they'd at least show something different...
[...Hey.]
Mid-thought, Kallivan spoke up as if something had occurred to him.
"Yes?"
[Didn't you just say your goal is preventing that girl's rampage or whatever?]
"Yeah?"
[...]
Kallivan went quiet for a moment, deep in thought.
[Who's coming this time? Girls only.]
"? Hero candidate, Tristan Duchess, saintess sisters... that's it. Why?"
Kallivan paused, then chuckled.
It felt off to Dawood—an odd laugh.
"...Why the laugh?"
[No reason. Just sounds hilarious.]
"What does?"
[All of them together, seeing each other's faces? First time, right?]
"...Yeah, but why?"
[You're screwed, kid.]
"..."
Uncle.
Explain.
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