Chapter 105
Chapter 105
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 105
Chapter Title: 33. The Left Behind, The Forgotten, and the Returned (2)
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Very long ago, before the lion kingdom was established on this land, I had selected men and women of exceptional character and talent, passing on to them the superior Mana Heart and the swordsmanship that paired with it.
Over time, they became the sword that guarded the king. When the king led a personal expedition to slay the Mad Dragon, they all went with him.
It was a battle more brutal and fierce than any war the kingdom had ever fought. Countless knights and soldiers fell. And among them, the Royal Knights suffered the heaviest losses—a natural outcome, in a way.
After all, the king they served was always the first to charge into battle.
Ninety Royal Knights perished on Frost Mountain while protecting him. Nine out of every ten had died.
The ten survivors became the foundation and precursor to the current Royal Knight Order, while the ninety who fell on Frost Mountain were posthumously honored as Paladins.
The Death Knights before my eyes were those very Paladins.
Though their noble, heroic forms from life were long gone, and even their bluish, frozen corpses barely seemed their own...
I recognized them.
Just as I alone had recognized their talents and virtues back when no one else could.
But the Death Knights did not recognize me.
It was only natural.
Back then, I was but a sword. They believed the swordsmanship and Mana Heart passed down to them originated from their king.
No—even if they had known the truth, they still wouldn't have recognized me.
The time of the dead does not flow.
They were trapped, repeating a single moment from four hundred years ago.
To them, I must have appeared as some dragonkin soldier serving the Mad Dragon—or something of the sort.
I had no answer to give.
I simply didn't know what to say to such hollow questions.
But the answer had been decided from the start.
"Knights of the king."
Gazing into their undead eyes glowing crimson, I spoke.
"The war is over."
I shared the truth they never knew—the events that unfolded after their deaths.
The expedition triumphed. The Mad Dragon was slain.
A Death Knight cheered.
To me, it rang utterly hollow and futile.
Then another Death Knight stepped forward.
Familiar names spilled from their mouths.
The instant I heard them, I understood why I had identified them so swiftly.
How could I fail to recognize the souls of the cherished brothers—the first Royal Knights I had handpicked and raised?
"Stubborn Ekion, cheerful Eus, and prudent Edar..."
Edar and Eus growled lowly at my inadvertent slip.
Ekion drew his sword and advanced on me.
I gave them the truth I hadn't been able to convey before.
Four hundred years had passed since the war's end. They hadn't merely parted from the king—they had been left unable to follow.
As I listened to the three brothers' exchange, their final moments flashed in my mind.
Eus, his body rotting away under the necromancer's curse.
Edar, legs severed in battle with other Death Knights.
Ekion, his form slowly freezing under the curse's grip.
—Go on ahead. I'll follow shortly.
Their last words echoed vividly in my head.
So that was it.
Not mere words.
Even in death, they had striven only to follow their king.
Dragging rotting flesh to take a step. Crawling on arms in place of legs. Thrashing against encroaching ice.
Something hot surged within me.
Loyal knights, pursuing their king even after such wretched ends.
"You succumbed to the necromancer's poison, you to the Death Knights, and you to the curse—bodies unfit to follow the king."
Swallowing my grief, I described the ends I had witnessed.
In the end, they acknowledged their own deaths.
Their once-natural speech suddenly shifted. Voices brimming with humanity turned chilling, like a frigid gale howling through a dark midnight ravine.
A sinister aura began seeping into eyes that had been merely red.
Ekion and his brothers—no, the Death Knights—let out horrific shrieks as they drew their blades. Swirling black miasma poured forth, coiling around their swords.
The sword maidens encircled me.
"Fall back."
Gunne gestured urgently at me.
I glanced back at Winter Fortress.
There, rangers with faces twisted like demons shed tears as they thrust spears and swords into the bodies of old comrades.
Knights stared blankly at the corpses of former allies tumbling from the walls, limbs severed by their own blades.
"This is my battle."
It was the sacred funeral rite for old comrades I had long delayed. No one else's aid could be accepted.
Just as Winter Fortress's soldiers did, I would honor them with my sword.
Gunne stared at me piercingly.
On the half-elf's inscrutable face, I spoke flatly.
"Go."
The sword maidens vanished in her wake as she gave a brief wave.
No sooner had they gone than black energy enveloped me on all sides.
Unholy, ominous, frigid. Yet the resentment it held was heartbreakingly poignant.
I gripped my sword and held it before my chest. Then I bowed deeply to the king's knights.
"My respects to the knights of the king."
Flames ignited at my sword's tip. Silently, in my heart, I recited verse.
A dirge for the ninety knights who fought for their king... and fell for him.
My feet carried me into the heart of that unholy, ominous aura.
I slashed long and wide.
Dozens of black blades lunged at the radiant aura blade.
Boom!
A horrific impact. Ominous, profane energy bored into my body.
I circulated mana fiercely, expelling the foulness.
Then slashed again.
Black blades flew at me.
I dodged, parried, cleaved.
Fragments of darkness scattered.
Black ashes—the remnants of flames consuming shadow—drifted everywhere.
Ashes from my blaze, darkness I had shattered. Amid them, I fought like a madman.
How long had this frenzy lasted?
Suddenly, the world bleached white.
Too brilliant for mere dawnlight, too abrupt for true morning.
The Death Knights groaned, recoiling.
I steadied my breath and glanced toward Winter Fortress.
The fortress had fallen silent. Atop its tallest spire stood a woman in flowing white robes.
Ophelia, the magus of the white nights.
"You said you wouldn't get involved this time."
She had opted out of this battle.
Her essence was darkness akin to the undead's—and the doom of darkness devoured by greater darkness was eternal bondage... or utter annihilation, beyond salvation.
Ophelia's voice—having somehow intercepted mine—pierced my mind.
Not a pleasant sound, she said. So hurry and grant them release.
As knights and knight candidates poured from the gates, toppling dazed undead, I regripped my sword.
Thoughts brimming with confusion flooded from the Death Knights.
Just like our first encounter, they demanded my identity and the king's location—as if the moments before had been erased.
But not everything was identical.
Ekion and his brothers began squabbling, eyes fixed on me.
The other Death Knights spewed their own bewildered thoughts.
Amid the chaotic torrent of thoughts, Ekion fixed his gaze on me and asked.
"I am not your king."
The Death Knights stirred at my words.
Ekion raised a hand, quieting the rest.
Then he questioned me.
"It has to be. We share the same Mana Heart."
The king they served—and I—both harbored the True Dragon's will in our hearts.
I couldn't help but laugh.
It was all too perfect a coincidence.
Ekion's question was identical to the one I had asked myself countless times while shattering the master's barrier.
Not long ago, I might have dodged it.
Back then, I was neither sword nor man.
"I am..."
But not anymore.
"Idrian Leonberger."
I was the divine sword Gruhon, existent for centuries,
"The prince of the kingdom your king founded."
And also the human Idrian Leonberger.
How cruelly ironic fate could be.
The first to hear me declare my name as Idrian Leonberger... were not the living, but Death Knights.
Gazing at the ninety Death Knights staring blankly at me, I spoke with conviction.
"The war is over. The Mad Dragon is slain. Knights of the king."
They refused to believe me once more.
Swords were drawn.
And one verse of poetry was recited.
The sacred triumph their king achieved.
A ballad of that glorious deed.
"Cleaving dragon scales no famed sword could pierce, drinking its searing blood."
"[Poem of the True Dragon]"
⟨ Dragon-Slaying Verse ⟩
My vessel—now incomparably tougher since attaining mastery—screamed as if on the verge of shattering.
The mana filling that immense container drained away in a flash.
Karrurrurrurrr.
In that instant, the twilight let out a grotesque roar.
It was the savage bellow of a beast ripping out a dragon's throat.
The resonance between my master's soul and sword.
Though still too crude to intone a true [Myth],
It would suffice to prove the feat of dragon-slaying.
The Death Knights groaned at length.
Their thoughts surged like a tidal wave, crashing over me.
Stubborn Ekion's ecstasy. Cheerful Eus's despair. Prudent Edar's void.
Indescribable emotions from ninety Death Knights bored into my soul.
I clenched my teeth, enduring the storm of thoughts. Waiting for their ecstasy, emptiness, and despair to ebb.
The raging thoughts gradually faded. Until only one emotion lingered.
Relief. Nothing but relief remained.
Ekion and his brothers turned to me.
"An honorable death."
"The ninety Royal Knights who fell on Frost Mountain were all enshrined as Paladins."
Was that answer insufficient? Eus suddenly burst into laughter.