200
I Killed the Demon King. It Was a Mistake.
Chapter 200
News of the breach of the Steel Fortress spread widely throughout the Friedrich region.
The dignitaries and clan leaders of the Friedrich region couldn't counterattack Home Town, which had occupied the Steel Fortress.
They had already spent too much manpower and resources supporting the demon realm over the past 5 years to have the strength to dismantle Home Town.
Additionally, there was no central figure to unite the scattered clan leaders across the Friedrich border territory.
All they could do was send messengers to the nobles and emperor around the Friedrich border territory, spreading rumors that Home Town would occupy the Steel Fortress to establish a new kingdom and violate the empire.
They thought this would make the empire and surrounding nobles provide soldiers who could defeat Sith.
However, contrary to many people's expectations, Sith had no intention of occupying the Steel Fortress.
Home Town is literally composed of soldiers who miss their homeland.
Their journey wouldn't end at the Steel Fortress, but in the arms of their families who were desperately waiting for them.
Though they still had a long way to go, they couldn't skip having a victory celebration.
Sith released all the food they had been carrying and the alcohol and food plundered from the Steel Fortress.
"Wahahahaha!"
"Pour more! How long has it been since we had beer!"
They relaxed fully, thinking they would no longer have to see the arrogant generals who sent them to battle or those terrible demons.
Regardless of rank, they put their arms around each other's shoulders, danced, and sang.
They were truly free people.
After partying for a while, people gathered in the middle of the plaza.
Their gazes turned to Sith, who was sitting on the plaza fountain drinking.
"Commander Sith! Say something!"
"What commander at this point! Brother! Give us one last toast!"
Sith smirked and climbed up the dried-up fountain.
People burst out laughing watching Sith crawl up the fountain.
Sith raised his voice loudly:
"Fill your cups! This is my last order as commander!"
People obeyed Sith's final order.
Those who had lost their cups filled their shoes with alcohol and raised them toward the red moon hanging in the sky.
"You've worked hard until now! You are no longer Allied Forces soldiers or anyone's subordinates. You are free people!"
The single word ‘free people’ deeply penetrated everyone's hearts.
The free people were emotional from being drunk, and there wasn't anyone who didn't shed tears at the magical word ‘freedom.’
Sith raised his cup toward the free people wiping away their tears.
"So let's go back! My comrades! Let's return to our parents who we left behind!"
"Let's go back!"
"Let's return to our children!"
"Let's go back!"
"Let's return to our friends!"
"Let's go back!"
"Let's return to our hometown!"
"Let's go back!"
Sith raised his cup toward the moon.
"Let's go back! My comrades!"
"Let's go back!"
People finished their drinks without leaving a drop and danced while embracing each other.
Sith stumbled down from the fountain.
The operations staff officer supported the stumbling Sith while bursting into laughter.
"Sir Sith! Where do you plan to go now?"
Where to go?
Honestly, Sith hadn't found an answer.
From Sith's position of having lived only following Elijah's orders until now, it wasn't easy to plan a new goal.
But he had thought of an appropriate answer in advance.
"Well, I think traveling here and there wherever my feet take me would be good."
"Traveling! That's great! If you have time, please stop by Springfield Province. I'll treat you magnificently!"
At the operations staff officer's words, other people also spoke up.
"Come visit Vex Province too! I'll be running an amazing bar there. Don't worry about money, drinks will be free for life for you, Commander."
"Won't you come to Goldmile Province too? I'll make you an excellent suit."
"Do you need shoes? My father runs a shoe workshop in Imperial Province. If you come, I'll make you a pair!"
As the soldiers' words layered upon each other, Sith's dream started to take shape.
What had started as a thoughtless answer seemed to have really become his dream.
Come to think of it, it was the same when gathering these guys.
Sith's hometown is the demon realm.
While Sith had no particular reason to find his hometown, he wanted to take these people home because they wanted to go.
'Pepe was like that too.'
Speaking of which, Sith had promised to help Pepe somehow escape from Elijah's grasp.
Though they had occupied the Steel Fortress, they hadn't yet escaped from Elijah's control.
Whether Pepe or Sith, they would disappear into a handful of ashes if Elijah simply wished it.
"Yes. After my journey ends, I'll meet everyone here."
"Hooray!"
Sith smiled faintly and drank.
Just then, a white dove landed on Sith's shoulder.
"Oh? Is it that dove again?"
"It seems to have followed us well all the way from the demon realm."
Sith put the dove on his index finger and said:
"Yes. I'll go get some food for this fellow, so keep drinking."
"Yes! Understood!"
***
Sith headed to a nearby store with the pigeon.
The store was completely empty as soldiers had looted everything.
Sith placed it on the empty table and handed the cloak from his back to the pigeon.
"Pepe. How's the situation outside the Steel Fortress?"
Pepe transformed from a pigeon into the appearance of an ordinary soldier.
Pepe covered himself with the cloak that Sith gave him.
"Elijah's soldiers haven't arrived yet. But by now, they must have noticed the situation."
That meant Sith's life was now hanging by a thread.
Sith sat down on the floor with his back against the wall.
His body was hidden in the moonlight shadow.
"Then I'll be going now."
Pepe barely managed to part his lips as he looked at Sith's sparkling eyes that weren't hidden even in the moonlight shadow.
"...Aren't you afraid? Elijah will definitely kill you."
"At first, I wasn't really afraid. I thought I could just disappear and that would be it."
Sith closed his eyes and thought about the 'journey' that had become his dream.
"But it's quite regrettable that I'll die without being able to travel."
"How about going back to Elijah even now?"
"It's meaningless at this point."
Sith broke the bottle after finishing the alcohol.
"So I have one favor to ask you."
"A favor?"
Sith cut his palm with a broken piece of the bottle.
Blood dripped and soaked the floor.
"Some soldiers told me. If you go to the southwest of the continent, there's a prairie with an endless horizon, and if you go north, there are beautiful snow-capped mountains that look like they'll pierce the sky."
"Sith..."
"See how beautiful this world is with my eyes and my legs, Pepe."
"You can do it yourself, Sith."
"No, it's impossible for me. It seems my journey ends here."
At that moment, Sith's toes began to crumble.
Pepe's eyes widened.
"Sith!"
Sith blankly stared at his crumbling body.
"...I see. So this is what you saw."
Sith's ankles disappeared, and soon his thighs began to vanish as well.
"It's worth being afraid of. Is this fear? Yes. This was fear."
As Sith's body collapsed, Pepe quickly caught him.
"Sith!"
"Pepe, quickly take my blood."
Sith extended his hand to Pepe.
"Eat me and travel this world with my eyes."
"Sith!"
Sith placed his blood on Pepe's lips.
"Pepe. Please."
With those words, Sith disappeared.
As if he had never existed, no warmth, no breath, nothing remained.
The only thing left was Sith's red blood on Pepe's lips.
"Sith!"
***
Yan saluted toward the crudely made crosses.
"May you rest in peace."
Following Yan's salute, other soldiers and knights also paid their respects to their buried comrades.
After parting with Caesar, Yan and Mitchell held funerals almost every day.
Although severely wounded soldiers tried to hold onto life's edge, survival was nearly impossible in the terrible medical conditions where they had to use stripped clothes from dead soldiers as makeshift bandages due to shortage.
Mitchell looked at the eyes of the surviving soldiers.
In their eyes, anger rather than despair flowed with their tears.
While despair immobilizes people, anger makes them move.
Mitchell was satisfied that the soldiers were movers rather than those who stopped.
When Yan dropped his salute, other soldiers followed suit.
"Let's go then."
Mitchell led from the front while Yan moved with the wounded at the rear.
The number of soldiers following Yan and Mitchell was about 4,000.
They were all soldiers who had been routed by Elijah's attack.
When they moved together, a long procession formed.
Mitchell and Yan decided to head to the Demon King's Castle to unite the scattered Allied forces.
They judged that once they occupied the Demon King's Castle, it would be easier to find and guide the scattered Allied soldiers since all roads to each frontline were connected from there.
However, the journey to the Demon King's Castle wasn't as easy as they thought.
Rose approached Yan's side.
"Yan, are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
Yan looked at the White Knights following him.
Though there had been a knightly order of 100 members, now only 8 remained.
The rest were either buried in the ground or being carried in medical carriages.
It was because Elijah's soldiers had persistently targeted the White Knights and Red Wing Knights.
"What's more important are the living. The battlefield has always been like that. A living pony is more valuable than a dead Pegasus."
"And a healthy horse is more important than a sick one too."
There was an edge to Rose's words.
Yan spoke in a somewhat subdued voice.
"...Rose, do you think I'm wrong too?"
Rose glanced back.
Carts were making creaking sounds as they rolled along the muddy road.
While there were some horse-drawn carts, they were rare, and most were pulled by people.
Rose focused on what was loaded on the carts rather than the carts themselves.
While there was food on the carts, there were even more wounded soldiers.
Just then, one cart wheel carrying wounded soldiers got stuck in the mud and couldn't get out.
"A cart is stuck!"
"Damn, again?"
Although the road was said to be well-paved, the ground was a mess due to rain, and wagons frequently got stuck.
Since the road was narrow, when a wagon got stuck there was no way to go around it, so the wagons behind naturally had to stop, and when they spent more time on the roadside, bandits would take advantage of the opportunity to attack.
When bandits attacked, the number of wounded soldiers increased again, and wagons had to be used again to carry these wounded soldiers, and the heavier wagons got stuck in the mud again, putting the entire unit in crisis.
Mitchell couldn't stand this tedious situation of not being able to move even 20km per day, and finally suggested forming a separate unit consisting only of wounded soldiers, excluding wagons carrying food and ammunition.
Since that was the same as abandoning the wounded soldiers, Yan found it difficult to accept such a cruel decision.
"Due to the rain, body temperatures are dropping rapidly. The wounded soldiers won't last long."
"I know. But we can't just abandon them. They are all soldiers. They're the ones who steadfastly held their positions when military discipline collapsed and everyone deserted. Abandoning these people is neither right nor good for the soldiers' morale."
"Yan is right. They are war heroes and deserve such treatment. But we can't always choose what's right."
"What do you mean?"
"Yan and Brother Mitchell, I could take the wounded soldiers all the way to the Steel Fortress, not the Demon King's castle. We are patient. But not all soldiers are that patient."
Rose carefully pointed to the soldiers who were collapsing from exhaustion while trying to pull wagons out of the mud.
"Soon, we'll have to either abandon the wounded soldiers who haven't died or abandon tents and ammunition. No, it might already be happening now."
"How could people..."
"Because they're human, that's why they can do it. Humans can abandon their future if they can lighten their current burden over what should be rightfully protected or tomorrow's safety. Brother Mitchell tried to convince Yan because he knows that people are evil and weak."
Rose discreetly held Yan's hand while watching their surroundings.
Rose's hand was colder than he had thought.
"But that's Brother Mitchell's thinking, and I'll follow Yan's thinking. The reason people and I follow Yan is because he has accomplished things that were thought impossible."
Rose whispered in Yan's ear.
"I believe Yan will solve this problem well."
Yan felt his heart tighten.
Though he was grateful for Rose's trust in him, he felt as if all the responsibility for those soldiers who were collapsing from exhaustion was concentrated on him alone.
As Yan fell deep in thought, Rose's red eyes glinted like a viper's.
Rose is a cold investor.
She was someone who believed in taking whatever seemed profitable no matter what and abandoning whatever seemed like a loss no matter what.
Therefore, she thought Yan's half-baked sympathy would be poison to the entire army.
One knows this even without having led an army.
At first, they would try to bring along the wounded soldiers due to conscience, but how long could they last in this mud where just walking was difficult?
Rose judged that complaints would burst out from within the unit in at most a day, at least half a day.
Unable to endure those complaints, Yan would eventually abandon the wounded soldiers, and would come to accept Mitchell's words going forward, saying Mitchell was right.
Rose's warm words to Yan were a sharp strategy for this.
"Stop! Stop!"
At that moment, there was a commotion from the front.
Yan drew his sword.
"Rose, hide!"
Rose was surrounded by White Knights.
She bit her lip while surrounded by the White Knights.
"Is it bandits again?"
"I don't know, Lady Rose. But don't stick your head out. It's dangerous."
The demon realm was teeming with bandit groups made up of deserters.
Ironically, the reason they hadn't encountered bandits near Eagle valley was because of the demons.
Rumors spread that succubi and vampires frequently crossed Eagle valley to suck the spirits and blood of soldiers, so bandits didn't think of going near Eagle valley.
But near the Demon King's castle was different.
Because supplies were transported from the Demon King's castle to each frontline, there were abundant things to plunder, and since the supply routes were fixed, they could easily plunder if traps were well set.
That's why Yan was placed in the rear with the wounded soldiers and food, and Mitchell was made to lead the main force from the front.
Yan watched his surroundings tensely.
But even with Yan's sharp senses, he couldn't hear anything.
Whether it was because the rain was heavy or something else was happening, he didn't know.
Then, a knight quickly approached on horseback.
"Hero! Lord Mitchell is calling for you!"
"What's the matter?"
"He says they've found the remaining forces of the 5th Division."
It was good news.
As expected, it seemed easier to find scattered soldiers near the Demon King's castle.
"And Division Commander Baker is with them as well."
Yan internally exclaimed.
Division Commander Baker.
They had thought he was dead when he wasn't found in the bombed Loran Plains.
If Baker is alive, unifying the allied forces would be easy.
Mitchell had the Emperor's orders to appoint Baker as the allied forces commander.
It would be done once Baker officially takes office as allied forces commander and orders the scattered forces on each front to unite.
Yan grabbed the Red Wing Knight's extended hand and mounted the horse.
"Rose! I'll be right back!"
"Yes. Leave this to me."
Rose smiled and waved to Yan as he left.
But Rose was somewhat uneasy.
In such chaotic times, could Mitchell properly control Baker?