Chapter 46
Chapter 46
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: The Eve of the Storm (2)
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Purgatory. Or a living hell.
Could there possibly be any place where that ominous moniker fit as perfectly as it did here?
Wind whistled through the ugly gash in the castle wall, producing an eerie sound like a woman sobbing mournfully.
Because of it, the soldiers' morale dwindled with each passing day.
That was the reason they had accepted the Red Hammer Clan despite their flaws. Engineers were in desperately short supply.
They couldn't even patch the hole in the wall quickly, after all.
'At least this castle's in the best shape of them all... that's the tragic part. The walls are at least holding their form.'
Of course, it wasn't like Renheim Territory had zero engineers at all.
The problem was that everywhere else was in such abysmal condition it made this place look downright decent by comparison.
The fortresses piled up to hold back the monsters hadn't been maintained at all, losing every bit of their function.
Well, the previous lord had been a complete puppet of the necromancer from the start... so maybe it was only natural.
From that perspective, the Red Hammer Clan was like a monsoon in the middle of a drought.
"How long do you think it'll take to repair this wall?"
"Three days will be plenty."
"Three days? Did you just say three days?"
"That's right. Even if we've been exiled, we're still dwarves at heart. Give us the materials, and no one can match our precision or speed."
And sure enough, they proved it wasn't bravado by perfectly repairing the wall in exactly three days.
They even boasted they could erect a proper fortress in half a year.
I'd dismissed it as drunken rambling at first, but Princess Morgana seemed to think otherwise.
"It looks like they're trying to prove their worth to you, my lord."
"Prove their worth? What do you mean by that?"
"The Red Hammer Clan only just surrendered and joined the Empire. Their position is inherently unstable."
"So they're trying to rack up achievements to solidify their standing."
"Then shouldn't we make full use of them while we can?"
I nodded silently. She'd hit the nail on the head.
I didn't know about other nobles, but I wasn't exactly thrilled about the Red Hammer Clan.
Even rotten fish are still fish. The Red Hammer Clan had been part of the Demonic Realm, after all. Which also meant...
"A good number of Renheim's original residents must have fallen victim to them."
"That's not suspicion—it's certainty."
"Exactly."
They'd traded with the necromancer or gotten them through some other channel.
That's just how the Demonic Realm worked. The strong exploited the weak as a matter of course.
And until I arrived, Renheim Territory had been thoroughly on the weak end of that equation.
"I don't need to see or hear it to know. This is Renheim... a living hell."
"And yet you accepted the Red Hammer Clan anyway, my lord. Why?"
"...We have to save the people who are still alive first, don't we?"
The endless monster hordes pouring from the Demonic Realm. And the previous lord, who'd become the necromancer's total puppet.
The insane synergy of those two had left Renheim Territory barely functioning as a domain.
Abandoned villages and fortresses alone took up more than half the land—that said it all.
More than half the territory was effectively written off.
"The fortresses are crumbling, and the army's still gripped by fear. In a situation like this, I..."
My voice trembled like a window rattling in the wind, then cut off.
A woman's hand—pale and soft as white jade—had covered my eyes.
I knew it was the princess's hand. But with no idea of her intent, I panicked a little.
"Your Highness?"
"It's fine. You're handling this more calmly than anyone else could."
"..."
"I won't claim to fully understand that pressure, that anxiety you're under. But please know this: you're not alone. Not by any means."
A comfort utterly devoid of logic, completely out of character for the princess.
Yet somehow, that clumsy reassurance from someone who knew nothing melted my anxiety away like it was a lie.
I stared at her blankly for a moment, then chuckled softly.
"Well, who am I? None other than the guy who personally captured Her Highness the Princess."
"I see. You're embarrassed, so you tried to change the subject with a joke."
"...Is 'Heavenly Demon's Web' maybe a nickname for mind-reading?"
She'd nailed it again, leaving me to stick out my tongue in defeat.
For a second, I wondered if she really could read minds.
As if reading that thought too, Morgana winked with one eye and said,
"When it's just the two of us, could you please call me by name?"
"How could I commit such irreverence..."
"My status may be imperial, but I'm here to assist you. In terms of authority, you're above me, my lord?"
She wasn't wrong.
I was Renheim's lord and the army's commander, while she was my strategist advisor.
Still, dropping formalities with imperial royalty wasn't that easy, so I brushed it off vaguely and let the conversation drop.
Morgana had plenty on her plate too. We naturally turned back to work.
But the peace didn't last.
The next day, around lunchtime, a breathless messenger came sprinting into the castle.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ The Demonic Realm.
That place, called a living hell, was a hell you could never let your guard down around.
And even a wyvern, once a top predator ruling over it all, was no exception. I immediately summoned the nobles.
The 100-man patrol that had gone into the Demonic Realm with the wyvern was now isolated.
The urgently gathered nobles muttered gravely, clicking their tongues.
"Isolated? What the hell does that mean...?"
"Who the hell would dare take on a wyvern and the Imperial Army?"
"Looks like one of the four great powers got directly involved."
Even rotten fish are still fish. Even defeated and subjugated by the Empire, a wyvern was still one of the Demonic Realm's apex predators.
What that meant was simple.
No one short of another apex predator on its level could touch it in the Demonic Realm.
I let out a deep sigh. No wonder things had felt too peaceful lately.
"How long to assemble a rescue force right now?"
"We can move about 5,000 immediately. But the Demonic Realm means we can't confirm a damn thing."
"So you're thinking they've got 10,000 or more."
"Even rotten fish are fish. To suppress a wyvern, they'd need at least that many."
The wyvern and patrol we'd bled for were isolated in the Demonic Realm. And we couldn't even guess the enemy's numbers.
That left me with only two real choices.
Move the forces we could right now... or bide our time, prepare fully, then move with everything.
"Then as soon as we're ready, I'll lead 20,000 and..."
Ah.
Again. That all-too-familiar disgust I'd felt countless times before.
Vision went black. The first thing I heard was the nobles' voices.
Like puppets, they spat out the exact same lines as before.
"Isolated? What the hell does that mean...?"
"Who the hell would dare take on a wyvern and the Imperial Army?"
"Looks like one of the four great powers got directly involved."
No one questioned the eerie repetition of past words.
But to me, it was a scene I'd grown numb to. A sight only I knew.
Defeat Regression. The ability that had been quiet lately had triggered again.
Maybe from dying over and over, I faintly sensed its intent this time too, just like before.
⚠️ DEFEAT REGRESSION ⚠️ [Don't die alone. Lead the army in and die together.]
A fathomless malice seeped through. It wasn't my imagination.
Then as lord, my job was to personally shatter that malice.
The forces we could move right now numbered barely 5,000 at most.
But no matter how I sliced it, charging into the Demonic Realm blind with no intel or scouts was suicide.
That said, I couldn't just abandon the wyvern and the isolated 100-man patrol.
If we delayed here any longer, the patrol would be wiped out. My accumulated experience screamed it.
There were many reasons, but above all, I didn't want to abandon them.
That was exactly what Defeat Regression was gunning for. Make me bleed out with insufficient forces, dying over and over.
"The army stays put. Charging into the Demonic Realm blind is suicide."
"You can't mean you're abandoning them?"
"That's not it."
"...No way."
Among them, only Morgana looked at me with a knowing expression. I nodded and spoke.
"I'll go in alone."
Defeat Regression didn't trigger this time. Fortunately, it only set the direction— the details were up to me.
Then the answer was simple. No intel? No scouts?
Then I'll scout it myself, dying if I have to. I won't let it play out the way Defeat Regression wants.
Plenty of dog deaths for me alone.