Chapter 147: The End of the Harvest
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 147: The End of the Harvest
Cloud's party grew stronger by the day.
In contrast, Gis's party, sponsored by the Snake Venom Society, had suffered a major blow from this incident.
Upon hearing the report, Kelidon, one of the Society's executives, gave an order on his own authority.
—Kill them.
They couldn't kill the Hero. That was an unwritten rule of the continent. Killing him would blow things way out of proportion.
But the Hero's party members were fair game.
It would cause a stir, but things would quiet down soon enough. Everyone would assume the assassination was orchestrated by the Demon King's side, the Hero's main enemy.
Of course, that was only if the assassination went undetected. If they were caught, the Snake Venom Society would be in a very difficult position.
So, he sent his personal unit of pure-blood vampires.
Each one was a vampire whose skills rivaled those of the Empire's Platinum Knights.
The five of them saw Leslie and Eri separated from the main group and deemed it the perfect opportunity. They moved to assassinate them, but someone suddenly appeared and blocked their path.
“You're not going anywhere.”
That someone was none other than Shedia.
The first emotion they felt upon seeing Shedia was bewilderment.
“You... aren't you the last test subject? I heard you were taken down with Assassination Squad 1 on the last mission.”
“To be precise, she went missing, not taken down. Unlike the others, there was no body. I thought she'd just gotten lucky and escaped, but I see now... she was with the Hero, Cloud.”
“No wonder every tail we put on Cloud ended up dead. It was your handiwork, wasn't it? I was sure Cloud was the one doing it... Well, it seems the darkest place is under the candlestick.”
“In any case, this is good. Shedia was the only test subject who could use the power of shadow. Lord Kelidon will be relieved.”
The vampires began to chat amongst themselves amicably. Though Shedia was the topic of their conversation, they paid her no mind.
Just a slightly special piece of ‘livestock.’
That's all she was to them.
“Shedia, we are going to carry out Lord Kelidon's orders. You will wait here.”
“No. And you're not going anywhere.”
Shedia drew her short, single-edged sword and took a stance.
The vampires' expressions hardened.
“What did you just say?”
“You're going to hurt Sister Leslie, aren't you? I won't let you.”
“Sister? Did you just say sister?”
One of the vampires laughed as if he'd heard something amusing.
“Looks like the bitch who killed her own sister with her own hands has already found a new one. When do you plan on killing this sister?”
Shedia's gaze turned ice-cold.
“You're going to die by my hand. Very painfully.”
“Don't you worry. You won't die, at least not until our research on the power of shadow is complete. You might suffer so much you'll wish you were dead, though.”
The vampires began to draw out their Blood Energy.
Shedia once again hid herself within the shadows.
*
“This can't be... This can't be happening...”
Octan stared at the vanished altar with eyes full of disbelief. Honestly, I could understand how he felt. Even to me, the situation was a little ridiculous.
‘An altar dine-and-dash.’
What the hell were these guys even trying to summon?
Even your average demon operates on a give-and-take basis. They'd consider skipping out on the payment after receiving the offering a petty move. They wouldn't do it because it would look undignified.
‘What a letdown.’
I went to all the trouble of acting cool, and it just ended up looking stupid.
“This can't be happening... It can't be! After everything I've done for you!!!”
Octan wailed in anguish.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I slowly walked over and stomped on the bastard's head.
When I brought my sword to his neck, he started struggling, as if the pathetic bastard didn't want to die.
“Just hold still.”
You're making it hard to get a clean cut... Ugh...
“Gurgle... Khaaack...”
With his throat only half-severed, Octan couldn't die and was left to suffer. Seeing the blood gurgle into his windpipe, he probably couldn't even breathe properly. I bet it felt like drowning.
See? If you'd just held still, it would have been quick. Why did you have to struggle and choose the hard way?
I sighed and finished cutting off his head.
I let the severed head roll away and placed a hand on his back.
With Octan's death, I could feel the souls trying to escape his body.
‘These are some powerful souls.’
Swallowing them all would put too much strain on my body. This body, my vessel, has been in a state of overload ever since it devoured the souls of the former Heroes.
In the end, after carefully choosing among the souls, I absorbed just one. A searing heat spread through my body. When the pain subsided, I could feel the new power I had obtained.
When I opened my palm, a small, dark-red Black Flame flickered to life.
The same flame Lugar used, one that rejects divine power.
I'll look into this fire later...
“And where do you think you're going? Get over here.”
I gestured to the shaman who was trying to sneak away amidst the confusion. The shaman, who had been tiptoeing away, froze in place. He turned his head to the side and began to mutter something.
Is that bastard chanting a spell right now?
“Try anything funny and I'll kill—”
Swoosh—
A black mist billowed out from the shaman's staff, filling the audience chamber. It was similar to the mist that had swallowed the altar.
‘Power he received from that thing, I see.’
The moment I tried to move to chase the fleeing shaman, the Black Flame—small but with a definite presence—was extinguished by an unknown force.
The cause was obviously this mist.
‘A power that can suppress the Pattern?’
So this is how those morons managed to kill Lugar. It was all thanks to this mist. They must have blocked his vision and his Pattern with it, then overwhelmed him with numbers.
But things are different now. There are no orcs here to pressure me. I killed them all on my way in. So this is nothing more than a stalling tactic.
Or so I thought.
“Dieee!!!”
“Aaargh?!”
Until I heard a woman's desperate scream and the shaman's shriek.
‘There was someone still alive?’ And inside this castle?
I rushed over and found the survivors—the women.
“Cloud?”
There they were: the female knight who had been beaten unconscious by Gis, and Adreana, the woman who mistakes me for her half-brother.
*
They had survived thanks to their party's rogue, Maera. With her keen senses, Maera had detected the commotion outside the prison and led them in an escape.
But even after escaping the prison, they had nowhere to go. The secret passage they had used to enter was blocked, and the castle grounds outside were swarming with orcs.
At least there were fewer orcs inside the castle.
So they had hidden in the duchess's room...
“Pant... pant...!”
An orc shaman burst through the door. The women tensed at the sight of him. They didn't know why he had rushed in so frantically, but it was clear they'd be in deep trouble if he found them.
—Please, just turn back.
They prayed with all their hearts, but the shaman seemed to have no intention of leaving. He scanned the room thoroughly, then grabbed the wardrobe door and pulled it open.
“Damn it...”
The female knight hiding inside the wardrobe bit her lip. The shaman was stunned by the unexpected sight. The female knight quickly drew her sword and stabbed him.
“Dieee!!!”
“Aaargh?!”
The shaman clutched his stabbed shoulder, writhing on the floor. Adreana, who had been hiding under the bed, sprang out and finished him off.
“Huu... huu... Damn it all...”
The female knight gritted her teeth.
She had tried so hard to survive for her mother, who was waiting for her back home...
‘Looks like surviving is out of the question.’
Soon, the orcs who heard the shaman's scream would come running.
‘I'll take at least one more of them with me.’ I'll drag you to the afterlife with me.
Steeling her resolve, the female knight glared into the strange mist. Through it, she could see a figure approaching, one too small to be an orc.
A moment later, the figure's owner emerged. It was a man the female knight recognized.
“Cloud?”
Adreana's eyes widened as she approached him.
“What are you doing here?”
“That's what I'd like to ask you.”
He glanced around, sighed at the sight of the shaman's corpse.
“He's dead.”
“Huh? Were we not supposed to kill him?”
“No, I just wanted to ask him something trivial. Don't worry about it. More importantly, you're safe?”
“Yeah, thanks to Maera. We were just killing time like usual when Maera—”
“I'll get the details later. The knights and orcs are fighting outside right now. I only stepped away for a moment, so I need to get back quickly.”
Cloud cut Adreana off. She didn't seem offended and asked in a surprised voice, “The knights? Does that mean Sir Gis is here too?”
“No, he didn't come. His wounds haven't healed yet.”
“Oh... I see...”
“Enough talk. Let's go.”
Cloud turned his back, left the room, and started walking down the corridor. The women followed him cautiously.
As they walked through the mist, the female knight spoke to Adreana.
“You were talking so familiarly with him. What's going on?”
“Huh? Oh... uh, I just happened to get a chance to talk to him. We got along better than I expected. That's all. Yep.”
“You talked with a man other than Sir Gis?”
“...What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. I was just curious...”
The moment they stepped out of the mist, the female knight was rendered speechless.
It wasn't just her; Adreana and the other two women were the same.
The scene that unfolded before them was that shocking.
“What are you doing? Not coming?”
The wide corridor floor was completely covered in the corpses of orcs. Cloud spoke, standing in a pool of blood that hadn't even dried yet.
“...Cloud. Did the knights come inside the castle too?”
“What are you talking about? I told you, the knights are outside fighting the orcs.”
“Then you came all this way by yourself?”
“Yeah.”
The four women looked down the corridor again. Orc corpses were piled high, but there wasn't a single human body in sight. This made his words all the more believable.
The female knight swallowed without realizing it.
‘What in the world is this man...?’
She knew full well how strong orc warriors were. They were as tough and brave as their physiques suggested. Even she, a member of the Hero's party, couldn't take on more than three orc warriors at once.
But the number of corpses strewn across the corridor far exceeded three.
It was only natural that she was at a loss for words.
“Not coming? I'm going alone, then.”
“Ah, no. We're coming!”
Adreana was the first to start hopping over the orc corpses to move forward. The other women followed her lead, and soon they were outside the castle.
In the distance, they could see the battlefield where knights, soldiers, and orcs were locked in a chaotic struggle.
“I'm heading back to the battlefield. What about you?” Cloud asked.
The women looked at each other and, without a word, nodded in unison.
“We're going too.”
“Alright, then.”
They charged into the fray.
.
.
.
.
.
“We will never surren—”
Slice.
The head of the orc, who had been screaming with the veins on his neck bulging, was lopped off. Just as he had shouted before he died, the orcs did not choose to surrender. They chose to fight to the death.
The orc warriors possessed strength greater than the knights, but the knights had a valiant hero to lead them, while the orcs did not.
That was what decided the outcome.
That day, the orcs were defeated, and the Harvest Day came to an end, leaving nothing but scars.
*
My head hurts.
Too many things happened at once.
First, when I returned to the army camp after the battle, I found Shedia injured.
I asked who did it, and she said she got hurt fighting the vampires who were trying to kill Leslie and Eri. There were five of them, but she let one get away.
I immediately went to confront the vampire noble, but he had already fled.
So I went to find Gis, and that bastard had skipped town too. It was pretty funny watching his party members sitting in the empty tent, denying reality with dead looks on their faces, muttering, "This can't be happening."
Oh, right. I heard Leslie and Eri got into a fight, too.
It looks like I'll have another headache later trying to calm down Duke Pabir, who's lost his mind.
But there was something else that was even more draining than everything I just listed.
“Mars... can't we start over...?”
Pink-haired Slut #2... Christina showed up and begged Mars on her knees.
‘I thought she'd at least last a year before coming back.’
Seriously, isn't this way too soon?