Chapter 152: The Lich (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 152: The Lich (2)
The Polichia Duchy.
A nation of rugged barbarians who worship strength.
The capital of this country, which seemed to have nothing but boundless vitality, lay in ruins.
The once-sturdy castle walls were shattered or melted, and the rubble of collapsed buildings was strewn everywhere.
It was a far cry from how it had been during the tournament.
While everyone stood in shock, Leslie suddenly whipped her horse and bolted ahead alone.
A few startled party members followed her.
I advanced with a few of the Platinum Knights who had come with us, surveying our surroundings.
"...There are no bodies."
One of the Platinum Knights muttered.
"Not none."
I pointed to a corpse I had just found. Its lower half was crushed beneath a pillar.
"The heavily damaged bodies are still here. But it's true that the number of corpses is extremely low."
There are two ways to interpret this: one hopeful, one grim.
The hopeful one is that people evacuated quickly, minimizing casualties. The grim one is that the bodies of the dead have joined the undead army.
'The latter is far more likely.'
The evidence is the extreme lack of human casualties compared to the structural damage.
I continued toward the direction Leslie had ridden, scanning the area. She was in the palace's rear courtyard, at the cemetery where the past Grand Dukes were buried.
As one might expect.
All the graves had been dug up.
Every single one, from the first Grand Duke to the one who had passed away relatively recently.
In other words, even the body of Leslie's father was gone.
"Ah... Father..."
Large teardrops rolled down Leslie's cheeks. She wept sorrowfully but didn't break into sobs.
After crying quietly, her expression slowly hardened into a cold mask of fury.
"I don't know who did this, but they will pay dearly for daring to mock the Grand Dukes of this duchy."
She mounted her horse and sharply turned its head. I asked her.
"Where are you going?"
"Surely there must be at least one survivor. I intend to find them and uncover the truth of what happened."
I turned my gaze to the Platinum Knights.
"Do you guys know anything? Any signals left by the knights who came ahead?"
"We've been looking the whole way here but haven't found anything."
"Means there might be some elsewhere. Alright, here's the plan. You Platinum Knights search for any signals the advance party might have left. We'll look for survivors."
"Understood."
The Platinum Knights turned their horses and set off. While they searched for the advance party's signal, the rest of us split up to look for any potential survivors.
'I feel like I've covered a lot of ground, but I haven't seen a single person.'
Even though I rode around shouting, no one responded.
'I'll check the public cemetery and then head back.'
The others might have found someone.
And so, the last place I checked was the public cemetery.
There, in a place as empty as the Grand Dukes' graveyard, a man was kneeling and weeping.
*
"It was a hell unlike any other."
said the man, who introduced himself as 'Jerry'.
He was the only survivor left inside the castle walls.
"It happened in the middle of the night. I was sleeping when the bells warning of an attack rang out across the city. Most people, including myself, thought it was just a monster horde and didn't think much of it. But we were wrong."
As if recalling a terrible memory, Jerry trembled, his face pale with terror.
"First, it was a dragon. Even with its rotting flesh, a dragon is still a dragon. The walls, which hadn't been breached by any monster for hundreds of years, melted away with a single breath."
He continued, still trembling.
"Actually, even though the gate melted, we were fine. The walls were high. But then some monster smashed through the weakened section."
"A monster?"
Jerry whipped his head around to meet my eyes.
"I-I don't know what to call it. It was just a monster. A monster made of all sorts of things stuck together—people, monsters, everything!"
"A Rag Golem."
"Is that what it's called? A Rag Golem? A-anyway, the moment that golem thing broke through the wall, everything went to hell. The undead poured in through the breach, and..."
Jerry clamped his mouth shut, as if he didn't even want to recall what happened next. As he fell silent at the most crucial part, Leslie frowned.
"Is that all? You're telling me that mere undead invaded and laid waste to the heart of the Polichia Duchy?"
"Mere...?"
Jerry's expression twisted.
As if his terrified face from moments ago had been a lie, he scowled and glared at Leslie.
"Did you just say 'mere'...? A dragon, that unknown monster you called a Rag Golem, and a never-ending horde of undead are 'mere' to you?"
"Yes, I did. 'Mere.' Undead or whatever they are, they're still just monsters. You can cut their muscles and break their bones. I find it hard to believe that the proud warriors of the Polichia Duchy were defeated by such things."
"What? Ah... right. The Princess... no, the Grand Duke wasn't here to see it."
Jerry scoffed. It was blatant mockery.
Before an incensed Leslie could shout, he continued.
"What good is cutting their flesh? It just reattaches. What good is breaking their bones? Every last shard of shattered bone just knits itself back together."
"...What did you say?"
"Exactly what I said. They don't die even when you kill them. Just as you said, Grand Duke, you can cut off their heads or shatter their skulls, but they just regenerate and come at you again. But what about us? When we die, we're just dead. And being just dead is the better outcome. Usually, when you die, you become one of them and stab your comrades in the back."
Jerry held up his gaunt arms.
"As you can see, I'm pathetically weak. A coward, too. I'm no warrior. Just a useless cripple who did odd jobs. And that's why I survived. I hid the moment it all started. Your 'proud warriors,' Grand Duke? They're all dead. And not just dead—they became undead and killed their own families. I saw it with my own two eyes."
"..."
"While those proud warriors were dying, while I was watching it happen, what were you doing, Grand Duke? What great deeds were you accomplishing that give you the right to lecture me?"
"..."
Leslie fell silent, her expression cold, betraying no anger, no sorrow, nothing.
I sighed and smacked Jerry on the back of the head.
"We rushed here as soon as we heard. I know it's hard, but that's enough."
"...Yes."
Jerry immediately deflated. An awkward silence followed. As he began to see his own actions with some objectivity, the color drained from Jerry's face.
"U-um..."
"I'm sorry."
Just as he was about to speak, Leslie apologized first. The Grand Duke bowed her head slightly to Jerry, a mere commoner.
"I let my personal feelings get the better of me and took it out on you. You've done nothing wrong."
"Ah... uh, yes. I'm fine."
He didn't look fine at all.
I was chuckling at how uncomfortable Jerry looked when it happened.
Clop-clop, clop-clop-
The sound of horse hooves approached from the distance.
"Hero! We've received a request for aid from a carrier pigeon sent by the advance party!"
The Platinum Knight delivered news of Frillite.
Frillite and twenty other Platinum Knights.
They had been defeated in battle against the undead army.
*
"Halt."
Frillite raised her palm.
Seeing the signal, the four Platinum Knights and a pair of young siblings stopped.
Hiding behind a tree, Frillite peeked out to survey the path ahead.
-Groooan...
Dozens of mindless undead were moving along the mountain path.
"This way is a bust, too."
She clicked her tongue and descended the slope to rejoin her group.
"Is this path blocked as well?"
"It is. Dozens of undead are searching the area."
At Frillite's reply, one of the Platinum Knights drew an X on a map. The map he held was already covered in them.
"Alex. Please guide us to the next route."
"There are no routes left, Lady Frillite. That was the last one."
"...I see."
Silence fell over the group.
No routes left.
The meaning was obvious.
In the heavy atmosphere, a Platinum Knight raised his hand.
"I'll stay behind."
"Yus, you bastard. If you stay, what about your mother? I'll stay."
"Your wife just had her second child, you want to make her a widow already? Forget it. If anyone's staying, it's me. I've left behind plenty of money, so I don't have to worry about my mother's retirement. So if you guys with families have any conscience, get the hell home."
Faced with Yus's firm, resolute words, the other knights couldn't argue.
"...I'll do my best to take care of your mother."
Such clichés were all they could offer.
Frillite placed a hand on Yus's shoulder.
"I'm sorry. This is all my fault."
"Not at all. How is this your fault, Hero? Honestly, it'd be weirder to expect a dragon to hide underground and shoot its breath from there. Those sneaky bastards. Guess they knew they couldn't win in a fair fight..."
Yus grumbled, then let out a short laugh.
"Just get proper revenge for me later. That's all I ask."
"Hey, you son of a bitch. You should be thinking about how to get back alive, not asking for revenge."
"Yeah. Cut the crap and come back alive. If you do, I'll introduce you to my sister, the one you're always begging me to set you up with."
The Platinum Knights chided him. But they all knew. The chances of him returning alive were slim. And he, the man himself, knew it best of all.
"Alright, alright. I'll survive, okay? Jeez, you guys won't even let me die in peace."
Despite it all, he forced a smile.
Frillite and the Platinum Knights climbed back up the slope and instantly reduced the dozens of undead on the mountain path to ashes.
Killing the undead would have surely alerted the mage controlling them.
Everyone except Yus, who was staying behind, had to leave quickly.
"Hero. It has been the greatest honor of my life to fight by your side."
"...The same is true for me. I am proud to have shared the battlefield with a knight such as you."
"Heh heh, that too is an honor."
With that short exchange, Frillite's party, minus Yus, began their escape once more.
-Yus Aner, the knight acknowledged by Frillite, is here! Come on, you skeletal bastards!
Yus's roar echoed from the distance.
The Platinum Knights let out small, pained smiles, but Frillite could not.
His death was entirely her fault.
She should have been the one in his place. She should have protected the survivors, even if it meant sacrificing herself.
That was what it meant to take responsibility.
But Frillite could not do that.
Because she was a daughter of the Ferdiac family and the Hero of the Empire.
The world would not permit her sacrifice.
And so, all she could do now was hate her own incompetence and grind her teeth in despair.