Chapter 64
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 64
"Then… what must I do in return?" Lara asked.
Swallow, having nothing particular in mind, muttered, "Well, what would be good?" before replying.
"Keeping it simple is probably for the best, right?"
Seeing his casual reaction, Lara felt a wave of relief wash over her.
There’s no hostility.
Judging by their earlier conversation and his current demeanor, the enemy of these monsters wasn't humanity, but the undead. That much was obvious from the way they had killed the Lich. They harbored no ill will toward humans; in fact, for reasons she couldn't fathom, they seemed intent on saving Hastin.
And above all, hadn't he just offered to spare her life?
I'm alive. They're on our side.
Since they could communicate and seemed to possess some common sense, perhaps they weren't as terrifying as they first appeared. Or so she thought. Given his reaction, he didn't even seem to want anything specific. She was going to survive. Thank goodness.
Lara allowed herself to think that.
She harbored that illusion, if only for a fleeting moment.
A very brief moment.
Until the next words reached her ears.
"Right. You just have to offer everything."
Having made up his mind, Swallow replied.
"…Pardon me?"
Lara raised her head, wondering if she had misheard.
The whites of the monster's eyes were pitch black.
"Offer everything to us."
The atmosphere shifted in an instant.
His tone was no longer casual. Instead, a voice that felt as though it were draining every drop of blood from her body echoed in the chamber. The raspy, cracking sound bypassed her ears, imprinting itself directly onto her mind.
Only then did Lara realize.
Her assumptions had been fundamentally flawed from the very beginning. An absence of hostility did not equate to goodwill.
To the entities before her, humans were nothing more than insignificant insects.
*
The condition was so simple that it left absolutely no room for mercy.
He commanded her to report all information about any subjugation squads that arrived in Hastin. If they demanded humans, she was to hand them over. If they demanded goods, she was to procure them. If they ordered her to turn her blade against the Empire, she was to do so without hesitation.
He ordered Hastin to exist solely for them.
The moment she heard these terms, a sense of utter futility washed over her. It was absurd. Yet, the more she considered it, the more she realized it was an offer she could not refuse.
Do I… have to accept this?
If she rejected the offer, death was guaranteed. Whether she was slaughtered by these monsters or left to be torn apart by the undead, the end result was the same.
On the other hand, if she accepted, she would live.
Looking at it from another angle, she wasn't really losing anything.
Did the current Hastin possess any value? Did her position as Lord hold any worth? Since everything she had was already worthless, she had nothing left to lose.
The disparity between the two choices was so vast that even weighing them felt like a waste of time.
I have to beg for my life.
Her rational mind had reached its conclusion. All she had to do now was speak.
"I… I…"
Yet, strangely, the words caught in her throat. No matter how hard she tried, her lingering doubts and primal instincts choked her.
The monster, Swallow, who had just offered to spare her, was an ancient being said to have existed since the dawn of creation. He was the master of the Primordial Core, the dungeon feared as the strongest and most malevolent of the Great Evil Caves.
And he was the very Black Disaster that had descended upon Hastin three weeks ago.
If not for the Black Disaster, would her brother have ended his own life?
If her brother hadn't died, would she have ever become the Lord of Hastin?
If she weren't the Lord of Hastin, would she be in this situation?
No.
She looked up at Swallow once more. This was the reason she couldn't bring herself to beg this monster for her life. Before he could ever be her salvation, Swallow was the root of all her suffering.
"I…"
Her voice trailed off. She sensed Swallow's expression shift. It was a minute change, but the oppressive, dark aura that surged with it was dense enough to make her skin crawl.
"Sigh. Let's just deal with her, Boss."
"Leaving her be seems like a fine option as well. Her mental fortitude is quite strong, so her mind will likely remain perfectly clear even as she is being devoured."
The figures waiting behind Swallow chimed in one by one. Finding it tedious to wait any longer, Swallow sighed and scratched the back of his neck.
It was at that moment that the girl came running in.
* * *
Someone was running toward them.
Swallow had been growing irritated by the Lord's frustrating hesitation. He was about to take a long yawn, count to three in his head, and then obliterate the woman standing before him.
But then came the sound of footsteps, followed by ragged, desperate breathing.
"…"
Swallow turned his gaze toward the door. A brief question of how anyone could have reached this place amidst the chaos outside flashed through his mind, only to vanish just as quickly.
"Lord Swallow, what would you like to do?"
"Open it."
At Swallow's command, Melju waved her staff, and the magically sealed door swung open. The human who stumbled through was a familiar face.
Rosalina.
Yet, neither Swallow nor Patrick showed the slightest reaction upon seeing her.
The moment Rosalina entered, she collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Pushed to the absolute limit of her physical endurance, her entire body convulsed with every ragged breath she took.
Still, the speed at which her breathing stabilized was unnaturally fast. If she hadn't consumed a potion, her body would have collapsed long ago.
"Sir Knight, please help us!"
Rosalina cried out, pushing herself up from the floor and looking up at Swallow.
"The undead have breached the town! Everyone is fighting with everything they have, but it's not enough! We need help! Sir Knight, please, help us. Please! I beg of you!"
The girl's eyes were bloodshot, her skin covered in scrapes and bruises. Her trembling voice made her look utterly wretched.
"The Captain said he would wait for me… Sir Knight… please…"
Yet, despite her desperate pleas, no reassuring words came. As if mocking her expectations, there was only silence.
Rosalina slowly raised her hollow eyes.
Only then did she see it. Where a helmet should have been, there was a bare skull burning with blue light. Only then did she notice that the gaze of the knight in the shabby armor was chillingly cold.
"…Sir Knight?"
It felt as though time had frozen.
Rosalina rubbed her eyes. Her hands were filthy, but she didn't care. She had to be seeing things. She was certain that if she just rubbed her eyes and looked again, everything would return to normal.
The chilling gaze of the shabby knight. The bare skull resting above the armor. The burning blue light.
No matter how many times she blinked, the reality remained unchanged.
"…"
No. None of that mattered.
"Toth is dead."
It didn't matter if the knight she trusted looked at her with cold eyes.
"People are dying."
It didn't matter if he was a monster.
"The Captain is waiting! He's holding out with everything he has! You said you would save Hastin! Everyone… everyone is waiting for you…"
Pouring out her heart was the best Rosalina could do. But even her best yielded no response.
Yes. That was it.
Rosalina slumped helplessly onto the floor.
Only after Rosalina collapsed did Patrick look toward Swallow. The ancient monster, completely indifferent, merely turned his gaze away from the girl and let out a long yawn.
It was a sign to do as they pleased.
"Regrettably, the authority to decide this matter has just been handed over to another human," Patrick replied, understanding the meaning behind the yawn.
Rosalina, who had been staring blankly, snapped her head up at his words.
The authority was handed to a human? She scanned the room for another person, and her eyes landed on a blonde woman trembling in the corner. She was the only other human there.
The eyes of the two girls locked.
The raw despair swirling in Rosalina's gaze was more than Lara had the courage to face. Averting her eyes, Lara asked in a trembling voice, "Are the people… dying?"
"Come to think of it, quite a bit of time has passed. It should be about time they were wiped out. Lady Melju, could I ask a favor?"
"I was curious myself."
The moment she finished speaking, Melju raised her staff. After a brief incantation, a small, one-eyed familiar materialized above a magic circle. Bestowed with wings through an additional spell, the creature immediately soared out the window.
Several more spells were cast in quick succession.
With each completed incantation, the colorful mist gathering before Melju began to take a solid shape. By the time the glow of her staff faded, the mist had formed a clear projection screen.
The projection flickered with a distortion that looked like a tear in space. The images it displayed shifted rapidly, a dizzying blur of motion as the familiar, whose vision was synchronized with the screen, soared through the sky.
When the image finally stabilized, it revealed the humans below.
"Ah…"
A soft gasp of despair escaped Rosalina's dry lips.
The humans on the screen were being slaughtered.
There was no battle formation left. Though there were pockets of resistance here and there, it could hardly be called a fight. It was a one-sided massacre. Even in the few seconds Rosalina stared at the screen, wide-eyed, two more people screamed and fell.
"Ah… Ahhh…"
By a rough estimate, there were fewer than a hundred survivors. Meanwhile, the ranks of the undead had swollen to nearly a thousand, their pale, fresh flesh indicating they had only recently been turned.
Watching the scene, Patrick murmured in mild surprise, "To think a hundred are still alive."
"There are Ghouls as well," Melju noted.
"They stand absolutely no chance," Patrick added.
Even as they spoke, a fleeing man was impaled through the stomach. He coughed up a torrent of blood.
Though it was only a projection, it felt as if it were happening right before her eyes. Rosalina retched, but with nothing in her stomach, she could only dry heave.
The final image captured by the familiar before the feed cut was the terrified faces of the back-alley residents she had laughed and chatted with just hours ago.
"No…"
The last ember of hope died.
"No. No. You can't die, you can't die! Ah, ahhh, AAAAAHHH!"
The projection also cut off with her scream.
"Ah, the familiar has been discovered," Melju said, smacking her lips in disappointment. She reclaimed the mana from the spell and glanced down at Rosalina.
"Pitiful human."
Melju had seen humans break countless times. Among the subjugation squads that dared to challenge the Demon King Castle, those who survived until the end, surrounded by the corpses of their comrades, usually lost their minds in a similar fashion.
If you were to ask me if I enjoy such sights, the answer would certainly be yes, but…
The girl before her had gone far beyond that point, to the extent that it was actually unpleasant to watch. Her soul had been ground down so many times that there was nothing left of it.
"Kill them."
The girl's screaming stopped, replaced by a voice of freezing cold. Her tangled, chaotic emotions had fused and condensed into a single, pure feeling.
Hatred.
"Kill them all. Please… I beg of you. I'll give you my life, so please tear those undead to shreds. Trample them, butcher them. Sir Knight, you're strong. You're ridiculously strong! Why do you have all this power and do absolutely nothing with it…?"
Her hate-filled eyes slowly turned toward Lara. Once again, their gazes locked.
"You, the Lord…?"
"I, I…"
The emotion in the girl's eyes was pure contempt. The sin of failing to save her people belonged solely to the Lord. It was only natural that Lara had to bear the full weight of that scorn.
"Everyone is dying out there! What have you been doing?!"
"I was just…"
Just what?
Lara hung her head, crushed by the weight of the girl's hatred.
Deciding that even wasting breath on Lara was a luxury she couldn't afford, Rosalina stood up. Thanks to the lingering effects of the potion, her legs had stopped shaking, and her breathing had stabilized.
She marched straight toward Lara. Neither Swallow nor Patrick made any move to stop her. When her weak, heavy steps came to a halt, Rosalina bent down.
She picked up a sword.
It was the decorative sword Lara had brandished earlier to strike Uhomel.
"If even I don't stop them…"
Her voice was hollow.
Rosalina muttered to herself as she gripped the hilt.
Holding the sword in one hand, Rosalina cast a cold look at the Lord before turning to stagger out of the castle. It was then that the Lord finally managed to force the words past her choked throat.
"…Please."
"Save us…"
Rosalina froze. Swallow, his gaze fixed on Lara, narrowed his eyes.
"Save us. Everyone left in Hastin… please, save them."
It was a desperate plea, wrung from the very depths of her soul.
A heavy silence descended upon the room.
As they stood waiting for someone to make a move, Swallow took the first step forward.
Melju followed close on his heels. Patrick quietly stretched his limbs. A gust of wind blowing through the window fluttered the hem of the ancient monster's tattered robe.
"Let's go."
Now that he had his answer, there was no reason to delay any longer.