47. God (God) (1)
47. God (God) (1)
Only after the overwhelming pressure that Bel had been crushing down on their bodies and heads evaporated did they notice the Lion Bronze Plate tossed on the ground.
The warriors trembled at the sight of the Lion Bronze Plate lying on the floor.
The warrior acting as captain of the guards bowed his head deeply.
"We have committed a discourtesy. Yuma-nim!"
The bronze plate bearing the lion emblem that proved the status of a Pyneton Great Warrior — there was only one person in all of Pyneton who carried this without being a Great Warrior.
The God of War, Yuma.
Yuma shook his head.
"Just let us inside."
The warriors bowed their heads.
A path opened.
Yuma's party strode into the temporary royal palace.
The brown-haired Great Warrior, Martes, bowed deeply at the waist the moment he saw Yuma's face.
"I behold Yuma-nim."
Still, perhaps because he had become the king of a nation, he did not kneel or prostrate himself.
Yuma thought that was only natural. The courtesies he had received until now had simply been overdone.
"Sit."
"Yes, Yuma-nim."
Martes slowly sat in the seat before Yuma.
The three women sat in a row beside Yuma.
"The White Night Clan, have you ever heard of them?"
Martes's eyes widened at the question.
"Yes, I remember Kamet-nim mentioning them a few years ago."
As expected, the dead Conqueror King had mentioned the White Night Clan.
Yuma gestured with his chin to his right, where Bel sat.
"This is a member of the White Night Clan."
Bel, without realizing it, raised her right hand.
"White Night Clan, Bel."
"Oh, a pleasure."
After expressing his pleasure, Martes tilted his head.
"Ah... wait, Kamet-nim definitely said the White Night Clan was bound by the sins their ancestors had thoughtlessly committed. Unless they killed a giant close to a demigod, they couldn't leave their territory...."
Yuma immediately resolved the question.
"I cleared that karmic debt for them."
"Then the White Night Clan is now free?"
"Yes, they are. So do not touch the Land of White Night. All members of the White Night Clan have become my subordinates, and."
Yuma paused his words for a moment, then drove the point home completely.
"The Land of White Night has become my land. So do not think of invading it."
It's my land now, so do not touch it.
At that assertion, Martes gulped.
Strictly speaking, Yuma was claiming as his own a territory that clearly lay within Pyneton's borders — the land of the White Night Clan.
But he felt no anger toward Yuma for that. Perhaps it was because he had already given up trying to understand this man within the bounds of common sense.
If Yuma had claimed it as territory of the Astes Empire, a faint sense of anger might have stirred, but when he claimed it as his personal land, it actually seemed more convincing.
"Understood. Our kingdom will not interfere in the slightest with the land of the White Night Clan."
It was a promise secured from Martes, now the king of Pyneton, so no one else in Pyneton would dare to even consider breaking it.
Yuma decided to ask one thing he had been curious about.
"Did the Conqueror King have no children?"
The Conqueror King's child.
Martes's expression hardened, uncharacteristically.
"His wife, Queen Helen, had a child late in life. The prince turned only 9 years old this year."
Martes continued with a self-deprecating smile.
"When the prince learned of the Conqueror King's death, he expressed a violent rage. It was mixed with bitter resentment. A truly vicious one."
Martes went on.
"But that rage will not be actualized. Queen Helen, to keep her son from being caught up in the struggle for the throne, renounced his claim to the throne and moved their residence to the south. Together with the prince."
Martes took a sip of tea from the table.
"In exchange for supporting me, I promised eternal safety for the former prince until the day he reaches adulthood."
The Conqueror King whom Yuma had killed had a son.
And that son could not help but harbor feelings of anger toward Yuma, who had killed his father. Yuma did not find that anger unpleasant.
He thought all the citizens of the barbarian nation Pyneton had the right to be angry at him. And among them, the one with the greatest right was undoubtedly his son.
Yuma had no intention of evading that anger.
They were people he had killed to survive. People he had killed for a purpose.
He felt no grand sense of guilt. No regret either. He simply had no intention of denying it.
That he had killed countless people.
That there was immeasurable suffering derived from those deaths.
"Let's go."
His business with Martes was done.
***
The next day.
They crossed the border of the barbarian nation Pyneton and returned to the Astes Empire.
From then on, they moved without delay.
The moment Yuma entered the waypoint city of Akan, he enlisted the help of the city's mayor, Gelmour, to notify the 1st Princess Brigitte.
He informed her that he had found the <Blue-haired Sword Saint>.
Then, without settling in Akan even for a moment, they immediately headed up to the capital.
Still, it would eat up at least a day's time.
The 1st Princess Brigitte rested her chin on the back of her right hand. Her left index finger tapped the desk.
Tok... Tok... Tok...
The stage was already set.
Even nobles of count rank and above had begun to side with her.
The reason was very simple.
It was because the existence she had taken as her right arm, Yuma, had already saved this empire multiple times.
It was because the nobles had all come to realize that he possessed a mighty force that no one in the current empire could stop.
The execution of the oracle had been started to sway the hearts of the nobles of the 'Schubertche faction', who had originally been far more dominant than her.
But even before the oracle was completed, the tide of power had shifted solely because of the existence known as Yuma.
The oracle.
Leaving the oracle aside, the tide of victory had already swung completely.
Brigitte was not purely pleased by this situation.
Her father, who still had not regained consciousness.
The current Emperor of the Astes Empire, Agares von Astes.
His words echoed in her mind.
-A great bloodline must have its own principles.
-Rather than listen to others, you must think for yourself. Judge for yourself.
-That is the duty of an emperor.
Those had been his habitual words.
And they were also words Brigitte liked.
Pushing through with one's own judgment, disregarding anyone else's orders.
Because that was something only the sovereign of a nation, the emperor, could do.
Of course, even that father might have followed it if it were an 'oracle'.
But she could not help but feel a sense of dissonance.
Yet, another thing was certain — all the fragments the oracle had shown had been assembled.
"...I must reach a conclusion."
A frontal breakthrough.
Brigitte sent a message to Schubertche, the only older brother to whom she still used formal speech and showed respect.
She told him that since Yuma had gathered the fragments of the oracle, they should witness the results together.
She also contacted Marquis Kairos, who could be considered the representative of the Astes Empire's noble faction.
And she summoned the duke who had also heard the oracle at the New Year's oracle.
She summoned the Imperial Protector, Duke Balzac, as well.
Even the witnesses who had been present at the New Year's oracle were all being gathered.
A conclusion.
That was how she intended to bring down the curtain on this struggle for the throne.
Since it was a promise begun by an oracle.
It would end with the completion of the oracle.
***
Yuma surveyed his three companions inside the magical train.
Their hair colors were all different. Their attire was different. One of them was even a different species.
But right now, they shared one thing in common.
They were all slumped against the train seats, lost in sleep.
'I managed to gather them somehow.'
<Daughter of the Witch who Fell into the Hell of the Black Flame Cave>.
<Blue-haired Sword Saint>.
He had gathered them as the oracle had prophesied.
Though he couldn't even pretend the journey had been smooth.
It wasn't that Yuma felt no unease at all.
The gods in the game <Loof Blood> were extremely capricious.
They would bestow enormous blessings upon the protagonist, the player, only to stab them in the back with a giant knife later.
He didn't know the disposition of the gods in this world yet, but if something went wrong.
'I'll have to stop it somehow.'
Yuma thought that as he watched his three subordinates, breathing softly in their sleep.
"We've arrived."
Yuma tapped their shoulders to wake them all.
"Hnng...!"
Hestia frantically wiped her drool with a handkerchief.
The capital of the Astes Empire, Barnok.
He had arrived once again at the place where he had first fallen into this world.
"We go straight to the Imperial Palace."
At Yuma's words, the three nodded without a word of complaint.
As they arrived in front of the 1st Princess Palace, the 1st Princess Brigitte came into view. Yuma, without hesitation, thrust Bel toward Brigitte.
"This is the Blue-haired Sword Saint. Probably."
Bel looked at Brigitte and bowed her head ambiguously.
"I'm... Bel, Your Highness the Princess."
Bel, who spoke in banmal to everyone except her father and the White Night Clan elders. And that Bel had used proper formal speech to the princess...!
"Well met."
Brigitte carefully embraced the shoulders of the <Blue-haired Sword Saint>, Bel.
Since she was someone who had come for her sake, affection naturally seeped in.
"Hello, Your Highness the Princess!"
Unlike that tactless cat swordswoman who started speaking in banmal after meeting her just once, Bel had at least the minimum amount of tact, and Yuma felt relieved inside.
The three subjects of the oracle had gathered in one place.
But no particular singularity occurred immediately.
"Yuma."
Brigitte was somewhat disappointed that she couldn't have a long conversation with Yuma, whom she hadn't seen in a while. But right now, she didn't have the leisure for a relaxed talk.
"We must go to the Astes Temple. People are waiting."
"People?"
"The Seat of Oracle. I've summoned all the members of the New Year's oracle."
"You intend to drive the nail in so that no one can say anything afterward."
At Yuma's words, the 1st Princess Brigitte nodded.
"Yes, that's right. I don't want to waste any more time on the struggle for the throne. No matter how mighty the empire is, if the emperor's seat remains vacant this long, who knows what might happen."
It was a valid point.
The 1st Princess Brigitte and Yuma's party stepped onto the teleport leading to the Astes Temple.
Pwaat-
A flash of light flickered before their eyes.
Yuma fixed his gaze on the gigantic white temple that appeared before him.
Its sacredness aside, the temple that came into view was indeed so massive it felt oppressive.
Brigitte and Yuma's party walked in.
Everyone except the two of them looked around the temple in every direction. In a daze.
They had brought Hestia too, even though she wasn't a subject of the oracle.
Since leaving her alone at the Princess Palace would have been awkward.
A familiar blond man entered Yuma's sight.
"It's been a while."
Yuma spoke as he looked at Schubertche the 1st Prince, who was staring intently at him with a stiff expression.
The protagonists of this occasion were clearly the 1st Princess Brigitte, along with Cloné and Bel.
But the person the 1st Prince Schubertche, Marquis Kairos, and Duke Balzac were all fixing their gazes on was Yuma.
"Oho, so you are that God of War... I have heard many stories."
Duke Balzac
The Empire's Protector, the Grand Sword Master.
The being known as the strongest in the empire alongside the 1st Seat of the Imperial Ten Seats.
"Is that so."
Balzac's gaze lingered on Yuma for a long while before shifting to Cloné and Bel, who were attached to Brigitte's side.
"So these two are the protagonists of the oracle... Oh, indeed."
Right after the duke finished speaking.
Bel's brow furrowed.
"What do you think you're doing, old man."
A blade-like pressure was flowing from each of their bodies.
Bel met the tangible pressure Balzac aimed at her with her own pressure.
Balzac slowly nodded his head. Then slowly let his pressure dissipate.
"Blue-haired Sword Saint... indeed, that title bestowed by the oracle suits you. You still look young, yet you have fully reached the level of Master. My apologies for playing a prank."
Balzac's eyes were filled with interest.
Right after the small disturbance.
Thud.
The sound of footsteps came from behind.
A saintess dressed in pure white vestments was walking out.
The saintess showed a bright smile and eye-smile at the same time.
"Everyone has arrived, I see."
It was the appearance of the deliverer of oracles, Saint Ermel.