Chapter 39
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Thunderous Fragrance, Blue Star, Iron Cross (1)
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Chapter 39
October, year 1697 of the Origin Calendar.
The Allied Forces of Humanity sealed Mauna Loa in an all-out battle at the Red Mountains, repelling the demonic invasion.
The demonic offensive, centered around Mauna Loa, suffered a devastating blow and scattered.
At this time, Kaisen Alter Aradamanthel, following in the footsteps of Raminea Alter Aradamanthel, added his name to the list of those who had subjugated Mauna Loa.
Like his mother, it was Mauna Loa, the Lizard Monarch.
The victory that day was a triumph that decisively blunted the demonic offensive, but humanity's losses were also staggering.
So much so that they could not revel in such a legendary achievement.
The Second Front suffered 50% casualties and was half-destroyed.
The First and Third Fronts barely maintained their lines, each suffering casualties close to 30% of their total strength.
The mountain range's defense system, swept away by Mauna Loa, lost its facilities and collapsed.
This was but a fraction of the battle report Kaisen heard after regaining consciousness.
“Hah! I’ll give you that! A reason to hold your head so high. Of course, I only mean it a tiny, tiny bit!”
And those were the words Tval had offered, poking his own chest with a forefinger.
With heaps of corpses to handle and clear, there was no time for celebratory toasts or rest.
The entire First Front was deployed, and Kaisen joined the labor as soon as he awoke.
He had run into Tval, who had spouted those words before shouldering his dragon-bone spear and striding off into the distance.
“Don’t be surprised. For Tval, that’s incredibly high praise. The two of you might make a good team.”
Merne had said.
Members of the Iron Cross Knights were watching Tval, grinning and flipping gold coins to each other.
“That was incredible, that strike earlier.”
“To send Hai Kun Tark flying with a single blow was one thing, but to fight like that against a Demon! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”
“My whole body was trembling! Shouldn’t we be calling you a Demon Slayer now, not just an Uruk Slayer?”
Into these conversations.
Into the weary smiles blooming on the ground littered with the refuse of battle, Kaisen could not blend.
Perhaps because it felt like a betrayal of his former comrades.
“You’re a bit too quiet for the star of the victory, aren’t you?”
A white-haired beauty, who had appeared from somewhere, asked with a smile that moved only the corners of her lips.
Seira Alter Solang.
A fellow FakeWarrior from the Viyonggeomjeon, only her expression was smiling.
“I heard you raised quite a ruckus with that Demon. The rumors have been flying all the way here.”
“I didn’t do it alone.”
“Oh? If it were Isla, she would have run all over town claiming all the credit for herself. Aww, that would have been so cute.”
That did sound likely.
She would have done that and more.
“That’s Isla’s charm.”
“Oh my, look at this guy. You have feelings for Isla?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. FakeWarriors aren’t permitted to date or marry.”
“This guy, I just asked if you had feelings, and look how far you’ve taken it. You’ve probably already pictured your grandchildren in your head, haven’t you?”
“I have not.”
“Be honest. I won’t tell anyone. How many kids were you thinking of?”
“I wasn’t thinking about it.”
“Since you’re having them anyway, why not make a whole legion? You two could rebuild the Dragon Legion with your power. The so-called Isla Junior Legion! Thousands of kids who look just like Isla?!”
Thousands of Islas…?
That sounded too horrifying.
His eardrums would bleed daily, and wouldn’t it cause a global food shortage?
“It’d be unstoppable. They’d be so cute, even The Forgotten Kings would die the moment they awoke. Cause of death: cuteness overload.”
“Stop it. I’m not in the mood for jokes. Have you forgotten FakeWarriors are unmarried?”
As he said that, the smiles of his father and mother flashed through his mind, piercing the hole in his chest.
He had to shake his head quickly.
He had to drive out that memory, that pain that stabbed his heart like a blade.
“So, how is Isla? Did you see her after the battle? Is she alright?”
Changing the subject, Seira pouted as if disappointed.
“She’s so healthy it’s a problem. She was even mad that you stole the spotlight she was supposed to have.”
“Sounds like her.”
“Right? Ophelia was also secretly burning with a sense of rivalry toward you, but she ended up leaving first.”
A brief silence fell. Seira gave a polite salute over her shoulder and excused herself.
Roveris was approaching.
Glancing between Seira’s retreating back and Kaisen’s expression, Roveris asked.
“Are you afraid?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem afraid of forming bonds with others.”
“…”
“Kaisen, cherish your peers. They are the only companions and confidants in your destiny.”
“Is that so?”
“Lady Camilla also grew much darker after the ‘Black Summer,’ but she always remained close with Lady Sharon.”
Roveris’s insight was a sharp blade.
One that had been pierced into a boy’s heart in his youth, and had expanded to an unbearable size at the end of his childhood.
A blade that stabbed the hole in the center of his soul.
“My mother died protecting me. And the Bone Corps met the same end.”
“…”
“I’m afraid of getting close to anyone now. Because I know it only ends in pain.”
Roveris was in plain clothes.
Her squires and attendants had removed all of her resplendent rose-emblazoned plate armor.
Roveris took out a diary from her tunic.
“This is my diary. I record my life in it.”
“…?”
“Once, when my apprentice was dying, he tried so hard to tell me something in that short moment with his small mouth. He kept trying to speak to me in agony, but he died before he could.”
A quiet sorrow settled in Roveris’s eyes as she looked over the refuse of life scattered across the ground.
“I have a youngest sibling. Two or three years younger than you. Sixteen this year. Anyway, I keep writing down the things I want to say to them.”
A sibling…
A distant memory, the faint voice of his sister, Ratel, who always teased him like a younger brother, seemed to echo.
Ratel must have died that day, too. In the village that had turned to ruins, they couldn’t even recover her body.
“Why do you think I do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The more they know about me, the more my sibling will suffer after I die, right? That’s the look on your face. Don’t deny it.”
Camilla had thought so.
She had thought so more than anyone, which was likely why she had always tried to push Kaisen away with a brusque demeanor…
“Kaisen, this is what I think. Once you become a hero, even a fake one, our lives are no longer just our own.”
Where was Roveris looking, and what was she talking about?
Her way of speaking had an intellectual air that only one who possessed a scholar’s intellect could command.
Was it because she always read and always wrote?
“I don’t want to convey the magnitude of the despair I’ve experienced through this diary. I want to tell them how I overcame that despair. I pray that it can become a source of hope and a path for that child.”
“…!”
“I am a FakeWarrior. I cannot be a hero to everyone. But for my sibling alone, I want to be that kind of hero.”
As she said this, a clear smile graced Roveris’s lips.
“Didn’t Lady Camilla explain it to you? Though with her, it would have been through actions, not words.”
The conversation with Roveris ended there.
Let’s call it advice from a senior rather than a conversation. Perhaps it was a talk between a master and a disciple.
At the end of that short exchange, he couldn’t help but recall what Sharon Alter Tassalpo had said.
- Make it a habit to always think. About what a true hero is.
That train of thought aimlessly led to his master’s final footsteps.
Even if I’m a fake…
Because I am a hero…
That day, in that moment, to save everyone, you…
You were always…
Through such actions, were you not trying to teach me what it means to be a hero…?
He had to quickly hide a single drop of dew that had seeped out transparently into the mountain’s twilight from the corner of his eye.
The Third Bond,
Thunderous Fragrance, Blue Star, Iron Cross (1)
Three days after the remnants were mopped up, a memorial service was held.
All who had died were now etched as cornerstones of victory, under a single death, upon a single monument.
Mirngadia of the Blue Star led the service, mourning all the deaths with eloquent rhetoric.
“Where is Kaisen?”
Roveris, who was attending the service with the Iron Cross Knights, glanced around and asked.
“He didn’t come.”
“Where did he go?”
“Probably practicing his swordsmanship somewhere. Should I go get him?”
Did attending such places bring back old memories?
Of when the Bone Corps was annihilated…
Roveris quietly shook her head.
“Leave him be.”
At that moment, just as Merne had guessed, Kaisen was swinging his sword.
He liked this moment, wielding his mother’s sword in his left hand and Aradamanthel in his right.
Without thinking of anything.
Without being tormented by any memories.
Forgetting even the hole in his chest.
Because he could purely remember his mother and Camilla.
When he assumed a stance he had seen in his memory, his mother’s form overlapped with his own.
And then, Camilla’s voice, pointing out the flaws and weaknesses of that stance, echoed in his ears.
- Not like that, you idiot!
The sensation…
I have to make my body completely familiar with the sensation from when I subjugated Mauna Loa…
- Here, hold it like this. Yes, like that!
Back then, a large opening had appeared between sheathing and drawing his sword.
Mauna Loa, the incarnation of the Kings, had perfectly seen through that opening and relentlessly exploited it.
Without the help of the Iron Cross party, he would have been dead long ago.
‘It’s not enough, still far from enough…’
Having received the power of a Divine Dragon and a True Dragon, he couldn't remain so powerless forever.
‘How to use the Dragon Spirit, a power permitted for only about three minutes…’
Only for those three minutes.
He could train to push the Dragon Spirit to its absolute limit.
After three minutes, a mandatory rest period was enforced, so theoretically, he could only train twice a day.
‘This is my memorial service…’
In the face of so many deaths, bowing my head and shedding tears is meaningless.
As he had realized in his childhood when he couldn't even lift a piece of iron, there was no equivalent exchange for death in this world.
To build an altar with the swords of the enemy.
To consecrate the altar with the blood of the enemy.
To offer incense with the stench of the enemy’s corpse.
「Is that the memorial service befitting one who carries a sword? You seek to walk such a sorrowful path already.」
Suddenly, a brilliant sunlight.
It felt as though a golden wind had arrived, warmly caressing his body.
“You are…”
Beneath the worn straw hat, a keepsake of Yonghyeon Rain Ludwick, flowed elegantly wavy blond hair.
Setsunen of Thunderous Fragrance…
He immediately tried to kneel and show his respects, but the being twirled and spoke.
「Follow me for a moment.」
As Setsunen clasped her hands, a mirage of light appeared in the air.
A curtain of dimensions.
Setsunen gave a slight smile and walked into the curtain.
After a moment’s hesitation, he followed, and his body, which had been in a mountain fortress, was now standing on a citadel in the sky.
‘Dimensional travel…’
It was the southern tip of the Floating Fortress, and below it, the world unfolded with a breadth it could scarcely contain.
And there before him, a memorial monument rose, inscribed with the names of all who had died in the last battle.
Right at that monument, the dragon of Thunderous Fragrance, possessing a beauty not of this world, greeted Kaisen.
Setsunen always erected monuments to remember and mourn all who had died, grieving for them with all her heart.
Praying that their souls might find rest in the light.
「It has been a long time, Kaisen. I have prayed that the guidance of the light would always be with you on your path.」
Setsunen, who had been praying with her hands clasped before the monument, tilted back her worn straw hat and looked at Kaisen.
For what reason was it…
That in this place where only the cold winds of the upper atmosphere swirled, he felt as though the sunlight was warmly caressing his cheek?
「Do you not remember me?」
Remember?
The question pierced him, straightforward to the point of being bewildering.
“How could I not remember?”
During the retreat from <Aristapo>, had Setsunen not saved a million refugees from the Old Nobles? And in this battle, she had saved countless soldiers, including Kaisen himself.
「I knew you were Raminea’s kin from the moment I first saw you.」
Suddenly, Setsunen’s words and thoughts were transmitted directly into his mind.
This was the miracle that represented Setsunen. A power befitting the name Thunderous Fragrance. Consciousness Resonance.
Setsunen could read the thoughts of beings of equal or lesser stature and could also transmit her own.
「Ah, if only Raminea could have seen you, so grown up. She would have been truly happy.」
“Would she really have been?”
「I know that child well. I have watched over her since she was an infant.」
There was a hole in his heart.
A hole that could never be filled, nor ignored, for the rest of his life.
But why was it that, for the brief moment he heard Setsunen’s voice…
“…She would have been saddened to see me walk the path of the sword.”
For just a moment.
Just for a fleeting moment.
It felt as though a warm ray of sunlight was shining into that hole…
「Yes, that child would have felt that way. But that would not have been all.」
Everyone who met Setsunen came to like her. Some followed her with a devotion bordering on worship.
Not because of her radiant beauty, but because she cared for everyone’s heart with profound compassion and love.
Because she had the power to make others smile with happiness, with a purity as full as the sun.
「I wish to give you a gift to break that self-pity, but it would be better for you to see it yourself later.」
In her cross-patterned eyes, a mischievous playfulness and a mother’s gentleness coexisted.
“See it myself? What do you mean?”
Setsunen’s gaze swept over Kaisen lovingly, and a sincere smile touched her lips.
「See it for yourself in the days to come. I do not wish to say more.」
Setsunen’s gaze turned once more to the distant edge of the land.
The land beyond the reach of the mountains was covered in black volcanic ash, making it impossible to distinguish between sky and earth.
Beyond the Red Mountains, there was only ash, sand, and death.
It seemed like the fate of the world. A fate that would befall all the world if this mountain range could not be protected.
「In every era of turmoil, at least one hero has always emerged. Those born with the destiny to kill themselves to save the world. Whether that is coincidence, or a principle of creation…」
“…”
「600 years ago, there was Rista Alter Scherpang. 270 years ago, Yonghyeon Rain Ludwick. 150 years ago, Argen the Apostle of the Void. And 20 years ago, there was Raminea.」
Setsunen, who had been murmuring in a tone that sang a sorrowful dirge, turned her gaze back to Kaisen.
Was that returning gaze like the blade of destiny? Aradamanthel, slung across his back, cried out mournfully.
「Do you understand what I am saying now, child of miracles, born of Raminea’s love and chosen and raised by her disciple Camilla?」
“…I do not know.”
「It seems the time has come for you to walk the path they walked.」
There is a great difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Do you know this?
The perilous road of destiny you must walk, the weight of a life that even your mother gave up, is so cruel, and yet I cannot lighten that burden for you, and my heart aches…
Setsunen could not say those words.
“I will go.”
Because before the echo of her words could fade, Kaisen had lowered his gaze and replied.
Because on that very path, lies his burned and ruined hometown.
Because on that path, stands the acorn tree planted on his mother’s grave.
Overlapping that thought with the last words Camilla had left him.
“If that path is so painful, it is better that I go.”
Because I now…
have no treasures left in my life to lose.
Instead of someone who has such treasures, it would be better for me, who has nothing, to go…
「Ah…」
That heart.
Because the days that had forged such a heart at such a young age were so sad and pitiful.
Setsunen, reading that heart, pulled Kaisen into her arms and wept, her shoulders trembling.
Her tears, shed for the boy who could not cry, were endless.
Do you know… your mother loved bellflowers since she was a child…
The year you were born, when I went there, she held you in her arms and smiled so brightly…
I want to tell you all about what kind of child your mother was in her youth, all those many, many days…
But I am afraid that it would hurt your heart even more, and that you would finally break…