End of the War
Brifen, Imperial Knight Commander of the Caelon Empire, surveyed his surroundings. He checked the object nestled against his chest—a sacred relic handed down through the generations, believed to have been bestowed by the goddess Ruasta. It was a warp device that drew its power from the lives of many people as its energy source.
A considerable number of lives had already been fed into it. With only one or two more, he would be able to activate the relic.
If he could just activate it, the Emperor would be able to escape this place. No matter how monstrous the slaughterer before them might be, Brifen was certain the man would not be able to kill the Emperor while defying the power of a sacred relic as well.
This is the only way…
For Brifen, the Emperor dying here was the worst possible outcome. After all, Emperor Lukan had bound his own life to that of the imperial Saintess.
If Emperor Lukan died, the only Saintess capable of healing Brifen’s younger sister would die with him.
I can’t let that happen…
He had turned a blind eye to countless atrocities and committed them himself for one reason alone: his sister. So long as he could save her, he had told himself, he would do anything—and so he had piled sin upon sin without end.
If he gave up now, everything was over. That was why Brifen spoke quietly to the Emperor.
“Even if I die… if the escape succeeds, you must heal my sister. Without fail.”
“You have my word.”
Brifen raised his sword, resolve carved into his features. All he had to do was buy time. That was what he told himself.
“Are honor and revenge for your comrades more important than your own life? Why do something so inefficient?”
“Because I am a knight.”
After hearing Tekeloman’s reply, McDeras stepped back and thought.
A meaningless act. Others might call him a fool for it.
Knight Commander Tekeloman.
If he had simply stayed back, he could have claimed the life of the enemy before him with ease. And yet he was staking his own life on the pretext of avenging his comrades. Inefficient. Irrational. An unreasonable judgment. That was how McDeras, the Archmage, defined Tekeloman’s actions.
Anyone who did not know Tekeloman might have cursed him for a simpleton. McDeras himself half agreed.
Even so, he had not stopped the man who insisted on fighting. The reason was simple.
Sometimes an irrational decision becomes everything.
Tekeloman was a knight on the battlefield. He was one of the few men who actually practiced chivalry—and that was why he had spared Plimia. That was why he had not massacred civilians. And because of that, he had earned McDeras’s goodwill.
To be honest, the Fibron Empire was necessary for the cleanup after the war. That much was true.
But if he had judged the Fibron Empire useless even if it survived, he would have massacred both empires without a second thought. Yet he had watched Tekeloman spare an enemy Saintess, watched Princess Brainy act with decisive strength, watched the foolish knights of the Fibron Empire hurl themselves into traps and stake their lives to protect civilians—and he had made up his mind to help them.
He liked fools. He liked stupid people.
Even by cold calculation, their deaths had not been worthless. The dead of both the Fibron and Caelon Empires had strengthened the power of his massacre magic; the mountains of corpses were what made a battle this overwhelming possible in the first place.
If they had simply held out in siege without killing the enemy—if countless people had not died holding the border regions—the outcome might have been different.
He truly believed that.
And so he stepped back and watched Tekeloman’s fight.
Clang!
The sound of blades striking hard enough to shatter rang out. Brifen, Imperial Knight Commander of the Caelon Empire, calmly received Tekeloman’s assault.
He did more than simply block. Between attacks he wove false openings, drawing Tekeloman into confusion. After perhaps three exchanges, blood began to run down Tekeloman’s arm.
“Give up. You cannot defeat me.”
Brifen looked down at the man. Even after only a few exchanges, the gulf in skill was unmistakable.
If he had fought in earnest, he could have taken the man’s head in the first clash. He had not. He did not know why. For some reason, he simply did not want to cut the man’s throat.
“Again…”
Tekeloman raised his sword and charged once more. He abandoned all thought of defense and threw his whole body forward. His attack was completely dismantled.
Brifen simply caught the downward stroke and knocked it aside.
Tekeloman’s sword flew from his grip, and Brifen left a great gash across the man’s chest. Scarlet blood burst from the wound.
Tekeloman roared and lunged again. Once more his crude line was read and answered.
“Ghk…!”
Brifen turned his body without so much as a graze from Tekeloman’s blade and severed the man’s toes.
“No matter how many times you try, you will never reach me.”
The missing toes limited Tekeloman’s movement. Even so, the man limped forward without releasing his sword.
Why…?
Hesitation crept into the path of Brifen’s blade.
Tekeloman was an excellent swordsman, yet not so gifted that he could stand against a man called a Sword Master. The difference in ability was crushing. Brifen could have driven his sword through the man’s heart any number of times. He could have done it just now.
“Gah…!”
Tekeloman coughed blood with a blade buried in his abdomen. He was in agony, yet he still held his sword and staggered forward.
Watching him, Brifen finally shouted.
“Why?! Why do you keep fighting?! Why won’t you give up?! You cannot win! You of all people must feel the difference in skill better than anyone!”
Tekeloman did not answer.
From deep in Brifen’s chest an unpleasant feeling rose. Ignoring it, he lifted his sword and this time sliced the skin at Tekeloman’s neck—a dangerous place. A fraction off and the artery would have opened. Even so, Tekeloman counterattacked.
“Ugh…!”
This time Brifen took a shallow wound. He had never expected a counter from that state.
Damn it…
Looking into the man’s resolute eyes, Brifen finally understood the feeling twisting inside him.
He’s trying to die.
From the start, Tekeloman had offered no defense at all. Every movement focused solely on killing the enemy. He left his vitals open on purpose, and every time Brifen struck at them he pressed in as if determined to die together.
This was not a fight aimed at victory. It was a fight meant for both of them to die.
“Is that scrap of chivalry so important to you? You’ll be corrupted someday too. The day will come when the pride you believed you could always protect collapses—and only then will you understand. Chivalry was worthless from the start.”
At last Tekeloman spoke.
“I… I could not protect them with my own hands.”
He raised his sword and staggered toward Brifen. His body was too broken for anything but a slow walk, yet he advanced with everything he had—arm outstretched, blade aimed at Brifen.
“I… I failed to protect the knights who trusted me and followed me… and I alone survived.”
Even as he coughed blood, Tekeloman kept shouting, as if speaking to himself.
“I said I would die first—and then I drove my comrades into the jaws of death and lived alone. Like a cripple I accomplished nothing. Because I was weak, I could only watch the people who believed in me die. No matter how many battlefields I walked, in the end I was always the one left standing alone.”
Clang!
Tekeloman’s sword met Brifen’s. An instant later Brifen kicked him hard in the gut.
Gritting his teeth, Brifen shouted,
“Do not use me as the instrument of your suicide.”
“When a man fights to the end even after accepting death, we do not call it suicide. Knights call it a duel.”
Tekeloman snatched up the sword he had dropped and charged again. Slowly, elasticity returned to his sluggish arms; with a wordless howl he unleashed a merciless barrage upon Brifen.
“….”
The knights watching from behind fell silent. Tekeloman’s face was twisted with too much pain. He brought his sword down without mercy and roared,
“Why… why?! Why do you protect that cruel emperor?! A man who has taken countless lives! Who started a war without cause and still clings to life alone at the end—how can you follow him?! You are no different! You are not one whit different from that monstrous emperor!”
Tekeloman’s attacks were closer to screams than swordplay, but Brifen no longer intended to listen. He knocked the blade aside, disarmed the man, and drove his own sword straight into Tekeloman’s abdomen.
“Do not speak so freely of things you do not understand. I, too, have suffered more times than I can count.”
As Brifen whispered those words, Tekeloman leaned forward with the blade still buried in him and smashed his forehead into Brifen’s face.
“Kh…!”
They were pressed so close that the blow landed hard. That was all, however. Tekeloman’s arms and legs would no longer move.
Brifen walked over and looked down at him.
The man looked ready for life to leave him at any second. He had no strength left to counter. Breathing harshly, he muttered,
“I can… I can still fight…”
Brifen stared blankly for a moment, then withdrew his sword without swinging it again.
Even with a blade leveled at him, Tekeloman showed not the slightest fear. It was not that he did not fear death.
For the sake of the comrades who had fallen, doing nothing felt more sinful—so he could act this way. That was why, to the very last moment, he still gripped his sword and wore an expression so full of the conviction that he was right.
Brifen lowered his head and murmured to himself,
“I had forgotten. There was a time when I, too, carried the same heart as you.”
In silence he drew the sacred relic from his coat. If he killed Tekeloman and fed the remaining power into it, the relic would activate and transport the Emperor to safety. The power of a sacred relic was absolute. With it, the Emperor might successfully escape the slaughterer standing before them.
If the Emperor escaped, even a slender chance that Brifen’s younger sister might live would remain. The correct choice was to send Emperor Lukan away even if Brifen himself died here. He had committed every filthy act until now for his sister’s survival, after all.
Emperor Lukan shouted from behind.
“If the activation is ready, hand it to me at once! Brifen! Give it to me this instant!”
The Emperor’s desperate scream reached him. Brifen tossed the sacred relic toward him.
As Emperor Lukan stretched out his hand to catch it—
Thuck…
Brifen’s sword punched through the Emperor’s abdomen.
Blood flooded from the Emperor’s mouth in an instant. He staggered, still clinging viciously to his voice.
“Your… your sister will die. When my life ends, the imperial Saintess’s life will… vanish as well…”
Tears streaming, Brifen poured the words out at him.
“Be honest. You never intended to spare my sister even if the escape succeeded, did you?”
He cried out as if sobbing.
“The sister I held more precious than my own life was nothing more to you than a leash to yank me around, wasn’t she? I knew. I knew that no matter what I did, you would never fully heal her—that you would use me until I was no longer needed and then discard both of us. But I could not give up on her. I wanted to cling to even the smallest hope, so I obeyed every unreasonable demand. I no longer wish to commit any more sins. And so I will let go of this meaningless hope.”
Brifen’s voice rose like a scream. Emperor Lukan glared at him and muttered,
“Your sister will die… and you… will be recorded as a traitor. You will surely receive the divine punishment of the goddess Ruasta… Even in death… you will live in endless hell…”
Brifen answered with a look of pain.
“I am already living in hell.”
“You will… be remembered as a traitor… The citizens of the Caelon Empire will… record my death as a catastrophe… An empire that has lost its head will walk the road to ruin…”
To the very end Emperor Lukan thrashed and poured out curses. Looking at him, Brifen said,
“You are wrong.”
Without hesitation, unlike every previous stroke, the man poured Aura into his blade and swung.
“The citizens of the Caelon Empire will remember your death not as a catastrophe, but as a revolution.”
Shhk.
The Emperor’s head separated from his body.
It was a wretched end for a man who had called himself a god and believed he would live forever.
After confirming the Emperor’s death, Brifen finally set his sword down with a peaceful expression.
Then he turned to McDeras, opened his hands, and spoke.
“Please kill me.”
The man’s face looked far more at ease than before.