Chapter 243
Chapter 243
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 243
Chapter Title: The Emperor's Eye (2)
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After the war ended, Ravirata declared a total lockdown. A complete rejection of all outsiders.
In truth, it simply meant they would continue ruling the southern wasteland as they always had, but Ravirata had no other choice.
Ravirata was crumbling. The damage to her mana circuits could not be easily healed, even with Asit’s greatest holy relic.
[Are you leaving now?]
“Didn’t you order the expulsion of all foreigners?”
[You are not a foreigner. We would like to grant you a few days’ grace.]
Fernandez smiled at her words and gathered his clothes. Ravirata sat in the center of a complex magic circle. To construct the ritual for healing her body, he had used five of Odin’s runeglyphs.
-No matter how I think about it, it feels like the losses outweigh the gains.
‘Stop thinking about opportunity costs.’
Fernandez made a final adjustment to the relic on her lap and stood up.
[When will we meet again?]
“When the moment calls for it. Probably soon.”
That ended the conversation. Fernandez turned and left the palace.
As his footsteps echoed, every wraith standing sentinel in the palace knelt one by one, bowing their heads.
A grand farewell. Fernandez approached Kirhas Hearttaker, who waited at the palace entrance with two riderless horses. She led them to him and whispered quietly.
“Benefactor, no ghosts.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re dead corpses to begin with. That woman’s no good.”
“No need to answer that.”
Fernandez patted the horse’s nose to calm it and mounted the saddle.
Far off, a crowd was streaming out through the city gates. Beyond the wide-open massive gates, the beastmen tiger tribe’s army was visible.
Fernandez sneered.
* * *
Duke Erv’s forces were the first to leave Ivaris. Ravirata had personally opened the gates for them.
Only after their procession had fully departed could the imperial army exit the city.
It was one of the orders Fernandez had given Ravirata. Strictly adhere to the order of expulsion.
“Look at those beasts’ eyes. These ill-mannered mongrels dare to...”
The knights felt an indelible humiliation from the beastmen lined up along the ridge, looking down on them.
The beastmen said nothing, standing in formation as if encircling Ivaris, watching them silently.
Their eyes held the look of one gazing upon defeated remnants. And in truth, that’s all they were—defeated remnants relying on Duke Erv and Ravirata’s mercy.
Nearly half of the vanguard who had charged first had been buried under the walls, and the surviving forces were far from intact.
“Sir Everad. Sir Bernard approaches.”
A knight whispered softly. The beastmen tiger tribe’s army on the ridge parted in two, shaking the imperial banners. Against the backdrop of the fading sunset.
The knights welcomed Bernard’s troops like saviors. As the beastmen’s mocking gazes grew tense, the reassuring arrival of the rear guard—untouched by the siege—bolstered their spirits.
“Sir Everad. You’ve suffered greatly.”
“Sir Bernard. Thank you for coming yourself. Tend to the wounded. Damn those beastly scum. To think the ones who didn’t even fight would strut so arrogantly...”
Everad clicked his tongue and glared at the beastmen legions still looking down on them.
Outrageous. This war had started at their request for aid, yet they offered such cold disdain.
Then, Bernard gave a bitter smile. He wasn’t looking at Everad.
His gaze was farther back, toward the rear of the soldiers.
“Sir Bernard?”
Everad’s instincts rang alarm bells. He slowly placed his hand on his sword hilt and followed Bernard’s gaze.
Someone was approaching from the rear of the soldiers.
A familiar face.
Pernin. The great chieftain’s concubine. Had he fought in the battle...? Hearttaker walked beside him.
And beyond them. Through the wide-open city gates, wraiths knelt and bowed their heads. The monsters who had emotionlessly slaughtered his soldiers... were showing deference to that man, like obedient servants.
“What in the...”
Everad was a sharp man. Alarms blared wildly in his mind.
One who could sway the beastmen great chieftain, influence Duke Erv. And... command a wraith legion like limbs.
A monster that shouldn’t exist...
“Ha.”
Everad laughed hollowly. Duke Erv wasn’t stubbornly lucky or blessed with bizarre fate.
The world wasn’t thrashing about to make him a hero, to hand him power...
One man had made it so.
“Sir Bernard.”
“Sorry.”
“Betrayal... What price did you take to betray us?”
“......”
Bernard said nothing and stepped back. At his gesture, the imperial rear guard fanned out, forming ranks. A textbook assault phalanx.
From the ridge, the beastmen tiger tribe slowly advanced, encircling Everad’s forces.
“Going to thrash about?”
It was clearly a great distance. Yet as tension silenced the surroundings, his voice carried.
“Monster...”
“The Empire is truly a strange country.”
Fernandez spoke leisurely as he approached slowly. The soldiers dared not treat him as an enemy, with Kirhas at his side.
With fresh beastmen surrounding them from the previous battle’s untouched ranks, one word from the great chieftain meant they were all dead men.
“It maintains an astonishingly excellent system on rotten soil. Overrun with corrupt officials and degenerate nobles whose stench pierces everywhere, yet its solid structure and wealthy lands endure intact for a thousand years.”
-Clop, clop.
As his horse drew nearer, Everad felt suffocated.
“From the technological prowess of the eastern continent, administrative capabilities, to the vast accumulated lore—nothing escapes the Empire’s grasp. Beyond military and administration, the Empire has already dominated half the continent in culture. Now, if the Empire falls, will the civilization of the eastern Great Wasteland remain the same?”
The eastern Great Wasteland. In the vast region spanning the Empire, southern petty states, and eastern kingdom alliances, no nation escapes imperial influence.
The Empire succeeded in maintaining one solid system for a millennium. And the time piled upon that firm soil can be converted wholesale into the wisdom of civilized society.
The Empire’s central great library, untouched by war, holds records sufficient to rebuild all civilization within a century, even if it collapses entirely.
Clans of noble houses and imperial scholars possess information volumes incomparable to petty states lacking systematic academia.
The Empire’s industry and commerce have already formed a paradigm.
From small things like mana lamps to great ones like ironworking, shipbuilding, architecture and masonry, pharmacology and medicine.
The Empire’s fall means, at minimum, the fall of half the continent.
Thus, it’s strange. Crops cannot grow in decayed soil. Beyond mere compost, when the soil itself is poisoned, it should be impossible.
Yet as if divinely ordained, the Empire unearths dozens of astonishing talents per generation.
Is it the academic environment guaranteed by a solid system? Or some other factor?
Fernandez had always wondered.
Why don’t those bastards ever collapse? How do they steadfastly maintain their national structure despite nearly every external invasion?
Fernandez interpreted it as pride.
The imperial citizens’ pride in the Empire. The pride of those upholding the world’s greatest, oldest nation.
The instinctive pride of a great nation’s people whose banners have never fallen since founding.
“Monster...”
“Yes. You’re not stupid. Astonishing. For someone like you to emerge among these dullards. And for such a man to fall so low.”
Everad, knight commander of the Burning Citadel. Not someone he knew in his past life, but that made it all the more surprising. A figure unworthy of his past life’s notice had sensed his presence.
The information given to that man was minimal. He had deduced his identity from mere circumstance and inference.
Exceptional and cool-headed. Before exchanging three words, merely from Bernard’s expression and the atmosphere, he had pinpointed the mastermind behind it all.
“Too wasteful to kill.”
“......”
Everad did not reply. But the knights around him, shrinking in the tense air, chuckled awkwardly. The beasts seemed poised to charge moments ago, yet the great chieftain’s concubine spoke as if suddenly granting mercy.
Yet Everad still stared coldly at him.
“Truly a pity.”
“A duel.”
Everad forced the words out in a choked voice. He gripped his sword hilt as if to crush it, glaring at Fernandez.
His instincts refused to draw the blade. Though the central imperial knight orders had devolved into half noble hobby clubs, attaining commander required his effort and talent.
Thus, he instinctively knew.
That man intended to kill them all. Make the fallen elector a hero, offer the beastmen some gain? No, that was misjudgment.
That man’s eyes weren’t fixed on such trivialities.
From the start, he had woven his schemes solely toward the Empire’s fall. To him, everyone here was merely a chess piece.
Everad no longer saw the youth with gloomy eyes as young. He appeared as an aged, ruthless, mighty monster. A giant overlooking eras and nations.
But he couldn’t give up. It was a noble’s pride, a knight commander’s duty, and finally... as that man said, an imperial citizen’s pride.
The pride of imperial citizens standing against the monster seeking the Empire’s fall.
“I challenge you to a duel. Pernin of the Great Wasteland. I am Everad de Roang of the Burning Citadel.”
“A duel. What’s the stake?”
“If I win, spare my soldiers’ lives.”
“Haha...”
Fernandez slowly shook his head.
“Impressive.”
Everad had assumed from the start neither he nor his soldiers would survive. Yet he spoke thus... staking his life on a final gamble.
Even now, the bastard played his optimal move.
Watching him, Bernard’s eyes shifted. Rather than beg for mercy, Everad displayed dignity, shaming the betraying imperial soldiers.
Don’t you have any imperial pride?
A remarkable resolve, all the more praiseworthy as a gambit foreseen to end in death.
Bernard’s forces were not insignificant. If Bernard sided with Everad, the battle would turn chaotic. For now, it could be quietly handled by the beastmen... but antagonizing the entire imperial army risked complications.
For Fernandez, who needed rumors to craft a hero, it was the worst scenario. Everad had realized this and gambled now.
‘Why did a guy like this fade nameless in my past life?’
-Right? Not the type to be buried easily.
Fernandez chuckled briefly, nodded, and gripped his sword hilt.
“Truly impressive. Your judgment is correct. Bernard’s conflicted now.”
“......!!”
“So, Bernard. Watch closely and choose wisely.”
-Shing.
Fernandez drew his sword. At the same instant, Everad drew and raised his. His scheme was flawless, save one oversight.
Feeble pride always breaks under fear,
And Feizashi was a man versed in rule through terror.
-Thud thud thud thud!
The two horses charged at each other.
As the sunset bled red, beastmen and humans, defeated remnants and encircling forces—all watched.
-Slash.
The sword flashed in the sunset, tracing a clean arc. The hand gripping it sprayed blood into the air—
-Thunk.
The body bisected, head tumbling. Three strikes in one instant. No one could easily believe it was two-handed greatsword technique.
“Well, Bernard. Annihilate or preserve?”
“We pledge loyalty.”
With the sunset at his back casting shadows, Fernandez smiled. Arrows rained from behind him, hailing down on the defeated remnants’ heads.
* * *
Soon after, dire news reached the imperial center.
The imperial western expeditionary force—annihilated during war with Ravirata.
Surviving remnants failed to maintain legion structure, absorbed into Duke Erv’s legion.
Burning Citadel Knights, annihilated.
Levans Knight Squadron, annihilated.
Imperial Center 2nd Legion, annihilated.
This meant the capital now lacked armed forces beyond minimal security for the capital district—
“Your Majesty!! Your Majesty!! Ur, urgent message from... from the Kingdom of Dein...”
Vicente I of Dein Kingdom. The Knight King’s personal declaration of [Wandering War].
Eleven Round Table Knights.
Some three hundred fifty knights among twenty-five hundred cavalry charging toward the Empire’s east. No forces left to dispatch for eastern fortress defense.
Power always comes from the sword’s edge. The emperor’s decades of failed wars, and now this chain of events.
“Your Majesty... Reports that... Duke Villain... has begun marching on the capital...”
The elector princes began to rise.