Chapter 43
Chapter 43
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: The Land Where Gods Revive, Infermer (1)
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*
-Creeeak...
The sanctuary began to collapse, its twisted hinges screeching deafeningly. Fernandez shoved the door open with great effort.
-Oh...
‘...Oh.’
It was a rare day when Fernandez and Feizashi’s sentiments aligned multiple times. Fernandez stared down the corridor, which looked like it had been fed through a grinder. The beautiful hallway, embossed with legends of heroes and gods, was gone.
“Hoo...”
At Fernandez’s side, the battered Melayda panted with her eyes narrowed to slits. And across from her, Kirhas panted in the same wretched state. Kirhas’s eyes widened as she spotted Fernandez.
“Ah, my benefactor! Benefactor! Hurry over here!!”
Kirhas shouted urgently. He’d been planning to cross anyway. He had no intention of being buried alongside Gaimeurn’s corpse.
The moment Fernandez stepped forward, Melayda’s voice held him back.
“I heard the sounds of fighting. Since you made it out, I take it His Majesty has passed?”
“Yeah.”
“...How did His Majesty meet his end?”
“Pathetic.”
Fernandez stated it without hesitation. Kirhas flapped her mouth in panic at his words.
‘Benefactor! Are you insane?’
Fernandez smirked as he read Kirhas’s lip movements. Melayda slowly sank to her knees. Blood seeped from her body, gradually soaking her uniform.
“Haa...”
“You’re not going to cut me down?”
“Why would I?”
Melayda looked up at Fernandez with eyes weary from exhaustion and grief. Her one remaining eye was parched.
“Ainad, that child might have been the last flame of our line. In the end, I couldn’t stop it. But you did, human Inquisitor.”
“You knew?”
“My name is Melayda Pin Gaimeurn. I merely passed on the fate that was originally mine to my little sister.”
Melayda spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Begone. If death is the price for our line’s sins, then so be it.”
With those final words, Melayda closed her eyes. A crunch echoed as the ship’s keel twisted. Collapse was imminent. Fernandez said nothing more and left the corridor with Kirhas.
‘Thank you.’
A faint voice seemed to whisper on the wind behind Fernandez.
*
Leiya was on the verge of madness. Her entire body was drenched in vampire blood. Even as she watched Gaimeurn’s flagship crumbling before her eyes, she couldn’t approach it.
“Out of my way!”
-Kyaaak!!
Another Demdron monster shattered under Leiya’s blade and fell. The battlefield mirrored the worst imaginable scenario. Vampires surging from the depths had prevented any meaningful front lines from forming.
Every ship was surrounded, battling monsters and vampires. All paths to King Gaimeurn’s flagship had long been severed.
Leiya’s position was no different.
-Slash.
Each time Leiya’s blade flashed in the moonlight, a monster became a corpse and plummeted into the dark sea.
-Splash!
-Kyaaaak!!
But for every monster that sank, at least three more monsters and vampires surged from the waves.
Slowly, the sky darkened. The vampires’ bat clouds devoured the starlight, blanketing the night.
-Boom!!
Far off, an elven warship exploded and began to sink. A ship captured by vampires had chosen self-destruction. Such scenes had been unfolding across the harbor for some time now.
-Rumble...
‘It’s over.’
The elven dynasty was finished. King Gaimeurn’s flagship slowly sank, kicking up massive waves.
On a distant deck, an enraged dragon thrashed about. The Wildprinces, who should have been on the front lines, fought the dragon and plummeted into the sea.
It was a heroic fall. The elves who dropped never resurfaced.
Leiya desperately hoped they had drowned. They were far too precious to be torn apart and devoured by the corpses beneath the waves.
-Clang!
Leiya’s blade was deflected by a black greatsword. Caught off guard by the counterattack, Leiya twisted her body to regain her stance and glared ahead.
A giant in massive black plate armor loomed over her. Red eyes gleamed fiercely from beneath his helm. Leiya quickly scanned her surroundings.
The line had broken. She had been the sole frontline on this ship, and the moment her momentum faltered, the confused elven navy easily yielded to the vampires’ assault.
-Clang! Clang!
“Hold! Hol... Aaaah!!!”
-Kyaaak!
Screams and clashing steel rang out across the ship. Leiya bit her lip and stared at the giant. Though no expression was visible under the helm, he seemed to mock her.
“Impressive swordsmanship, elven swordswoman. What is your name?”
“...Leiya Pin Gaimeurn.”
“A royal, then. A fitting match. I am Sigismund von Franzrit, heir to the Awl Grand Duke and supreme commander of the Franzrits.”
-Whoosh!
The giant, who had spoken jovially, slung his greatsword over his shoulder. With his abdomen fully exposed in that arrogant stance, he beckoned her with a finger.
“I shall show you the discipline of House Franzrit. Come.”
“...Absurd.”
Leiya steadied her breath. Wildprinces. The king’s riders. Among their strongest swordswomen, Melayda was unmatched. But in a real life-or-death duel, who would win?
Leiya had always wondered. Was her own skill truly beneath Melayda’s? Melayda was the king’s eyes toward the continent, the king’s will made manifest. The blade the king trusted most.
Half-elf. With the long experience gained from being able to tread the inland realms, Leiya dared to speculate. She was no lesser than Melayda.
-Click.
Leiya sheathed her blade. She crouched low, her hands touching her sword belt. Her fingertips lightly pressed the hilts as her eyes half-closed.
The three swords at her waist hummed as if trembling.
*
Avelesa’s massive form was violence incarnate. Even in her lifetime—back in King Dain’s era as Knight King—no one but the eight knights of the grand council could stop her rampage.
Thus, Avelesa even felt a twinge of guilt. She kept glancing at the passage leading belowdecks.
‘Is this really okay?’
Avelesa shoved yet another elven sailor off the deck, lost in thought. The elves’ losses were already beyond recovery. The vampires, meanwhile, remained full of vigor.
The elven navy, hailed as masters of the sea, put up a respectable fight even now. But with the flagship destroyed and most Wildprinces committed to stopping her, victory for the elves was a faint glimmer.
‘Which side winning would help that child more?’
Utterly ignorant of the material world’s current state or political landscape, Avelesa couldn’t judge if this situation was favorable or perilous.
-Thud!
Another elf flew through the air. Avelesa felt the initial power in her scale-covered muscles fading. She knew the mana sustaining her was draining away.
She hadn’t been granted much time to begin with. The vampires merely wanted her to wreck Gaimeurn’s flagship and disable it; Gaimeurn only needed her to reach his ship.
At most, half a day. Soon her flesh would scatter—even if Fernandez hadn’t drawn mana from her.
Fernandez.
Avelesa murmured the name and chuckled. A short but not unpleasant memory. The sky after two thousand years, the sea after two thousand years—it was still beautiful.
This was memory enough. She would return to the cold world of tombstones, eternally mourning those who departed before her. Among those stones would be one for Fernandez.
What to say. Avelesa bowed her head in thought. Fernandez’s stone would suit a night beach.
It was astonishing, novel—events that, after so long, made even her cold heart beat again. Like the ever-changing night sea. Like this eternally beautiful seascape.
“Stop!”
At the grand entrance to the flagship’s keep, Fernandez and Kirhas staggered into view. Fernandez shouted as he beheld Avelesa.
Avelesa laughed. She’d believed he’d succeed, but seeing it firsthand was beyond thrilling. To face King Gaimeurn alone and return alive.
[You’ve come?]
“This is enough, Avelesa.”
[A satisfying end?]
Fernandez looked around. He gazed at the elven fleet and vampire horde scattered chaotically below on the night sea. He nodded.
“Not the end yet. But satisfying enough.”
[Good.]
The Gaimeurn elven dynasty had lost naval supremacy. The Franzrits were vampires, so they couldn’t invade the human world by day. Half this harbor was effectively in human hands. Avelesa found the outcome tolerable.
Avelesa’s crimson scales slowly dispersed. It wasn’t collapsing rapidly yet, but the vitality from her initial manifestation was gone. Fernandez, more than anyone, precisely calculated her remaining time.
Meeting his gaze, Avelesa nodded. The boy was an exceptional mage; of course he knew.
“Are you satisfied?”
[Of course, Fernandez.]
Avelesa drew a deep breath.
[Do you know how desperately I longed to taste this air again? To behold this world once more...? And if it helped you and those young humans, I’ll close my eyes smiling.]
Just as in the moment I died. I always smile as I close my eyes. Avelesa’s blue eyes sparkled beautifully.
“Don’t be satisfied yet. Have you heard of the desert?”
[The place blanketed in sand to the horizon? I’ve heard of it.]
“The stars there twinkle red, blue, yellow. Or the jungle—do you know of it?”
[The warm land full of trees and forests. Sounds delightful.]
“Not regretful?”
At Fernandez’s words, Avelesa smiled wistfully.
[Cruel, Fernandez.]
“I am. You’ve sacrificed enough.”
Fernandez limped toward Avelesa. Her sacrifice was sufficient. In this moment, he hoped the end for one who had striven her best and sacrificed plenty wouldn’t be sad. As if that would redeem him too.
-This is mere self-consolation.
‘I know. I overidentified.’
Avelesa and he stood worlds apart. Fernandez was a villain consumed by regrets over his piled sins. Avelesa was noble, compassionate, good.
Did he admire her path? Probably not. Even reborn a thousand times, he couldn’t live like her—nobly, uprightly.
‘Then think of this: if this mighty dragon becomes your limb, what we could achieve.’
-...
Just another self-justification. To Feizashi, Fernandez seemed overly sentimental from fatigue and pain. An inevitable trait of embodied beings.
Feizashi fell silent. Fernandez regarded Avelesa.
“I wish you could see those sights.”
[As if such magic could happen.]
Fernandez smiled at Avelesa’s sullen words.
“No ‘magic-like’ events here.”
Teasing her hurt expression, Fernandez continued.
“There’s a mage present.”
Avelesa tilted her head at the glint in Fernandez’s embrace. Her eyes widened.
[That... is it what I think it is?]
“Yes. The reason King Gaimeurn needed you.”
A dragon’s flesh could hold divinity; a dragon’s soul bore it. Though now fading, woven of hell mana, her essence was draconic.
Fernandez clutched the elf god’s final remnant and smiled.
-Thump.
From the depths far below the waterline, the ‘spell to revive a god’ pulsed.