Chapter 249
Chapter 249
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 249
Gerard felt utterly wronged.
He was the one who had bought the bait, yet someone else had walked away with the prize....
And so he had begun to try again.
"Mlem."
He had pulled all-nighters without hesitation, even eating and sleeping on the spot, and his vigil had entered its third month.
Swoosh.
The night waves sounded almost like a lullaby.
Swoosh— CRAAASH!
"Huh?"
Gerard, hearing a wave unlike the usual rhythm, rubbed his eyes, rose from his spot, and looked toward the noise, brimming with anticipation.
CRAAASH!
-Oooooooh.
"Ah!"
A colossal mountain breached the sea.
Something was wrapped around one of its legs, and a mournful Siren's voice came from there.
"D-dammit!"
She had evidently been caught for some time; her normally clear voice had grown slightly hoarse.
It was the moment he had dreamed of, but the opponent was the problem.
Its torso alone looked roughly 15 mir long, and including its legs the sea demon known as the King Kraken stretched nearly 40 mir.
"Of all things, I had to hook a monster like this...."
Long ago it had terrorized the seas by sinking entire ships, but they said it was almost never seen anymore—and yet this demon of the sea was interfering with Gerard's romantic enterprise.
Shring.
Gerard's sword slid free in the moonlight.
"Fine... an opportunity I've waited over ten years for."
His fighting spirit began to boil.
"Hyaaaaah!"
Gerard's form shot toward the demon of the sea like the wind.
Swsh-swsh-swsh-swsh!
The seawater tried to hinder his advance—but who was he?
Was he not one of the Sword Masters known as the Ten Great Masters of the Continent?
"Tah!"
With a battle cry, Gerard's rising blade split the King Kraken's leg like lightning.
Slich! Crackle!
Where his sword had passed, the sound of squid sizzling rang out. When the first strike succeeded unexpectedly easily, a smile began to form at the corner of Gerard's mouth.
Splash!
"Pwah! Hey, you squid bastard! Put my lady down this instant!"
Gerard, who had hit the water and sent up a towering plume, shouted in high spirits as he leaped back up.
"Hyahhh!"
KWOOOAAAH!
Somehow it produced a terrifying sonic wave that pounded Gerard's ears. But his sword never stopped.
Crackle-crackle-crack!
His lightning-charged Aura rode the keen edge of his blade and spawned a thunderbolt in the dark night sky.
CRACK-BOOM!
Air and lightning met, roaring with a great thunderclap as they plunged into the King Kraken's body.
"Alright!"
Gerard's triumphant shout at landing the decisive blow was short-lived: ink shot out from the King Kraken's body and slammed hard into his torso.
SPLASH!
"Guaaaaaaah!"
Gerard let out a scream as thunderous as his war cry and went flying backward over twenty mir before crashing down.
Splash!
A massive spray erupted across the sea.
"Guh, this is crazy. I think I'm going numb...."
Gerard, drenched in ink, felt sensation slowly fading throughout his body.
He lifted his head with effort—and the King Kraken was slowly descending into the sea, letting out a long cry.
-Ooooh.
The Siren's mournful weeping....
Maybe from exhaustion, her voice sounded even weaker and hoarser than before.
-D-don't come....
"Guhh!"
A thought reached Gerard's mind. Even from such a distance, she had worried for Gerard more than for her own life.
Crackle.
"If I—"
Crackle-crackle!
"If I run away, I'm not Gerard!"
Craaackle-BOOM!
Lightning surged all over his body. The mana that normally stayed only on his sword now engulfed his entire form. Rage at his own weakness had brought him a new realization.
"Grrryaaaaah!"
Swsh-swsh-swsh-swsh!
Wringing out every last bit of his strength, Gerard flew across the sea, cleaving the waters.
WHOOSH!
At the same moment, the King Kraken's thick foreleg came flying at Gerard.
"Rend it!"
THUNK!
Gerard's blow cut through the King Kraken's foreleg, drove onward, and only ended after piercing through the torso itself.
"I... won."
Splash!
The King Kraken collapsed limply, and the exhausted Gerard plunged into the sea at the same instant.
'Damn, is this the end....'
He felt the cold seawater soaking into his entire body.
'Am I going to sink like this?'
Then a miracle happened to Gerard.
-Oooooooh!
The Siren's song rang out.
He felt his sinking body being embraced. Through his fading consciousness, a beautiful voice echoed like a dream.
-Your name?
'G-Gerard.'
-Gerard. Master of my soul. I shall be with you for eternity.
The beautiful voice rang through his mind.
From that day onward....
Just as today, it followed him around constantly.
"Dammit, I was out of my mind back then."
Gerard sighed.
They said it was one in a thousand.
One in a thousand what?
The probability that a Siren would give birth not to another Siren, but to a merman.
In short, Gerard had gone through a life-and-death ordeal—and rescued a male.
'Why the hell did the voice have to be so damn pretty....'
Thus Gerard sank into the regrets of his younger days.
* * *
The merman's name was Pale.
Three months had passed since he began following him around.
By now Gerard had given up and paid little mind whether Pale was at his side or not. Perhaps you could call it something like a shadow.
There Pale was, lounging just as idly at the feet of Gerard, who was lazing about himself.
"Commander-in-Chief!"
"Wh-what!"
At Fleet Commander Jang Bogo's voice as he came running out of breath, Gerard rubbed his sleep-heavy eyes and got up.
"Huff, huff—right now, about a hundred kilometers ahead of Dongseom, a large number of ships that appear to belong to the Holy Empire's fleet have been sighted!"
"What!"
At the report, Gerard sprang up in shock, gathered his outer clothes, and asked as he put them on.
"About how many?!"
"About five hundred or so warships, and roughly seven hundred vessels that look like a transport fleet...."
"Dammit, so the headcount is...."
Gerard started calculating as he hurried along. Whether frustrated by that sight, Bogo followed after him and shouted,
"Warships carry about 40 combat personnel excluding oarsmen, and the large transports about 120 excluding oarsmen, so roughly a hundred thousand!"
"What?"
As he ran, Gerard's jaw dropped at the scale. That many troops might not be enough to annihilate Gauri, but this was different from anything before.
Rather, he had to consider it fortunate.
"Fleet Commander! Commander-in-Chief!"
"What is it, Chunsam!"
Around the time they reached the docks, Chunsam's shout rang out.
"It's another fleet! Another fleet is closing in from the left front of Dongseom! Roughly 300 warships and 500 transports!"
"Goddammit! Fleet Commander Jang, relay it—call back everyone out at sea, and ready one fast cutter. I'm going after them."
"That's impossible!"
A sailor waved his arms at Gerard and shouted.
"I still have to do it!"
"Commander-in-Chief!"
More soldiers came running and called out to him. Gerard, who had suddenly become extremely busy, received reports while preparing to depart.
"Sob... the Black Crow and the Red Seagull have...."
"Report it properly!"
At Gerard's thunderous rebuke, the young naval soldier swallowed his tears and reported through his weeping.
"Sob—the Black Crow ran into an enemy picket fleet that was moving apart from the main force and was completely destroyed, and while fleeing, the Red Seagull was detected by an enemy Wizard's Familiar, then attacked by airborne Wizards until it burned and sank."
"Survivors—"
"N-none at all! Even the men who jumped into the sea were all killed under a hail of arrows. I alone survived and returned, clinging to a skiff to deliver this news. Waaah."
Seeing the young naval soldier covered in tears and snot as he burst out sobbing, Gerard felt his heart being torn apart.
"What do we do...."
"Take that soldier and let him rest."
"Looking at the enemy's formations, it seems they came thoroughly prepared. Putting the accounts together, if a Wizard's Familiar has even appeared, pursuing while staying concealed will be difficult. Would it not be better to... mobilize our full strength?"
"Dammit all!"
The previous communication had said to absolutely avoid contact with the enemy. A greater upheaval might unfold, they'd said....
"Prepare only one ship. I'll take a Turtle Ship, crew only oarsmen, and run three-shift pursuit. The captain is me."
"Are you insane!"
Jang Bogo hurled the profanity at Gerard.
"Even going with full numbers would barely be enough, and you're going alone to get yourself killed?! I'll go instead! What kind of joke is it for the Commander-in-Chief to set off on a mission where he might die!"
"Shut your mouth!"