Chapter 7
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: The Empire's Shadow Has Returned
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"Uh... unfair..."
The guard captain's mouth hung open like his jaw had come unhinged. His eyes darted back and forth between the blazing enemy camp and my face, shaking like there was an earthquake going on inside his skull.
The hysterical rage he'd spewed moments ago—foaming at the mouth about releasing the prisoners—was completely gone. His answer to my question was more like a primal survival reflex.
"N-no, sir! Not unfair at all!! How could it be unfair?! It feels great!"
"Good. Glad to hear it."
I shrugged.
"I thought maybe you'd gone soft and started empathizing with the elves or something, crying over them."
"N-no way! It was a brilliant... tactic... utterly annihilating the enemy..."
The guard captain squeezed the words out like he was wringing a rag.
That's when urgent footsteps echoed from the stairs.
"Lord Kasian! We heard a massive explosion—what happened...!"
Rushing up onto the ramparts was Princess Elicia. She must've shaken off her escort knights, fearing I'd been hit by some spell.
But the moment she reached the parapet, her feet froze in place.
"Ah..."
The elven camp, once brimming with the vibrant energy of the green forest, had become a hellscape shrouded in crimson-black flames and acrid smoke.
A foul stench rode the wind up to the ramparts.
The smell of burning flesh pierced the air, mingled with the metallic tang of blood.
"What... in the world..."
Elicia clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went blank with shock. Slowly, her gaze shifted to me.
"Lord Kasian... did you... did you do this?"
"Yeah. My handiwork."
I answered casually as I hopped up to sit on the parapet.
"Told you I was going to teach them some manners."
"But... this is too much..."
"Too cruel? Inhumane?"
I cut her off.
"Elicia. Take a good look."
I pointed at the burning enemy lines.
"This is the sight my comrades and I saw for twenty years. All that chivalry and humane treatment you read about in books? That's fairy-tale stuff. Reality's a contest of who kills more efficiently. If you want to be Emperor in a situation like this, you need to get used to the blood."
"......"
Elicia had no comeback. The hem of her white dress fluttered in the wind, but that pure snow color felt utterly out of place amid the carnage.
She stared at the fiery inferno, fighting back dry heaves.
"Alright, time to wrap things up."
I hopped down. The hem of my black coat brushed the stone floor.
"Wrap up? What more is there to do out there? They're practically wiped out..."
"Wiped out? The head's still kicking."
Elves had high magic resistance. Especially commanders—they'd have protective artifacts, so they'd survive the blast.
Confirm the kill. Dead men tell no tales. But the half-dead always dream of revenge. You nip that in the bud.
That was my iron rule.
"You planning to head all the way out there? I'll open the gates and ready a horse! Escort troops too...!"
The guard captain shouted in a panic.
"Horse? You think I've got time to gallop over?"
I chuckled and adjusted my grip on the demon sword at my waist. Levatein was already humming with excitement, sensing its master's next move.
"Those markers I planted in them earlier. You think they were just bomb triggers?"
I closed my eyes and sensed the mana. The prisoners' bodies had burst apart, but the traces of my mana they'd scattered everywhere lingered.
Perfect coordinates.
A variant of the basic spell Blink. Normally range-limited, but this method expanded it massively.
"Be right back."
"Lord Kasian? Wait! Going there alone right now...!"
Flash!
Mana twisted space into a vortex. In a blink of blue light, my form vanished into the heart of the elven camp, amid smoke and blood.
Left on the ramparts were the guard captain, Elicia, and the soldiers frozen stiff. They looked shell-shocked, like a brutal storm had just ripped through.
"P-Princess...?"
The guard captain broke the silence from where he'd collapsed.
"Yes?"
"That man... he's really one of the great Heroes of Light who saved the Empire... right? The ones from the history books?"
His voice trembled. The heroes they'd learned about were noble paragons of justice and chivalry.
Not some demon lord turning prisoners into bombs and using their blood as teleport beacons.
"......"
The princess had no answer. She was just as confused. But one line from an evaluation written five hundred years ago floated into her mind.
[He was called a hero by us, but our enemies called him a calamity.]
Now she finally understood what it meant.
Eeeeeeeee...
A piercing ring echoed in Commander Elandr's ears.
"Gah... urk..."
He staggered to his feet. The world spun wildly. The home base that had rung with victory cheers moments ago was now literal hell.
"What... the hell..."
A nauseating stench assaulted his nose. Acrid smoke from burning tents mixed with the vile reek of his kin's blood—worse than any beast's musk—churning his guts.
Mangled corpses littered the ground everywhere. Some still clung to life, writhing and screaming in agony.
"Help... me..."
"My leg... my leeeeeg..."
Elandr couldn't believe it. The humans had sent back the prisoners. He'd taken it as a sign of surrender. Humans were weaklings who obsessed over honor.
But.
'A trap...?'
They'd turned the living prisoners into walking bombs? Was that something a mage who respected life would do? No—this was an atrocity that would make even demons recoil.
"You filthy insane bastards...!"
Elandr trembled with surging rage and terror.
Honorless, pride-less human scum! He'd return to the forest, report this horror to Her Majesty the Queen, and wipe the Empire off the map.
That's when it happened.
Crackle!
At the epicenter of the gore-soaked blast, amid the most gruesomely mangled pile of corpses, a blue flash erupted.
"Who's there!"
Elandr instinctively reached for his sword. But his hands shook so badly he couldn't even grip the hilt.
The smoke cleared, and a man stepped out. Black longcoat billowing, one hand holding a sword pulsing with ominous red light.
Everything around burned, but this man alone exuded an icy chill.
Step. Step.
With each footfall, he crushed elven corpses underfoot. He didn't even glance down.
"Ah, there you are."
The man's eyes locked onto Elandr.
"Y-you...!"
"Commander, right? Your fancy getup screams it. Everyone else in leather armor, but you're decked out in silk and mithril."
The man shook off his blade lightly as he approached. Elandr stumbled back. His legs wouldn't obey.
Terror. Primal terror crawled up his spine and hammered his brain. Instinct screamed: This man wasn't a knight. He was something wearing human skin.
"Stay back! What the hell are you?!"
"Me?"
The man halted. He smirked wickedly.
"Dunno what the kids call me these days. Used to have a bunch of nicknames back in the day."
He glanced at the charred forest banner behind Elandr and clicked his tongue.
"Anyway, you lot have fallen far, huh? Old-school elves weren't like this."
"What...?"
"Five hundred years ago, was it? What was that queen's name again? Right, Titania. The previous queen."
Elandr's eyes widened at the name from the man's lips. Titania. The wisest, most compassionate pacifist queen in elven history, who aided the Empire against the Demon King's army.
A legendary figure who'd passed three centuries ago.
"The Titania I remember,"
Kasian's gaze grew distant for a moment.
"She was terrified to even step on a flower. All about peace—sending letters to the Empire, dreaming of humans and elves holding hands and singing together. A total bleeding-heart pacifist. But you guys? Different story."
"Don't insult Her Majesty! A worm like you daring to speak of her noble will...!"
"You're the ones insulting her, you idiot."
Kasian's voice turned ice-cold.
"You know how thrilled she was when we took down the Demon King? Thought her descendants would live in peace, no more blood, grabbed my hand and my comrades' thanking us to death!"
"......!"
"But those descendants crawl out of the forest we protected, waving swords around? In my front yard? Thought humans were pushovers? Or bored of peace and itching for a beatdown? Titania'd be weeping in the afterlife seeing what you've become."
"Shut your mouth! Who the hell are you to spout such nonsense...!"
The man didn't answer. He closed in slowly. His shadow engulfed Elandr. In that instant, a long-forgotten memory flashed through Elandr's mind.
From his childhood, when he was still too young to even hold a bow. The horror stories the nursemaid told naughty elflings.
[Don't cry, little one. Keep it up and the Shadow will come for you.]
[He burns forests, snaps world tree branches, turns rivers to blood.]
[Never look toward the Empire. Demons live there.]
A nightmare he'd thought existed only in legends. The taboo the elven elders feared to even name.
[The Empire's Shadow]
Elandr's eyes shook like an earthquake. His gaze fixed on the man's waist, the demon sword humming red and vibrating.
That blade's shape—he'd seen it in ancient tomes.
"No way... you can't be... how...?"
His lips quivered.
"It's been five hundred years! Impossible for a human lifespan! The records say you vanished after the war...!"
"I did. Logged out."
The man uttered some incomprehensible word with a sly grin. He drew the demon sword and leveled it at Elandr's throat. The chill blade against his skin raised goosebumps.
"But your descendants dragged me back to this damn place."
"Ka... Kasian Revnant...!"
The name burst out like a scream. The legend, the nightmare from books, stood alive before him. History's calamity held a blade to his neck.
Kasian grinned wide, pleased by the terror-stricken face.
"Right. You remember my name. Good boy."
He lifted the sword slightly and whispered.
"Reward time—no pain. Say hi to Titania for me. Tell her the shitty descendants say sorry."
"W-wait...!"
"And grovel properly. 'Sorry for the worthless heirs.'"
Shlick.
The cleaving sound rang out.