Chapter 36
Chapter 36
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Even If I Die (1)
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"3rd Knight Order Captain, how dare you...!"
The great emperor of the Empire collapsed without leaving behind even a single sacred tale.
"I'm just Hyeon. Anyway..."
Hyeon spun his short dagger idly amid the ruins of the crumbled palace, glancing back and forth between the prince and princess who had lost consciousness from the princess's single strike and fallen into a deep sleep.
"What in the world is going on here?"
"No kidding. Now that we've exposed each other's true colors, how about a proper introduction? Who are you?"
Hyeon bowed his head in greeting, and when he lifted it again, he looked astonishingly younger.
"I'm just Hyeon. I've never been anything but Hyeon, not even once."
"A demon?"
Only then did the princess notice the thin, long pair of gray horns curving all the way back from the nape of his neck. The Demon King Hyeon continued.
"Of course I'm serving Neshef. What was it he called himself? Ah! The Demon King who leads dream demons and all sorts of devils. I also double as a knight order captain for the Sonain Empire."
Just when in her story had filthy demons wormed their way in?
Demon King? Then what about the Hero? A raw emotion flashed across the princess's face-clearly fury at those weaving a tale behind her back, excluding her.
"How long have you been deceiving me?"
"In a situation like this, shouldn't you be asking how long you've been deceiving the Empire?"
"Answer me!"
The princess, who could have anything she desired since birth, felt utter powerlessness for the first time.
Humiliation. But it wasn't arrogance that would yield to such a thing, so she narrowed her eyes sharply and leveled her sword. Hyeon responded as if amused by the sight. Of course, beyond the barrier the emperor had erected, the air was filled with the sounds of death, so no one else could hear their conversation.
"The power of the horns bestowed upon me is to alter truth into falsehood. And the name of the sword I inherited is Abon-the Sword of Lies, true to its name. Though it'll be known differently, of course. Anyway, the point is, it's arrogant to think you're the only one who's been manipulating the knight orders, Princess."
Among demons, the dream demons were said to resemble humans most closely, and he was their king, alongside the devils who wielded curses and profane spells. In other words, the Demon King of Lies, Hyeon, laid out all his deeds in a row.
"Leaking info about the Mir to the previous Hero, sending Red Blood Savages to the current Hero to give him clues and eventually lead them to meet, forging letters to bring the Saintess and his friend together, stirring up protests by posing as a wolf-human marked by demons, passing on the witch's curse to you, Princess, creating the explosion scrolls for those protests, altering imperial records after the disaster to justify your confinement, giving the Hero hints about the truth, and as the culmination of it all, slaying the emperor on the Great Demon King's orders-even keeping the Hero alive all this time to lead him to his Demon King. That was all me. Now, Princess, your turn to answer."
Hyeon gripped his sword between two fingers, aiming it like a noble slicing dessert during teatime.
"Do I have any reason to let you live right now?"
The Demon King of Lies approached slowly. But...
"Kuh! Kuhuk! Puhahaha!"
The princess, planning to exploit even this web of lies, merely cackled madly.
"Why? Why should you let me live?"
This time, the princess gripped her own sword between two fingers and asked.
"I get it now-your curse and my sword don't work on you. But even without cursing you, you've danced exactly to my tune."
"What does that mean?"
The princess stabbed her sword haphazardly into the emperor's corpse and continued her explanation.
"Because of your intentions, the Hero stayed by my side. And because you followed the Great Demon King's orders, that annoying emperor is dead. The dimwit collapsed over there will become the new emperor, sure-but that just makes it even easier for me to seize control of this empire. I'm so grateful, I could kiss you."
Only then did Hyeon realize it. The Saintess and Princess of the empire standing before him was madder than any demon he'd ever seen-and now held power no one could challenge.
"Ah, this is an unexpected windfall."
He had gained yet another unexpected boon.
Before, he'd managed to corrupt and record the fall of one of the Hero's friends who might catch the Great Demon King's eye, rising all the way to Demon King himself. And now, rather than the Great Demon King's vengeance, he simply needed to nurture the sorrow of this empire that he himself had crafted.
"Our plans with the witch might come to fruition sooner than expected."
Hyeon sheathed his sword and said,
"We're walking the same path."
"Whatever that path is, I'll trample it nobly, Demon King. Didn't you know? Demons can't kill me."
"Truly worthy of a Saintess blessed with divine power. Then I'll let you live."
"I'll graciously let you live too."
With the corpse between them, the two giggled, then gradually burst into louder laughter.
"Kuh! The Hero is mine now!"
"Hahaha, so this is the sorrow the witch spoke of!"
Madly so, even as death and sorrow descended upon all.
"Ah! Then we might need to tweak the plans a bit with the witch-our side's Saintess, that is. Mifplas might not die today after all. And as a hint about seducing the Hero: he's very close to the truth right now, but you can leave him be. It's not the real truth anyway-just one thread in the tale the witch and I wove. So just... pretend to be sad, maybe? Oh, and that guy from the 1st Knight Order might turn into another unexpected boon."
After laughing for a while and wiping away tears, the Demon King said cryptically.
"Whatever, he'll screw it up on his own anyway. Just list me as missing. Time for me to go. I'll eagerly await our next meeting."
"Do whatever. I have to at least pretend to be sad now, like you said."
Hyeon bowed once more in greeting, then said over his shoulder as he turned.
"No. Hide like a rat in the sewers, in the darkness. Sorrow has now descended upon the empire. The Great Demon King himself will be coming."
The Demon King waved and vanished into the shadows.
***
Meanwhile, in a blood-soaked battlefield unknown to them-or utterly unknowable.
Knights and demons lay slashed and torn everywhere, staining Sonain even redder.
"Don't give up. Hold the walls. If you're knights, cut down the enemy!"
Graveheim, felling one night goblin per clash, was exhausted too, but he refused to yield with desperate resolve. Blood soaked and crusted his armor, producing grotesque sounds with every movement-twisted, perilous sounds of desperation.
"Not yet. Sonain... hasn't fallen yet."
But he didn't know that the empire had just crumbled at the hands of his closest comrade and the princess they served.
'A wall reaching the heavens, toppling the world.'
And once more, he smashed the remnants of the night goblin legion into the earth.
Boom!
"Kuh! They keep moving even after falling!"
But the demons that plummeted clawed toward Graveheim alone, like beasts bereft of reason. In the end, a demon scaled the wall, reaching his position via a bridge of their own filthy, crumbling flesh. The colossal wall of demon corpses slowly enveloped him.
"I can't fall here!"
Just then, foreseeing the collision with hundreds of demons, he hurled himself from that height.
"You think I'll die like this?!"
Graveheim plummeted from the lofty wall. An enormous crater formed with a deafening roar, dust billowing thickly.
"Kuh, did my back break?"
When Graveheim rose again from the pit, enduring the pain and leaning on his sword, countless wolf-humans and night goblins had already surrounded him.
"Is this truly where I fall and die? But..."
Death, obvious and piercing through the corpse-wall, approached him.
"Even if I die..."
Yet Graveheim did not yield to death, to that abyss.
"I am a knight."
For some reason, in that instant, a knight long forgotten-not his son-came to mind. The liquor he'd offered, his laughter, felt so close.
Graveheim slipped sadly through the madly charging demons and let out a single laugh. Then, matching his convictions and his massive frame, he bellowed. He roared.
"I'll take you all with me! Yerutsa Rahav! Die and be gone, demons!"
Boom!
"My legion has fallen! Get out of my way!"
"I can't do that!"
Saint Holden, blocking Kirumin Jai-the queen of the night goblins-with only one usable arm, was a miracle just for standing.
"Damn it! Why won't you yield even as you die! Run!"
Too close, and he'd die. Too far, and he couldn't kill her. No-distance didn't matter; he couldn't beat the Demon King anyway and would die soon. Knowing all this, Saint still whipped up winds to cling tenaciously to Kirumin Jai.
Boom!
"Your holy city! That grand cathedral so beautiful-it's vanished without a trace! And now this empire will be erased from the continent too! Why!"
Whether from rage or not, Kirumin Jai hurled flames into Saint's winds, birthing a greater inferno storm that engulfed nearby night goblins, demons, and even the swift wolf-humans.
"And that's not all! The western reaches of the eastern continent have likely been obliterated by the Red Blood Savages already!"
The flames conjured by the Demon King loomed threateningly, like her voice.
Saint merely raised his sword toward his own death once more.