Chapter 102
Chapter 102
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 102
Chapter Title: Balorun Tendal
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Balorun Tendal.
The bloodline of Baldoran Tendal, the ancestor chosen by the Great Lion of the Night.
He now stood atop Phileo Castle, gazing up at the sky.
'How did things end up like this?'
The Tendal family had originally been a venerable house that managed the city for generations.
But nothing in this world lasted forever.
During the era when invasions by external forces were at their peak,
the Tendal family poured excessive resources into the military to protect the city.
As a result, the citizens' livelihoods grew harsh, and public sentiment soured.
Seizing the opportunity, a crow named Phileo staged a coup.
This led to the downfall of the Tendal family.
Phileo proclaimed himself king and established the Phileo Kingdom in place of Havel City.
But the Phileo Kingdom was far from beneficial.
At first, they frequently employed weather magic to gain the people's support.
After all, the greatest grievance among the populace was the food requisitioned for military use.
Weather magic proved quite effective.
Crops flourished abundantly, and public sentiment rose accordingly.
'It was certainly good at the beginning.'
With external forces exhausted from invasions and ceasing their attacks,
and food plentiful to boot, there was little more to desire.
However, the price of abusing weather magic was severe.
Weather magic essentially borrowed future weather patterns.
Overuse led to years without a single drop of rain.
An unprecedented drought struck the Phileo Kingdom.
Yet the Phileo royal family remained utterly irresponsible.
Drunk on power, they had devolved into decadence.
As the value of water-creating mages skyrocketed,
the royals monopolized them for their own purposes.
In doing so, they extracted unprecedented profits before the mages could even be utilized.
'The people withered away while the nobles and royals grew fat.'
The Phileo Kingdom was rotting from the core.
Even in such circumstances, the Phileo royals refused to change.
They focused solely on filling their own bellies.
But they didn't realize one thing.
A throne seized by coup could be taken by another coup.
The people could no longer tolerate the Phileo royals' tyranny.
Rebel factions began forming in the shadows.
And ironically, at the center of those rebels
'was me.'
The former lord of Havel City,
Balorun Tendal, descendant of the founder Baldoran Tendal.
At first, Balorun actively led the rebels.
To reclaim his family's glory.
And to halt the Phileo royals' atrocities.
He set his own body ablaze and took up the sword.
But the ways of the world were never so simple.
As if to prove that the most underhanded played the dirtiest,
the Phileo royals continually bolstered their military forces.
The rebels alone could never succeed in a coup.
'That was when it happened.'
A group called Memento Mori approached them.
They claimed to be emissaries from the Lion of the Night and extended a hand.
Their forces were beyond imagination.
Though suspicious, the rebels were desperate for any ally, even a cat's paw.
In the end, Balorun joined hands with them.
On the day of the decisive battle,
Balorun allied with Memento Mori to launch the coup.
As they fought their way into the palace against the knights,
figures blocked their path.
"Damn, there sure are a lot of them. Hey, puppet, it's your turn."
A man covered in tattoos burst through the palace wall.
Paiod, a child of the Freyja tribe.
And beside him, a girl clutching a doll.
The Memento Mori members aiding the rebels grimaced in unison.
They knew the identity of the girl with the doll.
Merimoli.
She had been their comrade in Memento Mori.
"Merimoli, don't tell me..."
The Memento Mori members sensed her betrayal.
But it was already too late.
Instead of answering, Merimoli raised her doll high.
In that instant, puppets poured out from everywhere, swarming the Memento Mori members.
There were far too many puppets.
Not only Memento Mori, but even the rebels were pinned down, unable to advance.
"Merimoli betrayed us! Take her down!"
Balorun stared in bewilderment at their sudden infighting.
Time was of the essence right now.
There was no room for this.
Meanwhile,
palace knights and mages were heading their way.
Balorun's impatience grew.
"What are you doing? The coup against the Phileo royals comes before any internal squabbles!"
"Shut it, crow! Things are getting complicated enough as it is!"
A female mage from Memento Mori snapped at him.
Even for them, Merimoli's betrayal was unexpected.
"Over there! The rebels are there!"
"Get them all!"
With their feet bound, time kept slipping away.
Eventually, the Phileo royals' knights and mages arrived.
They were the kingdom's finest forces.
Prepared endlessly for this very day.
They had managed to lure them out of the palace somehow,
but now they had all returned.
Balorun's face drained of color.
It's over.
The rebels would all be captured and executed.
The bloodline of the founder, Baldoran, would end here.
'Is this the price of relying on outside forces instead of our own strength?'
Deep despair settled in his eyes.
"Balorun Tendal, these people have no connection to the Lion of the Night! If you seize the throne with their power, it will undermine the royal family's strength and legitimacy!"
The female mage who had been blocking him shouted at Balorun.
It seemed like nonsense from someone sabotaging the coup,
but it was a concern Balorun had harbored all along.
A throne regained through outside forces would be hollow.
Of course, no subordinates would follow under such false power.
He would become a puppet king.
He was swallowing a poisoned chalice.
'But if I'm to drink the chalice, I should at least gain the throne.'
Otherwise, the rebels faced nothing but execution.
"If you become king like this, it'll spell disaster for both you and us! The real Lord Havel might get furious and turn everything upside down!"
Havel?
Balorun showed confusion.
Havel was undoubtedly the name of the Lion of the Night.
The rebels had even named their faction after him.
Balorun couldn't fathom why that name was mentioned now.
But one fact dawned on him.
A magic circle appeared above the palace.
It was the grand magic circle of the kingdom's top mage.
Gazing up at it, Balorun was stunned.
The coup had failed.
That was when it happened.
A black lightning bolt struck before his eyes.
[I can resolve your dilemma.]
The voice was irresistibly sweet.
Hearing it, Balorun clutched at any straw.
'If you can turn this around, anything goes!'
He replied without thinking.
[Deal established.]
The voice in his mind snatched his consciousness in an instant.
An unsettling sensation swept through his body.
When he came to,
"Gah!"
He felt a ferocious headache, followed by cold sweat dripping down.
Whoosh―.
A wind from somewhere cooled his face.
The palace, chaotic with fighting moments ago,
now felt eerily quiet.
He slowly turned his head.
Something was gripped in his hand.
"Huh?"
He muttered in disbelief.
In his grasp was a familiar figure.
A severed head wearing a crown.
It was Phileo, the king he loathed.
He had died a gruesome death.
Balorun also realized his own condition.
His body was soaked in blood.
But it wasn't his blood.
The blood on him was clearly Phileo's.
Belatedly, Balorun looked forward.
In the devastated audience chamber,
hundreds of knights and mages lay slaughtered.
Balorun's eyes widened.
The surreal scene made him wonder if it was a dream.
Whoooosh!
But the wind blowing through the broken walls reminded him of reality once more.
'What is this...'
Balorun couldn't hide his bewilderment.
He had only blacked out briefly,
and suddenly he was drenched in blood with Phileo dead by his hand.
It defied all common sense.
And he recalled the voice from just before losing consciousness.
That ominous voice promising to solve his problems.
'Did I make a deal with a demon?'
The voice lingered, echoing in his mind.
Step, step―.
Before the collapsed wall of the audience chamber,
Balorun approached as if entranced.
Clatter―.
A stone under his foot tumbled down.
And beneath the setting sun,
countless citizens and rebels looked up at this place.
They spotted Balorun,
and then the head of Phileo in his grasp.
"Waaaaah!"
Cheers erupted from all directions.
At Balorun's feet lay the trampled flag of the Phileo Kingdom.
He must have stepped on it absentmindedly when the wall collapsed.
He had no idea what was happening,
but he knew what he had to do now.
He removed the cape from his back.
And tied it to his sword, raising it high.
His cape bore the flag symbolizing old Havel City.
As the cape fluttered in the wind,
the citizens' cheers grew even louder.
Thus, the long tyranny of the Phileo royals finally came to an end.
Yet Balorun, standing there, wore a dark expression.
As if a god had intervened,
he had done nothing, yet everything was resolved.
He felt like a marionette.
A tool.
'Damn it.'
More than relief, a surge of fury welled up.
His rebel comrades, united in the mission to topple the Phileo royals.
They had sacrificed countless lives to aid him in defeating the royals.
Some threw themselves into explosion magic to protect the rebels.
Some endured torture without spilling a word to safeguard the cause.
Some poured their entire fortunes into resisting the royals' tyranny.
For them, Balorun should have triumphed with his own hands to the end.
This felt like insulting them all.
'Am I...'
Grief nearly escaped his lips.
'Can I stand before my comrades and friends as their king?'
From the moment he borrowed outside power,
hadn't he negated all their efforts?
'Am I worthy of becoming king?'
Profound self-loathing gnawed at him.
That was when it happened.
Boom!
A earthquake rumbled beyond the kingdom's walls, accompanied by a deafening roar.
Tendal tribe citizens belatedly panicked, spreading their wings and taking to the sky.
Boom!
The quakes continued relentlessly.
Balorun felt a bad premonition.
Without time for self-recrimination, he hurriedly looked that way.
His eyes slowly widened.
There loomed a monster of enormous size.
Even craning his neck skyward, its form dwarfed the heavens.
It dangled dozens of long arms,
dragging legs between them.
The monster, emitting red glows from its eyes, resembled a mass of black shadow.
Its appearance wasn't particularly unique.
But its size was excessively colossal.
As it blocked the setting sun, the entire kingdom plunged into shadow.
It felt as if night had fallen in an instant.
"Kyaaah!"
"Monster! It's a monster!"
Citizens finally scattered in terror.
Balorun blankly stared up at the monster.
Just after blacking out and ending the battle for the throne,
now a monster appeared out of nowhere.
How could he even begin to explain this?
Belatedly, Balorun noticed the emblem carved on the monster's body.
It was unmistakably the Phileo Kingdom's flag.
"Magic! It's the magic giant created by the Phileo royals' forbidden spell!"
Someone below who recognized the giant shouted.
Hearing that, the citizens fled in even greater panic.
It was well-known that the Phileo royals focused on military might.
In particular, they had even recreated the spells of Adoras, the most vicious mage in history.
This giant was surely their secret weapon.
With their overseers—the Phileo royals—dead,
the monster advanced unchecked.
"Lord Balorun! You must evacuate immediately!"
After staring blankly at the magic giant for several seconds,
a rebel rushed up and shouted at him.
They'd be crushed if they didn't flee now.
Balorun turned to him.
Despite the man's urgent expression, Balorun let out a hollow laugh.
"...Flee? Me?"
He had just usurped the throne.
If he now fled the palace before a magic giant,
who would follow him as king?
Even if he had no memory of it, the deed was done.
Moreover, he had positioned himself as the rebels' leader to claim the throne.
Then a king must act as a king.
A spark finally returned to his eyes.
He was now a king of a nation.
Even if a hollow one.
A king must act kingly.
And protect his people.
"Juros, rally the forces again. Seek cooperation from any surviving royal knights and mages."
Juros, the rebel so named, widened his eyes.
He too hailed from a noble house that once served the royals.
Though fallen out of favor with the Phileo royals,
he had always wished for the kingdom's prosperity.
"The magic giant must be stopped by our Tendal Kingdom."
With the flag draped like a cape once more, Balorun's eyes shone brightly.
Seeing this, Juros clenched his fist and bowed respectfully.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
As he dashed off, Balorun spread his wings.
To evacuate the people and defend the kingdom against the magic giant.
In that instant, as his resolve blazed fiercely,
above the sky now filled with dark clouds,
light suddenly poured down upon him.
Spotlit in a moment, Balorun looked bewildered.
But soon he spotted someone descending through the parted clouds.
Silver hair near-white gleamed amid the cloudy light.
A noble figure descending with a single sword in hand.
His presence drew every gaze, even from the terrified citizens.
It was a sight straight out of legend.
Balorun's eyes widened upon seeing his hair and sword.
"C-Could it be the Lion of the Night, Lord Havel?"
As he recalled the figure passed down through Tendal generations and opened his mouth,
Havel, now before him, slowly smiled.
"Heir to the founder Baldoran Tendal, Balorun Tendal."
Mention of the founder Baldoran Tendal froze Balorun's body.
Thump thump thump!
His heart pounded wildly.
The legend handed down through Tendal generations.
It matched the current situation perfectly.
The Lion of the Night, Havel, always appeared when Tendal faced crisis.
And this was undoubtedly a crisis for the entire Tendal tribe.
"Just as your ancestors protected Tendal, fulfill your duty."
Havel handed him the Sword of the Stars.
Gazing at the starry sword gleaming like the Milky Way, Balorun absently took it.
Under the gaze of all the people,
Balorun raised the sword slowly.
The sparkling Sword of the Stars drew every eye.
"...Lord Balorun has been chosen by the Lion of the Night, Lord Havel!"
"Even the God of Night acknowledges our cause!"
"Glory to Tendal!"
In an instant, the rebels' morale soared.
They shouted as if they had become heroes from the tales.
Stories of the Lion of the Night were deeply ingrained among all crows.
In childhood,
bedtime stories told by mothers at every bedside.
The Lion of the Night, Havel.
It was a fairy tale and a dream for all.
And now,
everyone here had the chance to become characters in that fairy tale.
Of course their morale would boil over.
"Royal Knights, follow the new king!"
"Heirs of magical tradition! From this moment, we fight for the new king."
Even the royal knight commander and mage captain joined in.
For the crow Tendal tribe, Havel's existence held profound meaning.
This scene was proof enough of Balorun's legitimacy.
They knew the era had shifted from Phileo to Balorun.
As all united as one,
Havel's figure had vanished unnoticed.
It felt like a dream.
But the sword in Balorun's hand was real.
Balorun felt exhilarated.
As if he had become a legendary hero.
Amid that feeling, his mind calculated swiftly.
This was the moment to prove himself a king with the kingdom's legitimacy.
He could not squander the opportunity given by the Lion of the Night.
"All crows of Tendal."
Milky Way light poured from his sword, illuminating the palace.
"Protect Tendal."
And then, crow wings soared high into the sky.