Chapter 171
Chapter 171
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 171
Chapter Title: For Whom Does the Bag Open? (2)
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***
“This crazy commie bastard…”
The Saintess drew her revolver and aimed it at Bikov’s head.
“You’re going to launch a nuke at the Imperial Capital? Huh? Do you even know how many people are gathered there right now?”
The cold barrel pressed hard against Bikov’s blood-soaked forehead.
Even with the blessed bullet poised to blow his head off at any moment, he answered flatly.
“Of course I know. How many oppressors are gathered there… I know full well.”
“...”
“The Emperor, kings, mages, knights… The trash of the era left behind by America, terrified of the proletarian revolution. Their deaths will be the kindling to spread the flames of revolution across this land once more.”
The Saintess ground her teeth. The eye hidden behind her eyepatch trembled.
“What about the civilians? The innocent people gathered in the capital—they’re proletarians too! Is killing proletarians a revolution?”
Bikov fell silent for a moment. Was it regret? Remorse? No, it wasn’t.
He lifted his head and met the Saintess’s gaze squarely.
“…Truly I tell you: unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Not from the scriptures of the Five Gods, but a verse from Earth’s Bible.
Through it, Bikov declared that civilians were the wheat that must die—the sacrifices necessary for the greater cause.
“This commie bastard dares… quote the Bible?”
Having studied the holy books of every religion since childhood, the Saintess instantly grasped his true intent.
She bit her lip in disbelief. Justifying civilian massacres with the Bible?
And not just anyone—a commie? When Marx himself had called religion the opium of the people!
But regardless of the Saintess’s fury, Bikov smiled faintly.
“Even commies need their opium now and then. Don’t you think, Saintess?”
“...”
She could hold back no longer and applied pressure to the trigger. She intended to blow his head clean off.
At that moment, the entire armory shook as if struck by an earthquake—ku-gung!—and the largest monitor in the control room lit up.
The group whipped their heads around in unison, looking first at Yeomyeong’s back, then at the control room’s wall monitor beyond.
On the massive, half-cracked wall monitor appeared the image of a missile standing tall on its launchpad.
***
The underground armory’s rear path that Yeomyeong and the others had passed through earlier.
Ku-gung…!
Sensing the vibration rising from below, the South Palace Lord and Ekaterina frowned simultaneously.
“Too late. Far too late.”
Realizing the tremor was from a missile launch, the South Palace Lord let out a deep sigh. He gripped his cane tightly to keep from stumbling.
“Your Majesty… I beg your forgiveness. This humble servant has failed. Due to my negligence, Your Majesty has lost the chance to escape this vile constitutional monarchy…”
The elderly Palace Lord trembled as if on the verge of tears, but Ekaterina, standing beside him, reacted indifferently.
And understandably so—the Empire’s Emperor had no intention whatsoever of breaking free from America’s influence, not even a speck.
Age aside, that’s just how the man was.
He’d offered elixirs to Stalin for his own safety and betrayed the Border White in the back.
Someone like that confronting America over a few nukes? It’d be a miracle if he didn’t sell them off to the U.S. first.
Of course, Ekaterina didn’t voice this. The reactionary still had his uses.
“Save your confession for later. It’s not a failure yet.”
“…What do you mean ‘not yet’? The missile has already launched!”
Ekaterina wagged her finger.
“You think a place this massive has only one missile? The one just fired… it’s probably a test or spare for launch confirmation.”
“A spare missile? Hah, do you take me for a fool who can’t tell hope from delusion?”
Not one to eat his years out of his ass, the South Palace Lord refused to play along. Swallowing her irritation, Ekaterina continued.
“Don’t swallow despair just because you hate hope. Think about it. Why launch now?”
“…To self-destruct?”
“You watch too many Earth movies? Once a nuke launches, that’s it. No self-destruct button.”
“...”
Ekaterina sighed and stepped forward. The South Palace Lord pondered briefly before following and asking,
“…What are the odds?”
“Depends on how exhausted the rookies are from fighting the dragon and how brutal the clash with the East Palace Lord was. If they took each other out, we win big. If one side crushed the other outright…”
“If they won?”
“Well, it gets tricky.”
Hearing this, the Palace Lord prayed they’d mutually destroyed each other.
May that eastern vermin and the brat Cheon Yeomyeong both end up crippled!
But the sight awaiting them at the corridor’s end shattered his hopes entirely.
The East Palace Lord reduced to a bloody pulp, Ratkin pacing anxiously outside the main gate, and Yeomyeong’s group looking unscathed.
“…Tch, East Palace Lord. More incompetent than I thought.”
Ekaterina muttered, biting her thumb hard enough to draw blood streaming down.
She swung her thumb through the air, and the falling blood defied gravity, floating upward instead.
The blood spread wide, forming a translucent membrane.
“What’s this?”
“Space-sealing magic. Perfect for sniping.”
As she said, no mana or presence could be felt beyond the membrane. An unusual spell even the elderly South Palace Lord had never seen.
Ekaterina drew more blood and continued.
“We’re going in hard.”
Watching the blood form into five massive lances fit for siege weapons, the South Palace Lord replied,
“…How?”
“Snipe them. Give back as good as we got.”
Her gaze fixed on the eyepatched priest. A grudge stretching back from Manchuria.
“The Saintess won’t like it, but since things are tangled… let’s start by dealing with the one who’s been a thorn in my side.”
***
Orse Tabul, sweeping up the remaining undead and Ratkin in the city from the air, furrowed his brow.
A massive vibration rose from underground.
Just an earthquake? No, impossible. His draconic senses screamed warnings without cease.
What the hell was going on?
Thinking of Yeomyeong and his party who’d gone below, the red dragon flapped toward the source.
His enormous form cleaved the air for a moment.
He reached the airspace above a small landfill on the city outskirts.
Discarded building materials, waste, even animal carcasses piled high.
This foul-smelling dump was the vibration’s origin.
Were undead still twitching beneath the garbage?
The very moment the dragon harbored that suspicion.
A circular hatch hidden in the landfill floor burst open, revealing a massive silo beneath.
And inside that silo…
[A missile? Why here of all places…?]
Before the dragon could finish, the missile launched.
A deafening roar filled the silo with flames.
The missile rocketed skyward amid the inferno.
The dragon sensed doom and unleashed magic, but the accelerating missile barely slipped its range.
The instant the nuclear missile launched toward the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
***
Every citizen of Dreytérial could clearly see the missile streaking into the sky.
But few in the city knew what a missile was, and only one grasped it was a nuke.
The one-armed elf, Pinel.
“…Fuck.”
That was the elf’s first word upon seeing it.
Ballagu, firing at zombies swarming the inn, raised a brow at the taciturn elf swearing.
“Pinel, do you know what that is?”
“…All too well.”
Pinel clenched his remaining fist, took a short breath, and voiced the worst possibility.
“That’s a nuclear missile. If it launched… means Yeomyeong failed.”
Yeomyeong clearly wasn’t dead yet. World Tree mana still pulsed from underground.
So they couldn’t stop the launch…
Pinel scanned the inn’s survivors, then addressed the orc striving to stay calm—the orc wearing the South Palace Lord’s face.
“Ballagu, things have gone south. Execute the next plan immediately.”
“The next plan…?”
“Use your face to seize the South Palace Lord’s palace.”
“...”
Ballagu swallowed. Yeomyeong had mentioned it, sure.
But that was only if they couldn’t hold the inn. They’d defended it brilliantly and still were.
Heading to the South Palace Lord’s palace now… he couldn’t be sure the kids and women could keep up.
Ballagu unclenched his fist and glanced out the window.
A kid shoving zombies off the barricade, a woman firing her gun, even a prostitute desperately hauling the wounded.
No frail souls there needing his help.
Just the city’s citizens fighting tooth and nail to survive, like him.
Realizing something, Ballagu relaxed his fist and asked Pinel,
“…Will this help Yeomyeong and Miss Seti?”
“Far more than hunkering down in this inn.”
“Then… yes, we’ll proceed. I’ll tell Joseph and the others to prepare to move.”
***
Seti stared blankly at the control room wall monitor.
The instant the missile left the pad, a simplified map and timer appeared.
4:58
Roughly five minutes—the time for the missile to reach the Imperial Capital.
“No…”
Seeing it, the Saintess dropped to her knees. She trembled wordlessly, likely in tears.
Her sister wasn’t much different. Neti stared at the monitor in dazed shock.
Yeomyeong? He roamed the control room, searching for a way. True to form, refusing to give up till the end.
And Seti herself…
She felt nothing. Or rather, pretended to.
Someone among them had to stay calm.
She racked her brain desperately. The catastrophe of the nuke, and the future it would unleash…
The moment the capital blew, the remaining nukes here would paint a target on the whole world.
Especially America, the sole superpower—it wouldn’t let a mad communist who touched nukes live.
In the end, Yeomyeong would abandon the nukes here and flee the city.
As Seti pondered the political vacuum from the Empire’s fall or shifting global relations…
She swallowed a surge of emotion.
Hundreds of thousands on the brink of death, and here she was, calculating gains and losses.
But what could she do? She wasn’t the Saintess, nor a hero.
Just a tiny human doing what she could.
She forced down her feelings and comforted herself. Yeomyeong’s future mattered more than the deaths of faceless, nameless masses…
That’s where Seti’s thoughts cut off.
Under the control room’s red lights, she spotted glowing eyes.
The woman she’d smashed with a hammer topside earlier. Ekaterina, was it?
No idea how she’d survived, but before her floated five enormous lances, siege-engine sized.
No presence, no mana? How?
Their eyes met, her lips curled.
“Everyone, dodge…!”
Before Seti could shout, the lances launched.
At least five enhancement spells on each, they sliced through the air.
A lethal ambush targeting the battle-weary group’s blind spot.
Seti’s mind raced in the instant before impact. Dozens of thoughts in a blink.
Yeomyeong could block three of the five lances. No, four for sure.
The last one? Flying at the kneeling Saintess’s head, beyond his range.
Could she dodge? No. Leave her?
Her maintained coolness said no.
Logically, the Saintess could work healing miracles.
And now, Seti could barely shove her aside and take the hit instead.
Block with her body, get healed. Yes, optimal.
What if it’s too vicious for even the Saintess to heal?
Regrettable, but still right for her to take it.
The Saintess would aid Yeomyeong’s future more.
Rational. A rational sacrifice. So Seti shoved the Saintess.
!
Next instant, a lance impaled her abdomen.
No pain. Instead, her whole body’s mana twisted wildly, vessels bursting.
Ah, this won’t heal.
Feeling her heart’s aorta rupture repeatedly, Seti flashed a wry smile. Her body went limp like a marionette with cut strings.
Then came running footsteps, shouts, screams.
All distant. Vision blurring, mind fading.
Is this death? To die saving the Saintess, of all people.
Still… not bad. Few joyful memories, but dying beside loved ones was enough.
One worry: the Saintess naming her future child after her?
Seti? That’s too much.
With that idle thought last, Seti closed her eyes.
Tried to.
But then, her god seized her mind.
『Well done, First One.』
『You’ve changed the future.』
A soundless laugh.
Three minutes and twelve seconds until nuclear detonation.
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