Chapter. 14. One Empire, Three Legends (31)
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Grumble!
“Southeast! “I’m blocking the way to the Crystal Fountain!”
[This one might take a while! What kind of road was laid so firmly that it didn’t collapse even though the ground was completely leveled by underground water?]
“Holy shit! Try to destroy it somehow! “If it breaks through, it’s a living hell!”
Kwazijic!
The professor pulled out several beautiful metal fences next to him, blocked off the middle of the street, and then turned his head toward the sky.
‘one. two. three. Four… there’s no end to the pestilence, really!’
Idrasil, perched on the spire of an unusually tall building nearby, was releasing softly glowing spirits to decorate the area around the spire.
When you think of the spire as an imperial palace. The distorted part is where people are flocking. The straight shape is where processing has been completed.
This was the method chosen because the most important information about Idrasil could not be heard due to confusion while everyone was talking like crazy about message magic.
“Why, the north gate was blocked at first! “Why is it dented again?”
[This is a place that was blocked by collapsing the building! There was a gap. A bunch of humans. I burned all my vines and dug a path through them!]
A sinkhole created by cutting into the ground with underground water. As the pillars of the mansion, which was made with abundant use of high-quality stone, were broken indiscriminately. An alley that was blocked off by removing all the surrounding iron fences and creating a high wall.
This is the method we chose at the end of last resort. Completely split the board itself.
If I had gone as I first thought, there would have been no need to do such a cumbersome and time-consuming thing. I thought that if we stopped it properly, Lucilla would persuade the nobles, and the nobles who fell under the emperor’s influence would persuade other nobles to dye this plate golden.
However, everything I said above was just an inference based on the situation. And moving based on inference means that you must also assume that the inference is wrong.
I was right in thinking that persuasion would work.
‘Ah, Lady Lucilla. My head is… dizzy. ‘It’s not easy to think.’
‘yes. It’s not the first time that young ladies collapse from stress at a party. I understand everything.’
‘That letter… ahhh. The seal of the imperial family. Master of a great empire. If they wish, I will definitely see them.’
It was easy to persuade. The nobles seemed to be in a daze. Thanks to this, it was easy to make them think of the emperor and make them friendly to us.
The problem came next.
First, the influence of witches was stronger than expected. Most of the nobles we had never met had forgotten the emperor and were just wandering around muttering things like ‘for the empire’, and the hidden curses were slowly revealing themselves, accelerating the atmosphere.
Secondly,
‘What is this…. what is this! Baron Romero!’
‘I really want to ask you something, Baron Barton. Why are you protecting an outsider who is not an imperial noble at this late hour? And even the guards and servants are all armed with weapons?’
‘These people are guests of the royal family! ‘What a disgrace!’
‘I am speaking of the laws of the empire. I don’t know what it is, but I clearly know that something has happened in the capital. And if something strange suddenly occurred in the peaceful capital… it would most likely be the work of an outsider!’
‘Hey… you’re crazy! Okay, now I get it! This is a group of people armed in the middle of the night and terrorizing the guests of the royal family! If those who came all the way to the capital got hurt, it would be a real shame for the empire! Who will add to His Majesty’s reputation! everyone! ‘Protect your guests!’
‘How dare you defend an intruder in this castle city on the way to the capital of the empire! It’s treason! Traitors of the empire have risen up in the castle city!’
‘Kill it! For His Majesty the Emperor!’
‘Kill it! For an eternal empire!’
‘Ohhhh Baron, wait a minute! No, these crazy things!’
‘professor! Warm up first! ‘If we do that, we’ll all die!’
‘pair!’
A group of nobles aligned with the emperor faction, represented by golden tokens and purple tokens. A group of nobles aligned with the witch faction.
When the two meet, instead of taking sides, they start fighting to the death.
If anyone dies, madness will spread like wildfire throughout the city.
“I’m really going crazy… Idrasil! “How many more people have come up from Yongin City?”
[If there were additional people, they came in proportion to the number I had not learned.]
As time went by, the power that enveloped the capital was increasing in strength.
The capital where the power that moved the entire empire gathered.
The source of power as if rushing towards the light. People flock to the capital following the instinct engraved in their souls.
“…I shouldn’t have made the choice in the first place.”
[What do you mean, I wasn’t allowed to make a choice?]
“Damn… They say she’s a witch who plays with people’s minds… You damn bitch!”
The servants, maids and butlers are crazy about the guards using little mana.
No matter how many they had, it was a long shot to stop the group who had been through all the hardships so far.
What held the group back was not their force, but the situation.
The Emperor and the Witch. A situation where the power of two beings controls people.
I was able to see with my own eyes that the scales were tipped to one side with just a few short words.
A curse has already covered the entire capital. Knowledge of sacrifice. People flocking to the capital!
And… the urge to ‘do something’ continues to squeeze my heart even now.
“A curse covering the entire capital. Knowledge of sacrifice. People flocking to the capital! It encouraged me to make a choice by showing me right before my eyes that my choice would make a big difference! “Choose the wrong answer!”
It was like a puzzle-loving killer’s game from a movie from a long time ago.
A murderer who gives the first choice a chance to grab the key and then has the blind victim throw the key into the sewer and then reveals the truth.
‘If we hadn’t persuaded purple in the first place and just left people filled with the desire to serve the empire as purple, no one would have died!’
Not making a choice. All civilians and soldiers who pose no threat are converted into ‘purple tokens’. If they had made them chase after us, as outsiders, they wouldn’t have been hostile to each other since they all had the same goal, and if we had escaped, they would have gone around looking for something to relieve that impulse, sweeping the road like a crazy person, organizing the garden, or guarding the roadside like a stone statue. There may have been.
However, the pressure of the fact that ‘the witch might start some kind of sacrificial ritual right now’ made me want to return the people under the witch’s control to the emperor.
As a result, the worst result was that those who needed the goal of dividing sides through persuasion became targets of blind hostility.
“…Lucilla. “How many nobles have we persuaded?”
[Five.]
“…What about the people there?”
[Including the guards and employees… there seemed to be about 100 people per noble group crowding around.]
“Five hundred people… five hundred people…!”
Crash!
It was as if a witch’s voice was echoing in my head.
『Now, thanks to your choice, all the people who got the [Emperor] back will die.』
『Did you really think you could end this situation without anyone dying? Before the sacrifice begins?』
ridicule. No, something more insulting than that.
The witch was trying to teach us something. Given the situation and my actions. To make me realize something from what follows.
Tdduk!
The professor actually chewed the flesh inside his cheek as the voice seemed to ring in his head. Along with the exhilarating pain, the taste of blood rose, and my head, which had been shaking with excitement, cooled down a bit.
Seueueu-huuuu.
Take a deep breath. You can’t always find the right answer. I made a mistake once and got hit hard in the back.
Information obtained in return. Witch’s tendencies.
‘If you simply want to increase your power and kill people, there is no need to create such a complicated situation. wait for a sec. Production? Directing… yes. I want to express something. Not a psychopathic killer, but closer to a thought criminal. Such a person.’
“…Aldrich. “He said he didn’t really feel the curse.”
[okay. It’s like a very light fog. So much so that only those who are familiar with curses cannot feel it.]
‘A faint curse. Even during the Teldemire family, the witch’s curse penetrates people’s hearts. ‘More secret, more delicate and more severe than the materialized curse.’
‘The place, the situation, and the characters. Everything was prepared by the witch. If there is something you want to show, the object you want to show also exists.’
‘Emperor? no. There was too much opportunity and too much time. Prince and princesses? There is a possibility. But the purpose is unclear. It’s choice and responsibility. There is no need to do that unless you want to teach kingship. Then, no way… me?’
A warrior of the church and a saint called the light found again.
The opponent is a fallen saint who was once a saint of light.
Until now, I thought that the sudden intensification of the conflict between the emperor and the witch was because the witch felt threatened by us coming so close to her.
but.
If the saintess’s thoughts about the Church of Light were not only a threat to her own safety, but she also felt something else. What if she has deeper feelings for her predecessors, whom she reunited with after so many years?
.
.
.
.
‘Corruption? me?’
From the outskirts of the castle city to the center. As I approached the real imperial capital, all kinds of thoughts came to mind.
Ominous thoughts began to rise like smoke. If the witch wanted to shock someone and show something. There is no way it can end in simply experiencing failure.
[Hero, on the castle wall… On the castle wall! Gaaaargh!]
And Lucilla, who had been persuaded by a group of nobles, led them as far away from the crowd as possible under the pretext of escorting them. Her scream rang out as if to prove that ominous imagination was true.
I ran with all my might, but before I could reach it, the sky was already filled with arrows flying from the castle wall.
The arrowheads hitting the hard granite flagstones sparked up like firecrackers. The arrows were aimed precisely at where Lucilla and the group of imperial nobles were, and were cutting into people with an eerie sound of piercing flesh.
Arrows rain down endlessly on them as they cover Lucilla, the target of their guard, with their bodies, as if it were their only duty.
The moment when the seal was torn open, revealing Lucilla soaked in blood, I barely managed to block her path.
-Paaaaang!
As a blue light flashed from above the castle wall, something with such tremendous power that it deflected all the arrows flying in fell between us like a comet.
Quadduk Kakaki profit-
“This is …. Lance?”
The lance was rotating so vigorously that it turned red from frictional heat in the barely grasped hand.
Starting with that, blue light and silver armor reflected on the castle wall began to appear one by one.
“Knight… I thought I couldn’t see any of them.”
Although it was a dark night, the knights illuminated by the light of the pulsating essence of power, Auror, were clearly visible from afar. The sight of them all raising their spears in this direction.
That’s real. If we were to be hit by a volley of javelins, which are like railguns, this entire area would be devastated.
The knight who threw the spear first accepted the new spear and shouted in a solemn voice filled with Aura.
“We have confirmed the flames of rebellion in all areas of the castle city. As of the present, we, the Castle Knights, are blockading All Amperia, where His Majesty the Emperor and his royal family reside. “No one can enter the capital.”
There seems to be a slight lack of logic somewhere. The attitude of thoroughly carrying out the work assigned to oneself. And the flames spread across the castle city, and the purple cursed flower petals begin to flutter in the wind.
‘Everything ends when you catch the witch. But it really is like this. The only solution to this situation is to have to take on all of the empire’s power on my own? ‘Is that virtually impossible?’
[professor! I can’t stop it anymore! It is close to impossible to sink all the ground leading to the capital in this short period of time!]
[Same goes for me! Sleep suggestion blindness paralysis! I’ve done everything I can with black magic, but they’re trampling on the fallen people! It is inevitable that there will be casualties!]
[Uuuuu people are crazy! The people pushed into the flame that burned the roots of my tree are going crazy and setting fire to the city!]
….crackle.
Imperial Capital Knights. It would be suicidal to join them all, who are all Master Knights. There is a limit to stopping the people who are driven by the witch’s impulses from flocking to the capital.
Madness has already begun to spread, and the moment the people pushing in and the knights on the wall meet…
‘All the humans in the capital are torn apart by the throwing of that lance.’
It is the completion of the sacrifice. A quest with no solution in sight.
[How could there be no way! What should we do now?]
Hearing Ottoman’s urgent voice, the professor turned his attention to the fortress-like walls. The moment the word ‘retreat’ lingered in his throat.
Ssssssssssssssssss!
Quack!
‘….hmm?’
I could see one of the knights raising his shoulders high and throwing a spear filled with aura towards their backs inside the castle wall.
Not only that knight, but almost half of the knights lined up on the castle wall threw their spears towards the inside of the castle wall
.
A metallic sound was also heard inside blocking it. Soon, a blue sword flying over the castle wall.
“….article? Imperial knights imperial knights?”
Moment. The sight of the knights repelling their attacks as if it were natural. A thunderbolt of realization flowed into the professor’s head.
‘Fight for the throne! There are royal families in there, and most of the knights have sworn allegiance to one of them! If you think about what they will do during this time…!’
A sudden thought occurred to me, and the numerous metallic sounds coming from beyond the castle wall added to my confidence.
Now the knights are fighting fiercely inside! To establish his master as emperor! Now the loyalty to the emperor has disappeared from their minds, and only loyalty to the lord in front of them remains!
‘I don’t know if it’s about dealing with everyone, but breaking through the fights… it’s possible! It might be possible! maybe!’
Wood clatter!
“Hero…? “Would you like to go inside there?”
“uh. I think it will work. The more I think about that damn thing, the witch, the more twisted it becomes. One goal that was clear from the beginning. “They cleverly hid something that would have been done if only the witch had focused on it, wasting time, and turned it into a mess.”
….trump.
Tukwagagak!
Quack! Quad deuk!
When I moved my stopped foot one step forward, a lance containing an aura flew from the castle wall as if it had been waiting.
Kwasik!
“Ugh.”
[It’s pierced. After all, an Auror is an Auror. The shoulder is a part with important joints, so the outer shell is harder than other parts.]
‘…It’s worth it. Hyde. ‘How much of Mute’s blood will remain in the body?’
[If you break through with your body in a place full of those guys… 30 minutes?]
‘What if a stronger guy comes out?’
[5 minutes?]
‘Damn.’
Absolute weakness. If you fight wastefully like usual, there is a limit to the power you can wield unless your opponent is muted.
The professor thought about the subspace pocket inside his collar, then shook his head. Consuming Mute’s blood, being isolated among enemies, and gambling on untested power. If you were to ask which of the two is more dangerous, you couldn’t easily decide which one is more dangerous.
“Otman. “I will go into Ol Amperia.”
[at last. Are you going to go in there?]
“Yes. Because the situation seems so close to possible. It’ll be crowded enough in there, but it’ll still be hard to break through without me. I will open a path first, so you will have to dig through it. You should focus on avoiding combat and hiding in the capital. Since the situation is chaotic, it will be possible if Aldrich and Idrasil link up.”
[As for the court wizard… No, I made a mistake.]
“You can ignore the wizard. “There is no wizard who can wield pure personal understanding when an unknown force enters their head.”
It can be said that the magic power has been sealed. I will somehow get through the knights blocking my way. A group of people delved into that path. Warlock. The group, which included a shaman who was well versed in souls….
‘Each palace given to the empress and queen. Dig inside and find out who the witch is.’
There is no time to fill in the holes in your plan step by step. From here, it’s about action. All you have to do is correct the distorted part with force.
“It goes without saying, but if you feel like you’re about to die, don’t forget to stand up for yourself!”
Throw in!
The body of the professor who delivered the last message was shot like a cannonball toward the castle wall. To the battlefield of knights overflowing with blue aura.
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