33. To the Empire (4)
Feeling the strength of his hands holding his arms weakening, the man who took on the role of leader of this group looked at Deon with pitiful eyes.
I’m so weak that it’s embarrassing to be nervous. Is this really a ‘hero’? Are you saying that all the rumors in the world were nonsense?
Although I was secretly disappointed, it wasn’t a bad thing since I was able to complete the work easier and faster than I thought. No, objectively speaking, it is actually good.
“Goodbye, fake hero.”
As I struck the guy’s head with the ax I had raised, there was a commotion on one side.
A loud voice coming from far away. The man stopped and looked up to find the cause of the commotion.
“found! “It looks a little dangerous?”
“Oh, as expected, Your Majesty! “You foresaw this!”
“Great ego! “Are you safe?”
“No, wait a minute! “I think the captain fainted?”
“Isn’t that how you die?”
“What are you doing! “Let’s not get the captain right away!”
“It’s not the captain, it’s the count, you idiots!”
A conversation that flows along the stream of consciousness.
The man, who froze for a moment as the conversation took the listener’s soul away, hurriedly began to assess the situation.
Who are they? Since we are trying to rescue Deon Hardt, he is not an ally. What idiot group was there that could call Deon Hardt ‘captain’?
The answer came quickly.
“Stop them now! “We must stop it, even if it means using bombs!”
The man shouted urgently.
It’s a murderous knight order! The vanguard led by Deon Hardt during the Eight Years’ War!
The story of the vanguard being promoted to knighthood in recognition of its merits is well known as it is famous. They are also in charge of the revolutionary army among the empire’s security forces.
But why?
“How did you know here…!”
The plan went wrong. Now that this has happened, you must kill Deonhardt and retreat quickly.
If we collide with them head-on, this is the loss.
The scary thing about the Murderous Knights is not their skills…
“Huh? “Hey, it’s a bomb.”
“Wow, you have to shed blood against an enemy that uses bombs. “I think this might be difficult for a sober mind, right?”
“Can I take medicine?”
“Is there anyone we can accept? “The captain is passed out over there, and neither Sir Lien nor the leader is there right now.”
“Isn’t that true?”
The guy, giggling playfully, throws some medicine into his mouth that I don’t know when he took it out. Others also took out medicine here and there and put it in their mouths.
At first glance, I heard a voice like that.
“What can I do? “I have to live.”
The atmosphere changed in an instant.
The eyes become cloudy and madness takes their place. The red, bloodshot whites are particularly creepy. A creepy smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
“Kill them all!”
“know? “Don’t kill me cleanly!”
“Haha! What do you know! For now, enjoy!”
“You crazy guy! Do what you learned, do what you learned! First, cut off the limbs first!”
…Yes, the scary thing about them is their cruel hands. A hand that looks just like its owner and is extremely cruel.
We need to kill Deonhardt first.
Thinking like that, I lifted the ax again, and at some point, strength came back to my once weak hands.
If it were just that, I wouldn’t have stopped, but…
it stings.
Because his nails were digging into my flesh.
As I look down, the red eyes revealed on the white mask smile.
A creepy eye smile that is different from before. Feeling eerie, I hurriedly tried to strike down the axe, but suddenly I felt a terrible pain in my arm.
“Ahh! “You crazy bastard!!”
I dug my nails deep into my arm and scraped them off.
The skin was not simply peeled off, but pieces of flesh were falling off as if they had been carved out with a carving knife.
It was so deep that the place where the long pieces of flesh had fallen off formed a hollow valley of blood.
Without even thinking about it, I reflexively threw him.
The man let go of the ax and held his forearm because of the pain that would surge regardless of whether he hit the carriage wall or not. Before I knew it, the blood that had flowed from my arm was condensing and dripping onto my fingertips.
Deon was not going to miss that opportunity.
“Cough.”
The white mask turns red. Even while coughing up blood, he quickly jumped up and picked up the ax that the guy had dropped.
Without any time to defend himself, the guy grabbed the handle with both hands, lifted it up, and brought his weight down towards his head.
Obviously, he was strangled to the point that the world turned white, and Deon himself had no strength, so he almost relied on the weight of the ax to hit him, but I wonder how heavy it was───one
blow.
In one blow, the guy’s head was broken without even a chance to scream.
Still, Deon was not satisfied.
‘…You can’t stop here.’
The ax rises again. The target is the head that has already been broken.
‘You’re already dead. Should I do more?’
‘no. We need to do more. If you set an example, no one will dare attack you. ‘Because I’m weak.’
‘But…’
My arms are shaking. Red eyes, standing on the borderline between normal and abnormal, shake constantly.
The reason why his eyes became clear and then blurred repeatedly was none other than cloudy madness that pushed away the hesitation that had been in his eyes for a while and took its place.
“Oh, Captain!”
“Leader…?”
Deon lifted the ax as if possessed. No, it would be more correct to say that he was crazy rather than possessed.
Like a man who had lost his mind, he lifted the ax without stopping, as if chopping firewood, and then began to slash it down indiscriminately.
Kwasik. Sigh. Sigh. Phew.
I hear a creepy sound. Blood splatters and the bloody smell lingers.
Even as attention gradually gathered and the surrounding noise subsided, his actions remained unstoppable. On the contrary, he even smiled, rolling his eyes as if showing off.
“flaw.”
The ax is heavy. My arms are shaking.
Still, it didn’t stop.
Not only for the sake of setting an example, but also because I know how to turn this situation to my advantage.
He stopped when the ax became so heavy that he could no longer lift it.
I looked down and saw a tattered lump of blood the size of a person in front of me.
The hand holding the ax went limp, then he kicked it and pushed it out of the carriage.
thud!
“….”
“….”
The body fell and silence came.
Everyone’s eyes turned towards this direction, both friends and enemies.
Deon closed his eyes gracefully as he felt the gaze going back and forth between something terrible whose original form he could not tell, himself covered in blood, and the bloody ax in his hand.
Bright red eyes were shining between eyes curved like a crescent moon.
“I guess I’m tired of my peaceful life.”
“What kind of person is that who went on a monster-slaying mission not too long ago…”
“Shh, be quiet. “Don’t you even notice?”
A member of the Knights Templar, who was happily hacking away at the revolutionary army, was dragged away with his mouth shut by a colleague.
It was truly a funny scene, but no one dared laugh.
Oh, there was one person.
Deon laughed. A somewhat cheerful gaze was directed at those who had lived and died together.
“long time no see. “Did Your Majesty treat you well?”
“Oh, don’t say anything. “He was so rude, telling me to pay for the food.”
“Do you know how difficult it is to stop a revolutionary army trying to blow itself up?”
A member grumbled as he cut off the hand of a revolutionary soldier who was secretly pulling out a bomb.
Another member quickly picked up the bomb that was rolling around on the floor and looked around, sighing in his voice.
“Anyway, what on earth were you thinking, Captain, when you decided to move with only such poor bastards?”
“I thought there wouldn’t be an attack because I moved as soon as I got back. “How on earth did you know that you came here?”
“Your Majesty already knew everything. He ordered us to bring my master safely.”
“I must thank your Majesty. By the way…”
His red eyes looked at the murderous knights who were diligently decapitating the revolutionaries while their mouths were saying something else, and then turned to the guards.
The guards who have been stabbed a lot are startled and avoid eye contact.
As they wasted and hastily cleared out the revolutionary army, they were unable to stop the regret that washed over them.
“You’ll know without me having to say it. “This is the count’s article.”
It was a degrading remark, but I did not dare to refute it.
Because it has definitely become dull.
A whopping half a year. If it’s short, it’s short, but if it’s long, wasn’t it so peaceful during that long time? You can’t just train all day. It seems like he has become lazy because of that.
So I forgot about it for a while.
How many enemies does Honorary Count Deonhardt have?
“No matter how distracted I am, this big guy approaches me and no one notices. Can you call that an escort?”
“….”
“We need to change the escort first.”
The guards’ faces turned white.
Being kicked out of Count Hart’s residence is not just about losing your job.
If you’re lucky, it may end without incident, but that’s just luck. The majority of people died.
It’s not that Count Hart was doing anything or anything, but the problem was the emperor.
They wouldn’t leave those who were kicked out of the count’s mansion alone…
I heard it was for security reasons, but from the perspective of a former employee who knew nothing, it was like going crazy and jumping around.
“Count Bae…”
I tried to call out to Deon, but unfortunately, the current Deon Hart was different from the usual Deon Hardt.
Rather than having a moderate personality, he had an extreme appearance as a vanguard that I had only heard about through rumors.
Ignoring the pale guards, Deon crosses the quiet space and picks up a dagger lying nearby.
He pointed the blade of his dagger at his enemies and spoke in a cheerful voice.
“What are you doing? There are still enemies left. “I have to sort it out.”
“….”
“Hurry and kill me.”
[Cause fear in enemies]
Blood drips from red-stained hair.
He wiped away the fishy liquid that was flowing from his forehead down to his eyes, and with a cheerful smile, he grabbed a dagger and jumped among the enemies.
***
In front of the imperial palace lined with countless gorgeous carriages.
These were carriages that you wouldn’t normally see, but right now, because he was tired of looking at them, the doorkeeper’s eyes, which were looking at them without much emotion, turned somewhere and then widened enormously.
Is this a red-painted carriage trying a new style?
If the goal was to lead the trend, it was clearly a failure. That doesn’t look like blood…
‘…a fishy smell?’
Is it really blooming?!
The colleague standing next to him seemed to have noticed this as well and hurriedly aimed his spear.
Likewise, the gatekeeper who was aiming his spear barely spoke in a trembling voice.
“This place is the imperial palace. If you don’t have an invitation, you can’t go in…”
“Get out of the way.”
A man whose presence I didn’t even know was hidden by the red carriage came out.
…is it a protective color? Why is it the same color as the carriage?
Now I see there are a lot of other people there too. It was unclear whether they were guards or people doing something, but they were all dyed red from head to toe, and their eyes were shining brightly.
“Do you know who is in this carriage?”
“Who are you?…”
“He’s our leader!”
“…?”
So who is your leader?
The doorkeeper’s expression became blank.
I was too scared to ask again outright, but I couldn’t just let such a suspicious group pass, so I just rolled my eyes nervously, when I heard a voice of salvation.
“If you say that, who will understand?”
“ah.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to the red-haired, red-eyed man in red clothing who got out of the doorless carriage.
And the gatekeeper froze with his mouth wide open.
‘That person is the worst! Did you take a bath in blood?!’
I can never let them in. No one can do something like that!
Even heroes officially recognized by the Empire cannot enter unless His Majesty gives permission directly.
“It’s Deon Hardt.”
…Deon Hardt? It’s a familiar name. Who was it?
ah.
‘Vampire Count!’
In that case, those strange-looking groups must be the famous murderous knights.
The fact that he was a hero of the empire occurred to me late.
Because his performance during the Eight Years’ War was so great, the things that come to mind when thinking of ‘Deonhardt’ were consistently negative.
After receiving the status of honorary count, ‘blood-crazed vanguard’, ‘master of a murderous unit’, he even became ‘vampire count’.
But now that I look at it, I think it’s true that he’s a vampire.
Outside the carriage was a pharmacy. As if someone had eaten someone inside the carriage, the blood-filled interior was clearly visible through the gap where the door should have been.
Even the Count himself is soaked in blood!
‘Should I let him in?’
A hero whom His Majesty has personally given permission to visit in any form at any time. After all, that’s the honorary Count Deonhardt right in front of you.
‘But it still looks like this?’
Even today is the day of the banquet!
At that time, Deon Hardt, who roughly brushed up his blood-soaked hair, let out a slow voice.
“Where is your Majesty?”
Perhaps due to survival instinct, the answer came out immediately.
“You are in the banquet hall.”
“banquet hall?”
Could it be that I didn’t know?
For a moment, the gatekeeper looked at me with red eyes and answered in horror.
“Yes! A banquet to celebrate the birth of a new hero and the success of his debut…” “
…Aha.”
“….”
The words ended there.
The doorkeeper quickly shut his mouth at the unusual voice.
