30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue - Chapter 152

WeTried Translations x Flame Comics

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 152: Waiting for Winter (6)

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* * *

“Huff... Huff...”

Oscar stood with his halberd locked in place, head lowered as he panted. More than half of his shield and sword had been cut away, leaving them beyond recognition.

Beside him, Isabelle was bleeding as she planted her sword point-down in the ground and drew deep breaths. A spearhead that had glanced off her helmet had torn a long gash across her forehead, leaving her face drenched in blood.

“Is everyone all right...? Heal, healing...”

“Save your strength. Not yet.”

Eugene raised his trembling arm, then lowered it again. Elphihara lowered his arm as she gathered mana.

Standing before them with a mace in each hand, Aesidis asked, “I’m too stupid to know, but does anyone have a plan?”

“...Not me.”

“Me neither.”

They had killed the Red Baron. Up to that point, they had done their best. Lamonde had been an Initiate Knight of the Eastern Knights.

The Eastern Knights were said to be the strongest knightly order in the country, and the Initiate Knights were a select band made up of its finest warriors. Defeating someone like that while they were only university students was an incredible achievement.

But this situation could not be resolved with that one life.

“What do we do now...?”

“Change of plans. Sorry, everyone.”

“How is it changing?”

“We fight our hardest and die.”

Oscar stepped forward, tightly clutching his broken sword. The soldiers and knights watched him in silence.

The duel had ended with their commander’s death, but they had time to spare. The siege of the Palais de Royale was already proceeding according to plan, so this was no more than a small diversion.

Their exhausted enemies had been driven into the middle of hundreds, even thousands, of soldiers. Besides, they were said to include the commander of the inner city.

Simply capturing them alive would give the captors enormous influence when postwar rewards were handed out. Greed gleamed in the knights’ eyes. There was no need to forcibly seize such fragile treasures.

If they brought them in alive, they would receive immense rewards from Count Etouan, no, King Grandmartel.

“I swear upon my name, my house, my country, and my liege.”

Oscar glared at the knights with tired eyes, then swept back his hair and tied it firmly.

“Here today, though I give my life... I swear upon all the honor I have left.”

The knights fell silent. It was an incredibly famous story. He was reenacting the heroic legend of Gilles Ver facing thousands of Taurus alone.

“Beyond this point, a hundred will surely die.”

There was no grim resolve in his voice. Only a calm statement. The legend said Gilles Ver had proudly declared those words back then, but Oscar had none of that bravado.

Only the calm final words of a man prepared to die remained.

-Scrapeeech!!

The broken blade scraped across the ground, carving a long line into the well-paved road of Saint Matilene.

Then Oscar stood tall behind it, gripping his broken sword as he took his stance.

“Then I’ll take a hundred and fifty.”

“I’ll take two hundred.”

“I’ll humbly take seventy.”

“No, at least bid higher so it looks impressive. What’s with that?”

“I’m being honest.”

The group stepped up beside Oscar. They all raised their weapons with drained expressions. Oscar looked around in brief surprise, then let out a small laugh.

“Let’s take a thousand altogether.”

“Nice. A joint funeral. How grand.”

“If it’s a joint funeral, I’d prefer to have it with my uncle.”

“I’m shocked right now. Do they still perform burial sacrifices in Droan? I feel sorry for Lord Yermof.”

“Don’t you know, ‘Till death do us part’? It’s common knowledge.”

“In my country, death gets postponed for about a thousand years. Maybe humans don’t know because they live such short lives.”

Oscar shook his head as he chuckled at the others’ bickering, as if to say they were ruining the mood he had worked so hard to create.

Still, it was not bad. These people suited a hopeful spirit that did not lose its laughter far more than grim solemnity in the face of despair.

A Hero could never despair, no matter what happened.

* * *

Sixty became thirty after the first charge.

When they pierced through the rear infantry again, fewer than ten remained.

When they collided with the next cavalry unit, only one person was still charging forward.

“He’s been unhorsed!!”

When that man’s horse finally buckled at the knees and collapsed, Ivan still rolled with the fall, sprang back up, and cut down two men.

He truly was a demon of a man. Only blood remained where he had passed. Paving his path with corpses, he advanced toward Etouan.

But that was the end. By the time he had crossed half the force, his charge had completely lost its momentum.

“Half... Half, was it...”

Etouan almost wanted to laugh.

Thirty thousand. Even excluding those who had entered the city, there were still twenty thousand soldiers. Adding the noncombatants from the following units, supply units, and support units, the total force ranged from forty-five thousand to seventy thousand.

If he had crossed half that force, then stopping his breakthrough had required a wall of at least twenty thousand infantry.

He had not killed all of them. He had only charged through to achieve a deep breakthrough, so perhaps he had faced only hundreds head-on.

But numbers did not work that way. Just because someone did not face him directly did not mean the people surrounding him vanished.

“He faced a corps alone.”

Every noble in the command staff watching the man’s advance let out a quiet groan. They knew he could not reach them, but the chilling fear was difficult to ignore.

Two spear shafts were embedded in his abdomen, and the armor on both arms had been completely shattered.

His left arm hung broken beneath the ruined armor. He was using the sword in his right hand to support himself against the ground.

Five arrows protruded from his back. There was no way he lacked line-of-fire detection, which meant he had sensed them and simply lacked the strength to avoid them.

A long cut ran across his thigh, blood flowing over his armor. He was already struggling just to walk.

Yet beneath his helmet, a fierce blue light still burned in his eyes. He had only one will left, to kill Etouan.

“How can a person be like that?”

“...”

No one answered Etouan. Without waiting for one, he urged his horse forward toward the man.

The knights and nobles moved with him, toward the man who had been completely incapacitated and was kneeling with spears and blades aimed at him.

Even as they approached, they could not shake the fear that pressed in with every moment. He was like a wild beast.

Even behind the safe iron bars of a zoo, the gaze of a predator alone could chill people to the bone.

“Take off your helmet.”

“...”

The man did not answer Etouan. He only looked up at him, breathing roughly.

“I find your struggle admirable. Kiss my hand even now. I will spare your life, and I will raise your family, retainers, and household into the highest nobility of this country.”

“...Your...”

A quiet voice came from beneath the helmet. Etouan frowned and waved a hand.

One soldier who had been aiming a spear at him cautiously approached and removed his helmet.

Blood had pooled beneath it. There were traces of blood he had spat out. A man with a long beard stained red was revealed.

In a fading voice, he spoke quietly.

“Your loyalty is convenient.”

“You would die for a dead royal family?”

“I always have.”

Etouan gave a bitter smile at Ivan’s words.

“Bring me a sword. I will personally execute this country’s final loyal subject, then raise my flag over him.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

A knight approached and handed him a sword. The sound of the blade sliding from its sheath was cold.

A simple sound to be the last one he heard in life. Ivan stared blankly at the blade gleaming beneath the sunlight.

What would come after death? Would there be an eternal, happy heaven, as the Bible taught? Would the late king be there as well?

Even if only hell awaited him, that would not be so bad. Whether it was heaven or hell, there would be no shortage of familiar faces.

At last.

Kim Seonwoo murmured quietly. Ivan nodded. Even if he could not return to his hometown, what did it matter? His homeland was...

-Fweeeee.

Then a familiar sound reached his ears.

“...The Reaper Battery?”

Ivan muttered without realizing it.

* * *

-Fweeeee.

-Fweeeeeee... Fweeee.

A sound like signal arrows being fired into the sky, but far more intense, filled the air. Etouan, holding his sword, and the nobles of the command staff. No, even the rank-and-file soldiers looked up at the sky.

Black trails flew in from one edge of the heavens. At first, they looked like tiny dots, but they gradually grew larger.

Once they reached a certain point in their arc, the black dots suddenly burst into flame. Etouan screamed without thinking.

“Artillery fire!!”

“Artillery...? W-where from...? Who...?”

“Kallion? Has an air warship appeared?”

“No, you idiots! This is...!!”

-Bwooooooo!!

A horn sounded faintly from far away in the north.

At the same time, the first shells struck the soldiers. Boom, boom. Screams erupted everywhere alongside the sound of cannonballs slamming into the earth.

-Bwooooooo!!

The horns continued. Thud, thud, thud. The ground trembled. The terrified soldiers turned their eyes toward the slope of the northern hill.

At its crest, a small scrap of cloth rose.

The Brown Bear and Lily Emblem fluttered in the fierce wind.

More and more appeared, covering the entire hill, becoming a vast wall.

The wind blew.

-Even in winter winds, we raise our colors.

-My comrades.

-Our homeland, our homes, even our songs have endured.

-My comrades.

-If winter comes once again.

-My comrades.