30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue - Chapter 156

WeTried Translations x Flame Comics

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 156: Funeral Procession (2)

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* * *

Given the gravity of the situation, Ivan should have used any number of methods to make the man “speak honestly,” if only to verify the information. Instead, he forced down the hand that had started to reach out.

This was too emotional.

The man before him was a soldier who had fought dragons at Gilles Ver’s side, staking his life on it. Given how sensitive this information was, it would be fair to say that, in revealing it, he had even prepared himself to die.

The Hero had killed the Defender Duke.

Whether it was true or not, those words could bring a bloodbath.

Ivan steadied his quickening breath and looked around. He had already dismissed everyone nearby, and even after taking the time to sense for any presence, the area remained silent, without even the sound of breathing.

Even exhausted and wounded, a trained superhuman could sense the breath of a field mouse passing by.

No one was nearby. Ivan nodded and spoke calmly.

“From the beginning. Can you explain it all again?”

“Yes, sir. I will start with what happened after you descended the mountain.”

The soldier swallowed hard and began carefully.

It had happened fifteen days ago.

* * *

The man’s name was Henri. He had no family name, yet despite being a commoner, he had risen as far as the Capital Defense Force.

That was proof enough of both skill and loyalty. Henri was surely far more disciplined than an ordinary conscript.

-Kwaaaang!!

“Hold the line! Hold it, damn it! Martin! No!!”

“Michel, we have to fall back! We have to...!!”

None of that meant anything at the summit of the Vernini Mountains that day.

Nobles, the children of wealthy landowners, even knights, all burned alike.

“Aah... Aaaah!!”

When a dragon swallowed his squad leader, when most of his comrades became ashes in the blaze, this ordinary man dropped his weapon.

His panicked vision was nothing but red flames. Rank and title meant nothing. Everyone he could see became firewood, leaving not even a corpse behind.

“Do not retreat! Raise your shields!!”

The knight who had shouted those words, clad in splendid armor as he charged forward, cut off one dragon’s head. Then the next dragon, lurking behind its wing, caught him in its jaws and dragged him into the darkness.

His scream rang out high in the air before cutting off abruptly. Almost at the same moment, a thick arm fell before Henri.

It still wore a gauntlet, blood seeping from it.

It had belonged to the knight from moments ago.

“Run... Run away! Everyone, run!!”

Henri’s last act of resolve was to cry out for his comrades to escape. That was all. He could no longer find the will to keep fighting.

He fled the front line, ignoring every sound around him as he ran without thought.

The dragons did not bother to pursue him. A larger group of prey had conveniently clustered together to resist them, rather than a lone human hidden in the darkness and crawling along the ground.

With the flames behind him, he ran downward without purpose. His mind blank, he ran downward.

“Huff... Haa... Huff!!”

How long had it been?

He rolled across the ground and slammed into the earth. When he came to his senses, the sun was rising. The screams and flames were gone.

As he braced himself against the ground with trembling hands, he finally realized that his left arm was gone below the elbow. It had been cauterized by the fire.

A dragon’s breath had not taken only his comrades.

“Huuugh... Hrk...!!”

Foam gathered at his lips as he forced himself back to his feet and continued down. Beyond the mountains, in a direction that might have been east or west. When the forest stretched on around him and he was no longer walking the mountainside.

That was when he finally saw the eastern plains of the Vernini Mountains.

The sun hung high over the eastern plains, where broad wheat fields stretched out in the height of the farming season.

“Ah... Aah...”

Countless people had died. Dragons had swallowed that mountain range. Was the Defender Duke safe? After losing most of his forces and suffering an ambush, could even that man possibly turn things around?

There was no way to know. But if, just if...

If the loss of that one man led to defeat, if the dragons of the Vernini Mountains were unleashed in the end...

“Jean, Philippe, Simon, Thibaut...”

Henri spoke the names of the comrades he had left behind and stepped forward. A road stretched ahead of him. Not far away stood a village.

It was a small slash-and-burn settlement, probably unnamed even on a map, built deep in the mountain country by people who cleared the land to farm it.

So many people had died.

-You shall live for Tilles.

-Your death shall become the cornerstone of Tilles.

He remembered the oath every soldier swore upon enlistment. How moved he had been when he first recited those words and entered military service.

The son of a poor farmer, able to wear the fine uniform of the Capital Defense Force.

It had been a success unlike anything anyone in the village where he had been born and raised had ever achieved. His pay alone could feed his entire family.

He came from a poor slash-and-burn settlement just like the one before him.

Really, so many people had died.

People who had gathered to protect the sight of those wheat fields.

People who had stepped forward to protect that sight, dying without even leaving their names behind.

If the loss of that one man had led to defeat, if they could no longer stop the dragons of the Vernini Mountains, if the entire country burned like the summit of those mountains...

How would I live then? How would I die?

When Henri came to his senses, he was climbing the mountain slope.

An ordinary man who had lost his weapon and armor, rolling over the dirt and gasping for breath.

How much farther did he go? Darkness had already swallowed everything around him. Each time he heard an animal cry in the distance, fear seized him, but he took another step.

At last.

At last, he reached the summit.

“Ah...”

The battle was over.

“Your Highness... Grand Duke...”

Corpses were piled like mountains.

“You... You did it...”

Dragon corpses filled the collapsed gorge.

The cursed valley from which the dragons had poured forth had been buried beneath the bodies of those demons. A hill made of scaled corpses stood atop the summit.

Above it, bathed fully in moonlight, a huge military banner fluttered, half-charred.

The banner of Etakrikh, its stag antlers entwined around a sword and shield.

Nothing else moved. The battle was over. Every soldier had burned away, and every enemy had been annihilated.

A mutual destruction that would become legend.

Three thousand infantrymen, two hundred knights, and one Hero.

That handful of soldiers had protected Tilles.

The banner swayed, tattered and charred, yet still catching the moonlight. Unbroken atop the dragons’ corpses.

Sobbing, Henri tried to run toward it, then fell and rolled across the ground. Grasping at the dirt, he crawled, then ran toward the dragon corpses.

A man sat atop them, his sword thrust point-first into the ground.

“Who are you?”

“Henri... Henri, sir...”

“Ah, the Royal Guard Division’s Seventh Infantry, was it? Henri of Lolen. Well done. You survived.”

“You... You knew me?”

“The Royal Guard Infantry and... cough! The Eastern Knights, I chose them all myself. Cough!”

Gilles Ver coughed roughly and sagged where he sat.

The banner shifted in the wind, and moonlight fell across his body. Only then did Henri see his condition.

“Your Highness the Grand Duke...!!”

He had lost an arm, and his wound was so deep that his organs were exposed. His helmet was nowhere to be seen. Beneath the burnt hair on one side of his head, severe burns ran down his neck.

His armor had melted in places from the flames.

Gilles Ver looked at the tearful Henri and gave a faint laugh.

“Quiet. I have been in worse situations than this. It seems you have given away one of your hands as well.”

“Come closer.”

At Gilles Ver’s gesture, Henri trembled and lowered his head. He fell to his knees and muttered.

“I betrayed you, Your Highness... I did not survive... I turned my back on the battlefield and ran. Please... please do not forgive me.”

“But you came back, did you not?”

“...What?”

“You came back even after dropping your weapon and armor. You came back intending to face dragons with your bare hands if you had to. With soldiers like you in this country, it is no wonder it still stands so firmly.”

Gilles Ver raised his sword into the moonlight. Its tip trembled faintly.

The sword slowly descended. Its flat pressed lightly against Henri’s shoulder. The cold edge near his neck sent a shiver down his spine.

Yet the movement was so careful that sorrow came before fear.

“Protect the weak, remain loyal to your liege, devote yourself to the nation, and revere justice... justice alone.”

“...Yes?”

“This is a Wartime Knighthood. Henri of Lolen. You survived to the end, which means you are stronger than these worthless things. The Eastern Knights have always been an order of the strongest knights. Will you, Henri, swear the oath?”

“...Your Highness... I, I cannot... I cannot do that. I am not worthy...”

“What did I have that you do not? In this world, no one but the Hero has the right to call themselves strong. We can only believe.”

Not truly claiming to be strong, but simply believing oneself capable of strength.

And through that strength, standing in the place of the weak and devoting oneself to them.

Always revering justice, justice alone. Even in valleys of fear, despair, and death, advancing with nothing but one’s own righteousness as a lantern.

“That is what a knight is. Will you accept the honor?”

Henri listened to Gilles Ver’s words, sobbing as he nodded.

Gilles Ver smiled and lightly tapped the crown of Henri’s head with the blade of his sword.

“From this moment, your name is that of a knight. Take hold of my sword...”

-Whooo...

The wind blew. The banner snapped taut and cast a long shadow once more. Moonlight disappeared as clouds rolled in and covered the sky.

Gilles Ver stopped speaking and looked at the sky for a moment. He gripped the sword upside down and placed it in Henri’s hand.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and steadied his ragged breathing.

“Run.”

When he opened his eyes again, the Defender Duke was glaring sharply toward somewhere beyond the forest.

Under the pressure that seemed to slice into his flesh, Henri rose gasping and fled, nearly crawling as he went.

“Your Highness... Grand Duke...”

The last thing Henri saw was a man walking out from one edge of the forest and bending over Gilles Ver. The man muttered briefly, then raised his sword and brought it down.

Then the moonlight returned, revealing brilliant golden hair. Henri had seen that face in statues throughout Tilles, unchanged by time, exactly as it had been in those days.

Maximilian de Itouale stood there, the man who had once been the hope of this country, the Allied Kingdoms, and all humanity.

* * *

“I have heard enough. Thank you.”

“W-What will happen to me now...?”

“Tell no one of this. Gilles Ver must be remembered as a man who died after saving this country from the demonfolk and dragons.”

If word spread that the Hero had killed the Defender Duke, this country would have no future, even if it were only a baseless rumor.

Did it have one now? Perhaps not. But if that happened, Tilles truly would be finished.

The belief that the Hero, hidden somewhere in seclusion, still protected the country was the only thing keeping collapsing Tilles standing.

At this moment, when the king had personally executed his own children and handed the throne to the First Prince. In this time when Tilles’s Grand Counts had all been executed and the baronies boiled with unrest.

Now, when Etakrikh had barely become a legend strong enough to uphold royal authority, the Hero’s actions could turn into poison. Poison that told the people this country no longer had a future.

Killing this man was the safest way to avoid that ending.

But this man was the final soldier Gilles Ver had saved in his last moments. Ivan could never cut him down with his own hands.

“You deserve respect for having heard Gilles Ver’s final wish. So long as your loyalty remains with Tilles, no judgment will ever fall upon you.”

“Lord Yermof... Thank you. Thank you...”

Ivan left the hospital room, leaving the sobbing Henri behind.

According to the quest, two of the secondary objectives had been important.

Gilles Ver’s “survival,” and a “meeting” with Maximilian.

That probably meant Ivan could have encountered the two men together. If the quest’s true objective had been for him to meet Maximilian alongside Gilles Ver...

‘How was I supposed to save the Tilles Royal Family...?’

At that moment, Ivan’s eye twitched. His hand slowly clenched into a fist, and he trembled.

I see. That was why it had told him to protect the royal family, not the king of Tilles.

If it meant it did not matter who inherited the throne, as long as Tilles’s royal bloodline continued...

‘Odelia carried royal blood.’

Survive the confrontation with Maximilian alongside Gilles Ver, rebuild burnt Tilles in Gilles Ver’s name, and establish a new royal family. A royal family that still carried Tilles’s royal bloodline.

That had been the only way to extend the Allied Kingdoms’ continued existence by ten years.

But was that not too malicious?

Gilles Ver would never have sought the throne himself. That stubborn man would never move for honor.

This world was not kind to humanity.

As though some immense current existed, apart from any individual human’s will or desires.

‘I should return.’

Tilles’s story had ended in only half a victory, but his own page was not over yet.

He needed to prepare.

Never again would he allow what had happened in Tilles to repeat itself. No matter what happened. If this damned premodern fantasy world would not be kind, he would tear down its hostility with his own hands if he had to.

Gilles Ver. I will carry on your will.

I will clear the path before the Hero Party. No matter what, I will.

Ivan walked on with darkened eyes. It was time to return to Krasilov.

Ep25. Funeral Procession.

* * *

Epilogue. Hope.

Gilles Ver watched Henri’s retreating back for a moment, then turned his gaze away.

A man slowly emerged from the darkness of the forest.

Chains clinked with each step. A cane struck the ground with soft taps. A blindfold covered both his eyes.

Beneath it sat a smile that looked painted on.

Gilles Ver knew the name of the man who approached in ragged clothes, smiling. Yet he still found it hard to decide whether he could call that man by the name he had known in those days.

“Max.”

“Ver.”

The man greeted him lightly as he approached. Beneath the dark clouds, he wore a sorrowful smile.

“Have you become a god?”

“I am holding it back.”

“How much time do you have?”

“Who knows? A few years, perhaps. Or a few months. Even I cannot be certain.”

“Hold on as long as you can. At least until this generation has had time to prepare.”

The man slowly approached and stopped before Gilles Ver. He bowed his blindfolded face and silently looked down at the fallen man.

“Ver, can you move?”

“That will be difficult.”

Gilles Ver coughed up blood and smiled. Maximilian looked at him and spoke in a subdued voice.