Chapter 132

Dragon Slayer (2)

The palace knights arrived at the scene.

“What is this?”

“What the hell happened here?”

Knights that would not even lift an eyebrow if a blade were to touch their throats all now had crushed expression.

The battle had not happened in front of them; they could only see its aftermath, the traces of what had occurred. Just that sight alone made the knights of the kingdom shake, shiver.

Normally, their commander would have shouted, “Get your minds straight! Regain your composures!” at this point, however, he remained silent.

Count Schmilde just looked at the site, then looked again, frowning all the while.

It wasn’t strange, for he was a quad-chain champion, one of a few in the kingdom. He was a strong man who had reached a higher level than any of those gathered there. That is why he was shaken more than anyone else: He understood what he was seeing. While his subordinates were merely overwhelmed by the strange sight before them, the Nogisa felt a sliver of fear.

“The sight of the place.. It’s like a dragon has passed through there.”

Suha’s report, the knight who first saw the scene, flashed through the commander’s mind.

He was planning to strongly admonish the knight for giving a report that should have been more objective. Seeing this, he knew he couldn’t fault Suha anymore.

The ground was scuffed and scattered all over the place, and a huge rift ran through the earth, through the center of the scene. If a dragon had crashed to the ground, it would’ve looked just like this.

The commander drew his sword and gathered mana to its tip, gathered more and more until he couldn’t afford to push himself further.

And once the energy had reached its peak, Schmilde struck the ground with his Aura Blade.

‘Bwaak!’ and along with that roar, the ground rose.

“Hah, Chief!?” his men scattered away, surprised by his sudden behavior.

Not even deigning to notice, he just waited for the dust to settle, his face stern.

The ground was eventually revealed, as well as the devastating effects of his attack.

“Well,” he almost moaned.

It was as he had expected, but the original ditch was still so much greater. Schmilde had expended almost half his mana in that single strike, and the hands that had gripped his sword were torn; blood was flowing freely. Yet, there was no comparison: He had only added a slight dent among all the scars that had been cleaved into the earth. To put it in an analogy: He had made the marks of a lizard swishing its tail in a place where it seemed a dragon had passed through. Even though the kingdom’s most gifted champion had exerted all his might, that was the only mark that he could make. Schmilde couldn’t even estimate how much force had to be applied to leave such a rift in the ground. He rather wanted to deny the sight altogether.

The scar he stared at looked like it was created by nature rather than the hand of any human; it seemed as if it was caused by a typhoon or something of its like.

He dearly wanted to believe that, but he couldn’t. His instincts as a champion told him otherwise. These traces were left by no natural calamity—A tragedy had occurred here.

The Nogisa thought quietly. It had been impossible to imitate the furrows on the scene with his four rings, but if a knight with five rings had been here—Would it be possible then?

He didn’t know.

This was something he had never experienced before, so all he could do was make vague guesses. If these scars had indeed been left by a human, then it might have been the missing first prince’s work. Prince Adrian was perhaps the only penta-class knight born into the kingdom.

“No way..”

Count Schmilde, who had once taught swordsmanship and served as a tutor, could not think that the first prince had created such a scene. That was because the first prince was not a penta-chain knight, and even if he was surely not incompetent, he had only become a Sword Master by using a mana heart.

And that meant that it was an unknown third party who had created this ridiculous sight before him. A being with such tremendous power had come so near the capital, and no one had known of its presence. It felt as if a blade was touching Schmilde’s throat. He would not have been able to use his power and to even beat such a being back if it came to the royal palace. The Nogisa would have stood helplessly by if whatever being which had cleaved these rents into the earth had come for the king.

“We won’t pursue it,” the commander of the palace knights ordered as he sheathed his sword, ordering a return to the palace in a voice stronger than ever before.

* * *

A corps of palace knights, led by the gifted Nogisa, had been sent out to study the field, but no knowledge was gained. Rather, they only brought more grim news.

At least a penta-level knight had intervened in that battle, and if the first prince had been the intended target, then his survival was unlikely. Had the man who made this report to the king not been a champion, then the king would have taken his life for even suggesting that Adrian was dead.

Still, it wasn’t as if anger did not arise in the king’s breast, so he still took his anger out on the palace knight commander.

“Go out and search again!”

However, Schmilde answered that he could not dare to let the palace knights leave their posts again. He suggested that whatever danger had been there could still be in the vicinity of the capital, and so he urged the necessity of further strengthening the defenses of the royal palace.

It was a situation where the protectors of the kingdom were needed to keep the royal family safe. It would not be feasible to disperse the forces of the royal palace itself so far from the capital.

Besides, the Nogisa also pointed out, the palace knights were great knights, but they weren’t very good trackers. It would be much more effective to scour the countryside with a hundred soldiers than a few enthusiastic knights. The king called up some of the Central Legion troops from the capital’s garrison and ordered a large-scale search.

Among them, there was a ranger of Balahard, who was said to be good at tracking and reconnaissance.

“Dammit! Fuck! Can’t I kip for even a fucking moment round here!?”

Ranger Jordan set out from the capital with many swear words, and the first prince’s knights followed him. They finally reached the scene of battle.

The sight that was spread across the plain was enchanting in its terrifying scope. Even Jordan could not have imagined the tremendous scale of what had occurred here, and he was a man who had witnessed the might of the Warlord firsthand.

“Fuck it. This is a damned sight! It just looks so- Wrong, innit?” Jordan swore. “If the prince is really dead, I will find him, bring him back to life and curse him for getting into a fucking mess like this.”

Jordan’s words were disrespectful, blasphemous, but no one blamed him. They all felt the same way.

The first prince had always been selfish, but this time he had gone too far. If he was going to deal with such a strong enemy, why hadn’t he told anyone? It was as if he hadn’t thought it to a problem if he just disappeared without them aiding him in battle.

“You have served His Highness for much longer than I have, but you still don’t know his character?” asked Siorin Kirgayen, who had insisted that he join the search team.

“I heard that the palace champion who checked this site confirmed that at least a penta-level knight had been present on the scene. Would you have been able to deal with something like that?” he added.

“It isn’t a matter of dealing with it or not!” Carls shouted.

Siorin clucked his tongue at Carls’s outburst.

“Okay Sir Carls, you are his protector. No matter who or what His Highness faces, you, his loyal knights, would sacrifice your lives to protect him. That’s why His Highness did not tell you.”

“What does that-“

“I heard that when Winter Castle fell, many knights offered up their lives to protect his unconscious Highness and that His Highness wept tears of blood at their loss.”

Those present weren’t fools, so they understood Siorin’s words, and they were captivated by his point of view. The reason that the prince, who they were were supposed to protect with their lives, had disappeared on his own was to protect them!

“Damn! Damn it! Fuck!” the well-mannered Carls, who had never been caught swearing in his entire life, now swore repeatedly. The other knights also burst into anger, and their anger was directed at themselves rather than toward anyone else.

They had been found lacking, weak, and because of that, the prince had left them, his protectors, behind in the capital. The world seemed to collapse around them, into a deep abyss of anger and self-doubt.

Seeing their despair, Siorin grew stern. He might even have garnered some resentment from his daughter for not telling her of the current peril, but he had no regrets. Arwen was facing an important moment in her life. Until her newly-woven rings had hardened, she had to refrain from releasing any mana, and she had to keep her mind and body cleansed and at peace. Considering that her fourth ring had already become unstable due to its constant use in the empire, Siorin knew that it had been the right choice not to deliver the news of the prince to her.

It will come as too great a shock to her, and maybe it could lead to the incorrect formation of the hard-to-weave fourth ring.

“Stop a while.” Ranger Jordan raised a single finger. “You’re distracting me, so let’s all be quiet-like.”

Everyone grew silent as they heard his nervous tone. If anyone could find the first prince’s whereabouts, it was the ranger. He was acting as he had just found something.

‘Snff! Snnnu!’ Jordan headed in a set direction, sniffing the air while touching the ground under his hand. Then he raised his head and set off running. The knights immediately followed him.

It was a deep, dark night, which made it difficult to pursue the trail effectively. The ranger ground to a halt and looked at the ground.

“Well.” He sank to the earth and started groping about on the ground, then found a trace of something, obviously having rediscovered the track.

The knights figured that Jordan would start moving again.

“Oh god damn it!”

But this time, the ranger didn’t move. He just shouted as he sank his face to the ground and started tapping the dirt.

“I will not give up. I will find him.”

Then he started crawling along the ground like a crazy person. It seemed as if Jordan was desperately struggling to find traces.

“You can do it, Jordan. You can do it, Jordan. Damn it, you can!”historical

The knights watched the ranger talk with himself, their faces stern. They all hoped Jordan’s struggles wouldn’t end in despair. And in the next moment, a woman who had been hanging to the back of the group suddenly stepped forward. It was Adelia

“Sir Adelia, step back. The clues could be dama-“

‘Hshoop!’

Carls had tried to hold her back in fear of her interfering with the ranger’s work, but he pulled his hand away when an eerie energy flared up. A golden tracery remained where his hand had just been. Carls looked at the delicate woman’s back.

She had drawn her sword, which was glowing golden, and she moved forward,

Carls raised his hands to restrain some of the knights who had stepped forward to hold her back.

It had been only for an instant, but he had looked different hues of light had been swirling behind eyes that were empty, as if her soul had escaped her body.

No longer was she a delicate woman who searched for her master with tears streaking down her cheek and her nose running as she wept. The only thing that remained was a bloody-minded woman who had cried and cried until all her tears had dried away. Now, her eyes looked like grains of sand, uncaring and ancient.

She would surely burst into a rage if touched.

He had witnessed Adelia run amok in her madness several times. At such times, she moved only to spill blood and rend flesh, and no traces of her gentle and delicate nature were in evidence then.

Only the prince could control Adelia in such a state, and he was not here.

This was not a battlefield, yet only the prince could ever snap the woman out of her madness.

Carls drew his sword and looked at Adelia in silence. If she held any intention of harming the ranger, he would cut her down. The only hope they all now had rested in the skills of the ranger from Balahard.

However, the situation that Carls feared did not transpire.

Adelia passed Jordan, who was still crawling along the ground as he sought the trail. Then she suddenly halted and lowered her body. She grabbed a handful of dirt and brought it near her face.

At first glance, she only seemed to be looking at it, but then Carls noticed that she was also smelling the earth.

After doing such a mysterious thing for a long time, Adelia suddenly threw the handful of dirt sway.

‘Swa!’

Then the woman stood from the ground and set off at a run. It seemed that she had discovered something. The knights and the ranger ran after her.

For how long had they run? The entire wilderness had small stones and large rocks scattered all over. Adelia ground to a halt in front of one such pile of boulders and smaller rocks.

It seemed as if a person’s body could be hidden under them. Adelia threw her sword to the side and started groaning, and she tried to heave a large rock to the side. Carls and the knights rushed in to help her.

‘Kwadum’

The boulder fell to the ground.

‘Kwud’

Another rock was rolled out of the way. The rock pile, which looked like a cairn, was dismantled stone by stone. And underneath them all, somebody’s back appeared. The flesh had been cut and torn into rags and was red with caked blood. There were also patches of grass-green among the red.

“Ah!” Carls tried to roll away a large rock, his arms trembling. Before long, the boulder was pushed aside, and a bloody elf was revealed.

Her grass-green cloak had become ragged, and it was wrapped over her head.

The face that was revealed was that of a mute swords-elf, a being that they all knew well.

‘Kidsha,’ Adelia roughly pulled the ragged elf from the space. Something could be seen where she had lain. It was the person they had all so desperately been seeking.

Even though he was drenched in blood and breathing weakly, as if he would stop breathing at any moment, the first prince was there, still gripping onto his sword tightly.

“My Majesty!” Adelia screamed as she touched the prince’s cheeks. The knights rushed to the gap and carefully pulled the prince from the space.

‘Pluch,’ blood spilled from his many wounds. The prince sank to the ground and did not move.

Jordan fired the signal flare he held into the sky.

‘Fswhooo!’

“Come get him!”

‘Kshoo! Kshoo!’ fireworks loudly bloomed in the dark night sky.

‘Fwoop, Fwoop, Fwoop’ the sound of flapping wings was heard from some distance.

‘Bawooowoo! Bawooowooo!’ Jordan took his horn into his hand and ceaselessly blew it.

And soon after, a giant wyvern appeared and landed upon the earth.

“Huh?” the wyvern rider widened his eyes as he saw the stricken prince.

“No time to explain! Come on, take His Highness the Prince to the palace!” Carls shouted as he carried the first prince to the great wyvern. The prince and the wounded elf were strapped to a saddle. Then the clasp upon the elf’s cloak was loosened, and it was wrapped several layers around both of them. It could be disastrous if their body temperatures dropped.

“Go!”

“Then we’ll see you at the palace!” Jin Katrin shouted as he lifted his steed into the air and flew straight for the capital.

‘Fwoop, Fwoop!’

Adelia ran after the flying wyvern, and the ranger and knights also followed.

“Is His Highness well?”

When everyone arrived at the palace, the first prince had already received first aid.

“There was a royal command to let you in as soon as you arrived,” the palace knight guarding the door to the prince’s chamber said, allowing the party entrance. The door was opened, and they all looked toward the prince’s bed. Several people were gathered around him: The king with his stern face, the troubled queen, and the second prince, who knelt by the bed.

And in the middle of them all lay the first prince. His face was bloodless, and he seemed dead. He was covered by a white cloth, unmoving even as his mother clenched his hand.

As Carls saw that, all life drained from him.

“Well, Your Highness..”

In that shocked state, Carls headed to the bed.

“Highness!” the knights and ranger who followed him in cried as they rushed to the bed.

“Your Highness! Highness!”

They couldn’t form proper words as they kept calling to the prince.

“Ah, so noisy,” a weak voice was heard, so weak that it almost wasn’t a whisper.

“Uh!? Uh?” the dumbstruck knights raised their heads. The first prince looked at them with a drained face, only his eyeballs showing any sign of movement.

“Your Highness! Are you okay!?” Carls gazed at the prince with a bizarre face, not completely crying nor laughing.

“Does this look okay to you?”

The knights all sighed in relief as they heard the prince whisper, for they had thought him to be dead or dying. They felt elated as they heard him talk. Now that their hearts were relieved, they asked as to the circumstances of his wounding.

“What the hell were you doing?”

At that, the prince managed to raise his lips into a slight smile.

“I was breaking my word.”