Chapter 141: 077. Hashashins and King Rahamma -1 (Part One)
I furrowed my brows.
Just before I could start grilling the Crown Imperial Prince regarding what he had been doing until now, Ruppel regained consciousness and climbed down from my shoulders, before plopping down on his butt on the ground.
He dazedly stared at White Olfolse before crying out, “F-father?!”
“Hey, it’s been a while, son. I see that you’re now a fully-grown young man!”
This father of ours... he was actually greeting us back with such a laid-back attitude. His response didn’t match a man who’s been missing for eleven years, but someone coming home from a business trip that lasted only about a month or so.
I was getting a pretty poor impression of White while staring at him. Even though it’s quite a bit of a stretch to call him my father, he was still this body’s biological father nonetheless.
While he was missing, this body’s mother and his wife, Yulisia, got murdered, then his son the First Imperial Prince, Luan, was inflicted with a deadly curse. The whole imperial palace got flipped on its head from the Vampires later, too.
Despite all these events, he didn’t even bother to show up in the palace once. I just couldn’t see this guy as a good father at all.
“Just where have you been for the past decade or so?”
My question elicited a bitter grin on White’s face. “I was looking for someone.”
“Someone, is it?”
He nodded his head. But before he could follow up with an explanation, the noise of a loud explosion suddenly reverberated throughout the city.
Tina, Hans, Ruppel, White, and I all turned our heads at the same time.
In the distant sky over there... Crimson flames were rising up.
We hurriedly exited from the wrecked fortress gate and took a better look at the cityscape outside.
Large boulders soaked in oil were crashing down on the city and rolling around to crush the buildings flat. Not too long afterwards, the echoes from war horns and drums began resounding out from the distance.
...War?
Only one army out there would even think about attacking an Aslan city like this.
I muttered, “Is it the Theocratic Empire?”
“No, I don’t think it’s them.” White walked up to my side and spoke up. “The drum sounds or the horns – none of those belong to our side.”
“Which means...?”
Tina followed me outside the fortress gate, and her ears began twitching. “This noise – it’s a military marching song sung by the Aslan army. Not only that...”
Her complexion grew deathly pale.
“...An army led by my father, King Rahamma.”
She dazedly stared at the burning city.
I too stared at the cityscape and spotted Aslan’s soldiers rushing inside the city’s open gates in the far-off distance.
I asked out loud, “Why is Aslan attacking its own city? Could it be that they ran out of supplies and decided to raid one of their own territories or something?”
Such things happened infrequently throughout history – foolish kings raiding and pillaging their own territories in order to boost the morale of their troops as well as to secure extra supplies.
Of course, the outcome from such actions would inevitably go the other way from their imaginations.
Tina shook her head at my question as if she also couldn’t quite figure it out. “I also do not know, my lord. How can such a horrible event even be...!”
“...Ah, about that. I can think of this one little possibility,” White muttered while crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I’m thinking that maybe this whole thing is because of me.”
We all stared at him.
He smiled sheepishly as if he was getting embarrassed about something. “Well, what can I say? I’m still the Holy Emperor’s son, after all. Besides, I also left the imperial palace immediately after ascending to the throne, too. So, uh, if I return to the palace now, then I’d effectively go back to being the ‘Holy Emperor’. They probably figured that getting rid of me might be enough to end this war.”
“...”
Even if all of that was true, how can anyone even think about blowing up a whole city just to kill one person?!
It seemed that this King Rahamma fella was certifiably insane.
“This isn’t the right time to leisurely exchange casual banter, everyone!” Hans called out to us while pulling a carriage to our location. “I’ve prepared proof of identities. As I’m a merchant by trade, as long as we get outside the city and grease enough palms sufficiently while explaining our situation, then we can...”
“I don’t think that’s a good method, you know?”
White interjected, and I glanced at him.
“Rahamma is attacking one of his own cities, which can only mean that he’s already prepared to slaughter every person found in the city. Even with the identity of a merchant, it’s quite obvious that we’d be exposed to danger right away.”
I facepalmed at his observation. “Man, it’s one thing after another, isn’t it...”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t get away from here, though. There are two ways of escaping from this place.” White raised his index and middle fingers. “One is to hide somewhere. We hide and wait until they tire themselves out and an opening presents itself. Too bad, this option is next to impossible to pull off. As for the other option...”
He nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders.
“Someone becomes bait and attracts the army’s attention. Or more correctly, delays King Rahamma as long as possible.”
“...Anyone wishing to volunteer as bait?”
I threw that question out, but Tina, Hans, and Ruppel all clamped their mouths shut. Then again, who among this trio would be capable of opposing Aslan’s army by themselves?
“W-well, sir. Haven’t you killed that dragon by yourself? Wouldn’t you be able to deal with Aslan’s army, since that’s the case?” Hans sneakily asked me.
Too bad for him, though, doing that would be quite stupid of me.
Sure, I could fight off the Aslan army by myself if I resorted to using Amon’s relics. My problem was with ‘time’, though.
The longer the fight, the worse the burden of using the relics would be on my body, and eventually, I’d end up incapacitated in the middle of the battle.
“Nah, that will be too difficult even for me. Close to impossible, actually.”
Hans’s head faltered lower.
It was then that White shrugged his shoulders again. “Well, honestly speaking, it’ll be better for everyone if I act as the bait. The one they are targeting from the get-go is me, after all.”
“Can you survive the ordeal, though?” I asked.
White replied with that laid-back attitude of his, “I may not be as monstrous as my father, but I can still do some crazy things, I’ll have you know. Although, if Aslan’s king and his feudal lords show up together, then I won’t have a choice but to flee from here. Allen, since you are strong enough to summon ancient mummies, surely you can also summon regular skeleton types as well, correct?”
I nodded without saying anything.
“In that case, you should escape from the city by riding on skeleton horses. You’re powerful enough to capture a fortress by yourself, so it should not be a tall order for you to get rid of the scattered soldiers trying to pursue you, and also break through the shoddy encirclement outside the city, as well. So, what do you think? It’s doable, isn’t it? In the meantime, I’ll deal with King Rahamma and the feudal lords.”
“I’m sorry to butt in during the strategy meeting, but I think we need to get on with it as soon as possible.”
Ruppel cut in between White and me, then pointed at the city beyond.
As the castellan’s fortress was located on the hill, we were afforded a great view of the city’s interior. And that’s how we got to see that all the exits leading outside the city had been blocked off by the cordon of Aslan soldiers.
...And while invading the city, they mercilessly attacked anyone they ran into.
Aslan’s own citizens, clearly frightened out of their wits, were trying to flee to safety.
This whole thing was reminiscent of mass herding of wild animals. If they kept marching forward at this rate, then eventually...
“...They’ll reach this fortress sooner or later.”
With the exception of White, everyone became deathly pale from my observation.
**
(TL: In 3rd person POV)
Rahamma’s army couldn’t be controlled.
“Force them all towards the plaza!”
The orders these soldiers received were to either capture the ‘Crown Imperial Prince’ and the ‘Imperial Princes’ alive, or just outright kill them.
However, regular soldiers wouldn’t know what the Imperial Family members looked like. So, an alternate order was issued – to perform a ‘livestock herding’–type hunt.
It was basically to drive all the citizens living inside Evelyum to one large location, and then filter out the Crown Imperial Prince and the two Imperial Princes.
The order was simply to herd the citizens to one location, but the Aslan soldiers interpreted it as permission to ‘assault’ and ‘pillage’, instead.
In other words, to kill normal people for fun or forcibly take away their valuables, and even rape any womenfolk they came across.
They lost all of their self-restraint almost in an instant.
“King Rahamma said he won’t hold us responsible!”
“Every single one found in this city is no longer our fellow countryman!”
Those words, and other declarations similar in nature, laid bare their eagerness to no longer treat the people of Evelyum as their fellow Aslan citizens.
Well, this was the city of slaves, after all. The slaves and even the commoners found in this place suffered a somewhat lower status than the commoners and slaves living in the other cities.
The final contributing factor was the repeated defeats these soldiers had to experience for the past few months. The realisation of how powerless they were resulted in their psyches being traumatised, while their fatigued physique and boiling rage caused their rationale to stop functioning altogether.
“P-please, spare us!”
An old man was hugging a young boy who must’ve been his grandson while shivering away in fear.
The Aslan soldiers were staring at the child while snickering away. One of them took a swipe with his sword and slashed the old man’s back open.
“Uwaaahk!”
“Grandpa!”
The child hung onto the old man and wailed loudly.
“R-run away, child! Hurry!”
“B-but...”
The child just couldn’t leave the side of his grandfather.
historical
An Aslan soldier raised his sword up, getting ready to cut the child down as well. But then...
A lone ray of light penetrated straight through the soldier. His head exploded and a gunshot noise belatedly echoed out.