Volume 1, Chapter 3 – Awakening Part 5
A man with an exposed upper half and a lower half clad in flashy silk with gold and silver ornamentation. He was brown-skinned like the other soldiers, but his blessed body and the atmosphere he exuded set him apart from the rest.
Vile Narmel Lichtine.
The third son of the principality, he was the commander of a detachment of Lichtine’s army’s Principality. His gaze was fixed on the red-haired princess lurking between the cliffs.
“You’re quite stubborn, aren’t you? That’s so intriguing.”
Behind him, two hundred Imperial soldiers were lined up with both knees on the ground. Vile said as he slashed off the heads of a few of them without a second thought.
“Alright, that’s enough. Kill them all. And bring that guy to me.”
The imperial soldiers were unable to resist, they were stabbed in the chest, their throats were gouged out, and their entire body was sliced off, leaving every single one of them to be killed. The blood flowing from the corpses moistened the dry land.
And a man with a large scar on his cheek was brought in front of Vile.
“Dios!”
A voice that resembled the scream of a red-haired girl was heard. Vile’s face contorted with amusement.
“Kuku, hahaha, aah…….good! Isn’t that a wonderful voice? Finally, you’re purring!”
He stomped on Dios’ head, who gritted his teeth in frustration.
“From the look of that panic… it looks like you’re a member of the Sixth Princess’ aides or something.”
A man who showed an order of magnitude greater strength than the other Imperial soldiers when they attacked Fort Alto. He is blessed with good physical strength, and the fact that he was captured alive, thinking that his slavery would last for a long time, proved to be a success.
“It seems that I’ve been lucky, after all,” said Vile.
“I’m finally going to be able to capture the Sixth Princess, thanks to you. What, don’t worry. I’ll take care of her in front of you!”
“Gahah!”
After kicking Dios in the face, Vile raised his voice at the red-haired girl.
“If you want this man back unharmed, then you should surrender obediently!”
Although he couldn’t see the Sixth Princess’s expression, seeing that she was being stopped by a soldier, he was sure she was in a temper.
One more push… Thinking that, Vile swung his sword down on Dios’ shoulder.
“Uguuh?!”
The arm that was cut off floats high in the sky and falls to the ground while spinning around.
“Goooooohhh!”
Dios endured, gritting his teeth. He had lost his arm; the pain could have knocked him unconscious. Fresh blood gushed out in a vigorous stream, and Vile moved his jaw towards his men.
“Stop the bleeding.”
“Ha!”
Immediately, his men took out a cloth and wrapped it around Dios’ shoulders. He stabbed the fallen arm with his sword and swung it vigorously, throwing it to the red-haired girl’s feet.
“O, Sixth Princess. If you don’t treat him quickly, your precious subordinate will die! Hahahahahahaha!”
Now, charge in, surrender, or whatever you want to do, take action. The image of the Sixth Princess crying out was floating in Vile’s mind. Just imagining that was enough to make the pleasure rush through him.
I’ll torture her, ravish her, and treat her like trash. I’ll let the whole empire see her crying and screaming, thought Vile.
Vile couldn’t hold back his laughter as he imagined that near future. It didn’t last long, though――.
“Your Highness Celia Estreya Elizabeth von Grantz!”
Because Dios shouted.
“Hmm?”
Vile looked down at Dios with a dubious look.
“Keep fighting! Even if I die, my soul is with you, along with the Grand Empire of Grantz! Make your dreams come true! Make the grand dream you once spoke of come true!”
“What are you talking about?”
“If that dream comes true, then give my soul to the Twelve Grantz God!”
“Shut his mouth!”
“Gunuhh!”
One of Vile’s men kicked Dios in the face, but he didn’t move even slightly. Vile backed away from the sharp eyes, pressurized by the sharpness of Dios’ eyes. After spitting out a clot of blood, Dios continued.
“The path you are on is hard, and many difficulties will be encountered! But do not ever stop! Reach beyond the many corpses! You must push forward on the High Path!”
“Stop running your mouth!”
“Ugaaah!”
Dios was kicked in the shoulder where he lost his arm, and he fell to the ground. Vile, who was looking down at him in anger, immediately turned his attention to the Sixth Princess. She was about to disappear on the other side of the iron wall.
“Wait! You don’t care what happens to this guy!?”
He hurriedly grabbed Dios’s hair and made her lookup. But Liz’s back is now hidden behind the cliff.
“Kuku, that’s a lot of work. Just hurry up and kill me. Milady will never be your slave.”
“…I see. Then I will thoroughly humiliate you until I take it away with all my might.”
He slammed Dios’ face into the ground and stomped on him with his heels repeatedly with vigor. He continued to swing his heels down mercilessly on Dios, who didn’t even groan, as if to let out his frustration.
“Hmph, you can sit back and watch your precious princess get defiled in the afterlife.”
When Dios stopped twitching, Vile slashed at his neck and threw him at his men’s feet.
“Keep it exposed. Expose it so they can see it better.”
Without even a glance at his head, as if he had lost interest, Vile raised his bloody sword and shouted loudly on the battlefield.
“All troops, charge!”
＊＊＊＊＊
“We shall avenge them all! Protect the princess at all costs!”
Tris’s angry voice rang out through the cliffs. The heavily armed infantry silently hammered their shields. The archers fired their arrows and stopped the enemy from breathing down their necks even without instructions. Further back, there was Liz’s figure with her face turned down.
Her eyelids were red, swollen, and painful. There was no sign of the girl who was so full of energy.
(…Hiro)
She thinks of the boy with the kindest face. She probably has no idea how reassuring his presence has been on this journey. The unidentified boy who followed her even though he didn’t know what was going on.
The kind-hearted boy who stayed with her until the end of the trip, without ever expressing weakness. When he said he would fight with her, she almost hugged him out of happiness.
(…I wanted to apologize.)
There is no more energy left to fight. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else dying any longer. Only a few of the private soldiers who accompanied her on this journey had survived. That would be wiped out in less than a second.
(Hiro… I’m so tired.)
She held her knees and buried her face between them, rejecting the world. The girl, whose tears have already dried up, closes her eyes as she falls asleep. Her consciousness fell so deeply that she didn’t even care about the noise of the battlefield.
Therefore, she didn’t notice.
――At the change in the war situation.
The glittering sunlight poured down on the earth in the wilderness in full force, and amidst the dust mixed with the heat and blood of the battlefield, a lump of deep darkness fell to the ground like a raindrop.
It fell from the sky and succeeded in opening the distance between the two sides. Everyone stopped fighting and looked at it with quizzical faces.
Black and shiny hair like lacquer is dancing in the wind. The eyes were filled with a cold reason and emitted a clear black light. The boy, dressed in clothes that seemed to embody the darkness, just silently caught the enemy.
“…..”
The boy lightly swung the silvery-white sword in his hand. A gentle breeze slips through the brown-skinned enemy forces. A moment later―a splash of blood rises from several soldiers.
It didn’t take much time for it to cover the entire field of view. The enemy soldiers who have been drenched in their comrades’ blood are uniformly filled with question marks. Their brains seem to have stopped thinking, unable to understand when they see their fallen comrades.
They have no idea why the blood has fallen on them or what has happened. Time on the battlefield had stopped, with the only exception being the boy, who began to walk slowly. Without looking at them, the boy swung his sword to the side, and the heads of the enemy soldiers who had been watching him in amazement flew off.
Twisting his body, the white blade slices off the skulls of the two enemy soldiers. Before a splatter of blood could be seen, he took one step forward and cut down one person, and two steps forward and cut down three people.
The boy replaces the white silver sword in his left hand and picks up a spear that has fallen to the ground. He threw it randomly, and it pierced the necks of the four goosenecks as easily as shooting through an apple. Furthermore, he thrusts his left sword through the stunned enemy’s throat and slashes the neck of the enemy next to him as if he were caressing his neck.
After coming this far, any person would come to their senses. A yell went up from the enemy soldiers. It’s so loud that the boy’s body is blown away.
“W-what’s that bastaaarrdd!”
“So fast!”
A shining white blade sliced through the air, and the enemy soldier’s torso broke apart and crashed to the ground with a deafening sound.
“Urraaaahhh!”
“Ah!”
He dives into his foe’s chest, who swings his spear and stabs his sword into the chest. The momentum of pulling out reaps the two men’s lives, and the boy kicks the ground and leaps into the sky.
With a thud―several spears stabbed into the place where they were before. The boy who somersaulted back into the air danced back into the midst of the enemies filling in.
“Haahhh!”
He waved his arms twice and three times to carve a cross. A number of white lines were created in space, and the enemies in the vicinity turned into corpses all at once without even feeling the pain. The boy overruns the enemy army as easily as if he were crushing ants.
The battlefield was changing at a rapid pace, and Tris was unable to speak. Tris is not the only one who is silent. The soldiers on their side were also paying attention to the boy so as not to lose sight of him.
A strange air enveloped the battlefield. A black mass was slowly eroding the battlefield like water seeping through cloth. The enemy’s front line has completely collapsed. It will be extremely difficult to rebuild from here.
The faces of the enemy soldiers on the front line were all distorted with fear, and their expressions spoke of wanting to run away now. However, the order to charge was given, and they were not allowed to retreat due to being pushed by their allies in the rear.
The only thing they can do is to fall prey to the darkness.
“Is that… the kid?”
Tris tilted his head as he looked at the boy who was laying waste to the enemy lines with a silvery-white sword in hand. Even from a distance, he doesn’t have the same weak atmosphere from him that he had when they met.
It was as if he had changed as if he was possessed by something.
“And what was that sword?”
No matter how many enemies he slaughters, his sword will never be covered in blood. The beautiful, shining white and silver sword continues to shine with the same brilliant light as it did in the beginning.
It’s no wonder that Tris doesn’t know about it.
It is―that it was once called the Sword of Heroes.
The sword of a king who saved a country that was on the verge of destruction and conquered the surrounding countries. After a thousand years, the legendary sword was buried in the long history and called the lost sword.
Herth Ray Schwartz von Grantz, the second emperor of the Great Empire of Grantz.
In his lore, it is written. There is a sword in the black king’s hands who controls the heavens, the earth, and the people. The undefeated sword that will surely bring him victory.
No one here knows what happened in those days.
But if they were here, they would have been overcome with emotion. The sword is pure white on both the sword’s peak and hilt as if it were covered in snow, without a single stain, and the blade boasts a sharpness that shines like countless twinkling stars scattering.
When held by the black-clothed boy, what one associates with is the stars floating in the night sky.
The Five Emperors of the Spirits Sword. It was said to be the last and most beautiful sword――.
――The Heavenly Emperor.
It was the moment when he appeared again in this world.
“The enemy… is retreating?”
Someone in the heavily armed infantry muttered. A change had come to the battlefield that had silently accepted the carnage. Maybe the news had finally reached the enemy general.
While keeping their eyes on Hiro, the Lichtine army slowly retreated from the battlefield. The boy watched the retreating enemy for a while, but then he turned away as if he had lost interest.
At that moment, Tris’s expression changed and shouted.
“K-kid! Behind you!”
Countless arrows flew from behind the retreating enemy. His voice didn’t reach the boy, or he didn’t even look in that direction. No, even if he could hear it, Hiro, who had no shield, would not be able to prevent it.
Thinking it was all over, Tris involuntarily closed his eyes. However, the next time he opened his eyes, Tris couldn’t distinguish between reality and illusion. For like a waterfall breaking, an arrow had pierced the ground, avoiding the boy.
Tris, who had been watching it with an astonished look on his face, looked into the boy’s eyes and opened his mouth.
“Heavenly Spirit Eye, huh…”
After a moment of relief, the boy started to run.
“What?”
It was no wonder he was questioning since he was coming to Tris and the others with all his might. His face was no longer the expression that carried the abyss that he had carried earlier, but the same weak and unreliable look that he had had when they met.
“T-Tris-san!” (f)reewebnovel
“Ooh!? What?”
Tris is surprised to see Hiro suddenly hugging him, but Tris holds him back.
“L-Liz! Where is Liz? She’s safe, isn’t she!”
“C-calm down! The princess is resting in the back! You’re the one who we should be worried about, are you okay?”
It could be said to be a useless worry since he is in such good health, but Tris still can’t help but ask. But the boy looked around at his body before saying.
“It looks like I’m fine! I’m off to Liz’s!”
“N-no, wait, kid! She’s now――.”
He extended his hand, but the boy ran straight to the back.
Hiro couldn’t help but frown. The muffled heat pooled between the cliffs along with the smell of death. How many soldiers were dead, being careful not to step on them, he continued on to the back.
“Oh, Liz――…”
When the desired girl is found, he almost smiles, but his smile instantly changes to a sorrowful look. Because the red-haired girl, surrounded by bodies, was sitting on a rock. The atmosphere she wears seems to be breaking down at any moment, and it makes his chest tighten at the sight of her.
“…..”
As he climbed up on the rock, Cerberus, who was next to Liz, gave Hiro a look. He patted Cerberus’ head and then put his hand on Liz’s shoulder as her face fell.
“Liz…”
The girl who rejected the world didn’t even notice that she was touched on the shoulder.
“Liz!”
Hiro let out a loud voice and shook her shoulders.
“…..”
“Huh?”
Looking at Liz, who finally raised her head, Hiro gasped in shock. The lusterless eyes just opened unfocused, and the swollen eyelids were painfully red.
(Ah… who was the one who hurt you so badly?)
He gently put his arms around her head and held her close. He couldn’t find the words to say to her, being this exhausted.
“Liz… I’m sorry.”
Hiro didn’t know why he was apologizing, whether it was that he couldn’t think of the words or that he hadn’t been able to come up with them in time. With a twitch, the red-haired girl’s fingers moved. She grabbed Hiro’s arm and pulled her face away from his chest.
“…Hiro?”
“Yeah, I know you’re going to be mad at me, but I’m back.”
When Hiro nodded with an embarrassed face, Liz’s hand touched his cheek. Although it’s hot and humid like summer, her hand is chillingly cold.
“Why did you get here?”
“Because now I know what I can do.”
Taking Liz’s hand from his cheek, Hiro took it and squeezed it gently to warm it. The light comes back to her eyes. Maybe it was the realization that it was real. But Liz’s eyes fall down as a sad expression appears on her face.
“Dios is dead…”
“…Yeah.”
“He was more like an older brother than my real brother. I always thought of him as my real brother.”
“Yes.”
“But… I couldn’t save him.”
“…..”
“He told me to make my dreams come true.”
Her voice trembled, and her eyes grew moist with tears.
“I’m… uuuwaaahhhhh――.”
She buried her face in Hiro’s chest and began to cry, sobbing breathlessly. Putting his arms around her back, Hiro pulled her into a hug. Even if she was a Spirit Sword wielder, she was still just a girl who had just turned fifteen.
The one she loved like family was killed in front of her eyes. It must have been a thought that tore her heart apart.
(Ah yes… this girl looks just like you.)
Although they don’t have the same hair color or facial features, their hearts are exactly the same. He was on the throne at a young age, with grand ambitions, but he was unable to do anything about it because of his position.
All he could do was watch his country dying in silence.
(Is that why you summoned me back?)
As Hiro stroked Liz’s head, he knew why he had returned to this world. It might be wrong. But that’s fine with me, Hiro thinks.
Tris and the heavily armed infantry looked on painfully as the Sixth Princess cried quietly on the rock. The strong men are crying with tears flowing from their eyes―they are crying through their teeth without speaking.
In the midst of all this, Tris never showed any tears but was trembling with rage as a single streak of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth.
Dios von Michael. A young man who was to have turned twenty-eight this year.
Formerly a mercenary, he had been severely wounded and drifted to the Empire, where Tris had treated him and taken him in. He never missed a day of training and steadily accumulated achievements on the battlefield. When his strength was recognized and he became a member of the Sixth Princess’ entourage, Tris was pleased as if it was his own matter.
If Liz was just like his daughter, Dios must have been his son. As if to break the memory of the past, Tris thumped his chest forcefully. Letting a loud clang play out of his armor, he broke the silence and fell to his knees on the spot and shouted.
“Your Highness Celia Estreya Elizabeth von Grantz!”
Everyone turns to the loud voice that echoes through the air.
“There is no time for grief. Dios will not wish for that! The sun is going to set soon. Let’s find a way to get past them!”
It was Hiro who responded to Tris’ angry words.
“Then, I have a better idea.”
“What?”
“There are roughly two thousand enemies, and even if we can get through this, the surrounding villages will be damaged. Liz won’t like to see innocent people get hurt.”
“Hi-Hiro?”
Liz leaked a voice with a hint of dismay. No wonder she was surprised since he remained a normal boy in her mind. Hiro turned a wry smile on his face and continued his story.
“Then, even if we don’t call it annihilation, we need to reduce the number of enemies as much as possible so that they can’t do anything like banditry.”
“We have only 20 men left. How can we defeat 2,000 men? Are you asking us to kill a hundred enemies for one person?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. We’re all tired.”
Hiro’s smile deepened, and he held up his index finger as he got off the rock.
“It’s a simple strategy that even a child could come up with.”
A man who was once feared as the “God of War” is reborn.
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