Side story episode 8
* * *
The screams rang out, and that was just the beginning.
“Enemies of the revolution!”
“It’s the enemy, it’s the enemy!”
Enemies of the Revolution, countless warriors of the Revolution blocked Dale’s path, shouting so loudly.
One by one, large formations of pikemen and musketeers, and even iron cavalry armed with horse armor, joined them.
As expected of a city of revolutionary forces bordering the territory of the ‘Empire’, the revolutionary forces that filled the area began to gather their power.
Despite this, Dale paid no attention.
“I still don’t know the revolution.”
“Shoot! Kill the enemies of the revolution!”
Taang, bang!
Black powder from matchlock muskets scattered everywhere, and nothing changed.
Kwajik!
A wall of cold rose up at Dale’s feet. Black gunpowder fell down on him without warning, and Dale stretched out both arms.
Clang!
The walls of cold shattered all at once, and countless shards of ice were reborn and scattered. In front of this, the formations that the revolutionary army boasted about had no meaning.
Screams rang out and blood sprayed.
“What is so noble and sublime that revolution is so revered?”
Dale asked back, as if he couldn’t understand.
After asking, he walked calmly, crossing the revolutionaries who were sprawled on the ground, screaming in pain.
“Liberty, equality, fraternity… …!”
Just then, one of the revolutionaries opened his mouth. Dale burst out laughing when he heard that.
“Is that the revolution you are talking about?”
“What we, we, wish for… … is to overthrow the oppression of the emperors and the nobles… … and for everyone to be equal… … ”
Before he could finish speaking, blood poured out of the revolutionary’s mouth. Those were his last words.
After hearing that, Dale raised his head indifferently.
Suddenly, the Revolutionary Army could be seen blocking the entrance to the city, raising the drawbridge, and aiming their bows and muskets at Dale from the city walls.
“Neither free, nor equal, nor philanthropic.”
That’s why Dale sneered coldly.
* * *
The city of Troyes was a major stronghold of the revolutionary army bordering the empire, and was a strategic location that could never be given up.
Therefore, the number of revolutionary forces stationed in the city and the quality of their weapons were incomparable.
The idea of one strong man overpowering a hundred is no longer a tale of bravery that only comes from legends. That must have been the case.
But when the revolutionary army guarding the city entrance was annihilated by the man’s hands, one city and one army began to resist the man.
It wasn’t long before the fight escalated into a literal ‘war’.
The man stretched out his arm, and the corpses of the revolutionaries strewn across the area began to rise.
The army of the dead, who should have been dead, swam across the city’s moat and began to climb along the outer walls.
Even if black powder was poured down, and molten iron and rocks were poured down, nothing changed.
No matter how many wounds they sustained, how many broken bones they had, how many torn flesh they had, the dead never stopped. Even when the flesh melted in the molten metal and the bubbles boiled, it didn’t change anything.
That fact must have been a terror beyond common sense to the revolutionary army defending the city.
I screamed in terror, terrified. Nothing changed.
It wasn’t even a disease of the dead that required concentration and reconstruction. It was just a matter of reviving it and making it move, and there was no need to go through any further process.
Because that was enough.
They climbed over the walls, devoured those who were aiming their weapons at the walls, and they too were reborn as a legion of lions and began slaughtering their enemies.
The emperor’s enemies.
The dead scaled the city walls and began to slaughter, and black powder and guns meant nothing to them.
Because those beings never rested or stopped, not without literally tearing your limbs apart and making it impossible for you to move a single finger.
“What the heck is this!”
“How can one perform a ritual of this scale alone… … .”
Incredulous, desperate laughter erupted from all over.
The concept of necromancy, the magic of reviving the dead, has not disappeared even in this day and age.
However, it is not easy to find a scene in this world where even a single black magician desperately revives a corpse.
It should have been so.
But when this man revived an uncountable number of corpses with a single gesture, it was a concept that could not be understood by the common sense of this era.
Even Upi couldn’t help but hold her breath at the sight of the dead coming back to life and slaughtering her former comrades.
Nevertheless, the man, Dale, paid no attention.
In hell, where the boundary between life and death collapses and screams echo, I just walk along alone and indifferently.
They raised the drawbridge early, paying no heed to the deep moat that lay between the man and the city.
Swish, swish.
With every step Dale took, a chill rippled under his feet.
As he took another step, another iceberg appeared beneath his feet.
Step, step.
Before he knew it, Dale was climbing the stairs made of ice.
No one could stand in his way, and no one could even block it.
So, seeing that sight, Yuffie also belatedly started to climb the ‘Cold Stairs’ following Dale.
Even though she was walking on ice, it was strangely not slippery. She had no way of knowing that it was because the friction on the ice was being adjusted to accommodate her.
Dale created a tier of ice in the empty air and ascended the city walls, where no one could stand against him anymore.
——————
faqwiki.us
Join our Discord for new chapter updates!
https://discord.com/invite/xr7SxG5T6V
——————
That was it.
The dead men that Dale was commanding slaughtered the revolutionaries on the walls, and then remained silent without moving an inch.
Not even interested in the city’s people, who were screaming in fear beneath the walls.
Dale waved his hand again. The dead of the area fell like puppets whose strings had been cut.
“… … !”
“Miss Yuffie.”
Just then, Dale opened his mouth. In an unknown fear, Upi hastily lowered her head.
“Why did you answer their question with revolution?”
And in the ensuing questioning, Upi didn’t know what to say.
“I, I just… … .”
“Are you being considerate of me?”
“… … Oh, that’s right.”
“Thank you for thinking of me.”
Nevertheless, I could tell that this man didn’t need any consideration from Upi in the first place. Rather, it was Upi who was the one receiving the consideration.
That’s why I wanted to be considerate of him in this way. I found that fact very funny.
“Revolution or Emperor?”
Just then, the man opened his mouth.
“I will answer as the Emperor.”
“As expected, Uncle Dale is for His Majesty the Emperor of the Empire… … ?”
At Uffi’s subsequent words, however, the man quietly shook his head.
“I am not talking about the emperor of this empire.”
“Then which emperor are you talking about?”
“He is the emperor of an ancient empire that has now disappeared into history.”
Those words did not make sense to Uffi at first. But soon he remembered what Margrave Rosenheim had said.
About the Great Demon Empire, and the Black Gold Emperor who reigns at the top of that empire.
“The emperor took upon himself the role of a hypocrite in order to create a world where everyone could be happy, and he did not hesitate to become a ransom for all mankind.”
The man said.
“A redeemer who bears the suffering of all mankind… …?”
At those words, Yuffie held her breath for a moment. The absurd weight of those words.
But the weight of what this man was saying never felt vain.
“But I never thought that carrying someone else’s pain would itself become yet another pain for someone else.”
“… … .”
“I did, and so did the child.”
As for Upi, she couldn’t understand what Dale was talking about. Nevertheless, she felt like she could vaguely understand it.
“The act of bearing pain and sacrificing for someone else ends up only creating new pain for someone else.”
A self-sacrifice that is so one-sided.
Such one-sided sacrifice ultimately resulted in the beginning of new suffering.
Just as Dale, who once sacrificed himself for the world as the great emperor of black gold, was hypocritical, Lize was no different.
Everyone was repeating the same foolishness.
“Sacrifice is not as beautiful an act as they think, like the revolutionary cause they are calling for.”
The sacrifices we make to ease each other’s suffering paradoxically create new suffering.
As is the case with revolutions that cry out for a better world.
At the end of the irony, Dale was here.
Despite the sacrifice of Lize, who loves her, she goes through more painful days than ever.
Lize probably didn’t know that fact either, just as Dale didn’t know that fact.
The fact that the selfishness of making sacrifices for someone you love unilaterally is ultimately nothing more than selfishness.
Lize also didn’t realize that fact until the very end.
Just like Dale of the past.
The self-sacrifice that Dale made for Lize, for the world, for his loved ones, was a pain that was incomparable to anything else he had ever experienced.
Now I can understand.
“It was all… my foolishness.”
Dale smiled bitterly as he said that.
After laughing, Dale’s shoulders began to shake faintly.
As for Uffie, she couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even understand. Why on earth could this man, with all this power, be so miserable and full of misery?
Even if you have the power to acquire the entire world, is there something you cannot acquire?
Emperor or revolution.
The question came back to life in Upi’s mind again. But Upi no longer hesitated before the question.
Because neither revolution nor emperor could ever truly be the answer to this world.
* * *
Daughter.
When the man appeared in the Mokro tavern, silence fell. It was as if all sound had disappeared from the world.
The man and the girl crossed the Mokro tavern without paying any attention. The people sitting in the tavern started to leave in a hurry as if they were running away when they saw them.
The tavern manager also just looked at the man with a pale expression.
A wizard who can wipe out the revolutionary army stationed in the city alone with a single wave of his hand.
There is no way you can go against this man and survive.
But after bowing to this man, there was no way the revolutionary army that would come later would leave him alive.
Nonetheless, this tavern was his stronghold.
“You don’t have to worry.”
But as if he understood his distress, Dale took something out of his bosom.
It was a leather pouch.
There was a sound of a jingle. As soon as he took the pouch and looked at its contents, the tavern owner fell to his knees in shock.
It was a bag containing a thousand gold coins.
“With this I will buy your store and everything left in it.”
The man spoke, and the store manager had no reason to hesitate at his words.
