Episode 62
* * *
When Belloc regained consciousness, he was in a demonic paradise. The Black Red Prison’s biological laboratory. He was chained to the experimental table with his limbs tied to it.
They were there too. The experimenters, staring blankly at the ‘subjects’.
“Then, depending on the degree of corruption, I will record the pathological processes occurring in the subject’s body.”
With those words, the tips of Belloc’s feet began to turn black and rot.
“No, no, it’s not me… … !”
The process of decay spread from his toes to his body. But there was no easy death that came. It was just the beginning of the next test.
“Now, after cutting off the limbs, we will see how long the subject can survive.”
“We will remove the organs and replace them with the entrails of an animal for transplantation.”
“I will extract a lethal amount of blood and inject it with raw chicken skin.”
“We will work with Walter Duke of Salt Blood to heat the subject’s blood to boiling point while still alive and observe the progress.”
“Ahhhh, ahhhh! It hurts, it hurts!”
There was no trace of a seeker arguing about the necessity of sacrifice in order to turn the wheel of history.
Belloc thrashed and screamed, his hell had only just begun.
* * *
Only then did the girl withdraw the tentacles that were teasing his brain.
“Hee, heehee, uh, uh-uh!”
The black magician of the 6th circle, Bellok, burst into laughter, drooling. After laughing, he began to cry like a child. After crying, he began to cling to me like a child and beg for forgiveness.
“Why do you beg for my forgiveness?”
“Please, please, please, please, please, please, please… … !”
“In the cause of truth, wasn’t the suffering of the victims a sacrifice worth enduring? Wasn’t that the wheel of history that you so revere and cry out for?”
Dale tilted his head at the sight.
“Is the wheel of history that you worship so much something so fleeting that it can turn over like the palm of your hand just because circumstances have changed? Then what is the point of rolling that wheel?”
A wheel that can only be turned through sacrifice and blood would be better off broken.
With an expression devoid of even a shred of emotion.
“Reveal every single experiment the Black Red Prisoners carried out that day.”
At Dale’s words, Belloc shook his head in surprise.
“If you tell the truth, I will take your life here.”
I can’t go back to that hellish place. I can die like this. Belloc opened his mouth without any hesitation about that fact. During the war for unification of the empire, the actions of the Black Red Priests were described without any hint of anything.
“… … .”
It’s a content that is equally nauseating. However, it’s not much different from what Marquis Yuris, the Bloody Duke, said that day. It’s not the ‘real purpose’ of the Black Red Prisoners that the Empire is trying so hard to silence. It’s not an Empire that would be trembling over something as simple as cruel biological experiments.
So Dale asked again.
“I, I don’t know the details either!”
“Oh, really?”
“I, I, really… … really!”
“Then you’ll have to go see hell.”
At the moment when Dale was about to thrust his tentacles at the dumbfounded answer.
“The Arrowhead Project!”
Belloc opened his mouth hurriedly. For a moment, Dale’s expression froze.
“It was an experiment to reach the realm of the 9, 9 circle!”
“The 9th Circle experiment?”
The final destination of magic that no magician has yet reached throughout the history of the continent. The pinnacle of magic, and the realm beyond.
The realm of the gods that can be reached by human hands. The Demon God.
“We, mere unit commanders, do not know the detailed details of the experiment! We are merely puppets carrying out the orders of the highest, most responsible people!”
“Then spit out everything you know as a puppet.”
Belloc answered Dale’s questions hastily, one after another, without hesitation.
“That, that’s just, by causing pain in a specific location, stimulating the subjects’ negative emotions, and concentrating them in a special barrier… … .”
By intentionally creating a living hell, and basing it on the despair, pain, and energy of negative thoughts that come from that living hell──.
“The only thing is that I tried to open the gate to the ‘world of truth’ by using negative emotions as energy… … .”
That was the real purpose of the Black Red Prisoners, and the other biological experiments that were conducted were merely secondary goals.
“So the orders we received were, uh, to secure the negative emotions needed for the experiment!”
A living sacrifice needed only for the true purpose.
That was the fact known to Belloc, a mere captain of the Black Red Prison Corps.
“… … .”
Dale, too, didn’t want anything more than that.
During the war, the warriors of the other world were nothing more than enforcers of the empire. They were hunting dogs who knew nothing about the purpose of the Black Red Training Corps, or the purpose or intentions of the empire.
But Dale could tell. He wasn’t just a junior lieutenant, but a man who knew the whole truth as one of the leaders of the devil’s army. That was why he couldn’t hide his agitation even more.
I just thought of the man’s face.
From the ambitions of the Empire, the figure of a man who believes without a doubt that he is innocent. A man who breaks away from the old darkness of the Black Tower, who emphasizes the weight of life, and who believes without a doubt that he will never affirm the justice of the Empire.
“father…….”
Dale muttered softly.
The second unit commander of the Black Red Training Corps, Black Gong.
Despite the Empire’s secret attempts to keep the unit alive after the war, Dale’s father disbanded it of his own volition.
The first vice-captain and commander-in-chief of the unit, Marquis Yuris the Bloody Duke, put an end to the Black Red alliance… … and, as he said, was swayed by such petty morals.
But that can never be a reason for forgiveness.
─ Yes, brother.
It was just then.
——————
faqwiki.us
Join our Discord for new chapter updates!
https://discord.com/invite/xr7SxG5T6V
——————
─ Can I play with it a little more?
The girl twitched the tentacles in her skirt as if she couldn’t stand it anymore. Dale turned his head again. Now, towards the man who was begging her to kill him.
“Ah, ah, ahhh… … ! No, no, no, no, please don’t play, please, please… … !”
“You can play with it as much as you want until you get tired of it.”
Dale answered. His voice was as if he really didn’t care. It was devoid of even a hint of emotion.
Phew!
Shub’s tentacles sank, wrapping themselves around the six circles in the heart of the warlock, Bellok.
“Cough, ugh!”
Just as a young vampire was reborn as a black magician by drinking the blood of a black elder, absorbing the power of his enemies was by no means the exclusive property of vampires.
Just as a vampire craves human blood, the dark magic within Belloc’s body was absorbed through Shub’s tentacles.
The essence of magic accumulated by a 6th circle black magician throughout his life.
The black magic swirling beneath Dale’s feet began to darken to a degree that was incomparable to anything he had seen before.
* * *
At that moment, on the upper floor of the black tower.
Edgar, the black magician of the 7th circle, was there.
His throat was cut, his limbs were torn apart, his abdomen was split open and his internal organs were spilled out. It was a one-sided crushing that couldn’t even be called a fight in the first place.
But he is alive and not dead, because the angel of death did not allow him to die.
Among the scattered bones, there was a man with pitch-black wings. He was wrapped in six black wings, as dark and black as a crow’s.
“……how.”
“Do you really think I came back from that world without getting anything?”
That world.
The world of truth that the black magicians of the Black Tower so desperately yearn for. The sacred realm beyond the curtain of death.
“ha ha ha.”
At the words of the black ball, Edgar let out a soft laugh. It was not a laugh born of pain or resignation. He was even happy with the fact that he would lose the battle and die.
Because I just find my own foolishness funny and amusing.
“Yeah, that’s just like you.”
Edgar laughed, looking at the Angel of Death, who was wrapped around him in six black wings.
“And now it is my turn.”
Edgar smiled blandly in the face of the Angel of Death, leaving behind the curtain of death that was approaching him.
“I too… … will finally reach the same world that you have reached.”
Even if it means crossing a river from which there is no return.
“Because the truth always lies in death.”
“… … .”
“I’ll be waiting in hell, Alan.”
“Goodbye, my friend.”
Alan of Saxony answered, spreading six ominous black wings.
“──Nevermore.”
The Angel of Death opened his mouth, and the raven’s feathers fluttered. Silence fell. And Edgar’s body, sprawled out there, finally became silent.
And that silence will never be broken.
The silence settled like a feather. It was a very black and dark silence, like the feathers of a crow.
* * *
In the darkness of dawn, Charlotte Orhart’s black sword was swung.
Without hesitation, he became the sword that protected the House of Saxony.
Not all Death Knights are the same. Even if they are Death Knights who use the ‘Aura Blade’ through the black magic of a 6th Circle Necromancer, the martial power projected onto their swords is crude and fleeting.
It is nothing compared to the Death Knight sword that Dale wields.
‘It doesn’t even compare to Dale’s.’
These beings were not knights. They were nothing more than mere mercenaries, relying on a single immortal body, without even the pride or honor of a knight.
“For the House of Saxony.”
“For Dale!”
That is why Charlotte swung her sword without hesitation. She shouted the name of her lord without hesitation, as a sword that protects the House of Saxony. She wanted to fulfill her oath as a knight even if it meant giving up her life.
“Don’t let your defenses down!”
“Fighting for the captain!”
Likewise, a mercenary force loyal to Dale, a hundred heavy infantrymen, desperately held on in formation.
It was just then.
The black sword of the Death Knight, which was supposed to clash with the enemy, stopped dead in its tracks. Silence fell.
Kuung!
In silence, the Death Knights knelt in unison and thrust their swords vertically.
“What, what is it… … ?”
In confusion, one of the Night Raven Knights muttered, and it didn’t take long for him to understand the meaning.
“You fought well.”
“Dale, Dale!”
The black successor was there.
He returns the Death Knight controlled by the elders of the Black Tower to his own, reviving the pride and honor of knighthood that they had forgotten.
“Charlotte, and the swords of Saxony.”
Dale opened his mouth. Towards Charlotte and the knights, who were armed with armor.
“Even if we live or die, we will never forget the honor and pride of the swords that served Saxony.”
The bloody battles taking place throughout the dukedom against the elders’ raids have come to an end. As if to prove this, the ‘Black Prince’ of Saxony cut through the Death Knights.
“Therefore, we promise that we will not show any forgiveness or mercy to those who seek to tarnish their honor.”
With a coldness that leaves no trace of emotion.
* * *
Duchy of Saxony.
The darkness of dawn was driven away, and the twilight of daybreak raised its head.
In the dim darkness of dawn, the ‘Black Prince’ of the House of Saxony sat on his throne in the great hall of the ducal palace.
Taking his mother and young sister with him, and furthermore, with the swords loyal to the House of Saxony, he left behind the corpses of those foolish enough to dare oppose the Duke of Saxony.
The North’s strongest knight, Sir Helmut Blackbear, the Lightsword.
The black agent Eris, the elf sorceress Sepia, and the Saxon night-raven knights, including Charlotte.
Furthermore, among the Grave Guard, the highest bodyguard directly under the Duke of Saxony, who were not even given the opportunity to swing their swords in silence.
Who could say that the man sitting on the throne, controlling the situation in the castle, and giving orders in perfect unison was nothing more than an 11-year-old boy?
The figure of the ‘Black Prince’ there was, without a doubt, the Duke of Saxony himself.
