Episode 63
* * *
After leaving the business at Necropolis behind, the Black Knight rode his horse in a hurry back to his castle.
In the throne room of the Duke’s Great Hall, right there, his son was.
Sitting on the throne that was meant to exist only for the Duke of Saxony, the ‘Black Prince’ looked down at his father.
“father.”
“Dale.”
Two rich men exchanged names.
Sreung!
“I respectfully greet Your Majesty the Duke!”
The tomb guardians knelt in unison and thrust their swords vertically.
“Mother and Lize are safe.”
Dale continued.
“After my mother calmed Lize down, she finally went to bed.”
“……okay.”
The black ball said calmly.
“What a blessing.”
In any case, when the battle was going on here, in the castle of the Duke of Saxony, when his castle was attacked, as the lord of the castle, he could do nothing. His son, as if it were a favor, just defended the castle of the House of Saxony.
Leading the people of the Saxon Dukes in his name, he defended them and sat on the throne of the castle.
“Your Excellency the Duke.”
Dale slowly rose from the throne reserved for the Duke of Saxony, as if it were not yet time for him to sit down.
“Can I talk to you for a moment?”
After getting up, Dale said. The Duke of Saxony nodded silently.
* * *
The top floor of the Saxon Duchy’s Castle. The Black Duke’s office.
The dawn’s darkness seeped in outside the window, and the Duke of Saxony was there. With his back turned to the dawn’s twilight pouring in as backlight, a deep shadow was cast over him.
“It seems like you have something to say.”
“I confronted the elder of the Black Tower who had attacked the castle and defeated him.”
Dale said. For a moment, the expression on Black Ball’s face became agitated.
“… … Are you saying that you defeated a magician of the 6th circle alone?”
Even considering Dale’s absurd talent, there is a limit. He won against the elder of the Black Tower, a wizard who had reached the level of the 6th Circle? It was impossible.
It was a realm that could not be described as the greatest talent in the empire. However, for Dale, this was a good thing.
“Yes.”
Without further ado, Dale nodded.
“Furthermore, by confronting him, I was able to catch a glimpse of the world of thought he had built up as the leader of the Black Red Training Corps.”
“… … .”
The Wizard’s Image. The unforgivable evil deeds of the Black Red Corps, the demonic force.
“And through his mouth, I heard about the true nature of the Black Red Prisoners.”
“… … .”
The real purpose that the Empire is so desperately trying to hide.
“His Excellency the Duke of Saxony, Second Lieutenant of the Black Red Guards.”
Dale opened his mouth.
He spoke of the past of the man before him, the shackles of sin from which he could not escape.
“Was everything you said to me a lie?”
Thinking back to the weight of life he once spoke of.
“Was everything my father said to me ultimately nothing more than hideous hypocrisy?”
There was an unmistakable emotion in Dale’s voice.
The man in front of him was not just any other man. He was Dale’s blood relative who had given birth to him and raised him.
I had no doubt that he would never affirm the justice of the Empire.
“Was your father also ultimately unable to escape the ugliness of the empire?”
“… … .”
Silence fell. It was a silence so heavy, so heavy, so heavy that its weight could not be measured.
“That day, when the great army of the empire, led by the warrior of the other world, fought the Demon King.”
After a moment of silence, the Duke of Saxony opened his mouth.
“When the strongest men in the empire gathered together and finally defeated the Demon King… … a man came to see me.”
After the subjugation of the Demon King, while the imperial forces were stationed in the north, a man came looking for the ruler of the north.
“Was it the Marquis of Yuris?”
“He made me an offer.”
The Duke of Saxony nodded.
“He said he was preparing ‘some kind of large-scale experiment’ and asked for my cooperation.”
“That experiment is… … .”
“It was an experiment to reach the realm of the 9th circle.”
The Black Red Guard was a unit that existed solely for that purpose from the beginning.
“He threatened that if I refused that offer, he would defeat the Demon King and then move the Imperial forces gathered in the North… … to destroy the entire Northern Duchy.”
“… … .”
“The content was that they were going to accuse me of colluding with the Demon King and turn the unit around.”
The world’s greatest black knight surrenders to the Empire’s intimidation. I couldn’t help but laugh. But I couldn’t laugh.
A large force of the Empire has gathered in the Duchy of Saxony, under the pretext of subduing the Demon King.
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It was a cause that even the Duke of Saxony could not dare to refuse, and he clearly remembered the strong men gathered there.
Bloody Ball, White Ball, Holy Sword, Ghost Sword, and… …the warrior of the other world.
The Dale of the past was there.
Even the world’s greatest black knights are too strong to stand up to them alone, all for the sole purpose of subduing the Demon King and saving the empire from the threat of the Demon Clan.
With them now in the heart of the Duchy of Saxony, resistance would be meaningless.
“So, did you accept their offer?”
“The Pope and the elders of the White Tower were present, and they inscribed the details of the experiment along with a geas to cooperate with him.”
The binding of the oath, Geas. The absolute contract magic that the White Tower is proud of. It is a Geas that was engraved by the combined efforts of all the elders, including the White Tower Lord.
“So you cooperated with the darkness of the Black Red Guard? You had no choice but to protect the Duchy of Saxony?”
“… … .”
If I had made up my mind, I could have tried desperately to defend him. It was an inevitable decision for the sake of things that had to be protected, and even the Black Knight was ultimately just a weakling who could not go against power.
That’s why it’s not my father’s fault.
But I didn’t say that. I couldn’t say it. Silence just fell.
“I could have risked my life to face them.”
After a moment of silence, the black ball spoke.
“Even if we couldn’t win, we could have used all our powers, including the ‘Death Order’, to carve an irreparable scar.”
But I didn’t do that. No, I couldn’t.
“But, funny enough… … Elena’s image came to mind.”
Elena, Dale’s mother. The woman loved by the Duke of Saxony.
“So you gave in?”
The Duke of Saxony nodded silently. After nodding, he continued.
“I was afraid of losing Elena.”
His voice was shaking faintly. It was the first time Dale’s father had shown any sign of weakness.
“I was afraid of not being able to see the child that would be born between me and her.”
A child born between her and the Duke of Saxony.
“So I cooperated with the Black and Red Priests’ experiments. I knelt before the Empire and the Red Tower, bowed my head in cowardice and meanness before the justice of power.”
The Duke of Saxony continues his speech with a self-mocking tone.
“Through the bond of black magic that seeks strength and truth, in order to reach the realm of the 9th circle… … .”
A forbidden experiment to achieve the 9th circle.
“Condensing the thoughts of pain and despair into a special barrier… … .”
The contents of that very experiment flowed out from the black ball’s mouth.
“It was a task to create a gate connecting to the world of truth through the negative energy that came from there.”
“Are you saying that by reaching that world, you can achieve the realm of the 9th Circle?”
“There was no such thing as certainty.”
The black ball answered.
“The founder of the experiment was the Bloody Ball, and I was merely a collaborator.”
However, it was an experiment that would never have been possible without the power of the Black Tower and the Black Ball, which sought the truth. That was why the Bloody Ball had so desperately emphasized the new bond between the Black and Red to Dale.
To Dale, who was not a black ball, but would later be reborn as a black magic tower lord, that meant only one thing.
“In the end, the experiment failed.”
“Have you not reached the world of truth?”
“No, reaching the world of truth itself was a success.”
The two leaders of the Black Red Training Corps. As the five magicians who stand at the top of the magic world at the same time, Black and Bloody Duke succeeded in entering the ‘World of Truth’ that day.
“Then why did it fail?”
Wasn’t it virtually a success? Dale asked incomprehensibly, and the black ball answered.
“Because I blocked that man’s path.”
“… … !”
“I couldn’t stand to see his ambitions come true.”
If a person filled with malice and ambition attains the realm of the 9th circle, he or she will be reborn as a being called a Demon God.
Because Black Gong also didn’t know what was going to happen to this world.
“But Geass… … .”
The fact that the Black Ball had stopped the Blood Ball’s ambitions was an act of obstructing ‘cooperation in the experiment’, and there was no way that Geass would remain silent about such an act. And wasn’t it a Geass that the White Magic Tower Pearl had directly engraved into the Black Ball’s heart?
“Even the binding oath that the White Tower boasted of had no effect in that world.”
The black ball continued speaking with a bitter smile.
“Have you seen the world of truth?”
Dale shook his head silently.
“In that world, common sense and logic that we know are meaningless.”
An unknown area that cannot be explained no matter how much you try to explain it.
“I just got in his way, that was it.”
The truth that the wizards so desperately yearned for was right in front of them, but they could not reach it.
“Did you win against the Bloody Ball?”
To Dale’s question, the Black Ball nodded. At least in that world, even the Blood Ball was no match for the Black Ball.
“Then why did Father come out of that world without gaining anything?”
Dale asked back. The black ball smiled bitterly at the question, absentmindedly recalling his old friend.
“I was once in that world… … .”
It was the same question, and so the same answer came back.
“Do you really think you came back without getting anything?”
* * *
Dawn was breaking, and the Duke of Saxony was in the ducal couple’s bedroom.
His sleeping wife Elena and the couple’s daughter, Lize. His lovely family.
Things that must be protected even at the cost of everything.
That day, a dark, white winter night, he remembered when his son, Dale, was born.
The image of that small, lovely being bursting into tears in Elena’s arms is still vivid.
At the same time, I thought of the darkness of the Black Red Prison, that horrible hell. The unforgivable evil deeds. The darkness of the past that I could not escape.
The wheel has already been set in motion, and there is nothing that can be turned back.
So, beyond the world of truth, he thought about what he had obtained.
By sacrificing everything he has to protect what he loves against an empire gone mad with blood and madness, and furthermore to right the wrongs of the past.
On that day, leaving the Bloody Ball behind, the Duke of Saxony made a deal with the devil. It wasn’t an easy metaphor. It wasn’t even a being like the Demon Tribe or the Demon King that the White Tower kept calling out to.
Beyond the boundaries of thought… … In the world of truth, there was a being who offered him a hand for a deal.
The devil really did exist, and he was willing to accept the deal.
After a while, on a white and dark winter night, a life was born.
His most beloved son in the world.
