Chapter 74: After He Fell Asleep (2)

Even though it was already late at night, the lights in the royal capital hadn’t gone out. Soldiers continued to scour through every nook and cranny of the capital without stopping. Even the renowned knight orders of the kingdom helped them with the search. It was an extremely rare occurrence, but in a way, it was only natural.

After all, a monster terror attack just hit the Royal Academy, the place where nobles sent their children to. It went without saying that these nobles were furious and wished to settle this matter properly. Not only that, it was also a matter of pride. There was simply no way that the whole kingdom would take kindly to the fuckers who dared to invade the Royal Academy, and by extension, the royal capital—since it was where the Academy was at—the city where all the great noble families were gathered.

Not only was it a blatant insult to the honor of the royal family, it was also an insult to the kingdom as a whole. All the blue bloods who gathered under the Pendragon’s flag took this as a provocation towards them. After all, if this matter reached the ears of the neighboring countries, the reputation of Pendragon Kingdom would be dragged through the mud, so they needed to catch the culprit before that happened.

“Search thoroughly!”

“Arrest everyone who looked minutely suspicious! Especially if they are mages!”

“Kill anyone who resists regardless of their reason!”

After hearing such violent orders, the troops scoured through every suspicious place imaginable as if they were possessed. More specifically, they paid more attention to the extraterritorial areas like the Parasite Abyss, the den of countless scums and criminals.

In normal circumstances, the Parasite Abyss was like a hornet’s nest—they’d only hurt themselves if they were to touch it—but now, both the soldiers and the knights didn’t even hesitate to scour through such a place.

“Run away!”

“I-I did nothing wrong! I’m telling the truth!”

“At least clean up the corpse you hid if you want to give out such a lie, you bastard!”

“Kwaaaaak!!”

This resulted in an unexpected situation where the criminals who were staying in the royal capital were being wiped out. One could take it as a positive butterfly effect from the terror that happened earlier today. Since the royal capital was bound to be noisy for a while, the surviving criminals would have to live with their eyes on the ground during that time.

However, despite their indiscriminate search and their mobilization of division-sized forces…

“I-I found it! I found the sacrifices they used for the summoning!”

“…Crazy guys! Just what kind of lunatics are they?!”

“All of their traces are gone… It doesn’t make sense…”

…They were still unable to catch [the culprit].

However, they did manage to find out the traces of the summoning magic, or rather, the medium the culprit used for the summoning. The soldiers found a huge amount of sacrifices that had been used to summon the ancient monster and the pack of gnolls.

It was just, the traces of the culprits were nowhere to be seen. They couldn’t find any evidence either.

As for why that was the case…

“…They killed everyone.”

There were tens of thousands of human bones lying around in the building, but not a single piece of evidence was found. However, one thing was certain: the massive number of human bones were the remnant of the ‘living sacrifices’ used by the terrorists.

“T-This is crazy… These people were still alive yesterday!”

“What?”

“Summoning magic is a magic that’s fueled by the pain and desire, or anger and vitality of living beings. I assume that this place is a ‘human sacrifice factory’ to generate resentment from these people. In order to summon a monster like the Ghost King… It’s highly likely that the culprit had nurtured such resentment for at least three years… I don’t know who those culprits are, but we can say that they’re truly a terrible bunch of people.”

“…”

After those words fell, an awkward silence followed after. According to the advisory mage’s explanation, this wasn’t just any ordinary crime. The culprit had put tens of thousands of people in a single building in the middle of the capital, and steadily collected enough energy for such a grand summoning.

And they had been doing this for three whole years.

“They will be sent to the gallows… Definitely…”

To accommodate thousands of people for three whole years, there must be a food distribution chain to feed them as well as a large amount of manpower to keep their presence hidden.

And yet the kingdom was unaware of it.

It was a blatant mock to the capital, and something that showed the capital’s incompetence.

The soldiers who regularly patrolled this area wouldn’t be dismissed, but, they would be dragged to the torture chamber before directly put into the guillotine. After all, someone had to take responsibility for this huge blunder.

Just thinking about how much responsibility they would have to take was enough to make one of the knights shiver. It was so horrible that his teeth started to chatter.

How crazy does someone have to be in order to do something like this?

There’s no way that they’re just a normal terrorist group. They’re definitely a group filled with crazy lunatics!

Gulp…

The knight couldn’t hide his fear as he thought about what kind of bloody storm would blow through the royal capital in the near future.

“Incompetent curs. They still don’t know anything.”

Meanwhile, a certain high-ranking priest who was leisurely watching everything unfolding openly showed his contempt.

Pathetic bunch.

“We’ve taken upon ourselves to judge these sinners and they don’t even know that? Ignorant fools.”

“…I think it would be more surprising if they knew about that, Captain.”

The lower-ranking priest beside him casually chided in.

“It might be a little different if their skin was intact, but how can they know that those were the bones of sinners who deserve death more than anything else? Even I wish to have that kind of talent, haha!”

“You frivolous mongrel! It’s because you aren’t sincere enough that you can’t see that much!”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of sincerity…”

Currently, the two priests were having a leisurely conversation while sitting on top of the roof of one of the buildings of the capital, observing the people wandering about. It was as if the possibility of them getting caught never crossed their minds even once, even though there were so many soldiers and knights looking for them.

“Anyway, they’ll notice soon enough that a large number of their prisoners have gone missing. But, if they failed to even realize that… I guess that means we’re overestimating the strength of the Pendragon.”

“That can’t be, there’s no way they are that incompetent. If they are, the kingdom would have collapsed a long time ago.”

“Huh, is that really what you think?”

Seeing as his expression turned doubtful, it was clear that the lower ranked-priest disagreed with the high priest’s statement. Normally, this was where the latter would shout at him, but after seeing his face, the high priest decided to remain silent.

The silence enveloped them for a while longer, but then…

“Captain, we failed.”

“Mm.”

“There’s no way our punishment would be a light one…”

“That’s normally the case, indeed.”

“But, if we keep moving forward like this, little by little, there will come a day when we finally reach ‘salvation’, right?”

“Of course.”

“Really? That’s fine then! Hehehe!”

In the lower ranked-priest’s mind, his captain was a great man who’d never lie to him. Whatever it was that he said, it would come true no matter what.

“I’ll only trust your words, Captain.”

The lower ranked-priest then conveyed his intention with a cool smile. Then, at the next moment…

Crackle-!

The nearby space distorted.

What did this entail? It meant that the ‘mystical ability’ that the lower ranked-priest had set up had been destroyed.

In the next moment, the invaders who had destroyed the mystical ability from outside surrounded them.

Thud-! Thud-!

Dozens of shadows suddenly appeared, as if demonstrating their secret teleportation techniques.

Whoosh-!

The spirit these people were emitting created a haze before they overlapped to form iron bars. Spirit materialization, this was what the technique was called.

There were more than fifty people surrounding the two priests, and each of them were strong enough to be compared to the champion of a territory in the kingdom. In other words, they were strong enough to serve as the commander or at least the deputy commander of a noble’s knight order. Some of them even had the strength to wipe out a marquis’ territory in merely half a day.

Such a sight begged the question: who was it that could raise such a large number of powerful people in the kingdom? And they would be surprised when they were to find the truth, that there were two forces in the kingdom who could do such a thing.

A man revealed himself. He was none other than the leader of one of the aforementioned forces.

“Nineteen years… I have been looking for you for nineteen years…”

He was a handsome young man.

However, that was only his outward appearance as he was in fact, already over sixty years old. He was a warrior who inherited the blood of a noble dragon, whose youth and spirit still remain undiminished—someone who had never put his sword down in his entire sixty years of life.

At the same time, he was a man who had rejected the dragon’s bloodline and chose to inherit the blood of the guardian of the sacred lake.

“Duke Blake.”

The high priest softly recited his name.

Blake Vivienne de Galahad. The current patriarch of the Galahad Family, and the most ‘suitable’ person among all the Duke of Galahad in history. He was the centerpiece of one of the kingdom’s three major powers.

“You didn’t even show your nose when your adopted daughter was in danger. Yet, you show yourself here.”

“Cut him some slack, Captain, he’s just an incompetent man. Why do you think he lost his woman in the first place?”

However, the two priests merely chuckled at the duke’s appearance. No, they weren’t just chuckling, they were straight up laughing at him, even though this was a situation where it wouldn’t be strange if they were to suddenly drop dead. Anyone who saw them would wonder if they just were people without fear, or just straight up lunatics.

Woong-!

Whichever it was, the spirit of the shadows became even fiercer. The words of the priests—daring words which purpose was to insult their master and their deceased mistress—made the blood of the loyal shadows boiling in anger.

But unlike his subjects…

“Indeed, I am an incompetent man.”

The duke showed no change in emotion.

If his subjects were boiling in anger, their master showed off an extremely cold reaction.

“I am an incompetent man who failed to protect my woman and a merciless father who has no choice but to doubt and test his own daughter. Also, I am nothing more than a ‘vengeful ghost’ who only cares about revenge and could go crazy at any moment—!”

Rumble-!

However, it was only his expression that was cold, as the spirit he exuded was by no means cold. His murderous intent burned everything around him—it even melted the building they were on.

“I will find out the truth even if I have to risk everything.”

Crack-! Crack-!

“…”

“…Keuk.”

At that moment, the priests didn’t even open their mouths, as if their provocations just a moment ago were nothing but a lie. No, to be precise, they couldn’t. After all, the oppressive force that the duke exuded was so overwhelming, even to them. It was as if a Fire Demon was tearing their flesh and breaking their bones.

He managed to pull this off by showing his spirit alone. That was when the two priests finally realized…

Their opponent really was…

“…They said that you are the most suitable wielder of the Demon Swords among all its wielders… It seems like that rumor wasn’t a lie…”

The strongest Galahad of all time.

Wooong-!

The haze that the duke emitted was stronger than the spirit of the over fifty people combined. Moreover, it only kept growing stronger and stronger.

At some point, a sword rested in his hand. It was a longsword without any decorations except for the blue light that covered it.

But that unassuming longsword was…

“I have so many questions I need you guys to answer.”

A demon sword which had the power to destroy a country.

Right now, the famed Demon Sword of the Lake radiated ominous flames, as if trying to burn the surroundings to cinders.