Ch.127127. Operation Gehenna

The man looked back compulsively as he ran. Since the Code Zero had been issued, he’d been heading deep into central headquarters instead of escaping.

The signal meant that Slaves had fallen. He didn’t need to see to know that the Empire’s hounds would be drooling, waiting to tear him apart if he fled outside.

So rather than escaping as quickly as possible, he headed for a secretly hidden armory. Inside was a contingency he had prepared for moments like this.

Of course, he wasn’t certain. Without properly understanding the outside situation, there was no guarantee this would be a solution.

But simply running outside would be suicide. As a man with many attachments to life, he couldn’t easily make such a choice.

Damn bastards! Just when life was getting good!

He knew he was sucking the lifeblood of others, but that was how the world worked. The weak get trampled, and the powerful take everything from those who have nothing.

Hadn’t he himself been oppressed by the powerful in the past?

Now that he had power, it was only natural to take from those who didn’t. That was why he had desperately built up his strength.

But the Empire bastards had ruined it all. They had stolen the utopia he had painstakingly created.

He gritted his teeth and quickened his pace. Given the situation, he didn’t know if they would enter the central headquarters.

The man passed through familiar corridors toward the underground armory. Even as he moved, he looked back countless times, gripped by anxiety.

By the time his breath tasted sweet from exertion, he reached the entrance to the underground armory.

Panting to catch his breath, he opened the armory and entered. A magical device emitting light flickered several times as it detected his presence and activated.

The man grinned as he looked inside. What was in there was his lifeline.

Though all the support he had built up would disappear, as long as he stayed alive, he could rebuild somehow.

He resolved to survive this time too.

***

After the initial clash, the battlefield was quickly secured. Seraphina’s knights skillfully bound the Slaves’ hounds who still had breath in them.

While summary execution was their basic order, Seraphina had added that if enemies were neutralized during the extermination process, they should be captured.

If any Slaves remnants survived this way, they could be used politically, so the knights faithfully carried out their lord’s orders.

Gilbert also considered this and kept them alive within reasonable limits. Though their limbs were severed and bleeding profusely, the knights had excellent emergency treatment methods.

-Sizzle, crackle

“AAAAARGH!”

“AAAAH! You crazy bastards, AAAAH!”

The acrid smell of burning flesh filled the air. To prevent the captives from bleeding to death, the knights tore ignition spell scrolls and cauterized the wounds.

This emergency treatment was commonly called cauterization. Though it had side effects like burns and cell necrosis, these people were only being kept alive temporarily for political reasons.

There was no obligation to care meticulously for the condition of those who would eventually be sent to the gallows.

This was merely extending their time until they could die after their political usefulness ended.

Gilbert checked his mini-map, deliberately ignoring the screams and nauseating smell. Since he had illuminated the surrounding area before the operation began as a security measure, the mini-map was activated.

The map showed several areas where fighting was still ongoing. He briefly considered providing support but decided against it since allied forces vastly outnumbered the Slaves remnants. There was no need to lead a separate detachment to assist.

“Deputy Commander Gilbert. I need a word.”

The knight commander in charge of Area C approached Gilbert after surveying the mostly settled situation.

The commander was imposingly built, standing a head taller than Gilbert.

Despite his burly arms, he specialized in delicate swordsmanship. With long, thick fingers, he pointed to the entrance from which the slave hunters had emerged.

“Her Highness has ordered a search of the surroundings. Orders will soon be issued, but the detachment will be tasked with exploring the Slaves’ central headquarters.”

“Understood. Is the objective enemy elimination?”

“Yes.”

The taciturn commander turned sharply back toward his knights after delivering this message.

As the commander had said, Gilbert soon heard a voice calling for him through the communication device.

[This is Polasta. Sparrow, please respond.]

“Sparrow. Responding.”

[Sparrow is ordered to lead the detachment to explore the Slaves’ central headquarters and eliminate enemies.]

“Confirmed.”

[Also, there may be captured citizens, so rescue operations should be conducted simultaneously.]

“Understood. Will proceed with the mission.”

Gilbert shared Seraphina’s orders with his unit members. Though they had just fought an intense battle, they showed no signs of fatigue as they prepared for combat again and entered the central headquarters.

“It smells musty in here, doesn’t it?”

Hans frowned and grumbled. Perhaps because it was an entrance leading underground, the air was stale and dusty.

It wasn’t surprising that the place smelled foul, given that these people clearly had no interest in cleanliness.

Gilbert took the most dangerous position at the front and began exploring various parts of the Slaves’ central headquarters. They discovered storerooms piled high with gold coins, food storage areas, wine cellars, and more.

After passing through several rooms without finding anything significant, Gilbert raised his right hand, signaling his unit to stop. He sensed movement in the room ahead.

He glanced back slightly and communicated with his eyes. It meant to prepare for the possibility of Slaves remnants.

His unit members, understanding his signal, gripped their weapons tightly and stared at the door.

Gilbert flung the door open.

“These sick bastards…”

Illen couldn’t hold back his curse at the sight inside. It was uncharacteristic of his usually composed Northern demeanor.

But no one questioned his reaction. The scene in the room was too horrific to be adequately described as a tragedy.

People were confined in cages meant for animals.

Food that looked fit only for livestock or beasts was sloppily placed in long wooden feeding troughs.

Gilbert glared at the nameplate on the wall, his eyes blazing with fury.

Livestock Pen.

These damned Slaves saw humans as nothing more than cattle—that’s what it said.

“Release the people and rescue them.”

But he was now the deputy commander of the detachment. Showing emotion could affect the troops following him.

Gilbert tried to calm his boiling anger and make rational judgments.

Recognizing his effort, Lily and Hans, who had been biting their lips, opened the cages and rescued the people.

“W-who are you…?”

A trembling woman asked. Gilbert briefly considered how to respond before simply stating:

“Soldiers.”

Though brief and concise, the captives seemed relieved by his answer. Some of the more fragile individuals wept, saying they could finally escape this hell.

Gilbert continued searching and found more enslaved people in several other locations.

There were seven areas designated as “livestock pens,” each with different conditions, suggesting some classification system for the captives.

Though he didn’t want to know the criteria, Gilbert noticed the pattern and frowned slightly.

It certainly wasn’t for benevolent purposes.

“Brynhild, Hans, escort the rescued people to the surface.”

“As ordered.”

“Yes, sir!”

To prevent any unforeseen situations, Gilbert assigned Brynhild, the second strongest after himself, and Hans, whose bright personality could calm the frightened people, to escort them to the surface.

With those two, they could flexibly handle any situation that might arise.

“Continue the mission.”

After Brynhild and Hans left with the rescued people, Gilbert led the remaining detachment members to search the areas they hadn’t yet explored.

“Die!”

“Imperial dogs!”

As Seraphina had predicted, there were remnants who hadn’t managed to escape hiding in the central headquarters.

They lurked in the darkness, targeting the detachment, but they couldn’t deceive Gilbert, whose spiritual perception had far surpassed that of an ordinary knight.

Without a trace of mercy, the detachment members beheaded them and continued forward, shaking the blood from their swords.

After about 10 minutes, they reached a fork in the path.

“Angelina, Lily, and Illen, take the right path. Camilla and I will search the left.”

Facing the split path, Gilbert assigned Camilla, who had relatively lower combat ability, to his team.

He thought the balance was appropriate for the other team, as Lily and Illen had considerable fighting power even without him.

So Gilbert and Camilla began searching the left path.

Strangely, the left path stretched forward like a corridor with no doors visible. Unlike before the fork, where they occasionally encountered room doors, there were none here.

There must be something here.

That was the only conclusion given the structure. The straight path suggested something lay ahead, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it might be.

“This looks like a corridor?”

Camilla, who had been looking around, seemed to share his thoughts as she muttered.

Gilbert nodded in response and silently continued forward.

After walking for another minute, they were greeted by a massive iron door.

“I don’t know what’s inside, but I doubt it’s anything good.”

“I think so too. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Camilla pouted as she pulled the door handle.

– Rumble!

The heavy iron door slowly opened sideways, raising dust.

Real dust!

Camilla coughed from the cloud of fine dust.

At that moment, Gilbert’s eyes widened, and he pulled her toward himself.

– BOOM!

“Who’s there?”

The spot where Camilla had just been standing was now cracked.

If Gilbert had been even slightly slower, it wouldn’t have been the floor that cracked, but Camilla herself.

Her bones would likely have been shattered.

Camilla looked with a pale face at the monstrous figure that had attacked her.

No, it wasn’t a monster.

The nearly 4-meter-tall entity wasn’t human in form.

Its crude external armor and two red eyes glowed in the darkness.

Pulling a visibly heavy iron sword from the floor, it was something familiar to both Gilbert and Camilla.

A Golem Knight.

The culmination of humanity’s magical engineering stood before them.

Holy sh—!

Gilbert swallowed his curse as he faced the Golem Knight.

The Golem Knight before them hadn’t appeared in the actual game but was an early version from concept art released by the game company.

Rather than the giant piloted Golem Knights of later versions, this was a wearable power armor type.

He had read that in the early days, they lacked the technology to create giant Golem Knights, so they made this form instead, though it never directly appeared in the game.

Being an early model, it differed too much in size and output from the current generation, so it was no longer used.

But encountering an outdated Golem Knight here changed everything. While inferior to current models in output and performance, it was absolutely not something one could face bare-handed.

Anyone below Brianna’s level would be split in half the moment their sword met the Golem Knight’s.

Even Gilbert, who was approaching superhuman levels, was no exception.

[Damn Imperial bastards! I’ll tear you all to pieces!]

A man’s roaring voice was transmitted through communication magic.

His voice, filled with hatred for the Empire, seemed laden with resentment.

A criminal dares to shout!

Gilbert gritted his teeth and looked at Camilla in his arms.

Even if they both fled, outrunning the Golem Knight would be impossible.

With the difference in limb length alone, no amount of running could outpace the Golem Knight’s high-speed movement.

That left only one option.

Gilbert steeled his resolve.

“Camilla. I’ll buy time. Run away now and call for reinforcements.”

“W-what? We can do that by communication!”

“That damn Golem Knight seems to have jamming signals. You’ll need to get beyond its range for communication to work.”

“But how will you manage alone?!”

Camilla grabbed Gilbert’s collar, shouting at his reckless plan. Fighting a Golem Knight with a human body was suicidal.

Even if it was an outdated relic from a bygone era, that fact remained.

“There’s no time. If we delay, we’ll both die.”

“Then let’s escape together. You want me to leave you alone and run away by myself?”

“I didn’t say escape. I said request support and come back.”

“That’s the same thing! You’ll die!”

Camilla shouted angrily, but Gilbert freed himself from her grip and stepped forward. A sword had already appeared in his right hand.

“I won’t die. Now go. That’s an order.”

“…You stupid idiot!”

Camilla found it hard to leave, but she squeezed her eyes shut and ran to find a place beyond the jamming influence.

It was the only way for both of them to survive.

After Camilla left to request support, Gilbert turned his attention to the lumbering Golem Knight.

Fortunately for him, the pilot’s skill level didn’t seem particularly high.

Of course, that didn’t mean facing it would be easy. The gap between a Golem Knight and a human was simply too vast.

But he expelled fear with his exhale and filled his lungs with fighting spirit on the inhale.

As if that preparation was sufficient, he raised his sword, which shimmered with golden magical energy.

“Come at me with everything you’ve got. I’ll face you.”

The arrogant declaration fell.

As if inviting the opponent to show his skills.