Ch.209Chapter 209. The Last Hope of a Fallen Nation
by fnovelpia
Baudouin Britannia.
Even in the most brutal of times, he was always the most benevolent leader who called for peace.
“…If you are sick, come to me.”
But in the figure I now faced, I could find no trace of the virtuous ruler I remembered.
The blood staining his armor and greatsword showed that he had executed countless citizens with his own hands, too many for even him to count.
“All who had contact with the infected have transformed like them…. To save those who remain, we must eliminate even one more of the infected.”
The fatigue and frustration in his trembling voice behind the mask.
Those steps, entangled with despair, were now being taken precariously toward me.
“…You too will surely not escape such a fate. Sooner or later, you will certainly become one with them.”
Even as I felt the distance between us closing, I could not bring myself to point my sword at him.
It was natural to hesitate.
Though he too had been broken by despair and gone mad, he was someone I had sincerely wanted to serve as my lord.
Perhaps someone with whom I might have formed a father-daughter bond.
“…So hate me.”
Even though no one would consider him a sinner.
Until the end, he considered himself a sinner and sought to continue his mission.
“Hate me and curse me. If that can ease your suffering even slightly… I will accept it as one who cares for you.”
I know. I know that what I’m seeing is merely the past.
But the madness that seemed too vivid to be just the past, filled with endless humanity, made me hesitate to even swing my sword.
To the point where I thought it might be better to turn my back and flee.
Even though I was pressed for time, I felt I couldn’t endure any longer without doing so.
“…Tachia?”
Amid such conflict, Baudouin stopped, calling my name.
Then, lowering his sword, he stood there staring at my face.
“I heard you died in the battle with the dragon, so why?”
He recognized me.
Although this world is merely a fragment of the past, outsiders can intervene in the flow of events, just like on a battlefield.
If someone knows Tachia, it’s entirely possible they would recognize me and react.
“…Your Majesty.”
“Yes, you miraculously survived. You truly defeated the dragon and returned.”
Baudouin finally threw his sword to the ground and ran toward me.
In the end, his blood-soaked hands grasped my shoulders, but I silently accepted his touch and took time to face him.
There was a risk that the monsters’ blood could cause infection, but thanks to the armor created by my alter ego, I no longer had to worry about being affected by infection.
“Truly…..”
Facing me as I silently stared at him, Baudouin finally bowed his head and began to sob.
“Truly, thank goodness. Now that you’ve returned, we can somehow quell the problems occurring in this land…”
“…Your Majesty.”
“You are salvation. Surely you are the savior sent by heaven to prepare for a situation like this!”
The fierce strength entering the hands gripping my shoulders.
Even that slipped on the blood on his hands, and his body bowed deeply beneath me.
“So please… help me.”
But he did not consider this action humiliating.
Rather, he naturally prostrated his head to the ground and pleaded to me, who had taken Tachia’s form.
“You are our only hope, only you can save us, to reduce even a few more pitiful victims… *cough*!”
Even that didn’t last long as he coughed up blood, and a stream of blood flowed from the iron mask’s mouth onto the floor.
It was an expected result. The calamity occurring in this city would target everyone in this land in real time.
Even he, who had been dealing with the infected as the king, could not be an exception to the calamity that had come to this land.
“…Blight.”
Despite recognizing his terminal state, he did not stop his plea to me.
“The scholar of the royal palace, Blight… find him. Though the infected are crowded around his base, if they haven’t invaded the basement where he stays…”
Even in a state of mental confusion due to the madness rising from within, he used all his strength to convey his plea to the hope he had barely found.
That strong will revealed through blue eyes behind the iron mask felt deeply engraved in my heart.
“…He must have found a way, a way to solve this situation.”
Who the person before me was.
The noble spirit of a leader who fought to the end, even in such a desperate world.
****
“…Why did you accept his request?”
How long has it been since I parted with Baudouin?
In response to my alter ego’s reproach as she emerged from my body, I withdrew my blood-stained sword and gave a bitter smile.
“Well, we don’t know exactly where Garam is right now.”
I didn’t accept his request without reason.
If we don’t know the exact location, getting involved in the events before us might be a viable approach.
“If we need to look around anyway, wouldn’t it be better to head toward places where people are? Besides, a scholar would likely be smarter than us.”
“…So you entered this horde of monsters alone for that reason?”
Tentacled monster corpses scattered everywhere. Their miserable, dismembered state showed that I no longer hesitated to deal with them.
Even the one called a virtuous ruler reluctantly cut them down, so I, as a hero, couldn’t show weakness.
“…Even if this Blight that Baudouin mentioned is one thing, if that child were in a place like this, she would have been damaged beyond recognition long ago.”
But no matter how well I could handle them, my strength wasn’t infinite.
As I sat down in the street to catch my breath, her gaze grew increasingly fierce, as if my appearance was unsettling.
“I know. This might be a meaningless task.”
Yet despite feeling intimidated, I moved forward.
Even now, my heart insisted that I must advance toward the path gradually opening before me.
“Still, I feel like we shouldn’t miss what’s happening here.”
“Miss what’s happening? What useless thing are you trying to say now?”
“Saving Garam isn’t the end.”
I’ve seen calamities like the one in this city before.
The only difference is whether they’re cephalopods or beasts, but I’ve now witnessed the same scene twice in the same world—human bodies transforming en masse, paralyzing entire cities.
“If something like this has happened twice, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen a third time. If we dig into this situation well… we might be able to devise some countermeasures for that time.”
And the scholar we’re looking for now was brilliant and excellent enough for the king to place his hopes in such a situation.
In fact, as his existence remains vaguely in Tachia’s memory, she who shares those memories cannot easily dismiss my words.
“…Your justification sounds plausible. You foolish child.”
Clicking her tongue, she settled back into my body, solidifying the form of the armor.
Despite her sharp voice, her form showed no disturbance at all.
-Fine, I’ll go along with you for a bit longer. But if I can’t bear your foolishness anymore, I won’t stay quiet. Do you understand?
“Yes, thanks for worrying about me.”
-W-who said I was worried…!
“Come on, they’re coming again. We should get ready.”
Ignoring my alter ego’s flustered response, the fierce battle resumed.
Although hideous monsters swarmed everywhere, dealing with them wasn’t difficult.
I’ve encountered plenty of abominations in the sanctuary, and I’ve faced many larger and more ferocious beasts during the past half year of subjugation.
However, what concerned me was… yes, the closer we got to our destination, the more gigantic and grotesque the transformed people became.
Baudouin said he couldn’t check on the scholar’s well-being because the danger was too intense, but what I actually felt was a sense of crisis, as if monsters had made their nest here.
“…There really might be something here.”
At the end of navigating through these dangers, we arrived at a sizeable mansion.
Evidence of dedication rewarded by the king himself to a scholar who had devoted himself to the kingdom.
-Kyaaaaaaaa, kyahak!!
The mass of tentacles that attacked as soon as I opened the front door of the mansion showed that the interior was not free from the current situation either.
-I knew this would happen. This mansion is already finished. There’s nothing more to see, so even now…
“Wait.”
Amidst cutting down those tentacled monsters, a faint sound began to come from the other side.
“Listen. Don’t you hear something from inside?”
Yes, sounds were coming from inside.
Not the cries of monsters or the sound of tentacles crawling, but… clearly screams that a human would make.
“Aaaah! S-save meee!!”
Perhaps the person we’re looking for is in danger.
As soon as I realized this, I continued to cut down the monsters with bold sword strokes.
-…Saving them won’t undo what’s already happened.
My alter ego’s quiet warning came amid the bloodshed.
“But there might be a possibility to correct the future.”
I cut down those words with a single stroke, wanting to put more effort into my will to move forward.
After all, the person ahead might have found a solution to problems like the current situation.
If that’s really possible, we could navigate through this world with our own hands, even in a world like this.
“S-Scholar. Please don’t do this!!”
But what I encountered after advancing with such hope was the sight of a person struggling while restrained on an operating table in the basement.
The blood streaks all around indicated that tragedies had already occurred here multiple times.
“N-no. No… Aaargh!!!”
And the protagonist of that tragedy was a human who injected a needle into the person on the operating table the moment I arrived…
No, though clothed and with limbs attached, the tentacles protruding from his body showed he was no different from the monsters I had been dealing with.
“Puheh, hehehe…”
But what escaped his lips was not a strange cry, but what could be called laughter.
“Hahaha! Ahahahahahahaha!!!”
Feeling that laughter gradually becoming infused with madness, my body froze in place.
Unlike the monsters I had encountered so far, this monster laughing had something that could be called a “self.”
The words that followed also…
“Ohhh, yes… How beautiful a sight is this.”
Yes, despite having already transformed into a monster, what came from his mouth was clearly something that could be called language.
And it was an extremely emotional and passionate voice at that.
“Come~ Stand up. You too should worship the great being with a body advanced like mine~!”
The person on the operating table began to transform with a creaking sound in response to that cry.
The tentacles sprouting from his body and the discolored blood showed that he too was transforming like the monsters I had been dealing with.
-Kyaoaa, kyahak!!
And the bizarre cry that burst forth at the end. The grotesque noise I had heard countless times while breaking through to this place.
“…Oh dear, another failure?”
Yet he doesn’t seem to mind.
As if it was a somewhat expected reaction, he merely throws the syringe in his hand to the floor.
“Ah, yes… It can’t be helped. It’s not easy for insignificant beings like us to accept the blood of the great being into our bodies.”
That indifferent muttering showed that he felt not a shred of guilt toward the victim writhing before him.
Furthermore, the bloodstains all around and the hideous monsters filling this mansion taught me that they were born from his hands.
“But don’t worry, great being…! I, Blight, will accept the mission you have given me and spare no effort to save more people!!!”
Blight Cradle.
The moment I learned that the being in whom this land’s ruler had placed his final hope had somehow contributed to the current situation.
“Mr. Blight?”
And I too was shocked to accept this.
Not just because I believed he would solve a situation like this.
Tachia also had the experience of meeting him when she visited this kingdom, and his appearance was far too different from that of the madman before me now.
“Ahhh…?”
As if just now noticing my presence, Blight Cradle let out an exclamation and began to turn his head.
The ominous red light visible through the crow-like mask covering his face began to shine sharply as it was directed at me.
“Ah, aah. This… It seems we have a visitor.”
The beak part of the mask began to open gradually.
As his mouth, transformed as if integrated with it, opened to reveal sharp teeth, the tentacles protruding from his body began to writhe softly.
“Coming here means you too want to be saved, doesn’t it?”
“Come, don’t be shy and come this way. I’ll make you like me, so you can share in the protection of the great being…”
Sincerely.
As if feeling ecstasy at the fact that he could draw me onto the same path as himself.
0 Comments