Ch.293Chapter 293. Against the Chel, Battle of Alcanwood Castle (4)

Chel’s vision rapidly blurs.

Even a simple stab wound would be fatal, but now he was essentially impaled through the abdomen with a sword imbued with red flames that literally melted his armor.

With the area around the wound being seared by fire as well—the fact that he was still alive was a miracle.

Though he felt he might lose consciousness at any moment, Chel knew that losing consciousness now meant certain death.

He couldn’t die so meaninglessly, so pathetically.

At the very least, he needed to know what his killer was thinking.

Looking up at Swen, Chel bit his lip hard and summoned all his strength to barely manage to speak.

“Swen… you bastard… when did you…?”

Someone approached me, and I didn’t sense it?

Before Chel could even form his suspicions—that man, Swen’s voice came again.

“It’s not that you were too stupid to notice. You simply fell into a trap I had prepared to break down your vigilance.”

“What… are you saying…?”

“Did you hear it? The loud noise. I’m sure you did.”

Swen said this and then thrust his rapier into the ground.

And then—

A booming sound echoed from the distance.

“You see, I can use it even from quite far away. It was the sound of destroying a siege weapon… or more accurately, something that merely looked like a siege weapon. Our soldiers had already withdrawn from around the weapon some time ago.”

The weapon… was a fake?

Only now did he wonder if they hadn’t been neutralized too quickly, but he knew well that such thoughts were too late now.

“You… you were… the mage all along…?”

“No. That’s not it. There’s a deeper story here… but honestly, I don’t think you’ll live long enough for me to explain it all.”

“Anyway, I was certain you would come this way if I could just dispel your wariness about potentially encountering a mage if you strayed from among your soldiers. You fell for it completely, and consumed by hatred, you failed to notice what actions Irene was leading you toward. That’s all there is to it.”

“You’re saying… I was deceived…?”

Just as Swen said, the reason he had been able to pursue Irene was because he was convinced that the mage would be mixed in with the battlefield.

“That’s right. And I knew everything from the beginning. That you wouldn’t hold out in the fortress.”

“…What…?”

*Cough!*

Blood began to seep from his mouth. The world was growing increasingly faint. The sky that once seemed eternally beneath his feet now felt as if it was crushing down on him.

“You must have feared the mage. You wanted to avoid a dog’s death.”

“How did you… know that?”

“I can know everything.”

“…!!!”

Swen said this, then let out a short sigh—

“I normally never tell anyone this, but since you’re about to die anyway…”

Just as Swen said. With his abdomen already pierced, he couldn’t possibly survive much longer.

No, even if he didn’t lose his life, being captured in this situation would certainly mean execution. And he had no desire to beg Serpina for mercy.

“You… know… everything?”

“Yes. In the end, you failed to inflict serious damage on our army as you intended. And.”

At that moment.

Swen’s empty gray eyes began to burn as if they had swallowed flames.

“…For the crime of trying to kill Irene, you will die here. I may forgive many things, but I will never forgive that.”

I see.

The subtle hostility I felt in his sentences… was related to his feelings for Irene.

Strangely, the emotion that came after hearing Swen’s words was—

Not anger or powerlessness, emptiness, resentment, frustration or despair, but rather the opposite—serenity.

“Death… I was… already prepared for it.”

“I… always expected… to die on the battlefield, and this war… I went into it… prepared to die…”

If, as Swen said, the siege weapons were nothing more than elaborate models—

Then Chel had not inflicted any damage at all, but had simply led his soldiers on a grand suicidal charge, nothing more and nothing less.

If the enemy already knew everything, they wouldn’t have been shaken at all—they would have simply torn apart his forces with their more than double the manpower.

After hearing Swen claim he could know everything, what Chel recalled was—

The image of Lynn, whose condition rapidly deteriorated after losing Swen.

After losing him, Lynn made nothing but increasingly poor choices, and finally signed a humiliating peace treaty with Serpina.

At the time, he couldn’t understand why she had collapsed so completely.

“So that’s why… Lynn…”

If she had lost a man of this caliber who had once been in her grasp.

“Lynn, so that’s… why she ended up like that. Because she… lost you.”

——I see.

Chel finally realized why he felt serenity rather than anger.

Though he had been defeated, his opponent wasn’t so bad.

What he had feared throughout his life as a warrior wasn’t being defeated by a worthy opponent on the battlefield.

It was dying meaninglessly and emptily.

Being robbed of his life by someone who wasn’t even his match, through some ridiculous coincidence.

If not that.

If it was death at the hands of a man of this caliber… then perhaps it couldn’t be helped.

“The moment you betrayed our army and left… that was… the beginning of the end for the Brans army…”

“…”

“…Let me say… one last thing. Whatever… your thoughts are… working for an evil woman… like Serpina is not…”

“That’s…!”

Before Swen could respond to those words—

“…Lord Swen…”

Reika, standing beside him, grabbed his shoulder and spoke.

“He’s gone…”

* * *

“…!”

“Chel seems to have passed away…”

Only after hearing Reika’s words did I notice that there was no light at all in Chel’s eyes.

…He wasn’t breathing.

Blood continued to flow steadily from the corpse whose heartbeat had ceased.

“…”

——I won.

Once again, I had won against a battle with predictions that simply gave me the end result.

I thought I had chosen the right path.

Why did I feel uneasy rather than satisfied?

‘Don’t cooperate with Lady Serpina…?’

What does he know?

About Lady Serpina, about what she thinks and why she’s in that position… he knows nothing at all…!

At that moment.

Someone placed a hand on my shoulder.

When I turned my head, I saw Irene’s face, who had dismounted from her horse.

“Calm down, Swen. It’s all over.”

“…”

…Right.

There was no point in getting angry and desecrating the body of a dead man.

“…I’m sorry, Lady Irene.”

“No. I understand your feelings.”

Irene said this while looking at Chel’s lifeless face.

“Serpina was the driving force behind the Brans army in those days. She was the object of their hatred. The fact that boosted our morale the most as we dominated the central continent was the pride that our country was the only one that could stop Serpina.”

Lost in thought, her purple eyes wavered for a moment.

From Irene’s perspective, she had crossed swords with a former comrade-in-arms and ultimately witnessed his death before her eyes.

Though it remained true that he had tried to kill her, it must still be complicated to process.

“Well, this isn’t just about the Brans army. The Aeshus army too, and any country… everyone spoke of defeating Serpina as if it were the most natural thing. Everyone hated her. I did back then, as did all the territory’s people and all the lords.”

“But…!”

Instead of me silently listening to her words, it was Reika who spoke up.

“I, we know…! Lady Serpina… no, our, our lord… is a very kind and gentle person…! So… it’s okay. If there are people… who understand that… then maybe…”

Seeing Reika stumbling over her words, I realized that I had unnecessarily created a strange atmosphere.

I sighed briefly, then gave them a slight bow.

“…I’m sorry for troubling you. It’s just something that happens often.”

“Not at all. You stand closer to your lord than anyone else. It’s only natural that your feelings would be complex, isn’t it?”

Rather than responding further to Irene’s words, it seemed better to change the subject.

“By the way, he was a monster of a man.”

“Yes. If I had faced him one-on-one without your plan, I would have been the one to lose.”

“Was Chel that strong?”

“The title of Brans’ First Sword wasn’t given lightly. There are probably only a handful of people on the continent who could match him.”

“He was that formidable…”

Still, it seems I succeeded in draining quite a bit of his stamina as Irian had instructed.

I felt a chill remembering what might have happened if the ambush had failed, but all’s well that ends well.

“Is he the strongest person you’ve ever met, Lady Irene?”

“Hmm? No, he’s not.”

“There was someone stronger?”

Irene tilted her head at my question, looking puzzled.

“It’s strange that you of all people would ask that, Swen.”

“Pardon?”

And then, from her lips—

A name I never would have expected emerged.

“Lord Luna.”

“…What???”

“Why are you so surprised? Lord Luna’s martial arts transcend the level of ordinary humans. I could feel it just from exchanging a few blows. Since we didn’t fight to the end, I can’t be certain, but she’s probably similar to Chel in his prime… no, perhaps even beyond that.”

“Lord Luna is that strong???”

“…You had no idea?”

“No.”

That delicate, seemingly tender-hearted person is a warrior?

Well, of course I knew she was stronger than she looked.

When she recommended me, she was the one who carried me, a grown man, all the way to Castle Zeilant without rest.

Still, I never imagined she’d be comparable to a monster like Chel…

…Come to think of it.

Just as all the lords hate Lady Serpina, Luna, who believes she lost her sister, must hate Lady Serpina terribly…

‘Is this really okay?’

Ironically, even if it wasn’t okay, it wouldn’t change the choices available to me.

Well.

Since it’s Luna, who trusts me, there shouldn’t be any problems.

With that thought, I collected Chel’s body and moved on.

* * *

The Chel army, having lost their commander, predictably lost their will to fight and surrendered.

We were able to occupy the empty Alcanwood Castle without any difficulty.

And with the yellow flag of Serpina’s army flying over Alcanwood Castle—

The Chel army was annihilated, vanishing into the pages of history.