Ch.43Elysium

Ignatz gazed at the decaying city wall before him.

Despite standing about 20 meters tall—quite an impressive height—the wall evoked not grandeur but rather a bone-deep sense of pity due to its complete lack of maintenance. It was so thoroughly covered with vines and moss that one could hardly tell whether it was made of stone or moss itself. In several places, stones had even fallen out, leaving visible gaps.

“Did they remove them to use as building materials?”

“That’s possible, but they might have simply fallen out over time without being repaired.”

“Hmm… I see…”

The practice of salvaging materials from cities abandoned after their rulers died had been ongoing for generations.

Among these materials, city walls were considered the most valuable resources. Many risked their lives to extract stones from walls—if they died, it was over anyway, and if they survived, they struck it rich, so there was nothing to lose.

“Whatever the circumstances, this is truly a fallen nation. There’s not a single sentry in sight.”

“Indeed. What would you like to do, Lord Ignatz?”

Ignatz looked regretfully at the communication orb he had just used. If he had waited a bit longer to use it, he could have received more instructions, but he had activated it as soon as he spotted Elisia, meaning he would have to wait another week before using it again.

Nevertheless, during that hour, Tiberius had given Ignatz detailed orders on how to conquer Elisia. Following these instructions, Ignatz had deployed his forces, spreading 30,000 troops thinly to surround Elisia.

While insufficient to block an army, the encirclement was dense enough to capture nobles attempting to flee with their wealth. Once Elisia was surrounded, Ignatz ordered the assembly of catapults and siege hammers.

“Prepare the catapults and siege hammers. And move the cavalry to that hill over there.”

“Yes, sir.”

As a precaution, he positioned his shock cavalry on the hill where they could easily join the battlefield. Then, Ignatz called one of his knights and handed him a white flag.

“Go and urge them to surrender. Oh, and don’t mention the previous incident. Just demand their unconditional surrender.”

“What? Wouldn’t it be better to mention the previous incident to strengthen our position?”

The knight questioned, unable to believe the standard-bearer’s words.

Having been trained to use any available justification, this approach was difficult for him to understand.

But Ignatz simply relayed what Tiberius had told him.

“Listen carefully. We’re dealing with a criminal organization that has usurped public authority and an incompetent female ruler who protects them. Do you really think such people would have properly reported the previous atrocity through official channels?”

“…What do you mean?”

“They obviously buried it somewhere along the way. To avoid taking responsibility.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Surely they would have known retaliation was coming?”

“If they had that much intelligence, they wouldn’t be a criminal organization.”

“…”

The knight could only nod at the standard-bearer’s words.

As he said, while this was revenge for a past tragedy, as long as they had buried the justification, the other side could easily dismiss their claims with convenient words like “fabrication” or “slander.”

That left only one option.

To fight to the death until one side was completely destroyed.

*

“Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!!”

The Count of Elisia, Evans Hawthorne, was biting his nails, pulling his hair, and spewing curses.

Outside his window, Amurtat’s soldiers were spread out everywhere, meaning that he and the other nobles had no way to escape.

Of course, that wasn’t entirely true.

Naturally, he and the other corrupt upper class of Elisia had each dug secret passages beneath the city to ensure their survival, and Evans Hawthorne had his own.

The problem was that these secret passages were, by definition, “secret,” so they were quite small to maintain confidentiality—they were essentially tunnels barely wide enough for an adult man to squeeze through.

What’s the problem if he could escape?

Of course there was a problem.

He couldn’t take his accumulated wealth with him.

For nobles who had been deceiving their ruler and storing wealth in underground vaults instead of the spatial storage where they should have kept it, this was devastating news. Unfortunately, sometimes survival requires sacrificing the greater for the lesser.

Click! Clatter!

Evans Hawthorne quickly gathered the emergency jewels he kept in his office, strapped a longsword to his waist for protection, opened the window, tore the curtain to make a rope, checked that no one was coming, and quickly descended.

Even the jewels he had just collected were enough to live comfortably for several years.

If he could later retrieve his other treasures hidden elsewhere, he could laugh at Fahrenheit’s high cost of living and start a second life.

With these thoughts, Evans Hawthorne made his way toward the secret passage.

But his happy delusion was shattered almost immediately.

Over a hundred people were firmly guarding the entrance to the secret passage.

“You fools! How dare you block a noble’s path! Move aside this instant!”

“…No.”

“Eek…!”

His attempt to disperse the crowd by invoking his now-worthless noble title failed, and Evans Hawthorne broke into a cold sweat as he gauged the crowd’s reaction.

“You promised us. You said you’d reward us all. But it’s been three years, and we still haven’t received anything.”

“There’s a vault under my mansion! Just break the lock and take whatever you want! I don’t mean to brag, but… if you share all the wealth I’ve accumulated, it would be quite substantial!”

“It’s too late, ‘Count.’ Amurtat’s army is everywhere. Your subordinates confessed everything. There was a ‘minor conflict’ last summer, wasn’t there?”

“H-how do you know about that?”

Hawthorne’s eyes filled with shock.

Only then did he notice some familiar faces in the crowd.

Even his former private soldiers had joined the ranks of those threatening him.

“By now, the noble lady ruler must have awakened and is trying to assess the situation. But it’s already too late. The gates will soon open, that damned Francesca will lose her head, and this city will fall.”

A voice cracked with anger, hatred, and years of resentment emerged from a dry throat.

Hawthorne turned around, intending to flee, but he felt despair for the first time in his life when he saw dozens of people standing behind him, armed with clubs and various makeshift weapons.

Shing!

“S-stay back! I’ll kill anyone who comes near me! Get away! I said get away!”

“We’ve all done our fair share of unsavory things to survive… but the leader should take responsibility, right? I’m starting to wonder how much value Amurtat will place on your head.”

The status of nobility is only respected when society is functioning properly.

In Elisia, where society had completely collapsed, his power had vanished entirely, and only one fate awaited him.

“Stay away… I said STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!”

With that final scream, Evans Hawthorne never woke again, and other nobles began to suffer the same fate—betrayed by their subordinates and beheaded in a karmic retribution.

The precarious history of Elisia, which had been maintained like walking on a cliff edge for hundreds of years, took only a day to end.

*

“Open the gates!”

Clunk! Creeeeak!

Less than an hour after all the nobles had been beheaded, Elisia’s gates opened. Just four hours after Amurtat’s knight had presented a white flag demanding unconditional surrender, Elisia had lost all capacity to resist Amurtat.

“Well… can we even call this a war…”

“The intimidation of numbers cannot be replicated by a small elite force.”

The knight and the standard-bearer spoke as they surveyed the devastated streets of Elisia like victorious generals.

Rotting severed arms and legs. The yellow eyes of malnourished people suffering from jaundice. And poles with heads mounted on them rushing toward them—all vividly displaying Elisia’s tragedy.

“Release the knights.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ignatz deployed his knights to guide and monitor those bringing the nobles’ heads. Since those bringing the heads had no intention of fighting in the first place, they readily complied with the order to disarm.

Eventually, dozens of heads gathered before the standard-bearer, and he proclaimed to the tens of thousands of people assembled before him:

“Listen! As of today, the oppression of the incompetent female ruler and corrupt nobles has ended! Since you have beheaded your own lords and offered them to Lord Tiberius, we of Amurtat hereby grant special amnesty to all of you!”

Hearing these words, the crowd looked relieved, but the knights’ faces remained stern.

Their job was not yet finished.

“I’ll go to the castle. You tell the crowd about their ‘choice.'”

“…Understood. Are you sure you want to go alone?”

“Yes. There won’t be anyone there except her anyway.”

As the standard-bearer turned his horse toward the castle, the knights gathered the crowd and explained the choices they would have to make.

The voices of the crowd were drowned out by the sound of the standard-bearer’s hoofbeats, so it would take some time before Ignatz would hear their decision about the choice.