Ch.6766. The Imperial Princess (10)

# 66. The Princess (10)

“There are quite a few… I’d say around 2,000 people.”

“2,000 people!?”

Elin was shocked by the fact that 2,000 enemies were approaching, but she answered in a rather calm voice.

“Yes.”

“What should we do…? Should we run away…”

I cut off Elin’s words and spoke.

“Run away? Are you scared?”

“Hey, you idiot! There are 2,000 of them!”

“So what? We have 200 people.”

“Are you joking?”

Elin wore quite a fierce expression.

I made excuses to Elin, who was looking at me as if she wanted to kill me.

“That’s not what I meant… It’s totally doable.”

“How do you figure that?”

At that moment, she spoke with a face full of confidence.

“If we position ourselves well, it’s really manageable.”

Then she looked at me and continued.

“Can I count on you?”

“Of course, just leave it to me.”

“Are you really going to do this?”

Looking at the anxious Elin, I said:

“If you’re scared, you can just run away.”

“That’s right, you can just run away.”

We simultaneously said the same thing to Elin, who was deep in thought.

“But then the next time we meet, you’ll be an enemy.”

“But then the next time we meet, you’ll be an enemy.”

***

Eight teams, excluding teams 20 and 8, had formed an alliance with the same goal.

And that alliance was advancing toward their target to achieve their objective.

“This is the right way, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

They could find their target more easily because they had a team member with excellent detection abilities.

“A little further and you’ll all be able to sense it too. For some reason, they’re not hiding their presence.”

“Aren’t they deliberately trying to lure us in? The princess has detection abilities like you do.”

“So what? There are 2,000 of us now.”

He knew that the princess also had detection abilities like him and that she was aware of their current position through those abilities.

However, they were so overconfident in their numbers that they advanced without taking any precautions.

They completely failed to notice that a black shadow was approaching from behind them, concealing its presence.

“They’ll appear soon! Everyone, prepare for battle!”

Upon hearing this, everyone prepared for combat, and as he said, their targets appeared shortly after.

The targets were looking down at the alliance from the top of a hill in front of them.

“You’re moving exactly as expected… How boring.”

Along with her voice, cold as a winter wind, huge ice walls rose from the ground where the 2,000 people were standing.

-Swoosh! Swoosh!-

The ice walls that suddenly rose from the ground precisely split the alliance of 2,000 people in half.

“What is this?”

“Break it quickly!”

The divided alliance attacked the ice wall to reunite, but the solid ice wall didn’t budge at all.

Eventually, the alliance gave up on breaking the ice wall. Among them, the thousand people isolated by the wall chose to climb the hill in front of them.

“Not a bad choice.”

She pointed her staff at those who were running hard toward their position, wearing a satisfied smile.

However, unlike her relaxed appearance, Elin was quite frantic, firing magic spells without pause.

“You don’t need to be in such a hurry…”

She neutralized incoming arrows and magic with her [Ice Magic] and repelled the warriors who approached quickly.

She must have consumed an enormous amount of magical power in the process, but it wasn’t a problem for her at all.

“Albert must have started by now, right?”

“Um… probably?”

She was acting leisurely, even thinking about other things.

And while she, Elin, and the members of Team 11 were marking half of the alliance on one side,

the battle had just begun on the other side as well.

***

I spoke to those who were pounding on the ice wall that she had set up, looking restless.

“There don’t seem to be many strong people here?”

They definitely looked weaker than the people I saw earlier.

Originally, I had planned to gradually reduce their numbers by hitting and running, but that was no longer necessary.

“Everyone, try your best to run away.”

I instantly activated both of my unique skills and used [Swift] to quickly approach those who were trembling at the sight of me.

-Swoosh!-

Naturally, none of them were faster than me, and they all looked at me with surprised faces as I approached them in an instant.

“I told you to run away.”

I swung my sword mercilessly at them.

“W-wait a moment!”

-Slash! Slash!-

Their blood splattered all over my body, and I savored the smell of that blood.

“It’s been a while… this smell.”

The smell that reminded me of war memories was both familiar and strange.

I whispered quietly at the scene of the massacre.

“Someday it will be like that time again, won’t it?”

“What are you talking about…?”

-Slash!-

I continued the slaughter, staring at the beautiful red liquid seeping through my fingers.

‘One hundred… three hundred… seven hundred.’

As the number of people being teleported away increased, the ground became increasingly stained with blood, and my memories became clearer.

‘That day was like this too…’

Those terrible memories were about to resurface, but I desperately suppressed them.

Then I convinced myself.

‘Focus… It’s a mission I’ve received after a long time.’

In fact, it wasn’t really a time that could be defined as “a long time.”

It was a mission I had received from her after nearly hundreds of years, so I wanted to perform it perfectly.

“There’s definitely a lack of tension…”

Whether it was because these were still peaceful times, or because this was just a survival game, or because it was too easy, I didn’t feel the same tension as before.

Still, a “mission” was a mission.

I raised my sword again and sharpened my senses to eliminate those who had survived so far.

***

“Nine hundred ninety-eight… nine hundred ninety-nine.”

I eliminated all of them within the short yet long time of 20 minutes, and pointed my sword at the last, the thousandth person.

Then I counted the final number.

“One thousand… huh?”

But when I saw the face of that last person, I had to withdraw my sword for a moment.

It was him, the one who had been leading the alliance from the front using his detection abilities, and also the one who had been stalking Elin.

I greeted that rather familiar face.

“Hello? Remember me?”

“N-no?”

He was gritting his teeth, pretending not to know me.

So I gave him a somewhat spiteful confirmation.

“I’m the brother of the girl you were stalking.”

“I was… stalking?”

He was desperately pretending not to know, but his anxiety was clearly visible on his face.

I spoke while exuding maximum intimidation.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

“W-well…”

Whether it was because he was intimidated by me, he meekly admitted the fact.

“It’s true that I stalked her, but…”

“But what?”

“I… I was so clueless back then. I’m sorry…”

“Why are you apologizing to me? Do you know how much Elin suffered because of you?”

Even I, who had heard the whole story from Elin, couldn’t fully understand her feelings since I wasn’t the one who experienced it.

And he certainly wouldn’t know.

How could the perpetrator understand the victim’s feelings?

“I… I want to apologize to her too…”

“You don’t need to. She wouldn’t want your apology.”

“Then… what?”

“You just need to stay away from Elin, and from me too.”

I pointed my sword at him again, which I had withdrawn.

Then I swung my sword at him and said:

“I happen to be quite protective of my sister.”

Cut by my sword, he disappeared from that spot with a faint light.

I spoke to them, who had been eavesdropping on my conversation with him while hiding behind the huge ice wall.

“You can come out now…”

-Crack!-

They revealed themselves only after breaking that ice wall.

She was looking at me with a satisfied expression while patting Elin’s back, and Elin was desperately hiding her face.

And Elin, who was obviously crying, said in a tiny voice:

“I’m… not crying…”

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I said I’m not crying…”

“Alright.”

She, who had been patting Elin’s back, whispered to me.

“Your last words were very touching.”

“How did things go on your side?”

“A few people got hurt, but that’s about it.”

“That’s good.”

She looked at my blood-stained appearance and this cruel battlefield I had created, and said:

“I can expect more from you in the future.”

“Please don’t overestimate me too much.”

“How can I not have expectations after seeing this? But… it’s brutal… are you okay?”

She seemed to be referring to my mental state.

“If you mean my mental state, I’m fine.”

“You definitely have good mental fortitude.”

“The same goes for you, Your Highness.”

No matter how mature she was, she was still 19 years old.

This scene was too cruel for a 19-year-old girl to see, but she didn’t avoid it and instead faced it head-on.

“Someday I’ll have to see scenes like this again, won’t I…?”

“At that time, there won’t be just blood.”

At that time, the battlefield will be decorated not only with an enormous amount of blood like now, but also with people’s corpses and their foul smell.

We need the courage to face that scene head-on and a strong mind that won’t go crazy even after seeing it.

But she already seemed to have both, and she spoke in a calm voice:

“That’s right… It’s not that far in the future anymore.”