Episode 142 – I’m Begging You
by Afuhfuihgs
*
In the blink of an eye.
Before I could even grasp what was happening, Robin raised his sword and flew towards me.
Robin’s distorted face filled my vision, obscuring the sight of Deborah collapsing, blood gushing like a fountain from where her arm used to be.
“S,”
“Baron Salvie!”
I reflexively raised the Holy Sword, blocking Robin’s descending blade.
“Keu-ak,”
The sharp cracking of blades colliding and the heavy thud of a hammer smashing bricks echoed simultaneously.
At the same time, an immense shock, as if my fingers were about to fall off, spread from my arm throughout my entire body.
Having removed the Holy Sword from my body, I was clearly in an undead state where I shouldn’t feel pain, yet a shallow scream escaped my lips due to the difference in power, not pain.
There was no pain.
But I couldn’t withstand it.
I ended up dropping the sword.
Robin lightly twisted his wrist, wrapping the Holy Sword I had dropped around his own in a circle, then flung it away, charging at me with the tip of his sword pointed forward.
“A hero with such skills? Daring to commit such deceit before His Majesty, daring to slander the hero, did you think you could survive!”
I’m not even a swordsman to begin with.
I knew Robin’s swordsmanship was exceptional.
I also knew he was incredibly strong.
However, I didn’t expect the difference to be so vast that I couldn’t even react.
It’s been a whole 20 years.
Robin’s sword, 20 years past his prime, didn’t seem rusty at all.
Moreover, Robin’s sword wasn’t even a proper military sword, but a soft, ceremonial one.
I gritted my teeth.
Of course, I could counterattack using the Demon King’s power.
But doing so would create a contradiction in my actions, which have been painting Robin as the Demon King’s minion and a traitor.
Robin was clearly trying to kill me.
Of course, being stabbed by that sword wouldn’t be a problem for me.
The real problem was showing everyone that I wouldn’t die even after being stabbed by that sword.
A moment of carelessness.
No, a strategic mistake.
The Emperor’s words suddenly flashed through my mind.
‘A rat that can bite quite painfully.’
Damn it, at this point, he’s not a rat but a lion.
A tiger with all its teeth intact.
“Die!”
But Robin’s sword tip never reached me.
Robin couldn’t hide his bewildered expression as he stared at me with wide eyes.
I, too, stared back at Robin with wide eyes from inside my mask, equally surprised.
A translucent blue barrier stood between Robin and me.
“Holy power of… protection?”
“Could it be, Edwar,”
Robin couldn’t finish his sentence.
Or perhaps I just didn’t hear it.
Robin’s words were drowned out by the sickening sound of a sharply honed Imperial Knight’s regulation sword piercing through Robin’s side.
The person standing behind Robin was Deborah, who, with her remaining arm, held the sword, her eyes blazing with anger, not even bothering to staunch the bleeding.
“De, Deborah…”
“The sin of raising a foolish disciple… who was used by the Demon King… I’ll offer an arm as the price.”
“You, you bitch… with just one arm!”
“Only people like you sit in the position of the Knights Commander of the Empire, which you obtained through politics and schemes. You foolish disciple.”
Robin gritted his teeth, twisted his waist, kicked Deborah away, and pulled the sword out of his side.
At the same time, belated screams echoed through the banquet hall.
The soldiers quickly took the Emperor and Ellie and left the banquet hall.
Ellie screamed that she would stay, seeing Deborah bleeding, but there was no way the Princess could remain in such a dangerous place.
Behind the Emperor and Ellie, the nobles rushed out of the banquet hall like a torrent of water from a collapsed dam.
Some even fell and were trampled in the process.
The people who had filled the banquet hall had receded like the tide, leaving behind Robin, me, the Inquisitors including Edward.
Deborah, collapsed with a lost arm, and Mella and Mena, who had rushed to staunch her bleeding.
And Banata, whom Robin was glaring at, was all that remained.
Robin took out a pill from his waist, chewed it, and slowly raised his sword, pointing it at Banata.
Then, he shouted, looking at the Inquisitors.
“Don’t you understand? Baron Salvie is possessed by a demon!”
“Ha,”
“You fools, look at that bitch, green hair. Isn’t that the woman who was caught on a date with the current head of the Balguir Duchy not long ago! The obvious answer is that both Piadu, that Balguir Duke, and Baron Salvie are possessed by that demon, and you Inquisitors didn’t notice!”
“The Miracle of Truth Detection…”
“That maid is also possessed. You idiots! You didn’t even know that!”
Robin even scolded the Inquisitors.
It seemed he had heard about someone witnessing Rose’s activities when she was trying to seduce Piadu.
Could it be that he was even monitoring Piadu, Villard’s son?
Perhaps Robin feared being abandoned by Villard, who only used him.
But how Robin knew that didn’t matter right now.
The fact that he had suddenly blown away Deborah’s arm, which was holding him, and that the Holy Sword shining in my hand had gone out as soon as Robin’s fingertips touched it, was enough to confuse the Inquisitors of the Goddess Order, who were unsure of where the Goddess’s will lay.
However, the Inquisitors were wary of Banata even as they pointed their weapons at Robin.
Because the fact that she was a demon was also a definite truth.
Especially Edward, Robin and Mella’s son, had a complicated expression.
He had managed to prevent Baron Salvie, who had helped him so far, from being stabbed, but he, too, seemed to be having difficulty accepting the sudden situation.
Even if he had left Dena to die and committed inhumane acts, he couldn’t have imagined that even his past as a hero who defeated the Demon King was a lie.
The story of the hero Robin can be said to be the founding myth of this empire.
Moreover, since he was the son of that hero, the words I had spoken would have been even harder for him to believe.
Robin accurately exploited that gap.
“I sided with the Demon King?”
“…Count, put down your sword for now,”
“I killed my friend Edward? Do you really think that, Edward?”
“…”
“Then why would I have built a large statue to commemorate Edward! Why would I have named you after him!”
The Inquisitors seemed a little shaken.
Could it be that someone wearing a human mask, and even a hero, could deceive the dead like that?
No matter how blinded Robin was by politics and power, the image of a hero was not so easily erased.
Really, could he have done such a thing? A hero?
Such questions were beginning to spread little by little in the minds of the Inquisitors.
It was then.
“Please listen to me. Inquisitors.”
“…Mother?”
“…Mella,”
Mella, her clothes covered in blood from pressing down on Deborah’s severed arm to stop the bleeding, slowly rose and spoke.
The Inquisitors all looked at her.
Mella.
A foolish woman who had become weak after the death of her lover and made many mistakes, who had turned a blind eye to many sins because she trusted her comrades, and who had handed over her precious things to her enemy with her own hands because she couldn’t trust her lover.
But even though she had stepped down from that position, she was once a person who held a position in the Goddess Order just below the Pope.
“S, Saintess-nim.”
“I am not a Saintess. You know that.”
“Y, yes, I know.”
“I am just an ordinary person. But please listen to me.”
“…Speak.”
Mella put her hands together in front of her and slowly raised her head.
A polite posture mainly taken by the priestesses of the Goddess Order.
The naturalness of that posture seemed to firmly tell the Inquisitors what kind of person she was.
Mella stared at Robin with firmly closed lips and eyes full of strong will.
Robin watched Mella with an uneasy expression.
“…Mella, what are you trying to say,”
“The person who killed Edward, the thief of the hero party and my former lover, is…”
“…W, wait a minute,”
Robin desperately reached out to Mella.
Only then did Robin seem to realize why Mella had been acting strange lately.
Could it be, could it be…
Had she found out?
The truth?
“…Robin, the hero who went to the Demon King’s castle with Jennifer after intentionally excluding me and Lara.”
“…Mella!”
The expressions of all the Inquisitors instantly hardened at those words from Mella’s mouth.
The only exception was Edward.
He trembled so much that the ends of his orange hair, which resembled Mella’s, and the freckles on his face blurred into afterimages, as he repeated the question.
“…M, Mother… i, is that, tr… true…”
Mella nodded.
“I, too, only recently learned the truth.”
“Mella, what are you saying!”
“And the motive was to concentrate power by marrying all the members of the hero party. Or rather, that’s what Duke Villard de Balguir ordered.”
While everyone was listening to Mella’s words with stiff faces, the man who seemed to be the leader of the Inquisitors, with scars all over his face, raised one hand in a decisive motion, as if there was nothing more to hear, and said.
“The 4th Division of the Goddess Order. The Hammer that strikes down heresy, the Goddess’s proxy.”
“…Mella!”
“Immediately restrain the heretic.”
“Y, you, how could you, do this to me…! Mella!”
Robin gnashed his teeth, shouting Mella’s name.
Mella coldly looked up at Robin and said.
“Was this it? The meaning of your words that I knew nothing.”
“…Ha, who did you hear such nonsense from? Huh?”
“…You don’t need to know. Robin. There’s only one thing you need to know. It’s all over.”
“Mella…!”
“Your ambition, your dreams, my love that started from your deception, this goddamn family game too.”
“…No,”
Robin shook off the arms of the Inquisitors approaching him, picked up his sword once more, and lunged at me.
“Baron! This must all be your doing!”
“…Yeah.”
“If I just get rid of you!”
Mella was startled and jumped in front of me.
Robin swung his sword, intending to cut down both me and Mella at once, not caring.
Edward, unable to handle the truth that had come out of Mella’s mouth, was still trembling, so it was too late to unleash the holy power of protection.
Robin’s sword was already flying towards me and Mella’s chests.
‘It was too fast earlier, but not this time.’
[Hooh,]
[…Ed? What are you thinking…]
I can’t take out the Demon King’s chains in front of the Inquisitors.
My stealth ability to melt into shadows and darkness was also unusable now, in the morning when the bright sunlight was pouring in through the windows.
The Holy Sword was too heavy for me, and learning how to wield a sword was too much to learn now.
I ended up missing the chance to learn magic.
The Inquisitors are slow, Mella is now an ordinary person without the power of a Saintess, and Deborah was already in no condition to fight.
Unfortunately, there was no way for me to escape this situation.
So.
‘I’m begging you, Ulgaros.’
[You won’t regret it, right? What if I don’t give it back?]
‘Are you Robin?’
[…S, seriously, Ed?!]
[Ha, you little shit.]
“You talk so fucking harsh.”
At that moment, only Robin saw it.
My eyes turning red and shining for a moment.
.
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