episode_0059

The fact that we, who stood before him, were the greatest evil in this world.

It had been that way before I awoke as ‘Rain Grey’ in this world, and it was no different after I awoke.

No, perhaps it could have been different. Perhaps I had a chance to set everything right.

But I did not.

I voluntarily inherited Rain Grey’s will and swore to continue living as the leader of the 《Black Serpent》, as I had done until now.

At first, it was an act born of fear. Since I had suddenly awakened as the leader of a heinous villainous group, my intention was to avoid suspicion first.

Although I wasn’t exactly a kidnapped hostage, it suddenly felt similar to Stockholm Syndrome. Perhaps it would have been the same no matter who was in that position, not just the 《Black Serpent》.

But of all people, it was them.

“No one will lay a finger on the Leader-nim.”

It was her.

Aria, her eyes covered by a black bandage, adjusted her grip on the hilt of her black sword and murmured.

“Yeah, not a single hair can be touched!”

Alice laughed brightly like a child and shouted.

“Hmm, Rain’s single hair. When was the last time I saw anything other than his head hair?”

“……”

Let’s pretend I didn’t hear Scarlet’s line.

“You are before the Leader-nim. Please show some respect.”

“Huhu. Forgive my rudeness, Leader.”

Scarlet laughed in an informal voice. I did not answer.

They, they were always like that.

Even as I wandered aimlessly through this world, they steadfastly stayed by my side.

Amidst all this, I too came to cherish the few villains I had been with more than the countless human lives I didn’t even know.

“Fight with all your might!”

As if knowing or not knowing my feelings, the muscular old priest, whose body had swelled as if about to explode, shouted.

Drawn by his cry, the boys and girls rushed forward. They re-gripped the bladed weapons in their hands. Like moths plunging into a bonfire.

I took no magical or physical action. I simply remained silent.

Instead, Aria, who stood by my side, performed a sword dance. Black blades wrapped around me like a curtain, pulverizing everything that approached them.

“Even if you know you’ll lose! Even if you know you’ll be defeated! Still, clench your fists tightly! Don’t give up! Fight!”

But the boys and girls did not hesitate.

Each of them, trained and educated, rushed towards us with skill that would treat even an ordinary vampire as prey.

“To not yield even in a battle with 0% chance of victory! To challenge an unbeatable, invincible foe! That is the true martyrdom of revolution!”

His words were not just empty, flashy incitement.

Thump!

The old priest, with his massive, bulging muscular body, moved himself. One step. Stride. With each step, the ground he trod vibrated as if shaking. Another step.

Beneath the foot of each step he took, an endless sea of shadows unfolded.

As if walking along a beach and suddenly plunging into a steep slope, his absurdly muscular leg sank into the pitch-black darkness. With it, a dark, black predator beneath the surface opened its maw.

Stride.

But the muscular old priest did not stop. Even as his foot was torn to shreds, leaving only the bone above the knee, he took another step with his severed leg.

“Stop him, Alice.”

“Okay, Leader!”

Seeing that, I spoke. Alice nodded without a hint of hesitation and smiled.

“ .”

As she extended her arm, a current of magic shimmered from her fingertips and shot forth like a flash.

An intermediate level lightning spell. The electric current that shot from her fingertips engulfed the massive, muscular body, causing convulsions and burning it.

“Ugh, a-g-g-g-g-g-gh!!”

It was an output that would normally kill a person instantly, but the old priest merely suffered convulsive spasms; his life itself was not in danger.

“A-g-g-g-g-g-gh!!”

He continued to writhe from the electricity coursing through his entire body, but that was all. The leg devoured by Alice’s Shadow Devour repeatedly underwent rapid regeneration and restoration, having already reformed into a relatively intact leg.

That was all that remained.

“Even if you know you’ll lose, even if you know you’ll be defeated…”

Ignoring his convulsions in the unending agony of electrocution, I spoke.

“You said you’d clench your fists and fight without giving up?”

“Th-th-th-th-th, th-that’s, ugh-g-g-g-g-gh!!”

“…My mind has changed.”

My mind had changed.

“Your revolution will become water bubbles [an idiom meaning it will come to nothing].”

It was meant literally.

“In the most horrific way imaginable.”

“─.”

“That is the price for your foolhardiness in challenging the 《Black Serpent》, even knowing you would lose.”

Even amidst the endless convulsions, I felt his muscles stiffen and tense in a different way.

“Did you think that facing an unbeatable foe could be passed off as mere self-satisfaction?”

But now, I was fed up.

Those who worshipped their fight against us as if it were a medal, satisfied themselves arbitrarily, and met a dog’s death [an idiom meaning a meaningless or pathetic death].

I was sick of their expediently enforced ‘righteous dog’s death’.

In that case, it would be better to let everyone in the world truly understand.

What a truly ‘unbeatable fight’ is.

I would not allow them to insult the 《Black Serpent》, pursue a pathetic spiritual victory, and bring it to an end. Not a single fragment of their spirit, not even a shred of their ideology, would be allowed to triumph.

“My subordinates and I will personally trample and uproot every blade of grass of your revolution.”

Crack!

At my signal, the old priest’s limbs burst apart, and his remaining torso collapsed like a roly-poly doll. Yet, he did not die. Truly an absurd level of vitality.

“That is the price for your foolhardiness in challenging an ‘unbeatable foe’ instead of surrendering.”

Before long, the convulsions stopped. But on his face, which had been filled with unwavering conviction, a bewildered sense of defeat appeared for the first time.

“And you, you will live to witness all of it until the very end.”

The full extent of the aftermath brought about by a moment of foolishness.

“Gwyn, I leave his fate to you.”

“Heh, heh-heh.”

At those words, the laughing man, who had been laughing while grotesquely bending his body, stopped laughing. He still twisted his body like a circus clown, but only the laughter ceased.

“As long as you keep him alive, I don’t care what you do.”

In the chilling silence, the laughing man burst into convulsive laughter once more.

Amidst the remains of the moths, which by now were shapeless.

*

When I left the church, the sky was red.

“……”

It was not a magic like the blood-red moon Scarlet had shown before. The red sky was purely the blood of soot shed by the city, engulfed in flames and burning.

The heart of the Holy Kingdom was burning.

“All citizens of the capital, Lutetia, rise up!”

“Advance to the palace! The royal family who betrayed the Holy Maiden-nim is now an enemy of the Goddess, and an enemy of the stars!”

“The Iron Knights are with us!”

The capital’s city gates, which had barely held, swung wide open, and the combined forces of revolutionary volunteer armies from various regions and feudal lords who had submitted to them poured in.

Their destination was but one.

Furthermore, the proudest army of this nation, which should have stopped them, no longer existed.

There were only knights, hollow shells like stars in the night sky.

*

─At that moment, the Holy Kingdom’s royal palace.

Throne Room.

“…Well, this is not elegant at all.”

Sir Astolfo, the Knight of Flowers, murmured.

The honorable Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne no longer existed. Now they were Charles’s Twelve Paladins, but their number had long since fallen far from twelve.

It wasn’t just about Sir Roland, the Divine Spear, who fell to ‘that man’ at the World Military Expo that day, or Sir Mordred, who brought about his own demise.

The royal family’s ‘cooking the dog after the hunt’ [a proverb about discarding someone after they have served their purpose] for the Holy Maiden-nim was enough to make even the nation’s most loyal court knights turn their backs.

That is why only the most stubbornly upright, in other words, the most foolish knights remained there.

“Oh, for the citizens who were praising my magnificence just a short while ago to turn their backs like this!”

“……Even in this situation, your head must still be a flower garden [an idiom meaning you are naive or oblivious].”

Among the most foolish knights remaining there, Sir Bradamante, the smartest among them and the sole female, retorted.

“Oh dear, didn’t I advise you to pack your bags and run away a long time ago, Sir Quixote!”

“Hahahaha, Sancho! Who are we? Are we not the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne? As those granted such honor, how can we try to tuck tail just because the situation is a bit unfavorable!”

“It’s not Charlemagne anymore, and certainly not the Twelve Paladins, Sir! It’s Charles’s Four Knights!”

“Oh, it’s even more exciting, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!”

Each time the two knights exchanged words, a new vein throbbed on Lady Knight Bradamante’s face.

“A man whose head is a flower garden, and two fools from La Mancha.”

She murmured lowly, then turned her head.

‘…We’re doomed.’

Had her liege not been there, such words would have naturally escaped her lips.

“It’s not too late, Your Majesty.”

Sir Bradamante was no exception when it came to desperation and anxiety.

“The revolutionary army will burst in soon. I will disguise myself as Your Majesty and draw their attention by pretending to escape, so you can disguise yourself as a maid and leave the palace in the meantime…”

But what vexed her even more than these stubbornly foolish knights was none other than the woman on the throne.

“There’s no need to worry, Sir Bradamante.”

Sir Bradamante knew. Her new liege was, at least as far as she knew, the queen furthest from stubborn uprightness in this world.

Nevertheless, there must be a reason she was silently holding her ground.

Not merely choosing a dog’s death to uphold a nominal pride.

A reason that could not be explicitly told to them.

“Because that person… will come to save me.”

At the same time, the wise Queen Charles’s eyes were filled with a blind light, like faith.