novelraw Chapter 180: Krafte War - Choice (3)
Chapter 180: Krafte War - Choice (3)
Episode 180. The Krafte War - Choice (3)
The raindrops, which at first fell sparingly, soon became a downpour that covered the sky.
I stared blankly at the ceaselessly falling rain, thinking that at this rate, it would be difficult for reinforcements to even recognize me when they arrived.
Gilles de Lionel, standing right next to me, looked down at me quietly and then opened his mouth.
“What’s so funny?”
-I am grateful for the help Lionel has given me. ......If by chance the situation changes and you have a change of heart, I am willing to help, so please let me know at any time.
-I appreciate your kind words and will remember them.
After that last conversation, years had passed before we met again, and Gilles de Lionel’s once-amiable impression had vanished, replaced by a sharp and desolate face.
I tried to read what he was thinking, then gave up and answered, turning my head slightly.
“...No, it's just. I was thinking that if I survive this time, I should thank God, but seeing you appear as soon as I had that thought, it occurs to me that this fellow called God has quite a peculiar personality.”Was my body shivering and heavy because I was soaked in rainwater, or because the poison had already spread?
Even as I spoke, I prepared to move my body somehow, but it wouldn't obey at all.
Was it because I poured out every last bit of my mana when I dealt with Count Wittelsbach…
While I was struggling, Gilles de Lionel, who had been looking down at me for a long while, spoke again.
“How curious. To think you’re still alive.”
“...Well, I’m starting to feel sorry for being alive, but why do you speak as if I’m supposed to be dead….”
“Because it’s a poison that kills within a minute at most, even from a mere scratch.”
Gilles said, pulling out the dagger from his waist to show me.
Despite the ceaseless rain, the opaque, murky liquid on the dagger emitted a faint pink glow and wouldn't wash away.
…I don’t know what kind of poison it is exactly, but it’s a demon’s poison.
As he said, it would have been normal for me to have already died just from being poisoned.
The very fact that I'm alive right now might be a miracle of the Divine Power within me.
But more than that.
I was half-certain, but his words confirmed it.
“...So, have you come to finish what they couldn't?”
When I asked, looking toward Count Wittelsbach, who was forming a red puddle on the ground, Gilles de Lionel remained silent.
That being his answer, I forced my disobedient body to get up.
I hadn't realized it while lying down, but my head was spinning and I was so dizzy I felt like I could collapse at any moment.
Still, I forced my limp body up, drove my sword into the ground, and stood, leaning on it.
Gilles de Lionel looked at me, then readjusted his grip on the sword in his hand and spoke.
“Any last words?”
“Haha, hahaha….”
Count Wittelsbach, and now Lionel.
Why do they keep asking for last words?
It pisses off a man who isn't going to die.
“Because there's someone who would act as if the world had ended if I were to die selfishly.”
Gilles de Lionel paused for a moment before speaking.
“Those who died by your hand must have had such people too.”
This time, I couldn't answer.
As we both fell silent, only the sound of the falling rain could be heard.
How long did that silence last?
He asked.
“Do you have regrets?”
“About what?”
“The choices you have made, the ones that resulted in no small amount of grudges, the choices that have led you to the brink of death in this very place.”
I pondered for a moment.
Regret, you say. Regret.
A self-deprecating smile formed on my lips on its own.
Before my regression, almost everything was stained with regret.
What else could remain but regret from a life where I knew nothing of reality, was just dragged along by circumstances, and ended up beheaded at the guillotine?
“Regret. …I’ve had many. Very, very many.”
Did I have no regrets after my regression?
Funnily enough, no.
If anything, the things I learned after regressing brought even more regrets about my past life.
It's not much different after the regression.
“Looking back at the past, I've done so many foolish things.”
The time I made deals with demons to raise capital during my noble days, the time I eliminated Jean Malo who was an obstacle to joining the Republic.
And who would have known that the act of personally subjugating Count Lionel to save the people of the west would come full circle and return as a crisis?
“Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army, Pierre de Lafayette. You have caused countless sacrifices to reach that position. Shouldn't you atone to those who were sacrificed for your sake?”
“Countless sacrifices, atonement…”
I gave a bitter smile.
“That, I’m not so sure about.”
Gilles de Lionel's brow twitched.
Nevertheless, I truly couldn't be sure.
“Certainly, no small number of people may have been sacrificed.”
The man right before my eyes, Gilles de Lionel, must be a victim of it.
Because I had subjugated Count Lionel, using him as a scapegoat to save the people of the west and gain recognition from the Republic.
“There might have been a better path. If I had chosen such a path, perhaps I would have had nothing to regret.”
If I had been a little bolder, or a little more cautious, or if I had chosen a different path.
Perhaps I could have brought about a better result.
But no one knows if the path I did not walk would have led to a better outcome.
It could have been a worse path.
“At the time, I walked that path because I could not conceive of a better one. And at the very least, there are definitely people who were saved by that choice.”
Gilles de Lionel was silent, then asked.
“To you, were the commoners of the west, whom you had never even met, more valuable than your old ally?”
Count Lionel was certainly sacrificed because of me.
But at the same time, he induced a rebellion without caring for the fate that would befall the people of the west, and I saved them by placing the blame on Count Lionel and subjugating him.
“...At the very least, as a general of the Revolutionary Army, the answer to who I should choose between the innocent people on the verge of being purged and the one who instigated a rebellion was already decided.”
Gilles de Lionel let out a hollow laugh.
“Pierre de Lafayette. A noble of the old regime who sold out his fief and his allies to join the Republic, a great general revered by all in the Revolutionary Army for fighting without sparing himself.”
His voice was heavily suppressed.
“Why? Why did your political enemy who held a weakness that could ruin you, and the woman who lost her family for your path, both choose to turn a blind eye to you?”
As if he couldn't understand, his voice, mixed with anger and resentment, seemed to pierce my mind even through the downpour.
“Is it because all your decisions were not for your own selfishness, but solely for Francia? Is that why you are acknowledged by them, and why you say you cannot atone? Because you are justice?”
“...No.”
“...You have regrets but won't atone, and you haven't lived solely for Francia either?”
I slowly straightened the body that was leaning on the sword—
“I am simply doing my best to seize a better future with those I wish to protect. As a result, I have made many sacrifices, and if it's unavoidable in the future, I will do so again.”
I stood up straight.
“Atonement is a vow that I am convinced I was wrong and will not repeat the same sin in the future. But that would be an act that negates those who were saved by my choice, and it would be nothing but hypocrisy, negating my future actions.”
Gilles de Lionel was staring intently at me.
“What I do is far from some sublime ideal for Francia. I am just doing my best for myself and my people in this very moment. Just like your father, who, unable to forsake the glory of his ancestors and family, fought until the moment he fell, knowing he would die.”
I somehow lifted my arm that kept refusing to move—
“I cannot deny the legitimacy of your desire for revenge. Likewise, I cannot allow my life to be negated by you. What I can give to my enemies, then and now, is not something like atonement. There is only one thing I can offer an enemy whose position is merely different.”
I pointed my sword at him.
“Only respect for one who, like me, does his best on his own path.”
Gilles stood still for a long moment, then instantly drew the dagger from his waist.
The moment I reacted, the dagger had already flown from his hand.
Ha, is it because of the poison?
To end so futilely—
The moment I thought that, a scream erupted from behind me.
I turned my head unconsciously, and a Krafte Army soldier with a bayonet in his hand was twitching on the ground.
“This is, my choice.”
Gilles de Lionel’s voice sounded suppressed.
“...Even if I were to kill you now, when you can't even resist properly, it's not like the honor of Lionel would be restored.”
I turned my gaze, but his eyes were fixed on the dagger he had thrown.
“...I will be watching. My enemy, who claims to have paid respect to my father. You, who regrets but cannot atone, you who claims to only be doing your best in your position.”
He turned his drenched body.
“The day you prove you were only spouting platitudes, enjoying power in a government of corrupt commoners on a seat you bought by selling out your old allies. ...I will come for you then.”
Leaving only those words, Gilles de Lionel disappeared into the downpour.
In the distance, all I could see was the scene of the Krafte Army being driven out in the heavy rain, with the Revolutionary Army in pursuit.
As if my small sigh was a signal, all strength drained from my body.
The world turned upside down—
“Marquis-nim!”
My memory ended there.
*
“His Majesty the Great King! The enemy has begun a counterattack at the North Gate and West Gate! Our forces within the encirclement are already….”
“The unit that was conducting an all-out offensive at the South Gate to lure the enemy has suffered devastating losses! The Guard is also wiped out! General Leberecht is requesting permission to retreat!”
“His Majesty the Great King, the Imperial Knights, including Count Wittelsbach, who launched the offensive on the East Gate, have been annihilated, and the forces that advanced to the city center are also being pushed back after suffering immense sacrifices to the enemy’s reinforcements.”
The Great King of Krafte, Karl II, sat in his chair, leaning on his cane, silently listening to the endless reports of defeat.
He knew the chances of victory were not high.
The enemy had made every possible preparation, and had in fact inflicted enormous losses on Krafte’s strong army, even catching them off guard with flanking routes they could never have imagined.
But it was a battlefield from which they could not retreat. If they failed to secure a victory here, Krafte, facing both an invasion from the Northern Allied Kingdom and an internal rebellion, would be completely cornered.
He had caught them off guard by luring them in, sacrificing the troops who had fallen into Marquis Lafayette’s trap and even using the Guard, which had been heavily damaged by bombardment, as a sacrificial piece.
Even on the battlefield of urban warfare, where one's hand is extremely limited, he had drawn out every tactic he could devise, and pushed the capabilities of Krafte’s mighty soldiers to their limit.
Nevertheless, the result was a clear and utter defeat.
Looking at the generals who were just dripping with cold sweat before him, the Great King murmured lowly.
“The Krafte Army is finished.”
All the generals let out a groan.
They had suffered no small losses in the Battle of Barua, but that was closer to a retreat after an engagement than a defeat.
Above all, at that time, the Krafte Army's elite standing army had remained relatively intact.
The Krafte Army. The strongest and invincible army of humanity.
That was the driving force behind the Krafte Army's ability to maintain overwhelming discipline and obey orders even in attacks that seemed nigh-suicidal.
Because the militaristic idea that shattering that pride and honor was a disgrace that would last for generations was ingrained in them to the point of brainwashing, the soldiers could advance even knowing they would die.
But the pride and honor given to them in place of harsh training that was severe enough to castrate their humanity had collapsed.
The standing army that formed its foundation had suffered devastating losses while launching a reckless offensive in the harsh environment of urban warfare, and those men were not easily replaceable.
With the remaining forces consisting mostly of mobilized reservists, the Krafte Army, its myth as humanity’s strongest and invincible army now shattered, would no longer be the Krafte Army it once was.
“This war is lost.”
The Great King declared as such, and rose from his seat.
“Your, Your Majesty the Great King.”
To the bewildered generals, the Great King turned his head slightly and said.
“What are you all doing? Give the order to retreat. We will gather our forces and withdraw to the Rhineland.”
“Y-Yes, Your Majesty the Great King!”
While the generals moved busily, giving orders, the Great King's gaze turned to the entrance of the tent, where the rain was pouring down.
General Gerhardt silently watched the Great King’s back.
The figure of an old man, faint as if he could disappear at any moment, having fought the war he had waited a lifetime for, and lost.
As Gerhardt was about to unconsciously open his mouth at that sight, the Great King spoke first.
“Do not say anything unnecessary. It is a groundless fear that would negate my life.”
“I-I apologize, Your Majesty the Great King.”
Karl II turned around slowly.
“I seized victory, and I displayed glory.”
And he stood, leaning on his cane with both hands.
“And in defeat, I have torn down the very glory I built.”
Before Gerhardt, who could say nothing and only lowered his head, the Great King spoke in a low voice.
“Then it must be I who pays respect to the one who defeated me and became the strongest, and I who must acknowledge this kingdom’s defeat. That is the transgression that I, who started this war, must bear.”
“...I apologize, Your Majesty the Great King.”
If he were to simply die now that the war was effectively over, it was obvious where the anger of a people who had lost their target of resentment would turn.
Karl II slowly turned his head toward the capital city in the distance, the one he had left behind.
He looked toward Mittelburg, where his heir would be fighting a desperate battle in his stead, and spoke.
“All of that is my life. If I have enjoyed victory and glory, then I cannot leave defeat and blame for my heir to bear. I cannot die, at least not until then.”