novelraw Chapter 82 : Chapter 82
Chapter 82 : Chapter 82
Chapter 82
“I thought I really beat it this time.
I found you so quickly, ascended the throne with ease, and made no major mistakes in the war of conquest, did I?”
The sobbing voice seemed to be seeking agreement.
But the Emperor was not seeking agreement.
“It really couldn’t have been better than this.
I was so lucky, I even made a donation to the temple this time.
I even said thank you to those dog-like bastards who aren't even worth chewing up, the ones who locked me in here.”
With those words, the Emperor cried out as if wailing.
“This round was a real series of heavenly fortunes!
Do you know how many times I survived on a 1% chance?
An S-rank hero even fell for me and followed me around, and I even returned from a battlefield where I thought you had died after beheading the enemy general!”
He let out a hollow laugh, saying there was no miracle like this one, and continued in a completely dry voice.
“After going through this round, I get it now.
This was a history that couldn't be changed from the beginning.”
Filled with conviction, the Emperor gripped the blanket with both hands and buried his head between them.
“But what do I do then?
What should I do?
Do I have to endure that hellish time and survive again?
Why?
I'm just going to go back again anyway?”
The Emperor, terrified of the endlessly repeating hell, sobbed silently for a long time.
‘Repetition…….’
Although I had seen this sight several times already, my heart crumbled every time I saw the Emperor like this.
If it was this hard for me, how much pain must he have been in all this time?
‘Is that why he kept coming here…….’
I needed the courage to make a decision.
Unlike him, I was a coward, despicable, and weak.
“Your Majesty.”
A wry smile escaped at the hesitation in my voice.
Would he think I was crazy?
Was all of this just the Emperor’s madness?
Was I perhaps about to commit an irreversible mistake?
Leaving behind the questions that muddled my mind, I grabbed the sobbing Emperor's hand and asked.
“What if, just what if.
I could become the player instead?”
Even in that moment, meeting the Emperor’s trembling eyes, Ian thought he would never be able to replace the Emperor.
He had merely resolved to endure that endless pain in his stead.
* * *
“Keuk!”
The moment I regained consciousness, a cascade of red hair tickled my face.
“Young Lord, are you alright?”
“Reina?”
Looking around, I saw that I was in the barracks where I had been before meeting Rihaltan.
What?
I was definitely with Rihaltan…….
“Keu…….”
A throbbing pain shot through my head, and with it, memories surfaced.
[A Shepherd?
How on earth did you… Ah, a Shepherd is literally a Shepherd.
Protecting sheep in a dangerous area… But there are Shepherds here too……?]
[We call this place a ‘farm.’
A ‘farm’ where farmers make contracts with humans and harvest their souls.
Ah, don't look at me like that, you people raise and butcher them too.
It's not our fault we were born this way.]
[Why are we aiming for the continent……?]
[What kind of bullshit is that… no, you ignorant human!
Put your foot down!
No matter how ignorant you… a human is, would you set fire to a perfectly fine farm?
The only ones who would want such an ignorant thing are…….]
I couldn't remember what came after that.
I had definitely asked him something more…….
‘He died.’
The fellow had died suddenly.
Since he was bleeding quite a bit, it could have been a coincidence, but it was strangely fast.
And there was definitely a message…….
“Um… Young Lord?”
Reina's concerned voice from my side brought me back to my senses.
I didn’t know what the fellow was saying before he died, or if it was a coincidence, but it wasn't important right now.
Either way, he was a Demonkin in the end, and I had no intention of believing whatever he said.
“Ah, Reina, sorry.
How long was I out?”
“A little over a day.
The knight and the soldier came by a few times, but you wouldn't wake up… Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess I was just a bit tired.”
After she stared at me for a moment and left the barracks saying she would call Hoodwock and Vergil, I let out a small breath and checked the message before me.
[System patch in progress…… 0%]
…….
Crazy.
A real-time patch?
Now of all times……?
* * *
“Status Window.”
[System is under maintenance.]
Right, a patch is fine.
If it’s a game, it should naturally have patches and updates.
Yes.
Of course.
“Trait Window.”
[System is under maintenance.]
While patching, they should also adjust the crappy balance, lower the difficulty, round out the personalities of the psychopathic heroes, and increase the trait acquisition probability… huh?
All of that is fine.
“Skills, Quests, Notifications, Announcements.”
[System is under maintenance.]
[System is under maintenance.]
[System is under maintenance.]
[System is under maintenance.]
“…No, but still… you have to make an announcement!”
A submarine patch!
The only thing I had was uncertain information that would only be useful 10 years later!
Just like the shitty game it is, the management is terrible!
“Hoo… let’s be calm.”
Being able to play during a patch probably means that existing things won't be changed.
So, there’s a high probability that things that already exist in this world, like people and items, won’t change.
If they were going to change, they would have stopped this world and changed it, just as they blocked the ‘Status Window.’
Because the ‘System’ is patching, and the ‘System’ is under maintenance.
“Then……”
I checked the message window once more.
[System patch in progress…… 0%]
To think positively, it could be that only the ‘System’ is being patched.
Just the system, which has no effect on the game's progress.
‘Though if it really had no effect, they wouldn’t have patched it.’
“For now, let’s think that way.
I'll be able to check when the patch is over.”
Since the patch started as soon as Rihaltan died, it must be a ‘reward.’
Even if it wasn't, I decided to believe so for my mental health.
Just then, the two people Reina had called entered the tent and shouted simultaneously.
“Captain!”
“My lord!”
I chuckled at their worried faces, and after a brief meeting, the scouting party began to move.
Not to the north, where the Orcs were descending, but to the northeast.
* * *
The lord's chamber in the fortress.
Gerse, who had arrived at Front Hold by the skin of his teeth, had to report to the Count, kneeling before him without even a moment's rest.
“…Say it again.”
“My, my lord Count……”
Even with the soldier’s voice sounding like it would break at any moment, Sven did not lessen his intensity.
“Hurry.”
“As, as I said… the, the scouting party has been annihilated.”
While prostrated before the Count, trembling, Gerse continued his explanation.
That there was a trap made by Orcs at the entrance of the forest, less than a week's run away, and hundreds of Orcs were waiting.
“Heuk, if only we had returned to report the fact when the Young Lord discovered the trap……”
However, the arrogant Young Lord had charged in boldly even after knowing there was a trap, and as a result, the scouting party was annihilated.
“It’s, it’s true!
When a giant Orc roared, the Orcs held up the corpses and started charging!
There was no way to stop them, even with his bow!”
As the report continued, everyone let out a groan.
“You may leave.”
After that, Gerse, having finished his report, left the room.
The Count, who had been tapping his chair, opened his mouth.
“Which side is he from?”
“He is one of the spies from the royal family.”
At dawn yesterday.
Over ten members of the scouting party had suddenly returned to report the annihilation of the scouting party.
“What about the others who came with him?”
“With a few exceptions, they have all been identified as spies.”
Quite a few spies had infiltrated the fortress, and the Count had tolerated it.
Other than being dirt poor and short on manpower every year, the Count’s family had nothing to hide, and the highly trained spies were forces that could be deployed to the most dangerous battlefields.
On top of that, as long as they weren’t killed directly, they could be replenished at any time!
Some of the fortress commanders even argued that the Count should create secrets to attract more spies.
‘Tsk, if I had known this would happen, I shouldn't have sent them.’
Sven had sent them, thinking he would pick out the ones he knew and use them in moderately dangerous places, but only the ones he had sent to die came back alive and well.
‘If only I had given him a hint…….’
No matter how he thought about it, it seemed likely that only those guys would have died and returned.
That would have been a problem in its own right.
Tap, tap, tap…….
“The spies deployed on this mission are at least in their fourth year.”
“That's the problem.
It's clearly a lie, no matter how I think about it……”
Why would a fourth-year spy report a lie that could be exposed as early as tomorrow?
“It seems to be a mix of truth and lies, as expected.”
“I suppose so.”
It was a concern he wouldn't normally have.
He would have just thrown them as goblin feed since they wouldn’t talk even if tortured, and waited for the main force.
“The week's distance and the trap can be confirmed, so that must be true.
The fact that those bastards were waiting for the scouting party must also be true.”
Everything else was ambiguous.
“Could the giant Orc be a Great Warrior?”
“Since they formed a military formation, it must be a Legion Commander.”
“Could the Young Lord have fought knowing there was a Legion Commander?”
Lost in thought, the Count muttered.
“If he went in thinking there was a Legion Commander, he’s a real madman……”
In the end, the Count decided to believe that the Young Lord wasn't a real madman.
He was a madman no matter how you looked at it, but a madman who cared for his soldiers.
“Tell Zehir and Thomas to go confirm the traces and then return.”
“Then the returned soldiers……”
The Count let out a small sigh.
If it weren’t wartime, he could have tied them to the front gate and let the goblins feast on them.
“What are your thoughts?”
“It is right to keep them alive for now, even if it means sending them to their deaths after the battle begins.”
“Is that so…….”
“Yes.
We don’t know how the Second Prince, who has come to support us, will react.”
Sven thought of the prince who was said to be gathering troops for the fortress.
“Something is strange.
Try contacting Mogul again.”
He said not to worry, that it was just a madman gathering soldiers in a mad way to worry about another madman.
“Tell him again, absolutely, do not send them this way.”
Whatever Mogul thought, Sven was determined to refuse the prince’s help.
There were enough madmen in this castle already.
* * *
Hoodwock, who had been constantly looking around to find the Ranger’s mark, finally found the trace he was looking for.
A drawing like a dragonfly left on the surface of a tree.
“Captain, this way!
This way!”
For three days, they had moved, following a mark that he had never even learned from his senior.
The party, which had set up camp for the main force while Ian and Sven moved alone, finally faced the hidden piece they had been searching for so long.
“……!”
“Th-this, could it be……!”
Seeing the lizard-like body that was over three meters tall even when crouched, and wings as enormous as its body, Hoodwock shouted, convinced that the Demonic beast before him was the ferocious one he had heard about from the old men of the fortress.
“A D-Drake!”
* * *
The Black Dragon, Calua, who was about to give up on life amidst the soul-mincing pain, struggled with all his might to regain consciousness.
‘N-no.’
Even if he would become the first dragon to die in the forest of demonic beasts.
Even if his life was being taken by the filthy Geomeok tree and he would die a miserable death.
‘The last word I hear cannot be Drake!’
Though he had given up even breathing long ago, if he had to die, he had to die as a dragon.
‘What goblin-like human dares!’
The moment he opened his eyes with all his might, Calua saw a human looking down at him.
“Ah……”
The human, who let out a sigh with a somewhat disappointed face, opened his mouth.
“I came to loot, but you’re alive.”
Calua shivered at the chill that ran through his body and thought.
Somehow, this felt worse than being called a Drake.