Chapter 51
Klaus's true nature,
The guards patrolling atop the castle walls were killing time as usual.
“Haah… This is boring.”
“Let’s hang in there a little longer. It’s almost time for the shift change.”
The guards passed the time chatting among themselves.
Naturally.
For the past ten years, they had spent their time this way, and not once had anything gone wrong.
As they yawned and passed the time, they began to hear a strange sound.
Thud, thud, thud, thud—
“Huh… What’s that sound?”
“I… I wonder?”
The guards were thrown into confusion by the sudden rumbling of the earth.
What was that sound?
Had there been an earthquake?
As they wondered about this, one of the guards spotted something in the darkness.
“Huh?… What’s that?”
Something began to appear beyond the horizon in the darkness.
The small shapes began appearing one after another and approached at high speed.
The guards quickly realized what they were.
They were knights on horseback.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud—!
“Yah!!”
“Run! Keep running without stopping!!”
The sight of over a thousand mounted knights and several hundred dragonkin warriors charging through the darkness looked exactly like the attacks of the Blood Kin spoken of only in legends.
The guards panicked at the sudden attack, but tried to do what they were supposed to do.
“The bell… Ring the bell quickly!!”
Just as the guard was about to ring the bell, something suddenly flew at him from behind.
Whack-!
“Guh!”
The blow to his head sent him collapsing to the ground.
Just before he fell unconscious, he saw his longtime friend and colleague striking him with the flat of his sword.
“Why…?”
“I’m sorry, friend…”
Similar scenes unfolded all along the walls, with guards attacking their fellow guards.
The guards who had knocked out their comrades descended and opened the city gates themselves.
As he watched the gates open, Rikain spoke.
“My lord! The gates have been opened as planned.”
“All right! We’re going in!”
The strategy using the free citizens who had moved into Klaus involved more than merely moving soldiers.
Noah searched among the free citizens for the relatives of the guards, then used them to contact the guards inside Klaus.
In exchange for moving to Dreihart or Kron and receiving ten years’ wages, they took Kron’s side.
Not a single person rejected Noah’s offer.
Thus, the Kron army passed through the gates without a fight and immediately began carrying out its operation.
Rikain began directing the battle.
“Separate according to plan. Move to your positions and begin the rapid subjugation.”
[ “Yes!!!!!” ]
Calix was the highest authority, but Rikain was the supreme commander on the battlefield.
At his command, the Kron knights, the warrior corps, and even Sharen all began to move.
The warrior corps headed for the barracks where the senior officers were quartered.
Sharen moved to the mages’ quarters.
The Kron knights and Calix headed for the ‘Lord’s Mansion.’
* * *
Meanwhile, Lois and Beric were opening another bottle of liquor.
Between the two of them, they had already gone through more than three bottles of wine.
“Young Master, are you opening another bottle?”
“Of course! We have to!! On a day like today! If we don’t drink today, when will we drink? Hahaha!”
“Hahaha! You’re right. Let’s drink ourselves to death today!!”
“That’s the spirit!! You really are my right-hand man, Beric!”
While they were holding their drinking party, a soldier hurriedly entered.
“My lord! This is a major problem!”
“Huh? What kind of problem?”
“It seems beggars have swarmed over from Dreihart.”
“That is a major problem! Hahahaha!!!”
At Beric’s words, Lois laughed louder than he had all day.
By contrast, the pale-faced soldier shouted in disbelief.
“This is no time for that! Calix Kron is leading knights here right now!!”
“………What?”
Lord Lois and Beric thought the soldier had gone mad.
It was only natural.
How could Calix Kron, who was supposed to be in Kron, be here?
And he was supposedly leading knights here?
It was utterly nonsensical.
“It’s an attack!”
“The enemy has invaded!!”
Just as the two of them were thinking this, sounds began coming from outside.
They hurried outside.
And what they saw was…
Boom-! Crack-!!
“Stop them!! Stop the enemy!!”
Mages were fighting in the sky, while the knights’ barracks were being destroyed.
The city, which had been peaceful only moments earlier when they had gone in to drink, had become an utter madhouse in an instant.
“W-What is going on!!! Where is Captain Andri!?”
Captain Andri was the commander of the Klaus Knights.
While Lois was looking for him, Andri was engaged in a fierce battle with Zarha.
“Damn it!!!”
The warrior corps had stormed in, and all the senior officers had already been subdued.
Andri, who had barely regained consciousness, hurriedly picked up his sword and resisted, but he was surrounded and on the verge of being subdued.
Zarha appeared before him.
“Submit quietly to being bound. We came only to reclaim what belongs to us, and we do not want to kill anyone.”
“You call that the words of an invader? Get lost! You monster dragonkin!!”
Andri raised his sword and charged at Zarha.
Zarha sighed.
“There’s no reasoning with you.”
Zarha simply swung his fist.
With only his arm transformed into dragonkin form, Zarha’s fist pulverized Andri’s sword and struck him head-on.
Bam-!
“Cough!”
Andri was slammed into the wall.
Though he was weak, he was still a knight commander, so he merely lost consciousness.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes! He’s alive.”
“Good. He’s lucky.”
“Captain Zarha! We’ve bound all the officers.”
Thus, the knights were being subdued.
The soldier could not answer Lord Lois’s question, so Lois searched for another lifeline.
“Where is Karko!?”
Karko was Klaus’s resident mage.
He had received the highest marks at the Green Mage Tower, and his abilities had earned him employment with Klaus.
Afterward, he hired two of his juniors as assistant mages, and the three of them served as House Klaus’s resident mages.
Karko and his two juniors were now facing despair.
“Why don’t you give up now? I don’t want to kill you.”
Karko had also heard the rumors and knew all too well of the red mage’s might.
And in a battle between mages, rumors were unnecessary.
The moment they faced off, they knew.
Ah… We’re dead today.
The mana flowing from Sharen told them that even if all three attacked her at once, they would not stand a chance.
But as Klaus’s resident mages, they had a duty to fight.
The three of them unleashed their strongest magic at once.
“Vulnus Venti (Wind Wound spell)!” X 3
Vortices formed in the three mages’ hands and shot forward.
The three vortices merged into one and engulfed Sharen, who deployed a defensive spell.
“aegis (Aegis / Shield spell)”
Their magic was stopped by a transparent, blue, glass-like barrier that formed before Sharen.
Their wind struggled to destroy the shield, but it was futile.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
“Everyone, keep it up!!
“Kraaaaaaagh!!”
As she watched them pitifully pour out every ounce of their strength, Sharen cast the shield spell again.
Vroooom—!
“What!?
“We’re being pushed back!!?
Sharen’s shield grew larger and thicker, then began advancing, tearing through the wind.
The approaching shield looked like a death sentence, but the three mages could not stop it.
And when the shield reached the space right in front of them…
“impulsum (Impact)“
Boom-!!
“Kraaaaaaagh!!”
With Sharen’s additional incantation, the shield released a shock wave before them and exploded.
Swept away by the impact, they fell into the waterways inside the castle.
After hauling up and binding the three mages, who had been knocked unconscious by the impact, Sharen completed her mission.
“No one is responding! My lord!!”
“That can’t be! How did this happen!? What in the world is going on!?”
Lois could not accept what was happening before his eyes.
In a single morning, the castle had fallen, and his mansion was under attack.
The few soldiers were trying somehow to guard the doors, but they were hopelessly outmatched.
He shouted at Beric, who stood beside him, just as stunned and unable to do anything.
“Beric! Tell me!! What in the world is going on!?”
“That is… I don’t know either…”
Beric felt much the same as Lois did.
He had certainly thought he understood everything.
He had felt that everything was proceeding according to plan.
But Beric had absolutely no idea why things had suddenly turned out this way.
It could not be helped.
The darkness beneath the lamp is darkest for someone convinced of their own success.
While they were in the midst of this…
Boom-!
“Aaaaaah!!”
“The door! The door’s been broken!!”
The gates were smashed, and the knights quickly began pouring into the mansion.
The Klaus soldiers and servants were too busy fleeing, while the few who resisted were subdued with ease.
No matter how weakened their opponents had been by the operation, these were the Kron knights who had fought both the dragonkin warrior corps and Hadem’s Lion Knights.
Panicked soldiers were not even worth a morning snack to them.
And through their ranks walked a silver-haired nobleman.
His every step toward the place he rightfully belonged carried the dignity Lois had dreamed of all his life.
And so, that day, Klaus was subdued by Kron in a single morning.