Chapter 268
Be More Dignified Than Anyone (1)
Ophelia grabbed my hand with both of hers—with my hand gripping the small fragment.
Her hands began to glow white, and I blankly stared at their light. She guided my hand to my chest, to the left… Finally, my hand touched my heart, holding the faintly glowing, small fragment to it. Thusly, a faint light spread all over my body.
When the light disappeared, I realized what I had lost.
The pieces of my life that I had forgotten for a while, almost eaten by the darkness of the void, experiencing the threat of extinction, finally became part of me again. So, I was able to recall everything I had forgotten. But…
“Now, do you know where you need to go to go back to?”
I was unable to answer Ophelia’s question. The memory of those running toward the expansive darkness was stuck into my heart like a thousand thorns. The image of them struggling with that persistent malice was drawn so vividly in my mind.
I opened and closed my mouth several times. Then, after a while, I bowed my head and gave a curt answer.
“I am dead.”
Ophelia grasped my cheeks with both her hands.
“You can survive if you want to.”
The confidence within her word gladdened me, yet at the same time, I wasn’t happy.
“But when I leave… Agnes… The others…”
The only answer I could give in front of Ophelia was not a direct one, but rather foolish words—because I couldn’t turn away from those who risked annihilation for my sake. She did not blame me for that.
“Gruhorn. You always do that,” she sighed. “That’s why I can’t let you stand still.” Ophelia laughed.
“If you were your normal self, I wouldn’t be so worried. You are too small and weak now.”
Her smile seemed to be somewhat apologetic, and I became nervous.
“Be strong in your mind.”
Ophelia again grabbed my cheeks, then put her forehead against mine.
“The things you’ll see from now on…”
Her face was close enough that I felt her breath and she looked at me with her unique golden eyes.
“It’s going to be more horrible than you thought it would be.”
And at that moment, the world before my eyes turned white.
**
Thousands of soldiers wearing black cloaks were gathered in front of the fortress. In front of them, from a high platform, the Duke of the North declared bloody revenge, his face filled with anger and grief. Soldiers and knights raised their spears and swords high and shouted. Thousands of troops began marching out. Crossing the bridge spanning the Rhinethes, they continued to advance. As they marched on, more soldiers and knights continued to gather.
After continuing on apace, they reached a forest where the trees were overgrown with mistletoe. Monsters with dark blue skins blocked off the knights and soldiers. The soldiers leveled their crossbows and poured out bolts, while the lancers, led by Quéon, broke through the center of the monsters.
The Masters gathered their Aura Blades to the edges of their swords and ripped the monsters apart. The battle ended with many humans dead. Those who survived continued advancing, burning the forest as they did.
The battle with the monsters continued. Countless soldiers who stalked through the forest like ghosts with their crossbows fell. The tireless lancers were surrounded by monsters and died one by one.
Nevertheless, they did not stop.
Ignoring their wounds, seeking victory, they continued to set the forest ablaze as they moved forward. The monsters’ resistance intensified.
Some of them were strong enough to deal with even the Masters, who gathered together and faced the mightiest of the beasts. After fighting for a day and night, this monster finally collapsed.
However, the Masters weren’t in perfect condition either. One of them wielded a sword shining with moonlight; he had pierced the monster’s heart, then he too met his death.
None mourned for him; none gave tribute. They merely marched on. And again, they ran into an army led by a mighty monster. Once more, they won but lost many. One warrior, who blazed as golden as the sun, was struggling with two mighty monsters. She suffered serious injuries and died less than a day later.
Now, only one Master remained.
And in that forest, she fought as if channeling the stars themselves, killing countless monsters with brilliant swordsmanship. But in the final battle, she also suffered greatly, her body torn apart.
The duke, who had cried out for revenge, also became a headless corpse after that battle. The most loyal palace knight died as well, his limbs torn from him on the spot. And so, the war ended.
The forest with its trees and mistletoe burned, and the dark-blue-skinned monsters were annihilated. The surviving monsters scattered and fled.
The army returned immediately, but some knights and soldiers took up crossbows and pursued the fleeing beasts. They disappeared, never to come back. With its sharpest swords broken in this war, the kingdom was completely defeated in a string of unceasing losses by those who had always aimed for the destruction of Leonberg.
Corpses formed mountains, and blood flowed in rivers.
**
“Kgook!”
I coughed, the breath I had held bursting out from me. It hurt, almost as if my heart had been broken. I forcefully suppressed the pain as my breath came in wild rasps. My eyes couldn’t even blink. Whenever I closed them, I saw Bernardo’s head drooping, just after he had pierced through the beast’s heart. I witnessed Adelia’s end, with her struggling in pain and dying slowly.
The final fate of Arwen was to become a cold corpse, all thanks to the machinations of the fallen Elder High Elves.
Vincent’s head still rolled across the ground in my mind. I pictured the remains of Carls, who had died while his limbs were being torn from him.
I felt like I might never rise again, so I opened my eyes and breathed hard. Then, after a while, I barely managed to squeeze my mouth open to form words.
“What the hell did you show me? What the hell did I see!”
I suddenly stepped a few feet back from Ophelia, and she stared at me.
“You already know.”
Unlike me, who felt terrified, her voice sounded embarrassed.
“That’s the future path that the kingdom will walk without you.”
Her voice became sharper.
“It is the last battle your knights will ever enter.”
Her words pierced my heart deeply. I denied them; it was ridiculous; it was impossible. I didn’t sacrifice my soul to see such a future unfold. But the more I tried to deny it, the clearer the future Ophelia had shown me became. Because I knew it could be no different, for she had foreknowledge with her power of [Shinan].
“Gruhorn. Look at me.”
She forced my motionless head to look at her. I hesitated and resisted, fearing that she would show me a terrible future again, but I finally met her eyes. Her pupils were still, and the ominousness I had imagined was nowhere to be seen.
“The terrible sights you saw are never going to happen.”
My heart had been beating wildly at Ophelia’s words, and my mind had become a mess; both now quickly returned to their original states.
“You… I… I won’t let it happen like that. I won’t just wait and watch,” she said and smiled gently. Right then-
“It’s a really nasty trick.”
A welcome voice came from behind Ophelia’s back.
“Ann!” I turned in the direction of the voice. Agnes, with a somewhat unpleasant-looking face, was approaching Ophelia and me. The Dragon Slayer, the progenitor of the Leonberger family, was also there.
“I guessed it was you,” the king said. “It wouldn’t have been possible to awaken all the deeply slumbering souls without you.”
“I just hope I didn’t interfere with your sleep.”
He and Ophelia exchanged greetings, for they had climbed Mount Seori together four hundred years ago. However, Agnes did not wait too long for them to share in the joy of their reunion.
“Don’t you have to show us your grotesque form? Do you need to make it more disturbing by appearing alive?”
“I guess you don’t like my power very much.”
Despite Agnes’s overbearing reprimand, Ophelia did not show even a bit of agitation.
“I hated the prophets of olden times,” Agnes said. “Even after hearing their foresights, I couldn’t figure out what to think. I felt deceived.” Agnes frowned, and her mood did not seem pleasant.
“I was just worried that a deep-hearted person might miss something important because of his feelings. There was no other meaning,” Ophelia assured her.
“Hey, that thing has been indecisive since time immemorial. He talked about the magic sword and everything and didn’t fully grasp the atmosphere. So, it didn’t get much of nutritional value from us.”
Agnes touched her chin for a moment, muttered ‘Yes’, and spoke on.
“In the end, it was useless. Even if it wasn’t, I had predicted the situation and was about to kick his arse and return him to his original hole.”
Having said that, she glanced at Ophelia, then looked at me.
“Tchu. You’re weak, you’re missing this.”
Agnes gave a short cluck of her tongue and suddenly reached her hand out to me. Seeing the blobs of light floating above it, my eyes widened—because these were the pieces of my soul that had been shattered and swallowed by the darkness.
“How did you do this?”
“Somehow, I split the beast and took it out.”
I fell in love with her words, which she uttered as if they were insignificant. Her attitude was absurd as she spoke of sundering the mighty darkness as if it had been the mere cutting of a fish’s belly on a plate.
“We’re not completely finished with him. We just disabled it for a while. Over time, he will regain his original shape,” Dragon Slayer explained the situation on behalf of Agnes.
“Then the other people…”
“By now, everyone will be recovering from their weakened souls. Well, some of them may have disappeared, but I’m not interested in the weak ones anyway.”
Hearing Agnes’s words, I sighed in relief. Contrary to her blunt words, when I looked at her warm expression, I knew everyone else was okay.
“Since when are you so worried about others?” Agnes asked, clucking her tongue as she looked at me.
“Hmm.” Then, the Dragon Slayer stepped forward, stretching out his hand. A sliver of a weak soul was floating above it.
“This is not mine…”
“It is the soul of the original owner of your body,” he explained as I wondered about the soul’s identity. “The weak guy had shot out at the terrifying darkness by himself and was eventually consumed by the void, losing his ego. All that remains are weak thoughts and memories.”
“Why give this to me?”
“It will be necessary to get back to where you were.”
Before I could even say anything, Agnes took the piece and put it to my chest.
“Ah, stay still. Think of it as a remedy that you don’t have to eat. There is nothing more to say.”
When I looked at my chest with a grim face, the pieces had already been absorbed into my body, leaving no trace.
I looked at Agnes and gave an unsure laugh when the Dragon Slayer suddenly reached out his hand again.
“I feel the weight of the burden that you had to bear due to my excessive greed. You can think that it because I am selfish, but honestly, I think you are very lucky in the kingdom you are in. Please, the kingdom-”
“This bastard is still unconscious, and already carrying enough luggage. Shut up… Fuck. Because he still has to get out of here.”
Bearing the brunt of Agnes’s scolding, the Dragon Slayer’s face became hot. His peculiar coercion as a knight, which had reached [Mythic] level, slowly spread out.
“Hasn’t he already done well enough?” Agnes demanded. “Open your eyes. You have to have a conscience.”
The king nodded at her criticism, spat out a pained grunt, and looked at me again. Then he suddenly reached out his hand.
“I’m sorry. And thank you.”
It took me a moment to realize the meaning of his gesture; I also reached out my hand and gripped his large palm.
“Get out of here. Don’t pretend you have a conscience now.” Agnes pushed him away and came to stand in front of me.
“Take a good meal and eat when you wake up. This prince doesn’t have good blood, and his body isn’t good enough.”
“It’s still growing,” I protested.
“Fuck, seems the same to me. Maybe after your metamorphosis, you barely escaped being a dwarf.”
I was going to say something, upset at her attitude of mocking me, with the tips of her mouth curled into a smirk.
‘Warak!’
But then, Agnes hugged me.
“Don’t feel that you’re somebody else’s plaything anymore, don’t notice such things. Live confidently. Live this single life you have properly. Live with an abundance of happiness so that you don’t have any regrets later. Do everything that others do. Do everything that others have not done.”
Hearing her soft voice, I also raised my arms and carefully hugged her back.
“You deserve it,” she said as she grabbed my two shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Not as Gruhorn, but as Adrian Leonberger.”
Agnes pulled me toward her, and an unfamiliar sensation touched my forehead.
“Enjoy all the happiness you can attain as a human being.”
Before I even realized what was happening, Agnes grabbed me with force.
“Bye.”
Then she hurled me aside, throwing me away-
“Huh?”
…toward a place where there was a pure white light that I had not known had come into being.
“See you again. Ian.”
As Agnes said goodbye behind my back, I was sucked into the light.
**
“Ah…”
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on my fluffy bed. While directionlessly shifting my eyes, I heard a voice come from nearby.
“I- Your Highness?”
When I turned my head, Adelia was staring at me with a ghostly face. Tears quickly filled her drooping, haggard eyes.
“Your Highness! Your Highness! Your Highness!”
She ran into my arms, her face wet with tears, her nose runny. I hated it, but she stubbornly buried herself into my arms.
“Your Highness! Your Highness!” Adelia cried sadly in my embrace.
“What? His Highness?”
I heard the sound of footsteps and voices outside the door, and this made me laugh.
It felt like I had finally come home after a long time.
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