Kays Translations

Chapter 55: Essence

Thinking that they could communicate, Lucius introduces himself.

"I am Lucius Norris Dragon! I have no intention of fighting you!"

Suddenly, the goblins come to a halt, standing still like dolls on the spot.

It worked.

The imperial soldiers respond from behind.

"We don't need to listen to the words of lowly creatures!"

"Wait! There are non-combatants here!"

The three imperial soldiers burst into laughter.

"So what?"

"Does he think he's smarter than a bunch of maggots?"

"Indeed, the people of this country lack the intelligence to understand reason."

They gaze at Lucius with a scornful look, as if mocking a fool.

The only soldier who didn't join in the laughter raises his voice, filled with irritation.

"Don't get too cocky! Just be grateful that we even bothered to listen to the babble of savage monkeys! Beast soldiers, get them!"

As the man shouts, the goblins that had stopped start moving again.

The passage is filled with goblins clad in thunder.

One after another, they are being cut down.

There's no end to them.

Even though I cut off their legs, they're still alive.

They crawl with their hands and launch attacks from below.

For those who have acquired superior Shiro-You in the eastern style, especially, taking a direct hit wouldn't be fatal even if they were caught in the self-destruction.

But for other styles, at worst, a single hit could incapacitate them.

In fact, it's Lucius, Yu, and Shaulia who are holding back the tide.

Prepare yourself.

Lucius grips the hilt in his right hand, feeling a slight ache.

"Captain Shaulia, Yu. I'll handle this. I'll take care of the imperial soldiers."

Yu nods quietly.

"Wait! The imperial soldiers are an elite force! Even though they are spearheads, going alone is dangerous!"

Ignoring Shaulia's shout, Lucius cuts down the goblin in front of him and leaps forward.

A tremendous agility, as if a giant suit of armor were moving.

Three times, he crushes the goblins underfoot, and then leaps into the air with a loud explosion.

The imperial soldiers watch this coolly.

"Is he coming alone? He really is stupid."

"Don't worry, we'll turn him into the essence."

"That's right. For them, that's the only value they have."

In one go, he jumps over the goblin group and attacks the imperial soldiers.

His opponent is the knight who had cursed him earlier.

The imperial soldier, still on horseback, takes Lucius' slash with his shield.

Perhaps he underestimated Lucius' strength, as he didn't try to avoid it.

But he soon realizes that it was a mistake.

"What!?"

Unable to withstand Chiyou's heavy slash, the shield cracks, and both the knight and his horse are blown backward.

"To think a monkey like you would force me to step back... I won't forgive you!"

With the close distance, the figure of the imperial soldier becomes visible.

In one hand, he holds a shield.

In the other hand, a staff.

It's not the fact that the shield that blocked Cú Chulainn's (Chiyou's) slash was a formidable weapon that surprises Lucius.

There's a brain in the staff...

At the tip of the staff is a brain contained in a glass-like case.

From the texture, it seems to be genuine.

Spinal cords and nerves extend from the brain, entwining around the staff.

As the imperial soldier raises the abominable staff, the temperature of the entire passage suddenly drops.

Then, as he swings the staff toward Lucius, a mass of cold air wrapped in white mist attacks.

Immediately, he raises his shield and prepares for the cold.

The ground freezes, and the black armor is covered in frost, turning completely white.

If it weren't for Chiyou, my lungs would be frozen.

The imperial soldier seems to be letting his anger take control, releasing the cold recklessly. Cold air is emitted one after another, and white frost covers the walls and floor.

Having directly received the mass of cold air, Lucius is engulfed in a white mist due to the suddenly lowered temperature.

The imperial soldiers probably can't see Lucius anymore.

"Die! You worthless monkeys!"

However, Lucius clearly sees the imperial soldier.

With each swing of the staff, a part of the brain attached to the tip is torn off.

This is too tasteless.

"Enough of that. When the corpses are crushed, we can't use the essence. Now is the time when we need it the most."

The surrounding imperial soldiers try to dissuade him.

"Yeah, I got it. I got so annoyed by the monkeys that my temper flared up. Well, there are still a lot of them over there."

The knight turns his chin toward the knights fighting the goblins.

But he will never lower his chin again.

His head flies up into the air.

"Huh?"

A voice escapes from one of the imperial soldiers watching the scene.

He quickly realizes that the black armor enveloped in white cold air has bisected the shining sword.

"Why is he still alive after taking my cold spell!?"

Lucius doesn't respond.

The conversation is already over. Only the blades will speak now.

In an instant, Lucius beheads the imperial soldier who was preparing to wield the staff, and with a backswing, he cuts down another soldier standing beside him.

After a moment, the two men on horseback collapse with mismatched thuds.

The last remaining imperial soldier tries to cut him down, but when he steps in, the staff is swung.

"Eek!"

In the next moment, goblins leap at Lucius as if to assist the knight's retreat.

Fearless of death, they pile on one after another like swarming ants.

Their eyes show no vitality. They look just like corpses.

"Don't get in my way!"

After slaying a few, Lucius looks around and sees that many of the northern knights have already retreated.

Shaulia's unit has also started moving back, with about half of the troops falling back.

And the backs of the imperial soldiers fleeing on their horses are already small.

They're retreating, huh?

At that moment, the goblins begin to scatter in all directions.

The imperial soldiers Lucius had been controlling were destroyed, and they were retreating. The number of goblins has also been reduced to about a third of the original.

Then, Shaulia shouted.

"Lord Lucius! Please kill as many of the goblins as possible! We don't mind some sacrifices!"

With the enemy starting to retreat, pursuing them would only cause limited damage.

Rather, the goblins, each acting as a bomb, are retreating on their own.

It would be better to just observe.

"Why?"

As Lucius hesitated over his decision, a sudden scream reached his ears.

Looking around, he sees goblins discarding their weapons and carrying injured knights.

Huh?

Wild goblins would never perform such an act in this situation.

They are living beings too.

While they may fight indiscriminately to protect their flock, once the battle is decided, they flee headlong.

It's different with the goblins in front of him.

Without caring about their own escape, they are trying to take away the injured knights, regardless of gender.

"I'll help!"

Lucius generates a large number of armored soldiers from the shadows and attacks the goblins trying to carry away the people.

To avoid killing the scattered goblins and to avoid hitting the knights being dragged away, the progress is slow.

Still, most of them are saved by Lucius and the armored soldiers.

However, about ten knights are pushed back into the depths of the goblin crowd, out of reach.

The despair etched on their faces is profound.

One of them includes a familiar face.

It's Joseph.

"Joseph-san!"

As Lucius is about to chase after them, Shaulia spreads water spheres around them.

With eyes filled with tears, she clenches her back teeth.

The water spheres gradually extend and form water spears.

The tips are directed at the goblins trying to carry away the captured knights.

"Captain Shaulia... If you release that now, it could hit our allies--"

Distorted face, Shaulia ignores Lucius's voice and releases the water spears.

"...Huh?"

Confusion seeps into Lucius's voice.

As expected, the water spears pierce the chests and heads of several squad members, draining the life from them. After a brief moment, the goblins impaled by the water spears explode, taking a few more squad members with them.

"What... What is going on?"

He can't comprehend what just happened. It looks as though Shaulia killed her own subordinates.

Amidst Lucius's bewildered voice, the cries of the surviving squad members who narrowly missed the water spears echo.

"Ah... it's over..."

"I don't want to be taken by the empire!"

"Captain Shaulia, please kill us! Please!"

Together with the anguished cries of the squad members, the goblins disappear.

The heartbreaking cries make Lucius instinctively want to follow after them.

Shaulia stops him with a despondent voice.

"...It's too late."

"We can still save them now!"

"If we chase them now, we'll fall into a trap. That's their common tactic. Besides, we can't pursue them in this situation with injured and non-combatants among us. Lord Lucius, with me, let's deliver the surviving squad members to the surface."

"But!"

"We saved as many as we could..."

"Saved...? You... you killed them!"

Shaulia spits out her words in frustration.

"The imperial soldiers fight using the magic stones and formulas they've taken from monsters. But simply infusing magic into scrap metal won't activate anything. To manipulate magic, a mind is essential."

Lucius recalls the staff with the brain attached to it.

"That's why the empire uses living brains and spinal cords to control formulas and beast soldiers. In other words, they need those who produce a large number of beast soldiers."

"No way..."

With a tone of disgust, Shaulia continues.

"Yes. Men have their brains and spines forcibly removed while they're alive and turned into mediums to control magic stones until they die. The pain of constantly being infused with magic power is far worse than that of Shukuma's training."

Earlier, the imperial soldier who used the cold spell had his brain torn apart every time he swung the staff. The nerves couldn't bear the burden of the spell.

And he was just a disposable soldier, used carelessly.

"As for women, they have their limbs cut off and are raped by goblins and trolls to produce the raw materials for beast soldiers, being forced to bear children until they die."

"...That's..."

The faces of the soldiers who begged for death earlier flash in Lucius's mind.

"In the empire's battles, knights end up killing more of their own allies than the imperial soldiers they defeat."

He is left speechless.

The staff with a living brain that the imperial knights were using.

He can only feel nauseated when he imagines Joseph being turned into something like that.

"...Captain Joseph, I-I'm sorry. I promised that I would kill you then... but I couldn't do anything..."

When he looks back, Hamiya is crying.

The other knights are the same.

"That's why knights are easily broken. It's also why their sense of camaraderie becomes stronger."

Comrades who used to talk, laugh, and train together.

Now they have to kill them to save them.

Again and again.

They trust and rely on each other.

They hope that the comrades they trusted will kill them when the time comes and throw themselves into battle.

"Why... Why would they do such a thing..."

"The people of the empire don't have magic cores or formulas. But without formulas, people can't survive."

In a world where military, agriculture, medicine, everything relies on magic, not using formulas means reverting to a primitive life.

However, even so, she finds it hard to believe that they would toy with others' brains like that just to use formulas.

"But Mr. Brusen didn't use such things, did he?"

It's a fact that Brusen used imperial weapons in battle.

"Mr. Brusen used his own brain as a medium. He didn't use formulas, right?"

"True... he didn't use formulae for his bow."

"To use the formulae of magic stones by channeling the magic power into his body and activating the formulae of magical instruments. It's impossible to use the formulae of weapons with formulae because the formulae are a mess. It must have been quite painful just to use them. Originally, imperial weapons weren't meant for those with magic cores or formulae."

"But even so..."

Lucius tightly clenches his fist.

Yu places his hand on his trembling shoulder.

"...It's okay."

On the back of his tightly clenched left hand, a swollen half-moon is floating.

The moment ago, when the prisoners were abducted and couldn't die, Lucius was about to die at any moment.

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