Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 64. Public Subjugation ①
The old arena located in the northern part of the royal capital has been renovated, giving the impression that a tournament was about to begin. The people living in the royal capital was crowding into the spectator seats that are open to the public.
The north-central part of the bowl-shaped spectator seats is designed to be several steps higher than the surrounding areas, and is used as VIP seating for the king and high-ranking nobles.
Knights of the Kingdom’s Knight Order lined up in formation in the arena, which is made of a thick wooden board laid on a stone foundation.
Kevin, who is participating there as a lower-ranking knight, sighed at the atmosphere. It was as if a festival was about to begin.
──Is it really okay to do this, putting on a show to subjugate the undead…?
Some of the officers who had looked after him and familiar faces had already left the Knight Order and were not present here. If possible, Kevin also wanted to paint his shield black in the same way and follow Lionel, the former captain.
However, Kevin was asked a favor by Crown Prince Alexis, and he accepted it.
To begin with, being a commoner and low-ranking knight, it was not something he could refuse, but after hearing the details, he couldn’t say no. That’s why he was still here now.
The murmurs In the venue soon turned into cheers, which grew even louder.
This is because the king, and then Elliott and Emily, appeared in the VIP seats in the center. The crowd erupted in cheers at the arrival of their heroes.
The subjugation has only just begun.
Elliott, who is far away from Kevin’s line of sight, was dressed in an extravagant ceremonial military uniform that was out of place for a subjugation operation. Emily, standing next to him, was wearing a dress made of layered pale lace and studded with jewels, like a princess from a fairy tale.
He felt like he couldn’t stand to watch it and averted his eyes. Instead, Kevin surveyed the venue.
The venue and the audience seats were surrounded by a barrier created by the royal court magicians. There were very few clergymen there, and all of them had anxious expressions on their faces.
–It would be best if His Highness the Crown Prince’s worries turned out to be unfounded and everything turned out fine…
He himself felt uneasy and restless with a strange sense of foreboding.
The orchestra plays a fanfare, and the upper-ranking knights stepped forward to the center. As part of the multiple barriers were removed, more than a dozen medium-sized undead monsters entered the wooden arena from the opening on the south side.
The sight caused a frightened murmur among the nobles and commoners who were not accustomed to seeing the undead beings.
However, when the holy knight Elliott moved from the VIP seats to the arena and appeared behind the upper-ranking knights, he unsheathed his sword and raised it up to the sky, the fear that had been felt turns into anticipation and excitement, coloring the atmosphere of the audience.
The undead monsters that appear seem to be individually confined by the magician’s barrier, and it is difficult to say that they have been really released, so a very strange scene spread.
It’s no different from locking a ferocious animal in a cage.
The whole thing felt a performance where a fight with a ferocious beast was about to begin.
One by one, the barriers were removed, and the high-ranking knights stepped forward, slaying the undead monsters as if they are performing a dance routine. Every time a head was cut off and the corpse crumbled back into the earth, a loud cheer went up from the audience.
As a low-ranking knight, Kevin’s role in this spectator subjugation was to make up the numbers in the formation and to act as a reserve in case of unforeseen circumstances. Right now, all he could do was watch from afar.
Kevin glared, following Elliot’s movements with his eyes.
–… Was the holy sword always like that…?
He suddenly felt a sense of incongruity. From a distance, it looks no different from the one he was used to seeing on the battlefield. It glowed faintly, making its presence known to those around it.
Ever since Elliot became a Holy Knight, Kevin had grown distant from him and had only seen him from afar, even on the battlefield. Still, he had been on the battlefield with Elliot, wielding the holy sword, for a year.
There was a strange feeling stuck in the back of his mind.
While Kevin is pondering, the annihilation is progressing. The last of the undead monsters has been released from the barrier, and Elliott is facing it with the Holy Sword in his hand.
He took off running, and in one smooth motion, chopped off the enemy’s head as he passed them. The sight of the hero slaying his enemy with a splendid flash of light sent roaring cheers from the spectators in jubilation that shook the air
Immediately after, he felt the floor tremble. At first, he thought it was the never-ending cheers making him hallucinate.
However, a rumbling sound came from beneath his feet, and soon the shaking became so intense he couldn’t stand, so Kevin quickly lowered his body to the ground. Then, he looked back at the direction where Elliott was, and gasped.
The floor on the north side of the arena was rising up like a mountain. The thick wooden materials used for the floor creaked loudly and then began to break. Something was approaching, making a tremendous sound of thick wood crumbling.
──A Dragon…!? No, something like that shouldn’t be here. What is that…?.
A large something, with a thickness similar to the neck of a dragon-type magical beast, was thrusting out and towering in front of Elliott and the senior knights.
–Is this also part of act…?
The low-ranking knights, who were there to make up the numbers, were not informed of the specific details of the spectator subjugation. Kevin bit his lip when he noticed that the high-ranking knights were just as shocked and and petrified as he was.
The floor is still shaking, and he couldn’t move.
It resembled the neck of a dragon-type magical beast, but upon closer inspection it had no head, and was shaped like an earthworm. It squirmed and undulated, then tilted towards the VIP seats to the north, where the King and Emily were seated.
Just then, the protruding floor began to crack further towards the north, until the floor collapsed all the way to the front of the VIP seats.
There, there should have been multiple layers of magic barriers to ensure the safety of the king and high-ranking nobles.
However, something in the form of a thick tentacle that newly appeared from the cracks in the floor destroyed the wall at one end of the VIP section.