Chapter 295: Unfamiliar Old Acquaintance
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
The Bardi Empire wouldn’t deserve to be called a mega-empire if they knew nothing about the fact that a major conflict had erupted within their own borders.
Everything that had happened at Port Victoria had already been learned by the Bardi Empire’s capital city, Stalar, through various information channels. After being incited by certain parties, even the commoners were discussing this sudden battle out on the streets—it wasn’t limited to the nobles.
The current hottest topic was about how the Undead Planes had been connected to Port Victoria and that the undead armies had arrived. The topic became even hotter when one of the elders of the House of Nobles, in utter disbelief, demanded evidence from the Dragon Knight Archduke Halent. This had enraged Halent to the point where he bloodied that noble’s mouth with a powerful before stuffing a memory crystal with the battle’s recordings into that very noble’s mouth.
Alright then. Although Halent would have to pay a price—most likely the emperor’s rage and house arrest for half a year—that unfortunate noble marquis who had been pitifully beaten up was even arrogant enough to openly swear revenge upon Halent. And so, that noble’s luxurious mansion was set on fire by a passing dragon… Yep, we all knew what that was really about.
“Look, it’s those undead!”
Halent’s memory crystal, which contained vivid scene of endless amounts of undead pouring in, was viewed time and again by all the highest-level members of the Bardi Empire. Descriptions of what was in it spread everywhere. The prevailing attitude in the Bardi Empire began changing as well, and the high-level undead in the royal capital started having a difficult time.
The biggest trouble for the undead in the capital was due to the series of events set in motion by Emperor Aso’s death.
In order to better control the situation, most of the high-level undead in the capital were Aso’s direct subordinates who had signed soul contracts where they would die together with their master. When Emperor Aso died, the undead that suddenly died with him astonished the fortunate survivors and made them tremble in fear. After all, in their minds, Undead Emperors were just like True Gods; they were considered undying, immortal existences. To them, it was as if the very sky had fallen.
Since the Desecration Plane was the first Undead Plane to have connected to the mortal plane, most of the undead that had arrived were from it. It was as if a huge company’s CEO had died out of the blue along with many of the higher-ups. The panicking of the mid-level and lower-level employees as a result was only natural.
At this critical moment, the living’s sudden increase in hostility towards the undead made the undead feel all the more lost for what to do. They became extra cautious in every little action they took as they were afraid of further increasing the enmity towards them.
Meanwhile, the most incomprehensible of all was what the master of this country, Orloss the 13th, was thinking.
While he angrily condemned Halent’s ridiculous actions and didn’t accept Halent’s request to meet him on the surface, he didn’t even give Halent any punishment apart from verbal denunciation. Orloss kept coaxing the undead with platitudes but didn’t take any actual actions to control the rumors spreading around. His attitude was forceful as always yet his actions were self-contradictory.
While the capital was busy with the chaos of the storm of rumors, Orloss would either shut himself in like a hermit or suddenly desire to go out for some fun and go hunting. His retainers didn’t understand just what their venerated emperor was thinking at all.
Currently, a sudden rainstorm ambushed Orloss’s procession where a battle suddenly began and ended in just an instant.
“Speak! Who sent you here to assassinate His Majesty Emperor Orloss? The 26th Prince? The 8th Prince?”
The assassin’s limbs had been sliced off, and the amount of blood on the ground had far surpassed the lethal amount. He was likely to die at any moment. However, the emperor’s personal guard continued his interrogation without skipping a beat.
“…It was the 8th Prince!! Don’t kill me, don’t kill me! I’ve already told you who it was, please help me stop the bleeding!”
Since the guard received an answer, he ignored the assassin’s pleas for help and directly reported it to Emperor Orloss, while also inquiring if they should keep this only assassin that survived out of the group that had ambushed them alive. However, Orloss slowly shook his head, telling his guard to simply execute the assassin.
“You’re not going to ask more? Maybe the assassin wasn’t telling the truth.”
In Orloss’s carriage was Halent who should have been at his home, having been “refused” a meeting with the emperor.
There was one other person riding in Orloss’s carriage. The third and final person was a black-robed mage who always followed Emperor Orloss wherever he went. Yet, at the moment, this mage seemed to be napping.
Halent wasn’t at all surprised by the surprise invitation and the ambush attempt on Orloss. After all, if Orloss the 13th didn’t have some actual power backing him up, this “Fox Scorpion Emperor” would have long been assassinated.
“It’s meaningless. I meet with assassination attempts once or twice every week. Those who dare to try assassinating me—no—I should say that those who come to their deaths here are those who don’t care about their lives. Since the assassin said that Little 8th was behind this, that means that apart from Little 8th, anyone else could be responsible. No, actually, from the recent reports I’ve been receiving, they’ve all made plenty of progress and have learned how to hide the truth within falsehood and make the truth seem like a lie, so maybe Little 8th isn’t so innocent after all. Yep, judging from how Little 8th’s personality has become more and more extreme as of late, there’s over a seventy percent chance that his assassin was just acting there in order to pin the blame on one of his brothers. Ha! Little 8th’s become a lot smarter recently.”
Even though he was clearly talking about something as unfortunate as the fact that his adopted princes wanted to kill him, the old emperor was smiling in such a genial fashion. He even sounded proud of the princes. It was as if he was an elder praising his children for being capable and filial.
From a certain standpoint, he was indeed quite proud. The fact that his twentyish adopted princes kept plotting and scheming against each other was actually something that this seemingly kind old man personally put them up to. It appeared that he was intending on using such a method to choose his successor.
Halent didn’t reply to this as he didn’t intend to care about anything in the royal palace, and nor did he have any interest. He was simply interested in why the emperor suddenly invited him over in secret, but whenever he mentioned what was currently happening with the undead in the west part of the Bardi Empire, the old emperor would only mysteriously smile and say, “You’ll find out soon in a bit.”
Actually, due to certain reasons, Emperor Orloss was in quite an excellent mood these days. He sunk into nostalgia as he looked at the rain outside his carriage window.
About thirty years ago, on a rainy night just like today’s, there was also yet another internal struggle within the royal palace that had left him seriously injured, on the verge of death. At that time, he managed to meet Aso and told Aso about his unwillingness to die, which managed to change his fate.
From that day onwards, the Orloss who wasn’t so respected and feared in the past possessed the secret power he received from the shadows as he gradually reached the peak of imperial authority. By today, his achievements and authority had far surpassed any Bardi Emperor in history. However, only he himself knew that he had to pay a price for that assistance he received in the past. And this debtor wouldn’t be easy to deal with.
Of course, how would an ambitious and scheming individual like Orloss, who was capable of making his own adopted sons plot against and kill each other to determine the strongest, possibly stand for being controlled by someone else? Orloss always had his own plans and powerful weapons available to him, unbeknownst to all.
Even with his numerous and careful preparations, he hadn’t put any of them to use yet when the situation majorly changed. The undead’s greatest miscalculation was that they didn’t expect the stubborn Aso to sacrifice himself. The hold that Aso had over Orloss when Aso intentionally saved Orloss’s life naturally disappeared together with Aso’s death.
The undead’s original strategy was to control the old emperor and gradually insert the high-level undead into the various social classes of the Bardi Empire to slowly take over the country from the inside. But now that Aso was dead, and all six Undead Planes’ Dimensional Doors had been opened wide—
“Ah, the situation has become completely chaotic.”
Nobody responded to Orloss’s sentiment. Indeed, with the changes in the situation, some people went from chess pieces to becoming chess players, while some believed themselves to be chess players when they were nothing but sacrificial chess pieces. With all the chain reactions from Aso’s death, it was very likely that nobody knew what would happen from now on.
“Your Majesty, about Port Victoria…”
“My dear Halent, there’s no need to be hasty. When we arrive at a certain place, I’ll introduce you to a certain someone. After you talk with her, you’ll probably have a fresh outlook on many things.”
The emperor retained his smile as he spoke to Halent. Meanwhile, the horse-drawn carriage entered a forest, and everything in the carriage fell silent as the carriage then proceeded into a deep canyon.
Suddenly, a strange sensation of dizziness came over Halent. He paused in surprise for a moment, but then came to the realization that he had just experienced a dimensional teleportation.
“Little Orloss, there seems to be a guest today?”
Orloss heaved a sigh of relief when he heard this voice. He even muttered to himself, “Ah, I’m quite lucky today. It’s the easiest one to talk to this time,” before he responded.
“Yes, he’s Aboyue’s grandson and Mina’s great-grandson. You’ve probably seen him before as well. There’s a bit of a change in the situation now, so I believe that it’s time for him to meet you.”
“A change in the situation? Are you referring to Aso’s death or the successful opening of all six Dimensional Doors for the Undead Planes? Even in this location, I’m quite clear about what happened.”
“Both, but not only that.”
The darkness around the carriage subsided, and Halent inhaled deeply when he finally saw just who was speaking. There were stone walls all around, and this seemed to be an underground location. Meanwhile, the soft-sounding female voice belonged to a silver dragon, whose head was as large as a small mountain.
“Such pure draconic might? Is this an Ancient Dragon? An Immemorial Dragon? Or something even more ridiculous, a survivor from the times of fairy tales and legends?”
Dragons especially viewed both rank and power level as important. Halent was pressured to the point of being unable to even move in front of this dragon that was evidently far, far stronger than he was.
“Lady Cherry, even if you’re able to sense the incidents that happened in the mortal plane outside, you’ll never guess who the person behind all of it was.”
However, that gigantic dragon seemed to half smile, as if she was an adult who was dealing with a naughty child playing a joke on her.
“Who else could it be apart from Roland? That special letter I had sent him had been activated, so how could I possibly not know?”
The silver dragon head seemed to have abnormally human-like behaviors as it revealed a nostalgic expression, seeming to reminisce about something in the past. Then, it revealed a playful expression.
“Your timing was perfect. The other two heads had a huge uproar over hearing about Roland, but they are now asleep.”
“Haha, that’s wonderful. Right, Halent met him recently as well. Lady Cherry can ask Halent about him.”
The silver dragon sent Halent a friendly look, and he noticed that the draconic might around him had dissipated. However, before he could even speak up, an astonishingly loud angry roar came from behind him.
“Roland!! Where is Roland? Don’t you dare move! Roland, let me kill you!”
Roland’s name seemed to have awakened a certain existence which let out a deafening roar. An extremely corrosive green dragon breath melted the entire stone wall.
*Boom!*
A colossal dark shadow crashed into the stone wall, and the entire cave shook with the strength of an earthquake that sent endless amounts of small stone shards falling down from the ceiling.
While the humans covered their heads and ran, that gigantic black dragon head suddenly reached out searched around with its huge eyes but didn’t find that man who she hated so much, so she retreated and went back to sleep with loud snores.
Only now was Halent able to completely see the true form of the huge dragon before him.
It was an exquisitely beautiful beast, an existence with power that far surpassed any regular Immemorial Dragon.
“A three-headed dragon! And they’re actually three different species, silver dragon, black dragon, and sapphire dragon? A dragon of good, evil, and neutral are all combined in one body? Dear Dragon Gods! How is this possible!? This is desecration! This is the evilest curse!”
******
Arlodant, the Mage Country, wasn’t particularly large in size for a mega-empire. Most of its population was concentrated in the capital of magic, Arlo. But, as a mega-empire level country, the Mage Country’s size still exceeded East Mist’s by several tens of times.
Alright then, I’ll admit it. It was mostly because East Mist was simply too small. After all, the way most humans saw it was that the entire Northlands were an unimportant remote location, and few paid attention to it. Some were only hearing about the Northlands’ war with the beastmen just recently.
“I never thought that I’d be returning here. It seems like things haven’t changed much.”
Arlo’s streets were incredibly clean. Stone gargoyles swept up trash on the streets, and even though it wasn’t even nighttime yet, the streets were lit up by magical lights. The street-side shops even had magical signs that flashed and sparkled to attract customers with their advertisements.
The citizens walking around seemed to be unaffected by the war with the Bardi Empire as they casually went about their daily lives. Thanks to the archmages’ excellent mastery of teleportation magic, the business district here was quite renowned. Not only could one see various countries’ local specialties here, but it was even possible to find rare treasures and mystical beasts from other dimensions for sale.
After all, mages had spread out so far and wide that they even lived in other dimensions.
The people here were used to seeing all sorts of strange and exotic things. When our Ivy League airship descended in this city, very few people actually exclaimed over it. The residents only glanced at the gigantic shadow in the air and muttered, “What exotic object have the mages created today?” before busying themselves with their work.
But, today, they were destined to be astonished because… I, Roland Mist, had returned!
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