Chapter 146 – Fakes (4)

“Who are you?”

“Is that really important in a situation like this? We are in a situation where the ‘emperor’, a monster who’s trying to assassinate the emperor, and a brave Templar who is stepping up against the monster to protect the emperor are all about to collide. Everything was just about to get interesting, but you just had to interrupt that by asking a bypasser’s name?”

The answer to the question asked by the black-haired young man was ‘of course not.’

Both Dembel and Lianna knew that the situation they were in at the moment was a very serious and dangerous one—one where they might have to risk their lives. However, neither Dembel nor Lianna could ignore the presence of a black-haired young man for some reason.

Sina Solvane, who had been laughing with her hand covering her mouth while shaking her shoulders, was bothering them as well, but now was not the time to pay attention to her.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

“...Lianna. Did you really have to do this?” Dembel asked with a stiff face.

[You’re only saying that because you haven’t seen what I saw. A man who had been encroached upon by the Crack, a Dragon, the Evil Beast of the empire, and Heretia, who is a famous politician that is known to be hostile toward the Church in the holy city of Torra—they are all here. And you know what they were doing? They were plotting something about the emperor.]

Lianna’s words were firm, and Demebel felt a little shaken by her reaction. He was almost fully convinced that the man standing behind him was the emperor, but Lianna seemed completely convinced by what she saw.

Dembel knew that he too would have been suspicious of the emperor standing behind him if he had seen what Lianna had just mentioned. Nevertheless, Dembel found it difficult to believe Lianna’s words just like that.

“How am I supposed to believe that?”

[What?]

“You were already eager to kill the ‘emperor’ even before you arrived here. So how am I supposed to trust your words?”

Lianna somehow looked hurt by Dembel’s suspicion toward her.

[Dembel, you asshole… have I ever lied to you before]

“...No.”

However, Dembel could not back down either. Due to these reasons, Lianna and Dembel’s decision stood at the opposite extremes. Either the man standing behind Dembel would be killed or he would have his life protected—it was a matter of their lifelong convictions.

Lianna roared and trembled when she saw Dembel show no signs of backing down. It seemed as if she would charge toward Dembel at any moment. At the same time, Dembel also prepared for the upcoming battle.

“Your Majesty! This evil beast has come to assassinate Your Majesty! I will stop this Evil Best, so please make sure to keep yourself safe…”

“I’m not the emperor.”

Dembel flinched and stopped talking upon hearing a sudden voice from behind him. Unlike the deep and heavy voice from before, the current voice was light and trembling.

“I-I’m not… not some emperor…”

“What? What do you mean? You’re not…”

“It’s just… I’ve heard a lot of people around me say that I look like His Majesty. M-my real name is Coba Camel, but the Priest kept telling me that I am certainly the returning emperor…”

“Your Majesty!”

Suddenly, a loud scream came from the corner of the room. The Priest, who was lying on the floor ever since Lianna stormed into the room, was trembling as he yelled at Coba.

“With all due respect, what do you mean, Your Majesty? Didn’t Your Majesty say that you have realized your fate and recalled the past after I found you living a secluded life? Did Your Majesty not promise to overturn this rotten world alongside me?”

“No, I only said that because you came and told me that I’m the emperor… and it was too tempting, since a lot of people told me that I looked very much like His Majesty… I thought it would be good to go around the empire and make money by acting like the emperor. When would I ever get a chance to be treated like an emperor?”

“Why would you say such weak things!? Please realize and acknowledge your destiny, Your Majesty!” the Priest desperately screamed.

Lianna quietly looked back and forth between the fake emperor and the Priest, then slowly approached the Priest. The Priest shouted and struggled in fear, but he couldn’t stop Lianna from bringing one of her giant claws close to his neck.

Lianna silently snapped off the rosary worn around the Priest’s neck and gestured toward Dembel.

[There was no Grace in this rosary. He was just wearing an ordinary rosary that had no blessings.]

“No Grace? Then… does that mean that he’s not even a real Priest?”

[I don’t think he’s a fake Priest… but he seems more like an excommunicated priest. Judging from his current condition, it is likely that he went insane from reading the scriptures for too long? A conspiracy to select and praise a fake emperor, huh? Of course he deserves to be excommunicated.]

Dembel glared at the Priest as if he was dumbfounded, then turned his gaze toward the fake emperor.

The fake emperor inhaled a short breath and cowered upon seeing Dembel’s gaze toward him.

Dembel felt disgusted upon seeing the man that he thought was the emperor was now acting so servile.

“What the hell… I mean, do you not realize just how big a sin it is to impersonate the emperor? How could you simply think that you could make money off of impersonating the emperor and get away with it? How the heck…”

Dembel was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t even get angry. He knew that he had made a huge mistake. He had originally come here to determine whether his opponent was the real emperor or not in the first place. But he almost acknowledged the opponent as the emperor just because he had a face similar to that of His Majesty who was sitting on the Eternal Throne.

“What do we do with them?” Dembel asked with a complicated look on his face.

[What do you mean? They impersonated His Majesty—there is only one thing to do with them.]

Lianna swung her claws and pierced the Priest’s neck without the slightest hesitation. The Priest’s voice, which had been shouting something at the fake emperor even until that moment, stopped instantly along with the sound of blood bubbling from his throat.

The fake emperor looked at blood flowing out of the Priest’s pierced neck and stepped back in fear while taking a gasp.

[There’s no need to hand him over to the Church for the doctrinal trial, since he’s an excommunicated Priest. And there’s also the truth of that fake emperor.]

Dembel realized that it was up to him to get rid of the fake emperor when Lianna handed the fake emperor over to him. He grasped his sword and turned around.

The fake emperor screamed, stepping back.

Dembel felt uncomfortable killing someone who looked so much like the emperor in the scripture, but he couldn’t bear the fake emperor behaving indecently while assuming His Majesty’s identity.

***

After taking care of the matter of the fake emperor, Lianna reverted her transformation and once again assumed a human form.

Dembel inadvertently found the fake emperor’s sword rolling on the floor and noticed that the blade was covered in oil. He figured that there must be quite a lot of fake Sutras, since lightning up a piece of metal damages the sword quite quickly and makes it useless.

“Fuck!”

Dembel couldn’t believe that two knight orders that were led by Templars had been dispatched just because of a ridiculous fake emperor—it was a huge disgrace for both the Templars as well as the Church.

“How do we even report this?” Dembel asked,

[There’s nothing we can do. The current state of the empire is so chaotic that it’s only natural for all kinds of rumors to confuse everyone. Besides, this is not something that can just happen coincidentally. I bet there was someone controlling the whole situation from behind the scenes. The Order of the Black Lotus will soon come and bring the enemies. Why don’t we move over there for now and…]

“What, is it over already?”

At that moment, the voice was heard once again—it was the black-haired young man who had been sitting on the chair, watching the whole scene.

Due to his extreme irritation, Dembel glared at the black-haired young man with bloodshot eyes.

“Show some respect and courtesy, you barbarian bastard. Isn’t there a single human being left beyond the border to teach you some manners?”

“Good dramas always include at least one scene showing bloodshed, some affairs between men and women, and a bloodbath. But this drama was so disappointing. As expected, bastards from the Church have no talent for art.”

Dembel felt that enough was enough. He instantly swung his sword toward the black-haired young man’s leg at once. Dembel didn’t intend to kill him but was going to make him regret deriding them for the rest of his life.

However, Dembel’s attack was blocked along with a sharp sound—it was Sina who stopped him.

“You are the ones who need to show respect here.”

Dembel raised his eyebrows. He had already known that Sina had an extraordinary talent, but he hadn’t even been able to notice her unsheathing her sword.

Dembel repositioned himself and swung his sword toward Sina again.

Meanwhile, Sina began to leisurely counterattack.

It wasn’t long before Dembel started to sweat, feeling perplexed. He was even using a Grace to strengthen his physical abilities, but Sina was blocking his attacks with ease.

Of course, Dembel had more experience fighting against monsters rather than humans. But he had never heard of a knight who was capable of fighting against the captain of a knight order led by Templars on an equal footing, especially when the captain was using a Grace.

At that moment, Lianna intervened in their battle without a sound, since she had also noticed that their opponent was quite extraordinary.

Dembel grit his teeth as his pride was hurt, but he couldn’t help it. He had to consider the possibility of the black-haired young man and Sina being the ones behind the fake emperor.

“Ah!”

Dembel saw Lianna make a sound for the first time in a few years—he figured that she must have been trying to say some kind of profanity. Despite the fact that both Lianna and Dembel were charging toward her, Sina was holding out pretty well.

But it was impossible for one person to withstand the attack of two of the captains of knight orders led by Templars at once.

Dembel decided to finish this boring battle as soon as possible. He winked and sent a signal to Lianna. The moment he stomped his foot on the floor, his sword blade turned white. At the same time, two shadow arms appeared from within Lianna, aiming for Sina’s heart.

At that moment, the black-haired young man stamped his foot on the floor. The attacks then crossed in the air.

Bang!

There was a powerful shockwave along with a loud explosion. It was Dembel and Lianna who were pushed back in the collision. The two looked at Sina with perplexed eyes. Sina’s left eye which was distorted due to the burn scars was glowing brightly with an orange-colored rune.

“The emperor’s watchdog…”

Dembel muttered as he read the rune. He couldn’t understand why a person with such a rune tattooed on her eye was protecting a black-haired person from beyond the border—someone who wasn’t even from the empire.

“People say that watching others fight is the most interesting thing, but nothing is more boring than a lame fight.”

“I should have just let you handle everything on your own.”

Sina grumbled back upon hearing the black-haired young man’s words.

Dembel barely stood up with his legs that were trembling from the shock. He couldn’t understand what had just happened. When his sword, which was blessed with the emperor’s Grace, met with Sina’s sword, he felt the power of an even stronger Grace from Sina.

“Didn’t you say that you weren’t a Templar?” Dembel asked.

“I’m not,” Sina answered Dembel’s question calmly.

“She’s right. She’s just a knight.”

The black-haired young man slowly walked out in front of Dembel and Sina. Dembel raised his sword, but the black-haired young man didn’t even seem to care about it.

“She is my sword, my watchman, and my counterbalance.”

Dembel couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, but Juan grinned and continued speaking.

“At times, she can be a hard head and frustrates me, but that’s the role I had expected her to play in the first place.”

“I’m a hard head and frustrate you?” Sina asked back as if she was complaining.

Meanwhile, Lianna stumbled as she picked herself up from the floor and held out her sword toward the black-haired young man.

[You punk… who are you?] Lianna asked.

“I haven’t really been hiding my identity all along. To be honest, it’s a little embarrassing to reveal who I am with my own mouth right now. It would make me feel like I’m making a joke,” the black-haired young man said as he looked at the corpse of the fake emperor Coba that was lying on the floor. “So why don’t you tell me who I am with your own mouth?”

[What?]

Lianna’s face distorted; she thought that he was joking.

But the black-haired young man took a step closer to Lianna and Dembel without a change in his expression. Both Lianna and Dembel faltered back even before they knew it.

“I beat the God of Blood and Madness in a bloody battle, brought death to the God of Death, and removed the cloak of the tower that was forever shrouded in fog.”

The black-haired young man took another step.

“I was the ruler of all the swords, the master of magic, and I made all the kings kneel down before me.”

Then he took another step.

“God decided to destroy Man and Man rebelled against God in retaliation.”

Now the black-haired young man had passed Lianna and Dembel and was heading toward the terrace.

However, for some reason, neither Lianna nor Dembel could move an inch. What the black-haired young man was suggesting was clear. His words came at the very beginning of the scripture and it was the most basic praise given to the emperor.

“I arose in this land as a result of the rebellion.”

The black-haired young man stood opposite of Lianna and Dembel to look at the moonlight.

Dembel felt a shiver running down his spine. Just facing him standing in the dark and looking at his black eyes made Dembel’s legs tremble and made it difficult for him to breathe.

“I cut the gods into pieces and scattered them across the mountains, rivers, and fields.”

The black-haired young man’s presence was so overwhelming that Dembel wondered why he had not been aware of his presence until now.

‘

No. He had been hiding his presence until now on purpose, and he had been watching us from the very beginning.

’

Dembel realized that at least some part of the speech that the fake Priest had given earlier was true—the emperor had always been watching the humans. But, he was not coming back because he was disappointed in humans; he was now returning because the time had come.

And the returning emperor held a sword in his hand.

“You already know who I am.”

Dembel finally knelt down before the black-haired young man as if he had collapsed.

“Your Majesty. Juan Calberg Kennosis, the only ruler of the empire. Your Majesty…”

The black-haired young man smiled.

“Yes. That’s my name.”