Chapter 286: How to Protect What is Precious (10)

Keter fired an arrow at Myle, who had been taken hostage. At that moment, Cray and Myle thought at the same time.

Did he really shoot?

He really did shoot it.

Cray, who took others as hostages like it was a hobby, had seen people pretending not to care about their hostages hundreds of times. That was why he checked until the very last moment whether Keter was only pretending to attack. But there was no twist. Keter’s Aura Arrow pierced through Myle’s chest and came out his back, even targeting Cray behind him. Cray deflected the arrow aside with his sword and shook his head.

This heavy sensation... It would be instant death if a chest were pierced by an arrow like this. If you’re going to kill, you’ll do it for certain, is that it? Keter, you’re crazier than I thought.

Convinced that Myle was dead, Cray focused on his fight with Keter. However, Myle didn’t die, even though a flash of memories passed before his eyes.

How am I still alive?

The intense pain, like dozens of needles stabbing him, made it impossible to think it was a dream. The roaring explosions pounding his eardrums and the dirt occasionally pouring down over his head added to the sense of reality.

Keter’s arrow definitely pierced straight through my chest...

That was something Cray had also confirmed. If it had only been a fake chest wound, he would have finished Myle off to be sure. Keter’s arrow really had pierced Myle’s chest, but it didn’t kill him. It was a contradictory statement, but Keter could make it possible.

Inertia reconstruction

The arrow that touched Myle’s chest disassembled down to the particle level, passed through Myle’s body, and recombined into the shape of an arrow as it emerged from his back. He couldn’t avoid being injured in the process, but it wasn’t to the extent of losing his life. Myle didn’t know how it happened, but at least he knew to whom he should pay his gratitude.

Keter, so this is how you help others.

When someone cherished something, others inevitably wanted to seize it as a weakness. But Keter showed that threats using hostages didn’t work on him. He hurt and pushed away what was precious instead. By doing so, he showed the world that there was nothing he cherished.

If you had really killed me, you could have proven it clearly. Keter isn’t kind... but he’s not a villain either.

Myle had secretly been worried that Keter might reveal a cruel nature in war. Someone who thought so lightly of his own life would have no reason to respect the lives of others. However, Keter was delicate, at least when dealing with his allies.

I need to see with my own eyes how things are turning out...

Myle thought he couldn’t keep pretending to be dead forever and tried to lift his head.

“Is that sword your Authority? Just looking at it feels like slashes are flying at me.”

At Keter’s words, Myle half-opened his eyes, then closed them again. Up until this point, Cray still seemed okay.

“So you know about Authority. Then you must also know that there’s no chance of winning, yet you seem quite relaxed.”

Even without moving, Cray’s Authority, Seen and Slain, continued to send slashes flying at Keter. Its power was so ferocious that significantly deep pits formed in the ground, and even thick tree trunks were sliced apart and sent flying.

Even as debris poured down over his body, Myle never groaned or trembled. His opponent was a Transcendental. Even if he breathed too loudly, Cray might realize he was still alive.

Let’s breathe only the bare minimum through my mouth and relax my whole body.

Doing so with his eyes closed, his other senses naturally grew sharper. Especially his hearing. With only his hearing and sense of touch, Myle could roughly infer the fight between Keter and Cray.

The arrows Keter fired exploded one after another. Dozens of arrows exploding created shockwaves and a void that sent Myle’s body flying into the air. The explosions gradually grew farther away, but the noise, on the other hand, grew louder and more prolonged. At times, the sound of something being slashed rang out repeatedly, only to be soon drowned out by explosions.

Perhaps the explosions exceeded his limits, as his hearing went dull. He felt something lukewarm trickle down along his earlobe. Silence followed, but the fight could still have been ongoing. Myle thought that his senses, overloaded with too much information, had momentarily broken down. Then he felt something touch him. It was something rough yet warm. Myle didn’t react until he heard Keter’s voice.

“It’s over.”

Then, Myle cautiously opened his eyes. In that instant, he felt as though his lungs had stopped.

“K-Keter.”

He wouldn’t have recognized Keter if not for his voice. That was how terrible Keter’s appearance was. A long wound ran from his right shoulder down to his left leg, from which blood gushed out. It was such a fatal injury that it was a wonder how he was still alive.

Yet Keter smiled. “It ended at this level because our compatibility was good.”

“Y-you—”

Myle couldn’t even bring himself to ask if Keter was okay. There was no way he would be.

Even so, Keter touched Myle’s face with a bloodstained hand and said, “There should be some blood on your face. It’ll look more dramatic that way.”

“Let’s go back to Sefira, Keter. You need treatment.”

“Don’t make such a big deal. This kind of wound will heal with a few licks.”

“I can clearly see your bones... Is this really the time to joke?”

“

Mm

, you’re right, it’s not the time to joke. There are still some guys left to take care of.” Keter looked toward where the five-man group was and continued, “Don’t set the mood like I’m going off to die. I’m gonna come back.”

“You’re going to come back...?”

“

Yeah.

So go ahead and wait while getting ready to praise my actions of killing a Prime.”

With that, Keter disappeared.

Myle touched the blood on his face with his fingers.

“He bleeds the same blood as me.”

Clenching his fist until it felt like it would shatter, Myle dragged his beat-up body and began walking. The only thing Keter had treated was his hearing, so his body felt heavy like a lump of lead. Still, he continued walking. Even when he heard tearing and breaking sounds from all over his body, he walked while thinking of Keter. It felt like a frustratingly slow pace even to himself. Sweat poured down even in the cold of winter, and his vision blurred. Yet, Myle didn’t stop.

When he finally reached the boundary between the forest and the grasslands, Myle ran into Luke. After noticing Myle, Luke immediately sent word to Sefira that he was badly injured, but alive. At least having returned to Sefira alive, Myle, on the verge of passing out from accumulated exhaustion, said, “Prime was killed by Keter.”

It was only natural that Sefira’s morale, which had fallen because of the Prime, shot up and pierced the clouds in the sky at those words.

***

“Checkmate, Your Highness.”

“Let me take back just one move...”

“That would be meaningless. At the very least, you would need to take back five moves to have a way to survive.”

“Then let me take back five moves,” Rakan requested as he played chess with a boy.

However, the boy shook his head. “I said there was a way to survive. I didn’t say there was a way to win.”

“From when did things go wrong?”

“From the very first moment you moved the pawn.”

“Are you talking about moving the far-left pawn two squares forward? You’re saying the outcome was decided by something so trivial?”

“Yes.”

“That’s absurd. Why?”

“Because you failed to stop my queen from advancing into the center.”

“But chess isn’t a game that ends with just one queen.”

“It can, like it did now.”

Rakan’s black king was already checkmated by a pawn and a rook. That was despite the fact that Rakan’s queen was still perfectly intact.

“You cherish the queen’s life too much, Your Highness.”

“Because the queen is the strongest piece of all.”

“At best, it’s still just the king’s pawn.”

Resting his chin in his hand, Rakan mulled over the boy’s words. Just then, an aide approached from behind and whispered into his ear. After hearing everything, Rakan’s face remained calm, but veins bulged out of his neck.

“Tell me, Theore. If I were to place a queen there instead of a rook, bishop, and knight, could you still defeat me?”

“Yes.”

Rakan was so shocked that he sprang to his feet. “You can?”

The boy called Theore tapped his forehead with his finger and replied, “If it’s the current you, I can defeat you. But if it’s tomorrow’s you, I would lose.”

“You mean I could reach a level where I can win after learning for just one day?”

“Yes. No matter how brilliant a strategy is, it becomes useless before overwhelming power.”

“Theore, you said before that the probability of me becoming king of the Lillian Kingdom was thirty percent. But if I followed your schemes, that probability could be raised to eighty.”

“Yes.”

“So far, everything has happened exactly as you said. Just like a prophecy. But did you foresee this situation as well? I’m talking about this situation where Bydent loses to Sefira. How could Bydent, with as many as seven queens, possibly lose?”

Theore tapped his forehead with his finger faster than before.

After doing so for a long while, he answered, “Statistically, it’s not impossible... However, it seems Keter has made that possible by defeating six Grandmasters, and Nether, the empire’s Solver, retreating.”

Theore held Nether, the Solver, in high regard. That was possible because Nether was a fellow citizen of the empire, like himself. Nether didn’t accept impossible commissions. If he sided with Bydent, it was because he had judged that they could certainly defeat Sefira. But the fact that even he had failed and withdrawn was something difficult to accept even for Theore, who was treated as a genius within the empire.

Rakan shoved the chessboard aside and vented his anger in a low voice. “Things that should never have happened are happening. How could six Grandmasters fail to defeat Keter, who is by himself? On top of that, I hear Sefira is taking over the Bydent forces.”

That was Rakan’s reproach directed at Theore.

Theore, Rakan’s strategist, didn’t grow impatient. He returned the fallen chessboard to its place and answered Rakan.

“Something difficult to predict did occur, but it’s not completely lost yet. Wars don’t end overnight. And winter nights are especially long.”

“Stop pretending to be relaxed and give me a solution.”

“Send support from the seventh division of the Grand Corps, and summon Keter to the royal palace. Say that you will reward him for the past matter of finding the dark wizard. Also capture Anis and Taragon, Sefira’s direct bloodline who are currently on the front lines, and make them royal palace guards.”

Rakan furrowed his brows and glared at Theore. He thought it was too excessive. The Grand Corps had twelve divisions, and the one sent to support Bydent had been the weakest, the twelfth division. Even so, they were Grandmasters, so Rakan thought that would be enough.

Setting aside the fact that it proved insufficient, sending the seventh division right away felt excessive. Moreover, summoning Sefira’s blood relatives and weakening their forces was a dangerous move that could provoke resentment from the nobles.

“Summoning Keter has its justification, but taking soldiers serving on the front lines hostage will provoke the resentment of the military. And even if we take Anis and Taragon hostage, Sefira won’t surrender the war.”

“I’m not suggesting we take them hostage. I’m saying we persuade them.”

“Persuade them?”

“Yes. We advise Anis and Taragon to surrender. If those two persuade Hissop, who currently holds the position of family head, Hissop will surely waver. Even if he doesn’t surrender, we can create a faction within Sefira that wants to surrender. That alone will weaken Sefira’s forces.”

“They’ve seized the momentum. Would they even consider surrendering?”

“Even if they can defeat Bydent, we only need to show them that there is nothing after that.”

“Do we even have the leeway for that?”

Rakan had to fight with the crown prince, Rukan. He had no room to use excessive force against Sefira.

At that moment, Theore smiled faintly and said, “That’s a fact only you and I know, Your Highness. Sefira does not. If we were to bring our full strength to bear against Sefira, we could destroy them in a single day. We simply show them that.”

“

Hmm

... So you intend to crush demoralized Sefira using the seventh division of the Grand Corps?”

“On top of that, request support from the crown prince as well.”

“Rukan would never send me support troops.”

“He will agree if the condition is handing over Sefira’s eastern territory.”

“Wouldn’t that be a loss for me? It would be like a thorn stuck in my mouth, constantly irritating me.”

“That’s not entirely the case. Sefira’s eastern territory is low-lying land. It’s clearly visible from any direction, making it unfavorable both for defending against enemy invasions and for using it as a base to attack an enemy. Moreover, that land is the closest to our territory. By giving that up now, we can also gain the effect of limiting Rukan’s routes of attack.”

“I see!”

Rakan felt this was it. Taking away Rukan’s troops, receiving help in conquering Sefira, and even gaining an advantage in future wars? It made him newly appreciate how remarkable Theore was.

“If we show goodwill instead of taking Anis and Taragon as hostages, the military won’t harbor resentment either,” Rakan said.

“Yes. Make sure it doesn’t feel like detainment by having no surveillance at all, and say that if they wish to leave for Sefira, you will lend them a carriage at any time. You’ll be showing the ocean-like extent of your magnanimity.”

“Truly perfect, Theore!”

Theore smiled with an expression that said this was nothing.

“Aide, carry out exactly as Theore said at once.”

Rakan’s strength was his decisiveness. Just as that strength was about to be fully shown, the Grand Corps fourth division commander, who had been on guard nearby, approached Rakan.

“Your Highness, an imperial investigator has requested to meet with you.”

“An imperial investigator?”

Imperial investigators. They were the emperor’s direct investigative force, handling only matters directly or indirectly connected to the emperor.

Why would such people come looking for me?

Rakan couldn’t understand. He didn’t have a special connection with the emperor, but neither did he have a bad one. He could refuse such a sudden visit, but since he did nothing wrong, he thought there was no need to refuse and cause suspicion.

When Theore also nodded to indicate it was fine, Rakan had the imperial investigator brought in without hesitation.

The imperial investigator who entered was dressed in white from head to toe, and came alone without a single attendant. She bowed her head to Rakan in greeting.

“Thank you for seeing me despite the sudden visit. Prince Rakan, I am Betty, an imperial investigator.”

“Dame Betty. As public and private matters keep me busy, I’ll get straight to the point. Why have you come to see me without prior notice?”

“Please excuse me, as I will also get straight to the point since you are busy. I have come in response to a report concerning the Seven Cursed Species.”

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“Seven Cursed Species...?”

“Yes. Traces of the Seven Cursed Species were discovered in the Lillian Kingdom. As such, I have come to request your cooperation, Prince Rakan, as one of the nation’s co-rulers.”