17-9 End Of War

The idiot prince alone was blustering.

“Fools! What are you doing? Hurry up and scatter them!”

All the Empire soldiers turned toward him at once.

Seeing that, I could not help but burst into laughter.

Why could the soldiers understand what their great commander could not?

Even though he was right there on the scene.

Well, maybe that was just how the people at the top were.

Even in prewar Japan, there had been tragedies like the Nomonhan Incident.

Even during the time of 203 Hill, people said that if the higher-ups in the Japanese army had been more decent, things would not have become that terrible.

Though there was also the opinion that because the higher-ups in the army had not done their jobs properly, the field commander had no choice but to order reckless charges that caused intense loss of life.

This guy was nothing more than a puppet prince.

Alone, he probably could not even fold a blanket properly, let alone put up a tent.

He should have gone to train with the Self-Defense Forces or something.

Even our Crown Prince-sama had to make his own meals in a battlefield tent as part of his training.

That royal family was as Spartan as ever.

Though I had sent him the convenient camping tools I had as a gift.

“Soldiers of the Empire. It seems there is one person here who does not understand, but what will you do?”

Silence ruled the army of thirty thousand, and then the sound of weapons falling to the ground followed.

Once the first person threw away his weapon, a chain reaction of disarmament spread from that echo one after another.

Thirty thousand men disarmed themselves.

“You bastards! I’ll have you court-martialed. Five hundred thousand reinforcements will arrive at once. Fight!”

Sharion roared.

Idiot, did you not watch the footage from the Glass Garden earlier?

He probably only saw it with his eyes and let it pass straight through his head.

He might even have done the same with the scene happening right in front of him now.

Was he a prince of the in-one-ear-and-out-the-other type?

He was not a dwarf, you know.

Really, what an incompetent man.

Well, I already knew that.

But I had already decided long ago.

That I would kill the emperor and this guy alone.

Unfortunately, the emperor had been killed by that patricidal bastard.

That was the kind of scene that had often happened on Earth too when generations changed in dictatorships.

As for that, I had merely shrugged as if watching it on Earth’s news.

The Guildmaster, who was practically my guarantor, had issued an order forbidding recovery too.

I had stacked Fast magic on myself in advance, deployed the magic armor that had been on standby, and closed the distance to him in an instant.

The next moment, Sharion’s head was in my hand.

If I made full use of my high-speed cyborg-like power, it was work as easy as cutting cheese, but the sensation was as unpleasant as ever.

I was not suited to killing people.

Today, I had no choice but to do it.

If I, the one on the scene, did not do that job, this war probably would not end.

Because I had declared to the important people of this country that I would do it with my own hands.

That was the kind of person I was.

I had always been like that even in my work back in Japan, which was why things had become so terrible.

A smart person would simply whip the people below from above, like the guy who was now only a head over there.

“Is there anyone else who wants to fight me? Right now, you can die with honor.”

I raised Sharion’s bloodstained head high and shouted.

But they did not move, merely standing there, and no one came forward.

“Then this is the end. This war ends right now, at this very moment, as ‘my victory.’”

As twenty thousand giant golems watched without moving a single inch, like ten thousand pairs of large Guardian King statues, weapon collection and prisoner processing proceeded under the command of the Empire army’s leaders, completing their total disarmament.

The current person in charge of the Empire army prostrated himself and begged me to spare them from being stripped of everything, so I let that slide, but in exchange, I declared this.

“I’ll accept that condition. In exchange, you will be my underling, my subordinate, forever from now on.”

When I said that, he looked somehow terribly despairing.

After that, I teleported to His Highness the Crown Prince, who had set up headquarters and was waiting for the operation to end, and reported the end of the war.

“It’s over.”

“Thank you for your hard work.”

I reported simply to His Highness the Crown Prince in one sentence, and he likewise thanked me simply.

This person was not really suited to war either, but today he had properly served as commander-in-chief.

“Do you think this is truly over?”

“Who knows?”

Perhaps His Highness the Crown Prince understood what was in my heart, because he said nothing more.

Because my battle readiness had not yet been released.

My fighting spirit seeped from my whole body like steam, almost visible.

I apologized to Antonio, who stood upright beside him.

Because I, who was not even a formal noble, had taken the enemy general’s head ahead of him, the sword of the kingdom.

Since this operation was one I had forcibly proposed, I absolutely had to do it myself.

“Sorry you didn’t get your turn. Since you’re the head of a newly established martial count house, you must have wanted some war merit. I was also at my limit.”

“No, I have my hands full guarding headquarters. I’m a rookie count, so I’m actually relieved nothing happened. Originally, it would not have been strange for an enemy ambush force to come here. We were saved because the enemy general was incompetent. No, it has been a while since we met like this, Al.”

“Yeah. I still have the final decisive battle in the Empire. I’m leaving this side to you.”

“Flash-God, huh…”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll leave him to you.”

He was an enemy with deep ties to Antonio too.

After all, he was a heinous man who had done that to his wife.

Originally, Antonio probably wanted to go with me here.

He must have wanted to strike him down with his own hands.

But Antonio replaced a send-off with one simple sentence.

He probably had many thoughts, but right now, he was also the head of a count house.

From his position, there was no way he could be allowed to act selfishly under circumstances like these.

The possibility that remnants of the ambush force might still come to headquarters could not be completely discarded.

His Highness the Crown Prince had excellent dedicated guards too, but guards were not originally soldiers meant to fight the enemy.

The certain-victory composition of “the next king of the Albatross Kingdom seizing victory at headquarters together with the kingdom’s new sword” had to be preserved for posterity.

The allied nations’ ambassadors were also accompanying him as generals of their homelands and were staying at headquarters with him.

There were also many portrait artists, and they were drawing and recording the victory scene in various ways.

Just using the cameras and videos I provided would deviate from this world’s rules, so that was no good.

We lightly touched the backs of our raised fists together and parted.

Come to think of it, his wife should be close to her due month by now.

I will settle things with that guy, Margarita-san.

I flew to the Empire with teleportation magic.

Naturally, my destination was the Nielsen Marquisate Residence.

Though I did not think that guy would be there.

It was deathly quiet.

As expected, was it deserted?

No, “he was there.”

He was there.

I knew.

I knew it, not by logic.

The Seventh Sense told me so.

But I was struck by an unavoidable sense of wrongness.

I could not stop my brows from furrowing.

Because I had only come here “to confirm that he was not here.”

In the situation of this crushing defeat, why was he still here?

They should at least have communication magic tools, so he should know that the Empire had lost the war.

If he was Marquis Nielsen the warrior, then he should know that I would attack this “headquarters.”

And Balan, their last hope, was already gone.

What should I do?

Only this guy remained.

I proceeded cautiously, in case there was another perception-nullifying guy.

And then I pulled out a gun.

It was not a magic gun, but a gunpowder-type gun.

For some reason, I felt this was best.

I could feel it.

Through the Seventh Sense.

So I obeyed it.

In this world where life was cheap, if I did not obey it, the breath of the grim reaper would probably quietly creep up around the nape of my neck.

No, in this world, I think it was an angel’s welcome.

But apparently, the one who actually harvested necks was a grim reaper holding a scythe.

I had also just performed that role splendidly today.

What I held was an old-fashioned gunpowder-type submachine gun whose blueprints I had found on the dark net and finally completed.

And while deploying various stealth-type skills, I advanced silently, erasing my presence and moving with stealthy steps.

The only one found by radar was Marquis Nielsen himself.

The marker certainly pointed to his luxurious office.

Though when it came to this Empire, there was no guarantee that no one else was there.

The sense of wrongness grew even stronger.

My steps became more and more cautious.

This is bad… Could it be that I had misunderstood something?

Who said Balan was the Empire’s strongest card?

I had merely decided that on my own.

I confirmed on the enlarged radar screen that Nielsen seemed to be sitting at his office desk.

I knew the layout of his room, which I had infiltrated many times, by heart.

I quietly teleported into Marquis Nielsen’s familiar room.

And the Seventh Sense’s impatience, growing ever thicker, burned my chest.

This is bad.

This is the worst kind of bad.

However, for some reason, I could not stop.

Something was wrong.

Kill him, no, be killed?

The children’s faces flickered through my mind, as if they were my final memories of this world.

No, what am I doing?

This is not that kind of scene.

I absolutely had to kill this guy.

I did not want to take any unnecessary counterattack from the remnants of the Empire’s radicals.

If I let this guy escape, he might attack the Beast-Ear Garden, those children, again in some unimaginable way.

With the techniques I had cultivated in this world until now, I erased every trace of my presence and silently stood behind him.

And I pointed the muzzle at him.

But the next moment, instead of firing the gun, I unconsciously activated the magic armor.

Immediately after that, without the slightest pause, I leapt sideways to escape.

Or I should have.

I saw his right hand stabbing in.

Yes, into my left shoulder.

A ridiculous result had occurred, as if my body had been sucked into it, or perhaps even as if I myself had gone toward it.

My face twisted from the running, intense pain.

Pain burst through me as if my nerves were being dragged out and torn apart.

I immediately raised the magic armor’s output to full power and blew him away.

From the excruciating pain brought by his hand being pulled out, I spat a groan from deep inside my body along with red liquid from both the wound and my mouth.

Without a doubt, it was the most powerful pain I had ever experienced in my life.

“Gugah!”

Continuing on, a fierce, burning pain ran through my shoulder, and I was slammed into the wall by the recoil of having shoved him away.

What entered my eyes was an enormous amount of bright red blood wetting the floor.

Ugh, this was unmistakably my blood.

Damn it, my internal organs were not directly hit, and only my shoulder should have been injured, so why was I coughing up this much blood from my mouth too?

The reason was unclear, but due to the effect of taking his attack, it seemed some part of my internal organs had been damaged.

Marquis Nielsen approached me there.

“Im… impossible… For me to be like this…”

He was wrapped in something faint and hazy.

It was not something like an ordinary shield.

It was something black, something like evil thoughts.

Something similar to the power of spirits, but it was not holy; how should I put it, it was something resembling a curse.

No, it felt like a curse itself.

As it approached, it seemed to strip away all of my power.

It was impossible.

My body had durability and power close to that of a hundred dragons, and even if the opponent were a modern high-tech heavy tank, I could defeat it head-on with one finger, yet it yielded this easily against a flesh-and-blood human.

I slid down weakly and ended up leaning against the wall in a low posture.

What was he wearing?

Something magical, like magic armor?

No, it was more sinister.

Sorcery?

Black magic?

Time flowed in slow motion, and within it, Nielsen approached me.

That smile was unmistakably that of an executioner certain of victory.

After all, I could not move a single step from where I was.

My hands would not move properly either, so I could not counterattack, and launching weapons from the item box was impossible.

It felt like my head was not working properly.

Within the sluggish flow of time, death was only a few meters away.

A sense of helplessness and impatience, like the confrontation with the first Gryon I had encountered, struck me.

Damn it, I’m going to die.

Shit.

I survived that certain federation of companies’ plan to enslave humanity, that hellish reverse top-down, yet am I going to end pathetically in a place like this?

Ha, it makes me want to cry.

But the next moment, golems leapt out of my item box.

For some reason, even though I had not ordered them, they headed toward him as if protecting me.

The golems were cut down one after another by Nielsen’s power.

What the hell.

Even so, perhaps Marquis Nielsen was fed up with the golems’ persistence, their obsession-like refusal to give up, and their sheer excessive numbers as they stubbornly stood against him relying on quantity, because he tried to flee, giving up on defeating me as they became a wall and shielded me.

Well, if I stayed like this, it looked like I would die even if he did not finish me off.

But my strengthened golems were cut apart that easily?

That was ridiculous.

But it was an unmistakable reality.

What the hell is this, damn it.

And then my right hand moved.

Or rather, from the impact of my right arm finally falling weakly from atop my body to the floor, “I pulled the trigger.”

Because I could barely put any strength into it, the muzzle jumped upward from the recoil of the shot.

And the bullets hit Marquis Nielsen just as he was about to disappear into the secret escape passage behind the fireplace.

Perhaps thinking they would get in the way of my line of fire, the golems had disappeared before I knew it.

The muzzle had “just happened” to be facing that direction.

No, there was no way that was true.

This was probably “the Seventh Sense doing its usual thing.”

A light recoil came, the aim lined up just right to fire around there, and my hand moved up and down perfectly.

The force of my arm drooping and falling, and the force of the recoil making it jump upward, balanced beautifully.

This gun was a low-recoil .32 caliber with good grouping.

Even half-dead, I was still the possessor of overwhelming power with eight million HP.

Even if I was on the verge of death, that level of recoil would not cause the gun to fly out of my hand.

The ammunition was being automatically supplied one after another from the inventory inside my item box, so it did not stop.

The recoil struck my wound directly, but no matter what, my finger would not leave the trigger.

If things were bad, perhaps the Seventh Sense was pulling the trigger in my place.

There had been quite a few times before when Ikoma moved my body on its own like this.

Only the uninterrupted chain of groans from Nielsen and me filled the room’s air.

The marquis was being showered with bullets inside the narrow fireplace he had chosen as an escape route, and it seemed he could not move properly.

Since the magazine never emptied, while I continued groaning, only a large number of spent cartridges scattered around at a high speed of several hundred rounds per minute.

The guns I made in this world had abnormally high durability, so they did not easily malfunction, and the magic-metal barrel did not overheat, allowing continuous fire.

Residue from the firing gas was constantly erased by a purification function, and even stubborn residue that still clung on was removed by an assist function through storage.

I could no longer recognize how long I had kept firing.

Because I was on the brink of death, the time-dilation phenomenon occurring there obstructed my accurate perception of time.

He had fallen and no longer moved.

He was not groaning either.

I was the only one groaning.

Was he dead?

Ah, he was dead.

I knew.

I knew it, not by logic.

That “something” that had wrapped around his body had already been released.

If a flesh-and-blood body took that many bullets, even Lord Flash-God could not survive.

Perhaps my tension loosened after seeing that, because the strength left my right hand holding the gun.

Or perhaps the Seventh Sense judged that it was no longer necessary.

At last, I heard the sound of the gun rolling out of my hand.

The fluffy luxury carpet transmitted it only as a faint vibration.

Damn it, only my shoulder had been hit, so why had so much damage gone through?

This was a splendid mutual kill, wasn’t it?

What in the world was that?

I was still barely breathing, but if things stayed like this, it felt like my life would soon end.

Ugh, I could not even teleport.

Telepathy… Ars, Mari… treatment pod…

When I came to, I was in my room at the Beast-Ear Garden.

I had been laid on the bed, and Remi and Fal were clinging to me while crying.

What in the world had happened?

Ars, who was standing by my pillow, explained the situation in answer to that question.

Apparently, Remi had suddenly stood up, saying, “Ahh!”

It seemed to have been exactly around the time I fell into danger.

“Ars-chan, please. Please go get Uncle, go get Uncle!” she had said.

Remi had apparently asked Ars with her eyes full of tears.

Ars was apparently surprised too, but as expected of a man with experience, an S-rank.

He had heard stories like this before too.

It seemed he immediately traced the teleportation destination of me, who was in a party with him, and came to get me.

Then he cast recovery magic on me where I lay collapsed, but I did not recover at all.

Potions were no good either.

Perhaps something came to mind, because he brought me back to the Beast-Ear Garden and asked Fal to give me a blessing.

Apparently, that somehow worked.

Honestly…

The mercilessness I had given Balan just the other day came right back around as “serves you right” like a boomerang.

No, I had experienced various things like that in this life back in Japan too.

Really, it had been so dangerous I could hardly stand it.

My wound had not yet healed, but thanks to my own enormous HP, I was already heading toward recovery.

Since it seemed I had taken damage from something curse-like, the many spirit blessings I possessed were probably also having an effect.

Apparently, Marquis Nielsen had died after being riddled with a terrifying number of holes.

The jumping muzzle had apparently kept him captured the entire time.

Though they were .32 caliber handgun bullets without much power, if hundreds of them or more were fired into a flesh-and-blood body within practical range in a single minute while the target could not move or dodge, the entire back half of his body was probably almost minced meat.

He was probably shot about two thousand times, and several hundred of those likely hit.

How should I put it, it was like the state of someone who had suffered a pistol lynching by a large group of mafia members to avenge a grudge against a relative.

Though I had had no leeway to observe such a thing.

Because even my consciousness had been hazy.

As expected, choosing that gunpowder-type gun had been the correct answer.

This kind of thing could be called one of the true pleasures of the Seventh Sense.

That was why I did not want to recklessly defy that feeling.

But why had he released that skill?

Was it something that could not be used for a long time?

Had Nielsen been waiting for me there?

And despite all those doubts and that impatience, I had deliberately proceeded alone.

Even though normally I would have run away or called for reinforcements.

Was my state back then also an effect of his skill?

It might have been something abnormal that influenced the mind somehow.

Because it was me, perhaps I had gotten off with only that much.

And my golems had been easily cut down by him.

Our strengthened golems should not have been easy to cut.

And those guys had rushed out on their own to save me.

Was it because they were based on Mari’s core?

It was like lead soldiers or something leaping out of a toy box in a fairy tale.

I understood nothing, but in any case, I had come back alive, and all the enemies had perished.

And I had protected this precious place and the children too.

That was enough for me.

I was sleepy.

Just endlessly sleepy.

For now, let me sleep.

Without saying anything, I closed my eyes.

Several small hands grasped my hand.

That somehow felt very warm and pleasant.

Feeling relieved, I soon fell into a deep sleep, like the sleep I had known when I was a child.