Chapter 285

Side Story 18

“What the hell is that thing…!”

The king of false humans and the king of monsters stood there.

“Monster! It’s a monster!”

“A monster?”

Dale sneered coldly at the sight. The pitch-black tentacles coiled around its body, the hundreds of eyes writhing beneath the shadows—a monstrous creature so grotesque it could scarcely be called human stood there.

“Does this form seem so monstrous and nauseating to you?”

Pulling back the jet-black tentacles coiled around its body, a human form stepped forward from within.

Young Dale was there.

The king of false humans and the king of true monsters, scattering countless tentacles and madness.

“My brothers, look upon yourselves.”

Hundreds, thousands of eyes blinked beneath their feet, peering at their shadows. Every single one of their hidden evils, atrocities, unforgivable acts concealed beneath those shadows.

“We are all monsters. There is nothing to distinguish us.”

They would understand none of Dale’s words.

There was a tentacle, the most horrifying thing imaginable in the world, and a boy wrapped up in it.

“N-no way…! So the story was true!”

“The, the Fourth Empire’s Mage Emperor!”

“That’s really the Black Gold Lord…?”

“Th-that can’t be!”

The knights couldn’t contain their turmoil. It didn’t matter.

Like an evil god toying with mortals, a desecration filled with despair began.

From beneath Dale’s feet, and as the night sky itself tore apart, tentacles oozed and slithered up through the rift.

Madness spread like a plague, and several cavalrymen swiftly spurred their warhorses into a charge.

Swoosh!

Simultaneously, tentacles scattered, snatching horses and reeling in knights. The tentacles crushed their armor, yet even death—where bones and entrails spilled through the mangled plates—was preferable.

From the rift in the sky, beings blinked down at the earth below.

Their retinas flickered, and tentacles slithered down, plunging toward the cavalry.

Squish!

The helmet was torn apart, the skull split open, and tentacles plunged into the brain. Thin, multi-stranded tentacles tore through the brain, and black blood poured from their noses and mouths. It was black blood, thick and viscous like coal tar.

Laughter echoed amidst the madness. Unable to bear the overwhelming despair engulfing the area, consciousness crumbled, leaving only laughter. Laughing, and laughing again.

Others were wailing like children.

Amidst overwhelming despair that made maintaining sanity impossible, Dale walked on, impassive.

Knights clung to consciousness until the very last moment, desperately swinging their swords. They faced the heavenly tentacles piercing down from all directions, the pitch-black tentacles rising from the shadows beneath their feet—those who swung their swords without yielding until the end.

“Protect Marquis Maximil! Don’t… don’t give up until the very end!”

“Ah, even that bastard can’t sustain magic like this for long! Hold on! Hold on until his power is spent!”

They cling desperately to the thread of hope, holding on with all their might.

The sight was comical, and so he did not crush them.

The number of tentacles surging toward the knights desperately dismounting and forming a defensive stance decreased.

“Look! His magic is rapidly depleting!”

“Fight! Never let go of your swords!”

What was this thing called hope? Truly, it was an unfathomable creature.

The creature called a human standing before him was simply incomprehensible.

He recalled the promise he made to Shuv to remain human until the very end. That resolve itself hadn’t changed. Even now, for Dale, there was no doubt that the form of humanity he believed in existed.

Yet he could find no common ground between himself and those things ahead, those humans.

They felt like distant, ephemeral beings, as if a demon were looking down on humans, or a person were looking down on insects.

That was why Dale asked.

“Are you afraid of death?”

“You… you…!”

Dale approached without hesitation through the knights making their final desperate struggle, and one knight charged forward, kicking off the ground.

“Don’t break the formation!”

The knight shouted from behind, but his words fell on deaf ears. Rip! Tentacles seized his limbs one by one and tore them off simultaneously, his arms and legs, armor and all, severed from his body.

Blood spurted and splattered everywhere.

“Do you think you have any hope of survival now that my magic is depleted and my strength is spent?”

Dale sneered coldly before them. Like an evil god who loves no man, finding joy in tormenting humans.

Swoosh!

Simultaneously, the night sky tore open, and one by one, the evil gods of another realm revealed themselves through the rift.

They weren’t even tentacles. Tearing through the cracks in the night sky, beings with arms and legs began crawling toward the earth.

“Ah, ahh…!”

“Why do you hurt and torment others?”

Dale asked back, unable to comprehend. In this situation, it was a question of utter irony.

“Why kill those who beg not to be killed? Do you too find this suffering enjoyable? Surely not. Then why inflict pain upon the people of this land?”

“P-Please forgive me! I will serve His Majesty, the Emperor!”

Suddenly, one knight gave up and began begging.

“Fourth Empire, I swear allegiance before the Great Mage Empire and the Mage Emperor! Please spare my life!”

“Your Majesty!”

One, two—they too dimly understood. There was no chance this man’s magic would deplete, the tide would turn, and they would miraculously win. It was a dream, a delusion.

Right now, the curtain of the night sky was being torn apart, and monstrous aberrations were crawling down from the world beyond, slaughtering their comrades. Before them, a knight’s sword or the common sense of the world held no sway.

The Ineffable.

Everyone knelt before him, begging.

Dale stretched out his arm, and the monsters of the otherworld ceased their movements. The eyes of the gods gazing down from the sky closed.

The tentacles, too, halted their movements in unison.

Subduing the indescribable alien evil deities, the Black Gold Sovereign raised his head.

“I once ruled this world with power and terror. Back then too, beings like you knelt before me and swore allegiance.”

“We pledge our loyalty, Your Majesty! We shall devote our lives to Your Majesty’s empire, the Great Mage Empire, until our last breath!”

“I once received the loyalty and oaths of allegiance from men like you. Yet even after my empire vanished, and nine empires rose and fell in succession, not a single thing about your conduct changed.”

Dale said.

“And I realized. Just as I forced you to bow your heads by force, you too ultimately sought to force others to bow theirs. That my actions now are no different from yours.”

He reflected on his own folly, and further, on the folly of those before him.

“Therefore, I will no longer blame human folly. I will not rule the world through force and fear, nor will I be consumed by delusions of changing anything.”

“Th-that means…!”

“I will forgive your evil. Furthermore, I will no longer attempt to change humanity’s ugliness with my power.”

Dale said.

As if a being capable of deciding the fate of this world were forgiving people’s sins.

At those words, the knights began to kneel and bow. They thanked Dale for his mercy and swore their loyalty. Watching them, Dale calmly extended his arm.

The frozen world stirred as the invaders from another realm began to move. They advanced toward the kneeling knights, intent on finishing their feast.

“Wh-why…!”

“But, but you said you’d forgive us! This isn’t what we agreed on!”

“Because you stepped on my land.”

Dale said.

“Do you think you can invade someone else’s home and live to tell the tale?”

Leaving behind the lengthy story of moments past, there was only one reason Dale wouldn’t forgive them.

Despair settled at the end of hope, and a scream echoed at the end of despair.

“You intend to annex the empire’s northern territories to our domain?”

And that night, in response to Dale’s words, his wife Charlotte asked. As she stroked her belly, where their child was already pulsing.

“Are you planning to restore your empire to this land again?”

Charlotte asked, feigning fear, but Dale shook his head.

“Not for the sake of humans, nor for the sake of the world.”

“Then why?”

“I will build a nation for you, for me, and for our baby.”

Dale said, as if reaffirming it to himself.

“For no one else, only for us.”

“……”

“Just like back then, my appearance won’t feel like a monster, distant and frightening to those I love. I promise.”

Charlotte didn’t answer right away, holding her silence. Dale silently took Charlotte’s hand in his.

“I promise, I’ll stay before you until the very end, as the person you remember me to be.”

“……Yes.”

At those words, Charlotte smiled.

“I regret not being able to take up my sword and march into battle alongside you.”

“I, too, regret that we cannot have a home to shelter our child.”

Charlotte burst out laughing at Dale’s words.

“After I give birth, I’ll take up the sword again.”

After laughing, Charlotte said.

“And when I go to the battlefield, you’ll have to take care of our child at home, right?”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll have to.”

Hearing that, Dale smiled. Tenderly and lovingly.

No longer bearing anything for the world, no longer sacrificing, just to get what he wanted.

After making his decision, Dale finally summoned his vassals to the Saxon family castle.

Seated upon the throne of the Great Mage Empire, the Black Gold Throne, Dale spoke calmly.

“Before I speak, I shall ask you to make one vow.”

Countless mighty warriors of the Fourth Empire knelt before him. An army capable of conquering the world, following their lord’s command.

“Under no circumstances sacrifice yourselves for me.”

Dale spoke. The knights gasped at his unexpected words.

“In this world, do not seek to sacrifice yourselves for any cause. I implore you not to repeat the folly I once committed.”

With those words, the Black Gold Sovereign rose to his feet. The knights knelt in unison, thrusting their sword hilts into the ground.

“Remember that oath, and grasp your swords.”

At the Saxon Imperial Palace, the combined number of knights and dark mages gathered there amounted to barely a few hundred souls.

“Then come with me. Let us put an end to this tiresome war raging across the continent.”

Yet, understanding the weight each of them carried, nothing changed.

No matter how far one fled, one could never escape the world. Only now could he finally understand.

He understood that no matter how much he sacrificed himself and struggled, he could never change the world into an ideal form.

Therefore, Dale’s new empire contained nothing grandiose or elaborate.

Thus, solely for himself, for his people, and for the most human of reasons, the history of the Tenth Empire began.