Chapter 200

Translator: Willia

From boy to man, from man to father. That is the story of my life so far.

I was born and raised in the countryside, left it behind to become an adventurer, and became a king at the end of my adventures.

Even so, there is nothing extraordinary about it. Everything that appears extraordinary is merely a shell.

The only extraordinary things are that I made friends, fell in love, and gained a son. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I met him, not gained him.

Yes, at the end of a long journey, I finally met my son.

My heart and soul felt full, yet I myself felt small. Do all fathers feel this way? Father, was it like this for you? Only now do I ask, if only silently.

Though others called me a peerless hero, I never once paid them any heed. Still less did I take pride in it. If anything, I rejected it in my heart.

I have no clearly defined goal. But because I lived a previous life, I know there is one clear difference. Everything branches out from that difference between having a family and having none.

How strong is a person raised with love? And how self-destructive is one who was denied it? I know the difference.

That is why, without even realizing it, everything I have done has been to protect even a single family from destruction and to reach out to boys and girls cast aside by broken homes.

I also know that as long as people live together, conflict and disputes are inevitable, and therefore war will never disappear.

And so I struggle desperately amid that blood-soaked strife. That is all, and I do not wish to be called a hero.

To someone, I too must be an unparalleled villain. It is the way of the world that choosing one thing means forsaking another.

Yes, that is all......

At the spearhead of the mounted charge, Ricardt had become absorbed in reflections ill-suited to the moment. All his senses were merely numb.

Then he met the startled, frightened eyes of the enemy soldiers, and in an instant he felt the rocking of the saddle, his taut muscles, the tremors shaking the earth, and the sound bearing down upon them like a tidal wave from afar.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Boom! Crunch! Thud! Crack! Thud! Crunch!

The chaotic sound of war horses trampling men filled the air. The enemies so easily crushed beneath them were reduced to hunks of meat. The lance couched firmly beneath Ricardt’s arm and gripped tight finally skewered a man like meat on a spit.

Yet Ricardt himself could make no sense of anything as he stabbed and crashed through them. This brief moment was the most dangerous.

Arrows flew toward him. Normally they would not have loosed arrows for fear of hitting their own men, but he could feel their determination to unhorse him by any means.

Ricardt turned his horse and raised one shoulder to ward them off. Two or three arrows grazed past his face, and another struck his shoulder armor and glanced away.

In the end, the rain of arrows pattering down like drizzle killed more of their own men.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

“Mother!”

Enemies screamed both near and far. Their will to fight had clearly broken. Ricardt felt it viscerally.

Leading the knights, Ricardt drove his heels hard into Red Comet’s flanks, broke straight through the formation, and raced toward the enemy rear.

Some of the knights briefly fell back to regroup, while Raimund and the other royal guard knights followed Ricardt to the very end. Their one duty, worth any risk to their lives, was to protect the king’s flanks and rear.

When Ricardt broke through the enemy front and raced out along their flank, the reserves being hurried into the battle lost their bearings. Should they pursue Ricardt, or reinforce their collapsing front?

That brief hesitation gave the advancing Adeloron infantry the opportunity they needed to secure victory.

After driving along the flank, Ricardt changed direction again and charged toward the enemy command, where Duke Frederia was stationed.

The blazing red horse and the flaming sword streaming like a banner seemed to overwhelm the battlefield all by themselves.

The battle was effectively over, but Ricardt wanted a greater prize. He spotted the startled duke scrambling onto his horse and fleeing.

Like an arrow flashing past, Ricardt cut down the enemy guard knights who barred his path, then bore down upon Duke Frederia without slowing in the slightest.

Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!

The horse was so fast that whenever Duke Frederia glanced back, Ricardt had drawn so much closer that it seemed as though he were using magic.

Should he veer aside and flee? Or should he turn and fight even now? Before he could settle on either choice, he glanced back one last time and saw Ricardt with his burning sword raised high above his head.

“W-Wait!”

Whoosh! Thud!

Thump! Thud-thud-thud!

Duke Frederia squeezed his eyes shut, unable to understand what had happened. He did not even know whether he was alive or dead.

He fell from his horse and rolled violently across the ground. Whether he had died outright or merely suffered grave injuries was unclear, but for the moment he went limp as though dead.

His guard knights rushed to save their lord, but when Ricardt turned his blazing eyes upon them, none dared approach.

“Drop your weapons and dismount!”

When Ricardt leveled his sword at them and shouted, they lost the will to resist and obeyed. They had no choice. The enormous, mysterious red horse beneath Ricardt was stamping its feet as though ready to crush the fallen duke at any moment.

The knights dropped ignominiously to their knees and put both hands behind their heads, whereupon the royal guard knights who had followed Ricardt bound them.

With that, the battle ended, and Ricardt seized control of the Frederia Duchy in a single stroke.

Tactics were the means employed upon the board of strategy, and battle was an extension of both. By making himself a piece upon that board and fighting, Ricardt had created a flawless masterpiece.

They had taken no fewer than four thousand prisoners and inflicted a thousand casualties on the enemy, while suffering almost no losses themselves.

Battle was motion itself, an art of controlling chaos. And in that art, Ricardt was the finest artist of all.

To establish a bridgehead for his advance on the imperial capital of Nibelungen, Ricardt had decided to deal with Duke Frederia first. This was the moment the matter was settled.

Soldiers roamed the disordered battlefield, setting it to rights. They gathered the dead and wounded, salvaged what could be salvaged, and seized what could be taken. It would be best to finish before the rain came.

Broken flags and spear shafts, corpses half-buried in the mud, men soon to die, and men who could only groan with shattered limbs and exposed bone.

Clouds raced across the gray sky. Though no one knew where the wind had come from, it was cool enough to ease the summer heat for a while. Some distance from the chaos of the battlefield, flags fluttered.

Despite having seized victory, Adeloron’s elite soldiers showed little sign of joy. They merely watched the prisoners with indifference.

The captured Duke Frederia, lords, and knights were a sorry sight. Their armor was torn and tattered, their hair disheveled, and their faces scratched and streaked with soot.

Duke Frederia appeared to have somehow survived his fall from a galloping horse. He was plainly tense to anyone who looked, yet he raised his chin and made an obvious effort to pretend otherwise.

He stood facing a young king who sat on a low rock eating a fruit the duke had never seen before.

Ricardt scored the peel of an orange sent from Valencia with his knife, stripped it away, and took bite after bite. Even on a day without sunlight, its flavor and fragrance let him feel the sun.

The bright, sweet flavor filled his mouth and spread into his nose, but his expression barely changed. He also seemed wholly unconcerned by Duke Frederia staring at him.

It even made the duke wonder whether Ricardt’s mind was elsewhere.

And so Duke Frederia spoke first, wearing the look of a man determined to preserve his dignity despite defeat.

“I did nothing. When Your Majesty crossed the border and seized the gold mine at will, I did nothing. When the queen investigated my affairs and spread vicious rumors, I did nothing. Had you asked me to open the road, I would have done so. What you did today was the act of a common brigand.”

Whether he had heard the duke or not, Ricardt merely ate his orange with his head slightly bowed. Once he finished, he flicked the peel onto the ground and finally looked at Duke Frederia.

“In troubled times, if crouching low and wishing only for safety is a crime, then that is your crime, Duke. The greatest power God granted us humans is the power to choose. Yet you abandoned that power. Let us not debate right and wrong here. I attacked you because I could not trust you. There is no personal affection between us, is there? Even if you offered to open the road, I would not want to worry about what lay behind me.”

Ricardt now intended to march on the imperial capital of Nibelungen and hold Fifth Prince Bellator to account for attacking Marie. Duke Frederia stood midway along his route, so Ricardt had struck him first.

Thus Duke Frederia, who had spent years holding on to his troops while doing nothing, truly accomplished nothing at all before Ricardt crushed him.

There were many kinds of incompetence, but this man was incompetent in a truly singular way. Feeding and housing soldiers cost no small sum, yet he had done nothing for four or five years.

“Then what do you intend to do with me? I beg Your Majesty to strike off my head personally with that Holy Sword. In return, spare my vassals.”

Whether he had repented at the end after plundering his vassals’ lands at will behind the scenes, or was merely trying to make a fine show of a death he could no longer escape, no one could say.

Ricardt had little interest in any of that.

“No, Duke. I will not kill you. Simply return to your castle and live there. Do not leave your lands. If you abide by that alone, I will guarantee your title and rights, and the same goes for the other nobles. Your army will be disbanded, of course, and I will take roughly two thousand of its men with me.”

At Ricardt’s unexpectedly generous terms, Duke Frederia and his vassals looked at one another with expressions of mingled relief and bewilderment.

Ricardt spared them for the simple reason that they were incompetents incapable of doing anything even if left entirely alone.

Going to the trouble of killing them and taking their lands would only saddle him with a headache. He judged it most advantageous to let them continue living as they always had.

He would simply strip them of their power and place them under his influence. Marie had decided to become emperor anyway, so there was no need to turn everyone into bitter enemies.

“Was safety not what you wanted? I will guarantee that safety, so I trust you will not stir up needless trouble, Duke. You may go.”

Ricardt dusted off his hands and rose. He walked through his men, mounted the red horse, and left the cleanup to his subordinates. Taking only a small escort, he rode off somewhere.

Duke Frederia and his retainers stared blankly after Ricardt as he receded across the fields.

To guarantee his safety was another way of saying that he now stood beneath Ricardt. If this battle had any significance, it lay in making that fact clear.

Even so, war was still war. Ricardt had not refrained from it because he was unable to fight. He had merely wanted a suitable pretext.

Others might laugh to hear it, but Ricardt did not much like war, though it was what he did best.

Stormhertz lay less than a day’s ride from the Frederia Duchy, but rain had begun to fall by the time Ricardt arrived.

The site of the Master Alliance headquarters had been destroyed and was still being rebuilt. The enemy had been driven off, but the Alliance and the people of Stormhertz were the ones left to clean up afterward.

Still, they had amassed considerable wealth by harassing the Fifth Prince’s rear and plundering his supplies, so neither food nor money posed a problem.

When Ricardt appeared, the people knelt as though welcoming the long-awaited sun.

Though he had done nothing in the defense of Stormhertz, Ricardt’s very presence was now enough to put them completely at ease.

“Ricky.”

A familiar voice came from nearby. Ricardt turned and saw Ice working alongside the laborers with his sleeves rolled up.

Ricardt always dismounted when greeting family or friends. This time was no different. He got down, took the reins in hand, and walked over to Ice.

“Ice.”

“The lumber needs to be covered with tarps in time, or it’ll rot. We’re a little short on tar, but keeping a fire beside it should help somewhat.”

“Right......”

Ice spoke as though he were greeting a friend he had seen only yesterday.

“Too bad, but it looks like he got Marie’s eyes.”

“Really? But what does that mean? Why should I be disappointed?”

“Because your eyes are the prettiest. They look like they hold some unknowable mystery. They’ve been that way since you were little.”

“No. There’s nothing like that.”

Ricardt chuckled and shook his head.

“Is Marie at the castle?”

“No, over there. At headquarters.”

The headquarters had not yet been completely rebuilt, but it was habitable enough.

“Wouldn’t the castle be safer?”

“Marie always stays wherever the people are struggling. A female Ricky, remember? You said so yourself.”

“That wasn’t me. Bori said it.”

“Did he?”

“Where are the others?”

“Volka and Kali are incredibly busy. The Alliance defeated an imperial prince, so I suppose that made quite a name for it. They have to keep recruiting people, and they need to visit the relevant regions before approving membership applications. Bori and I are taking turns guarding Marie and His Highness the Crown Prince.”

“......What crown prince?”

“So Marie was the one who finally chose a course. Not you. You could have become emperor yourself if you’d wanted.”

“I only do what I can. I don’t want anything beyond that.”

“Right. That’s how you’ve always been.”

The rain grew heavier as they spoke. Ricardt did not interrupt the work any longer and walked to the headquarters leading his horse by the reins. They could always talk again later.

Many people watched Ricardt. He had never sought to become emperor himself, yet he was already something greater than an emperor.

Dunkel had asked Ricardt whether he was a demon king who protected the world or a hero who was nothing more than a murderer, but what did it matter? Ricardt did not much care.

After leaving his horse with the stable hand, Ricardt entered the headquarters and found it hushed. There was no unease or anxiety in the silence, only concern for the baby.

A gentle warmth enveloped the rain-soaked Ricardt. He climbed steadily to the second floor and reached a somewhat cluttered bedroom that had not yet been fully put in order.

Marie and Bori were there, along with Roy and Beka. His son Vilter was there too.

“Ricky.”

“Master.”

“King.”

Each called him something different. Whatever the case, Ricardt walked over quietly and met the baby cradled in Marie’s arms.

Surprisingly, he was not asleep. The truly tiny human pursed and worked his lips while wriggling his minuscule fingers.

At last, Ricardt’s eyes met the baby’s. One had hazel eyes, the other blue.

Whether he recognized his father or was looking at something else, Vilter broke into a radiant smile, though he could not yet have learned the full range of emotions. Like a shining star.

Ricardt smiled softly as well and spoke. Outside came the gentle patter of falling rain.

“His eyes do look like Marie’s.”

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