Chapter 255: 135. Resolution -1 (Part One)
Translated by A Passing Wanderer
Edited by RED
“What will happen to me, I wonder?” Count Jenald Ripang spat out a lengthy groan.
He was currently squatting on the floor of his cell and feeding his new companion, a rat, with the food given to him during lunch.
‘It’ll be an execution, no doubt.’ He could only break out in a bitter smile.
The Holy Emperor was rather sensitive towards any and all treasonous acts, so he probably wouldn’t go easy on Count Jenald.
He shifted his gaze around to look at the prison he was in, but all he saw were the steel bars protecting the other empty cells. It seemed that all potential combatants besides him had been mobilised just now.
That probably meant that the undead raid this time was a serious one, but now that His Highness was here, there shouldn’t be a reason to be worried.
While he was thinking that to himself…
He heard footsteps. He turned his head again to look at the front of his holding cell, and discovered Charlotte looking down at him on the floor from beyond the steel bars.
She spoke, “Count Jenald.”
Jenald chuckled a little at her elegant voice and met her cool gaze. “What can I do for you, Marquis Charlotte?”
“His Highness has granted you temporary freedom.”
Jenald’s eyes opened wider in an instant.
Charlotte didn’t mind that and opened the cell’s door with a key, then addressed him, “Your role is to command the convicts.”
“But, will that be fine, ma’am?”
For now, he was under the suspicion of insurrection. A problem might arise later if he was given authority to command the soldiers.
Charlotte turned around to leave, but still glanced back at him. “Now is an emergency situation.”
The key to undo his shackles fell to the cell floor. Charlotte spun around coldly and disappeared from view.
Count Jenald watched her disappearing back and smiled bitterly again. Her attitude towards him was quite cold.
But that seemed rather reasonable, considering that what the Count had done was no different from hindering the Imperial Prince’s path, and even resulted in a potentially precarious situation for the young prince.
No matter how convincing the report was, the Imperial Family would still treat this matter as a big problem.
“Still, as it’s His Highness’s order…”
Jenald undid the shackles and noticed how creaky his body felt after only a few days of confinement.
He rubbed and loosened his wrists while leaving the prison. He spotted Charlotte waiting for him by the exit. All his necessary equipment was sitting on a shelf next to her.
She was leaning against the wall, sending him silent signals with her eyes. Jenald understood her, and quickly put his armour on, then buckled a sword to his hips.
“I’m ready. Let’s get going, ma’am.”
Count Jenald and Charlotte mounted waiting horses and quickly rushed to their destination.
The emergency alert bells were still ringing quite noisily even now. That meant something major had to be going on.
“By the way, what should be my role when commanding the convicts?”
After Count Jenald asked that, Charlotte muttered without slowing down, “…Providing assistance.”
“Pardon?”
“You are to provide His Highness with your assistance.”
It was right at that moment an explosion loud enough to rupture one’s eardrums erupted ahead of them.
Count Jenald and Charlotte both flinched in surprise and reflexively pulled on their reins to stop the horses. Their mounts seemed to be agitated by that noise as well, rearing up beneath them.
Jenald ended up covering his ears without even realising it. “Marquis Charlotte, that noise earlier…?”
However, his question went unanswered.
An upset expression formed on her face as she began gritting her teeth, “Why was I happy about winning earlier?!”
Count Jenald flinched again in surprise, then stared at her.
Her head faltered, and her grip on the reins suddenly grew a lot heavier. The reins, made by weaving tough leather strips together, ripped apart.
“I… I’m still nowhere near him yet.”
“W-what are you even…” Jenald didn’t get to finish the rest of his sentence as his head snapped back to look ahead.
In the distance far away, a large white dust cloud rose up to hover near the horizon.
Taking in that sight, his eyes grew wider and wider.
The light from the falling snowflakes and the layers of snow resting on the ground chased away the pitch-black darkness of the night skies.
The divinity snow danced and blew around in the air, brightly illuminating the surroundings. The convicts standing on the layer of snow failed to hide their shock.
“Snow made out of divine power…???”
Even though they knew they were in the middle of a battle, their gazes still slowly drifted towards the gently-falling snow. And then, they shifted their dazed gazes back down to earth.
The lich wielding a lengthy musket, its robe flapping in the winds, spoke as its teeth clattered, its jawbone eerily bobbing up and down, -Fire!-
Its boney finger pulled the trigger.
Powerful divine energy swirled within the muzzles of the perfectly lined-up muskets, and over a dozen rounds were discharged at once.
The cacophony of the gunfire shattered the still silence of the night. The convicts instinctively covered their ears and hurriedly fell down on the ground.
At the same time, the undead were blown apart.
In the blink of an eye, their torsos exploded in a spherical shape before being blasted out of existence.
Even though each musket fired only one round, the holy bullets still penetrated cleanly through flesh and bones of the leading undead to strike the other undead behind them.
Just one round of attacks, and the incoming wave of the undead were blown away.
-W-what is this?- The lycan locked in the contest of strength against Harman muttered, its eyes trembling in shock.
-Reload!-
At Nasus the Lich’s command, the skeleton mages uniformly raised up their muskets in a practised, professional manner. They breathed divine power into the loading chambers.
Divinity condensed to form new holy bullets.
The expression of Warbell, the leader of the lycans, hardened instantly at this sight.
The snow falling from the heavens was burning the lycans’ fur. It was getting painful to even breathe, but despite all that, now wasn’t the time to mind such little things.
This regiment wielding some sort of strange staves… they were the truly dangerous ones here!
All the fur on Warbell’s body stood on end, and the creature roared out urgently, -Stop them! They are trying to use their magic again! Stop them now!-
They were a lich and skeleton mages. They would need some time in order to use magic again.
-You must not give them the opportunity! They are nothing more than a magician squad, that’s all!-
The lycans disregarded the convicts in front of them and rushed forward. Their new target was the bizarre magician squad.
They simply had to eliminate these… magicians, at any cost!
The lycans were terrified right now, and befitting scared wild beasts, they were bringing out greater physical strength than ever before. Hideous veins bulged on their leg muscles.
Their clawed feet trampled on the ground to accelerate their bodies in order to reach the lich over yonder.
-Ku-oooooh!-
To forget that they were terrified, they resorted to howling loudly next. Nasus watched them come and sneered derisively with its glowing eyes.
It temporarily stopped breathing into the musket, and slammed the weapon’s butt plate on the snow-covered ground.
-Stop them!-
Hands of bone exploded out from the snowy surface.
Skeletons rose up, wielding large shields and nothing else. They formed the first line of defence, with their shields out in front of the skeleton mages.
The holy undead proceeded to stack their shields and lowered their postures. Even more skeletons appeared behind them to support them. They got into a close order formation and began glaring at the incoming lycans.
-Summoning magic?! Dammit, are they trying to buy more time?-
The lycans swung their claws and flung the shields aside. The undead beasts’ sheer physical strength easily shattered and broke the skeletons and their bones.
The lycan’s eyes glared at the lich and the skeleton mage regiment that had used other skeletons as their shields.
One by one, the reloaded muskets were raised up. One by one, the muzzles began taking aim.
-N-no, wait!- The lycans began freaking out even more then. Just as their terror-stricken eyes fixed on the muzzles…
-Fire!-
The second volley was launched.
KBOOM!
As the noise of the explosion echoed forth, the holy bullets went straight through the skeletons acting as shields. The projectiles of condensed divinity spun in vicious spirals, penetrating everything in their paths.
The skeletons shattered and one of the holy bullets breaking past the bones reached a lycan’s eyeball. The undead beast’s head simply blew apart into gory bits.
-Uwaaaaahk!-
The exploded flesh turned into ashes, while the splattering blood turned into powder before being wiped from existence.
The beast’s large body faltered as if it would crash to the ground, only for more holy bullets to fly in and utterly rip the creature apart, until it couldn’t be recognised anymore.
-What is the meaning of this?! Just what is going on here!-
The lycans all fell into unbridled panic, and yelped loudly in fright. However, their voices failed to reach their own ears.
The lycan still locking horns with Harman, Warbell, also fell deep into the pit of fear and stumbled back.
Their extremely acute hearing was being deafened by the loud gunshots, while their sensitive noses were filled with stench of purified corpses until they became disoriented and lost.
Only their eyes remained as their sole functioning perceptive organs, but even then, the only thing they could see right now were the other undead rapidly getting cleansed from this world.
-S-summon the Jötnar, now!- Warbell cried out, and the lycans boasting some level of intelligence stumbled back to begin their escape.
“Just what on earth is happening right now?” the convicts muttered to themselves while shedding a copious amount of cold sweat.
They could sense the sacred aura emanating from the robed undead. Without a doubt, these creatures must be allies Summoned by the Imperial Prince.
Despite knowing that, they still couldn’t help but be frightened right now.
They all knew about what a musket was. Well, they had witnessed the Imperial Prince use one before, after all. But it was quite a different story when a terrifying platoon all using muskets hunted down the undead and half-man, half-beast monsters.
The loud gunshots and the sight of hulking lycans capable of human speech turning into a bunch of beehives and dying tragically was more than enough instil terror and near-unrecoverable mental shock in their hearts.