Chapter 257: 136. Resolution -2 (Part One)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

**

The sun rose above the horizon.

Countless corpses were strewn about in a gory fashion on a land beyond the outer walls. The convicts who were still alive were standing around dazedly on top of this grisly sight.

They lifted up their tired heads and stared at the rising sun before muttering softly, “…It’s over.”

All of the invading undead had been killed off.

Even though their ears were deafened by the screams of the dying evil spirits not too long ago, even though their throats ached from the loud, spirited yelling that came from the sheer excitement they felt…

They no longer had the mind to worry about such piffling little pains or fatigue.

A stirring emotion was welling up from deep within their hearts. This emotion engraved a truly fantastic word, VICTORY, in their hearts. Soon after that, the convicts all felt this indescribable elation and began raising their voices one by one.

“We, we…!”

“We won!”

“We defeated the undead again! Hahaha!”

They began guffawing out loudly.

The loud cheers of happiness resounded throughout the battlefield.

Charlotte stared at the Seventh Imperial Prince standing quite a distance from the centre of the battlefield.

“Imperial Prince-nim, hooray!”

The convicts picked up the tired Imperial Prince and began tossing him up in the air to celebrate.

One could tell from his expression that he really didn’t like this, but stopping them must’ve been even more annoying to him because he just let them carry on as they pleased.

“Lady Priestess, hooray-!”

Next up was Alice, and she too was lifted into the air.

“Lord Saint, hooray!”

“Lady Saintess, hooray, hooray!”

“Our Theocratic Empire will live on forever-!”

The more she heard their loud cheering, the deeper Charlotte’s bitter smile grew.

She could only play a very small part in this battle. Most of the contributions belonged to the Seventh Imperial Prince and Alice Astoria.

Charlotte was nearly overcome by this feeling of bitterness born out of what seemed like the unbridgeable chasm between him and her.

“You’ve grown even stronger while I wasn’t looking, haven’t you, Allen?…”

A voice suddenly came from her side, and Charlotte turned her head to look. She spotted Shuppel, currently plopped down on the ground, as if he was too tired to even stand up.

He drank water from a leather waterskin while making a bitter face.

For some reason, his face came across as rather familiar to her. It was like…

…like his expression resembled hers.

An expression of ‘wishing’.

An expression of someone still chasing after another person in a far-off distance, well out of one’s reach.

Shuppel glanced at Charlotte. “Lady Paladin. Do your best to serve Allen well.”

When their gazes met briefly, Charlotte flinched a little and shifted her gaze away. She stared at the Imperial Prince once more.

He continued on, “That punk, he might be really powerful, but he’s also the type to do something reckless by himself. Unless you or someone else lend him their support, he might falter and come crashing down sooner or later.”

This man was the former Third Imperial Prince of the Theocratic Empire, and a culprit responsible for endangering Allen’s life.

Whenever she recalled the events of Aslan, she found herself unable to forgive this man.

Charlotte gritted her teeth, and turned away from him coldly. “Of course I will.”

Without someone telling her about it, she’d do it, anyway. To her, the Seventh Imperial Prince was her life’s purpose, and she had made the conscious choice to be by his side, after all.

She had already made up her mind. To reach her goal, she was even willing to discard her mastery over the sword, acquired through so much of her own blood and sweat. That was the very first thing she had to do.

Charlotte turned around and walked towards Castle Ronia.

She now had to acquire the correct type of equipment to put her determination into action. In order to do that, she needed to send a request to the top armoury in the whole of the empire, Hilda fiefdom.

Charlotte headed straight towards the fiefdom of Ronia. Allen belatedly spotted her departing back and watched her leave.

**

(TL: In 1st person POV.)

“As expected of you, Your Highness! You are truly the one chosen by Goddess Gaia. I’m sure of it!”

While riding on our horses to get back to the Count’s residence, I was given no choice but to listen to Jenald go on and on with his maddeningly embarrassing praises of me.

I spat out a lengthy groan and replied, “Why don’t you stop there and take charge of the mop-up operation, instead?”

“But Your Highness, will that be alright?”

When I said ‘take charge of mopping up’, I meant that he should take over command of the convicts. The outer walls had been destroyed in several places, so we urgently needed to repair all those damaged sections, plus the convict troops needed to be reorganised quickly.

Our command structure was suffering from a distinct lack of manpower, so someone like Count Jenald was an indispensable individual.

“I have no one but you to rely on in this situation.”

Jenald formed an expression that indicated that he was deeply honoured by the command, and replied, “Understood! Then I shall speak to you later, Your Highness!”

He bowed his head, looking quite happy, then turned his mount around to rush towards the outer walls.

‘For a dude who’ll get imprisoned again later, he sure is overflowing with energy.’

I watched his receding back for a bit, before heading to the manor.

I could see the figure of Charlotte, who had arrived there some time before me. Next to her were ten carriages and the regular soldiers of Ronia, all lined up in front of the manor.

Those guys were part of the supply corps tasked with resupplying the troops by travelling between Ronia and Hilda.

I stopped a distance away and watched Charlotte chatting to the driver of one of the carriages parked in front of the residence.

The driver was nodding and saying something. “To confirm, I must deliver this letter to Her Imperial Highness, Hilda?”

Charlotte was handing a letter over to him. “Yes, I entrust you with this role. Please deliver it as swiftly as you can.”

“Understood, ma’am. The Tide of Death is about to hit us, so we shall urge them to prepare as quickly as possible.”

The driver confirmed the letter’s seal before securing it away in his inner pocket.

Charlotte watched that and nodded, then left the driver behind to enter the manor.

I felt a bit curious about that exchange, so I quickly walked up to the driver and asked, “What’s going on?”

He flinched in surprise and hurriedly tried to show his respect through a clumsy display of etiquette. I stopped him there. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. In any case, you guys are heading to my older sister’s territory, right?”

The master artisan ‘fairies’, the dwarves, lived in Hilda’s fiefdom. Why was Charlotte sending a letter there, I wonder?

It must’ve not been a secret, because the driver replied to me quickly enough, “Her Ladyship was requesting they craft a piece of equipment for herself.”

“Equipment, is it?” I tilted my head a little and the driver nodded in response.

“Well, we’re also in need of restocking our supplies anyway, Your Highness. Since we’re going there to get the new batches of equipment for the soldiers, Her Ladyship Marquis Charlotte took this opportunity and made a request for the creation of another type of equipment for herself.”

“What kinda equipment are we talking about?”

“Regrettably, even I don’t know what exactly, Your Highness…”

The driver cautiously pulled the letter out. It seemed that its contents had something to do with the mystery item. Obviously I couldn’t just tear open the seal and read what was in it.

The driver looked kind of nervous about me taking that letter away from him, too.

I recalled Charlotte’s equipment. The metal armour that fit her figure, then the divine sword passed down through the generations of the Heraiz house. That was the extent of her stuff.

Hmm. What else does she need as a Paladin?

Maybe she was thinking of a new type of armour, or even a new sword? That could be it.

I glanced at the driver and asked, “In that case, let me also ask you for a favour, too.”

“Sir?” The driver tilted his head in confusion.

I extracted a dragon fang from the item window and placed it securely within the back of the carriage along with the other luggage.

The dragon fang itself was pretty light, but it was still huge that when I put it down, a loud thud rang out.

The driver’s eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets.

“Deliver this to my older sister.”

“…W-what kind of a bone is this, sir? It looks like a fang of some kind, but there should not be a monster boasting fangs of such size out there…”

The driver stared at the dragon fang with a deeply curious face.

I resolved his curiosity for him. “It’s a dragon fang.”

The driver’s face hardened instantly, then while looking back at me, asked in a quiet voice, “Sir, you must be joking.”

“Nope, it’s the real deal. Ah, as a bonus job, I’ll give you a dragon scale as well. Give it to my sister, too.”

“Oh my goddess…?!”

Maybe because he was someone tasked with resupplying our equipment or something, the driver became greatly intrigued by the bone. He stared at that dragon’s fang as if he was in a trance, unable to tear his gaze away from it.

I spoke to him again to break him out of trance, “Deliver them to my sister, okay? Tell her that I want them used for the purpose of crafting Charlotte’s equipment. Since these are top-notch materials, I’m sure an armament matching their quality will be created.”