Was revealed only after the collapse (2)
Four hundred years ago, I had sown a great many seeds to allow humans to settle in this barren land.
Those among them who possessed excellent qualities were given mana hearts of great value.
Those who did not meet my exacting standards received mana hearts suitable for the vessels that would contain them.
And all these fleshy vessels had grown well beyond my expectations.
They were the ones who had decimated the great armies of monsters and opened the way to reach Kwangryong.
They were the ones who had defeated the empire’s army that was marching for the kingdom of Leonberg.
These humans existed so that I could sleep in peace and without worry.
When I awoke after my four-hundred-year long slumber, not one of them remained.
I thought that they had all fallen, that all those that valued Muhunshi over mana rings were gone, leaving no trace that they ever strode this land. I thought that everything had fallen into ruin.
But no, I was wrong, for their descendants came to the fortress.
* * *
I reached the empty courtyard before the castle, as I was avoiding Vincent, who had kept hounding me. I unknowingly halted, and in the distance, I saw a group of grim figures gathered around a bonfire.
Northerners who had realized that the nobles could no longer protect them had come here in their droves to enlist in my army, and this group consisted of some of these northerners.
They were a couple of men and women, and it was their presence that had made me halt.
Their clothes were shabby and weapons in a terrible state. Even if they were volunteer enlistees, they looked like beggars, and their appearance spoke of a stupidity incongruous with that of professional military personnel.
Nevertheless, I was convinced that among them were the descendants of old knights who had disappeared from this realm, and I didn’t need any special powers to realize this. Their scent was familiar and had awakened my nostalgia.
“Your Royalty!” a Ranger saluted me casually. He was a friend of mine, one of the senior rangers I had often gone out on patrol with.
“It’s quite cold today. Anyway, what is going on here?”
“I am patrolling the grounds and classing the green beards,” he replied.
“I’m here for the volunteers as well, so don’t mind me and do what you have to do.”
I turned, and the ranger gave a sympathetic laugh. He only laughed for a while, though, as he soon began to marshal the volunteers, his face wolf-like.
“Hey, you, a man that can’t stand this cold sure as hell won’t be able to scale that wall, and a soldier that can’t scale a wall has no place in this castle!”
The volunteers only stared at the ranger.
“Hah, you all look so grim and dark! Leave the fire and stand in a line!”
The ranger continued to shout nonsensical drill-sergeant commands; his words were not saintly at all. I did not aid his commands and instead seated myself by the fire as the volunteers lined up in front of the ranger.
“Left out. Next! Left out. Next!”
So cold and impersonal was the enlistment screening that I figured it was just too much; the ranger did not even ask their names, let alone their place of origin. He simply studied their bodies and made guesses as to their talents. If they fell below his high standards, he ruthlessly eliminated the possibility of their service as soldiers.
It was a bit harsh, but nothing that I couldn’t understand.
In terms of the number of troops, Balahard now had more soldiers than even before the war with the Warlord. The financial situation was such that not many more soldiers could be employed.
Even if enormous funds had flown in from the central lords’ reparations, the time had come to select quality recruits rather than enlist more rubble.
Under the circumstances, only those who were talented had any reason to be accepted. So all those who had come here from afar and had been denied now realized that they had made a wasted journey. Regardless, the curtness of the ranger saved me time.
“Next!”
The line was soon shortened, and the turn of the man and woman whom I had been watching came. The man stepped forth first.
The ranger just jerked his head to one side, not even bothering to speak. The man took up his spear and swung it a few times.
“Ah, skill!”
Along with his obvious skill, the thick scent of mana spread all over the place.
My nostrils were drenched in that smell.
Woah!
The spear vibrated as it glowed slightly. The ranger’s face hardened even more as he watched this display.
“So, what, you were some kind of knight?”
The men shook his head and introduced himself as a wandering mercenary.
Whether a knight or a sellsword, he was clearly a skilled person who knew how to employ auras.
The ranger did not realize this man’s skill, and he shouted at him as he was one of the common rabble applicants.
“Your name?” I asked as I stood up and shook my ass clean.
“Gallahan,” the man answered arrogantly.
“I know who this is,” I told the ranger after I had beckoned him over. At my words, the ranger shut his mouth and reeled his anger in.
“Last name?” I asked, but Gallahan just shook his head at me.
“Because I am a commoner, I have no surname.”
The ranger’s anger had made the recruit guarded, and even if his tone was not that arrogant, he seemed quite confident in his skills.
Anyway, I knew that it was a lie. Even if he had stated that he held no surname as a commoner, I knew the truth was not as simple as that.
Others did not know, but I knew all too well.
I had chosen in ages past twelve great knights, of excellent character, to pass on their superior form of mana hearts.
Five of them, masters of siege and defense, were sent south to act as shields against the large armies of the empire.
That shield of five was named ‘The Silver Lions.’ The seven other knights I chose to be my sword, and they became known as ‘The Blood Lions.’
Even in this age, the title of Lion remains an honorific granted to quad-chain knights, though I have thus far not even heard a trace or a whisper of my erstwhile Blood Lions.
Gallahan must surely have been a descendant of one of the seven forgotten Blood Lions.
I summoned the status screen of Gallahan to study his powers. His aptitudes and characteristics confirmed my suspicions, so I ordered him to wait.
“I will conduct the next assessment,” I told the ranger, who bowed and stepped back. The woman who had accompanied Gallahan stepped forward, carrying a longbow as tall as me.
“I am Boris, and I too have no surname,” she introduced herself without being prompted. Once more, I knew that the lack of her last name was a lie.
This time, she did not need to show her skills or mana; for the bow she carried was one that I knew all too well.
Although it looked crude in its construction, it had once been used by a Blood Lion named ‘Jingu.’
I knew that very few knights would have the strength even to pull its string back halfway, so when she spanned it taught all the way, I immediately shouted “Pass.”
Boris, who had been on the point of loosing her arrow, frowned at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She gave no answer, yet I could see that she was irked by the fact that she had been approved for service before showing her skills.
“Take a look at the others, I must go,” I told the ranger, and I then bode that Gallahan and Boris follow me.
“Now, speak honestly, speak the truth,” I told them when we reached an abandoned warehouse.
“What truth are you talking about?” one of them asked, both of them still keeping up their pretense that they did not know what the hell I was getting at.
Their attitudes were regrettable, yet I could not be mad at them. I knew why they had to hide their heritage.
After the wars of the past, Blood Lions who had fought hard on the northern front were deployed to the southern border. They were swords through and through, and could not merely defend like the Silver Lions.
So, they instead attacked the empire’s mainland.
They were not mere knights or sword masters; no, they were superhumans who led their forces while singing [Heroic] poems.
Before their relentless onslaught, the imperial army collapsed helplessly. The empire then had the shameless task of establishing a new capital in the far west after their original eastern capital had been conquered.
It came as no surprise that the empire hated the Blood Lions more than anyone else.
When the Leonberg Kingdom had stood strong, such hatred could not flow past its walled borders and great castles.
In contrast, the current kingdom was incapable of erecting a fence, much less constructing walls. Thus, it was very wise for these descendants of the Blood Lions to keep their identities hidden, traveling the world in total obscurity.
They had sinned not yet were still sinners, and a weak kingdom with weak princes would do nothing to protect them.
“But who are you?” Boris asked me cautiously.
Instead of answering with words, I unleashed my mana. They immediately became alert to any sudden actions from me.
“If you have hidden with the name of your family for all these years, you will surely recognize the origin of their strengths.”
The mana hearts that beat in their breasts had been gifted to their ancestors by me when I had been a sword.
Also, the [Heroic] poems sung by the Blood Lions had been derived from the passages of the [Mythic] poems created by the Dragon Slayer.
If these two had inherited both the complete mana hearts and poetry of their forebears, there could be no way for them to mistake the energies that I was unleashing.
The Dragon Slayer’s heart was the unique gift of the Leonberger dynasty.
“I, Gallahan, recognize the soul of the Leonberger King!”
“I, Boris, sees His Highness the Prince!”
As I had expected, both of them knelt before me, bowing their heads.
I was greatly satisfied when I looked at them, for it felt as if a familiar treasure had wandered from afar on its feet only to enter my embrace.
All that remained was the question of how to employ them and make them useful.
* * *
Though Boris and Gallahan had recognized me, they still chose not to reveal their family names. It seemed that the mere presence of a decent royal was still not enough to earn their trust.
I was in the body of a Leonberger, and the Leonbergers had forgotten of the service and talents of the Blood Lions.
The two of them had been able to wander the world because I had wiped out the eyes and ears of the empire in the last war.
Thus, I decided to take the time and earn their trust. For the time being, they would be placed where they could develop themselves the best.
In actual fact, Gallahan’s talents fell short of Arwen’s, not even to mention Adelia’s.
He had no reason to be disappointed, for his ancestor had also possessed the least amount of martial skill among the Blood Lions.
However, I knew that that ancestor had possessed a special talent that the other Blood Lions had lacked.
Her horsemanship had almost been on a magical level, and she had trampled over her enemies as a river flows over rocks.
Gallahan had inherited her S-class horsemanship, and there was a place in Winter Castle that would suit Gallohan’s talents well.
“I know your lancers are few after the war, Quéon, so for the while, can you train this man? He will prove quite useful to you.”
I had left Gallohan with the one-eyed Quéon Lictheim, who commanded the Black Lancers, a group of elite knights who had greatly aided me in the battle against the Warlord. The fact that the training would be hard was a bonus, and I had made sure to tell Quéon that Gallahad was a bit pretentious and arrogant.
A few days later, a rumor reached me that Quéon had over-interpreted my request a bit and had beaten Gallohan terribly.
I did not mind, for suffering makes a man stronger, and the faster one suffers, the quicker one learns.
Such a training philosophy is applied in equal terms to Boris. Like her ancestors, she was a born ranger and sniper, so I made sure she was constantly in the patrols that entered the Blade’s Edge Mountains. These patrols conducted numerous hit and run assaults.
In many ways, her training was far harsher than that of Gallahan’s.
Mana rings can only shatter the mana of mana hearts if their energies collided. Boris was an archer and so did not have to deal with Knights of the Ring. She had great talent and would be very useful in this age where rings dominated.
Certainly, she wasn’t capable of killing knights in the same way as her ancestors, but this was more because she held no faith in the [Heroic] poem than any lack of talent.
And if you had to deal with monsters in the mountains day by day, your natural talents will arise, even if they aren’t that great.
“Arwen, Bernardo, you are to accompany Boris and hunt alongside her.”
Arwen immediately understood and accepted my order. Bernardo Eli just groaned. As always, his mewling complaints fell on deaf ears.
And so Boris went out to hunt with the knights, and her task was no easy one for ogres and trolls were not easy prey.
Still, her mission was not impossible, as the Muhunshi she had inherited was created in the hunt for monsters that were once ruled by Gwangryong. If she were lucky, she would be able to write other poems that she could use more frequently than her [Heroic] poem.
It was also planned that Gallahan and the Black Lancers would make sorties around the entrance of the mountain pass to seek out real battles.
So within a year, I knew that Gallahan and Boris would become quite strong, as Winter Castle was the best place for someone who wanted to build up their karma.
“Your Highness, a messenger has come from the royal family.”
I eagerly met the man. Surely, it was another order for my return. Even if I had expressed my unwillingness to do so, the King had been disgustingly persistent.
“Your Highness, His Majesty knows well what Your Highness has endured in the north. He urges you to return to the royal palace as soon as possible, for he wishes to praise you and bestow a worthy gift for your efforts.”
Through the mouth of the messenger came a request that was softer in tone than those that had come before.
“Fuck all that,” I spat, for I was not fooled.
The very instant I returned to the capital, all my efforts in the north would have been for naught, as my wings would be clipped and broken once more. The King on that throne hated me more than was necessary,
The prospect of returning had not even crossed my mind since I had relocated to Winter Castle.
“Tell them that I shall return on my own if the time comes, and tell them to stop sending these fucking messages!”
The messenger turned pale at hearing my harsh words; one would almost think I had sentenced him to death. Certainly, as a bearer of bad news to the King, he could die if he were to face the monarchs’ full wrath.
Adelia called the messenger to one side and refined the words he had to convey to the King. My will was the same, as well as the conclusion that I would not be returning. The only difference was that the tone had been softened.
“You must have struggled on your long journey, so go ahead and rest before your return,” the messenger was told, and he drooped his shoulders despondently.
My next visitor stepped before me, a hooded man who had been standing to one side. He now removed the hood with a flourish, and the face that he revealed was the last face I wanted to see at that moment.
“Your Highness, it has been such a long time. You don’t know how relieved I am to see you, after all these recent troubles.”
And so, the dog of the empire stood before me, smiling his gentle little smile.
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