The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 62 – Behind the Cloak (2)

Dilmond smashed the undead endlessly. He cut down as many undead as he could, regardless of who they used to be when they were still alive—some were commoners that used to run a business up until yesterday, yet they were still his comrades that fought shoulder to shoulder with him, and some had been young knights that he trained himself. Although Dilmond found the undead to be unpleasant at first, he was now familiar enough with them to even take a nap beside them without a problem. He had never thought that the undead would be his enemies again.

“Bring it on, you son of a bitch!”

The head of an undead disappeared upon being hit by Dilmond’s hammer. That undead had been an arle servant who used to ask if he too could become a real knight too once Ras regained his honor. The more Dilmond killed, the more he actively flew through the battlefield. However, Dilmond felt his hammer getting heavier and heavier as it got soaked in blood. He felt the urge to drop his hammer to the ground and fall asleep with his back lying down.

“Sir Dilmond, are you alright?” one of the knights of the Order of Huginn asked in concern as he saw Dilmond gasping and starting to fall behind.

Dilmond luckily ran into a group of survivors while he fought fiercely.

“I’m fine. Go to the front,” Dilmond said as he pushed the knight’s back forward.

The knights were looking for Anya. Since Ras was now dead, the captain of the Order of Huginn was Anya. The knights hoped for Anya to have solutions to get out of this tragic situation, considering that she had been trained as a necromancer.

‘I wonder if she is still alive.’

Dilmond called out her name several times, but received no reply. Although Anya was an excellent knight, it was only natural for Dilmond to think it would be hard for her to make it out alive in this mess.

At that moment, Dilmond saw a knight wearing a white armor staggering as he walked. The Templars’ white armor stood out even in the dark. The Templar’s helmet and shield were nowhere to be found.

“Hey, you! Don’t wander around alone and…”

One of the knights of the Order of Huginn opened his mouth, but soon swallowed his next words upon seeing the Templar’s eyes seething with rage.

“You filthy apostates! What the hell have all of you done?!”

The Templar immediately charged at Dilmond like he had gone mad. The knights of the Order of Huginn hastily blocked him from approaching Dilmond, but the Templar completely ignored them and continued his attempt to attack Dilmond.

“Enough! Now isn’t the time for us to be fighting with each other!” a knight from the Order of Huginn said.

“Not the time for us to be fighting with each other, you say? We all saw what that evil apostate Ras Raud did with our own eyes! And you filthy ravens were eating my comrades alive in this darkness! And you say what? Now is not the time to fight?”

The knights from the Order of Huginn were left speechless. They could understand why the Templars would think so. After all, they themselves were also in doubt regarding this situation. The knights from the Order of Huginn had never once regretted joining the Order of Huginn, but they couldn’t help but be suspicious of Ras Raud in such a confusing situation.

“Show your true colors! You dirty servants of the devil…”

The Templar couldn’t finish his words. With a weak crushing sound, Dilmond smashed the Templar’s head with his hammer. The Templar’s blood splashed all the way to the cheeks of the knights of the Order of Huginn, and Dilmond kicked the body of the headless Templar with his foot.

“Let’s get going,” Dilmond said.

The knights of the Order of Huginn silently followed Dilmond without a word. Dilmond could read the suspicions within the knights’ silent gazes. Dilmond too had many questions in his head. Was Ras really the servant of the devil? Was he really a part of the force that went against His Majesty? Was the reason he led the Order of Huginn to turn all these innocent people into becoming servants of death?

“...I know what you are all thinking,” Dilmond spoke in a low voice. “I think your suspicions are fair and reasonable. It would be a lie to say that your doubts are completely unfounded.”

“Sir Dilmond.”

“But always remember one thing—remember the reason you joined the Order of Huginn.”

All the Huginn knights nodded at Dilmond’s words. These knights were the ones who joined the Order of Huginn after they faced unreasonable incidents caused by the Imperial Church. Their reasons varied. Some joined because their family was massacred by the Church while some joined because the Church took away all their fortune and some more joined because of unjust torture and discrimination.

The Order of Huginn had never been ashamed in that regard until now.

Dilmond felt the resolve returning in the footsteps of the knights. Although Dilmond had comforted the knights, he also had a dismal look on his face. Judging from the reaction of the Templars, it seemed to be difficult to ask for their cooperation.

‘Unless I’m able to find Anya as soon as possible…’

『Dilmond.』

Dilmond’s head suddenly jerked upon hearing that voice. The knights wore flustered faces at Dilmond suddenly staring at the opposite side of the darkness.

“Is everything okay, sir Dilmond?”

“Didn’t you guys hear a voice calling my name just now?”

The knights looked confused as if they didn’t understand what Dilmond was talking about, and some of them even seemed rather frightened.

Upon realizing that he was the only person who had heard the voice, Dilmond decided to head in the direction the voice had come from.

At the same time, the knights looked eager to stop him.

“Please wait, sir Dilmond. Perhaps you heard an unholy whisper, and there is a trap of some sort that…”

“Annabelle,” Dilmond suddenly said.

After some time, Dilmond found Anya shivering in a shallow pit. Dilmond hastily approached Anya and checked her condition. Anya’s dilated pupils were shaking non-stop, but she didn’t seem to be hurt.

“Annabelle! Come to your senses!”

“Too many, many, too many, many dead are…the god of death is…”

Dilmond was able to figure out what was wrong with Anya. As she had been trained as a necromancer, she was unable to handle the sudden shock from such a close encounter with the god of death. Unlike commoners who could only see the darkness and corpses in front of their eyes, Anya felt the resurrection as well as the movement of the dead, and even felt Nigrato’s power scattered throughout the city with all her body.

“Thousands, tens of thousands… No, there’s no end. The dead are rising at the command of the master of death,” Anya muttered.

“The numbers don’t matter. Since when did we count numbers when we fought? Wake up!”

Dilmond slapped Anya’s cheeks. The knights behind him were startled to see a palm as big as a hammer slap Anya’s cheek.

Anya’s cheek swelled red. Anya trembled as she was beaten out of her stupor, then soon spat out blood.

“...If you had some faith in me, a good flick would have been enough to wake me up, sir Dilmond. I can feel the depth of your distrust in me from your hand,” Anya said jokingly.

“Thank goodness you’re back! I won’t say anything even if you stab me with your sword the next time I’m in a similar state, so let’s move on for now.”

Anya raised her body while complaining that her teeth seemed to be shaken after Dilmond’s slap. However, it was difficult for her to stand up properly with her shaky legs.

“Is Nigrato’s existence making it difficult for you to even move?”

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“No. It seems like I got a concussion from your slap. Please help me stand up.”

Dilmond began to walk with Anya on his back, and Anya didn’t bother to refuse.

“Let me know if you sense anything or know which direction to go. It’s so dark that I can’t really tell which way to go.”

“Well, where are we going?” Anya asked out of curiosity at Dilmond’s words.

“Anywhere out of this hell, obviously. I had once wanted to fight for the Order of Huginn even in the afterlife, but this is not what I wanted.”

“Out of this hell?”

“Is there any problem with that?”

“Well… We do have a few problems. First of all, we were one of the groups of people that were closest to the center of Nigrato’s power when sir Ras died. Second, the escape routes out of here are surrounded by 17,382 undead. Third, even if there were no obstacles, Nigrato would descend even before we could get out of here. And lastly, the sudden wind blowing from hell caused by Nigrato preparing to descend is upgrading many of the common undead into high-ranked undead.”

Dilmond realized what Anya was implying. He simply had to put it into words.

“It’s hopeless.”

“Yes, it’s hopeless.”

Dilmond gave up on escaping at once. However, he wasn’t the type to sit down and cry like a baby just because he was in a hopeless situation.

“I mean, had we ever been in a hopeful situation? We are a part of the knight order that has been fighting against the empire for almost fifty years with less than fifty knights. It would be ridiculous to give up now,” Dilmond said as he turned his head.

“We can run, but if we decide to fight, we must win.”

The Order of Huginn advanced cheerfully.

***

Tess was born and raised in Hiveden his whole life. It was hard to find a Hiveden native like him. After all people with unknown backgrounds would often enter Hiveden as if they were carried by the wind, and left just as quickly. He didn’t know his parents, but he imagined them to be one of the unknown people carried into Hiveden by the wind like many others.

Tess grew up alongside many other orphans, and didn’t have any fantasies about his parents due to that reason; he only believed in his old dagger that he had carved on his own a long time ago.

Even when the Templars had stormed into Hiveden, Tess merely thought of them as passing wind, just like the countless other people who visited Hiveden. Although Tess witnessed those who he knew being slaughtered and killed in an instant, he didn’t doubt that this too would pass—a Hiveden native like himself was bound to stay and continue making his living in Hiveden.

However, when the Laus Mountain Scout he had already killed got up again and then stabbed his stomach with a sword, he realized that it was him who had been carried in the wind.

Tess, who came back to life, was delighted by the fact that the old master of the old world was returning. Tess vomited blood, and searched for a sacrificial offering for his new master.

Sheela was a servant of the Order of the White Crow. She had been serving the Templars while she was trained. To be precise, she was an ordinary soldier. However, she was beheading a Templar with her sword when she was supposed to be serving the Templars. Her face was covered with blood and tears.

In fact, the Templar had already died a while ago due to the undead who had made a sudden appearance biting off his neck. The Templar panted as he bled, and died in less than ten seconds. Sheela repeatedly told herself that a Templar would never die due to such an insignificant injury, but what was happening in front of her eyes was true more than ever.

The Templar’s body had risen again shortly after his death. Sheela realized that it was too late as she looked at the pitch-black eyes of the approaching Templar. She had no choice but to cut off the Templar’s head to protect her neck from being bitten off. When she finally cut off the Templar’s head, Sheela sighed in relief.

At that moment, a knight of the dead struck her on the neck.

The knight of the dead went by the name ‘Carl’. However, a long time had passed since he remembered who he was. The Order of Huginn praised the knights of the dead and called them their seniors with respect, but Carl’s ego had worn away and had disappeared a long time ago.

When he felt the will of the master he had been serving, he followed the will. If not, he went out searching for his master’s enemies—these were the only thoughts he had.

‘Carl’ cut down another enemy. As the blood sprayed on him, he recalled one knight he had let go without cutting. The knight had a familiar face that remained in his faint memories that had slowly weathered and disappeared. He had walked past the knight because he had the memory of the knight serving the same master as himself once. However, he felt as if he made a mistake for some reason.

Just then, something approached ‘Carl’ from beyond the darkness. It was a familiar face—it was the hammer-wielding knight, who Carl hadn’t cut previously. Thinking that it was better late than never, ‘Carl’ approached the knight to cut him down this time.

As ‘Carl’ approached, the enemies raised their swords. ‘Carl’ instantly split the nearest enemy in half. When screams and shouts broke out, the hammer-wielding knight charged at him. It was a fierce-looking blow, but the knight’s strength was too weak.

When ‘Carl’ was about to cut the knight with ease, an unknown will stopped Carl from doing so.

A woman was exerting her willpower on him. However, it wasn’t enough to control him. Compared to the infinite power that ‘Carl’ had been granted, her willpower was nothing but a trivial obstacle like a spiderweb.

‘Carl’ raised his sword and tried to finish off the hammer-wielding knight when—

Crack!

—something pierced through his head.

The fire blazed from the short sword stabbed into his head, and ‘Carl’s skull exploded and scattered everywhere. The flames on the scattered pieces of the skull burned down, eating the rest of ‘Carl’s body.

The one who smashed ‘Carl’ stepped on his remaining body and crushed it.

“I see that you’re still alive and well.”

“Juan!”

Juan had returned.