CH 125

Crash!

Shattered pieces of ice were suddenly scattered high up into the air with a loud roar. The sudden shock wave caused everyone watching the duel to be thrown backward, scattering all over the place.

In the middle of the chaos, Nienna noticed that her hand had suddenly been frozen and then shattered, joining the other ice pieces in the air. Red drops of blood fell on the ice, as Nienna fell on her backside.

The knights from the Order of Fenrir quickly approached Nienna and began to take care of her hand as well as all her other wounds.

Meanwhile, Juan was slowly pulling back Umbra into his body while looking tired and exhausted.

Then, Nienna opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but was hesitant. Then she soon spoke in a quiet voice.

“What you just did… that was…”

“Yes. It’s exactly what you were just about to do.”

Nienna bit her lips. She had attempted to perform the fifth stage of the Baltic Swords, but was helplessly stopped by Juan. The fifth stage of the Baltic Sword allowed one to distort time and space—it created a world that was close to death, where the flesh burned, the heart stopped, and the opponent was suffocated just by moving. Even Nienna had barely reached the fifth stage and found it very difficult to perform.

“Haha,” Nienna burst into laughter. “I did make a mistake, but… I have to admit that there’s only one person who can perform the fifth stage of the Baltic Sword so calmly.”

Nienna neatly gathered her legs and placed her remaining hand on the ground.

Slowly touching the ground with her forehead, Nienna worshiped the emperor who had returned to the empire.

“I give you my greetings, Your Majesty. And…”

Nienna raised her head back up and smiled brightly.

“...I missed you, dad.”

***

After the mess in the garden, Nienna visited Sina and apologized several times. However, Sina didn’t even know why Nienna was apologizing to her.

While silently watching the duel from the sidelines, Sina felt like she could gradually see Nienna and Juan’s movements at some point. It was hard for her to spot every detailed movement, but at least their movements felt like human movements to her. She even had the urge to jump in and join the duel to fight them, all so she could get just a little more immersed—what she felt at that time was a sense of triumph.

At that very moment, everyone was suddenly thrown backward with a tremendous roar, and Juan was standing in front of her eyes, while Nienna had lost one of her hands and collapsed to the ground.

Everyone was wondering just what had happened in that one moment.

“You’ve reached the fourth stage of the Baltic Sword,” Juan said.

“What?” Sina asked.

“Congratulations. This is just the beginning and you still have a long way to go, but I’ve never seen anyone grow at such a fast rate as you since Nienna,” Juan lightly tapped Sina’s shoulder and passed by.

Sina was dazed by the words ‘stage four’. Although the stages of the Baltic Sword were not an officially used standard, even among the captains of the knight orders, only a few had reached stage four.

‘But now I’ve reached stage four out of nowhere?’

“Come to the north anytime if you are interested in war, Sina. The Order of Fenrir always welcomes talented individuals like you,” Nienna said to Sina with a smile as she followed Juan up the stairs.

Only Sina remained at that spot with a bewildered face.

***

Hela took Nienna and Juan to her office, saying that she had something to talk about now that Juan’s identification had become clear.

“Your Majesty.”

Hela carefully worshiped Juan as soon as they arrived at the office. Hela could no longer deny the fact that Juan was the emperor when Nienna, the emperor’s own daughter, had confirmed Juan’s identity.

In fact, Hela had been made aware of the clues that Juan was the emperor by Horhell. While she was able to make assumptions that Juan was either the emperor’s hidden child or Gerard Gain who was hiding his identity, it was difficult for Hela to believe that Juan was the emperor himself.

It was only natural to be cautious when making such a judgment. She knew that the emperor’s reappearance in the empire wouldn’t mean the return of the peaceful era of the past like everyone expected—that was especially true for Hela herself, who was related to Gerard Gain.

Hela carefully raised her head while wondering what Juan would do now that his identity had been confirmed. Hela had no excuse even if Juan decided to behead her.

But Juan was smiling, completely unlike Hela’s expectation.

“Hela. It feels so awkward for you to suddenly act that way. Just treat me the way you did before.”

“But, Your Majesty… how could I dare to…”

“To be honest with you, personally, I just hate being treated as the emperor. It even feels like an insult to be called the emperor, considering the current situation of the empire,” Juan said while sighing.

Upon hearing Juan’s words, Nienna, who was seated in a relaxed manner with her feet propped up against the desk, asked in a relaxed manner.

“Come to think of it, I have a question that I wanted to ask. Why did you come back? I mean, there are a lot of reasons for you to come back and there are no reasons for you to not come back. But when I heard that dad was… dead without any sign of resurrection, I thought that you had simply committed suicide.”

Hela made a shocked and curious expression upon hearing the word ‘suicide.’

Meanwhile, Nienna raised her severed hand and continued speaking as if she was adding an explanation.

“All those who were granted the essence of the emperor, including myself, have such a strong vitality that recovering lost body parts can easily be achieved. If we can recover that fast, the emperor himself must be able to recover even faster, wouldn’t you think? I had never thought that dad would ever die. So the only thing that crossed my mind when I heard the news of dad’s death was that you committed suicide by borrowing someone else’s hands.”

“Gerard had an unusual sword with him. The moment I was stabbed by it, I could feel that regeneration of wounds would be useless to keep me alive,” Juan shrugged.

“An unusual sword? Wait… By any chance, did it have a black blade? Like a strange weapon with straight branches stretching in all directions.”

Juan nodded at Nienna’s description.

“Yes. Have you ever seen it?”

“Oh my goodness. So Gerard had Elkiehl with him?”

Juan had heard of Elkiehl before. He recalled the elf Celine, who was working for the Thornbush Priest Organization. She briefly mentioned it during their encounter in Durgal when she was talking about the crown.

“Is that what it’s called? Elkiehl, huh. Do you know what it is exactly?” Juan asked.

“There are quite a few theories. I haven’t seen it more than a few times either. It is said to be the Crack itself when they take root all over the world and start to encroach upon reality, or the bone that grows in the spine of a nine-headed dragon, or the branch of a huge tree that grows by engulfing all the energy of the world… While there are many theories, none of them has been confirmed to be true. But besides the fact that it's sinister and evil, there is one other thing I am sure of.”

“And what is that?”

“It disregards any shell and only digs into one’s essence.”

Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

“Elaborate.”

“No matter how strong you are or how strong your protective shield is, Elkiehl can penetrate the essence of its target. Does that make sense to you, dad? Basically, if Elkiehl aimed for your life, it will take your life. Would it make more sense to you if I said that it was a sword that can destroy whatever its target is with just one slash or stab?” Nienna explained.

“...I’ve heard of all sorts of terrible curses, but I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

‘And Gerard has that, huh.’

Juan was convinced that the sword the stranger he met back in Hiveden had was Elkiehl. But the stranger had not only bandaged the sword, but also tried his best not to stab anything with it, even by mistake. Juan had no idea what the stranger’s purpose was.

Upon seeing Juan who seemed a little discouraged, Nienna nimbly added.

“Actually, it’s not necessarily evil. People just say that it’s evil because it’s only been used for evil purposes. Elkiehl is also a tool that can be used to remove evil spirits and curses. No matter how strong the curse is, Elkiehl can easily get rid of it with just one slash or stab. What if Gerard stabbed you because you were under a serious curse that you weren’t aware of?”

“Then he wouldn’t have had to stab me from behind.”

“Hm… well, that’s true. Anyway, it might have felt a bit ominous because it’s a weapon that belongs to the Crack. I’m sure I would have broken either Gerard or Elkiehl if I had seen either of them first—or maybe even both… Well, that's disregarding whether or not I am capable of those feats.”

Nienna’s words were firm. To Nienna, who had devoted her entire life to waging a war against the Crack, Elkiehl was a weapon that shouldn’t exist. And the same was true of Gerard, who had used such a weapon.

“It would make sense for you to die if Gerard had stabbed you with Elkiehl. Then, I’ll have to change my question… How did you come back? Anyone who gets stabbed with Elkiehl is guaranteed to die.”

“I don’t know about that either. I remember my soul wandering infinitely through time. There were neither any thoughts nor any worries. At one point, I woke up somewhere on the Great Plains of the south in the body of a child who looked to be only about eight years old.”

“Eight years old? I kind of want to see how you looked when you were eight years old, dad.”

“...Anyway. I had thought about committing suicide for a moment, just like you said earlier. But it was unbearable for me to see the current state of the empire. All the vices and absurdities I had forbidden were being promoted under my name. I devoted my entire life to killing gods, but everyone was now worshiping me as a god and did all kinds of nasty things under my name. The gods I killed must be laughing at me in the afterlife.”

“Hmm.”

Nienna made an amused expression.

“Then you… have come back to straighten the current state of the empire?”

“To put it in a good way, I guess so. To be exact, I’m going to do exactly what I did in my past life, but by making a few changes and twisting the directions.”

“So you are going to start a war… Then you’ll have to be prepared to fight Barth Baltic, dad.”

Juan looked at Nienna silently.

“I had thought that I might have to fight against you too. But as it turns out I didn’t have to. Do you think I’ll end up fighting Barth Baltic?”

“Yes,” Nienna answered without hesitation.

“The empire began to worship me ever since Barth Baltic came to power. Don’t you think it would be enough to convince him by simply revealing my identity? The person who he worshiped has appeared,” Juan said.

“Then you’ll have to fight him even more.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s simple. Actually, the reason is similar to mine. I hate the Crack so much, but I love the majestic scenery created by them. I like the purple fog as well as the traces of the mysterious civilization—I especially like their bones, bodies, and the smell of their rotting flesh. But I don’t like it when they are alive,” Nienna raised her finger. “The same is true of Barth Baltic. He doesn’t mind worshiping a dead god. But a living god—that’s unacceptable.”

***

Juan looked at Nienna in silence for a moment. Nienna’s expression was firm and unwavering, as if she was certain about her thoughts.

“Barth Baltic considers me to be a god?” Juan asked.

“I don’t know if that has anything to do with what Gerard did. But apart from that, it’s clear that Barth respected you and wanted to kill you at the same time. You should know—after all, you were his teacher. He could never reach your level even if he trained for the rest of his life. It’s obvious that he wouldn’t be too happy to see you come back alive.”

Juan sighed deeply. It was unknown as to whether or not Barth Baltic was involved in Juan’s assassination yet, but it was quite shocking to hear about his feelings toward Juan; he had no idea that Barth considered him a rival.

On the other hand, Nienna looked puzzled upon seeing Juan’s surprised expression.

“Wait. You really didn’t know, dad? I thought you must have already known. After all, I could tell from just one look at Barth’s eyes. I thought you two had a thrilling relationship.”

“...I think that’s because you and Barth are quite similar in a way. I bet you’re the only one who can understand him and his endless hatred.”

Hornsluine, Barth Balric’s race, was destroyed by gods. So, it was only natural for Barth Baltic to hate gods. But Juan had no idea that Barth had considered Juan himself to be a god. If it was true that Barth considered Juan to be a god, then the reason why Nienna was concerned about Barth colliding with Juan made sense.

“Then I will have no choice but to kill Barth Baltic.”

“Dad,” Nienna leaned towards Juan with a serious face. “Actually, I have something to say about that. To a certain extent, I already knew that you were my dad even before the duel. The reason why I requested a duel was to check your strength. Let me get straight to the point—you’re no match for Barth Baltic. Don’t get me wrong… You’re already quite good… But not good enough to win against Barth Baltic.”

Juan had already speculated such a fact. Barth Baltic was strong enough for Juan to leave his back to him.

But Juan was still surprised upon hearing Nienna saying that Barth was stronger than Juan.

“That might be true for now, but I thought I would catch up to him pretty soon. Is Barth Baltic really that strong?”

“That’s not what’s important, dad. You shouldn’t be ‘fighting’ Barth Baltic.”

Nienna said firmly.

“Dad, you didn’t come back to fight him. You came back to punish them. So you shouldn’t be ‘fighting’ Barth Baltic… You have to overwhelm him. You should give the impression that people can not even dare to fight you. If you end up fighting him, you need to step on him like he’s an ant and crush him. That’s who the emperor is—that’s who my dad is.”