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Learo, the trade city connecting the West to the South and the Capital, had many rumors due to the high number of people.
The rumor about the battle between the Order of Huginn and the Cainheryar on the southern boulevard of Torra was quickly spread throughout the city. This was because not only were there quite a lot of witnesses, but also due to the aftermath.
This certainly wasn't some good news for the trade city of Learo, since this meant that trade was about to be cut off once again as soon as it just barely started again.
“I heard that there was a huge fuss in Torra once again.”
One of Learo’s guards glared at the peddler who casually made the unpleasant comment.
The peddler quickly closed his mouth as if he had realized that he made a mistake, but such a reaction was understandable. Life was the most thing owned by anyone, and it was only natural for the merchants to avoid crossing paths with those who have experienced the battlefield.
“Yes, there was. But it was quickly handled by the Order of Huginn, so there’s nothing to worry about,” the guard answered in a cold tone.
“I heard that the Captain of the Order of Huginn died.”
“It’s Duke Henna who died, not the Captain of the Order of Huginn. Also, she died in a place that has nothing to do with Learo. So, stop talking nonsense and get lost already.”
The peddler shrugged upon seeing the Guard’s defensive attitude and hurried his steps. He was originally headed for Torra, but he figured that it would be a good idea to go to Hiveden instead when considering the current atmosphere of the empire.
It was said that Hiveden, the southeastern area of the empire, had been actively revived lately despite the fact that it had been in a state of turmoil for a while. In particular, Hiveden was more attractive to the merchants, since it had little to do with the Capital and the West which were currently in a conflict.
The peddler who was passing through the gates came to a stop when he saw a large carriage parked behind the wall. A well-made carriage that any merchant or peddler would covet was entirely covered in dust.
“Hey, what is that? Why is there an abandoned carriage over here?”
The guard looked at the peddler with an irritated expression on his face, but he sighed when he saw the direction the peddler was pointing toward; the guard also had a lot to say about the abandoned carriage.
“That’s a carriage owned by the merchants of the Ilde family. They said they will be back soon to retrieve it, but I haven’t heard from them for a long time. Perhaps they were stabbed to death somewhere. I don’t know what to do with it either. I mean, I can’t just throw it away.”
The peddler nodded as he was convinced by the guard’s answer.
The Ilde family’s merchants were the most powerful merchants in the empire and at the same time were also the biggest supporters of the Church. Despite their influence and power, even the Ilde family could not possibly have remained intact at a time when the emperor had returned and the Church had been abolished, with the Pope being kicked out.
The commoners couldn’t understand why the returning emperor had destroyed the Church that had been faithfully worshiping him, but they had assumed that His Majesty must have a reasonable cause.
Anyway, it was common for the merchants to run away when their trade group collapsed. Upon coming to the conclusion that the merchant in charge of the abandoned carriage must have fled, the peddler began to greed for the carriage.
“Hey, if getting rid of that carriage is such a pain in the ass for you, why don’t you leave it to me?”
The guard seemed to be contemplating the peddler’s offer. Putting hands on the Ilde family’s items was normally impossible, but not only did the Ilde family seem to be done for good, but the abandoned carriage was also quite difficult to deal with.
When the guard seemed to be hesitant, the peddler handed a few pieces of silver to the guard. It wasn’t much, but the guard gladly beckoned at the carriage as he thought that he just got lucky.
“All right. But take it away as quietly as possible. Do you have a horse with you? I don’t think you’ll be able to pull that carriage away with the donkey you just brought. Oh, by the way—that carriage smells quite terrible. Maybe they were carrying some food ingredients or something? But make sure to take care of all of them outside the city.”
“Of course! Haha!”
The peddler joyfully hurried to the carriage.
‘Thank goodness. There was no way I could have made enough to buy a carriage like that by selling the donkey I brought. I can’t believe that such a small amount of money was enough for me to get such a high-quality carriage.’
The peddler was happy when he thought that he would be going back to his hometown with his hands full of precious items for his wife and his children. Some rotten smell was not a problem for him at all.
The peddler covered his nose with his hand as he approached the carriage that was reeking of a rotten smell, but he couldn’t help smiling.
The cloth covering the carriage was colored red and rotten water was dripping to the ground.
‘There can’t possibly be some corpse inside, right?’
The peddler decided to look at the condition of the carriage first, just in case there actually happened to be a corpse inside.
The inside of the carriage was revealed to the bright sunlight when the peddler lifted the cloth covering the carriage.
What he saw wasn’t a corpse, but it was something much more grotesque than that.
The peddler made a strange expression.
“What the…”
However, his words didn’t last long.
***
Juan suddenly lifted his head due to a sudden feeling of sharp pain pricking at his head from all directions. He wrapped his hands around his head even before realizing it due to the sudden explosive headache.
The moment Juan was about to collapse to the floor due to the intense pain, Sina hurriedly caught him.
“Juan? Juan! What’s going on? Juan!”
After attending Dilmond and Hela’s funeral, Juan and Sina were headed toward the conference room to announce the operation plan of the first day of preparations to advance directly toward the West—Juan was fully prepared to lead the army.
However, at that moment, Juan suddenly realized that a great disaster that was not even comparable to Dismas was approaching him.
Juan suppressed his fluctuating heart and began to run in a hurry.
Seeing this, Sina rushed to follow him.
When Juan stormed into the conference room, people who had been waiting for him inside there immediately stood up from their seats.
“Your Majesty?” Haild asked, perplexed.
Juan tightly clenched his teeth and pointed toward the ceiling.
“Check the fire beacon.”
‘Fire beacon?’
Everyone was perplexed by Juan’s unexpected words. However, Nienna and Horhell, the only ones who had lived through the mythological era, made a stiff expression.
Nienna immediately ran outside to head toward the highest spot of the Imperial Palace.
The others hastily followed her, but Juan called for Heretia and Pavan to stay.
“Heretia, messengers will start to arrive soon and they will continue to come for at least a few days straight. You’ll have to plan for support and distribution, since Hela isn’t with us anymore. I’ll give you the authority of the Regent so that you can pick out the necessary administrators. Also, don’t even think about refusing.”
Heretia couldn’t even think about rejecting Juan’s order upon seeing his firm attitude.
Then, Juan immediately turned toward Pavan and gave another set of orders.
“Pavan, set up plans for evacuation and acceptance of refugees that will be coming from the big cities. Order the Imperial Army not to confront the enemy until reinforcements arrive from the Capital; tell them to do their best to rescue and accommodate the refugees. It will only be a matter of time before they all die if they are isolated in this type of weather.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Then, should we start with Torra?” Pavan asked in a calm manner.
Juan shook his head.
“No, Torra is still pretty safe. Perhaps it’s due to the early eradication of Iolin, but that’s beside the point. However, other places don’t seem to be as lucky as Torra.”
After leaving these orders, Juan hurried to the tower where Nienna and the rest of the party had gone earlier.
Nienna and the party were looking at the horizon, but they had yet to find anything.
Haild turned toward Nienna.
“Aunt Nienna, what does the fire beacon signify?” Haild asked.
“...Before His Majesty appeared, the appearance of gods and monsters approaching the empire was reported by using fire beacons. They had the purpose of catching everyone’s eyes and giving them a warning. Those who raised the beacon risked their lives and were the first to die after reporting the appearance of a god or a monster.”
Haild’s expression turned pale upon listening to Nienna’s explanation.
“Did you just say gods? But… hasn’t it been a long time since the gods disappeared? Is there anyone in the empire right now who knows about the tradition of the fire beacons? Even I found out what it means just now.”
“People always find a way out from referring to their history when they’re in a crisis. I’m sure there are some people who still remember,” Nienna answered.
At that moment, Nienna quietly pointed to one side of the horizon. A thin pillar of smoke was rising from the southwest.
“A city in the southwest… maybe it’s Learo. Do you think it’s a fire coming up from there by any chance?” Haild murmured, confused.
“There’s smoke coming up!” Horhell shouted.
Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.
Haild wondered if Horhell had belatedly discovered the smoke only now, but the direction he was pointing toward was completely opposite to that of Learo.
And right then, reports of smoke rising started coming from various directions simultaneously.
Haild’s face turned absolutely pale at the sight of the fire beacons rising from just about everywhere in the empire—it looked as if the entire empire was burning.
“Juan, this is just…” Sina muttered while looking like she might faint at any time.
“Morguld, Arleyahir, Laboros, Ogustro, Aldeil, Rahab…” Juan quietly murmured the names of various gods.
Everyone’s faces turned pale when the names that they had only seen in the short excerpts about the mythological era were mentioned. While there were bad gods and generous gods, just hearing their names in this situation gave them the chills.
Juan tightly bit his lips after muttering all those names and then turned his back. He glared toward the West, the only direction from which there were no fire beacons rising. The western region seemed to be provoking Juan, as if it was telling him to come for it and at the same time laughing at him as it knew that Juan wouldn’t be able to leave the burning empire unattended.
“Juan?”
Sina called out Juan, but soon closed her mouth when she saw the look on his face—he was neither angry nor frightened. He just looked like he was barely holding back his nausea.
***
Juan was able to detect a total of forteen Cainheryars.
However, the number of Cainheryars which were reported ever since then through various means such as the fire beacons, messenger pigeons and crows, messengers, and the use of Grace were sixty-seven.
“The only Cainheryars I detected were those belonging to gods. I can’t feel the rest of the weaker Cainheryars that don’t have any divinity,” Juan clearly explained the reason for him detecting fewer Cainheryars.
A big wave could be seen when stones were thrown into a pond, but nothing could be seen if small grains of sand were thrown into the same lake.
Nevertheless, Juan figured the rest of the Cainheryars should still be those of legendary monsters, considering that Dismas went out of his way to revive them as Cainheryars.
“The monsters may be strong beings, but they are not something humans are incapable of competing with. They will eventually die if you stab and chop them, since they don’t have any divinity.”
“But fourteen of them are still gods who have been resurrected, aren’t they?” Horhell asked, concerned.
Juan also had a lot of worries about the sudden appearance of the gods’ Cainheryars. He would have postponed the punishment of Dismas and headed toward the Cainheryar if there was only one of them. But the various Cainheryas were spread throughout the entire empire made it hard for him to decide where he should go. After all, even the weakest among the Cainheryars of gods had enough power to destroy a whole city with ease.
“This is frustrating because we don’t know how much control Dismas has over the Cainheryars. If he still has even the smallest amount of self control, he wouldn’t allow Cainheryars that are so strong to go out of his control. So, I don’t think they will be as strong as they used to be in the mythological era,” Juan said.
“Do you think the Imperial Army has a chance of dealing with them? There are still some divine weapons in the warehouse,” Pavan asked.
“All those weapons will do is temporarily bind their hands and feet. The strength of the Imperial Army alone won’t be enough to deal with them,” Juan answered as he shook his head.
Then Haild stood up and started to speak.
“Why don’t we try attacking the West with all our might? Ultimately, if Dismas is the one who controls the Cainheryars, we might be able to incapacitate all the Cainheryars just by getting rid of Dismas.”
“And we let the various Cainheryars run wild in the meantime?”
“...We can bear that much damage for the sake of a greater purpose, can’t we?”
“I won’t sit back and watch as the resurrected gods are running wild in my empire. By the time we are done, only ruins will be left in the empire even if all of us flock together and try to subdue Dismas. I do not wish to become the ruler of ruins,” Juan said with his eyes closed.
Everyone waited in silence for Juan’s decision. Whatever he decided, they had no choice but to tolerate bloodshed.
Time was running out and Juan’s agonizing silence didn’t last long.
The emperor’s mouth slowly opened.