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“Go back,” Ulabis snapped through his gritted teeth.
“Why?” Lilith asked.
Ulabis shrugged. “I have no reason to help you.”
“I haven’t told you why I need your help.” Lilith tilted her head.
“If you’re really the Silver-Eyed Ghost Sword, then the reason is obvious.”
“Let’s hear it. I want to know what you think.” Lilith crossed her arms, indicating she had no intention of backing off.
“…Ever since the Continental War broke out, you’ve been trying to contact the Kingdom Alliance’s executives, am I correct?”
“You’re right.” Lilith nodded.
“Of course, you’ve failed to meet any of them.”
“I chose to not meet them because it was too risky. I needed an assurance since I can’t trust anyone right now. Above all, I’m from the Hubalt Empire, the country that the Kingdom Alliance people hate the most.”
“An assurance…” Ulabis shot her an uncharacteristic smirk, making Lilith’s beautiful face crumple up a bit. "Well, sure, a subordinate who assisted you for dozens of years can stab your back and still smile in this world.”
“There are people who can still be trusted in this world, like you." Lilith pointed at Ulabis.
Ulabis was silent for a moment.
“You know nothing about me.”
“You tried to sacrifice your life to save your colleagues,” Lilith fervently insisted. “It was clear that you were outnumbered, but you never left.”
“…I don’t know why I did that.” Ulabis bit his lower lip.
“Are you going to continue to sit on your hands?” Lilith looked into Ulabis’s eyes. "The Kingdom Alliance needs your help now more than ever.”
“…If they knew that, then they wouldn’t have remained idle over the past three years,” Ulabis growled.
“You resent them,” Lilith observed.
“No.” Ulabis shook his head. “I resent myself for being powerless back then.”
“Then…”
“That doesn’t mean I like the Alliance. I am only human.” Ulabis shrugged.
Since she and Ulabis were in the same boat, Lilith understood what Ulabis was feeling.
"…Fine, let’s stop being sentimental and talk rationally and productively.”
“It’s meaningless.” Ulabis coldly turned away. He took a step forward, but he was forced to come to a halt.
“You must have kept your ears open; you heard about Joshua Sanders, right?”
Ulabis stayed quiet.
“If you’re reluctant to help the Kingdom Alliance, help him instead,” Lilith beseeched.
This was Lilith’s real request. She didn’t trust the Kingdom Alliance completely yet. The Alliance had been sitting on their hands when three kingdoms had crumbled at the beginning of the war.
“I’ll also be frank: are you trying to get revenge?” Ulabis asked.
Lilith shook her head without hesitation. “No, I’m not."
“Then do you love him?” Ulabis tilted his head.
“I don’t deserve him.” Lilith shrugged.
Ulabis’s eyes narrowed. “…Are you serious?”
“I would have seduced him already if I could.” Lilith smiled.
Ulabis was dumbstruck. He’d asked the question as a joke to get rid of Lilith—he hadn’t expected her to react like that.
“This is for the greater good,” Lilith said.
“The greater good?”
“Let’s end the Continental War,” Lilith declared. “Furthermore, reclaim the independence of the Kingdom of Thran. Thran’s citizens are all depending on you.”
Ulabis’s eyes widened.
“You aren’t seriously going to sit on your hands, are you? I’m talking to the Knight of the Red Flame, right?” Lilith grinned.
Ulabis just listened.
“Joshua made the impossible possible. Over the last decades, no one was able to stop the army of the Great Swallow Empire, but Joshua defeated them alone. Who could have seen it coming?”
“Hmm…” Ulabis quietly groaned. He had also heard the rumor: the Swallow Empire’s army had invaded Avalon but was now retreating. If that child had truly done it alone…
“Isn’t it a good opportunity for you too?” Lilith asked.
“…No, my decision remains the same.” Ulabis shook his head.
“What?”
“Go back.”
Ulabis turned his back on them.
Lilith scowled; she didn’t know and couldn’t understand why Ulabis would be this stubborn. Since Grand Duke Lucifer had lost, the Hubalt Empire was the only country left, meaning that if they defeated Hubalt, then they could finally finish the Continental War. But…
“Waaahhh!” a child screamed.
Lilith flinched.
“Mister!” the child shouted to Ulabis.
“Stop moving!” a man growled at the child.
Lilith turned and saw the slum children who she had met just a moment ago—but they weren’t the only ones in this place. A group of men wearing silver armor showed up.
“The arena is open right now. We don’t have much time, so get moving,” a man who seemed to be the knights’ leader instructed.
“Yes, sir!”
The knights—over twenty of them—saluted and then quickly got to work. What they did exactly was utterly shocking.
“Waaahhh!”
“I don’t want to go! Please let me go!”
“We’re already busy as hell, so why would these beggar bastards…”
A child dropped to the ground in an attempt to prevent the knights from taking him away. A knight violently kicked the child, making the child fly through the air.
“…Cough!”
The child was the boy who had so delightedly accepted the wooden sword that Ulabis had made. He looked ten years old at most.
Lilith’s jaw dropped. “What are they doing…?”
"Those crazy bastards!” Christian clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
“Don’t interfere,” Ulabis quickly said.
Christian froze as he was about to jump in.
"Why…?”
“If you interfere now, things will just get uglier,” Ulabis insisted.
“How can things get uglier than they are now…!” Christian angrily growled but he held in his anger. He turned. "Lilith…?”
“…Wait a moment.” Lilith bit her lower lip.
“But…”
Lillith quietly shook her head.
“...Shit.” Christian tousled his hair.
In the end, he could do nothing but watch all the children getting dragged away. The slum became empty and turned silent after the storm passed.
Lilith could vaguely tell why Ulabis stopped Christian.
“Is it because of the children in this place?” Lilith finally said.
The silence was all the answer she needed. She silently turned to look at the center of the slum. Dozens of children hid from Lilith’s gaze. Her eyes narrowed.
“…If they’re really the reason, then it’s more difficult for me to understand you. Hubalt’s soldiers always take their revenge and make their targets suffer more than they did, so you’re worried that you might put the children that are hiding right now in danger if you take action. But at this rate, those children are also—”
“Most children in this place became war orphans because of me,” Ulabis interrupted.
Christian and Lilith blinked in surprise at the same time.
"What do you mean…?”
“Over the past three years, I’ve stopped the Empire’s countless invasions. Naturally, the damage I’ve caused in the process has been immeasurable,” Ulabis bitterly said. “The Hubalt Empire’s soldiers trampled over the soldiers of Thran, which also affected Thran’s civilians. The Empire’s soldiers took adults as slaves, and the children were literally abandoned here where there was nothing but dust.”
Such was the harsh reality of the war.
“Then what would the abandoned children do?” Ulabis asked.
“Perhaps—”
"Most of them voluntarily followed the Empire’s people,” Ulabis bitterly concluded. “The children were too young, so they weren’t able to think rationally, much less make a good judgment. The only thing they could do was follow their parents as they were dragged away.”
“Gosh…”
“The children who could walk were actually the fortunate ones. Babies and children who weren’t able to move freely all starved to death because all their family members had been killed.” Ulabis—no, the living witness of the war pierced Lilith’s and Christian’s hearts. "…In the end, all the war prisoners were sent here, Reinhardt. The Empire was planning to gather war funds by selling the prisoners to various countries as slaves. Reinhardt was the perfect place for this since this city is located in the center of the continent.”
“The children naturally ended up in this place like this…” Ulabis trailed off and then met the eyes of Lilith and Christian.“...and that was how this slum was made. …Fortunately, the Empire’s people only noticed the existence of this slum a couple of days ago.”
Christian finally broke his silence.
“You still haven’t told us why,” he said.
Ulabis gave him a confused look.
“You knew what was going to happen to them, so why did you just let the children get dragged away?” Christian’s eyes burned with anger. “As a person who respected you in the past, I really hope you don’t bullshit me and say you sacrificed them for the greater good.”
Ulabis didn’t answer.
“You have an obligation to take care of Thran’s citizens even if there is only one left.”
“I think the same.” Lilith also took a step forward and looked into Ulabis’s eyes. "Although Thran doesn’t exist on maps anymore, the people living here are the citizens of the Kingdom of Thran, and no one can say otherwise. You’re the only one who can save the citizens who are suffering due to the Empire’s greed.”
Ulabis was silent for a long moment.
“…It’s impossible unless we destroy the arena itself and completely drive out the Empire,” he finally said.
Lilith sensed something in Ulabis’s voice.
“You were already preparing to do it,” she realized. Her eyes sparkled.
“Just a little bit more. A little bit more…” Ulabis didn’t deny it, just clenched his fists.
There was one thing they didn’t know about, however… Someone else was already knocking down the arena for good.
* * *
The inside of the colosseum had been filled with thunderous shouts of delight, but now it was filled with suffocating silence.
“Arggh…”
The knights’ groans occasionally broke this odd silence. The Hubalt Empire’s proud knights had been knocked down to the ground in a flash. The spectators blankly looked at the mysterious man who had done this disbelievingly.
“Your Majesty,” Kingaitu whispered. He’d quickly taken care of Sector A and hurried back to Joshua’s side. “Is it okay to wreak havoc like this?”
“I should wreak havoc to make them move,” Joshua replied.
Kingaitu came to a realization: he should have expected this from his king.
Joshua glanced at him and then crouched down to examine the tied-up Wilhelm Knights. Their eyes had popped wide open when they heard Kingaitu’s voice.
"Co-commander?” they nervously asked.
“It’s His Majesty,” Kingaitu replied.
"…Pardon?” The Wilhelm Knights gaped dumbly at him.
Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.
To help them to understand the situation, Joshua lifted his mask slightly.
All of them stopped moving as if they’d been petrified. Some opened their eyes unbelievably wide in shock, and the other knights turned teary as if they were going to burst into tears any second just like Kingaitu had.
“Your Ma-Ma-Majesty…”
“Let’s talk later.” Joshua ended the long-awaited union and gave them an order for the first time in three years: "We’re going to take out all these arrogant citizens of the Empire in three minutes.”