Chapter 271
Side Story 4
“We must move before night falls.”
“Yes…?”
Leaving the scattered corpses of iron cavalrymen behind, the man spoke. At his words, the girl Yufi swallowed softly.
“Judging by their armaments, they’re certainly no ordinary force. Even if they’re just a single scout unit, since contact with their main force has been lost, a pursuit squad will surely follow to assess the situation.”
“That can’t be…”
He muttered weakly, looking around. Only now could he truly grasp the reality of the shattered village, the bodies of people, and the daily life destroyed overnight.
“Mom, Dad…”
His father and mother, and his younger siblings, who had been laughing without a care just moments ago. Standing before corpses so mangled they were unrecognizable, Yupi began to sob.
Emperor or revolution.
It was her fault. Her foolish answer drove her family and others to their deaths.
“……When you are ready, please tell me.”
Watching Yufi sob, the man spoke with a flat expression.
“It’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Miss Yupi.”
At Yufi’s muttered words, as if blaming herself, the man quietly shook his head.
“It is their fault.”
His voice was utterly devoid of emotion, cold as ice.
The journey of a man and a girl with nowhere to go began.
“Revolution!”
“Down with the Ancien Régime!”
Before night fell, the man and the girl safely descended the mountain and reached the city. Despite the darkness of night settling in, the city was engulfed in the fervor of a festival that felt like broad daylight.
Revolution. At that word, the girl bit her lip tightly.
The man in the robe silently made his way through the crowd and said,
“You must be hungry. Let’s find something to eat first.”
“……Yes, sir.”
The girl nodded weakly. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. She couldn’t even fathom why this man, who had always been an outsider in the village, was with her in the first place.
Above all, how could she forget the man’s actions against those who called themselves the ‘revolutionary army’? Even if Yupi was a girl who knew little of the world, she sensed instinctively that the power he displayed was something beyond mere magic.
The primordial darkness and the chill of the apocalypse. Yupi silently glanced at the man’s profile. The deep, dark shadow cast beneath his robe—she simply looked, without a word.
Immediately after, the place the man took Yupi to was not a shabby tavern. For Yupi, who knew nothing of luxury beyond hard, stale black bread or sausages made from pig intestines, it was beyond anything she could have ever imagined.
“Wh-where is this…?”
“Eat whatever you desire to your heart’s content.”
The most luxurious restaurant in the city. As the restaurant staff suspiciously scanned the man’s appearance, he soon pulled something from his sleeve. It was a gold coin. At the sight of the golden luster, something he’d never seen before, Yupi gasped.
“Ah, my apologies for not recognizing you, sir!”
“And please provide linen garments for this girl to wear.”
The man offered another gold coin as he spoke, and the restaurant staff hurriedly bowed their heads and smiled.
I remember the day that strangest of men came to Yupi’s village. The world isn’t so easily fooled as to let an unknown stranger in without question. Yet the villagers welcomed him without hesitation, and he, in turn, did what he could for the village.
Her mother and father referred to him as a ‘monster hunter’. Yupi heard this and accepted it.
But the meal laid out before Yupi was far beyond what a mere monster hunter could afford.
Soft pre-meal bread kneaded from pure white flour, a clear and clean meat soup, followed by a lavish spread of smoked dishes unfolded like a dream before the young girl.
“I… I can’t believe such expensive things…”
“Don’t worry, please eat your fill.”
Immediately after, Yufi understood that the meal laid out before her was the man’s way of showing consideration.
“Thank you, sir…”
In that humble country village, even getting a meal on time was difficult. Above all, after seeing such a horrifying sight, her appetite simply wouldn’t return. Still, Yupi hesitated before taking the bread in her hand. It was fluffy and soft like cotton. It wasn’t the rock-hard black bread she usually knew.
She carefully tore off a piece and put it in her mouth. Surprisingly, it was sweet. It was the first time Yupi realized bread could be sweet.
“It’s delicious.”
“I’m glad.”
“It really is… delicious.”
After savoring a piece of bread as if savoring a morsel, Yupi murmured. Soon, she grabbed a spoon, scooped up some soup, and tasted it. Her parched throat warmed.
Then, just as he was about to put another piece of bread in his mouth, he began to sob, overcome by the sorrow welling up deep within him.
That night, she had a nightmare.
But perhaps because of the plush bed, something Yupi rarely experienced, the nightmare was fleeting. After it ended, a pleasant dream followed.
It was a dream of eating bread as sweet as honey and soft as cotton, and clear, delicate soup. After enjoying the meal, she could lie down freely on a thick, fluffy bedding as soft as the clouds in the sky.
Living like a princess, so joyful and happy, Yupi could laugh freely.
And when Yupi finally awoke from her dream, an inescapable nightmare unfolded before her.
“……!”
Still, Yupi’s bed was a thick, fluffy woolen mattress like a cloud. The man said it was like a room in a mansion used by nobles or high-ranking clergy when they stayed in the city. Yupi couldn’t fathom how he had managed to secure such a room.
She recalled the evening meal. It was like a dream. Soft wheat bread and soup. Yet Yupi couldn’t find a single thing to be happy about.
The darkness of the early dawn settled beyond the glass window. Burying his head in the soft woolen blanket, Yupi wept silently.
“Major Garcia and all the Iron Brigade under his command have been killed in action.”
At that moment, in the mountain village where Yupi was born and raised.
A group of soldiers were stationed there. They, too, claimed to be the standard-bearers of the revolution.
“Was it an attack by the Emperor’s men?”
“Ah, we cannot say yet! But judging by the state of the bodies, it seems beyond doubt they fell victim to a mage.”
“……”
It was strange. Regardless of just how powerful an individual could annihilate this entire unit, the fact that their magical armor lay intact was even more peculiar.
The Ironclad Division’s magic armor is the revolutionary army’s new weapon, akin to spoils of war that must absolutely be seized after defeating the Ironclad Division. Yet those who defeated this unit departed without showing the slightest interest in the armor.
“Colonel! Footprints found here!”
Fortunately, the clue to pursue the enemies of the revolution was hidden in a place not too difficult to find.
The next day at noon, the scorching heat engulfing the entire city finally roused Yupi from sleep.
“You’re awake.”
“……!”
And when she awoke, a voice sounded without a trace of movement. It was a man’s voice coming from outside the room.
“Yes, yes!”
Upi hurriedly rose and left the room, where a man in a robe stood as usual. The shadow still draped beneath the robe was very dark.
“You’ve changed your clothes.”
The man said. It was the pure white linen dress he had bought separately last night, handing over gold coins. Feeling like she was wearing an ill-fitting heavenly dress, Yupi’s cheeks flushed slightly.
“It’s… strange, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t feel strange.”
The man shook his head and turned away. Just then, a deafening roar echoed from far away.
“We need to move quickly.”
The man spoke quietly.
By the time they waited until the sun was high in the sky without waking Yupi, it was already far too late.
“They are the standard-bearers of the revolution!”
“The Iron Brigade! The Iron Brigade is marching!”
After renting a room in the mansion for the night and stepping out, crowds filled the city streets as if to overflow them.
“Revolution! Revolution!”
That phrase, which sounded like a nightmare to Yupi, echoed endlessly, and the man, too, stood silently among the crowd, watching the scene unfold.
“……!”
The cavalrymen, known as the Iron Guard, were crossing the city in the same armor they had worn when they raided Yupi’s village long ago.
And before them lay a man, stripped naked and crawling on the ground like a dog. Yupi had no way of knowing, but that man was the city’s mayor.
“Please, sirs! I truly know nothing!”
At the end of the march, the mayor, crawling on the ground like a dog, opened his mouth in a plea.
“I never intended to hinder the revolution! I absolutely am not hiding any enemies of the revolution!”
“Our proud Iron Brigade warriors were ambushed. Who could have wiped out that level of force? Where could they have vanished overnight?”
“I, I truly…”
To the Revolutionary Army, it was an utterly reasonable conjecture.
“Dogs of the old regime! Kill them!”
“Kill the enemies of the revolution! Kill them!”
From all around, the crowd spat, hurled fruit, and raised their voices. Yupi gasped in horror at the sight, and the man whispered to her without a word.
“Don’t be shaken.”
“But… still…”
“Is there anything you desire?”
Just then, the man asked back.
“Yes, yes?”
“Assuming Miss Yupi possesses such power, is there anything you wish to accomplish using it?”
At those words, Yupi swallowed hard. As if promising to grant her deepest desire, the man’s voice carried a powerful force, like the whisper of a demon.
“……”
Yupi was just a young girl. To her, what the revolutionaries did, what they desired, their cause—none of it mattered.
“Those people…”
Those who called themselves revolutionaries had snatched away everything Yupi had in a single day. Faced with that fact, there was only one emotion Yupi could feel.
“I cannot forgive them.”
“…….”
Yupi whispered, and the man remained silent. Yupi hadn’t spoken those words expecting anything else either.
It should have been.
“Then let’s do it that way.”
At that very moment, the man stepped onto the road that had parted like Moses’ miracle. Without a moment’s hesitation.
“……!”
There was a man.
A man standing alone, blocking the path of the Iron Guard, the revolutionary warriors marching through the city.
“Huh.”
The moment he saw this, Colonel Bourbon, commanding the Iron Brigade, smiled with interest. A momentary silence fell. After the silence, in the air thick with tension, as if it might explode at any moment, the colonel spoke.
“State your identity.”
“The enemy of the revolution.”
The man answered.
