Translator: AkazaTL
Pr/Ed: Sol IX
***
Chapter 55 : While You Were Sleeping
'This much should be suitable.'
I, having approached a position where the panoramic view of the fortress could be seen at a glance, chanted a spell in a low voice.
Then, after a mont, my black eyes were dyed red.
The internal structure of the fortress ca into clear view inside the red eyes.
The magic I used just now was 'Hide and seek'. Originally a detection magic used when exploring dungeons or labyrinths.
To look inside with this magic, the caster's magic ability had to be one stage higher than the concealnt magic protecting the dungeon.
The number of mana rings currently ford by was seven.
Judging by the fact that the inside of the fortress was clearly visible, the concealnt magic cast on Garand Fortress appeared to be 6th Circle or lower.
'To think the concealnt magic cast on a fortress accommodating high-ranking criminals is 6th Circle or lower…….'
I, reminded anew of Zodiac's poor national power, snorted once and chanted a spell once again.
Pyorong pyorong.
Green light emitted around .
Soon, a cluster of light that changed its shape into butterflies about the size of a child's palm in the empty air circled around .
Pyorong.
When I pointed at the fortress and signaled with my eyes, the butterflies of light pierced through the wall and hid their figures inside the fortress.
Tick tock.
I took out a pocket watch, set the tir for 10 minutes later, leaned against a nearby tree, and closed my eyes.
Ding.
After a while, a sound announcing that 10 minutes had passed was heard,
And I moved my steps toward the fortress.
***
"What kind of behavior is this, you bastards! Won't you get up imdiately!"
Polk, the person in charge responsible for the Garand Fortress main gate guard, shrieked with a face full of anger.
However, regardless of the resounding shout, the group of guards who should have been maintaining strict military discipline and guarding the entrance.
"Pyuu……."
Had fallen into deep sleep, breathing softly, and could not even stand up.
"These damn bastards, this is why commoner bastards are!"
Polk, feeling deep anger at this slothful appearance, grabbed the spear shaft hung next to him upside down.
"Let's see if you can stay like that even after being beaten until your skin bursts open."
If Polk were a competent, no, a commander with normal situational judgnt, he would not have dismissed the soldiers who were supposed to be on guard duty falling asleep en masse as simple 'lax military discipline'.
But Polk lacked the average sensitivity to notice the on this bizarre situation implied.
"Ptoo!"
Polk, busy applying strength while spitting on both hands, also failed to discover the translucent butterfly flapping its wings above the soldiers' heads.
"As expected, a club massage is the dicine for commoner bastards like bugs."
In fact, from Polk's perspective, this was reason enough for the soldiers to be beaten with clubs.
Unlike the ordinary soldiers who were fast asleep, he was at least a low-ranking noble scumbag belonging to the tail end of a collateral branch of the Alphonse Family.
Thanks to that authority, Polk had never received any particular punishnt even though he had done 'beatings without reason' countless tis until now.
Whoosh!
And right at the mont when the spear shaft held upside down in Polk's hand reached the full swing angle,
"Is Redin Reichart underground?"
A subdued voice was heard by his ear.
At the voice that was too composed, Polk almost mistook this voice for an ally's.
"Redin? ……Wha-what are you talking about?"
Startled, Polk threw away the spear shaft he was holding and hurriedly drew his sword.
Before he knew it, a slender young man with pitch-black hair stood in front of him.
"Who are you bastard?"
Recalling that Redin being confined here was a secret matter, Polk put on a composed expression with effort.
However…….
"Right, you an he is underground."
The intruder, who found out everything he wanted through the brief silence that ca when he heard the na Redin, and Polk's gaze that inadvertently headed toward the underground, approached Polk with long strides.
"You know what kind of person Redin Reichart is, right?"
"I will ask again. You, you bastard are……."
Pretending to ask for his identity, Polk brought the guard whistle to his mouth.
Slash!
However, the intruder's sword was a little faster.
The guard whistle Polk tried to hold in his mouth was cut in half just like that along with his upper body.
Spurt!
I, withdrawing my gaze from Polk who fell while spraying blood like a fountain between his ribs, turned my gaze to the sleep butterfly that had beco almost transparent now.
Snore, phew!
Watching the guards sleeping without even dreaming of what had happened, I nodded.
With this, all ordinary soldiers among the fortress defense troops who did not know how to handle aura would have fallen asleep.
In the first place, this sleep butterfly had no effect on knights who knew how to handle the aura of 2nd Star or higher.
'So it's down below.'
My eyes were dyed red once again.
Trickle.
As if seeing off, the hot rain flowing from Polk's chest wet the floor.
***
"Block him! The opponent is only one person!"
A middle-aged knight with a thin impression, wearing a helt that looked quite expensive, continuously shouted and intimidated the knights lined up in front.
"If we give up the prisoner here, you bastards will all be stripped of your titles and beco dog-like commoner scumbags living miserable lives! If you hate that, block the bastard with all your dying strength!"
Soldiers who had fallen into a deep sleep and showed no signs of waking up.
Excluding them, the knights stationed at this fortress were all one hundred.
The middle-aged knight, who received the sad news that 30 of them had already been sacrificed, continuously scread and intimidated his subordinates.
Gulp!
But perhaps that encouragent had an effect; a determined spirit hovered on the faces of the knights watching the entrance before long.
'Fuck, becoming a commoner, I hate that more than dying!'
'For a noble body like to beco a pig-like commoner, does that make sense?!'
The threat that they would be stripped of their titles was quite effective.
To live the rest of their lives as commoners whom they had exploited and molested as they pleased until now?
To them, it was truly a more terrible thing than death.
"As you guys also know, the entrance to co here is only that one over there, and the hallway here is narrow. We are all fifty. If we just don't panic, the odds of winning are sufficient. The odds are sufficient!"
While shouting, the middle-aged knight fixed his gaze on the entrance and put strength into the sword held in his hand.
Woong!
Blade aura, very faint, ford on the sword.
Right at that mont when the middle-aged knight finished all preparations to swing his sword toward the intruder who would reveal himself beyond the entrance after a while.
Rumble-
"What!"
Making a dull sound, the ceiling above the middle-aged knight's head collapsed just like that.
The middle-aged knight threw his body while letting out a shrill scream, and barely managed to avoid being crushed by the debris of the ceiling.
However.
"Gurgle……."
The middle-aged knight, who failed to avoid the subsequent attack, trembled all over his body while spewing blood-mixed foam with a wind hole pierced in his neck.
Thud.
I, who had been hiding behind the collapsing debris, revealed myself from the ceiling.
Like changing a scarecrow in a harvested wheat field, I threw the corpse of the middle-aged knight whose neck was pierced just like that.
"Uh, uh!!"
The knights, who lost their leader in an instant and gave up their backs, tried to form a formation again with urgent movents, but.
I jumped into the crowd a little faster.
"Kuaak!"
"Aahh! My arm!"
"S-save !"
Over the ordinary soldiers sleeping filling one side of the hallway, the bodies of knights beca lumps of flesh and began to scatter.
Not a shred of hesitation could be found in my swordplay, like a jackal jumping into a flock of sheep.
'Those who sleep are spared, and those who are awake are all killed.'
In the first place, the reason I used the sleep butterfly was not to reduce the number of troops, but to distinguish those who could be spared from those who should not be.
The sleep butterfly not working ant they were knights handling aura, and this ant they were Alphonse's stooges.
My sword toward those standing on two feet was fierce beyond asure.
Stab!
"Ugh!"
Of course, 'those pretending to sleep' also could not avoid the sword.
When Axion stuck into the back of the knight who was pretending to sleep after falling down, the knight trembled all over his body like a frog and breathed his last.
Bang!
And before the last wriggling emitted by the fallen knight ended, my steps were heading toward the next floor.
***
"I-I'll talk! Since I'll tell everything……."
The 5th Star knight 'Jordan Alphonse', responsible for Garand Fortress, flailed his two arms with his eyes wide open.
Neither the adjutant lying down with his head severed nor the censure that would co later was visible to the current Jordan.
All that was visible in Jordan's eyes, full of burst capillaries, was my right arm choking his own neck.
"I said I'll talk. I'll talk…… Pleeease this hand…… Keouk……."
Jordan, making an expression like a rat trapped in a mousetrap, grabbed my right arm and hung on.
But I searched Jordan's waist with an expression that didn't care about Jordan's circumstances.
Soon, a smile ford on my face as I found what I wanted at the entrance of Jordan's waist armor.
Clatter.
My gaze, lifting a thick bunch of keys, t Jordan's gaze.
I, staring straight at his desperate gasping like a carp pulled out of water, spoke.
"Don't need it."
30 people while finding the entrance heading underground from the 1st floor.
50 people while passing through the 1st underground floor.
And 19 people on the 2nd underground floor where the prison confining Redin was located.
It took less than an hour for 99 out of the hundred knights guarding the fortress to beco guests of no return.
"S-save !"
Drip.
At the scream Jordan let out, the drops of blood flowing from the 19 heads already cut off fluctuated violently.
In fact, the knights guarding the 2nd underground floor were practically the hidden card of Garand Fortress.
20 knights who had all mastered the realm of 4th Star or higher.
They were very confident because they firmly believed that a 7th Star knight would not co here.
It was understandable since there was only one person who achieved the realm of 7th Star or higher in Zodiac, and they were keeping that one person confined.
"Keuk!"
"S-save ! If you save , my dad will give you an unimaginable amount of money…… Hick!"
But it didn't take that long for their confidence to be proven as recklessness.
My sword had reached the beginning stage of the 7th Star realm through the fight with Kelbes.
Before the overwhelming blade aura emitted by a 7th Star knight, the last fortress guard unit crumbled vainly like that.
Crack.
"Plea…… se……."
The last remaining knight heard the sound of his neck bone cracking and begged for his life with desperate determination.
Slash!
Roll.
The sound of a ripe waterlon rolling on the floor echoed in the underground prison.
Click.
I, having finished the rite of passage to et Redin by matching the rolling heads to 20, found the key from the pile of keys and opened the prison door.
'Bad taste.'
Mockery burst out from my mouth upon checking the panoramic view of the prison.
Truly ridiculously, the prison Redin was confined in perfectly resembled Rishu's room in the Reichart territory.
Vulgar satisfaction that she confined Redin in her own room?
I, frowning at Rishu's bizarre taste, swung the sword and cut the curtains draped over the bed.
'It's been a long ti. Family Head.'
Only then did I face Redin lying on the bed as if dead.
I checked Redin's physical condition by feeling his pulse.
'He must have taken more than 3 bottles of Araxia, but to be in this physical condition. It seems Redin's achievent as an aura user was beyond my thoughts.'
In fact, I had inwardly guessed that Redin's lifespan as a knight would have already ended.
The effect of Araxia was that potent.
However, Redin's resistance was stronger than thought.
This allowed to guess that his achievent as a knight was beyond what I had guessed.
'You an you fell into such a base trap possessing this level of skill and ended up in this state?'
Of course, even so, my evaluation of Redin did not change.
'Well, fine. Thanks to that, I beca free of burden in many ways.'
If I rescued Redin like this, he would be able to open his eyes after about 3 months passed.
If about 2 more years passed, he could also recover his martial prowess as a knight.
It was clear that this would be a great joy to the vassals of Reichart.
However.
'That shouldn't happen.'
I shook my head once and took out a blue dicine bottle from inside the armor.
The na of the solution contained in the dicine bottle was 'Naraxia'.
Naraxia had an excellent effect as a kind of neutralizer that alleviated the effects of Araxia, but,
'If he drinks this, the Family Head opening his eyes will be 6 months later at the very earliest.'
There was a fatal side effect that led the drinker into a swamp of deep, deep sleep.
This was exactly the reason why Naraxia could not be easily used as an antidote for Araxia despite its powerful effect.
Because there were not just one or two people who fell into a deep sleep they never woke up from even after taking a small amount.
Trickle-
Even knowing that fact well, I poured Naraxia into Redin's mouth without hesitation.
'Since you are a person who endured a lethal dose of Araxia, I believe you will endure this amount without a problem, Father.'
A cold smile that the vassals of Reichart would never know ford on my face.
Of course, saying that I believed in Redin's resistance was sincerity without a single lie.
However.
'Whether you recover your power as a knight or not is not an important issue.'
The most important thing to the current was that Redin should not open his eyes for at least 6 months.
'Because your thod and my thod are very different. If you tell to do this or that in the middle, I beco too annoyed.'
I, having confird that all the prepared Naraxia flowed in, placed my hand on Redin's solar plexus and injected mana.
Then, Naraxia stimulated by mana perated rapidly into Redin's body, and soon Redin's complexion, which had been pale, improved much more.
'Good.'
I, confirming Redin's even breathing, imdiately slung him over my shoulder.
And ca out of the fortress with steps neither fast nor slow.
"Please rest well, Father. By the ti you open your eyes again, everything will be over."
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