“Idiot! Don’t call her a princess! She’s a monster born of a traitorous bi*ch conceived by a traitorous pig!”
“I-I’m sorry!”
“… What’s the situation!”
“Riding on a palanquin carried by skeletons, slowly making its way down South Main Street towards the castle gates! The liches and ghouls are setting up a perimeter!”
The “Rose Princess of Hellrage”……… The air in the operations control room suddenly tensed up at the mention of her name.
She was the enemy general, the source of this situation, and the enemy’s greatest strength.
She had only been messing around with them up to this point, but now she was on board in full force.
It was a sign of a devastating final attack, and at the same time, an opportunity to seize a narrow victory by defeating her.
＊ ＊ ＊
The military banner of the red rose flew, and the dead soldiers walked with the high sound of their boots.
The army of undead was advancing down the main street leading from the South Gate. In the center of it was René’s palanquin.
Although the number of soldiers participating in this march was small, since the main effort was directed at conquering the city walls, the visual impact was still tremendous. Even so, the visual impact of the march was immense, as non-humans marched in broad daylight down the main street of the royal capital under the banner of their own army.
It was a demonstration, or rather a provocation.
“I guess the second Commander has been captured. I honestly didn’t expect him to make it this far.”
René called out to Alastair, who was riding his zombie horse beside the palanquin.
He had the call marks with him for communication. They were going to regroup in the city.
“Yes. It will be much easier from now on.”
Alastair nodded in response.
Bertil had been captured, which René had observed with emotional detection. Lawrence might have still thought that it was not the Revenants who had attacked the South Gate, but the Second Order members who had betrayed them.
This could have been the outcome if it had not been discovered that it was Revenants, but it was just a matter of ‘we’ll be lucky if it works out that well’.
“Now we don’t have to be hesitant anymore, do we?”
“Yes. Let’s send the troops to the residential area.”
“And please don’t cause any unnecessary deaths.”
Of course, it was not out of humanitarian considerations that she did not want any unnecessary deaths.
It was a foreshadowing to gain an advantage in the event of any future attempts to subvert the situation. It was also to leave a psychological margin of tolerance for René in case she had no choice but to kill civilians. When the atrocity gauge was maxed out, the blade would be dulled.
The escape route to the west remained unblocked. Citizens with light footwork had begun evacuating, but not only that, mercenaries and adventurers were beginning to flee.
René had them watch to see if any knights of the First Order, Hilbert, or “those who will be needed in the future” would sneak out, and left the rest to escape.
At the moment, it seemed that the information that the south gate had been breached had not yet reached the city, but the citizens would probably try to escape through the west gate first, without listening to the Knights’ guidance or orders to stop their escape. The information about the escape from the West Gate had been spread by the adventurers who had been turned into Revenants.
This was mainly to create confusion in the city and gain an advantage in the urban warfare. However, this proved to be a bit of a waste as the knights retreated all the way to the walls at once.
Well, it was a good thing that the adventurers and mercenaries hired by the knights seemed to have been defeated.
The battle was at its climax.
It would have been easy for René to just destroy the royal capital, but such a rough fight would not kill Lawrence and would probably cause Hilbert to run away.
That was why René pushed him into a corner and strangled him with a cotton ball, just as they had done with her hands and feet.
was picking his hands and feet.
The only thing left to do was to make sure to kill Lawrence and finish off Hilbert. To do so, she still needed to come up with a plan.
“Hmm, I was hoping that the Second Order would be able to chip away at the First Order, but it looks like that’s going to be tough now. I’m glad we were able to pull them apart.”
“Understood. Now it seems to me that the Second Order should destroy itself and be neutralized.”
“I guess so. Let’s get it over with. It looks like they are going to do an undead check at the temple, and it would be a hassle if the… inspected knights join up with the First.”
The knights of the Second Order were not the ones René wanted to kill that aggressively.
However, if the purpose was “to make excellent undead soldiers from excellent knights to increase the strength of the army” and “to destroy the possibility of enemies under Lawrence’s command”, it would not have hurt to kill them.
René gave orders to the undead with a thought. Instead of signaling, she snapped her fingers.
“There is no such thing as a Revenant. Everyone is exaggerating.”
“What’s with that … line?”
“I felt I had to say something.”
“Is it as I feared, sir?”
The Revenants that René created in the Second Order were not the only ones who had attacked the gate tower.
＊ ＊ ＊
The knights ran through the city.
Running away from the undead that surged in like an avalanche. Running from fear.
A small force of ten men. They are all from the Second Order.
They heard that the undead soldiers would not touch the Second Order.
That was certainly true, but it didn’t seem safe forever. There were no eccentric freaks who wanted to test their mettle by remaining in the middle of the onrushing avalanche of undead.
Contact with Commander Bertil was lost. Instead, the First Knight Commander ordered them to retreat and also ordered them to undergo an inspection at the Great Temple.
They said that the Second Order had been infiltrated by Revenants. The priests of the temple were to identify them and exterminate them. Then retrieve the knights and priests being treated in the temple and retreat to the royal castle…
Easier said than done. Find and exterminate the undead that entered the inner city, when you don’t even know if you can run away from the oncoming undead?And then flee to the castle with the wounded and non-combatants? It was absurd. It could not possibly go well. They might have come up with a better plan if they were the Commander Bertil, but no matter how many times they called out to him, the call mark did not get through. Either the undead have killed him, or…
Everyone was in an extreme state, as if their nerves were being filed down.
Or like the belly of a bloated balloon rat that will burst if you poke it with a single needle…
“…Wait!”
The captain called out to his men. They noticed footsteps approaching from the side.
The sound of clanking armor, metallic footsteps.
It was not an army of undead, but another unit of the Second Order that appeared around the corner. The other side looked surprised for a moment, then relieved.
“You are all right, guys!”
“You too!”
“Well, somehow.”
The more people there were, the more reassuring it was.
It was a moment when the tension that had been building up seemed to suddenly loosen.
But.
“T-that guy…! He’s an undead!”
The magician, who had joined them, pointed at one of the knights and shouted.
“…Eh?”
The knight who was pointed out seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.
But the magician’s fear was unusual.
“Oh, hey, wait a minute! No bad jokes…”
“Don’t come any closer! You can’t fool my eyes! Watch out, everybody!”
With that, the magician readied his staff and immediately began chanting.
“You, well then…!”
The knight suspected of being a Revenant drew his sword and slashed at the magician.
But then two other knights intervened.
“I won’t let you do it!”
Swords clashed, swords clanged, and only two swords were joined in the fight.
Two against one was an overwhelming disadvantage.
“Gyaaaaa!!”
The knight who received the accusation fell down as he was stabbed in the neck through a gap in his armor.
“H-hey … are you sure this is the only Revenant …?”
Another knight said.
Everyone who heard this became furious and began to warn the others with their hands on their swords.
Somewhere nearby, from another location, a voice said, “A Revenant is here!”
＊ ＊ ＊
“There’s a mutual struggle going on within the Second Order…”
“Huh?”
Hearing the report in a hushed voice, Lawrence could not believe his ears. It was a situation that went beyond what he had expected.
The person on the other end of the line was one of the captains of the Second Order.
“They are killing each other in search of the Revenants! I don’t know if they are really targeting only the Revenants. They are all killing each other… Or perhaps it is possible that the real Revenants are making false accusations…”
“Then why don’t you just go to the Temple and have the priests check them out!”
“There is chaos spreading around the temple! The 2nd Knights were moving in platoons and headed for the temple, so the 2nd Knights were gathering around! You can’t reach the temple without going through the brawl! If we keep going like this…… “There they are! It’s the Revenants!” …Gyahhh!”
Screams, then the voice ceased.
Lawrence crushed the call mark in frustration.
“The Second Order, if the Commander … is like that, then so are the members of the Order. You idiots …!”
After saying this, Lawrence reconsidered.
He should consider that these dim-witted people were not a force to be reckoned with from the start. Rather than having a hole in their defense at the last minute, they were lucky to be gone before the final battle.
But the numbers disadvantage was finally decisive. In contrast, the number of undead would be increasing.
There was nothing else to do but to hope for the last resort.
“My king, I will strike her down myself!”
Sponsored Content
