Chapter 144: 078. Hashashins and King Rahamma -2 (Part Two)
**
“...Allen, did something happen to you while I wasn’t around?”
White Olfolse stood on the hill and stared at the unfolding spectacle in the distance. He ended up mouthing, “Ah, shoot,” when the hashashins wearing black uniforms and metal masks suddenly showed up and started chasing after the carriage.
He hadn’t expected the enemies to resort to deploying their hidden weapons in the city. Fortunately enough, his worries didn’t last for long.
The dust cloud continued to kick up and the Aslan soldiers screamed out. The mummies were summoned once more and interfered with the pursuit of the hashashins.
A short while ago, even a war elephant made its entrance. When that happened, White couldn’t help but think that no matter how good Allen was, he still wouldn’t be able to stop that giant creature.
White believed that once the carriage came to a stop, the hashashins would focus their attacks and eventually capture the Imperial Princes alive.
But, what on earth was going on here?
A humongous Golem suddenly leapt out of nowhere, easily lifted up the war elephant, and tossed it away like a doll!
The buildings all around it collapsed as the giant stone statue rampaged around and fired beams from its eye.
“...I’ve frequently run into various bits of news about the Imperial Family during my travels, but uh, I don’t think I’ve ever heard about something like this before.”
Allen might be an Imperial Family member, but he was still a boy not even seventeen years of age. Not only that, he should’ve been a ‘Priest’ by default, yet there he was, busy commanding the undead through Necromancy to destroy a city and relentlessly advancing towards his destination.
What a bizarre spectacle this was.
“Maybe the period of eleven years was indeed a lot longer than I thought.”
Even if that was true, how could a pure, kind-hearted boy transform into a genocidal weapon of mass destruction in little over a decade like this?
White tutted away in unhappiness, before turning his head away.
Several swords of divinity had been materialised all around him, while countless corpses belonging to the Aslan soldiers were messily strewn about on the ground.
There were a handful of figures approaching him while stepping over the maimed corpses – five men in total.
Demonic energy gushed out of their bodies, and various weapons were gripped tightly in their hands.
White gasped out in surprise and licked his dried lips. “Wow, this is making me nervous.”
He was now facing off against the kingdom of Aslan’s mighty feudal lords, the ones responsible for halting the rampages of Holy Emperor Kelt Olfolse.
They were now glaring at White while emitting thick bloodlust.
‘It won’t be easy trying to fight five of them off. But hang on...’
White’s eyes suddenly began trembling greatly.
...Because he couldn’t see King Rahamma anywhere.
‘It can’t be!’
White genuinely flinched in shock and hurriedly turned his head.
But by then, the carriage had already left Evelyum’s city limits.
**
(TL: In 1st person POV.)
“Man, out of the frying pan and straight into the fire, is it?”
Why did it feel like saying stuff like that had become a habit of mine lately?
The moment we emerged from the city’s gate, I was rendered utterly speechless by what was waiting for us. The Aslan soldiers were surrounding the gate from pretty much every direction.
How many were here? Three thousand? Maybe four thousand? Whatever the case might have been, it sure was a lot.
To make matters worse, quite a few Necromancers were also included in this army. Heck, they even had other war elephants plus siege weapons at the ready, too.
These folks... it seemed that they were well prepared for all eventualities. Thanks to that, we had no choice but to stop our carriage.
“What should we do now?” I looked behind us while muttering that out.
The hashashins and soldiers poured out from the city to block the gateway. Even the archers were being stationed on top of the city walls.
Hey, dear father? This wasn’t what you told me, you know?! Didn’t you say something about a shabby encirclement or something like that?
But these guys... weren’t they way too perfectly prepared for something supposed to be ‘shabby’?
I scowled deeply and shot a glare at the hashashins behind us. They were most likely at fault for this nonsense. Now that I thought about it, their firing all those signal flares must’ve been to alert the army and have them set up this ambush.
“S-surrender yourselves, now! If you put down your weapons and give yourselves up quietly, we swear to treat you fairly as the Imperial Family members!”
The Aslan soldiers were shouting at us. They seemed to be quite scared, though.
But that was pretty obvious. An undead mounted regiment, a giant stone statue, and a legion of mummies were with us, after all. And they were all emitting divinity, to boot. To them, this should come across as an unfamiliar and fear-inducing power.
A power capable of rocking the very foundation of their religion’s belief system.
So, these creatures should be pure objects of terror to these soldiers.
“W-what are we going to do?! Allen!” Ruppel urgently addressed me. “Are we going to be captured like this? H-how about I talk to them? Well, I’m fairly close to the nobles of Aslan, you see. If we talk to them nicely, maybe we...”
Both Tina and Hans looked lost and nervous as well.
I wondered about what to do here, before suddenly shouting out at the soldiers. “I am Allen Olfolse, the Seventh Imperial Prince of the Theocratic Empire! And as such, I seek treatment befitting my station. I’m willing to bargain. Who is the commanding officer of this division?”
The Aslan soldiers stirred up even more from what I said.
That wasn’t surprising. This kind of situation wasn’t exactly what you’d call ‘conducive towards a healthy negotiation’, after all.
Just from this situation alone, we seemed to be at an overwhelming disadvantage. But because I did call out first, the other side didn’t have much of a choice but to act according to the accepted protocol. Eventually, a dude that looked like the commanding officer stepped out among the cordon of soldiers.
With a deeply nervous expression, he cautiously approached our carriage while being accompanied by several well-armed guards.
He opened his mouth once they got close enough. “W-what is it that you wish to say? Are you finally surrendering? If you willingly give yourselves up, then as the Imperial Family members, you shall be afforded the proper...”
I grinned brightly and cut him off there. “I, Allen Olfolse the Seventh Imperial Prince of the Theocratic Empire, command you. Announce your surrender and disarm yourselves immediately. And then, you shall open up a path for us to leave.”
“Huh?”
The commanding officer stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.
I looked down at him from the carriage. “If you do not comply, I shall slaughter you all.”
I then raised my musket and began breathing into its loading chamber. While doing that, I glanced at the commanding officer and didn’t forget to smile with my eyes.
He was just standing there in stupefaction, unable to say anything for a while. But that didn’t last for long, and his complexion gradually became ashen white.
The soldiers accompanying him as his guards hurriedly pulled out their weapons, but at the same time, the lights burning within the eyes of the undead around us were locked firmly on them.
“What is the meaning of this?! B-but, didn’t you say you wanted to bargain...?!”
I raised my left hand, then began folding my fingers one by one. It was a countdown.
The commanding officer’s jaw fell to the ground. “You insane boy...!”
After finishing breathing into the musket, I aimed the muzzle at the commanding officer. “Four seconds.”
“...!”
“Three.”
“You’re insane!”
The commanding officer turned around and fled from there.
“Two.”
“A-all of you, attack...!”
“One.”
“K-kill them all, now...!”
I pulled the trigger. And the commanding officer’s head blew up into bits.
With that, I got rid of one officer from the enemy camp.
I stared at the rest of the Aslan soldiers. Their expressions showed how scared they were. Heck, they were visibly rooted to their spots, too.
Their fighting spirit had tumbled to rock bottom in an instant.
Yup, as I thought, killing the enemy commanding officer was still the most effective method available in a war-type situation, wasn’t it?
I laughed heartily and extracted the relic with the least severe side effects, Amon’s skull, from the item window.
[Equipment will temporarily be upgraded.]
[The performance of Amon’s skull has been improved.]
[Additionally, the skill ‘Summon bone armour’ has been generated.]
I had already experimented and confirmed it during the lycanthrope hunting incident. Other than the physical strain on my body, I shouldn’t end up incapacitated and unable to continue the battle after using only Amon’s skull. As long as I didn’t resort to summoning the bone armour, I shouldn’t lose my consciousness, either.
Besides, my opponents this time weren’t undead, but living humans.
Humans, who were blessed with emotions.
Even if there were three or four thousand soldiers here, they were now in no state to oppose us after their fighting spirit got so nicely crushed by yours truly.
The number one priority for us now was to break through this encirclement and get out of here.
“What are you all doing?!” Another commanding officer was yelling out so loudly that veins were bulging on his throat. “Kill them all, now!”
The Aslan army made their move.
Soldiers pulled on their bow strings, while their colleagues of both running-on-foot and riding-on-mounts variety rushed towards us.
Loud howls came from the war elephant regiment over yonder, and even the siege weapons got ready for action.
Finally, the hashashins behind us also came running at us as well.
The great army of Aslan was advancing towards us.
“I am the legion.”
I put Amon’s skull on my head, and glared at the Aslan army through the empty eye sockets.
This day would forever be etched in their heads as the day of terror; I guarantee it.
And that’s because...
“And I am Gaia’s inheritor.”
...They were about to experience the wrath of a divine army that they had never seen or heard about before today.
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