The Knight King Who Returned with Gods : Chapter 43
Translators: Nyx and Ririi Rain
Episode 43 The Queen and Her Knights
Her appearance was breathtaking.
Not even the black clothes on her body, her regal
expression, and her robe could hide her 'splendor'.
"Greetings, Sir Knight. May I call you His Majesty
the Lionheart?"
She is a dangerous woman. Even the smile on her face and
the delicate fingers that covered her mouth exude an aura of danger.
An innate predisposition of coquetry, the source of
strife fueled by her mere presence. A harbinger of corruption.
'Beauty.'
At first glance, her purple eyes, reflecting the
moonlight, seem to hold an endless darkness that no light can reach.
A regular man would have drowned in the depths of that
abyss without even realizing it.
"Beatrice Alighieri Spero. I am the queen of this
small kingdom."
"Leon Dragonia Lionheart, ruler of the Lionheart
Kingdom."
Leon respectfully kissed the back of the woman's hand.
Still, he is wary.
'How
did I not notice?'
Is that even possible? Leon was not the type to gloat.
Even if he was weakened compared to his heyday, how could
anyone fool his senses that kept countless assassins and demons at bay?
"Huhu, don't be too wary. I just wanted to say hello
to the benefactor of the kingdom."
"This is not a good time for a proper lady to
visit."
The light of the morning sun was yet past dawn. Rising
early in the morning to train is a great virtue of a knight, but it is not a
virtue of royalty, much less a lady.
"I am under watch."
"Watched?"
Leon looked puzzled by Queen Beatrice's words.
"Surveilling the queen? Who?"
The Queen smiled bitterly and named the ones holding her
in check,
"The Great General and his knights are watching and
confining me."
"The Great General?"
Leon remembered the Great General's loyalty to the Queen,
and he didn't seem the sort of man to commit such disloyalty.
But you never know what's in a man's heart. A loyal
knight might covet a king's wife, or a pious priest might hoard wealth.
"Your Majesty Lionheart, I have a favor to ask of
you."
The Queen's hand grasped Leon's. It was a mere grasp, but
it had a disturbing gesture.
"I will hear and judge."
"I want you to kill the Great General and his
knights, and if you do, I will give you everything in the kingdom."
"......."
Leon did not accept the offer rashly. It was too
suspicious.
As if the Queen was unaware of this, she whispered with a
smile in her eyes,
"I want you to investigate the underground of the
castle. There's something the Great General is hiding there."
It was then. Footsteps were heard in the hallways, and
the castle was filled with noise. It was the sound of armor and military boots.
"Your Majesty Lionheart, I apologize for the
disturbance in the wee hours of the day, but I must open the doors!"
There was no delay. The door was burst open by the Great
General and his knights.
"How impolite of you to invade a royal bedchamber
with your military boots!"
"......I am aware of the rudeness, but the situation
is urgent and we have no choice."
The Great General apologized and strode around the room.
Queen Beatrice, who had stood before Leon only moments before, was nowhere to
be seen.
"Hmm......."
The Great General sensed the aura in the room and
intuited that the Queen was inside. But he did not ask Leon if he had seen her.
"I have seen the Queen."
And so Leon struck head-on into it.
"Is that so?"
"The queen of your country is out for a night walk,
and you do not bother to ask."
"...Because that's the kind of woman she is."
"Ha...!"
How could the knights let the queen go out for a night
stroll on her own? Even Leon had escort knights and royal guards wherever he
goes.
"You left the queen alone in this time when demons
are on the loose?"
"......Demons don't invade at night."
"Nonsense."
Since when do demons separate day and night? There are
hundreds of them hiding in the kingdom right now, disguised as humans.
There was no way a fool like that could be a Great
General.
"It's almost as if you're certain."
"......."
The Great General tried to turn around without answering.
But Leon next words stopped him,
"The Queen says you're confining her."
The Great General and his knights' gazes sharpened at
that.
"...That is none of the concern of an
outsider."
"Sir Byrnes, you'd better come clean about what
you're hiding."
Ricardo Byrnes. The Great General of the Spero Kingdom
turned away as if he didn't need to answer.
Once they were gone, Leon stroked his chin and mouthed
the obvious,
"Suspicious, suspicious."
Both the Queen and the Great General.
There was more to their behavior than just a simple
defense quest against a demon army.
"In any case, I suppose we'll have to investigate
the underground to find out what's truly at play."
But he wasn't up for that now. Leon had to greet the
demon army that had begun to move as dawn came.
* * * *
An army of demons marched.
Advancing forth were the legions of demons of abominable
pleasure, corrupting all that is living and drowning them in ecstasy.
-Crush them. Cut off their heads and let them see their
bodies humiliated!
-Corrupt them! Violate their daughters! Let's have an
orgy in the square!
-Cut up the children and feed them to their parents! It
will be a sight to behold!
A few thousand. No, tens of thousands. This was the
demons' army. The air changed in front of the malignant advance that corrupts
living things in pursuit of primary pleasure.
The air itself tickles and crawls. Enticing the living
through sight, sound, smell, and touch,
"Androzin has said that he will give a hundred
slaves to the first to cross the city walls!"
A naked demon soldier who embraced even pain as pleasure
shouted as he lashed his whip,
*Ctarr*
"Kihihi! Let's corrupt the humans."
"Let's pickle them with pleasure so they can't
think!"
"Corrupt them! Corrupt them! With pleasure──"
At that moment, the demon at the head of the line
stopped. Impatient to tie up the humans with ropes, the ones behind were
complaining, but when they finally saw it, they also flinched.
"What is it, hurry up!"
"You idiot! You're jamming it up in the back──"
The first row halted, so the second row also stopped.
Row three, row four...... All the demons within sight of
the city walls stopped in shock.
-Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa──!!
It was a scream.
Actually, the demons were familiar with screams. The
problem was the origin of the scream.
-Wha, what......
-Uh... that is.......
It was a scream.
An agonized cry.
The despair before death.
A grotesque, chilling scream, unrecognizable from humans.
But the screams were as real as humans.
The entire place freezes.
Those who were more accustomed to screams than anyone
else, those who caused the mortals to cry, stared at their screaming brethren.
At the end of their gaze.
There were the hunters, holding lit torches. They were
burning the tied demons with it.
""?????""
What is that about?
Ha, some kind of torture for demons?
Demons were spirits anyway. They simply contain vessels
of mortal flesh. When they die, they merely return to the Garden of Evil──
"You deceitful creatures who don't recognize
death."
On the city walls, a horseman basked in the glow of the
dawn. His golden sword glistened as if it absorbed the dawn's light.
"You wouldn't recognize it. How can beasts who
pursue only basic desires like worms understand?"
The golden sword decapitated the tied demon. A soldier
grabbed the severed head. Then he flung it.
-Swooosh--- bakbakbak!
The head traveled more than two kilometers and landed in
the midst of the demons.
A black soul leaked out of the head of the decapitated
demon. The soul that should have returned to its original place now that it had
lost its vessel──was being absorbed by the horseman on the city walls.
It didn't take long for the meaning to sink in.
The immortal demons witnessed death.
They stared at the demonic butcher who had performed the
impossible feat.
"Listen, you filthy worms, I, Lionheart, on behalf
of the Gods of Pantheon, will teach all of you demons the significance of a
single life!"
Come, lowly beings.
Your terror is here.
Confusion, fear, despair.
The demons who considered the material world as a
playground trembled in the face of the life lesson taught by the Lionheart
King, the very terror of the demons.
The fear of death spread uncontrollably among the lower
demons and even the mid-level demons.
They were accustomed to destruction, killing, and terror,
but that was only when they were in the position of 'doers'.
Demons were less accustomed to fear, as it was natural
for them to return as spirit beings upon death.
The thought of dying never crossed their minds, so when
they see death, they begin to break down.
The army collapsed.
The immortal, death-defying army disintegrated at the
sight of death.
"You, you fools, where are you running!"
"Stop! Don't run away!"
Seeing their subordinates breaking apart with such
unbelievable ease, the higher level demons tried to stop them.
But there are too few of these mid-level demons to be the
focal point to stop them.
"Damn the corpse grabbers! If only they were
here!"
"Where the hell are those corpse grabbers?!"
They were the mid-level demons that Leon and Yappy had
hunted so thoroughly during the night. Dying without a sound, they were the
middle ranks of the army.
With them dying en masse in the middle of the night,
there would be a shortage of mid-level personnel to manage the lower-level
demons.
"You fools, get back here──"
-Thwack!
The mid-level demon that was about to shout out was
pierced in the torso by a lance that flew out of nowhere. Without even a chance
to scream, the demon was sent crashing down.
The last thing he saw as he fell, pulled by gravity, was
a rider brandishing a holy sword and charging.
"Glory be to the Lionheart!"
In pursuit of the fleeing demons, a one-sided slaughter
began.
Third day at the gate.
Without much effort, the demon butchers began their
slaughter.
* * * *
Over a thousand demons were slain.
The hunters who joined the chase, including Gu Dae-sung
and Kim Jin-soo, were in disbelief that demons could be killed so easily.
"There were even some... who committed
suicide."
"And we cannot even use Holy Law like His Majesty
can......."
The demons' escapades were a spectacle.
Perhaps not understanding the act of fleeing, they turned
crazed and trampled over each other, fleeing in all directions to escape and
survive on their own.
All the hunters did was catch them one by one and then tie
them.
"These demons... Is this their first time seeing His
Majesty? What did they do on the first day?"
"Well... maybe they didn't get the news because of
the large size of the army."
Just then, Leon spoke behind the hunters' backs,
"That's not true."
"Your, Your Majesty!"
The cruel Lionheart King, who had ordered the torture of
the demon to be displayed in plain view this morning, sneered at the demons'
antics.
"All of them are selfish and without unity. They
don't care about the collective, only their own desires. They calculate what
they can gain from what only they know."
"Is that all there is to it?"
"Well, perhaps it's not only that. There are some
things I won't understand through the chaos of the battlefield, like the first
day when I killed the troll."
Gu Dae-sung remembered the demons who had committed
suicide to avoid dying at their hands and realized that capturing them wasn't
for a simple reason.
"This is why you captured the demons alive?"
"That's right. They're the cruelest of all, and yet
they have no tolerance for it. Scum maggots are scum maggots wherever they
go."
Leon added as he stomped on one of the demons the hunters
had captured.
"Capture them well and drag them away. Their screams
will make a good symphony."
The hunters didn't bother to note that Leon was still a
demon hater at the base and wanted to see the demons suffer as much as
possible.
'Ah,
so our Lionheart King has a hidden purpose!'
They decided to drop the thread of thought.
"Ah, come to think of it, where has Sir Yappy gone?
I didn't see him in the midst of this battle."
"Sir Spinner is carrying out my orders."
"????"
The hunters had question marks in their heads, but chose
not to ask.
'Torturing
demons?'
'The
water torture was brutal.'
'The
word 'uncooperative' from him is enough to give me goosebumps.'
Just then, the captured demon whimpered.
"Help me! Help me, My Lord!"
"Nope. You go with us."
The demon did not look remotely pitying.
A few of the hunters, who had been slightly anticipating
seeing demons of pleasure, slapped the demons on the back of the head to
relieve their disappointment.
* * * * *
Contrary to the hunters' assumptions, Yappy's destination
was not the prison.
Yappy had taken advantage of the distraction of the
battle to sneak into the deepest levels of Spero's castle.
"Huh? Did something just pass by?"
"I didn't see it?"
Yappy, who traveled upside down through the ceiling and
didn't make a sound above a certain decibel, easily evaded the soldiers'
surveillance.
The occasional keen-sensed knight glanced its way, but
its camouflage was perfect. Yappy made its way to the depths of the
underground, and found a group of men there.
"General Ricardo! I know you're in command, but what
are you doing here?"
Ricardo Byrnes.
The Spero Kingdom's Great General, and the knights who
served him.
"The outsiders will take care of that. The problem
is the seal. I assume the seal is working well?"
Seal.
A similar term the Yappy had heard for millennia.
Because it was the Yakt Spinner that sealed the Jewel of
Wisdom, kept it hidden, and ensured that no one could touch it.
"Yes, but... no, it's nothing."
The man was trying to say something, but then shook his
head as if it had no meaning. General Ricardo looked past the man to confirm
the seal.
"It is not long now. Just a little more patience,
and the hundred-year quest will be complete."
The cover was lifted and the seal was revealed. Yappy's
wide-angle lens captured it clearly on camera. And──
-Kirig?
It was a surprise, even to the super-intelligent Yakt
Spinner.
***
Translator(s) note: In case anyone is confused about the demons, here is a little rundown so far
> Demons of wisdom and inquiry (chaotic curiosity):
Lord of Chaos (Monarch) : Malus (deceased)
Archdemon (possibly) : Demon of The Jewel of Wisdom
> Demons of pleasure and corruption (ugly pleasure):
Lord of Pleasure (Monarch): Dothraddon
(deceased)
Archdemon (New): Androzin
> Demons of gluttony (insatiable gluttony)
>The so called ruthless destruction (waiting further explanation)
>The so called heartless indifference (waiting further explanation)
Hope this is easily understandable… See you soon!
Previous chapter | Novel page | Next chapter
Help us keep our spirit up by buying
us Coffee (人ゝω・）
