Chapter 166

The Roaring Lions of the North (5)

“The monsters are running away!” I heard the knights cry from afar.

I looked around, and the army of monsters that had filled the snowfield was fleeing into the mountains. Their footsteps were like thunder, and they showed no discrimination in trampling and pushing aside their own kind. There was no longer a great legion besieging Winter Castle, for all that remained within the minds of the monsters was base instinct.

However, there was one group of them that held the same lust for battle, from beginning to end. It was the war legion of orcs, gathered under their torn and tattered banners. They struggled against the knights and dwarves, and they fought to the end.

My insides boiled as I watched the scene unfold because the being who had gathered all the monsters into a single army and marched upon Winter Castle has surrendered. Urdu wished only to save his own life.

“Although I am defeated, the valiant warriors of my race are not tied to victory or defeat. They will fight until the last minute, and the damage your forces will suffer will not be small. But, if you accept my surrender as a commander, I promise that they will cease this meaningless shedding of blood.”

Urdu planned to use the lives of those fighting for him as collateral to save his own skin.

The embarrassment that I had at first felt has long since become rage. My hand, which grasped Twilight, trembled.

“If you want, I can make them stop even now,” came the urgent cry of the Overlord as he looked at me.

I stared at him, suppressing my rising, murderous anger.

He was not the Overlord of the greenskin race as I remembered him; he wasn’t even a warrior.

He wasn’t even an orc; he was merely a remnant of something which had once existed.

‘Shlkp,’ I returned my sword to its scabbard.

“It is a wisdom that suits your great spirit!” growled Urdu, and the fervor of the orcs, which had filled the field, faded as if it was never there. The sound of clashing weapons, shouts and screams, all ceased to be heard.

“You are able to see how things are going,” said the Overlord, and Bernardo Eli frowned at me. There were a lot of things he seemed to want to ask me, yet, with his bloodied face, he was unable to voice such questions.

“If I go back to the mountain, I will stay away. And if I stand under your banner, I will stand strong. For our race, following a mightier being is not a shame, but an honor, so you shall never have to worry about your back,” said Urdu and grunted loudly, then added, “Tell me what you want! I’ll be happy to follow-“

“Nothing has been decided yet, so shut up.” If I kept listening, I’d draw the sword I had just sheathed, so I wanted the beast to be quiet. “I don’t want you to die right now.” There was a person who would decide on whether Urdu would live or die. “Call the count,” I said to Eli, and he tried to ask something but shut his mouth and left us.

“What is it? Why have the orcs suddenly stopped resisting?” It was not long before Eli returned with Vincent.

I stared at him, and I saw a knight whose body was completely drenched by the blood of the greenskin war legion. I saw the reincarnation of a poor man who had failed to gain his vengeance after being robbed of everything – the head of the Balahard family, whose very business was to war against the greenskin race that can not coexist with humanity.

“You decide – will you save him, or will you kill him.”

It was to be Count Balahard who would determine the fate of the Overlord.

* * *

Vincent had heard me explain the situation, and he was silent for a while. Then he asked me in a tight-lipped manner, “What benefit would there be if we spared him?”

I tried to suppress my emotions and tried to explain, as objectively as possible, the benefits of accepting the ugly monstrosity’s surrender.

“It will make it possible to prevent further casualties in battle against those remaining in the orc war legion. And it is not impossible to use orcs as soldiers, as long as they are properly shackled. Perhaps you can even escape from the age-old fate that has been the Balahard family’s to bear. Perhaps you can have peace.”

With a stone-hard face, Vincent asked me what the opposite action that of killing Urdu would entail.

“To fight and win, and remember those who die upon this day. And you will continue to fight against the harsh winter and the horrors it brings, year after year.”

Just as winter has existed, so it will continue to exist for a very long time.

Vincent had no answer, and I saw he could not easily reach a decision. He just chewed on his lips.

It was natural, for if there was no choice but to fight, almost everyone would fight.

However, once you realized that there was a way to avoid fighting, it became difficult to choose the violent option first. And on the other side of the coin, it was not easy to lay down arms and stop fighting with someone while still having resentment towards them in your heart.

Nothing was easy, and no choice could be lightly made.

By a single word, hundreds, thousands could live on this day, or they could die.

As the weight of the choice was so great, it deserved heavy contemplation.

I waited quietly for Vincent to speak, and the gathered knights were doing so as well their expressions complex. Everyone knew that his words could reignite a terrible war and that a single word from Vincent might lead to them becoming corpses in the snow.

“Hmm,” Meister Surkara grumbled, his mouth watering as he looked at the orc. I noticed that the dwarf had a lot to say, yet he did not open his mouth and, by doing so, deepen or lighten Vincent’s anguish.

Everyone waited.

“You have subdued the enemy king with the strength of your hearts, so where will you find a more valuable triumph? You are the victors, and you are worthy of enjoying the glory due to you as vanquishers!” Only the elderly orc spoke.

Time passed, and the sun had gone down then completely disappeared. My body, drenched in sweat and blood, cooled, and chills began to race down my spine.

Knights furled their cloaks and put up their fur collars, and no one complained of the cold. Snow began to fall, and it started to cover the horrors of battle.

“I…” Vincent opened his mouth. “I…” he hesitated, again and again. “You…”

I could see how agonizing it was for him.

“Count.”

Before Vincent could say anything, the one-eyed cavalry commander spoke up.

“Know that I, Quéon Lichtheim, have never feared death for even a moment, and I have never considered death as ephemeral.”

Quéon unclasped his black eyepatch and threw it to the ground.

“Even if I lose the one eye that remains to me, I will not cower and beg just so that I can live an impassioned life.”

That was the beginning.

“Even if the lance is shattered and the body torn, the unbending soul must remain the same.”

“We are not a burden for our lord to carry, but the swords and spears that he will wield!” the Black Lancers beat upon their chests with their spears, all at once.

“I don’t want the son of brave Bale Balahard to have to break his heart because of us!”

“If I have to fight for a hundred years, I will fight! And if I must fight for a thousand, I shall fight even if I die and become naught but a drifting soul!”

The knights stamped their feet.

“Don’t hesitate in front of victory!”

“What we want is victory at the end of struggle, not the peace achieved by compromising with a coward!”

The rangers on the walls shouted, adding their voices. There was no one who wished to compromise their values for the sake of peace.

“I don’t think that iron which bends easily can be mended with ease. The word of a beast who surrendered his own people for the sake of his own life is unreliable.”

“I think it would be better to ensure that the events of today are not repeated by removing the agent who have caused them.”

“I am Count Ghern, and I think as the others do.”

The lords of the Allied Northern Forces had been thrown into chaos when the orcs erupted into their ranks, and those of them who had survived now gave voice to their opinions as if they had been awaiting the moment to do so.

“We men of the north are different from the southerners with their hot and lazy summer months!” an impassioned northern lord cried out, and Nogisa coughed.

“I cannot agree with those words, for even if the summer is sunny, the rains showers and typhoons are not warm or pleasurable,” Nogisa said. The northern lord wanted to say something, but the old knight added, “But I agree with the general consensus: I have not forgotten the fact that the Knights of the Palace and the Royal Infantry have come here to fight.”

Vincent’s expression was distorted, conflicted, and he seemed to be smiling and frowning at once.

“If I close my eyes and save him, we can end this heinous war,” said Vincent, and the knights and soldiers answered with protests as they heard this. “I will open my eyes and fight the enemy instead of becoming blind for the sake of peace,” said Vincent, and his face was now easy to read.

“I don’t know how many are going to die for us to end this battle today.”

“If someone has to die, it will be me.”

The men’s answers remained unchanged.

Vincent looked at me, and I shrugged – it was all up to the will of the count. He then nodded as he saw my silent assent, and hesitation was no longer to be seen upon his face.

“Now, wait a minute!” came the urgent exclamation of the Overlord as he read the change in atmosphere.

“I will not accept the surrender of an unscrupulous beast sans honor!” Vincent declared.

“Death to the orcs!”

“To these invaders: Only death!”

The knights shouted, and the rangers and Allied Northern Forces clashed their weapons and shouted war cries.

That was when someone started singing Winter Castle’s song of war.

“Silent are the snowy peaks and the blood-drenched walls”

“Only our horns of war are heard, for a new day dawns into which we advance!”

One song quickly became the song of thousands.

“At the blizzard’s end, I wander, seeking warmth”

“And only warmed can I be by a dark green fire”

“In front of it, I stand and wait for burning spring to come”

“And the village through harshest winter waits for spring to come”

And at that moment, a message broke into my head.

[-] We sing of the spring that will come after the harshest season, after storm and blizzard [-]

[-] New [Poetry of War] has been created [-]

[-] During the war, [Poetry of War – Four Seasons: Poem of Spring] was created]

As soon as I grasped this message, I knew – I knew what [Poetry of War] was.

It was different from Muhunshi, for it was not a simple song that resonated with mana hearts and rings.

It was one song, yet many, a song expressed as aspirations that flowed from multiple mouths.

And it wasn’t me who created the words, but the men of winter; I just wove them together, and a song started echoing in my mind.

‘The birds who’ve flown back along the road the wind passed by return’

‘The fortress once exposed to cold and snow now wakes and stretches’

My mouth moved of its own accord.

“The birds who’ve flown back along the road the wind passed by return”

“The fortress once exposed to cold and snow now wakes and stretches”

Thousands of aspiring wills borrowed my mouth and sang of spring.

In the middle of the song, my heart started beating like mad, and a transfer took place.

A strange wave erupted to all sides, and no song was alike, and no song was new.

It was the sound of new [Poems of Night]. This was the moment that the seeds I had sown in the north, those once-broken knights who now gathered mana in the heart, have finally started their story.

‘Pwoo~’ a faint light began to flow from Vincent’s body, a weak but unmistakable sign of awakening.

Not knowing what was happening to his body, Count Balahard raised his sword and pointed it at the enemy.

“All troops! Ready for battle!”

“Ha!” thousands of troops answered his command as one.

“Attack!”

The knights roared as they rushed toward the war legion, and the Allied Northern Forces followed the charge. The palace and the royal infantry broke rank and struck at the flanks of the orcish war legion.

“You are foolish!” roared the old orc, still on his knees, as he snapped awake.

He opened his mouth, and I drew my sword.

Before that ugly roar erupted from his maw; before he could once more sully this war with his false dignity, the flames of my true spirit fell upon his body.

Blue flames raged as they clung to a bloody body half-melted by the breath of the fire dragon.

‘Aaahhhhh!’ it screamed and wildly waved its hands. The earth burst apart as fervor flowed from Urdu, and a man rushed toward the old orc who was thrashing in fear. A green flash erupted from the man’s sword as it cleaved through the Overlord’s fervor.

There he was: The reincarnation of an ill-fated avenger who had been unable to claim his vengeance against the Overlord who had robbed him of everything.

And now, the man has finally reached completion and become the ninth champion of the kingdom.

“For Balahard!” Vincent Balahard exclaimed with ferocity.

“For Balahard!” knights and soldiers roared as one.