180 – theorem-14

“I won!!!”

Shouts of cheer erupted from among the guards. Even after a while, instead of collapsing from exhaustion or suffering from wounds, they were cheering in victory.

I thought I was the one who would be more happy than anyone else, but even I couldn’t adapt to the excited atmosphere of those people.

“Bastards, your voice is low! Our warrior will be disappointed! Long live the warrior!”

“hurray!!!”

Even the head of the guard and Reinhardt, who had been expecting to stop it, were instigating the roar instead of stopping it.

I was alert. It seemed that I was the only one sane here.

“This, first of all, the wounded and dead…”

“Deaths? We don’t have one on our side. Guard Captain. What about your men?”

Reinhardt immediately identified the number of people. The imperial knights were the most elite agents, not too many in number, so it wouldn’t be strange if not one of them died.

“It’s the same here… It seems like they’re praying for a few people, but the dragon didn’t eat anyone? If you look for them, they’ll come out.”

“no way…”

Come to think of it, there were no terrifying looking corpses around. Borrowing a torch from the guards, I searched the floor and found a soldier lying peacefully.

I approached him with solemn feelings.

The dragon ran amok. It’s pretty long too.

There can be no damage. Regret that I didn’t know if I could have saved this person if I had come a little sooner ran through my head.

There were no visible wounds, but it is not necessary for a person to die with a fatal wound in which the upper and lower bodies are twisted and a knife is driven through the heart.

A person could die just by falling from a little height or being swept away by that dragon’s demonic energy.

Life can disappear. It was a story that I already knew and could not have known, but the fact tightened my heart.

A calm face without a single scar, it seems like it will happen right now as if nothing happened. He wasn’t someone important to me, just a passer-by that I might have seen once in the guardhouse.

Even so, as if nothing happened right now, as if I could hear peaceful breathing in my ears.

“…the sound of calm breathing?”

I thought it was my imagination, but no matter how much I think about it, this sounds too ‘just’ like breathing.

“Me, Mister? Wake up. Mister?”

When I touched the fallen soldier, he tossed and turned.

“Ugh…”

“…Are you alive?”

He opened his eyes with difficulty and checked my face.

“Yo, warrior! I didn’t mean to sleep… More than that, what happened to the dragon. My comrades!”

Reinhardt approached with a mischievous smile. He changed his expression in front of the fallen soldier like a lie, and spoke to him with a solemn expression.

“You lost your mind and unleashed your hidden power. You fought more valiantly than anyone here, and in the end you drove out the dragon.”

Even with a quiet voice and an attitude that seemed to calmly explain the situation while still wet with exaltation. The smoke was pretty bad.

“Is-is that true? It can’t be…”

“Of course not! The dragon was kicked out by the warrior over there. It might come back someday, but once it’s been scolded, it’s going to lock itself in a mountain somewhere for the time being.”

“Go, thank you! Thank you!”

He bowed his head and thanked me. I looked at Reinhardt with a puzzled face.

“Really… is there anyone? No one?”

The moment a single person dies, the dragon invasion cannot be made a laughing stock. I didn’t know much about him, but at least he was Eleanor’s teacher.

I didn’t feel like someone who couldn’t tell when to joke and when not to.

“The number of people has just been identified. The same goes for the guards and the Capital Defense Forces. There is not a single fatality.”

“Nonsense…”

At least one or two people would die even if a group of orcs, not dragons, crawled out. If you just jump in and bite and tear, people will die.

If you just roll that huge body in a place where there are many people, you will die, and if you lift your tail and blow it down or blow out your breath, you will die.

there’s no way I won’t die So many people have fought for so long, and there is no way that there won’t be victims.

After I got attached, I couldn’t come out. This was possible in a situation where the dragon’s attention was focused exclusively on me, Reinhardt and the Imperial Knights filled in the gaps, and other soldiers provided only enough support to shoot crossbows and arrows from a distance.

However, their fight was not that short. Apparently, the guards had been fighting the dragon before I came in, and from what I’ve heard, it seems that the imperial knights didn’t arrive right away.

“That’s strange…”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with being alive. Isn’t this also the help of the goddess?”

Reinhardt laughed and talked about ‘God’s help’, but I knew what the goddess was in right now.

“I don’t think that’s possible… But, you’re welcome.”

“As expected, he is the one designated by His Majesty the Emperor as his successor. To think that he still cares about the victims even after accomplishing the mythical feat of fighting and overcoming a dragon. You’re embarrassing this old man.”

At his explosive remarks, the heated atmosphere burned even hotter.

“That-is that true, hero? But the protection of the imperial family…”

“You idiot! Do you even know why that divine protection was created in the first place? When the hero and the ancestor of the empire were united, the divine protection was sworn to the gods and the earth! As long as the hero exists, the divine protection will not disappear?”

“And what if it disappears? The one who cuts down the dragon at once is the hero, but that monster…”

It is a surprise. I couldn’t hide my bewilderment and asked Reinhardt in a stuttering voice.

“Oh, no. That’s a word that can be spread all over the place, right?”

“It’s not politically. There are members of the royal family who will stir up a contest with that word in the capital. But… morally, shouldn’t this be the case? It’s the will of His Majesty the Emperor, which I personally heard, and there are numerous witnesses.”

“I’m sorry…”

Reinhardt’s strange smile made me feel like he was making fun of me. However, what he said was not wrong.

I just refused, because the emperor’s will until the end was to make me emperor.

“Then, isn’t the hero-sama the only one who showed up when the dragon appeared in the capital?”

“Kuh…”

The guard captain I trusted put pressure on me with a big smile.

“That’s Okay.”

In fact, it was true that doubts arose.

Even when I heard the emperor’s words, I thought it was nonsense. Even if it wasn’t me, there were many members of the imperial family who would inherit the empire, and I thought Eleanor would take over if things didn’t work out.

However, Eleanor changed, and the behavior of the royal family was so ugly that it far exceeded my expectations.

Maybe, in order to protect these people, I may have to go up there.

There was no expectation of my political power. I am a selfish and weak person, and I will definitely make the wrong choice when I ascend to the throne.

But at least it can buy you some time until then. I could understand the emperor’s choice.

If the imperial family was at a level where they would do nothing to protect themselves or to check other members of the royal family, a civil war would have broken out as soon as a being with any connection to power became the successor.

It may be unavoidable. It wasn’t necessarily because of their expectations and shouts, but I felt the need to make a decision.

“no.”

The one approaching, covered in blood, was Eleanor.

Red paint was smeared on the white armor. Cold radiated from her eyes, and heat radiated from the blood on her body.

“Eleanor! Where were you and what were you doing!

Eleanor threw one of the necks in her hand and showed it to her mentor.

“If all the Imperial Knights leave, there will be no one to protect the rest.”

“This…”

“They’re assassins. The royal family… Even if they don’t seem to have a good relationship, they all look at the rest of their subjects with thorns in their eyes.”

“Oops!”

The Imperial Knights are the strongest knights, but according to common sense, they are also the ones who should never stand on the front lines, whether the capital is invaded by dragons or the capital is captured.

Their goal is basically to protect the emperor. When Reinhardt jumped out to stop the dragon on his own, he was only taking advantage of the gap that the emperor had died and a new emperor hadn’t appeared.

“You were frivolous.”

However, there were old servants in the imperial palace who were temporarily managing government affairs.

And the imperial family would have thought that they would be able to gain an advantage in the battle for the throne without shedding blood when they obtained them by force.

“Enerel. No one can force you to become emperor.”

Eleanor looked at me and spoke with a voice as sharp as a blade.

“If there is no alternative… it can be done. You are not interested in the emperor’s position, and the other members of the royal family… don’t seem to be proper people.”

“Is it just because of that?”

“It’s barely…”

“In that case, I will do it. Emperor.”

Calmly as if it were nothing, she declared that she would become emperor.