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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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The knight commanders instantly turned pale, their bodies trembling. Their eyes filled with shock were fixed on me.
This level of reaction was well within my expectations. The fact that they didn’t immediately try to kill me for saying I was out of my mind for lying to the empress was enough.
“Newbie, you’re really…” Iris trailed off.
“Ah, don’t misunderstand, Iris. It’s not like I have any ulterior motives towards Her Majesty the Empress. This was the only way to deal with that bastard without any complications.”
Iris remained silent, perhaps not yet fully recovered from the shock. However, her eyes sent a wordless gaze saying she would hear my reasons for now, so I continued.
“As you all know, that bastard is of imperial descent. Of course, he’s someone who wouldn’t even glance towards the throne, but even if he’s far from the throne, just the fact that imperial blood flows through his veins allows him to wield authority surpassing that of most nobles. Dealing with such a person without any issues isn’t possible with ordinary methods, right? That’s why I used an extraordinary method.”
The former lord was definitely not someone who would die quietly. Due to his struggling even while being exiled, he had dragged the Imperial Palace’s knighthood down to this remote territory.
They must have guessed that truly extreme measures were necessary to handle such a person without trouble. It was just that the method I used was far more extreme than they had anticipated.
I made him become interested in a demon, stripping him of all his rights and having the empress personally deal with him. Who would have dared to even imagine using such a method?
“I didn’t tell any particularly dangerous lies. Among what Aurora explained earlier, the only lie was that I approached the lord to discuss how to handle a book I had accidentally discovered.”
“The severity of the lie is not important. The important fact is that you lied to Her Majesty. And what if the truth is discovered? What if it’s revealed that you brought in a demon from the beginning with the intention of harming an imperial family member?”
“No. Even if it’s discovered, it won’t be much of a problem,” Aurora chimed in, having been observing the situation.
Iris looked at Aurora with eyes asking how that wouldn’t be a problem.
“The current empress, who is my aunt, also disliked that pig bastard. She deliberately left him alone because the more he committed evil deeds, the more secure her position would become. Since we’ve dealt with such a person without any issues and gained justification to pressure the noble factions he was close to, she’ll likely overlook it.”
‘There was such a backstory?’
I had thought the empress had simply ended it on her own, not wanting to complicate matters and seeing no benefit in digging deeper into that idiot lord who lacked any abilities.
I never imagined the empress would also dislike him.
Of course, since the lord here had a much more trashy personality compared to the game, it was uncertain if they thought the same way in the original Brightest Darkness 4. At least there, he had some semblance of common sense.
“So, Knight Commanders, there’s no need to worry. We’ve eliminated a pest that was gnawing at society, cleaned up the trash he left behind, and restored things to how they should have been. It’s just that a very slightly negative method was used in the process.”
After hearing assurance from someone who could address the empress as an aunt, the color returned to the knight commanders’ faces.
I had remained calm all along since I already knew how the story would unfold.
“But still… to deceive Her Majesty…”
“The Knight Commanders don’t need to personally say anything. That is something Aurora and the newbie sitting over there should do. Your role is simply that you rushed here after receiving an urgent request for support and continued to prevent the demon from rising.”
“…Prevent the demon from rising, you say?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to deal with the demon ourselves.”
As she said that, Aurora glanced at me from the corner of her eye. I confidently met her gaze. For a very brief moment, a look of absurdity flashed across her eyes.
“Don’t overthink it. Isn’t this beneficial for you all too?” I abruptly stood up from the sofa. It was time to move to a different location.
“We need to pay back everything we’ve received until now, with interest.”
I led the knight commanders and Aurora to the basement where the lord, on the verge of death, was squirming half-transformed. As soon as the four saw the half-man, half-demon lord, their hands reflexively reached for their weapons.
“…It really looks grotesque,” Lizé muttered.
“It’s repulsive to the extreme, even though all it’s doing is wriggling on the floor. If a half-man, half-demon on the brink of death is like this, I can’t even imagine how enormous the power of a real demon would be.”
On the brink of death, indeed. Well, it wasn’t wrong. I had deliberately brought a blessed dagger and drained the lord’s health to the point of near-death. Of course, there was a separate reason for that action.
Even in a state where it hadn’t properly recovered its strength, as expected of a demon, if the half-man, half-demon lord was left alone, it would gradually contaminate the surrounding terrain.
To prevent that, we had to continue beating it up until the empress arrived and purified it. Telling it to use its remaining strength to keep recovering instead of contaminating the surroundings.
‘It’s perfect to leave it to the knight commanders. They’ve been tormented by that bastard until now, so they can have their revenge at the same time.’
But since I didn’t know how much time would pass until the knight commanders arrived here and we finished explaining, I had to take measures to prevent that thing from contaminating the surroundings during that period.
That was why I had brought the blessed dagger.
“…So, you want us to prevent this thing from recovering its strength?”
Claudia swung her greatsword, which was almost as long as her height, onto her shoulder. Judging from the faint smile that appeared on her face, she seemed to have guessed what kind of request I was going to make.
“I told you, didn’t I? We need to pay back everything we’ve received until now, with interest. You can just beat it to a pulp to your heart’s content. Of course, you should control your strength appropriately so the basement doesn’t collapse.”
Actually, this process wasn’t particularly necessary. I had already drained its health with the blessed dagger, so even if it was left alone like this, the surroundings wouldn’t be contaminated.
However, hadn’t the knight commanders been terribly tormented by that lord for the past few years? Naturally, they needed to pay back what they had received.
Even if they were going to kill him, they should have their revenge before doing so.
“Is that so? Then I won’t decline.”
The first person to step forward at my words was Claudia. She grabbed the greatsword as if it were a golf club and swung it with full force at the lord’s body using the flat side of the blade.
With a crisp smack, the scaly body flew up into the air. The lord was sent flying a considerable distance before crashing into the opposite wall. The basement walls trembled to the point of collapsing from the strong attack.
Iris and Erica seemed startled by that sudden action. On the other hand, Lizé pondered for a moment, then drew her daggers from her waist with a bright smile, coating the blades with ice.
“If we don’t beat up that pig, the demon might resurrect again? Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that never happens.”
Leaving a trail of frost behind, Lizé rushed towards the lord with a brief thanks, saying, “Thanks, newbie!” Claudia watched her receding back with a delighted expression.
“Don’t think too deeply, Iris. If that bastard dies, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Just don’t think about anything and enjoy it until the end.”
“…Are you serious, Claudia?”
“I am. And you have similar thoughts as me. If you were really going to oppose it, you would have taken your hand off your weapon first, wouldn’t you?”
Claudia pointed at Iris’s hand. That hand had been fiddling with the sword at her waist for a while.
It was a posture that seemed ready to draw the sword and rush in at any moment, as long as the opportunity presented itself and she could convince herself. Iris’s cheeks instantly turned red, as if embarrassed to have her true feelings exposed.
“If I had heard such a plan from the beginning, I would have strongly opposed it too. But the newbie has already done it, and it’s an irreversible situation, so what can we do? We have to trust him. He has already proven that he keeps his word. So, Iris, just roughly accept it and come over here. Let’s join them and beat it up together.”
From the other side of the basement, a chilling cold surged. Although the situation wasn’t clearly visible due to the ice, it seemed Lizé was frolicking quite excitedly.
As the air rapidly cooled, Aurora shivered and slightly approached me, pressing her arm against mine. Wondering what she was doing, I turned my head. A brazen gaze was returned, as if asking what was wrong.
“Erica, let’s go.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Who else is Erica here besides you? It’s obvious what you’re thinking right now, so don’t pretend to be hesitant and just follow me.”
Although Erica grumbled for a moment about being told she resembled her sister, it seemed it wasn’t entirely wrong, as she obediently followed behind Claudia. Flames gradually ignited from the weapon in her hand.
Left alone next to us, Iris blankly watched the other three who had started beating up the lord together, then let out a deep sigh and looked at me.
“Newbie.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s as Claudia said. If you had asked for permission in advance, I would have shouted my unwavering opposition. Lying to Her Majesty the Empress, it’s something I absolutely cannot sanction in my right mind.”
However.
The atmosphere that initially seemed to reprimand me changed at that word. The corners of her mouth lifted, defying gravity, and her eyes softened, becoming gentler.
“I believe you must have something in mind this time as well. When you went to subjugate that monster, I couldn’t trust you until the very moment you returned… But this time is different. With the actions you’ve shown so far, even if it’s an absurd plan, it’s enough to believe in you at least once. I’ll leave this matter entirely in your hands.”
With those words, Iris was about to head towards the other knight commanders, raising the wind around her weapon, but she paused for a moment and turned her head halfway.
“And, let me also say thank you for providing such an opportunity.”
“You’re welcome.”
On the other side of the basement, something akin to a storm was already raging. The basement flickered and flashed. Aurora and I watched that sight for a while before going outside.
The moon hanging in the sky was slowly sinking behind the mountains.
“You, didn’t you say you joined the Silver Dawn Knights not long ago?”
“I don’t know the exact date, but I think it’s been about 2 weeks now.”
“And yet you’ve gained such strong trust? You have impressive skills.”
I answered with a smile.
I was just trying to progress the story like in the game, but from others’ perspectives, it was received as an unbelievable achievement. By my standards, this was normal.
Moreover, the scale of the enemies appearing from now on would continue to grow.
If I followed the storyline of Brightest Darkness 4, I had to single-handedly defeat monsters with the power to easily annihilate cities.
Considering the recommended level for seeing the ending in the first playthrough was around 100, it was a bonus that I had to defeat thousands and tens of thousands of monsters weaker than that to level up.
Subjugating dozens of city-annihilating monsters and thousands and tens of thousands of ordinary monsters, even the empress probably couldn’t do that.
All of that was the achievement of a single player.
‘That’s how game protagonists are.’
So wasn’t I the protagonist?
We sat in a corner of the garden, chatting about trivial matters while waiting for the empress, who would arrive by morning at the latest. Aurora had quite a way with words.
Time passed, and even when the sun was about to show its face, the knight commanders didn’t appear. They must have had a lot of pent-up emotions until now, so it was understandable. They could do it all day long.
“So, later on, we need to completely replace the servants—Ah.”
We were in the middle of discussing how to overhaul the attendants, servants, and maids. Right next to the garden, a magic circle was drawn. Trampling and burning the grass, the magic circle shot a pillar of blue light into the sky.
Teleportation magic. I could immediately recognize it as it was identical to the game. We stepped back a considerable distance to prepare to greet the empress.
Inside the pillar of light shot up by the magic circle, blue particles gathered and formed a human shape. Arms, legs, head, and body were created, and that body was clothed in garments.
The mass of light that had transformed into a perfect human form slowly walked out of the pillar.
“…?”
It was a woman who looked exactly like Aurora.
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Thx for chapter
Nice lookalike aunt.