CH 275

Shwaaaa!

The rain of arrows came crashing down from the sky, but Siegfried was jumping toward them. He curled up in the air before spreading his arms out and throwing two disks.

Whoosh! Whoooosh!

The disks flew toward the rain of arrows.

Chwak! Chwaaak!

And they scattered into a thousand projectiles…

“Torrential Flower Rain!”

Siegfried chose to use Torrential Flower Rain to protect everyone from the oncoming arrows, and he had made the right choice.

Shwiiiiish!

Siegfried used his Flying Sword skill to control the one thousand projectiles, and they flew like homing missiles to strike down the oncoming arrows.

It was a breathtaking sight. The throwables made out of the Chromatic Dragon’s scales shined brightly in the sky, and the entire scenery looked like there were flower petals raining down in springtime.

The sight truly befitted the skill name that caused all of it—Torrential Flower Rain.

“Ah!”

“B-Beautiful…!”

“This is truly breathtaking…”

The people on the Aqua Runner were captivated by the sight, which made them briefly forget how the papacy’s massacre caused the deaths of their family, friends, lovers, and everyone else they knew.

They even forgot that the soldiers were still running toward them.

The beautiful sight Siegfried put on was so breathtaking that everyone forgot about everything. Ironically, the flower rain on top of the river dyed with blood made it seem even more breathtaking and grotesque.

A breathtaking scene born out of misery!

And the painter was none other than Siegfried himself…

Clack! Clack! Clack!

The arrows cut in half helplessly dropped to the floor. However, a single arrow survived the breathtaking display of power, and the one who got struck was—

“Ack! My ass!”

—Seung-Gu…

“Why there, of all places?!” he cried out in pain while grabbing his butt.

“Huh? Oops, sorry,” Siegfried replied after landing on the Aqua Runner, and then he added, “I let one slip through. Tsk, I think I need to train more.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t on purpose, hyung-nim?!”

“Nope, blame it on your rotten luck.”

“What? Me? Bad luck?”

“Yeah, don’t you always drop your main weapon whenever you die?”

“Oh… Come to think of it… I think I always drop this whenever I die,” Seung-Gu muttered while looking at his Mechanic Force. He remembered that Siegfried would always pick his item up and return it to him whenever he died.

“Do you understand now? You’re quite the unlucky fella.”

“You’re too mean, hyung-nim…”

“What mean? I’m just telling the truth.”

“Sniff…”

“Well, the truth hurts, so deal with it.”

While Siegfried was busy chatting with Seung-Gu, Hamchi drove the Aqua Runner downstream as fast as he could in the direction of East Constantine.

“Kyu! Let’s goo!”

What about the papal forces?

“…”

They stood around on the river bank and watched the Aqua Runner disappear into the horizon.

“Haha…”

The commander of the army of horseback archers laughed in disbelief.

“Yeah, we should just let them go… they showed us something amazing after all… Hahaha…” In addition, they really had no way of chasing after them, and they had already done their best with what they had at their disposal.

“Sigh… I guess I’ll have to go write a report on what happened… All forces! We’re going back!” The commander let out a sigh after imagining the stack of reports he had to write detailing what happened.

Meanwhile, another person had been recording the entire turn of events even before they escaped down the manhole.

The Great King joined the civil war that erupted within the Constantine Holy Empire after getting enraged by the atrocities he had witnessed in Aria City.

The Great King was troubled.

He could not turn a blind eye to the innocent civilians dying, but he could not get involved that easily.

(Omitted…)

However, the Great King braved the risks of diplomatic repercussions and decided to save the innocent citizens of Aria City.

The result of that was a resounding success.

(Omitted…)

I, Gringore, the loyal servant of His Majesty—Siegfried van Proa of the Proatine Kingdom—have witnessed something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

A river dyed crimson-red from blood.

The rain of arrows came crashing down from the sky.

And the most beautiful flower petals in the world…

The Great King created a miracle to save the lives of the innocent citizens of Aria City, and he successfully managed to escape with them.

The Great King offered salvation to these people that even God had abandoned!

Who could understand the lonely path the Great King walks?

Records of the Proatine Kingdom Book 1 Chapter 5

Siegfried van Proa the First

The King’s Achievements

Siegfried created an event worthy of being recorded in history.

***

The papacy was turned upside down.

“What? They failed to cleanse the heretics?”

The pope—Theopilus IV—grimaced after hearing the report.

“Even the primary grain storage was razed to the ground?”

“Y-Yes, Your Holiness!”

“Haha! Look at these pitiful fools. Do you call this a report?” Pope Theopilus asked while glaring at the messenger with his right eye.

Shiver…!

The pope’s glare was simply too scary for the messenger that a chill traveled down his spine, and he almost pissed himself. It was understandable as the pope was missing an eye. He lost it in a fight against a heretic while he was still working as an inquisitor.

Yes, the pope himself started as a lowly clergyman at the papacy and clawed his way up to his current position.

“What is this unholy act in the temple of our god? We are trying to salvage the empire from the clutches of the false emperor here!”

“A-Apologise, Your Holiness!”

The messenger bowed flat on the ground and prayed that the pope’s wrath was not going to fall on him. Unfortunately, one’s mind and body are bound to act differently in these kinds of situations.

Drip, drip, drip.

The messenger was so scared that he ended up pissing in his pants.

“Hmm? What’s this smell?” Pope Theopilus asked with an ugly look. He seethed and asked once more, “I asked you what this smell was.”

“Yes, Your Holiness. I believe the messenger in front of you has peed in his pants.”

“What? Peed? Hoho! What should we do with this ingrate?” Pope Theopilus asked while glaring at the messenger.

“You fool!”

“Y-Your Holiness!”

“You dare dirty this sacred place with your excrement?”

“M-Mercy, your grace! I have committed a grave sin! Please forgive me…!”

“Silence!” Pope Theopilus shouted.

Bam!

He slammed his armrest and shouted, “Guards!”

The knights, holy knights, and the paladins, which was a higher class of the holy knights, all responded at once, “Yes, Your Holiness!”

A paladin walked in front of the pope, knelt down, and said, “Your Holiness.”

“That heathen over there has been possessed by the devil! Kill that devil at once!”

“Yes, Your Holiness!”

The paladin pulled out his mace at the pope’s order and walked toward the messenger.

“Your Holiness! Your Grace! Please forgive me! This lowly fool has made a mistake! Y-Your Holiness!” the messenger desperately cried out.

“What are you doing?! Kill that devil at once!” Pope Theopilus shouted in anger.

There was no chance in hell that the pope was going to forgive the messenger.

Why? Was it because he defiled the floor?

No… the pope simply needed someone to vent his anger on right now.

“Hap!” The paladin gathered his mana and swung his mace.

Bam!

The messenger’s head popped like a watermelon, and his brain matter and blood splattered all over the place.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The servants rushed over and removed the messenger’s headless corpses from the pope’s presence.

“Heed my words!” Pope Theopilus shouted after the messenger’s corpse was removed from his sight.

“Yes, Your Holiness!”

“I am quite troubled by these reports. How could we fail to cleanse the heathens that have encroached on our holy lands? Not only that, but we even had our holy provisions burnt to the ground by those wretched devils!”

“Please forgive us, Your Holiness!”

“I will brand everyone involved as heretics possessed by the devil if these kinds of situations arise once more!”

“Yes, Your Holiness!”

“And send an official declaration of war to that place called Proatine.”

“Yes, Your Holiness!”

The pope adjourned the meeting, and the Proatine Kingdom was now going to be at war against the Constantine Holy Empire’s papacy.

***

An hour later…

“Sir Michele! We have received an official letter from the Constantine Holy Empire’s papacy!”

“Please give it to me.”

Michele closed his eyes after hearing from his secretary that a letter had arrived. He opened the letter without much expectation as its content was already something he expected.

There was a lot of nonsense under the name of the Nameless God written on it, but the key point of the letter was that it was a declaration of war.

“Sigh…” Michele let out a sigh and wrapped his head with his hands. It was only natural for him to be troubled after turning half of the Constantine Holy Empire into their enemy.

However, he didn’t blame Siegfried.

‘Your Majesty… I will trust and follow whatever decision you make…’ he thought.

Michele shared Siegfried’s sentiments. He also thought that the papacy was a corrupted pile of trash, but he still found it quite difficult to justify what Siegfried had done after reading the declaration of war.

“I guess I have no choice but to placate them for now…”

Michele wanted to let the papacy have a piece of his mind as well. To be honest, he wanted to send them a document filled with cuss words in response to the declaration of war, but he was the Minister of State of his kingdom. In other words, he had to remain diplomatic and objective at all times.

Thus, he took a parchment and started writing down a reply.

We wish to notify you that the Proatine Kingdom is not related to this incident, and this has been caused not by His Majesty King Siegfried van Proa but by Mercenary Siegfried…

***

Siegfried and the others safely navigated down the Hudson River and reached Crane City, which was within East Constantine’s territory.

They managed to safely escape.

“Thank you! Thank you very much!”

“You are our savior! Thank you!”

“I will definitely repay you for your kindness, sir!”

The NPCs gathered around Siegfried and thanked him with tears in their eyes, but Siegfried didn’t say anything in response. These NPCs had survived the ordeal, but they had gone through so much and lost so much as well.

Their houses, families, lovers, friends, etc…

What could he possibly tell these people who had gone through so much?

In the end, Siegfried could only bow to them in response and make his way toward the imperial faction’s base to request an audience with Emperor Frederic.

The reason Emperor Frederic was currently in Crane City was because this was their current frontier after they had lost Aria City and the other cities to the papal faction.

“My name is Siegfried van Proa, and I greet the emperor.”

“So, you are the King of Proatine, King Siegfried van Proa? It’s nice to meet you, my name is Frederic von Colonna.”

Emperor Frederic welcomed Siegfried warmly.

“Welcome, it must have been a long journey. I’m sure those fanatics relentlessly chased after you.”

“We were able to easily shake them off thanks to my kingdom’s speed boats.”

Theft is never good, try looking at [ pawread.com ].

“Are those speed boats from the Nordic Tribe? It’s truly fascinating…”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart, King Siegfried. We were able to buy much-needed time thanks to you setting ablaze their supply storage,” Emperor Frederic said with a smile.

He seemed to be quite fond of Siegfried despite meeting him for the first time.

“I’m extremely grateful that you decided to join our faction, but you even racked up such huge achievements before even joining us! I hereby appoint you as the regiment commander of the Adventurers!”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“And I will give you 1.5 times the reward the papacy had offered you. I would like to give you more, but I’d like to ask for your understanding as our financial situation is not that good…”

“It is more than enough, Your Majesty.”

Siegfried decided to accept it since he himself knew just how difficult it was for an emperor to mention that he was financially struggling.

“It would be great if more and more Adventurers like yourself changed sides to us, but that would be difficult because of the papacy’s enormous war chest. How good would it be if we could attack their coffers, don’t you agree?”

“Haha…”

“Anyway, thank you for your hard work. I will make sure that I will handsomely reward you and provide full support to the Proatine Kingdom once this civil war is over and I have taken full control of the empire.”

However, Siegfried felt repulsed the longer he spoke to the emperor.

‘Hmm… Something’s not right here…’ he thought.

Emperor Frederic continued to sing praises of Siegfried’s achievements while not even mentioning anything about the massacre that occurred in Aria City as well as about the well-being of the female NPCs Siegfried rescued.

In the end, Siegfried decided to ask him directly.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty?”

“What is it?”

“About the Aria City citizens who had escaped…”

“Oh, you mean those women?” Emperor Frederic nonchalantly responded, and then he said, “I instructed my men to train them as nurses or cooks to help out in the war efforts. I would love to use them in combat, but they’re weak, untrained women who can’t even use mana…”

“Pardon me…?”

“But I’m relieved that we found use for those scums! Ah! Isn’t this what you Adventurers call recycling, am I right? Hahaha!”

‘This bastard was a piece of trash, too?!’ 

Siegfried realized that the Constantine Civil War was actually a power struggle between two powerful pieces of garbage.