He Became The Most Insane Emperor Of All Time [EN]: Chapter 82

Became the Crazy Emperor of the Millennium – Episode 82

Became the Crazy Emperor of the Millennium Episode 82

Milan, a free city within the territory of Orlant.

One of the beautiful cities in the south, known for its frequent trade via the sea and waterways.

It was once a peaceful and prosperous place, but those days are gone.

“Kyaa! Someone help me!”

“Hehe, young lady. There’s no one to help you now.”

Unfortunately, the army of Pryans Blackbeard, the infamous Pirate Duke, had occupied the city.

His mercenaries and pirates were plundering Milan and the surrounding small towns and villages.

Looting inevitably leads to murder and rape, and the woman was in imminent danger of being assaulted.

“I never thought the day would come when I’d get my hands on a noble lady.”

“I know, you live long enough, you see everything.”

Milan was a place where several nobles close to Duke Orlant resided.

However, with the Duke’s assassination and the city’s swift fall, those who failed to evacuate became targets for the invaders.

“So, this is what’s happening here.”

“Wh-who are you?”

“Ah, don’t mind me. Carry on. I’m still deciding whether to intervene or not.”

I, having infiltrated the city, watched the pirates attempting to rape the noble lady in her dress and made my observation.

The half-dozen pirates glanced at me, disguised in shabby clothes, and sneered.

“Whoa, look at this pathetic guy? Hey, even if you stand there like that, we won’t let you join.”

“He-help me!”

The pirates’ sneers and the woman’s desperate voice mingled in a discordant harmony.

It was a situation where a knight in shining armor would immediately draw his sword and charge. (A classic heroic trope.)

But right now, I wasn’t riding a white horse, and I wasn’t a knight. I am an emperor, though.

“Miss, if I help you, will you cooperate with me?”

“Yes? Wh-what, I’ll do anything.”

“Good, you must keep your word.”

Swish.

After hearing the woman’s confirmation, I immediately drew my sword.

“Ha, I was going to have some fun, but some crazy bastard is getting in the way. Hey, kill him.”

Of course, the pirates weren’t intimidated by my appearance.

There were six of them and only one of me.

Besides, I wasn’t dressed like a knight. Even if I were a knight, it would be difficult to overcome such numerical odds without armor.

Of course, that’s only the case in normal situations.

Clang!

“Huh?”

Thud!

The pirate, who underestimated me and swung his sword carelessly, was dumbfounded when his attack was easily deflected.

Soon, his head was cleanly severed and flew away, his face still frozen in that expression.

“Do you have time to be spaced out?”

And the other pirates were just as stunned.

Before the head I just cut off even hit the ground, I rushed towards another pirate with surprising speed.

Stab, Slash!

I stabbed him in the abdomen and pulled the sword out through his side.

Before they could even utter a sound, two were already down.

“Wake up!”

“Qu-quickly, kill that guy!”

The remaining pirates finally snapped out of their shock.

As expected of pirates, they were all wielding swords that resembled cutlasses. (A short, broad sabre.)

One of them swung his sword diagonally, but I dodged by twisting my body and then swiftly cut down another pirate next to him.

“Aaaagh!”

Caught completely off guard, he screamed in horror as his arm was severed.

Blood splattered everywhere from his stump, further disorienting the pirates.

“You bastard!”

The remaining pirates numbered three.

Unlike the others who were already dead or injured, these three seemed more experienced.

The atmosphere shifted, and the items they produced spoke volumes.

Clack-

“Oh ho?”

A metal rod was pulled from inside his chest.

Surprisingly, they took out ‘guns’.

Although they were the size of pistols.

It’s a very rare weapon in this world, which is largely medieval in feel, albeit with fantasy elements. I’d seen them briefly in the Southern Territory before.

Well, the immediate issue was that those weapons were now pointed at me.

Thud.

“Huh?”

I grabbed the pirate who was still panicking with his severed arm and used him as a human shield.

Ta-ta-ta!

“Kuh-huh!”

Before the other three pirates could shoot me with their guns,

He took all the bullets for me and died instantly.

The power I gauged seemed comparable to the percussion pistols that might have existed on Earth. (Early firearms that used a percussion cap to ignite gunpowder.)

“Tch! Quick bastard!”

The pirates who fired the guns tried to quickly slash me with their swords rather than reload.

“I guess they can’t fire in rapid succession yet.”

Having used one before, it seemed impossible to fire quickly immediately after the first shot.

Otherwise, they would have shot again instead of resorting to swords.

Slash, Thud!

The two pirates who rushed me after shooting had their necks and abdomens slashed before they could even react.

Now there was only one left.

“D-don’t come any closer! If you do, I’ll kill this woman!”

“Hey, do you think it’s okay to take a woman I’ve never met as a hostage?”

“Yo-you were going to get compensation from the woman, right?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter if I don’t get it.”

“Th-that’s!”

Both the pirate and the noble lady paled at my seemingly heartless words.

Regardless, I picked up the gun that the pirate I had just killed had dropped.

While I was at it, I leisurely rummaged through the dead men’s belongings.

“I guess it doesn’t use gunpowder after all.”

It was very similar to a percussion pistol, the pistol version of a musket, but unlike the flintlock musket on Earth, it didn’t use gunpowder. (An older type of gun that uses a flint to create a spark.)

It fired using a special form of magic.

Thus, the manufacturing process was very difficult and the price was very high.

It would be more cost-effective to use gunpowder, but there was no reason to introduce it.

“Let’s see, is this how you load the bullets?”

“Yo-you bastard! Don’t ignore me! I’ll really kill her!”

“Kyaaa!”

The pirate holding the woman hostage shouted desperately, but I neatly ignored him and continued to load the pistol.

Oh ho, this also uses magic. Well, since magic is the firing principle, it’s natural.

Click-

After loading the bullet, I pulled back the part that I wasn’t sure whether to call a bolt or a flint.

If I pulled the trigger like this, it would fire.

“If I was going to kill you, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“Yo-you bastard…….”

“Shut up and listen carefully. Now you have two choices.”

“One is to keep holding the woman as a shield.

If I’m lucky, the woman will get hit instead when I fire.

Of course, if that happens, she’ll die without mercy.”

“And the other is to let go of the woman and run away.”

“Th-then will you spare me?”

“Who knows? I guess that depends on my shooting skills. But that’s probably the better chance of surviving.”

I smiled slyly and added one last thing.

“I’ll count to three.”

One.

Two.

“Aaaaaagh!”

The pirate threw the woman away and ran backwards.

He tried to escape the back alley at full speed, but-

Bang!

Thud.

“It was my first time shooting this far, but it’s not bad.”

I muttered, watching the white smoke that seemed to dissipate due to the combustion reaction of magic after firing.

It didn’t use gunpowder, but even though I only fired one shot, I felt a considerable amount of heat and recoil.

In many ways, it seemed similar to the gunpowder guns on Earth, so I anticipated the problems that would arise.

After all, it was difficult to mass-produce. It was a weapon that only the wealthy South would use.

“Hehehehe…….”

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Y-you’re too much. To save me like this…….”

“Isn’t it enough that I saved you?”

“I almost died!”

The process was rough, but the rescued woman sobbed sadly.

Well, it’s true that she almost died, so I had nothing to say and simply shrugged.

“Is it over?”

“Did you just arrive, Hendrick?”

Then, Hendrick walked out from behind me.

For several days after infiltrating Milan, he and I had been slowly rescuing nobles who were loyal to Orlant.

“It’s impossible to save any more now. We need to join them soon.”

“Yes, we should soon.”

The reason I came to Milan wasn’t just to save the nobles.

Of course, it was also to quell the rebellion in the Southern Territory.

To be exact, the goal was to thwart the Pirate Duke’s plan.

“In the end, there’s no way to find Duke Orlant.”

“Maybe he’s really dead.”

Taking the rescued noble woman, Hendrick and I headed to the ‘meeting place’.

Contrary to the news I heard from the Imperial Palace, the fact that Duke Orlant was dead was, for the time being, a false rumor spread by the Pirate Duke.

But you never know. If he was captured, the Pirate Duke could have easily killed him.

“Even though his tail was long [a metaphor for being cunning], he was defeated too easily, unlike Duke Orlant.”

“He was too careless. I guess there was a traitor inside.”

As Hendrick said, that was very likely.

Otherwise, Duke Orlant, a skilled schemer, would not have been defeated so easily.

“The good thing is that Orlant’s forces haven’t been completely wiped out.”

“They’ve been almost wiped out. The remaining ones are also isolated, so it’s unstable now.”

“So, we’re going to meet them now.”

The person who is still in Milan, in fact, the last remaining member of the Orlant family.

Others could not be trusted or were killed in the Pirate Duke’s preemptive strike.

Now that it’s difficult to use military power in the South, they were needed to win them over.

To meet him, I secretly passed through a city where looting and murder were rampant and arrived at a shabby house in a secluded slum near the port.

When I arrived at the door of the house and opened it-

Click, click, click, click!

Everyone inside was pointing their guns at us.

“Who are you?”

Everyone was dressed shabbily, but judging from their complexions and demeanor, they seemed to be nobles or servants who were well-treated.

That alone was an unusual sight, but the most unusual thing was that the person questioning me was a woman.

“I didn’t know the contact was a woman.”

I heard it was Duke Orlant’s grandson… it was a granddaughter, not a grandson.

“Shut up, reveal your identity.”

When I showed a relaxed reaction, she immediately reacted sharply.

“Lady Sarah. Don’t you remember me?”

“You are… Sir Hendrick?”

“I’m glad you remember me.”

“You’re my father’s contact, right? With the Emperor.”

When Hendrick nodded, she lowered her gun.

The other subordinates also lowered their guns, and only then could I and the others enter the hideout.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here. I just thought someone who succeeded in escaping would come.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you in detail because it was a confidential matter.”

“So, is the Emperor sending troops?”

The woman called Sarah asked with a slightly urgent look.

With her family in an unprecedented crisis, perhaps the most desperate thing for her was reinforcements.

“Unfortunately, that’s impossible.”

As I discussed with Empress Dowager Selena, deploying military force is not an option.

Even though I conquered the East, it was difficult to mobilize troops recklessly because I didn’t know how long the chaos caused by defeating the Spirit King would last.

Even if that wasn’t the case, I couldn’t bring troops to block the Pirate Duke’s plan to escape with the stolen wealth and the navy.

“Is that important in this situation? Everyone will die if the army doesn’t come right away!”

She was furious when I explained why the army couldn’t come.

Hendrick tried to stop her from getting angry at me, the Emperor, but I stopped him and spoke instead.

“You’re mistaken. Now that Duke Orlant has fallen, the Southern Territory’s value lies solely in its wealth.”

But the Pirate Duke is trying to run away with it.

If that plan succeeds, the Southern Territory will be vulnerable for a while.

There’s no reason to save these tattered nobles.

“So, the army can’t come until at least the Pirate Duke is contained.”

“Then… who are you to say that?”

Sarah, who was arguing with me, asked the key question.

“Who do you think I am?”

“……There’s no time for jokes. You must be an emissary sent by the Emperor.”

“It’s true that I’m a member of the Imperial Family. But at the same time…….”

I gave a twisted smile and said.

“I’m also related to you.”

“Yes?”

She looked puzzled, then seemed to contemplate the meaning of my words for a moment.

A member of the Imperial Family, and at the same time, a relative of hers, the granddaughter of Duke Orlant.

There are only two people who fit that description.

One is Empress Dowager Selena.

And me.

“Could it be…….”

“Yes, that’s right.”

That maybe.

“I am the Emperor.”