What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 675

Sub Male Lead Goes on Strike – Episode 675

#675

The Pilgrim’s Regress (4)

-Ziiiiing!

-Kwaaaaa!

“Uwaaaaaaa…!”

“……”

The sound of a massive magic circle unfolding.

And the noise of the airship opening its maw and spewing out foul mana. The soldiers’ screams.

All of it faded away like a dream, only to crash back as a hellish reality.

Constantly growing and shrinking, the world before her eyes turned black and white, then regained its color.

The only thing she could sense and recognize was her own existence.

Two legs, two arms. Her eyes, unfortunately open, and her nose inhaling the stench of blood.

Ears capturing the horrifying screams. A mouth struggling to exhale moisture.

Elise Penetian silently rose to her feet, staggering.

Her once halo-like golden hair was now a mess of dirt and dust.

Her silver armor was also covered in scratches.

From the hand gripping the golden spear, bright yellow embers dripped. ‘Chiiik….’

-Kwagwagwagwang!

“What are you trying to burn, Your Grace?”

“……”

‘Crack, crunch!’ The ground crumbled beneath her feet with every step she took.

Adriana looked up at the Crown Princess’s empty eyes, a wide, silly grin on her face.

Wounded knights waited anxiously for the Crown Princess’s orders.

The appearance of the unidentified airship was an unexpected turn of events, and the number of unexplained deaths on the Pilgrim’s Road had already reached the thousands.

Moreover, the tremors and shockwaves from moments ago were causing a surge in casualties.

Several knights were already limping or unable to use one arm.

With most of the watchtowers collapsed, the existing operation was inevitably disrupted.

The Holy Nation was in chaos. As always.

“Hah….”

Elise looked up at the sky and let out a weary sigh. Her expression remained unreadable.

“Your Highness… Crown Princess!”

“……”

At the familiar call, her pale face slowly turned.

The eyes, holding the hottest flames, captured a soldier in their gaze.

Elise saw a vision.

‘Penetian needs talents like you. It’s shameful and sad, but I can’t trust the other nobles.’

‘Leave it to us.’

‘We will be loyal!’

‘Trust us, Your Highness!’

…The pure, bright smiles of her innocent soldiers.

People who were too young.

‘When I ascend the throne, I will abolish religious taxes. Isn’t it a long-standing evil practice?’

‘Oh, my….’

‘Is that really true?’

‘It’s best not to spread the word. Just the three of you should know.’

‘Wow!’

The days when they held small, blue hopes.

‘When the war is over, you will receive due honor.’

‘I also promise the education of your children and the safety of your families. I swear to my siblings that it will be so.’

‘…Thank you, Your Highness!’

‘Your grace is boundless.’

The moments of dreaming secret dreams in the shadows of the night blurred and faded.

‘You’re clever, as always. Thank you.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’

‘Kim! What kind of way is that to talk to Her Highness!’

‘Both of you, be quiet!’

Thanks to those kids, she could smile, at least a little.

After Yeser died, she thought those days would never come again.

She thought she would never be allowed such things.

But she received so many gifts without giving anything in return.

To her, who was woefully inadequate as a leader, faith like precious oil was poured every day.

‘Do you really believe you can go anywhere with those pathetic beings?’

…She hadn’t repaid them yet.

She hadn’t fulfilled a single one of her many promises.

‘Your Highness, Your Highness—!’

-Kigigigigi!

“Your Highness Elise!”

-Kwaaaang!

Blink. The Crown Princess awoke like a corpse in a tomb of roaring sound. This was a battlefield.

Dark clouds were gathering in the sky again, and the lost wind howled and raced in all directions across the trembling earth.

And beneath her chin stood knights, gasping for breath.

“Cough, Duke Camingha has arrived! He wishes to discuss the future strategy again—”

“Crown Princess.”

The familiar voice of the old man, though not as calm as usual, rang out.

Her subordinates quickly bowed their heads and stepped back a few paces.

The single remaining reddish-brown eye held only Elise in its gaze.

As soon as the Crown Princess saw the Duke, she asked the question she was most curious about.

A voice like the desert flowed from her bloodied lips.

“……Did you know?”

About Wilhelmina Schneider’s terrible plan.

About her ‘service’ to the Holy Nation, which was too cruel and devastating to even mention.

About his ambition for ‘victory’.

“……If I had known, I would not have left it like this.”

It was a natural thing to say. The Camingha family was a royal family that had fled after witnessing the shadow of the royal family.

Someone had to survive, and they had to pass on the secret to future generations.

That Queen Lilianer Penetian, the Crown Princess’s great-grandmother, had gathered nine divine objects to kill the Chief God.

And that Wilhelmina Schneider intended to realize the Chief God’s power in the present world and become a god herself.

Furthermore, even his ‘bio-experiments’ and the future of desecrating faith.

The Duke provided the Crown Princess with all the information he could.

-Kwaaang! Kwaaang! Kwaaaang…!

“Aaaaaaack…!”

“……”

He gave all the necessary teachings and even bought the time needed for learning.

However, he could not prevent today’s tragedy.

This was because it was an atrocity beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

-Kwaaang! Kuung! Kuuung! Kuuuung…!

“……Why me?”

Her unfocused gaze asked the question.

Behind the Crown Princess, red and green mana were wildly intertwined.

Here, the screams and wails were combined to create a gruesome hellscape.

Occasionally, the earth wept and trembled all over. Yudith Camingha swallowed a deep sigh.

There was no emotion left on the Crown Princess’s face.

“……Why didn’t you strike the royal family directly?”

It was a luxury on the battlefield, but it was a confession that had to be exchanged someday.

“I am also an aging royal. For Camingha to usurp the Penetian throne would simply be to create another sacred royal family that continues through a collateral line.”

“……”

“The reconstruction of Penetian… was something no one but you could do.”

-Kwagagang! Kwagagang! Kwagang…!

However, no one had guessed that such misfortune would befall her in the process.

No one had expected that such a treacherous path would unfold before the Crown Princess, who was walking the royal road of will and effort, even if it was not a smooth one.

Yudith looked at the young man in front of him with a heavy heart.

Indeed, Duke Schneider’s boldness bordered on madness, and her one move had the power to paralyze the opponent’s ten moves.

He already knew that he had a number of black magicians.

It was nothing new that his influence reached the fallen black market.

But to bring it out into the open so brazenly—

“Your Highness… Both of you! Please give your orders. The soldiers are in chaos!”

And that he would eventually break the Crown Princess’s spirit was something he had never imagined, even in his dreams.

The Duke chose to completely break the Crown Princess before she could overwhelm his forces.

Perhaps Schneider alone could have devised such a way to undermine the sanctity of the royal family.

The knights, driven to the brink, pleaded at the top of their lungs.

“Your Highness! Duke Schneider has ordered us to protect the airship. But we have never heard of it. We don’t even know what it is, and the infantry are losing their lives all at once!”

“Your Highness Crown Princess! Please give your orders!”

“Your Highness!”

“……I inform those who follow me.”

Finally, the Crown Princess spoke in a dry voice and lowered her gaze.

Adriana, who had been listening to their conversation all along, looked back at her.

Around that time, the airship guarding the Pilgrim’s Road in the distant sky was taking a terrible breath.

A constant stench was emanating from somewhere.

“Duke Wilhelmina Schneider has committed the great crime of murdering thousands of our allies and using them as sacrifices for black magic. As a result, that airship has appeared in the sky. Count Albina called it a ‘weapon,’ but in my eyes, it is nothing more than a murderer’s brutal instrument. That outrageous being will surely lead the Holy Nation to ruin, and it is doing so even now.”

“……”

“Therefore, we will shoot it down and strike Duke Schneider’s residence in the royal capital.”

“Ah……”

“From this moment on, the main enemy of this country is not the Liester Empire, but the Schneider family.”

The faces of the knights turned as white as paper.

Yudith felt a throbbing in the eye covered by the eyepatch.

“All of the Duke’s household will be captured and taken hostage. Anyone who follows the Duke will be regarded as a traitor to the people and executed immediately. This will be a national subjugation, and if there is no one who shares my will, I will do it alone.”

“……”

“Until the Duke comes forward and admits his guilt before all the people. Or until my life is cut short.”

“Your, Your Highness!”

“I will not force you.”

-Swish! Kwaaaang…!

At that moment, a fierce aftershock blew in from the direction of the wasteland.

The knights who sensed the Sword Master’s aura simultaneously gasped.

Some soldiers lay flat on the ground, covering their heads and trembling.

In the swirling dust cloud of the battlefield, only blue eyes gleamed darkly like the center of a disaster.

“I will cremate Penetian [referring to a purification by fire, a complete cleansing]. That is my calling.”

-Kuuuung!

With the shockwave that shattered the cliff, the Crown Princess leaped forward, spear in hand.

The soldiers who had been following her back quickly raised their swords.

Adriana looked back at Yudith with a blissful expression.

-Now!

[Tempestas tempéstas [Latin for ‘storm’].]

-Swaeeeeeng—!

Kwakwakkwa…! As soon as the pure white arrow of the Chief God left Sir John’s hand, the spiral storm that wrapped around the arrow devastated the entire land.

We were far behind him, crouching down to protect ourselves.

Behind the 33rd Cavalry, the Liester Empire army was encircling the airship in a round formation.

Meanwhile, I opened a wide sanctuary to prepare the paladins—and His Majesty Hanan, right next to the airship, was firmly holding onto the damn thing with venomous flower stalks and vines.

In short, all tactics were twisted and turned because of one airship, and even the front lines of the army were completely changed!

-Swaeeee…!

Go, fly, hit, please!

-Kwaaaang!

“Hit! We hit it, Sam! We pierced its head straight on!”

“Uwaaaaaaa…!”

The moment Ms. Gain’s cheers and the soldiers’ shouts pierced the sky, I hurriedly turned around.

While the mages were focusing on preparing for the next defense, the swordsmen were sharpening their swords for an all-out attack.

Sir Elizabeth on the front line, Lord Mutte, and His Majesty the Emperor came into view in turn.

Looking at the leading warriors, I tried to calm my nerves.

It’s okay. We have Durandal [a legendary sword]. If we have the treasured sword Durandal, the finish will be—

-Swaeeeeek!