Chapter 73: The Fourth Force
“The seriousness ends here.”
Ascal declared. Sushia turned her head with a puzzled look, wondering why he suddenly changed his tune.
“This isn’t the way to Windwall, is it?”
“Sushia.”
“…?”
He had been swayed by this dream-like reality until now, but no more.
“I get what you were trying to show . It must have been hard to outright say that the Duke’s family were traitors, and the dragons too.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden? Are you possessed by a demon?”
“I’ve seen all I needed to in this dream. From now on, I live for myself.”
People had beco strange suddenly. Sushia seriously considered whether she should run away now.
“I have a friend. And a beloved horse, too.”
“I understand less and less, Ascal.”
“First, we find Fer.”
Ascal had raised Fer for a long ti.
He knew what environnts Fer liked, and what food he preferred.
Of course, he couldn’t be sure if Fer would be there.
He was just trusting his luck.
‘If I fail, I might as well kill myself.’
****
“Neigh!”
Ascal found him. Fer was hiding in a carrot field near the empire. He often used to stroll to this area.
“Ah, you’ve gotten so skinny. Poor thing.”
The carrot field had been devastated by the war. Fer was hiding there, abandoned.
Ascal held out a bunch of carrots he had brought.
Trembling, Fer slowly approached and ate the carrots.
Ascal gently stroked Fer’s head to make him less afraid.
‘Originally, Sirius would have found this guy and ridden him in the battle of Windwall… But now he’s mine. I can’t hand him over to anyone.’
Three-quarter ti, stroke with the grain to the left.
It was Fer’s favorite way to be petted.
Fer seed puzzled.
He didn’t understand how this human, whom he was seeing for the first ti, could be so familiar with the exact way he liked to be petted, almost like a petting master.
“Right. Here’s your carrot.”Sushia held out a carrot.
Fer kicked it away with his front hoof.
“Yikes! Why my carrot!”
“You didn’t shake off the dirt. Fer is sensitive about that.”
Having eaten his fill of carrots for the first ti in a while, Fer made a content little whinny and bowed slightly, enough for soone to mount him.
He had acknowledged Ascal as his master.
“Mount up, Sushia. Next, we head to the Kingdom of Kelli.”
“Why there?”
The wings of the Pegasus unfolded grandly. Sushia was taken aback.
“We’re flying!”
“While I struggle, there’s soone out there sucking honey in peace. I can’t just leave him be.”
The battle of Windwall was still a bit away.
With a new ans of high-speed transport, Ascal used the power of flight. Their destination: the Kingdom of Kelli.
****
“Ah, bliss. This is what life’s about.”
The hot springs of Kelli Kingdom.
A young man relaxed in the bath, a tray floating on the water beside him.
And then, a sip of liquor.
“Kiyaahaa!”
Sotis, monts like this brought back mories of years ago in the empire.
A ridiculous streak of luck had everyone calling him a divine inventor, a genius, a saint.
But Bernstein knew better.
Easily gained fa is just as easily lost. And it was clear that the empire was on the brink of collapse.
He couldn’t sink with a failing ship.
Bernstein had been planning since then.
While pretending to proceed with an airship plan commissioned by the empire, he created a golem to serve as his double.
The airship would crash, and the golem would be executed in his stead. anwhile, Bernstein would enjoy a peaceful retirent in the Kingdom of Kelli.
He changed his voice deliberately and shaved his mustache clean. Not even his relatives could recognize him now.
“You look good, Bernstein.”
“You must be mistaken. My na isn’t Bernstein.”
“You looked better with a mustache.”
Still, there were occasionally annoying people who recognized him.
Bernstein looked up at the other person.
Bernstein broke out in a cold sweat.
“Are you the devil from the empire? Have you co to capture ?”
The man with black hair flashed a grin.
He was the infamous “Devil of the Empire” who could stop a crying child with just a look.
After Yulia Barba, the empire’s tyrant, he was the next in power and her right-hand man.
There was no escaping this situation, no matter how much Bernstein tried to feign ignorance.
Bernstein looked around frantically for the ergency smoke bomb he had prepared for such monts.
“Looking for this?”
“How did you—!”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know your patterns? It’s obvious.”
The Devil of the Empire chuckled as he toyed with the smoke bomb in his hand.
Bernstein swallowed hard.
“How did you know I was at this hot spring?”
“We’re cut from the sa cloth. I would have done the sa, relaxing here in the hot springs.”
“It’s baffling. We’ve never even spoken, yet you seem to know so well…”
Bernstein hadn’t given up yet. Though the smoke bomb was taken, he still had one last resort.
He couldn’t just be dragged off by the empire’s devil now that he had found freedom.
“I’m not here to capture you.”
“And why should I believe that?”
“Don’t you want to build a giant golem, Bernstein?”
Ascal knew well the joy Bernstein felt when he acquired the rainbow stone in the north, how he’d gleefully locked himself in his lab.
Ascal had visited, curious about his activities, and Bernstein, excited, had shown him the blueprints.
“Look at this, Ascal. A giant golem. This is why I beca an inventor. It was an impossible plan, but with the rainbow stone you provided...”
He was truly an engineer with a pure heart.
“Did you snoop around my lab? Hmph. Such a thing is but a fantasy. It’s beyond human capability to create.”
“Because there’s no rainbow stone, right?”
“Exactly. How could one find such a mythical substance?”
“But what if it could be found?”
“Ha, such bluster. If you find it, I’ll be your son.”
Ascal pulled a rainbow stone from his pocket.
Bernstein’s eyes bulged.
“Father!!! How!!!”
“I did a little bartering.”
Just then, a petite girl with white hair erged from behind Ascal’s legs.
She reached eagerly for the orb Ascal held.
“Give it back, give it back, I just put it down to nap. My orb, sob.”
Ascal patted the girl’s head.
“I found the rainbow stone, so I’ll return the orb if you help out a bit more.”
“Really? You’re not lying?”
“Of course.”
Ascal handed Bernstein the rainbow stone.
“Can you make it? The giant golem.”
“Do you think a giant golem can be made just like that, with only a rainbow stone? It requires ample ti and facilities...”
“You have your lab here too, right?”
Bernstein nodded as if surrendering.
“Yes. But it will take at least a year. That’s only possible because I have so pre-made parts for tinkering.”
“We will make it in a week.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Ascal grinned, looking toward where the white-haired girl stood.
“A week that feels like a year should do.”
****
“Kraaaaak! Save !”
Bernstein scread in agony within his laboratory, the sound of a man being literally torn apart in real ti.
Ascal had recently discovered sothing. If the Cloud Dragon could stop ti, then the White Dragon could slow it down drastically. And in this slowed ti, Bernstein was being thoroughly dissected.
“You really are a genius, Bernstein.”
Ascal acknowledged him. The empire truly needed Bernstein.
He could never let him go.
****
In the Dark Room.
The leader of the Spider smiled.
“The mont has co when our long-held plans bear sweet fruit.”
They had waited for a very long ti, carefully concealing their identities, just for the empire’s downfall.
“Everyone has done remarkably well. Seventh Leg, the assassin. You splendidly assassinated the Minister of Magic.”
A masked shadow nodded in the dark.
“And the Forger has dragged the empire’s reputation through the mud.”
A figure with one leg missing chuckled coldly.
“Witch, you are truly cruel. Using even your own children for revenge. The dispute between the two princesses has pushed the empire across a point of no return. Ah, consider that a complint.”
The witch looked down at the mummy with bloodshot eyes. The mummy, wrapped in bandages, was barely clinging to life.
-Kill , please...
“Watch the empire fall with your own eyes, Kamalon Barba.”
The leader rose from his seat. Eight legs kneeled before him.
The Spider spun its web. In this web spun over such a long ti, the empire would never be able to escape.
****
“Flying!!!”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
At that mont, Ascal and his group were soaring through the sky.
Ascal and Sushia were riding on Fer, while Bernstein and the parts of the giant golem were mounted on the transford body of the White Dragon.
“You know, I’ve been thinking... if we have this White Dragon, do we even need the giant golem?”
That’s the typical cliché.
The seemingly powerful ally can’t join the party due to so constraint.
Ascal said,
“The Cloud Dragon has lost most of its power now. Even if you went all out, it couldn’t stop you.”
“Cross my heart, it’s true.”
The White Dragon joined the party!
[TL: You can support the translation and read 5 chapters ahead of the release here on Patreon: /OracleTls]
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