Chapter 323: The Senate Chairman, and the End of the War.
Chapter 323: The Senate Chairman, and the End of the War.
“Oi, Ende! You, what are you doing!?”
“… Who are you?”
Narrowing his brows, he continued staring at me with enmity. What is this guy saying? Is he joking around or something?
“Touya! Mochizuki Touya!”
“Don’t know.”
Dangerous! This bastard, he stepped in and slashed towards me without a single shred of hesitation!
Is he not actually Ende? … No, it’s definitely him. Shall I try throwing some bait then?
“… Hey, how about I tell you what happened to Mel?”
“Mel…?”
Ende reacted with a twitch, and stopped his movements. His eyes swam unfocused through the air as if he’s trying to remember something. Seems that he still remembers something about the Phrase’s [Sovereign], Mel, even though he’s completely forgotten me. Memory loss… Or perhaps a form of brainwashing?
“What are you doing! That guy’s an enemy! Kill him!”
Upon hearing the voice of the senate chairman, Ende shook his head and came slashing once again. Damn, so troublesome! Whatever, just stay quiet for a while!
“[Prison]!”
“!?”
Ende is instantly enclosed within a pale blue translucent cube. Upon colliding with the wall of the three-meter-long cube, he is bounced back and falls onto the floor.
Although he instantly got back onto his feet and tried to slash at the walls as well as throwing some kicks, the [Prison] doesn’t even budge.
Useless, useless. (Note: is it my fault that I imagined this part in Koyasu’s voice?) Once you’ve been trapped within that, you can neither escape nor break through the prison unless you have the strength of a god.
If the strength isn’t inversely proportional to the size of the enclosed target, it can even trap an advanced-class, after all.
Well then. Leaving Ende’s matter for later, right now I’ve got a ton of things I wanna ask that old man over there.
“This guy!”
“Die!”
The two remaining knights came slashing towards me. These two were plenty strong as well, but they’re still far below Ende. I easily dodged their strikes and sent a punch into their jaws each, upon which they promptly fell down on the spot.
“Damn you…! Do you know who I am!? I’m the chairman who controls the senate, Morroc Lapitos! Know your place!”
“I don’t. I do know of you as an old pest clinging onto his authorities, though.”
I spoke my honest thoughts to the old man in front of me who has veins bulging out from his head and is shouting at me in rage.
His white-tinged hair and beard gave him a somewhat chic feel, but over his entire body, he draped a luxurious robe with gold embroidery sewn all over it, and he’s also holding a regal- looking cane in his hands; his overall image is a gaudy one. He has a tall stature and a rather
thin body shape, and his hook nose is especially noticeable on his face, which also contains some degree of wrinkles and a pair of eyes that arrogantly look down on everything.
“Well, I don’t really care about you. More importantly, what did you do to that guy?”
“That guy? Ah, I see… So you knew that man.”
With a grin on his face, the chairman held the cane in his hand up.
“One of my subordinates picked that man up when he found him on the verge of death outside the castle. He was holding a whole bunch of never-before-seen tools, you see… I tried asking him where he got them from, but he had lost his memories. That’s why I gave him the new name of ‘Vice’ and had him undergo special education in order for him to become my subordinate.”
On the verge of death and memory loss? Sounds just like Sakura… No, since he had been filled with weird things on top of that, he’s in a worse situation, huh. Well, if it’s that much, [Recall] can still probably manage somehow.
Still… Him, on the verge of death? Just who did that to him…?
“And among his possessions, there was even something as wonderful as this. The strongest golem!”
The senate chairman took out a piece of microscope slide-looking glass from within his robe. Isn’t that…
*Pakin-!* Went the piece of glass as it was broken in two by his fingers.
Instantly, together with a blinding light that surged out from the glass pieces, a giant armored knight appeared while piercing through the roof of the hall we’re in.
The white-and-black two-tone coloring and the slender and yet sharp silhouette. And the foremost trait of the machine, the wheels attached to its heels.
The Dragoon, the Frame Gear that I lent to Ende, stood there.
Oioi… Even getting that taken away from him, that idiot.
“Wahaha! Can’t even find words, can you? I guess that’s your limit!”
The chairman went into the cockpit of the Dragoon, which lowered itself down, with movements that can’t be considered those of a 70-years old.
The Frame Gears of the current generation has been improved so that even an amateur can move it to an extent. It’s something as simple as playing with a cabinet console in an arcade or a controller attached to a game console. The frame itself also contains movement assist processes, too.
However…
“The disrespectful fool who tried to go against me! Be crushed under my foot! Wahahahahaha!”
I ignored the loud voice of the old man that is coming from the Dragoon’s external speakers while operating my smartphone.
“Wahahahaha… Nu!? What’s going on, why isn’t it moving!? It was moving fine before this…!”
The voice from the speakers began to panic. The Dragoon that the old man got into remained in its lowered position from before, and showed no signs of standing up.
“Move! This-! Damn, why won’t you move!?”
While still listening to the voice coming out from the speakers, I went up to the manual open/close switch besides the cockpit hatch, removed the lock and pulled the lever.
Together with the *bashuuu* sound of air escaping, the Dragoon’s cockpit hatch opened easily.
“Hii!?”
“Sorry but, I’m the one who made this, you see. That makes me the original master of this golem.”
Well, the ones who actually made this are the professor and Rosetta, together with some others.
An emergency override is installed within all Frame Gears for situations like this. I can’t do things like lending them to other countries if I don’t do this much, given what they are.
“Uwaaaa!?”
I used [Levitation] and dragged Chairman Morroc out of the cockpit. He was flapping his limbs desperately in the air and trying to get away from me but, it’s impossible you know. When I dropped him onto the floor, Sir Zerorick approached us from his spot behind the pillars.
“O, ooh! Sir Zerorick! Cut this man down! He’s an insolent fool that tried to go against the God-Empire!”
“Apologies, but I cannot do that.”
“What!?”
“At this moment, His Highness Listin is being taken as a hostage. As such, I cannot do anything against him. My deepest apologies, Chairman-dono.”
He said that so smoothly, man. Using the fact that there’s actually a hostage on our side to his advantage…
“Yo-you bastard! Can’t you tell which one is more important for the country between me and that incompetent prince!? You dimwit! I’ll have you executed for treason t—ugu!?”
“That’s enough, so stop talking.”
I fired a stun bullet into the chairman’s back as it was getting annoying listening to him. How does he have the face to brazenly say stuff like executing others for treason, I wonder. This country’s pretty shaky too, to have let someone like this walk free for so long.
As I was looking at Sir Zerorick with sympathetic eyes, behind him, the sight of the [Prison] shattering with a *Bakin-* and Ende jumping out of it reflected in my eyes.
“Wha!?”
Impossible!? Even though I didn’t put divinity into it, the strength of the walls isn’t something normal attacks can ever reach…!
Ende was holding two swords which were too short to be called a longsword and too long to be called a dagger in both of his hands. Shortswords? So he was hiding something like that. Still, that sword…
Dodging the strikes coming from the twin swords, I casted magic towards Ende.
“[Come forth thunder and ice, frost mist of a hundred thunder, Voltaic Mist]!”
“Ugh!”
Ende, who had thrusted his right hand into the mist that suddenly appeared, felt the shock coming from the spell and dropped the shortsword held in that hand. I immediately picked that up, and retreated from Ende before looking at the sword in my hands… As expected.
Divinity is drifting out of that sword. There’s no mistake. This is a sacred treasure… A weapon made by a god.
“Where did he get his hands on something like this…”
Sacred treasures are things that the gods bestow upon the humans as their last hope in situations where an evil god or god with nefarious intentions, or perhaps their dependants have descended to the world and are wrecking havoc. Heroes act as the representatives of god and wield them, and they’re left behind in myths as legendary weapons.
Still, because sacred treasures can become seedbeds for birthing a new evil god if even one mistake is made in its handling, they’re usually destroyed or recovered, or replaced with a replica after they have achieved their purposes, is what I was told.
“Haaa!”
Ende thrusted out again with the shortsword in his left hand. Ku, this annoying bastard! Return to your senses already!!
“[Accel][Boost]!” (Note: welp, that’s a wrap. At least he tried.)
I dived into Ende’s bosom with maximum acceleration magic.
“Wh-!”
“Don’t think badly of me. Yumina did request me to hit you once when I find you, after all—!”
I punched him across the face once, then immediately hammered another uppercut into his stomach without mercy.
“Bufu!?”
“Sleep for a while.”
I landed a final chop onto the back of Ende’s head as he bent over while holding his stomach. The sacred treasure he was holding fell from his hand, and he fell down head-first on the spot.
“Should I hit him another two or three times, I wonder…?”
I felt like there’s still more room for extra charges coming from me being inconvenienced so much by him, but I’ll leave it at that. Sigh, really, stop getting used so easily by people the next time onwards.
I picked up the two sacred treasures and chucked them into [Storage], and enclosed Ende with another [Prison]. I’ll leave recovering his memories to later. It’s troublesome anyway.
I shrunk the [Prison] with Ende in it until the size of a dice, and put it inside my pocket.
Since unlike [Storage], this one doesn’t come with time-stopping functions, if I keep him inside for a long time there’s gonna be various troubles like toilet needs or whatnot. I should probably hurry up with my errands here.
I casted another [Prison] around the senate chairman lying on the ground, and while being guided by Sir Zerorick, headed towards the imperial palace to meet the emperor. Of course, the Dragoon has already been recovered.
Since we had raised that much of a commotion, onlookers as well as patrolling soldiers had gathered outside, but I’ve already erased ourselves from sight with [Invisible] beforehand, so we slipped through them easily and infiltrated the imperial palace this way. Apparently, normally entering the palace also required permission from the senate.
The inside of the imperial palace, how should I say it, looks simplistic, or rather, plain for being the residence of the emperor. The senate hall we were in earlier looked several degrees better in comparison.
The number of guarding knights and golems are small too. It really seems that the emperor doesn’t have much power… Well, if it was an over-extravagant building that in itself also raises some questions.
“Your Majesty!”
When Sir Zerorick opened the door at the end of the corridor we were traversing, a man in his fifties, who was reading a book in a room that looked like an office, looked up in shock.
The man, who was sporting white hair and beard as well as a pair of round glasses, looked much more like a civil officer instead of a military one. So he is the Trihalan Emperor, huh. I can’t really feel the imposing aura common to monarchs. There’s an easy-to-approach atmosphere about him, though.
Eh? He’s looking around with wide eyes… Oh, I forgot to cancel [Invisible].
His Majesty the Emperor became even more shocked when we suddenly appeared in front of him and almost fell from his chair.
“Uoo!? Wha, Sir Zerorick!? Are you not supposed to be at Primula’s Reben…”
“I have come in order to ask Your Majesty to make an urgent decision. It’s regarding a matter which could decide the fate of the God-Empire.”
Sir Zerorick passed the letter from Lystis to His Majesty the Emperor, who was blinking his eyes and looking quite lost, and started explaining from the beginning.
At first, he appeared to be troubled, but after I took out Senate Chairman Morroc from within my [Prison] and rolled him onto the floor, he began listening to Sir Zerorick with a serious look.
“I see… This is indeed a serious issue for our empire. Someone! Call Rupheus here!”
When the emperor gave that order, one of the knights in front of the door ran out of the room and headed somewhere. (Note: I could’ve sworn the raw placed the knights inside the room… Did they depop when Touya revealed himself inside the room or sth?)
I asked a question towards Sir Zerorick next to me although I can guess at the answer.
“Rupheus would be…?”
“His Highness the Crown Prince of our empire.”
So Lystis’s elder brother, huh. If even the emperor is treated this way, I think I don’t need to ask about how the crown prince is treated.
Eventually, the knight earlier returned together with a young man who is probably the crown prince.
The same golden blonde as Lystis, and looks to be around the first half of his 20s… He’s decently handsome, but since he’s wearing glasses like his father, there’s also an intelligent atmosphere around him. Definitely not the type who looks like he could take up a sword and stand at the frontlines.
When the crown prince entered the room, at first, he was shocked at the sight of the senate chairman lying on the floor, but while listening to Sir Zerorick and his father about the details, the color of his eyes changed gradually.
“Father! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Now is precisely the time to dissolve the senate and restore order to the God-Empire! Following his instructions, and avoiding the war with Primula is exactly what would give the populace peace of mind right now!”
“U, umu. I see. That’s right, isn’t it.”
He’s giving a speech so passionate that even the emperor is moving back a little…
That reminds me, isn’t this crown prince being forced to be engaged with the daughter of the chairman rolling around on the floor over there? I did hear that she’s way older and has a terrible personality… Guess he really doesn’t want that engagement.
When I asked about it later, apparently she’s over 40, is extremely twisted, and going by face alone one can’t even tell if she’s a man or a woman. I can understand how desperate the crown prince must have been… (Note: so do we all… wew dude.)
The senate did hold the highest authority in the empire, but they’re not the ones who are running its core functions. If we destroy the senate, while there would be some confusions for a while, eventually things should return to normal.
The senate treated the emperor as a disposable pawn, but they themselves have become the same type of existence. It’s a story one should learn from…
“I understand. Rupheus, you are to search the estate of the senate chairman thoroughly together with some imperial guards. There should be mountains of evidence concerning his embezzlement of funds from the national budget, not to mention his other crimes. Sir Zerorick will handle the retreat order for the army. We are to make peace with Primula Kingdom.”
“And what should I do with this?”
I pointed towards the chairman on the ground, who was still paralyzed.
“The order is reversed but… Until we find enough evidence for his crimes, throw him into the underground dungeon.”
Yeah, normally you don’t go around locking people up without sufficient pretext, after all. Hearing just that part makes it sound as if we’re trying to pin fake crimes onto the man. Well, it’s the undeniable truth that he had indeed committed crimes.
Now that it’s come to this, there’s no way the other senators would be let off lightly… Well, they should just think of it as karma for doing whatever they wanted so far and give up quietly.
Crown Prince Rupheus headed to the estate of the senate chairman without delay. Seems like he has a lot of pent-up frustrations. Well, not like I can’t understand.
After I had asked for, and received, a handwritten letter by the emperor addressed to the Primula Kingdom, I moved together with Sir Zerorick first to the same tent as before in the God-Empire’s army camp outside Reben.
Sir Zerorick immediately ordered the army to retreat, but a part of the nobles, who were suck- ups of the senate, started objecting. Apparently they were eyeing the potential spoils from pillaging once the invasion is under way.
However, when we showed them a direct letter from the emperor ordering the retreat, as well as telling them the fact that the senate is to be dissolved soon, they went pale in their faces and didn’t say anything to us afterwards.
These guys, they were doing something bad in the background, eh? They must be panicking now that the senate which was their support is no longer around. Well, it’s too late for them anyway: Sir Zerorick won’t miss such an easy-to-tell guilty face, you know?
After the command for the retreat is confirmed, I transferred to the Primula royal castle this time.
When I passed the letter from the Trihalan Emperor to the Primula King and told him that the war had come to an end, everyone in the room stood with a blank expression and didn’t say anything for a while.
Can’t blame them, to be honest. It hasn’t even been six hours since I first came to this country, after all. Within that short amount of time, I had saved two countries from their respective pinches, after all. (Note: you HAVE that much self-awareness!?)
“I don’t even know how we can begin to thank you…”
“Please don’t mind it. Speaking of thanks, the only reason why I was able to come to this world had been the transfer device your ancestor had made. So it should be me who must thank your side.”
Since I had wrapped just about everything up, we headed over to the still-detained Lystis. When she saw me and the Primula King, as well as Sir Zerorick who entered the room last, she came towards us with an expression of relief.
Sir Zerorick told her of the events in the God-Empire succinctly.
“I see! So the war had stopped!”
“Yes. With the dissolution of the senate and the capture of its chairman, a new age is beginning for the God-Empire, no doubt.”
Lystis raised voices of joy when Sir Zerorick affirmed her words. With this, she too can be released at last from having to pretend to be someone else, I suppose. All’s well that ends well, eh?
“There’s still a ton of problems to deal with for me though…”
I heave a sigh while looking at the [Prison] I took out of my pocket with Ende sealed inside it.
- Pixel