Chapter 289: Illegal Entry into the Empire (2) (1/2)
Really late post. Punishing Gray Raven just got released yesterday, so I spent most of the time playing it, hahaha.
Kirara.
A girl with a different name despite being from the wild lands where people were usually named with a combination of intuitive words like Red Wind or Sun Song.
Because she was a beastkin by birth.
Only a few people in the wild lands were pure human descendants.
Most of them were mixed-blood elves, dwarves, or orcs, but there were also a few mixed-race beastkin that came from the beastkin races in the western region of the empire.
Although there were a lot of beastkin in the western region of the empire, the reason why the mixed-race beastkin were a minority in the wild lands was because of the barbarians’ origin. Most barbarians were descendants of ancient races that fled to the north in order to escape the invasion of the overlords of Hell, or were descendants of Magellan, the magic kingdom of the elves that was located in the wild lands.
Since the descendants of these ancient races were already settled in the wild lands by that time, the mixed-raced beastkin who came from the empire ended up becoming the minority.
Most of the beastkin who dared to leave the empire and migrate to the wild lands were criminals.
Therefore, beastkin were often ostracized in the wild lands, and Kirara was someone who was even ostracized by her fellow beastkin.
Because she was an orphan, a child of a family whose parents both died after having been caught stealing.
‘From an early age, she had an uncomfortable life being attentive to other people’s remarks and behavior while not expressing her thoughts.’
In fact, Kirara was a despised character when one played other characters’ routes, but she was also famous for making one’s eyes moist when one played her route.
‘Of course, that’s only for a short time as you’ll get mad at her again if you take another character route.’
Because she was a habitual betrayer.
One could have a touching and genuine friendship with her, or a proper master and slave relationship, but right after a certain event, she would stab you in the back and run away, so it was quite shocking.
Fortunately, she was unlike Keynes, the villain-like character of Legend of Heroes 2, as she wouldn’t stab you at a really critical moment.
Most of the events would have her running away secretly without anything in hand, or running away with expensive stuff.
‘In the first place, she ran away at night from the beginning of her scenario.’
The first major event of the Kirara route was to run away after robbing the house of the village chief who usually abused and treated her like a slave.
‘After that, the world fell into chaos while she was heading to the empire and collecting money by repeated stealing and betrayal.’
As anyone could tell at this point, Kirara was a character who slightly deviated from the game’s main scenario.
Among the playable characters who fought for a cause, such as Red Wind and Kajsa who fought to restore their hometowns, Jude and Lucas who lost everything and fought the demon followers in their vengeance, and Maximilian and Leon who fought to protect the imperial family and restore peace, she was a character who lived for the sole purpose of survival.
“Hiiiiieee…”
When Kirara was grabbed by Jude at the back of her neck, she made a crying sound with her ears and tail hanging down, so she looked really pitiful.
A kind of look that stimulated one’s protective instincts.
But Jude and Cordelia were not easily fooled.
Because they knew that Kirara was skilled in pretending to be sick or pitiful.
“Lord Jude, what’s going on?”
What did he mean by an agent sent to catch Mountain King?
Who was Mountain King in the first place?
“Is he like the king of bandits? So he’s the mountain king? Hmm, that’s possible…”
Kajsa answered her own question as her eyes glistened with interest, and Cordelia added.
“Mountain King is the king of bandits. He’s a tiger beastkin who caused trouble in the far west side of the empire, and he’s quite powerful.”
He was a figure similar to Gamorr Khan who led the Black Hand Mercenaries in the Sälen Kingdom.
“Why that person though? Does this have something to do with the Guardians of the Holy Cross?”
At Lucas’ question, Jude nodded his head.
“Yes. There are rumors that Mountain King and the demon followers were in contact, so an agent from the empire was sent to spy on the situation and verify its authenticity… Though it’s more like they hired a local to be exact.”
As Jude spoke seriously, Lucas and Kajsa didn’t even doubt him a bit. They nodded their heads and even said things like, ‘I see, so that’s what happened.’
Though from Kirara’s perspective, he was crazy.
‘What?’
Who was hired by whom?
Did I have some split personality who woke up while I was sleeping and secretly made a contract?
Kirara had a lot of things she wanted to say but couldn’t say because she was seriously afraid of Jude’s hand holding her neck.
“But why did you do that earlier? Why did you openly reveal her identity when you had her work hard in infiltrating?”
Because Mountain King’s subordinates would have been watching them earlier.
In response to Kajsa’s question, Jude turned to Kirara and continued.
“I suspected that she has betrayed us.”
Kirara was taken aback by Jude’s words.
There was no betrayal since they never even had a relationship in the first place, but she unknowingly reacted to the word ‘betrayed’ because she had been stabbing people in the back for some time.
Seeing that Kirara’s tail stiffened and she began to tremble, Kajsa touched her chin and spoke.
“So she’s what was that again… Ah, that’s right, a double agent. Are you saying that she became a double agent or something?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
She infiltrated Mountain King’s base, but rather than spying on them, she ended up becoming Mountain King’s dog.
It was a false accusation from Kirara’s perspective, but Jude’s party believed his words to the point that if he said that sun would rise from the west tomorrow, they would believe him.
Lucas then spoke in a convinced tone as if he finally understood.
“I see. If that’s the case, your talk earlier was to block her route of betrayal.”
“Oh my. Our Lucas is smart?”
When Kajsa gave Lucas a shoulder hug and praised him, Lucas blushed like a pure boy and cleared his throat.
“Look how shy you are.”
Kajsa giggled again and slightly tightened her shoulder hug before she gave Lucas a peck on the cheek and let go of her hug.
Even though Kajsa was three years older, she was fond of Lucas.
“Anyway, she’s a traitor?”
Kajsa’s gaze turned vicious.
Unlike Lucas who had yet to experience betrayal in his life, she grew up in the southern region of the kingdom where the fights among the families were fierce, so she had seen many traitors since her childhood.
‘No, I’m not a traitor. I haven’t betrayed anyone yet!’
I’ve thought of betraying him someday, but I haven’t done it yet!
Kirara looked pitiful as she trembled and her shoulders drooped.
It made Jude want to trouble her more.
‘No, let’s stop.’
Jude came to his senses and shook his head before he organized his thoughts again.
To start with, there were two reasons why Jude was holding Kirara by the neck even if he was overdoing it.
One was the fact that Kirara was unlikely to survive under Mountain King.
She might be Kirara, but judging by the fact that she was wearing a necklace with explosive magic on it without her knowing it, she already had something close to a death flag.
‘Is this the butterfly effect on the imperial side?’
In the game’s storyline, she wasn’t treated like this at this point.
The reason why Jude held Kirara’s neck so tightly was to prevent those who were watching from activating the magic to kill Kirara.
‘Use the energy of the black dragon to destroy the magic.’
Jude had never done it before, but he had gotten strong enough to do it.
“Ahem, ahem.”
After clearing his throat for a bit, Jude looked down at Kirara again.
The second reason why he saved Kirara.
Kirara had talent.
It wasn’t just about her ability to easily make anyone fawn over her because she was small and cute, or her perfect acting skills that lured in people.
‘What do you think?’
‘Yes, I think her talent had bloomed.’
Jude smiled at Cordelia’s reply via her gaze.
Among the 11 playable characters of Legend of Heroes 2, only Kirara had that talent.
Kirara had the talent to become a monster tamer.
During her childhood, Kirara went to the mountains to find herbs under the orders of the village chief and almost died after meeting a monster. But she was saved by an unknown man, and from that day onwards, she strangely awakened her talent as a monster tamer.
She clearly didn’t know the extent of her talent’s capabilities, so she only used this talent to communicate with animals. Thus, Kirara was able to form a one-man army and grew up in a different sense from the other playable characters.
‘Kirara never betrayed the monsters she tamed.’
If one considered that, she wasn’t completely evil.
But she wasn’t called a ‘chaotic good’ for no reason.
In any case, Kirara was a very useful person even if she didn’t create a monster army.
He would be able to give her a variety of tasks once she could communicate with animals, and monster taming also had a so-called cheat route.
‘Ghost taming.’
The biggest disadvantage of monster tamers was the fact that they had to bring along their monsters with them, so in the case of big and strong monsters, it was difficult to bring them along.
No city allowed monsters to enter.
But ghosts were different.
They were easy to hide, and even if one had many of them, there were no problems in food or housing expenses.
‘The problem is that Kirara is deathly afraid of ghosts.’
So it was a hidden cheat route.
‘Well, even if she’s scared of ghosts, it will be fine if we calm and appease her.’
Rather, their problem was betrayal.
How would they prevent Kirara from betraying them?
There was an option to put a bomb on her neck and threaten her just like what Mountain King did, but Jude didn’t prefer that.
Or rather, it was more than a matter of preference.
Because Kang Jin-ho had actually worn a bomb necklace before.
‘Hmm, as I thought, there’s only one way to solve this.’