Chapter 193: Lord Protector (1) (1/2)

This is the 1st of the 2 episodes for today~!

The war against the Argon Empire was over.

But neither side thought that true peace had come.

It was a mere temporary truce.

“The war is not over.”

The empire did not want to give up on the Cilates Plains, the continent’s largest breadbasket.

And so did the Sälen Kingdom, which was already enjoying the benefits of the Cilates Plains.

“A fight that will only end if one side falls.”

But neither side wanted it to escalate into an all-out war.

Because neither side had an absolute advantage.

Therefore, the Sälen Kingdom and the Argon Empire had fought as many as eight times in the past hundred years.

There had been hundreds of battles, including small local battles.

“I don’t hate it.”

If it weren’t for the war, his life would have ended at best as a back alley thug.

Perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to do that because he’d die from starvation.

When war broke out, there would always be a shortage of troops.

He was moving around the back alleys and became a soldier when he was told that he would be given bread.

It was good at first.

After all, he had bread to eat at every meal, and he had a bed which he could lie down and comfortably sleep on.

The life of eating and sleeping without being deprived of food or being attacked while sleeping was like heaven to him at that time.

But the situation changed when he stood on the real battlefield.

He couldn’t remember the day of the first battle no matter how much he thought of it.

All he remembered was the fact that he was the only one who survived in the barracks where 20 people lived together, and the fact that the tall guy who was always talking loudly in the bed next to him had been shot to death by an arrow on his forehead as soon as the battle started.

The war continued, and the skinny boy struggled to not die as he began to learn the know-how of surviving.

And in the end, he didn’t just survive as he even learned how to kill others.

“I don’t want to die.”

He lived his life in pain, yet he was obsessed with living.

He fought to live and killed to live.

He couldn’t even remember when and where he did his first kill, but he did remember what he called his first murder – the murder he consciously committed.

When the spear pierced the other person’s chest.

When the soldier in front of him, whom he even didn’t know their name, died.

He didn’t experience much joy in surviving.

He didn’t experience any sort of pleasure in killing and ending a life with his own hands.

He was just afraid.

Of death.

Of dying.

Time passed, and he learned more and more ways on how to fight. His know-how became skills, and his skills made him work hard.

It was natural for a person to want to do better if he did well on something.

Moreover, his efforts to not die on the battlefield made him become stronger.

The war ended, and the beggar from the back alleys who didn’t even receive a name from his parents eventually became a knight.

“And 20 years later.”

After a moment of peace and two wars.

The knight became a count, and the count became a duke.

Lord Protector.

The hero who saved the country in its crisis.

He just fought and fought as he rose in rank and even received such a grand name.

“Lord Protector, there’s a child I want to introduce to you.”

The second king.

He had no significant relationship with the first king he saw at the post-war knighthood ceremony.

But he had quite an exchange with the second king.

Because he saved that person’s life, and that person made him a count.

When the last war ended, that person made him a duke, someone like him who was once a commoner and didn’t even know who his parents were.

“He’s my son. He was born on the eve of the war, so I didn’t have the chance to introduce him. Still, you must have heard of him, right?”

The second king smiled with his good-looking face, and the other counted the numbers in his head.

The third war of his life lasted for as long as seven years, so if the child had been born on the eve of the war, the child would be around eight years old.

“Henry, come here.”

When the king beckoned, the little boy hiding behind the queen ran and stood next to the second king.

The child who would become the third king in his life if nothing bad happens.

The boy was very excited for some reason, and he looked up at the Lord Protector with a blush on his face, greeting the Lord Protector in a clumsy yet serious manner before the Lord Protector could greet him first.

“I’m Henry D. Sälen. Lord Protector.”

The child’s eyes were sparkling as if he was looking at a hero from a storybook and not at a vassal.

The Lord Protector knelt in front of the child with the same name as the first king he met, and after some time, he put his name out of his mouth.

“The Duke of Antarius, Gray Antarius, humbly greets you.”

The last name was given by the first king, and the title was given by the second king.

At his greeting, the future third king brightly smiled like the sun in his excitement.

***

“”

“”

Cordelia and Prince Dion shouted almost simultaneously.

Because both of them knew well that ordinary attack magic did not work on someone from the Ten Great Swordmasters.

So they dug the ground and pulled him down with gravity. They focused on preventing his movement.

Boooom!

The Lord Protector was slammed into the ground.

But Cordelia and Dion did not let their guard down. Even though their opponent had declined from age now, he was still the hero who saved the Sälen Kingdom in its crisis in the past, and was the Lord Protector, one of the Ten Great Swordmasters.

“Uuuuugh!”

Prince Dion sweated as he strengthened his gravity magic, but he couldn’t beat the Lord Protector.

He also couldn’t stop the sword attack the Lord Protector did while being pulled down by gravity.

Shing-!

The Lord Protector cut the air.

No, he cut the magic with his aura blade. The magic formation was broken, nullifying the magic.

It was generally not possible.

A magic formation wouldn’t just break from the slash of an aura blade in the air.

But it was the sword of someone from the Ten Great Swordmasters.

It was possible for them to read the flow of mana and accurately cut its core.

“Ugh!”

Prince Dion suffered from the backlash of the forced destruction of his magic, stepping back as he groaned while Jude and Princess Daphne held their breaths. Right after the magic was broken, they focused all their attention on the Lord Protector who leapt up from the pit.

‘We need to buy time.’

That’s the victory condition for this fight.

We must not overdo it.

We should focus on buying time.

We should actively utilize Daphne and Dion.

We should fight together instead of protecting the two.

‘They don’t need protection.’

Henry II, his queens, and Princess Darianne had fled.

Even if Princess Daphne and Prince Dion died, the blood of the founder king would still continue.

‘Let’s go.’

He didn’t have the time to think anymore. Even if it was hard, they had to stop the Lord Protector from and moving as they hold him back.

‘Black Dragon’s Roar! Link!’

T/N: The word ‘link’ here refers to the link in mathematical knot theory, which is a collection of knots that do not intersect but can be linked or knotted with each other. An example of that is the Hopf link we saw in a past chapter. But seriously, Jude’s naming sense for his attacks is just weird…

Jude shot out the black dragon’s energy in succession towards the Lord Protector. Princess Daphne closely watched the Lord Protector destroy the black dragons with his sword covered with a dark blue aura. When he defeated the fourth black dragon, she kicked the ground.

Princess Daphne’s combat power.

Her sword was sharp and fast. But it wasn’t enough to reach the Lord Protector. He rotated his body like a top and the sword he swung deflected her sword, but Jude narrowed the distance with his Hyper-Fast Thunderbolt. As he charged at a tremendous speed, he threw his fist filled with the energy of the black dragon towards the Lord Protector.