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| Translation & Editing | Unknown, Obarou |
Day 80 Sidestory: The Empire's Heir's POV
【POV: The Empire's Heir】
【Time Axis: Day 80】
For the sake of curing Diana from the "Chrysindo Disease" eating into her, I searched for a remedy using everything I could. She was the person I was arranged to marry, my fiance and my loved one, the First Princess of the Sternbild Kingdom . After seaching continuously, I finally learned of the existence of a secret medicine that can treat the "Chrysindo Disease" through a [Divine Revelation] from the [Demigod of Healing].
I tried again and again to negotiate with the elves, who inherited the technique to purify the secret medicine, to trade it for large sums of money.
However, no matter what I offered them, the elves refused to trade the secret medicine because of an ancient law, so I led my forces to the forest in order to take it by force.
This war wasn’t supposed to drag on for so long, but the elves’ resistance was more violent than expected, and the damage we received wasn't to be sneezed at.
The forest was filled with traps which decreased our already slow marching speed, the monsters that frequently appeared were a burden, and the elves who constantly shot arrows at us from the trees' shadows and under the cover of the night's darkness were troublesome.
As expected of the elves who live in this forest, they are much more familiar with this forest than us, so when they retreat each time, we weren't able to keep track of them. There were also some units that we couldn’t contact anymore, so they most likely got wiped out.
However, I just couldn't believe that all of these were the elves' doing.
My intuition is telling me that that there's a troublesome existence besides the elves.
I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of existence it was, but I feel that it's something similar to the [ Eight Great Knights ], one of the empire's strongest forces which it's very proud of.
--And my intuition was correct.
The elves launched a surprise attack at the encampment of our army's main force, the place where I'm currently staying. Shrouded by the dark of night, they infiltrated our encampment unnoticed and freed the demi-human slaves.
I was alarmed that they were able to infiltrate our lines so far without us noticing, but I exhaled a sight of relief due to the fact that we were able to detect them thanks to the chimera going on a rampage. What made it even better was that the rampaging chimera was attacking the infiltrators and the freed demi-human slaves.
I could clearly see the situation, even from afar. The chimera is a synthetic monster that the empire boasts of, created by utilizing many techniques of the empire. Though because of some problems, such as the materials needed, increasing the production currently isn't possible, nonetheless, they're expected to play an active role in wars against other countries in the near future.
This chimera was a very strong monster which possessed raw power great enough that common monsters couldn't even compare, in addition, it possessed a greater build than an [Armored War Elephant], the limbs of an [Emperor Tiger], the venomous fangs of a [Multi-Headed Snake], and the pincers of a [Blue Shelled Crab], it was such a strong and great monster. However, this same strong chimera got killed quickly.
Although I couldn’t confirm the appearance of the one who killed it because of the distance and the fact that the sun hadn’t risen yet, but there's no doubt that the chimera had perished. I was dumbfounded at the sight, but the enemy’s attack was so fierce that I was taken aback only for a few moments.
We were able to confirm the existence of elves, ogres, half-lords, and such among the attacking army of the black-colored skeletons.
As I thought, the enemy was not just elves.
Most likely, the ogres who live in this forest colluded with the elves, then they launched a violent attack at us with their allied army.
The damage in the area around an [Ogre Variant] was especially great, our elites continued falling one after another.
I was focused on relaying my orders while observing the battlefield from afar, and also didn't focus on keeping my guard up due to the fact that the sparks of the battle hadn’t reached here yet. These two are the main reasons why I let my guard down.
I trembled at the fact that an enemy managed to approach me so close, standing at my back without getting detected by my aides and the guards around me.
If they wanted to kill me, I would've been long dead.
However, the enemy whispered something into my ears instead and put a small bottle full of liquid into my breast pocket. They said that the secret medicine is inside it.
The condition for receiving it is for us to retreat from the forest. That was the only condition.
And I accepted that condition. It was regrettable to not obtain the profits we could’ve gotten from the elves, but when the enemy is gripping your life like this, there is no other choice but to obediently fall back.
I had lost to the elves ... no, to this unknown enemy.
It was an existence that could sneak into heavily guarded enemy headquarters without being noticed. Although they could’ve easily robbed me of my life, they offered the secret medicine in exchange for our retreat instead. If not for the fact that I'm the Kirika Empire's heir, or if by chance the enemy wasn't aware of that fact, I would've most certainly died.
Grinding my teeth, I vowed to take down this unknown enemy who became my nemesis starting from this moment, then ordered a retreat while suppressing my anger.
If this secret medicine turned out to be a fake, I'll come back to this forest and slaughter this unknown enemy even if my body were to crumble down to dust in the process.
It was a bitter experience, but as I gained a goal from it too, and vowed to make both the empire and myself stronger.