The Emperor Has Returned - Chapter 165. The Ones Who Started Everything (3)

The shrill sounds of iron clashing against could be heard constantly.

Despite looking like he was already unconscious, Juan was still moving. While Juan was no different from ordinary human beings once his use of mana was restricted, he was blocking the old elf’s sword with his left hand, the hand which he was not familiar with using.

At that moment, Sina doubted her eyes upon seeing Juan’s sword limply bending. For the first time, Juan managed to stop being defensive and attempted to attack the old elf.

Then, the old elf frowned and shouted something in a loud voice.

“Alhke! Alhke!”

“It means ‘well done’ and ‘keep going’,” Dane explained.

‘His expression seems to be saying otherwise, almost as if he wants to kill Juan.’

Sina managed to swallow the words.

Juan continued to move fiercely. His sword was swung toward the old elf’s sword in an elaborate and accurate pattern.

Among his crude yet elaborate movements, Sina was able to find the traces of the Baltic Sword—in fact, Juan’s movements were the prototype of the Baltic Sword.

Then Juan’s sword suddenly began to emit translucent fog.

Seeing this, the old elf made a perplexed expression, and soon shouted something as he grabbed his sword and charged firmly into the inside of the fog.

Bang!

With a dull sound, Juan collapsed to the floor.

“That’s the end of it,” Dane said as he stared at Juan.

The old elf wiped the sweat off of his forehead and then examined Juan’s condition. He looked quite concerned, but Juan was only lightly snoring as he fell asleep. The old elf, who had been frowning throughout their training, smiled as if he was dumbfounded upon realizing that Juan was just sleeping.

“Well. Shall we move on?”

Dane lifted his cane and scanned the empty space as if he was turning the page of a book.

***

This time, Juan looked like he was about fifteen years old. He was older than the last time, but he was still quite young.

Sina realized that this was Juan’s appearance from when he was just beginning to move in earnest.

“A little kid like you want to be our king?”

“I don’t care about the title, whether it’s the king or the chief. I just need you guys.”

Countless refugees stared at Juan with anxious eyes.

Juan slowly looked around at the damp and desolate land. The majority of the land here had been poisoned, making it impossible for crops to grow on it.

However, the young children were surviving by drinking the rotten water and eating the bark of the trees.

The largest man among the refugees growled at Juan.

“Do you even know where we are? What are you even trying to achieve by becoming the king of beggars?”

“I’m not saying that I want to become the king of beggars. You guys will become my army,” Juan answered.

“Army? Hah! This bastard also seems to be trying to take advantage of the mess that’s happening these days.” The man said as he slammed the ax that he was carrying on his shoulder to the ground.

“I hate to break it to you, but the people here are the ones who ran away because they were sick of war. Most of them are children or women, since almost all the men are dead. We would be no help—if anything, we would be a burden. If you want to fight, either pray to god or go find the weirdo who’s been babbling about killing gods these days. I’m sure you will get along quite well with him.”

“That’s me.”

“What?”

“I’m that weirdo who killed a god.”

These words caused a stir among the refugees. The man looked perplexed at first, but soon his face became distorted.

“Damn it, you’re driving me nuts. A kid like you, killed a god? Are you serious? Do you even know how many hunters and demons are after you, trying to kill you? What are you trying to achieve by running all the way out here anyway?”

“I didn’t run away. I came here for you guys.”

The man was speechless—he was too dumbfounded to say anything. However, Juan’s confidence and an unknown energy intimidated him quite a bit. These things, along with the various rumors about Juan were enough to make the man feel quite uneasy.

The rumors about the one who murdered a god and liberated the slaves were already quite famous everywhere. Some of the refugees even claimed that they had actually seen him.

“Hmph, fine… If you really are the so-called god killer, the task should be pretty simple.”

The man got the refugees to step aside. In the middle of the refugees’ village was a rock. Embedded in the center of the rock was a rusty sword.

“It’s a rock we took out of the swamp, but it happened to have a sword stuck within it. We will serve you as our king or whatever you want if you can pull this sword out.”

Juan looked at the man as if he was dumbfounded and then strode over to the rock.

Juan asked one more time as if he wanted to confirm.

“That’s all you need me to do? You’re going to accept me that easily? I had heard from my teachers that the position of a king is obtained by sharing power with everyone through treaties, negotiations and promises between the majority and the organizational leaders.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Isn’t it enough by pulling out the sword stuck in that rock?”

“Alright. If that’s all you want, then…”

Juan approached the rock. He tightly clenched his fist, and then slammed the handle of the sword that was stuck in the rock at once.

Crack!

The rock instantly broke down with a loud noise. Then, Juan slowly picked up the sword, that was now ruined, from the ground where only the fragments of the original rock remained.

“It doesn’t look like you will be able to use this sword. However, I don’t think it would have mattered anyway, since it is already in such a rusty state to begin with. Are you okay with that?”

The man looked at Juan with a dumbfounded look on his face.

When Juan repeated his question, the man stuttered and opened his mouth.

“Wh-why do you even ne-need an army when you’re already so strong?”

“I am short on hands, since the gods have begun to form their own army. Now, I won’t be able to kill them on my own. Besides, I don’t want all of you to think that you were granted peace and freedom for nothing,” Juan reached out his hand. “Join me on my journey. After all, peace that was gained without any effort is easily lost. I want to give all of you a solid rock-like fence that won’t easily collapse.”

The man’s eyes shook. He did not understand much of the difficult words spoken by Juan, nor did he know whether it was the right thing to serve a boy who looked like he was only about fifteen years old. However, he could clearly see that Juan was sincere and had the power to make his words come true. Above all, he felt strongly attracted to Juan’s confidence.

Nevertheless, there was one thing that made the man feel apprehensive about Juan’s offer.

“There are members of the heterogenous races among us. They are the ones who lost their gods because of you and lost the power granted by their gods’ blessings. Although some of the refugees hate the members of the heterogenous races, I think they aren’t any different from the other victims of war. But, it will only be natural for them to hate you. So, are you willing to accept heterogeneous races as well?”

“Of course,” Juan nodded. “There are Elves, Arles, and Orcs among my teachers. They too have also agreed that gods should be killed. I will accept as many refugees as I can, as long as they agree to treat even the people at the lowest levels equally,” Juan answered.

“Alright,” The man held out his hand. “My name is Winoa Weaver. I’ll go inside this fence you are building.”

Sina blankly stared at Juan and Winoa Weaver holding hands. She had heard of Winoa Weaver’s name before—he was the former captain of the Imperial Guards and the first of the Six Apostates to be executed after His Majesty’s assassination.

Dane twisted his lips and opened his mouth.

“Juan didn’t hold the title of the emperor just yet, but it was at this time that he began to realize his power and the weight of his actions. We tried very hard to teach the emperor why he had to become ‘the emperor’ rather than a hero. That’s not something you can just learn naturally, you know? I’m sure you know how the two are different from each other.”

“…Heroes catch fish for the people, but the emperor makes nets for them.”

“Exactly. Us—the Aruntal, tried our absolute best to make the emperor keep that in his mind.”

***

The alpine region that Sina had seen earlier had reappeared. However, this time, the season had changed and snow was piled up.

Juan climbed up the mountain with ease, despite the snowstorm. This time, Juan looked much older than before—about thirty years old. He didn’t have a beard on his face, but he looked much bigger, and had broader shoulders.

“Don’t you think that the ‘him’ here looks much more like an emperor than what he is now?” Dane asked joyfully.

Juan trudged over and stabbed a blue trident and a burning sword in the middle of the plateau.

Sina immediately recognized the identity of the two weapons: they were Telgramm and Sutra, the famous weapons that belonged to the emperor.

“Aruntal,” Juan muttered toward the empty space, almost as if he was reciting. “The task you have assigned to me has been completed.”

Dane quietly watched the scene.

“Today, the last of the gods on this land has died. The rest are those who have escaped beyond the boundaries and to the Crack. Those who have crossed beyond the boundaries and entered the Crack won’t be able to come back—Mananen McLeir assured me.”

No one answered Juan amidst the quiet alpine region.

Sina realized from Juan’s expression that he wasn’t even expecting an answer. In fact, there was no one listening to him from the very beginning.

“It’s quite unfortunate that you guys didn’t get to see all this. I have ordered Barth Baltic to investigate the disaster that struck all of you. If there is someone who perpetrated it, I’ll make sure to have them take responsibility. If they too have escaped to the Crack, I will chase after them and end their lives for good. I wish I could investigate the case myself, but…”

Juan barely continued to speak while his lips started trembling.

“There… there is too much work that needs to be done. Harmon is helping me with most of it, but there is still a lot. It almost seems like there’s more work that needs to be done than even when I went around killing gods. I’d have asked you all for a lot of advice if you guys were still alive. I don’t know if Dane Dormund is dead or not, but if possible, I want to ask him to come back.”

Sina covered her mouth with her hand upon hearing Juan’s words—his words meant that all of the members of Aruntal were dead. It was unknown as to what had happened, but many of the members of Aruntal seemed to be dead. However, it was only natural that no one would know about their deaths, since it was a secret organization to begin with.

“Yes. Around this time, we were attacked and most of us ended up dying. Some survived, but escaped to a dimension that they could never return from. At that time, I was critically injured as well, and so I had to change parts of my body from here and there… that’s when I got this body that I have now,” Dane explained to Sina.

However, Sina couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to Dane; she was focused on listening to Juan.

“Of course I won’t call for Dane again. I know that I shouldn’t speak nonsense just because I’m exhausted. But… to be honest, I’ve only lived for thirty years,” Juan spoke as he looked up at the sky blankly.

“In just thirty years, I have killed all the gods and am leading humans to the apex of mankind. But I feel skeptical—is this normal? So far, I’ve only had to beat all the enemies to death. But I no longer have to do that. Now, I need to teach, lead and get involved in politics. Harmon has been doing well so far, but what would happen if Harmon wasn’t by my side? You guys aren’t here anymore either.”

Juan mumbled as he kicked the stone on the floor.

“Dane said that I will become completed as the emperor the moment I get Mananen McLeir’s heart. But that’s not the right condition to make the emperor—thirty years is too short to make me an emperor. Maybe fifty years? Would fifty years be enough? No… hundred years? Would I become the true emperor of mankind in one thousand years?”

The words were low and full of pain.

“Is it even possible to lead mankind?”

Juan remained silent for a long time after murmuring the last sentence.

Sina was utterly perplexed by Juan’s weak appearance which she had never seen before. Juan had always shown the utmost confidence and seemed to be able to solve any problem with ease. However, at this moment, upon seeing him suffer and be confused due to the deaths of his teachers, Sina realized that he too had a weak point hidden inside of him.

After a while, Juan once again opened his mouth.

“I ended up saying such weak things again. But bear with me—where else would I be able to say these things? If I told these things to Harmon, he would hit me on the head with a bottle of alcohol and tell me that he would smack my head if I went somewhere else and said such nonsense.”

Juan sighed, and quietly pulled out Telgramm and Sutra from the ground and turned around. At that moment, Juan, who was stepping back on his footprints to return, looked like a lonely tree in the middle of the wasteland.

Dane once again waved his cane.

After that, the official history of Juan—the official history of the Emperor, that was well-known throughout the empire, passed by like a film. The scenes included the corruption caused by the Crack beyond the boundary, the disaster of Arbalde, the disturbance caused by the dragons, the empire pressing down on the chaos everywhere, and Juan struggling to stop all of that.

Then, in the end, Juan was stabbed in the back by his own child, Gerard Gain.

Dane stopped the scene at the sight of Juan being stabbed in the back by Gerard Gain.

“Sina Solvane,” Dane quietly asked Sina. “What do you think is the emperor’s weakness?”

Sina tried quite hard before gulping. It was difficult for her to even open her mouth, since the inside of her mouth was so dry after watching the whole scene.

Soon, an answer came out of Sina’s mouth.

“Human.”