Chapter 336: 176. The Beginning of the Destruction -2 (Part Two)
Translated by A Passing Wanderer
Edited by RED
**
Five years had passed since the Farmer incident.
The Kingdom of Frants had welcomed the advent of an era of true peace since then. After the death of the Farmer, the frequency of the vampire incidents decreased so much that travellers and even merchants began stopping by the Duchy of Ariana more often.
In the middle of the city street…
“Are we training again today, too?”
A large crowd of people were out and about in the city’s marketplace. A band of soldiers walking among them were yawning out grandly.
They made sure to inspect their equipment, got into orderly lines, and began their patrol routine. While doing all this, they still expressed their dissatisfaction.
“Don’t you think this is strange? Why are we receiving such a strict training regime these days?”
“Not only that, it’s like we’re preparing to fight against big monsters, like ogres or something. I mean, most of our training involves castle defence or the operation of siege weapons! Heck, even the citizens are being asked to participate in evacuation drills recently.”
“Maybe that rumour was true all along? You know, the one about the end of the world and stuff. I keep hearing about that thing in my local pub all the time lately. Other kingdoms are also raising a lot of ruckus over it, apparently. They are all saying that the end of the world is about to hit us.”
The soldiers busily chatting away suddenly grew quiet, but a short while later, they broke out in loud guffaws.
“Ahaha! Now that’s funny. If the end of the world really happens, I’m gonna brand my palm or something!”
It was at that moment a man hiding himself under a white robe and hood brushed past the chatting soldiers.
“Huh? Wasn’t that a musket?” One of the soldiers pointed at the man in the white robe.
“Yeah, you’re right. And it’s a really lengthy one too, isn’t it?”
The musket seemed to be about two metres in length. The soldiers’ eyes stared at the back of the man wielding the large-muzzled musket.
“Maybe he’s a Priest from the Theocratic Empire?”
“Aha, you mean, from that musket regiment or whatever?”
“Ahaha! A musket regiment without the Holy Emperor around is basically like a stick regiment, isn’t it? From what I hear, they can’t even shoot anything without the Holy Emperor’s Divine Aura or something? And the emperor himself is nowhere to be found for the past year or so, which means…”
“Hey, man! Watch what you say. That’s lese-majeste, you know!”
The soldiers hurriedly clamped their mouths shut. They sneaked a glance at the white-robed man and flinched visibly after realising that he was staring back at them. The soldiers stiffened up smartly in place.
That man in the white robe was a Priest from the Theocratic Empire. If he was indeed a member of the musket regiment, then he belonged to the six main forces of the Imperial Family, too. Each and every person belonging to that regiment possessed a status higher than your average nobleman.
“A-ah, w-we should get back to our patrols!”
The soldiers hurriedly left the area, almost running away.
The white-robed man stared at their distancing backs for a moment before looking behind him. He tilted his head slightly after noticing a group of kids standing before the bell tower. They were looking up with troubled expressions on their faces.
“Hey, guys. What are you all doing?” the man asked while walking up to them.
The kids pointed towards the sky and replied, “Our balloon!”
“…A balloon?” The man looked up.
There it was, a balloon stuck on the bell tower, the rays of the morning sun casting on the structure itself.
“Mom gave it to me as a present, you see…”
When one of the kids said that, the rest of the group became tearful all of a sudden.
“…Huh. So this world also has balloons.” The white-robed man thought to himself, ‘I think I’ve seen them before during the festivals’, then addressed the kids. “Why don’t you go and fetch it?”
“But mister, the doorway is locked.”
The man shifted his gaze over to the bell tower’s entrance when the kids said that. Indeed, they were right. A huge lock had clamped the entrance down tight.
The man could only furrow his brow at that sight. “But, how come?”
“Uhm… because we often went up there and rang the bell as a prank, so that’s why…”
After listening to the honest confession of the kids, the white-robed man nodded to indicate that he understood the gist of the situation.
A village’s bell tower was more often than not used to warn the residents about impending emergency situations. The bell would only be rung during monster raids or to signal the outbreak of a war.
But a bunch of kids had been ringing the bell for fun lately, so the residents would have expressed their deep dissatisfaction about the whole situation. That led to the bell tower’s doorway being locked shut.
“With things like this, though, no one can now ring the bell in emergency situations…” The white-robed man scratched his head.
He looked around and spotted a guard post nearby. A realisation dawned on him just then. Maybe one needed permission from the guard on duty if one wanted to open the door?
“How about getting permission from the guard?”
“The guard uncle was still asleep, though…”
“…Heh, I guess it’s been really peaceful around here, then,” the white-robed man chuckled awkwardly, and the kids smiled sheepishly along with him. He then patted the kids on their heads before reaching out towards the bell tower’s door. He grasped the large lock, then gripped it hard.
Crunch…!
The lock bent unnaturally, before breaking apart into pieces.
The eyes of the kids opened wide in shock. Even the white-robed man stood there in a bit of daze as well. He stared at his own hand and began repeatedly clenching and unfurling his first. “…Kinda feels like I’ve become a superhero or something.”
“A superhero?” The kids tilted their heads in confusion.
“Ah, that. It’s nothing major. Let’s quickly pop in and leave. I’ll just pay the repair fee later.”
The white-robed man opened the door and climbed the bell tower’s staircase. The group of kids followed after him.
They eventually reached the top of the tower, and the man wrapped the thread tied to the balloon around his musket to reel it in.
The balloon was finally returned to the kids. “There you go.”
“Thank you, mister!”
The man grinned widely.
In the meantime, one of the kids turned his head and began scanning the scenery visible outside the bell tower. This kid began tugging at the man’s robe next. “Uncle?”
“…Hey kid, I’m not old enough to be called an uncle yet, you know.”
The man turned his head at the kid, and the latter pointed to the distance. “What’s that over there?”
The man shifted his gaze in the direction the kid was pointing at, and his facial expression hardened in an instant.
In the far-off distance, where a verdant grassland that lay beyond the Duchy of Ariana was located, he could see a large dust storm.
Some things, large things, were running towards the city. The silhouettes within the dust clouds seemed humanoid, but they were definitely not humans.
The smallest one was around eight metres tall, while the largest was about fifteen metres.
Giants!
And every single one of them was carrying huge boulders that had to be at least half the size of their torsos.
“H-help me! Help!”
In front of the horde of giants was a scout riding on a horse. He must’ve been dispatched to deliver the news, but too bad for him, he couldn’t last for long before getting trampled to death by the giants’ stomping feet.
A horse wasn’t fast enough to outrun the giants, as it turned out.
Soldiers atop the watch towers also realised that something was wrong and began murmuring to each other.
The white-robed man in the bell tower stared at the unfolding spectacle with widened eyes before hurriedly scanning his surroundings.
He was definitely in the bell tower, while the villages remained quiet and peaceful.
…There were no sounds of a ringing bell.
But in the [Foresight] witnessed by Seran Ariana, the destruction of the Duchy began with the loud ringing of the warning bell.
The white-robed man was currently on the top floor of the bell tower, the one supposed to send out the warning signals.
“Ah… I see.” The man facepalmed himself as if he finally realised something here. “Holy cow. So, this was what the gods wanted in the first place? It’s supposed to be an ‘inevitable’ fate, but the way it so perfectly fits is kinda pissing me off. Sister Seran told me not to interfere, but this is the exact opposite, isn’t it?!”
The destiny that was bound to happen.
The white-robed man was probably in Seran’s [Foresight] as well, except that she failed to spot him in it.
“I see. So, I’m the one who…” The man grabbed the rope connected to the bell. “…sent out the warning signal.”
He yanked down on the rope hard.
Dang-! Dang-! Claaaang-!!!
The bell rang extremely loudly. The kids jumped up in shock and hurriedly covered their ears.
The white-robed man turned his head and glared at the incoming giants. That sight was the clear proof.
Seran’s [Foresight], and what the gods wanted from him…
That was for him to…
…to rescue the Royal Family of Frants!
The man, Allen Olfolse, discarded his white robe.
< 176. The Beginning of the Destruction -2 (Part One and Two) > Fin.
