The Knight Decided to Return to the Empire

༺ 𓆩  Chapter 1  𓆪 ༻

「Translator — Creator」

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

“This life’s over. No matter how I look at it, I’m screwed.”

Blood flowed. And it kept flowing.

The knight with the black hair spoke in a deep Northern drawl as he slipped off his gauntlet, soaked in blood, and let it fall to the ground without ceremony.

Thunk—!!!

Letting a gauntlet drop like that was something knights were taught never to do. But really, what did it matter anymore?

“Khak!”

A dry cough escaped him.

He opened his eyes, barely; the lids felt like lead.

He couldn’t even remember how many he had cut down. Or how many more he had to go.

How many days had passed?

One? Two?

The world had already faded into ashen hues, so twisted and surreal it carried an almost contradictory beauty.

‘Beautiful, huh. Guess I’ve finally lost it.’

A bitter smirk crossed his face.

His mind was clearly broken.

Even the sky, what should have been blue, and the colors of the sun and moon had all turned to shades of gray.

Was it morning? Evening? Or some kind of eternal twilight?

He couldn’t tell anymore.

Craackkk—!!!

He cut down another one, split in half.

A grotesque creature, its form like patchwork flesh sewn together with malice, collapsed in a spray of dust and decay.

No blood. Just ash-black ichor.

No flesh. Only powdered meat.

And across the battlefield where not even the wind stirred, a single banner whipped violently as if resisting the silence.

“Gahh!”

His gaze reached below them.

And he saw writhing chunks of meat.

No, it had once been human.

The spear had pierced through the unknown soldier’s back and skewered his lungs, and now the shaft quivered in rhythm with his dying breath.

That wasn’t all.

Sluuurrrp—!!!

Blood, dark and thick, trickled down the earth’s ridges and reached the knight’s feet.

“...Yena. My sweet daughter. Mother’s coming soon. I’ll be there...soon.”

A woman, an anonymous soldier with her upper and lower body torn apart, was pushing something back into her stomach.

It was the chunks of torn, crimson innards.

Flesh matted with grime, hanging loose and limp.

She knew it was over.

But as if denying that truth, she kept scooping ruined meat back inside with broken, pulp-mashed fingers, until at last her head slumped forward.

“..................”

The knight closed his eyes.

His knees, long since wrecked, screamed with pain.

He couldn’t remember when they’d broken.

But—

—Kreeeeeee!

Another monster charged.

He cut it down with his massive greatsword, even as he thought:

...How wretched, how utterly wretched.

Even with his eyes closed, he could see the twisted images still branded into his mind, the twitching remains beneath the shattered ramparts, the screams of survivors scattered across the ashes.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and raised his head.

And in the distance, the old city was burning.

‘Where the Royal Guard should be.’

The flames spoke of finality. Of something that could not be undone.

Death surrounded him. So did despair.

“...Khak!”

And then, he heard a voice he knew.

And turned his head.

What came into view was the face of a young knight, his arm severed, half his face scorched and melting from a burn, staggering toward him.

His appearance was so ruined it was hard to think of him as a living person.

If it hadn’t been for the armor, unmistakably that of the Royal Guard, the knight’s identity might have been lost entirely beneath the disfigurement.

“Arthur Milante.”

The knight with black hair murmured the name through cracked lips.

They had crossed paths a few times, when the duties of the Royal Guard and various knightly orders overlapped.

Arthur had been the youngest of the Guard. He was unremarkable in both talent and temperament, but with no sharp edges either.

Even when others had kept their distance, wary of his own “inauspicious” hair color, Arthur had approached him a few times. That made the name stick.

“Hhugh... guhkk.”

Arthur gasped, breath ragged and broken.

With trembling fingers, he tore open a pouch filled with pain-numbing herbs and bit down on its contents, chewing them whole.

And minutes passed in silence.

Only after slaying two more of the approaching beasts did some semblance of clarity return to Arthur’s gaze.

Then, sharply, as if waiting for the moment, came the question:

“Report the status of the old city.”

His cracked lips twitched.

The Royal Guard, Arthur’s unit, had been stationed at the southern passage leading to the old city, its purpose - to buy time for the evacuation of the royal family.

The ashen tide had been advancing from the north.

So why was he here, burned to the bone, half-melted and walking alone?

Why had smoke begun to rise from the old city, a place chosen as the primary escape route for the royals and nobles, supposedly safer than the rest?

Arthur trembled.

“Fulfill your duty. Isn’t that your favorite phrase?” the black-haired knight said coldly. “Answer me.”

Perhaps he tried to offer an excuse.

But what came out was a howl, raw, cracked, filled with rage and guilt.

“Th-the citizens. The citizens turned on the nobles. They lost their minds. Everyone’s gone mad, they cut off their heads and stuck them on pikes. A-and then they lit the fires. The fires!”

The knight’s eyes fell to Arthur’s sword.

Drip—!!! Drip…!!!

Blood trickled down the channel of the blade.

Not monster blood.

The beasts left behind only ash and dust.

“...I-I had no choice. I had no choice! I—I... I...”

Arthur Milante finally dropped to one knee, his eyes vacant and glassy.

Then, with fingers burnt and blistered, fused inside the gauntlet he could no longer remove, he grabbed the black-haired knight’s leg and whispered—

“There was no way. No path left. The citizens fed the nobles to them. Even the soldiers... they lost it. Aah... Aaaaaa—”

No.

That wasn’t a question.

It was nothing more than the hollow wail of a knight whose lifelong faith had crumbled to dust.

Collapsed in place, Arthur Milante screamed his question into the void, one that would never be answered.

“The inner wall has fallen. His Majesty the Emperor... has fled. The nobles too. Or, they might already be dead. But then, where, where are we supposed to run to?”

“Sir Arthur.”

“I’m afraid. I can’t see what’s ahead. M-my blood is gray. No, the whole world is gray. What... what did we give our lives for? What did we fight for? A-ahhh—!”

“Arthur Milante!”

The shout cut through the madness.

Arthur flinched, the twisted metal of his pauldrons rattling, and slowly raised his head.

And yet—

He realized it far too late.

Those ruined eyes weren’t looking at him.

They were staring at something just past his shoulder.

“...Ah. Ahhh. ■■■ ■■, you who are wondrous and awe-inspiring...”

Arthur mumbled the words under his breath.

His expression. ecstatic. Rapturous. As if he had glimpsed something divine.

The murmured chant was trance-like, and instinctively, the black-haired knight turned to follow his gaze.

— —――――.

A sound that no human could comprehend or understand brushed past his ears. No, that wasn't right.

It didn’t brush past. It shattered.

Not a voice to be heard, but a noise that crushed the mind, violating thought itself.

It bypassed comprehension entirely.

Aside from the stream of temporal data assaulting his vision, his consciousness, his very sense of self, could exert no sovereignty whatsoever.

How long had he stared like that?

Minutes, maybe.

Overwhelmed by the ashen hues that filled his sight, he finally closed his eyes.

‘Is this the end of all things?’

That’s what this must be.

The Millennium Empire, once the hegemon of the continent, had fallen.

And even if fragments of its legacy survived, how long could they last against such absurd and senseless devastation?

He shut his eyes, slowly.

‘I never prayed for the gods’ grace.’

All his life, he had wielded the sword.

Cut down enemies. Bled. Survived.

Now, his end had come.

Wrapped in noble sacrifice, but ultimately, nothing more than a meaningless, dog’s death.

‘Fucking hell.’

That was the final thought of the black-haired knight, a war orphan raised by a monastery, trained in the Imperial Knights Order.

Or so he believed.

Until—

A flicker of something brushed through his mind in that final, frozen moment.

‘...I died here?’

A sense of incongruity that somehow didn't add up.

And then, the ash-gray world before him flashed, just for an instant.

And with an incomparably warm embrace felt from behind, a voice whispered quietly.

— Surely. If it's you.

Not merely heard.

— You can reach it.

It seared into the soul.

And then, the knight closed his eyes once more.

— To the Saintess's Golden Throne in the Cathedral of the Millennium Empire's capital.

And in the years that followed, Military State historians would come to record that day with a single, definitive sentence:

「Continental Year 1393. The Millennium Empire fell」

—So it was written.

༒︎

“What’s on your mind, sir?”

The voice came from the driver’s seat, a corporal with freckles scattered across his face, who held the wheel with practiced ease.

Ain Krieg noted it with mild surprise.

Not a bad kid. Most soldiers, knowing who he was, kept their mouths shut. This one talked to him like it was nothing.

‘Or maybe that’s just his way of being considerate.’

People in the Intelligence Bureau were never straightforward.

If they liked you, they’d never say it to your face. Always grumbling upfront, then going out of their way to look after you behind your back.

Ain Krieg, clad in his black military uniform, black hair falling carelessly across his forehead, let such thoughts float idly through his mind as he pulled a steel cigarette case from his coat.

Sliding a cigarette between his lips, he muttered under his breath—

“Just... thinking about the past.”

“Childhood memories, sir?”

“Well, you could call it that. Roughly two hundred years ago.”

The corporal chuckled softly at the reply.

Probably thought it was a joke.

Who could blame him?

Even Ain himself sometimes wondered if it was all a dream. Or if he’d simply gone mad.

‘Two hundred years ago, I was a knight of the Millennium Empire, the predecessor to the Military State.’

‘I died, for reasons I still don’t fully understand. Then, two centuries later, I was born again into the Krieg family.’

That much, he knew for certain.

The memories of his past life were hazy, they were fragmented, jumbled, drifting like smoke.

It wasn’t so much forgetting as it was like looking through a fogged-up window.

Sometimes, he dreamt. Or had nightmares, to be more exact.

But the dreams always ended in blood.

And a voice, it was always a woman’s voice, absurdly out of place, saying things that never made sense.

Bzzt—!!!

Meanwhile, the corporal quietly rolled down the window as soon as Ain lit his cigarette.

But then, something in the air made him pause.

A faint scent drifted into the car, light and crisp.

“Peppermint? No, lemon?”

“You’ve got a good nose. It’s about half and half. Maybe sixty-forty if you want to be exact.”

“I didn’t know cigarettes like that even existed.”

“That’s because they’re not ordinary cigarettes.”

Mana cigarettes. A creation by one of the so-called Meisters, known for their eccentricities.

Of course, despite the grandiose name, the effect was just accumulating pure mana in minuscule amounts inside the body and providing slight calming effects, it was a kind of health supplement and luxury item.

And an expensive one at that, not something you’d chain-smoke like he did.

‘But for me, they’re a damn lifeline.’

Ain let out a dry chuckle as he once again realized just how much of a gas-guzzler this body of his had turned out to be.

Unaware of these inner musings, the corporal snuck a glance at him, hesitated, and then asked cautiously—

“But... are you okay, sir?”

A gust of cold wind brushed his cheek.

The delicate fragrance of the cigarette scattered into the air.

And then, his eyes shifted toward the view unfolding beyond the window.

Everywhere the eye could see, snow blanketed the landscape.

Even the road they were driving on lay under a thin sheet of white.

“The 13th Special Independent Brigade. Also known as the Cerberus Brigade.”

Ain Krieg didn't answer the corporal directly.

Instead, he murmured softly to himself—

“A penal unit. That’s what they call it, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. That’s right. Officially, the Military State doesn’t recognize any penal brigades... but, well, everyone knows it's where you go to die.”

The corporal glanced at him nervously as he spoke, immediately wondering if he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

But Lieutenant Colonel Krieg only replied with a calm expression, utterly unfazed.

“Well, it’s still a place where people live, isn’t it?”

So nonchalant was his tone that the corporal almost asked, Is he really this relaxed?

But then he remembered who was sitting next to him.

Of course he was calm. This was Krieg.

They drove on in silence for some time, the road ahead increasingly buried under snow.

And then, finally, it came into view.

Far off in the distance, rising as if to scrape the sky, the fortress wall built along the towering Vanargand mountain range.

Was it the relentless northern snow that gave it such a foreboding beauty?

Or the centuries of harsh winters and isolation that had weathered even the elaborate ornaments, once crafted to showcase the Millennium Empire’s former glory?

“...That’s the Vanargand Ironblood Fortress.”

Even the corporal couldn’t help but gape at it.

It wasn’t just its size, it was the weight of history it carried.

Built after the fall of the Millennium Empire some two hundred years ago, this fortress marked the northernmost stronghold of the Military State that claimed to inherit the Empire’s legacy.

The gateway that separated the dead, wintry lands of the former Empire, where the skies remained grey all year, from the rest of the continent.

And the garrison for the Cerberus Brigade.

Or, more simply put, the 13th Independent Brigade. The Military State’s unofficial penal unit.

“I thought, maybe, just maybe...”

Ain Krieg muttered, slipping another mana cigarette between his lips, voice tinged with dry amusement.

“So it is the southern gate, huh?”

The recycling was impressive.

Military precision, after all. Efficient to the end.

END σϝ CHAPTER