The boy who had never seen a human corpse before and who had been terrified at the thought of touching a hair in the river, was instantly skinned. Surprisingly, he was not bothered by the corpse he had seen for the first time. He was only reluctant to use the skills he had learned through training in real combat the first time or two.
After five years of being on the battlefield, everything became familiar, boring, and eventually colorless.
"But what are you going to do when you return home?"
"You crazy bastard. Judging from what you say, I guess today is your last day."
"That's right. You're going to get lucky, so get out of here."
"Shut up. If you don't have delusions like this, you'll only have nightmares at night."
The comrades who had been scolding the soldier who had brought up the subject began to answer one by one. Some will buy shares of the mine with the reward money and make a lot of money, some will live a luxurious life as a victorious warrior, and some will rise to a higher position...
"And what about our master?"
Dante chuckled and turned his head. His answer was so long that it was painful to say. He would have everything. His father's position and honor, his brothers' legacy. Everything. It wasn't specifically to fulfill his mother's grudge. It was more like arrogance. He had to prove to his stepmother and stepbrothers who had been keeping him in check that their efforts had not been in vain. To do that, he had to end this damn war first. It had been a long and arduous war, so if he could just win, the triumphal ceremony would definitely take place in the imperial palace. And the imperial palace existed in the imperial palace. When he got there...
'Tsk.'
Dante suddenly frowned. Was it because the last time he had seen the mansion that looked like a small castle in a fairy tale when he left the imperial palace?
Whenever he thought of the imperial palace, the girl who had been safely carried inside came to mind. Surely she didn't die of fever that day? After all the hard work I had done for days had gone to waste... What does it matter?
Somehow, he felt extremely uncomfortable and dirty. Dante suddenly got up. His stomach was so stuffy that he felt like he needed to go out and get some fresh air.
An arrow flew at him as he was walking through the dark forest outside the barracks.
'What is this?'
It was an unexpected attack. The direction the arrow came from was not the area where the barbarians lived, but the friendly barracks.
Could it be that there were enemy soldiers who had infiltrated here? Or not.
Judging from the unusual burning sensation in his ear where the arrowhead had touched, it seemed to have been poisoned. Dante knelt down in the grass and pretended to be poisoned. Soon, he heard footsteps like a rat. Dante caught the guy in an instant.
'You're not an enemy.'
The assassin was wearing the clothes of an allied soldier.
"You. Who sent you?"
Even as he asked, he seemed to know the answer.
'You're the swindler sent by the Duchess.'
The Duchess seemed to be getting more and more impatient as the thorn in her eye, who she had thought would die on the battlefield, continued to accumulate achievement instead of returning as a corpse.
Instead of answering, the assassin said something strange.
"You were definitely hit, but how is he moving? You monster...!"
Of course, the barbarians used extremely vicious poisons that the cute imaginations of the imperial people could not even dream of. After being hit so many times, they had built up a tolerance and this level of poison was trivial.
The assassin looked at Dante like a disgusting monster. It was a gaze that seemed more like he was looking at a barbarian than a fellow imperial citizen. It made Dante wonder if the 'outsiders' outside would look at him, who were rolling around with the barbarians, with such eyes.
"What's wrong with your eyes?"
He felt bad and killed him without even questioning him. Unfortunately, the barbarians had made a surprise attack that night.
'Damn it.'
Even though the level was low, the poison was still poison, so there were aftereffects.
Dante swung his sword with his body which was duller than usual. He killed ten or twenty barbarians and accumulated one or two merits.
"Bow down!"
He saw his comrade next to him about to be smashed by the barbarian's axe. Dante quickly flicked his sword.
"Ugh..."
The vicious axe blade slightly scratched his Adam's apple. His comrade avoided having his head smashed, but instead had his left arm cut off in half.
"Hold your breath."
He quickly stopped his comrade's bleeding, and he groaned with eyes drunk on pain.
"Haa, haa, really... beggar, isn't it?"
"What are you talking about? Shut up and hold your breath."
"Those damn barbarians... We were abandoned on this battlefield. Will this war ever end? Our superiors are just throwing us into endless border conflicts like expendables."
"..."
"Killing, killing. I feel like I've become a butcher who just kills people. Knights and border guards, it's not even funny. What honor is there in this eternal war of slaughter..."
"Max."
Dante said roughly, tying the cloth tightly.
"I will end this war."
He didn't say it strongly, but each word had weight. Max looked up at his young superior with surprised eyes.
"After I finish, we will return. To where we came from."
Red eyes shone brightly. The owner of those eyes was a young man who had grown up but was not yet an adult. However, Max could not say anything in response to those eyes.
That night, Dante dreamed of that girl again. It was so disgusting. It had been several years since then. While washing, Dante saw his reflection in the water and burst into laughter. What he saw was a man who was so grown up that it was disgusting. The boy who had been tall like a pole but had a skinny body when he left the dukedom was nowhere to be found.
Ariana Lopez. The girl who had been babbling in his ear last night would have been the same. Five years was enough time for a child to grow into a woman. She would have changed completely by now. Even if he happened to meet her on the street, he would have passed by without even noticing her. So it was funny. The main character had heard a lullaby once that he couldn't even remember, and it was still his only sleeping pill.
***
"Waaaah!"
"Hurray! Hurray!"
It was a hectic day, enough to give him a headache. People as numerous as ants, the smell of flowers poking into his nose from all over the place.
Shouts, applause...
In all that bustling and boring scenery, Dante found it. Those green eyes. The emerald brooch that the Duchess had once admired as the only thing she had, said to be worth the price of a castle. It seemed as if the color was set right in her eyes...
Those eyes were staring straight at Dante. Dante felt a hollow laugh escape him. Ten years had passed. The girl who couldn't control her body from the boiling heat had grown surprisingly mature. Even so, he was able to confirm that woman's name without a single mistake.
"... "
What he saw later was a man's arm wrapping around Ariana's shoulder. What is that?
That bat-like thing. That night, Dante learned that the owner of the bat body was Lucas Pedegreen, the head of the prestigious Pedegreen family, and Ariana's fiancé. Ten years had been a long time. It had been enough time for a sniffing girl to fall in love and get engaged.
When he opened the newspaper, he would see Ariana happily smiling beside the bat-like thing in the gossip column, like she had everything in the world. He tried not to care. He had a lot to deal with. Dealing with his stepmother's remaining forces, suppressing the particularly tenacious counterattack of his eldest stepbrother, and winning over the Senate...
So he had no time to care about a pair of innocent lovers.
He had thought so.
'Your Highness's schedule for today is lunch with His Majesty the Emperor, a visit to the Second Knights from 2 to 4, and a performance at the Lopez Opera House from 6... Huh? My Master, there has been a change in your schedule that I'm not aware of? Did you personally order it... Huh? Did you make a reservation? Suddenly?'
'Huh? You're going to see the play you saw yesterday again? Oh, yes, I see... You seemed to like it quite a bit... But isn't the opera house performance already sold out if you try to get tickets right now?... Huh? You want me to get a black market ticket?'
But why am I sitting here again?
Ignoring the soprano's awkwardly virtuoso singing, Dante glared at the row in front of him. He could see the round back of Ariana Lopez's head. And sticking out next to it was the back of that bat-like Pedegreens' head.
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