The Legendary Spearman Returns

Side Story Chapter 212

“Don’t let him get into your heads!” Cain thundered, his mana carrying his voice through the forest. “Ignore the monster’s nonsense. A portal to another dimension is preposterous!”

-Other people seem to think differently.

Cain flinched. He looked back and realized that Jack Steropes was right. The nobles’ knights and mages were visibly unsettled after witnessing the dirt vanishing right before their eyes.

“You weaklings...!” Cain growled.

“You know...”

Cain stopped talking and looked at Kireua, who nodded, signaling to Cain to leave it to him.

“I want to ask you a question,” Kireua said.

-Oh, how merciful am I?

“...Huh?”

-A lich who kindly answers his enemy’s son. This is why it’s said that monsters are better than humans. As you can see, I’ve set aside my desire for revenge for the world’s sake.

It was a very wicked way of framing his motives. Jack seemed to be denigrating himself, but the meaning behind his words was very different. This must be Jack’s new way of getting revenge. The world was going to be doomed and his enemy was going to die with or without Jack, so his new focus was changing history. He wanted the survivors to remember Joshua Sanders as the evil who brought about the destruction of the world by annihilating the Demon Spirit without good reason. Meanwhile, Jack Steropes would be the true hero who strove to save the survivors until the end.

“...I don’t think that’s something an evil lich who sacrificed the innocent for his survival can say.”

-Sacrificing the few for the good of the many is only natural. Wouldn’t you make the same choice if you could save millions of people by sacrificing thousands, Prince of Avalon?

The longer Kireua talked to Jack, the more he could feel that Jack was taking the initiative in this conversation, indicated by the way the knights were exchanging glances.

Kireua changed the topic.

“Are you sure that your portal leads to another dimension?”

-I’ve researched this for decades, so trust me.

“Even the Human Realm is collapsing right now; is there any guarantee that this new world will be fine?”

-You don’t understand. We’re going to a completely different dimension, not a different continent. It’ll be free from all the bad things in this world.

“Are there any pioneers in this new world of yours?” Kireua asked, cutting to the heart of the issue.

All humans were capable of feeling guilt unless they were psychopaths, so they needed something more to forsake their conscience, their own lives over their people’s. Nothing would feel more unfair than if they were betrayed and butchered after betraying their people.

-Unfortunately... the portal is yet incomplete.

A chorus of sighs arose from the group, drawing a small smile from Kireua.

“I think it’s too big of a gamble to go through when all we have is a lich’s words.”

-Well, I think it’s better to gamble than to be buried alive in this world.

“Dying honorabl—”

-I do so hope that you won’t say something as foolish as ‘dying honorably is better’. That’s just a member of the Imperial Family languishing in his privilege.

Kireua pursed his lips.

-No one can force someone to die, not even a member of the Imperial Family. My plan is to turn our new home into a world where no social classes exist.

The last part of Jack’s remark set the crowd abuzz.

“Preposterous...”

“There is no way a world without social class is possible.”

-There will be no kings or nobles, and everyone will be born equal. Isn’t our current world too unfair? Our social status is determined at birth. Even though we’re all humans, one person is a prince, but another person is a servant just because their parents are servants.

“That lunatic won’t stop with his nonsense...!”

Cain was about ready to attack Jack. As someone who was born a knight, Cain could not possibly agree with any of what Jack just said. A world without social classes was outrageous! The world would descend into chaos, and these so-called equal people would fight to claw their way above the rest. The only difference would be the method of their rise; human nature wasn’t going to change because they moved to a different world.

All humans wanted power. It was in their blood. Someone would eventually take power, creating a contradictory world that looked equal but was actually disastrously unfair. Cain believed that that was better for a professional leader who had been trained for their entire life to rule the world.

-Some of you may believe that it’s better for the royalty and nobility to rule the world since they were educated for the role.

Jack’s remark gave Cain pause; that was exactly what he was thinking.

-Yeah, you people were born privileged, so I didn’t think you were going to understand. But what about other people? Would the ordinary citizens of your land agree?

“Of course...!”

-Keep in mind that I didn’t kidnap any of the dead over there. They came to me voluntarily.

The entire group stirred uneasily.

-Just as I did for you, I showed them the evidence of the continent’s fall one by one and then explained the new world to them. They volunteered to be part of my research—

“Bullshit!” Cain yelled.

Without answering Cain, Jack looked back at the black portal. One of the seventy survivors staggered toward Cain and the others.

“Sir Jack is... right,” the survivor quietly said. “I...was born and raised... in an ordinary tenant farmer’s family in Adolanche.”

The lord of Adolanche was there right now, but, of course, he was a lord so couldn’t recognize a daughter of a mere tenant family.

“Until I was thirteen years old... I lived just like any other girl from a farmer’s family. I helped my father with the farm during the day... My mother taught me how to work as a maid during the night...”

The survivor struggled to get out each word, desperately trying to tell her story even as her life slipped away.

That was how everyone there could tell that the survivor’s came from her heart, not from any influence of evil magic. In fact, she may have been scrawny, but her eyes gleamed with a light unlike anything they’d ever seen. There was no way someone with eyes that clear was under a lich’s control.

“My life... changed completely when I was fourteen years old. Just like any other day, I was helping out my father with the farm... The lord’s representative suddenly visited our family and demanded an outrageous tax. It was originally seven tenths of our harvest, but it suddenly became nine tenths without any warning. Even though we had eight mouths to feed...”

Cain closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to hear the rest. No matter how hard they worked, a family of eight could not possibly live off of a mere tenth their harvest. He had been away from Avalon for years in search of the emperor, but he’d never imagined the reality to be this serious. Well, this must be why the rebels were able to run wild.

“And the lord’s representative took—no, sold me off on the next tax day. After nine tenths of our harvest, our family could not survive, so I became a knight’s squire.”

“Wait!” the lord of Adolanche objected. “Dear girl, something doesn’t add up in your story. Knights usually take boys to be their squires.”

All the knights around him nodded in agreement. Squires were in charge of the knights’ miscellaneous tasks, like feeding their horses and delivering their damaged weapons to the blacksmiths. Most of a squire’s work required quite a lot of physical strength, so knights preferred male squires to females since males were born stronger.

“...You’re the lord, aren’t you? I remember seeing you from far away some time ago,” the survivor blankly murmured.

“Yes, I’m the lord of Adolanche. A knight choosing a fragile girl like you to be their squire—”

“With all due respect, sir, the world you can’t see is darker and colder than the part you can see.”

Watching a mere farmer’s daughter patronizing a lord made some of the knights clench their fists in anger. Were Cain and Kireua not present, the knights would have cut her head off already. The lord of Adolanche also kept his sword sheathed, of course.

“I don’t understand,” the lord insisted. “Choosing a girl to be a squire rather than a maid—”

“The knight I served is right here.”

“...What? Who is it?” the lord looked around, bewildered.

The people around her followed her gaze and found a knight with his head bowed, desperately trying not to draw attention. However, the knight couldn’t avoid her eyes. No matter how hard she tried to forget, she could not forget his scent nor touch as he lusted after her like an animal every day.

“...I was his squire—a personal servant, really,” the survivor said. “I was barely a teenager, but he raped me over and over. I ended up getting pregnant, and he kicked my growing belly at every chance he got to make me lose the child. In the end...”

The survivor trailed off. A knight was considered a noble, so there was no way he would want a bastard from his servant. The rest of the survivor’s story was obvious.

“You fucking bastard!”

“N-No! You bitch! How dare you frame me like this!” the knight screamed as he was driven into a corner.

His lips might speak lies, but his body responded candidly—buckets of sweat poured down his skin.

The knight drew his sword. “Tainting my honor in front of His Highness, no less! I’ll cut off—!”

The knight couldn’t finish his words; instead, his head was the one being cut off.

“...Urgh!” The knight coughed up blood and reached up to feel his neck in disbelief.

Standing in front of the knight, Kireua shook the blood off his sword. “...You’re worse than trash.”