Chapter 24: The Ringing Bell
We occasionally see people who are gripped by their weaknesses and swayed by important secrets.
No matter how much they try to forcibly ignore it when they hear the clichéd words, “Are you really okay with this? Aren’t you afraid of the consequences?”, they see the future that will befall them.
If they committed a crime themselves, they would see a future of being locked up in prison, and if they secretly engaged in immoral acts and got caught, they would see a future of being socially ostracized. Most of them would either suffer alone, moaning and groaning until they go insane, or appeal for help from those around them.
There were often similar cases in the game [Fantasy Monarch] that I enjoyed playing. Those who caught wind of my secrets would approach me and try to blackmail me, saying, “If you don’t do this, I’ll expose you.”
Newbies who had just started would tremble in fear and comply with their demands. The secrets they accumulated while playing the game were usually evidence of crimes perfect for social condemnation, like murder. The newbies could only cry and submit to the blackmail.
But once you gain a little experience, your perception changes. One day, as I looked at a scoundrel telling me to obey since he had evidence of me massacring an entire family, a thought suddenly occurred to me:
What’s with this idiot trying to blackmail a murderer who wiped out an entire family?
If I were truly a wise ruler, I would never have gotten caught in the first place. However, I was a user who enjoyed playing as a tyrant or absolute monarch in [Fantasy Monarch].
Of course, I was different from a typical tyrant. I was also a kind modern person with the advanced morals and ethics of the 21st century. If the blackmailer had simply revealed the truth, I would have forgiven him generously, but I punished him because he tried to take advantage of it for personal gain.
That said, taking his life was too harsh a punishment. Punishment is meant as a warning to be cautious in life going forward. After much deliberation, I finally figured out how to resolve this complex issue.
To those who try to blackmail me with my secrets, cut off their genitals to add sincerity to their claims.
Thereafter, countless criminals who would have deserved death survived under my humane decision. Yet for some reason, the people in the game feared me and called me the ‘family massacre murderer’.
It must have been the karma from my tyrannical days.
Anyway, the lesson contained in this anecdote of humanism, where I finally came to believe in the goodness of humanity after a long reign of tyranny, is this: Those who trust people give them a chance at a new life. And those who cannot trust people, cut off not their genitals, but their heads.
In my view, Yubas and the Bishop of Povius seem unable to trust people.
The cacophony that had been echoing throughout the monastery was now reaching the front of the chapel. A sound more chilling than nails on a chalkboard, the scraping of metal along with the stench of iron, permeated the area.
The moment I had been waiting for. In front of the altar, I quietly closed my eyes and shuddered, unable to contain my excitement as my shoulders shook. It seemed my appearance greatly vexed the priests.
After a while, one of the priests remaining in the back ranks ground his teeth and shouted:
“Young Master! Have you finally come to your senses!”
“Come to my senses? What does that even mean suddenly?”
“If we’re breached, we all die!!!”
It was a ringing voice that could be clearly heard even amidst the chorus of screams. Also, an unfamiliar face. Priest Batis had become somewhat accustomed to was rolling on the floor like a worm, having lost his mind.
This priest seemed intent on repeatedly emphasizing that we were a community of shared fate, but:
“So. Should I sadly shed tears and lament your deaths?”
“Isn’t Young Master’s life at stake here?!”
“What am I supposed to do about those who tried to kill me fighting those who are trying to kill me? Will I gain strength if those who tried to kill me cheer me on?”
I don’t see any reason to be overly friendly just because we’re on the same side. It may be called a temporary alliance, but my original plan was to eliminate both sides. As I watched the priests desperately struggle, knowing they wouldn’t survive even if they killed me, I found it rather absurd that they were acting as if we were wronged blood brothers.
The priest, unable to find a way to refute this, heavily opened his mouth as he looked at the wound carved on my wrist.
“…If you would use the miracle bestowed by Lux Stella’s sacred scar.”
“My miracle will be your pardon.”
These guys, guilty of attempted murder, ask for too much. Since they kept seeking more than we had agreed upon, I couldn’t help but frown.
“The real miracle would be if we all survive together and you completely forget that you tried to kill me.”
“…”
***
The priests and I struck a deal in the face of the impending crisis.
With no other choice after seeing the sacred scar, the priests agreed that if they protected me and helped me survive to the end, I would accept their repentance and pardon them.
Of course, it is true that their chances of survival would increase if I used miracles on them. But the sacred scar was all I had. I still could not properly use Lux Stella’s miracles.
This is a kind of intuition. A certain sensation was niggling in my mind, telling me I absolutely could not use them yet. Just as the world says Lux Stella is extremely strict when it comes to vows, I simply revealed only the sacred scar in sincere purity.
But the priests who were seeing the sacred scar for the first time did not know this fact. There was no need to tell them the truth. If they realized I could not perform great miracles, they would immediately turn their blades on me.
One more thing.
In front of the chapel doors, as the priests struggled to fend off the approaching attackers with their swords, I jeered at them and shouted with all my might:
“Oh, ooh, oh! Over there, we’re being breached! Seven of you are supposed to be blocking them, but one of you is in front of me, so we’re being breached!”
“Young Master….!”
“You moron who put a hole in his crown, you said we all die if we’re breached, so why are you still standing in front of me? Was it a lie all along, just to exploit my miracles?”
It’s so amusing to watch our priest squirm. He’s biting his lower lip so hard it’s bleeding, and trembling uncontrollably, but he can’t actually do anything. Because he knows that if he lays a hand on me, even if he somehow survives, it will be the end for him.
Since both Yubas and the Bishop of Povius were rotten to the core, these guys’ last lifeline was me alone.
It seems they were quite resentful of that fact. Our priest’s eyes were bloodshot and reddened. I deliberately lifted my wrist with the sacred scar carved into it, giving a bright smile.
“Our priest vowed to be honest, so he must have resolved to either be pardoned or punished, right?”
“Kuh!”
It was only then that I waved at the priest turning his back, generously giving him motivation to live. Our priests are so innocent. The sad reality is that being innocent is different from being kind and considerate, not imposing on others.
Even sadder was the priests’ level of arms and skill.
As you can see from how they were swiftly driven back to the chapel, the chances of the priests surviving this attack were extremely slim. There were several reasons for this. First, they had divided into factions and were killing each other.
Second was the fact that they wore only robes, without any armor. This greatly increased their mobility and stealth, but conversely meant completely losing any protective ability. To put it bluntly, they would die from almost any hit.
The last, third reason was much simpler.
The attackers were better fighters than the priests. More precisely, they demonstrated superior capabilities in forming ranks and clashing as a group. In particular, they were adept at using sheer mass to push through, preventing the priests from stopping them with their unimpressive swordsmanship.
The attackers moved in tight formation, shoulders pressed together, raising their shields in a testudo formation like a massive turtle. In that state, they thrust their shields forward, pushing relentlessly, leaving the priests helpless to stop them.
“Brothers, we must not be driven back! Block them with force!”
“Grrrr…”
The priests were clearly superior in swordsmanship. If they had clashed one-on-one, the priests would have overwhelmed the attackers long ago. However, the attackers never fought alone.
When a priest swung his sword, the one in the center blocked with his shield. Once the blade was stopped by the shield, the attackers on either side would thrust their swords through the gaps between the shields. A single thrust was enough to finish it.
The attackers never missed an opportunity, lowering their shields to charge in and strike the priests down in an instant. If the priests rushed to help their comrades, attackers from the rear or sides would appear, raising their shields.
They had the advantage in both numbers and formation.
All I could do was lick my dry lips with my tongue. I didn’t think the coastal raiders would be at this level. The way they advanced in perfect unison… it was a discipline that only a proper regular army could possess.
While of little use in a 21st century modern army, at least in this medieval Ise world, the situation was different.
As the senior priests guarding the chapel were swept away like a sandcastle before the waves, slowly collapsing, I looked at the man approaching from the front of the altar.
He wore a helmet with a mask and a clanking chain mail armor. With an exotic sword at his waist, the man quietly met my gaze.
“Yubas. Why do you so desire my death, Povius’s land and power? What is the reason?”
Normally, when an assassination or scheme fails, they quietly go into hiding. It was the same in the multiplayer of [Fantasy Monarch]. You could consider it switching to a defensive stance out of concern for the other party’s retaliation.
But Yubas stubbornly charged at me. No matter how much of a fatal blow it was to part ways with the Papacy, I couldn’t understand it. Yubas seemed to be resorting to all sorts of desperate measures, as if being chased by something.
While it was clearly a plan that had been meticulously prepared long ago, it looked as if he was becoming unraveled, unable to wait any longer. I was curious about the source of their agitation.
Then the man brushed aside my doubts with a low voice:
“To unite the people who have been scattered for 600 years. Only Yubas’s national power can gather the people of this dominion as a substitute for the kingdom that fell 600 years ago.”
“Ah. Unification.”
Well… I have no objection to his desire for unification within his own reign. Unification doesn’t only have peaceful methods. It wasn’t an issue for outsiders to comment on if he dreamed of forcibly unifying all five principalities to establish a new dynasty.
However, for personal reasons, I couldn’t support Yubas’s dream.
“It’s a wonderful dream, but unfortunately it won’t come true.”
“The third son of Povius. Your blood will be the foundation of the great cause. There is no need to feel sorry.”
Yubas’s warm words of consolation naturally warmed my heart. Perhaps it warmed my heart to about the temperature of ten fires. I shook my head at Yubas, who was drawing his sword.
“No. I feel sorry because it seems like that dream won’t be fulfilled.”
“A youngster like you has no right to say it can’t be done just because you’ve failed a few times.”
The leader of the attackers approached, dismissing my remark as the naive words of a child. Thanks to that, I could gauge the formidable skills possessed by the assassins sent by Yubas.
A priest who had been waiting for an opportunity took the chance to rush in, trying to show off.
“Lux Stella! I now end my wandering!”
The swordplay between the priest and Yubas’s attack leader was reminiscent of the hissing sound of a snake. They crossed blades as if brushing scales, occasionally trying to trip each other, but:
“Ughh, kuhk.”
The victor was Yubas’s attack leader. After firmly grazing the priest’s throat with the tip of his sword, he grabbed his neck and looked down at the priest spilling blood, spitting out words of contempt.
“To try to obstruct Yubas’s great cause with a will as frail as a reed.”
The surviving priests did their best to resist the attackers sent by Yubas. While it seemed meaningless for them to be cut down one by one, their sacrifice was unexpectedly not entirely useless.
Just as victory seemed decided, the bell rang.
Amid the gradually fading screams, a distorted bell sound arose. Although it was still a while before sunrise, the bell sound contained a kind of magical power that made everyone involuntarily flinch.
The few exceptions that resisted that magical power were only the attack leader and me. Yubas’s attack leader flicked his wrist to shake off the droplets of blood on his blade and said:
“It’s nothing. Just a simple bell sound. Finish them off.”
“I don’t know.”
I smiled at the attack leader’s remark.
“You might want to reconsider.”
***
At the watchtower of the monastery, next to an annex, stood a bell tower.
There, beneath the slightly distorted bell, sat a man panting for breath. It was John of Riverside, the man in a bloodstained robe with his bangs pushed back beyond his forehead.
John was crying and snotting as he witnessed the events that unfolded the moment he rang the bell.
“Uhuhuk, what has become of me. How did it come to this?”
After a long struggle to break through the encirclement by showing the doubting priests his pierced head, he barely made it to the bell tower and rang the bell, and shadows began to stir under the night sky.
At first, he shook his head, thinking he might have seen wrong, but it was just as the young master Narva had said. As soon as the bell rang, the heavy iron gates of the monastery rose.
It was to be expected that the horde of attackers would come pouring through. John only survived by being beneath the bell tower, away from everyone’s attention amidst the fierce battle.
But it was not a cause for joy. John’s fragile life would have ended the moment even a single attacker came to the bell tower. Being more sensitive to his own danger than anyone else, John immediately realized this and was rolling on the ground.
“Young Master… How can I survive if you go this far. You said I would live if I just did as you said…!!!”
The object of his resentment might already be dead. John twisted his body, letting out all sorts of strange groans.
If.
[Buuuuu-.]
He had not heard the faint sound of a horn, he would have continued like that.
“Huh?”
John forced open his swollen eyes from all the crying. Although bewildered, thinking it might be an auditory hallucination, he turned his head toward the direction from which the horn sound came. Then, the moonlight illuminated the place where the horn sound was heard.
“Oh, heavens.”
John no longer cried. Instead, he grasped the rope to ring the bell again. Now, whether his palms were shredded or not, he had to ring the bell with all his might. With no room for hesitation, John moved with all his weight on the rope.
The distorted bell rang.
Loudly enough to drown out the sound of clanking chains.
Once more, the distorted bell rang.
This time, loudly enough to drown out the sound of approaching hoofbeats.
The last.
[Buuuuuuu-.]
So that the enemies would hear the horn sound even a little later.
“I can… surviveeeee!!!!”
John shouted as he pulled the rope hard enough for his tendons to bulge.
The sight beneath the moonlit night sky illuminated by the moonlight.
There was a flag bearing the emblem of a raven, symbolizing the Povius family.
