Chapter 8:

Chapter 2_1: Blinding Hope

Gifted Blessing upon Curses


A brief note:
The prelude is from the protagonist's POV while the first chapter is from the heroine's POV. From now on, I will write it in the protagonist POV only unless stated otherwise.

“People of Landrantzel, the kingdom is in chaos. The king’s castle has been attacked. Its wall are destroyed by powerful cluster magic attack. The king, which I’ve assumed dead by now is no longer capable of leading the country. But fear not, we, the soldier and protector of Landrantzel, the proud blessed warrior will counter attack them and take back our peace. Anyone who is willing to join our force are happily welcomed but those doesn’t, can still live safely inside our encampment. Please help each other out and support on another. That’s all. Dismissed!”

Gregori Dunro, the leader of the royal guards, is speaking toward the civilian who’ve just came to the encampment from the village surrounding the castle. I stand in line with the other blessed warrior behind him, waiting for our next orders. The dismissed civilian start disperse, going toward their own objective. Some of them go to the recruitment stand to fight together with us while some went to the announcement list to find their lost family. Dunro-san turn toward us and start speaking. But just before speaking, a scout arrive, covered in blood then bow down on its knee. He takes a deep breath and cam himself.

“Sir Dunro-san! The main squad who are tasked to attack and scout the main castle has spotted what we believes to be the youngest daughter of King Yamazaki Landrantzel. She was with a young blonde enemy officer. She is a blessed warrior who wields a blue rapier and nearly wiped our entire squad. Our blessed warrior are now holding her back and princess Miyaki is last seen running toward the forest behind the castle!”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then, the orders for all of you are to save princess Miyaki and bring her to this encampment. You’re allowed to use any method to save her majesty. Also, remember this well, try to survive by any means and went back alive. Now go!”

The moment that last word reach us, we scrambles and regrouping with our squad. But for me myself, I work alone and I haven’t been assigned to any squad. I draws my black long sword to check its condition. I firmly grip the handle and positioned it in front of me, perpendicular to the ground. I began chanting a defense magic so that I’m protected from arrows and light attack magic. A dark aura surrounds me, creating a small whirlwind around my body then dispersing to every direction like a smoke. I insert my sword into its scabbard and start to check my armor. After tightening and checking everything, I run toward the entrance gate to be teleported randomly around the castle. It is a procedure that must be followed no matter who you are so that no one knows this encampment location. If the enemy sees us going toward a single point, they would be suspicious and sweep the area, using a huge mana to avoid that at any cost is worth the cost.

I stand on one of the empty magic circle and concentrate my magic to my feet. Then magic circle starts glowing, raising a pillars of light just above my heads. In an instant, my vision disperse into the battlefield. There’s corpse everywhere, it’s like a massive genocide, a combination of Yura’s soldier and Landrantzel’s. It can even be considered hell in this world, even though I never went to hell since I’m still alive but I’m certain, this is what it looks like. A normal civilian would certainly panic over this, not knowing what to do and concentrate on how can this happen instead of trying to save themselves. But I don’t really feel any of that, maybe because I’ve experience a similar situation, although it might be smaller than today but that moment really change how I view the world.

I don’t want that to happen again.

I clench my teeth and start running toward the forest to rescue Princess Miyaki while trying to avoid stepping on the corpses.