CH 158

“Are you the bastard?” Siegfried asked after kicking down the commanding bridge’s door.

“B-Bastard…? What are you talking about?!”

“I’m asking if you’re the bastard that fired at Stellarlumen Mine.”

“Stellarlumen Mine…? Ah! You must be talking about that misfire yesterday!” the commander remembered his mistake. He then continued. “Yes, one of the soldiers under my command made a mistake and fired at Stellarlumen Mine.”

“So you’re the culprit…” Siegfried muttered with a smile.

“So what about it? It was a misfire! Besides, we have already shelled that place in our initial artillery strikes, so there was probably nobody—”

“My subordinates were there.”

“…!”

“We were conducting restoration works over there.”

“Restoration works…?”

“Twenty casualties in total. Eleven are dead, and the nine are…”

“…?”

“Two lost their arm, one lost both of his legs, one had his face ripped to shreds by shrapnel, one had debris lodged into his abdomen and is still fighting for his life, three suffered serious burns that melted their skin, and one lost their eye after a shrapnel pierced it.” Siegfried recited the dead and the wounded’s injuries without forgetting a single one of them.

It was impossible for him to forget them as he had personally buried the dead and tended to the wounded.

“W-What does that have to do with me?!”

“What did you just say?”

“People die in war! People can lose their eyes from a stray arrow, and they can get blown up by a stray mortar! In fact, some people even die from friendly fire!”

“I think you are mistaken about something. We are not Stone Islanders.”

“Y-you’re not from the island?!”

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“We just came here because of a business, and we helped out in restoring the mine. We didn’t even participate in combat. You killed the soldiers of another kingdom unrelated to this war.”

“That is quite regretful…”

“Regretful?”

“I feel sorry for your late subordinates, but what can I do about it? The fact that they were there was their fault. Your subordinates being somewhere where they shouldn’t have been is technically your fault, no?”

The culprit’s brazenness truly lived up to the infamy of the Adunyadet Kingdom.

Kudeok…!

Siegfried wanted to bash the bastard’s skull in right now with his hammer, but he decided to hold back.

‘I should hand you over to the guys instead of punishing you with my own hands,’ he thought. The members of the Labor Force had been integrated into society, but their instincts as aggressive barbarians were still there.

What was going to happen if he threw this guy to the enraged barbarians?

Siegfried couldn’t tell for sure, but one thing was certain. This bastard was going to experience excruciating pain at least a thousand times more than having his skull bashed in.

“Kill me. I am a proud officer of the great Adunyadet Kingdom. I have no intention of begging for my life,” the culprit said. He even puffed his chest out.

“No, you’re going to end up groveling. So…” Siegfried said with absolute certainty as he balled his fist and punched the bastard’s stomach.

“Ewaauuuughk…!”

The culprit was hit so hard that he ended up puking out what he had eaten for lunch.

“You cannot do that. You have a reputation to maintain, Mr. Officer of the Great Adunyadet Kingdom.” Siegfried sneered at the culprit writhing in agony on his own vomit before smacking the latter’s nape.

Then, Siegfried dragged the culprit out of the commanding bridge.

Twenty seconds later—

Kaboom!

—a mortar shell fired by the Stone Island Navy struck the bridge.

***

Meanwhile, the Adunyadet Kingdom’s command center continued to receive a flurry of bad news.

“The third fleet… Seventeen ships out of twenty-five were sunk… and eight were captured by the enemy…”

“The fourth fleet… all twenty-five ships were sunk…”

“The fifth fleet… is currently engaging with the enemy, but their chances look bleak…”

It had only been three hours since the naval warfare started, but the Adunyadet Kingdom had already lost four out of its five fleets.

The Great White Sharks of the Stone Island Navy, which was equipped with state-of-the-art technology, easily overpowered their enemies. The Stone Island Navy even used the ships they had captured to further tilt the balance of power.

However, this wasn’t the end of the Adunyadet Kingdom’s problems.

“The Adventurers are causing more destruction across our kingdom!”

“A mercenary troupe composed of Adventurers has burnt down a few of our border towns…”

“Our communication lines have been destroyed by the Adventurers! All communication channels were destroyed!”

“Seven of our high-ranking army officials were found dead! The Adventurers most likely assassinated them!”

Their main facilities were destroyed…

Their communication channels were destroyed…

Their military officials were assassinated…

Riots were occurring all over their cities…

Their border towns were suffering from the constant guerilla warfare of the Adventurers.

The Proatine Kingdom had hired nearly three hundred Adventurers to shake the Adunyadet Kingdom to its core.

“W-We have to maintain naval superiority at all costs! Engage the enemy ships around the Chakri! The Chakri will be able to withstand whatever they throw at us, no matter how strong their cannons are!” Maja the Second shouted.

“Your Majesty! We have received a call from the Chakri!” exclaimed a messenger.

A call came from the last hope of the Adunyadet Kingdom, the Chakri, and Maja the Second instantly commanded for the call to be answered. However, the one who appeared on the video being transmitted from the Chakri wasn’t the Adunyadet Kingdom’s admiral, Brumnat.

— Greetings, everyone.

A young man that Maja the Second and the officials had never seen before appeared on the screen.

“Who are you?!” Maja the Second screamed in anger at the young man.

— My name is Siegfried van Proa, and I am the king of the Proatine Kingdom.

“Proatine Kingdom? Where the hell is that?”

— …

“Has anyone ever here heard of this Proatine Kingdom?”

Maja the Second asked his subjects, but only one raised his hand. The official who had some knowledge about the Proatine Kingdom then proceeded to report what he knew about the Proatine Kingdom.

“Your Majesty, the Proatine Kingdom is located on the northwestern territory of the continent. They are a kingdom only by name, and their territory is as big as a booger. They are actually closer to a feudal territory than a kingdom.”

“Hmm… so it’s a small and weak kingdom among all of the small and weak ones?”

“That is correct, Your Majesty.”

“Hey, then…” Maja the Second turned toward Siegfried and asked, “How dare a no-name insolent fool like you call me from my own ship?! Put Brumnat on this instant!”

— Oh… that is…

Siegfried muttered with a pissed-off look.

— Admiral Brumnat isn’t in the condition to answer the call.

“Are you telling me that he called his king and put a no-name like you instead because he is busy?”

— Well, that sounds about right if you put it that way…?

“What insolence is this?! Put Brumnat on this instant!”

— Didn’t I tell you that he cannot talk right now?

“What?!”

— You know what? Perhaps you’ll understand if you take a look for yourself.

Siegfried slightly turned the magical mirror that was acting as a camera.

“…!”

Maja the Second’s eyes shot wide open in horror after seeing Brumnat, and he finally understood why Brumnat wasn’t in the condition to answer the call.

Why?

It was all because Brumnat was missing his head.

“B-Brumnat…!”

— Yes.

Siegfried nodded and continued.

— He just got executed, so he can’t speak right now.

“That means…”

— Yes, this ship belongs to me from now on.

Once the final syllable of Siegfried’s words fell, a signalman reported with a trembling voice. “The first fleet… is on the brink of annihilation, and our flagship, the Chakri, has been captured…”

Maja the Second and the rest of the officials were stunned, and their faces turned pale.

The Chakri was the Adunyadet Kingdom Navy’s strongest weapon and their strongest card in this war. Moreover, they had also poured more than twenty percent of their entire national budget into the Chakri’s development.

Therefore, the Chakri became extremely powerful.

The enemy’s Great White Shark fleet was advanced and powerful, but Stone Island would still find it difficult to defeat the Adunyadet Kingdom as long as the Chakri remained standing.

However, the Chakri was actually captured by someone whose name they had never even heard of until today. This could only mean that it was only a matter of time before the Adunyadet Kingdom collapsed.

— Surrender, you king of a weak kingdom.

Siegfried’s words were technically true. The Adunyadet Kingdom was now technically weaker than the Proatine Kingdom without its flagship, the Chakri.

***

“Argh! I should expand my territory or make it stronger. What did he say? My territory’s as big as a booger? Feudal territory? Ha!” Siegfried grumbled in anger.

He managed to deal a significant blow to Maja the Second’s pride, but his pride had also gotten hurt.

“Please do not be so troubled about what they said, Your Majesty. I am certain that Proatine is going to be a powerful nation in the near future,” Lord Angele said.

“I hope that will be the case.”

“It will definitely happen. Your Majesty has the ability to make it happen.”

Lord Angele looked at Siegfried with eyes filled with respect and confidence.

“I still have a long way to go. I’m still very weak,” Siegfried said, shaking his head.

“Pardon me…?” Lord Angele was flustered at his response.

‘Does he want to be called strong instead…?’ she wondered.

Siegfried sounded like he was fishing for compliments.

He had infiltrated the Chakri, which had been an impregnable fortress, all alone and had annihilated the Adunyadet Soldiers and Knights before capturing the Adunyadet Navy’s flagship. In that case, why was he considering himself to be weak?

The Adunyadet Kingdom’s soldiers and knights couldn’t really be considered powerful, but capturing the enemy’s flagship on his own was a significant feat.

Siegfried wasn’t really fishing for compliments. He truly believed that he was still weak.

‘I just got lucky this time again,’ he thought.

The Aqua Runner had allowed him to invade the Chakri. The battle was also limited to the deck of the enemy’s flagship, so he managed to take full advantage of his debuff fields because all of his enemies were within his debuff fields.

Siegfried had then proceeded to whack them down one by one after weakening them.

Siegfried truly believed that he had just gotten lucky because all the stars had aligned.

He sincerely thought that he was still a weakling.

“I have to become stronger. I need to become way stronger than this,” Siegfried said with passion burning in his eyes.

“I am certain that you will become stronger, Your Majesty,” Lord Angele said with a smile after realizing that Siegfried wasn’t fishing for compliments at all. He simply had an unquenchable thirst to become even more powerful.

‘His Majesty seems like he only cares about becoming more powerful…’ 

Lord Angele couldn’t help but respect the man, even though he was ten years younger than her.

“Thank you for your words, then… Shall we go and put an end to this war?” Siegfried said while looking at the Adunyadet Kingdom’s naval base in the distance.

Time was of the essence!

It was time for him to go and end this war, which was actually a quest for him. It was only a matter of time before the Stone Islanders won this war after they had wiped out the enemy’s naval forces and captured their flagship.

Siegfried also had another trick up his sleeve, and it was a trick that would finally put an end to this six-month-long war.