CH 323

Chapter 323 – Winter King (Rex Hyemis) (11)

Ο

Ο

Ο

“Kuh!”

Elizabeth ran past me. She was probably going to help the injured. The fact that she could stay composed during a terrorist attack and immediately take action was genuinely praiseworthy.

I casually watched as her silver hair went off into the distance. Go to the garden if you can still move, I could hear her shout these words even from here. She most likely used her aura to amplify her voice.

I genuinely cheered her on.

Ο

* * *

Ο

Elizabeth hastily ran into the ballroom. A portion of the building had collapsed due to the explosion. There was so much dust that her vision was blurry.

“Go to the garden if you can still move!”

Elizabeth shouted without a moment of hesitation. The most dangerous part of a disaster was the second wave. The building could collapse further and block the entrance or there could be a second attack.

The biggest issue was the fact that people couldn’t see clearly. Humans are animals that rely entirely on their sense of sight. People are more prone to fall into a state of group panic when they are robbed of even their vision during an unexpected situation like this one. She had to prevent this.

“If there is someone injured next to you, then call for a guard! Guards, respond to these requests and move to assist them! Make sure to always move around in pairs.”

The guards had yet to shake off their stupor as they stared blankly at Elizabeth. Elizabeth deliberately put on an enraged looked on her face as she shouted.

“You pathetic fools! You have the gall to call yourselves soldiers!? Give me an answer right this instant!”

“Y-Yes!”

Elizabeth kicked the rear of the guard who happened to be the closest to her. Despite her young age, Elizabeth was someone who had reached Rank 2 as a swordsman. The kick was more than enough to make the shabby guard fall over.

“You imbeciles, why are you only answering in response!? Move! Transport all of the injured who ask for help to the garden!”

“Yes!”

There were people collapsed under the clouds of dust. Most of them let out groans as they managed to get up. Despite the scale of the explosion, there didn’t seem to be that many injured. It was extremely fortunate. If there were a large number of casualties, then this representative meeting would have probably gone up in smoke…….

“People who are uninjured should help the guards!”

Elizabeth let out a mental sigh of relief as she proceeded with the rescue operation. After the confusion had settled down, a temporary system with Elizabeth at the top was established.

The fact that she was fluent in every language on the continent added to her leadership. She switched between using Batavian, Frankian, and the ancient imperial language in order to instantly take command over everyone. People’s visions may have been blurry, but they could still hear with their ears. And they understood the language. These were the things that mattered.

“Any casualties?”

“Currently, we have confirmed three severely injured and eleven with only slight injuries.”

The knight in charge of the ballroom’s security reported. The knight’s face was clearly pale. This incident happened during an important day like this while he was in charge of security. He was either going to plummet in rank or his life was going to be in danger after this.

“There are no casualties.”

“Some good news in the midst of the bad.”

They might have not discovered any casualties yet because they were crushed under the rubble. Nonetheless, the fact that they couldn’t see any corpses was enough to give her hope. At best, there might be only one or two deaths…….

“Captain, have you figured out why this attack happened? Who is the culprit?”

“My apologies, but we do not know who committed this act. However…….”

The knight furrowed his brows. It looked like he was trying his best to remember what happened.

“I heard someone say, ‘Glory to Frankia’ before the explosion happened.”

“Glory to Frankia, is it……?”

What reason could a citizen of Frankia have to attack this place? Elizabeth immediately came to a conclusion once she remembered that this was a self-fabricated scenario devised by Dantalian. She urgently questioned the guard.

“Saintess Longwy. Where is Brittany’s Saintess?”

“Pardon me?”

The knight couldn’t give an answer. Elizabeth felt frustrated.

“Who would a person who claimed to be acting for the sake of Frankia’s glory hate the most!? Obviously, it would be the symbol of Brittany, the Queen’s loyal advisor. This attack was aimed at the Saintess.”

The knight finally understood.

“I will go search for her immediately.”

“Go to the garden and ask if anyone has seen the Saintess’ whereabouts. We are pressed for time.”

The knight rushed off.

Elizabeth bit her lips. She had suffered a blow. Dantalian had been planning to sacrifice the Saintess.

The Saintess participated in this meeting to assert the peaceful coexistence between humans and demons, but she ended up facing an assassination attempt. Of all places, it had to be in a meeting referred to as the republican representative meeting…….

The merging between races will most likely go up in smoke. It was obvious that people were going to argue intensely about who was responsible for the Saintess’ death. The fact that the culprit was Frankian made the situation especially foul. How will the treaty that had an overwhelming advantage for the Empire of Frankia change now?

“Your Excellency.”

The knight returned panting heavily. Was it fate for bad feelings to always end up true? The knight had a dark expression on his face.

“My apologies, but…….”

“Were you unable to find the Saintess?”

“Yes. There were many witnesses. They said that a man approached the Saintess before releasing a large magic blast from his body……. The man’s identity was Baron Pierre de Raviere. He was indeed a Frankian.”

Elizabeth quickly went through her memories. Raviere Barony. That was undoubtedly a small piece of land in the center of Frankia. He was a rather renowned court mage, but after Queen Henrietta took over, all sorts of criminal charges were placed upon him before he was forced out of his territory.

This was all she knew, but it was more than enough to give her a foreboding feeling. Baron Raviere had more than enough motives to get revenge against the Saintess and the Kingdom of Brittany. Elizabeth could almost clearly imagine how Dantalian managed to convince him…….

“Captain, we must now find the Saintess at all costs.”

“Understood.”

“There should be a representative sent from the Frankia government. Order your men to find him and lead him to us.”

At the very least, the representative of Frankia should know more about Baron Raviere than she does. That should help find the culprit’s true motives. With that hope in mind, Elizabeth walked off with fast steps.

There were mages deployed with the guards. Elizabeth ordered the mages to create a gust strong enough to blow away the dust, followed by creating orbs of light to broaden their field of vision.

“Were you all planning to not cast any spells until someone ordered you to!?”

“A-Apologies!”

“Healers should prioritize the severely injured! Use potions on those who are only slightly injured!”

Elizabeth searched for the Saintess until she finally found an injured individual who remembered the last sighting of the Saintess. The Saintess was apparently right below the ceiling that had collapsed.

Elizabeth unconsciously placed her palm against her forehead. This was the worst-case scenario.

“Assist me!”

She wrapped her hands in aura and moved the rubble away herself. The guards ran up to help her. The mages carefully moved the large rubble aside while the soldiers did their best to move the smaller pieces of rubble without making the entire thing collapse further.

Corpses were uncovered every now and then. Their heads had been crushed or their abdomens had been smashed.

The hands and arms of all the corpses were burnt to a crisp. It meant that they all had instinctively raised their arms to block the sudden explosion of magic. It was also proof that this was the center of the explosion.

“The Saintess is here!”

A guard shouted.

“The Saintess is alive!”

“Is that true!?”

Elizabeth finally saw a light of hope in a swamp of despair. She immediately ran over and confirmed the guard’s words. She could see an orange-haired girl between some marble boulders.

“……Ugh……Hggh…….”

She looked like she was unconscious, but her expression kept twitching in pain. She was undoubtedly still alive despite her severe injuries. Elizabeth worked together with the soldiers to hastily rescue the Saintess from the rubble.

She was in a horrible state. Her entire body was covered in dust and her saintess clothes had been burned due to the explosion. Blood kept pouring out from her thigh and abdominal regions. It was a miracle that her head was uninjured.

“Mages!”

Three of the healers quickly looked over the Saintess.

“How about Siberrum?”

“Sorry. I used it all earlier.”

“It can’t be helped. We will make do with Germaseneia.”

The mages used words that only they understood as they urgently carried out the treatment. Elizabeth may know about offensive spells fairly well, but she was fairly unknowledgeable when it came to healing spells. All she could do was watch nervously.

An undetermined amount of time went by. It felt like an hour had gone by, but it also felt like it was only a minute. The mage who had been in the leading position during the treatment raised their head to look at Elizabeth.

“It is all right now. She is now in a stable condition.”

“O Goddesses!”

Elizabeth hated religion, but, at this moment in time, she was the most devout believer on the continent.

“Her wounds themselves were not that serious. It seems her saintess clothes blocked most of the damage. The fact that she came here in saintess clothes despite this being a ball managed to save her life. She most likely was not hurt at all by the magic explosion.”

The mage’s face turned into a frown.

“But there are large stab wounds on her abdomen and thigh.”

“Stab wounds?”

“The culprit most likely stabbed her with a dagger first. The dagger was most likely enchanted for assassination purposes. They stabbed her once in the abdomen and thigh before letting their magic burst. They were diabolically skillful.”

The mage must have found the culprit’s vicious scheme to be contemptuous as they clicked their tongue.

“They most likely never intended to kill her by only stabbing her. From the very beginning, they were aiming to make her bleed to death. They collapsed the building, so she couldn’t escape……. This is just speculation, but I believe the dagger was most likely poisoned as well. It is still too soon to be relaxing.”

“If the Saintess recovers, then I will personally give you a hundred gold coins.”

The mage’s eyes lit up.

“With my honor and magic power on the line, I will do my best.”

The Saintess was placed on a stretcher and moved to the garden. This was because there was a chance that the ceiling might collapse again.

Elizabeth remained in the ballroom with the guards until they found every last wounded person. During this process, she was almost severely injured as a part of the ceiling fell. The guard captain suggested that she should escape first, but Elizabeth shook her head firmly.

“It is the duty of a ruler to help the people. You cannot call someone a ruler if they turn away after a calamity unfolds before them.”

The Batavian soldiers were so moved by the Consul that they carried out the rescue operation with more enthusiasm.

The rescue operation ended after they recovered one final corpse. Out of the initial sixty-ish participants, twenty-seven of them had light injuries, fourteen had severe injuries, and four had died.

The severely injured managed to survive thanks to the hasty measures that were taken. The Saintess was among those that survived. Once Elizabeth exited the ballroom last, the surviving people gave a round of applause to the amazing ruler.

Despite having faced an unexpected terrorist act, Elizabeth managed to make her way out of the situation with a favorable conclusion. This deeply impressed the representatives of all nations and she managed to partially foil Dantalian’s plan by saving the Saintess.

“Report to me the names of the severely injured and the deceased.”

“Yes. I will first give a report about the severely injured. Baron Heisenberg from the Teuton Kingdom, Viscount Hodel from the Castile Kingdom…….”

A knight seemed to have written everything beforehand as he read off of a list.

After naming thirteen of the wounded individuals, one final name was mentioned.

“……Count Palatine Dantalian from the Habsburg Empire.”

Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide.

“That was all fourteen of the severely injured.”

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

Ο

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. In contrast to the chaos of this chapter, I sort of let myself relax over the weekend. I didn’t get much translating done because I wanted to unwind. These past few weeks have been so mundane and repetitive at work. I should probably be done with this boring project by the end of October. Hopefully. This chapter came out late cause I’ve just been busy with work and I wanted to destress properly over the weekend.

I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.