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Volume 5 Chapter 3 Part 11

Since he was lightly dressed in comparison to his enemy, he had every confidence that he should be able to pull a successful escape.

「Soldiers who follow the blood oath! Protect me! 」

Salvador ordered his troops in a loud voice.

Hearing this order, his remaining troops had gathered around him. While they were in the middle of that, many of them were killed by the villagers because they mindlessly turned their backs to their enemies, but Salvador didn’t care about that. As long as he goes to the slums of Laxia, he’ll be able to replenish the ranks of his soldiers with as many fresh recruits as he wants.

Some soldiers rushed in and attacked Theo Cornaro in accordance with Salvador’s orders, and in the meantime, Salvador himself had put all his might into making his escape from the battlefield.

「Wait! 」

Theo was smashing the soldiers that were desperately trying to stop him with his shield to ensure that he would only knock them unconscious instead of killing them, and then attempted to keep pursuing Salvador, but the distance between the two of them was only increasing with every passing second, and his opponent was much faster than Theo anticipated.

(At this rate, he’s definitely going to escape….!)

If Salvador Rossini manages to flee, then even if they were to completely annihilate the enemy soldiers, there would be no meaning to that.

In order for them to truly win this battle, it is necessary for Salvador Rossini to be killed. Even if Theo’s speed is inferior to Salvador’s right now because of his armor, Theo was still confident in his endurance. Even if he won’t catch up to him immediately, Theo will just have to keep at it until Salvador is going to run out of breath and then catch him, but once he completely loses sight of him, then everything is going to be over.

Praying for everything to go smoothly, Theo continued chasing after Salvador.

It was then that something unexpected happened.

Someone suddenly appeared on top of the hill the Salvador was trying to run towards and blocked his escape path by stretching their arms wide.

「Rebecca? 」

Theo was surprised beyond belief, but he didn’t have time to be dumbfounded, because Rebecca has latched herself onto Salvador, and with her clenched fists digging deeply into his clothes, she was trying to do her best to hold him in place.

「Theo! Hurry up! 」

Rebecca yelled.

「H-How dare you stand in my way?! 」

In the middle of his struggle against Rebecca, Salvador yelled and swung the sword in his hand at her, driving it deeply into Rebecca’s side.

「Ugh… ! 」

Rebecca let out a cry of pain, but even though she was badly wounded, she still didn’t let go of Salvador and continued to hold him down in place.

「Theo…. I’m sorry. 」

Then, at the last moment, Rebecca’s eyes have wandered towards Theo as she squeezed these three weak words out of her throat. . . and then, as if she just exhausted all of her strength, she fell onto the ground on the spot and didn’t move anymore.

By that time, Theo was already standing behind Salvador.

「SALVADOR ROSSINI!!! 」

Filled with burning anger, Theo used the momentum he had since he was still running and he thrust his sword into Salvador Rossini’s back with everything he had.

Theo felt that his attack definitely connected, an in the next moment his blade had pierced through Salvador’s thin breastplate, emerging at the other side of his chest. And since his weapon was buried so deep in his body, there was no way that he wasn’t mortally wounded by this attack.

「How…. did I…?! 」

Salvador looked down at the blade sticking out of the wound in his chest and then he exclaimed in disbelief. But that was all he was able to say, since foam colored red by his own blood was already forming in the corners of his mouth and spurting out of it, and soon enough he collapsed onto the ground on the spot.

Theo then finished him off by slashing him cleanly across the neck with a sword he yanked out of his body. Salvador’s blood overflowed from his body, wetting the ground of the hill in the shade of deep red, reaching all the way down to the secret granary that Theo’s father built in that hill all those years ago.

「Rebecca….」

Theo picked up his childhood friend’s body from the ground and put a hand on her thin neck. He was checking for pulse, but it was already gone.

「Why….」

Theo said while gently lowering Rebecca’s body back to the ground.

Thanks to her sacrifice, Theo was able to kill Salvador Rossini before he escaped…. but that was not what Theo wanted.

「All I wanted…. was for you to be happy…. 」

Theo muttered quietly as he closed his eyes.

The battle against Salvador Rossini ended with his victory, but the casualties on the villagers side were by no means small, and it is more than certain that many more people are going to die before the Rossini family will finally be overthrown.

(Even so, I have to continue to appeal to the people and get them on my side…. )

The people of Sistina need realize that they need to finally rise up against the Lord who only cares about oppressing them. That have a right… no, at this point, they have an obligation to do so. Only when they stand up for themselves can they make sure that no tyrannical Lord like Pederico Rossini will ever rule over them again.

But even then, that doesn’t mean that the pain of their losses will go away.

「Lord Theo … 」

After a while, Siluca appeared at Theo’s side.

「You did a great job killing Salvador Rossini. If you’d have allowed him to escape, this whole battle would end up with your loss. 」

「I think it would’ve been difficult for him to escape because of you and the others. But in the end, I could catch up to him thanks to Rebecca. She used her own body to hold Salvador down long enough for me to get to him. 」

「Is that so…? 」

Siluca looked down at the corpse of Theo’s childhood friend, and she prayed for a her soul to find peaceful rest in the afterlife.

「I have no words to express my gratitude to the people of Marza for standing up and fighting for me, but I’m afraid that this is only the beginning. I don’t think this victory alone will make a big wave that we need right now. 」

Siluca silently nodded at Theo’s words.

The reason the people of Marza village stood up for Theo was because they had a strong feeling of being used as an example by the Lord of the island. However, the same tactic will probably not work with the other villagers, because they don’t feel the same way. Rather, the death of Salvador Rossini might actually scare the Rossini family into retaliating against the people of Marza.

「In order to show that Lord Theo is a true hero, it might be best to start by taking care of one of the Demonic Realms first. 」

Siluca said after thinking for a while.

That was the original idea that she had.

The Cornero family was trying to quell the Demonic Realms in the past, but they failed to achieve that goal. If Theo, who calls himself a Cornero, succeeded in doing so, the people of Sistina would surely have high hopes for him because of that.

「If anything, I think the famous Demonic Realm would be best to start with. 」
「The Chaos Vortex, right? 」

Theo answered immediately.

「Because of that maelstrom, the area around Sistina has become a graveyard for ships, and the people of the island have given up the idea of leaving it because of it. 」

「That maelstrom… 」

Siluca knows how terrifying it is because she has actually encountered it.

However, in order to quell the Demonic Realm, it is necessary to defeat or purify its Chaos Core, and something was telling her that it would be located in the ocean itself.

「Is it out of our reach? 」

「No, I think it would be difficult, but it might be worth a try…. 」

Siluca shook her head.

「If the Demonic Realm disappears, this island will become more prosperous. That should be the greatest hope for the people. That maelstrom is like a symbol of all of Sistina’s Demonic Realms. 」

First, they must investigate the cause and identify the Chaos Core. and come up with a plan to deal with it. The Rossini family should eventually lead a large army to attack them, so if they don’t raise a big wave that will make a lot of people stand by them by then, they will be defeated.

(The battle has already begun, and there have been sacrifices. We can’t afford to lose so as not to let them go to waste.)

Siluca once again prayed for Rebecca’s soul, and then she started formulating a plan.

『To be Continued in Volume 6』