Chapter 372
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Krang reviewed his mistake.
From the start, the operation had too many holes. So the mistake itself wasn’t the point.
He knew what mattered now. He confirmed what he had to do.
And he did it.
What he needed was time.
And something that would buy him that time.
“Marcus Vaisar.”
“Speak.”
“Can you get out of here and call for help?”
“…I think I have to.”
Krang was trapped in the reception room assigned to him—an outer annex inside the Royal Palace. It was meant for visiting guests, not a fortified position.
He wasn’t a grand duke yet. A single reception room connected to a bedroom was all he had.
And that was enough to corner him.
The moment Krang finished speaking, Whip Bodyguard Matthew hurled a stool at the window.
Crash!
The window shattered.
Matthew used the whip’s handle to knock away the remaining shards until the frame was clear.
It was wide enough for one person to slip through.
“My guard will be outside.”
Marcus approached the opening. Three stories up—high, but survivable. A large ornamental tree stood below. If he caught branches on the way down, he wouldn’t die.
Krang sat back with his arms crossed. His thoughts weren’t complicated.
If anything, they had become painfully simple.
Baron Mernes had started a rebellion.
A mad move with no way back.
‘Still… it’s suitable.’
Krang admitted it. The half-crippled man he’d dismissed had been sharper than expected—good instincts, good timing.
‘Using every means available here…’
A dagger pressed to Krang’s throat.
Everything Krang had done since arriving at the Royal Palace for the grand duke appointment ceremony had been for one reason.
Simple. Clear.
Gather the trash.
And clean it up.
It was also the answer to the task the Queen had given him.
“Make all the ministers your allies.”
Krang murmured, hugging one raised knee. Words only he could hear.
In reverse, it meant he only needed to gather and eliminate those who weren’t on his side.
If it was impossible to find and persuade them one by one—
‘Then I just have to get rid of them all.’
When he moved to do that, his opponents unified. The scattered factions became one under Baron Mernes and lunged at him.
‘I thought they’d keep tearing each other apart and ignore me until later.’
But the reason didn’t matter now.
This had been a gamble from the start, and Krang had taken it.
Now the results were coming due.
“I’m going.”
Marcus jumped.
Krang sprang up and leaned out the window, watching him drop.
Marcus caught the branch on the way down, slowed his fall, and rolled when he hit.
A clean breakfall—impact dispersed, movement seamless.
He was a trained soldier.
The moment his boots touched the ground, the men guarding the annex front rushed him.
Golden helmets. Golden spearheads.
The Royal Guard.
The ones who were supposed to be protecting the Queen.
“Kill him!”
“He’s a traitor!”
Who was the traitor?
Spearpoints shot toward Marcus.
He rolled again. Leaves and grass clung to his cheek and back. He came up hard and pressed himself against the tree, his forearm sleeve torn and ragged.
He sucked in a breath and scanned left and right.
His guard wasn’t visible. They should’ve been in the first-floor lobby—meaning they’d reach him soon.
Marcus drew a short dagger from his waist.
“Come on,” he spat, eyes darting. “Come on, you bastards.”
He’d kill the first one who stepped in. He made that clear.
“Circular formation.”
A commander in a dark gray helmet stepped forward, seeming to appear from nowhere.
No one rushed.
Instead, the Royal Guard spears formed a neat ring around Marcus.
A perfect encirclement.
‘Shit.’
Their specialty.
Ten spearheads stabbing in the same breath, the same timing.
To stop that with a dagger, you’d need to be at least a Junior Knight.
Sweat poured down Marcus’s back.
“Is that the right path?”
Krang called from the window.
He was isolated and cornered, but his authority hadn’t wavered.
Krang’s dignity came from who he was—his character, his actions.
He placed one foot on the windowsill and exposed his body. If an arrow flew now, he would die instantly.
But hiding and shouting wouldn’t change anything.
A Royal Guard waiting nearby saw the opening and quietly gripped his spear in reverse.
He was close enough to throw and hit.
The dark gray helmet saw it and flicked a hand.
Wait.
The soldier frowned inside his helm.
“It’s a chance.”
“Shut up. Disobeying orders is punishable by immediate execution.”
The soldier’s eyes glittered, but he lowered the spear.
The dark gray helmet lifted his head toward Krang.
“Then what is the right path?”
He spoke. As he halted, his subordinates gathered around him. Fewer than ten.
Inside the Royal Palace, chaos was already spreading—screams, steel, violence breaking out everywhere.
“Right and wrong aren’t decided by others.”
Krang’s voice was slow and clear.
What was right for the Royal Guard?
Protect the royal family.
The dark gray helmet hesitated.
What was the right path?
Krang, hair whipped by the wind, stood framed by the broken window.
He was risking his life just to buy a little time.
For what?
To save Marcus Vaisar—the same man Baron Mernes called a traitor.
Was there meaning in that?
Would anything change if he bought a few moments?
He didn’t know.
This wasn’t an action built on calculation.
Krang was doing it because he believed it was right.
That was how it looked. That was all the dark gray helmet could see.
He’d spoken to Krang before. He’d watched him. That mattered.
He hadn’t known he’d choose this now.
But he chose.
“…Unit, reverse. Turn your spears.”
“Are you insane!”
The soldier who’d wanted to throw shouted, but the dark gray helmet didn’t answer.
He’d stood here to protect the Queen. He’d believed this position was more honorable than becoming a knight.
But now?
A role spent protecting a handful of nobles.
A role where he had to raise a spear for them.
He didn’t want it.
To be honest, he wanted to spit that he didn’t care and smash their faces in.
The Royal Guard line split.
It had never truly been one group to begin with.
Spearpoints flew toward the dark gray helmet.
It was the frowning soldier.
He twisted aside, shrinking the target, dodged, and slapped the spear away with his shaft. Then he stepped in and swung his spear down like a club.
Whoong! Thwack!
“Aaagh!”
A subordinate screamed as the blow shattered his raised arm. He staggered back, and others filled his place.
“Are you crazy?” someone demanded.
“I think so.”
The answer was flat.
The men who followed the dark gray helmet cleared a lane for Marcus.
“Thank you.”
Marcus slipped out.
The dark gray helmet didn’t respond. He just covered Marcus’s back.
Marcus ran without looking back, found a horse, and rode.
But the crisis didn’t end there.
He shook off pursuers again and again.
Two guards stayed with him. One died. The other fell behind to buy time.
Then even a madman from the West joined the chase.
Marcus didn’t have time to see who it was.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Marcus rode hard, but the man ran without a horse.
Fast.
Too fast.
A spear tore a strip of flesh from Marcus’s forearm as it flew past.
He didn’t have time to recover. He spurred the horse again.
Blood droplets scattered with the rhythm of hooves.
“Run,” Marcus muttered, patting the horse’s neck. “You’re my lifeline.”
He fled toward Andrew’s mansion.
His last bastion.
Right now, even his own family—the Vaisars—couldn’t be trusted to stand with him.
—
Krang shouted from the annex, alone now that everyone had left.
“Do you know who my friend is? None other than the shining star of the Border Guard, the adversary of Azpen, the madman armed with demonic power—Encrid!”
No one answered.
Matthew asked quietly, “…Will that work?”
Krang laughed.
“Right? It doesn’t. Not yet.”
Even with his calculation broken, Krang smiled brightly.
“Open the passage.”
At least he’d secured an escape route.
A secret tunnel angled down into the ground—one of the Queen’s contingencies.
‘Can I hold for half a day?’
If he could, he could gather the trash and wipe it out.
Meaning the enemy had moved half a day earlier than he expected.
‘Broad daylight, too.’
Krang knew what that meant.
He needed a variable to survive—and to win.
The enemy had brought one.
Krang had prepared one as well.
Now it was time to see the end.
—
“That.”
Rem reacted instantly.
Marcus’s injuries. The figure chasing him.
The moment Encrid saw it, he spoke.
“Take care of it.”
Rem didn’t need to be told twice. It was already the one he intended to catch and kill.
The ‘Immortal Madman’.
The bastard who’d escaped before was showing his face again.
Rem jumped off the wall.
The pursuer immediately reversed. One kick off the ground, and he changed direction, sprinting away without hesitation.
The spearheads floating above his shoulders spun with him, turning as if alive.
Rem chased.
Two bodies tore across the bluestone faster than a horse.
“Kyaaa!”
A woman screamed.
A man—lover or husband—wrapped her in his arms and pressed them both against the wall of a storefront.
In the span of a breath, the two runners vanished between buildings.
Rem was already gone, impossible to track with the eye.
Encrid looked down at Marcus arriving beneath the wall.
Marcus sat on horseback, one arm bleeding, chest heaving, eyes wild with urgency.
“Help me.”
Encrid judged it was time to move.
He was about to drop down when a voice snapped behind him.
“If you leave, it’ll get worse!”
A Squire.
Encrid answered without turning.
“I’m going to the Royal Palace.”
The Squire knew who held the palace now.
Going meant risking his life.
For what?
The Squire’s face tightened. Brows knit. Nose wrinkled.
Questions rushed in—why he was here, whose orders he was following, whether he had any will of his own.
And another voice surfaced in his memory.
“It’s not about right or wrong. It’s where your will lies.”
A Junior Knight’s words.
He’d been recognized for talent and promoted to Squire, but he’d always been criticized for his personality.
“So what do you think?”
Even picking a lunch menu, he deferred to others.
He’d always been dragged along.
That was how he’d ended up here.
He’d followed someone else’s will, not his own. He told himself it was fine—he was just obeying orders, that was all.
But—
‘Is that really all? Am I satisfied?’
He didn’t know.
‘Why am I here?’
At Encrid’s blunt statement—spoken by the man he’d come to arrest—the Squire made his decision.
Something strange moved his mouth before his mind could stop it.
“The army Baron Mernes gathered will advance soon.”
His voice rose without him meaning it.
Encrid blinked and looked back.
Why was he saying that?
“The one leading them—the one who unified all the factions—is a Junior Knight of the Royal Guard.”
“What are you saying?”
The chief of public order grabbed the Squire’s arm, voice urgent.
The Squire calmly shook him off and continued.
“Please help us.”
Encrid scratched his head.
Help?
Wasn’t that something the man sent to capture him shouldn’t say?
But the sincerity in the Squire’s voice made it hard to ignore.
The Squire lowered his head.
The South Gate Border Guard Captain in the feathered hat stepped forward.
“If we stay like this, the citizens of the capital will be harmed.”
Would an army marching into the capital quietly garrison and behave?
An army stitched together from factions?
Among them would be swordsmen who sold their blades for gold, men blinded by slaughter. The nobles couldn’t afford to be picky now, so even the infamous would be included.
For the citizens’ safety.
To protect the capital.
The two men stepped forward and bowed their heads.
“Ragna,” Encrid said, “can you stop them?”
Ragna didn’t ask why. He only met Encrid’s eyes.
“Go stop them. Dunbakel, go with him.”
Ragna and Dunbakel could halt elite troops pushing in from the front.
“What’s your name?” Encrid asked the Squire.
“Roford.”
“Roford. Gather whoever’s left and stop the enemy coming in. Hold the gate. My unit will handle anyone who demands a duel.”
If he saved Krang and then got surrounded by the army rushing in, it would be over.
Encrid felt it. He recognized it.
The instincts forged from being trapped among enemies—hundreds of todays, hundreds of escapes—lit up cleanly.
Stop the outside army.
Clean up the inside.
If Krang needed anything, it was time.
Encrid knew exactly where he had to be.
“Let’s go,” Ragna said.
It wasn’t a request. It was an order received.
Ragna and Dunbakel turned without a word.
Marcus sat to the side, panting, his skin pale as bruised steel.
Jaxson stayed tight to Encrid.
Once Encrid dropped from the wall, the remaining troops looked around in a daze.
Follow Ragna?
Or seize Encrid as he moved away?
They saw the fallen constable.
Beside him, the chief of public order stood sweating through his clothes.
“Weren’t you holding a spear to protect the capital?” Roford said. “At least I am. Anyone who wants to stay—stay.”
People had moments when they grew.
When they realized.
This was Roford’s.
And the trigger had been one sentence:
“I’m going to the Royal Palace.”
“Let’s go.”
Roford moved first, following Ragna. The South Gate Border Guard Captain followed. The soldiers who’d been uneasy earlier followed.
The chief of public order cursed under his breath, then finally said it anyway.
“Let’s go. We’ll do our duty.”
Even now, he sounded like he believed himself.
Andrew stepped forward too.
If Encrid went to the Royal Palace alone, there’d be nothing Andrew could do. He chose to help hold the walls, telling the five trainees to stay.
“We trained to the death,” a freckled female trainee said.
All five fell in behind Andrew. When Mac tried to follow, Andrew shook his head.
“You’re a butler now. Protect them.”
And with that, the six followed the group that had left.
Ragna led, walking with his usual unsteady stride. Dunbakel moved beside him.
“This side looked more fun, right?”
Ragna nodded as if it were obvious.
Roford, walking near them, had to bite back a reaction.
Fun?
Now?
He walked a little farther, then frowned.
They were going the wrong way.
“We need the west gate.”
Roford spoke up.
“Um… is it this way?” Ragna asked.
“No. That’s north.”
Roford moved to the front and took the lead.
Somehow, his sense of direction had always been terrible.
But at least he knew where the west gate was.
(T/N : Way to ruin the mood Ragna, lol. But this chapter is peak!)
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