The Hero Who Returned From Death Quits - Chapter 212



EP10. The Falling Twilight

It was time to retreat. Lena gritted her teeth as the trumpet sounded to announce it.

I feel like I can still kill more. I feel like I’ve reached my limit. Are you saying we should retreat already?

Maybe one enemy she couldn’t kill right now could change the situation for the worse. Maybe one arrow she couldn’t fire right now could cause trouble.

But there was no choice. She had to retreat now. She struggled to stand up, holding her bow.

“…Let’s go. The signal to retreat has come.”

As she said that, Lena watched the gates open. The disgusting demons poured in through the cracks in the gates. The sight of civilians escaping overlapped. Some of the civilians who had not yet finished escaping had lost their lives at the hands of the demons.

“Fuck….”

Her expression hardened. She understood that it had to be this way. However, she was still angry that she had to do this because she couldn’t confront him head-on, and more than anything, she was angry at herself for coming face to face with the Demon King and convincing herself that she couldn’t confront him head-on.

The power of the Demon King was beyond imagination. I had heard that his power was to read the future. However, before that power, having experienced the absolute power of the Demon King once, I thought that such things were okay.

‘You can never win by fighting head-on.’

… Perhaps if Grandis and the warrior party all gathered together and fought, they might be able to achieve meaningful results against the Demon King. This was especially true considering Ainzel’s ability to return from death. However, the problem was that this was a story of completeness. Since the Demon King wasn’t the only thing they had to deal with anyway, she, Feria, and Grandis were all exhausted.

So it was safe to say that there was no way to deal with the Demon King in this current state. Knowing this made Lena anxious, and it had an even worse effect on her current situation.

Beatrice, Sein and Lena eventually left their seats.

“The gates are breached! Retreat!”

The Demon King had a deep smile on his face as he watched the soldiers retreat all at once.

‘Okay. It’s all just as I foresaw.’

Fortunately, this time the future was not distorted, and the Demon King felt satisfied with that fact. After all, the enemy had retreated, so it would only take a few hours for him to take the enemy capital, and if that happened, this war would effectively end in victory.

In this way, the Demon King could smile even as he was counterattacked during the desperate retreat of his enemies. He had already won, so the enemy’s minor resistance was of no concern to him.

Finally, when the enemy had completely retreated, he and his soldiers were completely free.

“Whew… This is hard.”

From noble mtl dot com

In any battle, even if the enemy is weak, you will be exhausted after the battle, so it goes without saying that it was a battle where the enemy’s level was not that low. Even if you minimized damage and saved stamina through the power of the Demon King, fighting was not something you could do while conserving stamina.

However, that did not mean he could just sit back and do nothing. Since he did not know what his enemies would do, the Demon King immediately activated his power.

Knowing that, the subordinates did not bother to disturb the Demon King, and when the Demon King stood there blankly for a while with a surprised expression, the subordinates felt that something was wrong.

And then, after a long silence, the Demon King’s mouth opened.

“Get ready!”

The demons who heard those words stared blankly at the demon king for a while. The battle is finally over, what are you talking about? As the demons were bewildered by the sudden words, the demon king shouted once more.

“Prepare for battle! In a few hours, the enemy will strike again!”

Hearing those words, the demons looked at the demon king with bewildered eyes. The battle had finally ended, but how many hours later? They were already exhausted, and fighting another battle felt too cruel.

But that doesn’t mean they can just sit still, so the demons stand up one by one.

Suddenly, Laplace gnashed his teeth. In the future he had seen, the enemies had brought all the troops that the Demon King had been guarding against in just a few hours. If the enemies had called their allies only after they had confronted him, the enemy’s numbers would not have been at a disadvantage in just a few hours. That means…

‘I used it. It was nothing but my authority.’

The enemy knew what he was going to foretell and deliberately deceived himself in this way.

If you think about it, the enemies’ behavior was quite strange. The moment the capital was taken, the entire country often collapsed rapidly.

However, the enemies retreated the moment they realized that they could not win, just as they had done when defending other cities.

That is, he deliberately retreated to show himself a future where he would occupy the capital, and then hid the true main story from the unknown future.

Laplace felt this way for the first time, the feeling of being completely read.

‘Even other demon lords couldn’t do this.’

The Demon King was already a special being with just his power, but what truly made him a Demon King was the existence of authority. That is why the Demon Kings absolutely trusted their own authority, and even in the territorial disputes with other Demon Kings, the ability to foresee the future functioned as the strongest authority.

That must be so. How could I be completely read by the enemy and used as a tool? The Demon King clenched and unclenched his fists at the unfamiliar feeling.

However, he could not just stand still and think about how his power had been used against him and he had fallen into the enemy’s trap. What should he do now? The Demon King began to worry.

Should we retreat like this? We can’t. We’ve already sacrificed a lot just to capture the enemy’s capital. It doesn’t make sense to retreat like this, and we didn’t know what would happen during the retreat.

However, it did not make sense to take the capital and defend it. Considering the number of enemies, and considering that this was the center of the empire, it was obvious that even if they tried to defend it, they would be surrounded by the enemy, and considering the enemy reinforcements, it was meaningless. The castle was not in good condition either.

So what can you do…

“We’re going to clash head-on. I’m here, so things will work out somehow. So brace yourself and get ready for battle!”

The Demon King, Laplace, was confident in his own abilities. Although he had suffered serious injuries from archangels of the same rank as himself, that was only applicable to beings of the same rank. It was obvious that he would be no match for beings that were clearly inferior to him, even if they clashed head-on.

However, some powerful beings were a problem.

There are five that stand out. Three of them have already exhausted their strength dealing with their own subordinates, so there are only two left to deal with.

It was Saint and Beatrice. I don’t know their names, but the Demon King was confident of his victory because he thought he only had to deal with the two of them. If that happened, all that was left was a massacre by the Demon King’s overwhelming power. If only it could go that far-

… But, it can’t be that easy. The Demon King already realized that.

Yes, he was the opponent who had so easily destroyed his power. He had no idea that he would use such an outrageous method to deceive him.

‘I just want to see your face.’

The Demon King was therefore more curious about the unknown opponent who was causing him so much trouble than the Grand Master-level strongmen who had noticeable strength. Perhaps he was the brains that moved the human empire.

‘…Even so, I still don’t know how the Demon of Wrath was recruited.’

Grandis was clearly a disqualified demon who had abandoned his mission and duty, just like the other demon lords, but at least he was not at the level of interacting with humans. He already knew that because he had investigated it. Even so, he thought that behind Grandis, who seemed to have no connection, the highest level of wrathful demon colluded with humans, there must have been someone who had read him and made a mess of him.

As Laplace was thinking like that, he suddenly realized that time had passed and several hours had passed, and it was time for the enemies to arrive.

He climbed up on the wall and looked at the army of humans and elves.

Crusaders wearing splendid white and gold armor and carrying cross-shaped swords, Paladins wearing pure white armor and armed with shields and maces, and even Elven archers wearing green cloaks and holding bows – the armies he had calculated were all gathered in one place.

“…If it turns out like that.”

Laplace swallowed the words, “I’ll just deal with it in one go,” and leapt into the air, flying high.