“......That is what happened.”
Rina’s story came to an end.
“......”
Solacius looked at Rina without a word.
Rina looked into his eyes.
Golden eyes.
They were the same color as her own had been until recently.
‘Should I have told him about the Rosario and my hair color? We might be from the same royal family......’
Rina had told Solacius everything except for her original hair and eye colors, as well as anything related to the Rosario.
‘No. He said there are royals who are loyal to Evil Empress Octana. He said the Queen of Luhan is suffering now because she was betrayed by those royals.’
But she soon chose caution inwardly.
“The Chancellor gave her the Shadow Core?”
For now, Solacius only knew that Isabel had researched the Shadow Core given to her by the Chancellor and had her body taken over.
“Yeah.”
‘As expected, the Chancellor is behind every scheme.’
There were certainly suspicious points.
But since it generally aligned with the information from the game, he could accept it for now.
‘The Grand Witch of Death used shadow magic and necromancy at the same time. The undead legion enhanced by shadow magic was truly threatening.’
Solacius furrowed his brow.
Soon, he would have to face an enemy who had also been difficult in the game.
All while burdened by the full penalty of the Demon King’s Curse.
“Then why did she not appear during the First Subjugation?”
A question suddenly occurred to Solacius, and he asked Rina.
“There was a high-level witch and a mage in the First Subjugation Force, was there not?”
“Well......”
As soon as the First Subjugation Force was mentioned, Rina’s face crumpled.
The First Subjugation Force.
Of course she knew about it.
But it was by no means a good memory.
“I am the disciple of a rampaging Necromancer.”
She spoke with a bitter expression.
“Did you reveal your name and your master to the First Subjugation Force?”
“......I only told the high-level witch and the mage.”
“Judging by your expression, they did not treat you well.”
“Yeah. They looked at me like I was a bug. In the end, they bound me and tried to kill me. If my rampaging master had not appeared then, I would have been murdered.”
He felt as though he now understood why Rina disliked revealing her name and identity so much.
“Then the reason the First Subjugation Force was wiped out was......?”
“They were destined to be wiped out anyway.”
Sadness spread through the young witch’s eyes.
‘In the original work—during the playthrough I experienced—the Second Subjugation Force was wiped out as well. Isabel must have rescued Rina while the Church was burning her at the stake and wiped them out in the process.’
The Necromancer who massacred the Second Subjugation Force must have used some kind of spell to revive the dead Rina.
She must have revived her by injecting her own life and the Shadow Core into Rina.
Afterward, the resurrected Rina must have been taken in by Chancellor Aria and become one of the Empire’s Four Heavenly Kings.
“My master did not harm me even after she rampaged. She avoided me whenever I approached. But whenever I was in danger, she would immediately appear, help me, and leave again.”
Rina’s changed gray eyes were filled with desperate longing.
“I used that to evacuate people as desperately as I could. But it was not enough.”
The wandering knight’s golden eyes gazed into the girl mage’s gray eyes.
“Please. Save my master!”
Rina tightly grabbed Solacius’s collar and pleaded with him.
“I will be the bait! You only need to hold my master down for a moment! I have a way.”
“A way?”
“My Rosa......”
Rina began to answer Solacius’s question, then hesitated.
Conflict filled her gray eyes.
The Rosario was no ordinary item.
What if the exiled royal before her was actually a bad person?
“It seems you are still hiding something.”
Solacius looked indifferently at the conflicted Rina.
“Well......”
Rina hesitated, then tightly shut her eyes.
‘Let’s trust him!’
She was about to take out the Rosario hidden in her clothes.
“I am actually......”
ROOOOOAR!
Just before the young witch could confess, a massive roar erupted nearby.
“It is the Necromancer!”
“It is the Necromancer’s undead legion!”
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!!
Alarm bells rang out.
The quiet Subjugation Force camp became a battlefield in an instant.
***
Darkness covered every direction, and the ground was being consumed as though it had sunk into a swamp of shadows.
HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE.
SKREEE!
Chilling laughter that sounded as though it were whispering right beside them could be heard as well.
GROOOOAN.
WOOOOO.
Soldiers and mercenaries presumed to be from the First Subjugation Force walked toward them as undead, red light glowing from their eyes.
NEEEIGH!
There were knights riding horses that reeked of decay and rot.
They, too, were corpse-pale undead: Death Knights.
‘......?’
Solacius suddenly recalled a similar situation.
The environment resembled the Haunted House Magic Rina had used before.
‘Was that shadow magic?’
He had thought it was darkness magic and mental magic.
‘Did the Shadow Core seep into that girl as well?’
He looked at the witch beside him with grave eyes.
The difference was that Rina’s Haunted House Magic had merely intended to frighten people.
“Master......”
Rina was desperately searching the undead legion for her master.
“Cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle.”
Soon, with a husky witch’s laugh, the source of this entire disaster appeared.
Necromancer Isabel, her black hair disheveled and her witch’s robes similar to Rina’s, floated in the distant sky.
“KYAAAAAA!”
The rampaging Necromancer let out a boiling shriek and cast necromancy.
The fierce battle between the Subjugation Force and the undead legion began.
ROOOOOAR!
BOOM, CRACK, THUD!
“Hold the line!”
“We win if we endure until the priests deal with the Necromancer!”
The enemy’s numbers were great, and they were surrounded from all sides.
There was nowhere to run.
‘They are not yet an undead legion enhanced by shadow magic.’
Though the situation was desperate, Solacius instead felt relieved.
‘This much, I can handle.’
He looked around.
“Sir Knight!”
“What should we do?”
The merchants hurriedly gathered around Solacius, and Oski’s Subjugation Force formed a protective ring around the merchants.
They seemed to remember Dawn’s Lantern, the magic Solacius had used before.
“Are you going to use that?”
Rina, the witch standing closest to Solacius, suddenly asked.
“Yes. Just get ready to use the air conditioner.”
“What the hell is that air conditioner? Is it imperial royal slang for ice magic?”
When Rina pouted and grumbled, Solacius chuckled and stroked her hair.
“......!”
Caught off guard by the pat, Rina’s shoulders flinched.
‘What was that?’
It did not feel unpleasant.
Rather, it felt remarkably familiar.
Leaving the confused Rina behind, Solacius began to walk.
“Go together!”
Rina hurriedly followed after him.
“Sir Knight!”
“Sir Roan!”
The merchants and Subjugation Force members followed him like chicks after their mother.
Not long after the battle began, the situation was already overwhelmingly unfavorable for the Subjugation Force.
Not many people were properly fighting the Necromancer’s legion.
Though they had selected only the elite, a considerable number had fallen into a panic after suffering mental attacks.
Only the Church’s priests and paladins barely endured with divine power.
“Oh...... God!”
SHNK!
Before their eyes, a paladin in holy armor was pierced through the torso.
An attack that was unmistakably magic had pierced the paladin’s body like a spear.
“Ah......!”
When the paladin protecting him died instantly, the priest’s legs gave out, and he collapsed where he stood.
He did not even have the strength to make the sign of the cross, which he normally did as naturally as breathing.
“To turn the witch and mage from the First Subjugation Force into Liches......!”
The priest’s eyes trembled.
The magic that had just pierced the paladin had not been cast by Necromancer Isabel.
It had been fired by the two mages whom she had made into Liches.
The Church’s Subjugation Force was being toyed with by only two Liches.
“How can this be the power of a mere Necromancer? A Grand Witch—no, it is something beyond that......”
The priest shut his eyes tightly in despair.
Setting aside the matter of compatibility, the difference in their power was simply too great.
THUD!
While his eyes were shut, there was a sound beside him like a watermelon bursting.
“Eeeek!”
When he opened his eyes in fright, the head of the fellow priest casting a holy barrier was gone.
“It is over now!”
The paladins who were meant to protect the priests had been wiped out, and now it was the priests’ turn.
Some priests gave up even maintaining the barrier and trembled with their heads covered.
CRASH!
Then, with the sound of breaking glass, the holy barrier they had barely maintained collapsed.
Gasp, gasp, gasp.
Having exhausted all their divine power, the priests breathed raggedly in despair as they awaited their end.
Some made the sign of the cross and prayed, while others shed tears and wept.
What they all had in common was that they shut their eyes tightly in fear.
“......?”
But even after time passed, nothing happened.
At some point, the screams of the other Subjugation Force members, which had been heard from every direction, could no longer be heard.
Neither could the monstrous cries of the undead legion.
A warm wind pushed against the priests’ tightly shut eyes.
They cautiously opened them.
“!!”
The darkness around them glowed gently, like a forest filled with fireflies.
SCREEEECH!
From ahead came a scream that seemed to belong to the Necromancer.
The undead legion that had surrounded them was nowhere to be seen.
On the ground lay remains believed to be from the undead legion.
They were all half turned to ash, bearing burn marks.
FWOOOOSH, FWOOSH!
Then, a dazzling light erupted, and waves of hot wind followed.
“Sir Roan Shalut.”
“God......!”
Everyone realized who had created this miraculous situation.
The priests made the sign of the cross as they stared blankly at the knight wielding light and heat.
The golden-haired, golden-eyed wandering knight swung a sword enveloped in brilliant light.
With every swing, light burst forth and flames rose.
He had burned the Necromancer’s entire undead legion.
And that was not all. He was even burning the two Liches under the Necromancer’s control.
“That is Aura! He is a Sword Master!”
“Magic and Aura as well! How is that possible......?!”
“God has not abandoned Luhan and Her Majesty the Queen!”
The sword of holy light seared the bodies of Liches and Death Knights like a branding iron.
“Eeeek!”
Though Witch Isabel had lost her reason because of the Shadow Core, she seemed to instinctively fear the knight before her.
But separate from that fear, she did not hide her hostility toward him.
SHWIIISH!
As Solacius dealt with the Liches and Death Knights, Isabel threw spears of black flame created through shadow magic.
FLASH!
But the spears made of black flames vanished against a shield that formed just before Solacius’s body.
It was Light Shield, one of the Sun Abilities.
“GRRRR!”
Grinding her teeth, Isabel cast necromancy once more.
RUMBLE.
GROOOOAN.
The members of the Second Subjugation Force who had just died rose as undead.
The paladins became Dark Templars, and the priests became Dark Priests.
Once again, a sizable army rushed toward the single golden-haired, golden-eyed wandering knight.
Solacius, who had just thrust the Sun Sword into the heart of a witch Lich, swept his indifferent gaze across the rushing undead legion.
He pulled the sword from the Lich’s heart.
FLASH!
He swung his sword widely toward the legion.
FWOOOOOSH!!
Massive flames burst out wherever the tip of his sword pointed.
It was Field of Scorching Heat, an area-of-effect skill among the Sun Abilities.
As though the limit that had restrained him until now had been released, as though he had become an incarnation of the Sun God, Solacius unleashed Tae Gwang-hwi’s power from Earth without restraint.
‘The Air Conditioner Witch and the magical device Ice Boom should be enough.’
Of course, he could do this only because he had something reliable to depend on.
“Grrrr......”
In the end, Isabel chose to flee.
Before doing so, however, she commanded the remaining Dark Priests and mage Liches to self-destruct along with that monstrous knight.
‘Where do you think you are going!’
As Isabel tried to flee, Solacius imbued his sword with the Sun Sword and launched a sword aura at the fleeing Necromancer.
“SCREEEECH!”
Flames erupted behind Isabel as she fled with her back turned.
Light’s Pursuit, a long-range Sun Ability, had struck precisely.
But Isabel endured the pain of her scalp, back, and buttocks burning and continued to flee stubbornly.
Solacius clicked his tongue.
But he did not pursue her.
He needed to deal with the remaining undead, who were preparing to self-destruct through Corpse Explosion.
From where he stood, he activated the Sun Sword and detonated those preparing Corpse Explosion first.