Chapter 240 — 화려한 귀환
Episode 240
A Dazzling Return
[Army of the Star takes the Wynz Border March!]
[Merwinger’s brilliant homecoming. In-depth coverage!]
[The Comet, at last the true Star of the East.]
[The true heir of the “Mage of the Star” finally rises.]
The incident Elric sparked rippled across the entire Empire.
On top of that, the Army of the Star’s ferocious performance in the East over the past month had been a welcome downpour in a drought for Imperial forces.
Not only Imperial citizens, but even the rank and file were cheering Elric’s name.
The Supreme Headquarters, desperate for a breakthrough, snapped to attention.
And when word came that they had finally taken the Wynz Border March, everyone could only erupt in cheers.
In the eyes of the Empire, the Red Lion Army was the very core of the rebels.
Having them by the throat, they reasoned, meant the rebellion would soon unravel.
And then—
Public hopes like that seemed, more or less, to be bearing out.
[Rebel resupply cut—frictions deepen.]
[Red Lion Army agitation to return to their homeland is fueling frequent clashes with the barbarians.]
[Imperial counteroffensive in full swing!]
[Supreme Headquarters: advance, and advance again.]
Riding the momentum, the Supreme Headquarters began smashing rebel forces one after another, leaving the rebels to suffer defeat after defeat almost daily.
At the same time, they floated conciliatory measures aimed at the Red Lion Army to further sow division and discord among the rebels.
[Is a bid to woo the Red Lion real?]
[Child torn from your parents’ arms, come home!]
They started saying it outright: We’ll forgive you—just come back.
The front wavered more than once because of it.
* * *
“…This damned media game turns my stomach no matter how many times I see it.”
The Red Lion, Andre Wynz, flung a half-folded tabloid into a corner and let out a sigh that seemed to hollow the earth.
On the front page sat the insufferable Crown Prince Jeraiz, wearing a face steeped in solemn grief.
[Crown Prince Jeraiz, worried for the people of the East.]
[He recalls memories with his former comrade, the Red Lion. Even today, he earnestly prays the Red Lion will escape the demons’ clutches and reclaim the glory of the Light.]
Bald-faced headlines and captions.
The ploy to rattle the Red Lion Army was obvious.
But the reality was different from what the photos suggested.
Contrary to what the world believed, the Supreme Headquarters had not once made a genuine recommendation that the Red Lion Army defect.
If anything, they’d hunted the Red Lions more doggedly than they had the mountain tribes.
In short, this was nothing but Crown Prince Jeraiz’s deception to skew public opinion in his favor. Fall for it and disaster would follow.
The problem was, there was no small amount of unrest within the Red Lion Army as well….
Losing the entire Border March to them had been too big.
Andre squeezed his eyes shut.
A desolation like being abandoned alone by the world. A stifling weight pressed on his chest, and loneliness climbed to his throat, choking off his breath.
Now, at the edge of a hundred-foot cliff.
Where he turned his steps would decide whether he fell to his death or found a gentle way down.
Nameless. If you’ve been captured like that, what do you expect me to do?
Even the friend who’d kept his mind intact at his side was now a prisoner in enemy hands.
The loneliness only tightened around him.
“…My lord.”
As his brooding deepened, Tedan’s voice sounded from behind.
“You have to decide.”
Tedan bowed heavily.
From the Red Castle to the Red Lion Army’s main camp, he’d ridden without a day’s rest. His face was ashen, as if he might collapse at any moment.
Even so, he needed an answer.
What decision Andre would make.
Their fate hung on it.
And of course, whatever Andre decided, Tedan intended to follow it to the letter.
“Come under Merwinger’s command? Ha! He was one of the Eight Lions—there were only eight of us to begin with—and he was preparing to retire. Now they want him running errands again.”
Andre quickly grasped the aim of Elric’s timely arrival as a savior.
It was already something of an open secret that the Imperial court felt burdened by Merwinger’s rise.
After putting down the rebels and consolidating his political footing, Crown Prince Jeraiz would obviously move to sweep Merwinger off the board as well.
Even if a trace of the old Merwinger’s renown lingered, it wouldn’t be hard to grind down a house whose fortunes had collapsed.
But if Merwinger swallowed the Eastern Border whole?
If he made one of the Empire’s vaunted Four Strongholds his base and formed a major warlord coalition by linking arms with multiple Lions, even the Imperial family would find it hard to crush them outright.
Then he would wield a might he hadn’t possessed even in the days of the Old Merwinger.
The political power of manufactured consent, and the military might of the Eastern Border.
Once he gripped those two, Merwinger would no longer be just a shadow of “the old days.”
In other words, the Crown Prince would be a dog that chased the chicken and lost it—or worse, a sap who’d labored to craft results only to gift them to someone else.
My lot, to be dragged around by politics yet again, is pitiful enough.
Andre shut his eyes tight.
Still, if there’s a way to live again—
There was only one thing Andre wanted.
Continuance.
Not his own, but the survival of his subordinates and his people.
He weighed which choice favored them.
His own honor, he could discard.
And… in his heart, the decision was already more or less made.
What kept him from speaking was the lack of certainty.
He could not help but hesitate, not knowing what kind of man Elric Merwinger truly was.
“My lord…!”
Just then, the flap of the great command tent flew open and an adjutant came rushing in.
Andre and Tedan turned at once.
“From the mountain tribes…!”
The adjutant broke off as a commotion erupted at the entrance.
“You can’t just barge in!”
“Out with you!”
“Hey! Do you little whelps know who I am! Laying hands on me is the same as insulting our Great Champion and Great Chieftain…!”
Clumsy but rough speech. Clearly a barbarian.
The adjutant’s face went white, and Tedan’s hardened. But Andre nodded calmly.
“Let him in.”
Once permission was given, a rough-looking man draped in leopard skin swaggered inside.
As if it were his own bedchamber—insufferably arrogant.
Tedan flushed and snapped.
“Have you no sense of decorum toward an ally! To commit such discourtesy and—!”
The messenger only dug his pinky in his ear. He didn’t even pretend to listen.
When Tedan finally couldn’t hold back and reached for his sword hilt, Andre lifted a hand to stay him, then looked to the messenger.
“Very well. What is it?”
“Our great Champion and great Chieftain, Batu, wishes to see the Red Lion.”
“You want me to come in person?”
“That’s right. Regarding the current situation, the Chieftain demands the alliance’s explanation.”
The messenger looked down on Andre with arrogant contempt, as if he were Batu himself. Come and go like a subordinate. The more he did, the more Tedan and the adjutants’ anger swelled.
“All right.”
Andre rose without a flicker of emotion.
The messenger blinked, surprised, then lifted his chin, deciding this was deference to the chieftain’s authority.
“Follow me.”
Andre followed, his eyes unreadable.
And—
…My lord?
Tedan saw it.
Andre’s hand resting on the sword at his left hip.
A preparatory habit he showed only when stepping onto a field with a formidable foe.
[Tedan.]
At that moment, Andre’s small voice reached him alone.
[Listen carefully to me now.]
* * *
“Hold down the fort.”
“Leave it to me.”
Elric and the Army of the Star didn’t stay in the Wynz Border March.
The March was still far from the front, and to fully crush the enemy they had to keep pushing west.
So Brian remained at the Red Castle with a small force.
His earlier wounds still hadn’t fully healed.
He regretted not being able to chase after Elric to the end, but he knew his mission mattered too, and he set his jaw.
With the send-off behind them,
the Army of the Star moved out again.
From here on, there was almost no fighting.
“The Army of the Star is here!”
“Throw the gates wide!”
“Hoist the white flag high!”
Everywhere they went, a white flag flew from the highest battlements, and the gates stood open.
“…Isn’t this a little too easy?”
Herman let out a dry laugh, as if to ask if this was really okay.
After all, with even the Red Castle fallen, he’d expected at least a few places to resist more fiercely.
But the strongholds they passed did not.
The soldiers laid down their arms; the townsfolk simply waited and waited for the Army of the Star to pass without incident.
Elric answered with a wry smile.
“The Red Lion must have given the order.”
“Andre? You mean our proposal already reached him?”
Knowing the distance from the Red Castle to the Red Lion Army’s main front, Herman couldn’t help but be surprised.
Elric only shrugged.
“Nothing else would make sense. Either that, or he left standing orders: if the Red Castle falls, do not resist—surrender.”
“…That sounds right. If it’s that bastard Andre, it’s entirely possible.”
A wry smile touched Herman’s lips.
The more wars he fought in this campaign, the more he could feel in his bones how absurd the Imperial announcement of Andre’s “rebellion” had been.
Come to think of it… wasn’t King Yulho’s safehouse somewhere around here?
Then a memory Elric had tucked away surfaced.
King Belenche had personally told him about King Yulho’s cache, somewhere in these parts.
He’d meant to stop by on his way to the Eastern Border someday, but things got tangled and he never managed it… and now at last he’d come near.
Should I slip over under cover of night?
Elric was determined to visit King Yulho’s safehouse.
The time he’d spent in the second Arrangement. How shocked he’d been when he learned that things he’d taken for a well-crafted illusion—like reality itself—had influenced the real world.
Knowing his grandfather’s hand had reached here as well, Elric very much wanted to see the place.
The Mage Who Devoured Talent