Episode 474
Chapter 133: Moments of Choice (1)
By the time the main forces and reinforcements from the Ziphl Matap arrived, only fifteen people remained on the Gaipa Archipelago.
Five in Ziphl, five in Bimant, and five in Kinzello.
The rest had all been killed by Vigo, his knights, and the Prochi siblings.
The members of the three factions, having already lost all their strength and will to fight, stood no chance against Runkandel and the Prochi siblings.
During the battle, Vigo had briefly considered capturing Sandra Ziphl alive.
But then he made a very wise decision: since Murakan and Jin had simply left, he shouldn’t capture her.
He realized that doing so would be a grave insult to the family’s guardian deity and to Jin, who, despite being officially ranked below him, held a far higher practical status as a Knight Commander.
“Vigo Runkandel, was it? Hahaha, I bet you were tempted to catch me, but you made a pretty smart call,” Sandra chuckled, downing the fruit wine before her.
She was inside the captain’s quarters of the ship Kojek. The other pureblood Ziphl members assigned to the rescue support had naturally moved elsewhere once she took over the captain’s room.
“If Vigo hadn’t given up on capturing me, he’d be dead today. Hmm, I wonder if our Jin would have been sad then? They didn’t seem all that close, though.”
“Phew.”
The elderly man sitting opposite Sandra sighed in frustration. He was Hedo, the second steward of the Ziphl family.
Hedo was a muscular man, a surprising image for the steward of the world’s top magical noble house. His bulging muscles twitched, betraying his deep irritation.
“Miss, even after Jin Runkandel left, you should have launched a proper counterattack.”
“Really?”
Sandra’s carefree grin made Hedo feel like his insides were turning over.
“But even if Vigo didn’t, the Prochi siblings’ deaths would have definitely made our Jin sad, Hedo. You should at least think about that. Jin and I are in love, you know.”
Hedo rubbed his head.
He had long known Sandra Ziphl was completely unhinged.
But love? Romance?
“And of all people, it’s with Runkandel’s 12th Knight Commander. What a cruel joke of fate.”
He had never seen anything like this before.
But one thing was certain: whatever the reason Sandra suddenly decided to love Jin, she would never let go of that feeling.
That was the Sandra Hedo had come to know—a thoroughly crazy girl, utterly uncompromising to a terrifying degree.
This wasn’t some ordinary crush or fleeting romance. It was something far more serious. He struggled to suppress his troubled thoughts.
“…And Miss, what about that hand? Are you really going to leave it as it is?”
“Yes.”
“You can recover it, can’t you? Why would you just leave it like that?”
“From now on, every time I see my severed right arm, I’ll remember the day I met him.”
“You’re right-handed. You’ve done everything with your right hand your whole life…”
“Well, I’ll just eat with my left hand from now on.”
“That will definitely be inconvenient. Very, very inconvenient.”
His words came out in broken bursts as he struggled to control his anger.
“Hahaha, it’s fine. For love!”
Snap!
Hedo pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He inhaled deeply, and the cigarette burned down like a fuse. Exhaling, the smoke drifted out of the captain’s quarters.
Only after five cigarettes had vanished in quick succession did his urge to shout and scream subside a little.
Running a hand through his hair, Hedo met Sandra’s gaze.
“…Alright, fine. I understand. But what about the risk of technology leaks? Not just your right arm, which Jin Runkandel took, but also the spacetime device—there’s a high chance those could cause problems.”
The first was a relatively simple issue. If Sandra tried ultra-regeneration using the power of time instead of normal healing, the sealed right arm would return.
“But Miss won’t rotate the arm until the recovery time has fully passed.”
As for the spacetime device, it was equipped with anti-leakage measures.
Still, Hedo was not one to trust such technology. He recalled the elders and engineers who boasted about having foolproof safeguards, and it made him sick.
“Yes, that’s true. But Hedo.”
“Speak, Miss.”
“Even if it’s like that, won’t my lover at least compete with our family? Or something close to competition?”
Sandra smiled slyly and continued.
“There’s a huge gap between Jin and our family—like an egg against a rock. Even if it’s a very hard egg. So I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give him a chance.”
“Ah, so that’s the deeper meaning behind it.”
Hedo nodded resignedly. Sandra found his reaction amusing and laughed for a long while.
“You understand me, right, Hedo?”
Finally stopping her laughter, Sandra looked at him. After a moment’s hesitation, Hedo replied:
“…Yes, of course. I’ll do my best to explain this to the family head.”
“As expected of you, Hedo. Hehe.”
The homeland of the beastmen, the main hall of Kinzello.
“Arrgh! Ugh! This is torture, unbearable! I’m going crazy! Aaargh!”
Bubar Gaston had been screaming in agony for days. His body twisted, and every time he let out a pig-like scream, his oddly swollen belly jiggled.
“Bring more sedatives, quickly!”
“Just kill me already!”
The medical staff and beastmen struggling to hold Bubar were drenched in sweat.
Berakt and Marjiela, along with Jo, stood at a distance, watching.
“Sigh, the great plan is right before us, yet how can so many misfortunes pile up like this…!”
Jo clicked his tongue.
“Shut up, Jo. I was already frustrated enough, but hearing your annoying voice just made it worse.”
“Sorry, Berakt.”
“I said shut up. Don’t say a word if you don’t want to get eaten.”
Jo cursed silently and turned his head sharply.
Misfortune.
As Jo said, Kinzello had been plagued by nothing but bad luck lately.
During the Sword Emperor’s terror attack, the commander had overexerted himself beyond expectations and fallen ill. On top of that, Zephyrin had run wild on his own, putting even more strain on the commander’s body.
And now, it was Bubar.
Though almost everyone in Kinzello, except maybe Marjiela, despised Bubar Gaston, he was undeniably crucial to the grand plan.
His current suffering was due to the ‘fusion’ with Amela.
The process of breaking the fusion hadn’t gone smoothly, causing damage to Bubar’s soul and chaos within.
If the commander were healthy, he would have calmed Bubar quickly, but for now, sedatives were all they could do.
Kinzello had decided to appeal to Amela by showing that they knew more about ‘chaos’ than any other faction.
So, Kinzello’s top warriors took a fragment of Bubar’s chaos with them to the Gaipa Archipelago, using a method involving his statue.
The result was a huge success.
As soon as Amela realized that chaos could fuse and amplify to create even greater power, she was visibly pleased.
It was as if she had finally found a clue she had been searching for alone for a long time. From then on, she refused to negotiate with any other faction.
Because someone had spoken to her through Bubar’s chaos.
“If you become mine, I will tell you everything you want to know about chaos…” That voice had an uncanny trustworthiness.
“The commander, despite his frail body, even sent a message to Amela himself. After the negotiations, he said we’d have to pay a price for the trouble by killing our warriors, but we decided to endure that.”
Berakt ground his teeth in frustration.
In the treatment room across the hall, five warriors from the White Fang and Red Tiger tribes who had returned from the Gaipa Archipelago were receiving care.
“But Amela is dead, the warriors were wiped out, the survivors are so mad they can’t even control themselves, and Bubar is in that state! We gained nothing and suffered severe losses!”
Berakt couldn’t comprehend how Jin Runkandel could be at the center of all this misfortune.
Marjiela, listening, wore a rare dark expression.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Berakt. I honestly didn’t expect Lord Jin to be this uncooperative.”
“…There’s no need to apologize to me, Marjiela! I’m just telling you because it’s so frustrating. The commander’s life is constantly in danger… We need some kind of change, don’t we?”
Berakt shrugged, pointing to the map before him.
The map was cluttered with markers representing Kinzello, Runkandel, Ziphl, and Bimant—a tactical map.
Pointing to the spot where the markers clustered, Berakt continued.
“If Jin Runkandel causes trouble here again, if he interferes once more, what will we do?”
That place was where Jin had predicted something ‘bigger than Amela’ was at stake on the Gaipa Archipelago.
“Then…?”
Margiela paused for a moment.
“I’ll give it serious thought,” she said. “Uncle Berakt. Whether Jin Kyung is truly someone who belongs with us.”
“That’s right. It’s only natural to consider it carefully.”
“I just hope Jin Kyung doesn’t realize what’s really going on here. If he keeps interfering, he’ll have no choice but to become an enemy.”
“Hmph!”
Berakt cleared his throat awkwardly, caught off guard by Margiela’s calm demeanor. He hadn’t expected her to be so composed, and it made him feel a bit embarrassed.
Truth be told, even if Margiela had stubbornly insisted she was right, Berakt had no better options.
“Well, he probably doesn’t know. If he did, he’d have gone straight there instead of coming to Amela first.”
“That’s true, Uncle Berakt.”
“Still, it’s a shame our deputy leader can’t see this… He would have loved watching Bubar suffer like this.”
“Absolutely. But you know, Uncle Berakt, Bubar is our friend.”
Meanwhile.
Dox McLoran, the Black Knight of Runkandel, had infiltrated Ricalton in the southern region of Hupester, carrying out Jin’s orders.
While inspecting the underground execution chamber beneath Ricalton, he stumbled upon something strange—and horrifying.
‘What on earth is this?’ he wondered.