The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 47 – The Jackdaws (1)

“Since when could the Order of Huginn summon the undead?” Juan asked, looking completely relaxed even after seeing the knight of the dead in front of him.

“That’s… I see. So the rumors are true. But why now…” Heretia said while anxiously biting her nails.

“Rumors?”

“Those knights belonged to the Order of Huginn. The knights of the Order of Huginn are known to retrieve the bodies of their comrades if they die on the battlefield. People often had the habit of joking that they took the corpses because they were just a bunch of jackdaws, but on the other hand, there were also rumors that they revived the dead. If this rumor was true and they really do revive them to be the knights of the dead…”

There was only one knight of the dead standing in front of them to block the way, but it was unknown as to just how many more undead were waiting for them beyond the dark.

Juan stared at the motionless knight of the dead still blocking the entrance to the sewer. In his memory, Order of Huginn was a group that was far from being insidious, and were rather quiet—although their enemies might disagree. Furthermore, recalling the events that Ras Raud had been through, It was hard to imagine he would side with such an unnatural force, especially when it had to do with necromancy.

“It would be a waste to get rid of their bodies, since the skilled knights would be revived as high-ranking undead… they couldn’t get any better, especially if they are the knights that fought beside His Majesty. They are His Majesty’s knights who are fighting even from beyond their grave…” Heretia said with clear signs of fear.

Juan took a step forward and hid Heretia behind himself. As Juan stepped forward, the knight of the dead also started to move.

Heretia had wanted to hold on to Juan as soon as he started moving, but she was unable to move even the slightest bit due to how tense she was.

Juan moved forward across the muddy sewage floor, while the knight of the dead also approached him. As the distance between the two narrowed, they finally stopped before they bumped into each other.

The knight of the dead coldly looked down on Juan with emotionless eyes, the knight’s gaze so cold that Juan felt a chill.

“Ras Raud had once offered a sacrificial offering to the God of Death, Nigrato,” Juan whispered to the knight of the dead. “He was buried alive and survived by eating a corpse to fill his empty stomach. I was the one to rescue him from his premature grave. Then later, he led his own troops to kill all the necromancers and eliminated every single stronghold of Nigrato in the southern desert area. I haven’t seen undead ever since.”

The knight of the dead didn’t answer.

“So, where did you even come from?”

Juan drew out his short sword as fast as lightning.

The knight of the dead raised his sword to block Juan’s attack. The knight was wearing heavy armor, but it was still almost as fast as Juan.

As Juan distanced himself from the knight, he checked if there were any movements from the other knights of the dead. Juan clicked his tongue—he could sense multiple presences, but he couldn’t be certain.

The knights of the Order of Huginn were good at keeping a low profile and hiding themselves, and that didn’t change even after they were turned into the knights of the dead.

The knight of the dead swung its sword with ease, almost as if it was testing Juan’s skill. The chills emitted by the knight whenever it swung its sword caused Juan’s muscles to tense up.

As the knight of the dead had the ability to spread their evil energy even just by meeting swords, any ordinary person would start to lose their vitality as soon as they came into contact with even the knight’s breath.

“How trivial…” Juan said, bringing out a burning flame from inside his body to defend against this evil energy that was trying to invade his body. This soon caused smoke to rise from Juan’s body, which caused the knight of the dead to flinch before its attempt to swing the sword.

Juan cut his palm to smear some of his blood on Talter’s short sword. The moment it absorbed Juan’s blood, it lit up with red light and burst into flames. The dark sewer instantly brightened up. The knight of the dead hesitated upon seeing the burning flame, and then opened his empty mouth to let out an unintelligible scream.

“You managed to escape from life, but you won’t be able to escape from death,” Juan smirked.

At the same time that Juan slashed his short sword, the knight of the dead quickly blocked the attack with its own sword.

However, the moment its sword met with Juan’s burning short sword, the knight’s sword exploded into pieces. The scattered pieces immediately burned as if they had been soaking oil, and exploded like fireworks.

Just as Juan tried to once again swing his short sword against the knight of the dead who seemed to have let his guard down, the knight let out a loud scream; it was a loud sound that made Juan’s organs tremble.

Juan couldn’t get any closer to the knight and had to stop. But soon, Juan decided to burn the fire inside his body more intensely as he resisted. The knight of the dead had no choice but to retreat in the face of the heat that could be felt even from far distance.

It was right at that moment.

“Stop!”

The sharp voice of a woman was heard from within the sewer.

The knight of the dead flinched and stopped.

Someone was approaching at a rapid pace with the sound of splattering water.

Meanwhile, the knight of the dead immediately stopped fighting, and slowly backed off and disappeared. The darkness quickly consumed its body.

After the knight of the dead disappeared, Juan could feel the owner of the voice approaching him from beyond the darkness.

It was none other than Anya. She walked toward Juan while limping her leg.

“Welcome, Juan. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you my greetings earlier.”

Instead of accepting her apology, Juan looked at her hand. In her hand, there was a weirdly shaped purple gem, which looked oddly distorted.

***

The knight of the dead could no longer be seen. However, the cold air inside the sewer seemed to say that they were still hiding somewhere within the dark.

Few people had appeared with Anya, surrounding Juan and Heretia as they walked along the sewer.

Heretia displayed signs of discomfort at Anya’s actions, which seemed like she was arresting them, but she didn’t bother to resist.

“To be honest, I had no idea I would run into Juan at the banquet,” Anya said cheerfully in an attempt to soften the atmosphere. However, her complexion didn’t match her cheerful tone.

The clothes Anya was wearing were not too different from what she was wearing back at Earl Henborn’s mansion, but there were noticeable cuts running through the long dress.

“Oh, the cuts are not a big deal. It got scratched while I was escaping through the window.”

The cuts showed how urgent Anya had been when she was moving.

“I knew you weren’t the type to be level-headed, but I didn’t expect you to be this reckless.” Juan said.

“I was in a rush. I owed the knight order a debt recently…I really wanted to repay them for it,” Anya shrugged.

‘The knight order.’

From Anya’s words, Juan was convinced that the people surrounding them were knights from the Order of Huginn. Most of them, including Anya, looked young, and Juan did not recognize any of them. If the lineage of the knights did continue, they seemed to be the third or fourth generation.

.

“Why is the Order of Huginn using Necromancy? As far as I know, Ras doesn’t like Necromancy,” Juan asked.

Anya seemed a little surprised. It seemed that she hadn’t expected Juan to know even the tiny details of the Order of Huginn.

“You are right. Even within the knight order, not a lot of people are aware about that… I think I can guess what you are thinking. But you are wrong. Sir Ras Raud was the one who taught us Necromancy.”

“Ras taught you?”

Juan could feel his greatest fears becoming reality—that everyone he once knew was in fact deceitful and deluded him. If Juan was still the same as he had been, he would not be able to believe the fact that Ras used Necromancy. After all, he despised the undead more than anything.

‘But what if that was all a lie—nothing more than a trick to deceive and plot my assassination ?’

Juan clutched his short sword.

“Can I meet Ras?” Juan asked.

“Hm, well…” Anya had a perplexed expression.

At that moment, Juan sensed a strong hostility from the surrounding. No one intervened in Juan and Anya’s conversation as it seemed like Anya held a fairly high status among them. However, they were hostile enough that they would have drawn their swords if Anya hadn’t been present.

“It seems like your friends have a lot of hostility toward me. Am I provoking them by saying I wish to meet Ras?”

“My apologies. To all of us, Sir Ras is a savior and a master. You may be able to meet him if you decide to join us, but I’m not too sure for now…besides, Sir Ras’ condition these days is…”

“Dame Anya.”

One of the knights cleared his throat and called Anya’s name. Anya glared back at him coldly. Such a gaze had never been revealed ever since she joined Juan.

“I get to decide what I tell him or not.”

“But, um. If Sir Dilmond found out…”

“Let him find out all he wants. Or maybe he should listen as well,” Anya said as she gazed toward the side.

An old knight with a white beard was emerging from the underground passage of the sewer. The scars that filled his face seemed to tell the history of the battlefield he had walked. The old knight shouted as soon as he saw Anya’s face.

“Anabelle!”

Anya sighed. She turned back to face Juan.

“That’s my real name, Although I didn’t mean for you to find out about it in this way.”

“Are you out of your mind, getting an outsider involved!? And I can’t believe you are ordering the seniors to come and see you! Sir Ras didn’t give you that power to use it in this manner!” Dilmond scolded.

“Sir Dilmond, I hold the authority to command the seniors. No one had any objections to that.”

“And I hold the responsibility to ensure that internal discipline is followed and to make sure that everyone follows regulations! What makes you think that you can leave the knight order for three months, and then suddenly reappear with a stranger? This is clearly a violation of the regulations.”

“This kid is not an ordinary boy,” Anya answered with a sigh. “You’ll understand what I mean once you hear about what this boy did. He destroyed the Golem of the Ash Tower, and he eliminated an entire knight order all by himself. If he was to join us, he would be a huge help…”

“That’s irrelevant! I heard this kid uses something similar to His Majesty’s fire! That must mean he is either a Templar or someone similar to them. And if he’s not the Church’s dog, the power he uses is nothing more than that of a thief that somehow managed to get hold of His Majesty’s power…” Dilmond shouted as he pointed his finger at Juan, but soon closed his mouth when he saw the color of Juan’s hair.

Dilmond stared at Juan for a while, then asked one of the knights who had surrounded Juan on their way with a confused look.

“Hey, you there. This boy used fire?”

“Sorry? Oh, um, yes, sir. I saw his short sword bursting into flames as soon as he wet the sword with his blood. When his short sword met the senior’s sword, the senior’s sword broke and burned into pieces. It was just like what happened with His Majesty’s flame,” the knight explained.

“A black haired boy who uses His Majesty’s flame. It seems like we have a precious guest that came from far away,” Dilmond opened his mouth with unease after remaining silent for a while.

“Dilmond?” Anya called out his name with curiosity; Dilmond reaction was very strange.

“Nevermind. Someone crossed my mind. Anyway! No one can violate the internal regulations! At least, everyone should get a say in deciding whether this boy should join us or not, instead of you deciding it alone! Not even newbies get accepted that easily!” Dilmond said as he quickly shook his head to Anya.

“Dilmond Debussy,” Juan suddenly opened his mouth and called out his name.

Dilmond looked down at Juan with a perplexed look.

“It took me a long time to remember you because you had an unfamiliar face. You were only a newbie that had just joined the knight order as far as I can remember. You managed to reach the rank of a senior knight, high enough to shout at your commander, huh? You must have only learned naughty things from your seniors,” Juan continued with a smile.

“How does this punk even know my last name…”

“Who were you under? I think it was Pharell, am I right? They say that newbies acquire the traits of their superior knights, and I can tell that you’ve been working under him for a long time. Even your beards look the same, although Pharell’s had been black.”

“Uh, what, um, how…”

“Are you as good as Pharell? I would say you are good if you are even half as good as Pharell. The way Pharell swung his ax on the battlefield was quite remarkable, especially when he’d swing his ax at the enemies while having one of them stuck on the end of it. It was a funny sight to see all the enemies running away in fear. Placing him on the frontline of the battlefield was always the best. I often thought that the Order of Surtr would be more suitable for him than the Order of Huginn.”

Dilmond remained silent.

“Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to Pharell. It’d be nice to see him.”

Dilmond looked down at Juan for a long time in heavy silence.

Juan returned his look and quietly waited for a reply.

Unable to withstand the long silence, Dilmond eventually opened his mouth slowly.

“Sir Pharell… passed on the battlefield.”

“I see. I didn’t expect him to live for long anyway…”

“Yes. He wasn’t the type to play safe. He fought against the dogs of the Church in a valley of the Laus Mountain, and jumped off the cliff with two of them. We tried to look for his body, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. He is one of the few seniors we’ve lost forever.”

“So he passed away like the wild boar he was.”

“Agreed. I bet he’s still fighting in the afterlife, not realizing he’s already dead,” Dilmond said as he slowly backed away while looking at Juan.

Everyone around them, including Anya and Heretia, were looking at them as if they were possessed.

1. referring to the knights of the dead that used to be senior knights of Order of Huginn

2. Surtr is one of the J?tunn giants, basically a titan of the Norse. Fierce and valiant, he will be leading the men of Múspelheim and bring about epic destruction during Ragnarok.