My Students Regret It After I Retired

72 – Leos Faces Enas

Benedict poured the iron balls from his bag onto the ground, scooped up a handful, and flung them.

– *Kwaa-gwa-gwang!*

An incredibly loud sound began to reverberate, and the mana bombs began to detonate one by one. Lakart couldn’t help but be amazed by the spectacle.

‘This isn’t just about being strong. Some kind of power… could it be…?’

Rakart pondered the possibility that Bendict possessed ‘Innate Power,’ but shook his head.

‘No way. Innate Power is a gift that manifests in only a very few. For Bendict to be someone with Innate Power, that’s just impossible.’

Logically, he knew it was nonsense, but witnessing the spectacle unfolding before his eyes, things were happening that could only be explained by Innate Power.

The sight of beads being hurled by hand, accurately intercepting and detonating incoming shells, felt like watching a human weapon in action.

Until recently, he hadn’t seen Bendict possess such overwhelming strength, and while Rakart was still baffled, that’s when—

-WHOOSH!

Light began to ripple around them, and the barrier that had confined Leos began to dissipate.

“WaaaH!”

The Purge Squad members felt a surge of relief at their survival, and simultaneously, they began intercepting the bombs with even more ferocity. Bendict quickly shoved the metal beads back into his bag, and urged Rakart and the others.

“What you’ve seen and heard about me today is a secret from Lord Leos.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to create unnecessary misunderstandings.”

Rakart knew exactly what he meant. Bendict’s power had taken on a form akin to Innate Power, and if Leos found out, he would likely suspect Bendict of possessing it. He didn’t want to stir up trouble.

Since they had all been greatly helped by Bendict, they readily nodded.

“We survived thanks to you, so we’ll keep it. We owe you our lives, there’s no reason we wouldn’t keep a secret.”

“I will keep it a secret too…”

When Herisia spoke up beside him, Bendict nodded, then, wearing a completely different expression, he rushed forward, noisily.

“Lord Leos! Brother! I’m coming! I, Bendict, am coming to rescue you!”

Some felt a sense of dissonance at the sight of Bendict, who seemed to have become a different person entirely, but despite that, nobody held a negative view of him.

“Brother… these are the metal beads Bendict was throwing.”

Paron pointed to the metal ball scattered on the ground, and upon closer look, it was covered in bloodstains. How much force must he have gripped with to throw the metal ball so hard that blood burst from his hand and flowed there?

“…No need to worry unnecessarily. I don’t know if Bendict’s power we saw today was only a small display of his ability or if it was truly superhuman strength, but either way, this guy would never betray Leos.”

*

Leos, after exiting the barrier, immediately surveyed his surroundings. He turned his gaze towards where his comrades had been, and thankfully, although the ground was ravaged, not many were dead.

It was regrettable that some of the execution squad members had died, but Leos was truly relieved that Heresia and Bendict were not among the casualties.

Confirming his comrades were alive, Bendict immediately turned his gaze forward. And as expected, hundreds of troops stood there, focusing their weapons on the artifact.

Keltazar shouted, looking at Leos.

“Leos… Our ill-fated relationship won’t end here. Even if you escape from here, we will continue to chase you. No matter where you are or what you do, we will find you and surely kill you. We will make you pay the price for your arrogant attempt to betray the Empire.”

“Then I guess I’ll just kill you all here.”

Keltazar paused for a moment at Leos’s words, then finally spoke, pointing to the sky.

“Even if we all die today, His Majesty, who is like the sky, will avenge us. He, who is the Empire itself and the hope of the Empire, will execute you, the one who leads the forces of evil.”

Leos truly despised Keltazar. He idolized the Emperor, not knowing the Emperor was a mere puppet, maintaining his authority under the shadow of the Celestial Council.

“The sky… Keltazar. The Emperor you think so highly of isn’t that great a human. He’s just an ordinary guy, like you. A greedy, avaricious, piece of trash.”

“How dare you! What nonsense are you spewing about the Emperor, who is the master and future of the Empire!”

Keltazar, enraged, glared at Leos. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was already flushed crimson. Keltazar was reacting excessively to just a few words insulting the Emperor.

Leos, witnessing his reaction, felt a desire to break him. He would die peacefully, happily, as he was. He would be proud perhaps, to die following the orders of his beloved and respected Emperor.

Leos wanted to crush his pride. More precisely, he wanted to reveal the true nature of the Emperor he so respected. No, more than anything, he wondered if Keltazar was even aware of the Celestial Council’s existence. So, he spoke a name that should not be uttered in front of so many people.

“The Emperor is just a puppet of the Celestial Council.”

“…?”

At the name of the unfamiliar group, Keltazar shouted in disbelief.

“Listen, just listen to this! I can’t stand it any longer. You’ll pay the price for daring to insult His Imperial Majesty!”

Leos was certain. Keltazar didn’t know about the Heavenly Council.

‘In all likelihood, the Heavenly Council either directly controls the Emperor or manipulates him to achieve their desired outcomes. Whether it’s the former or the latter, the fact remains that the Emperor is nothing more than a puppet.’

Leos was curious. There were countless people who fanatically worshipped the Emperor. But there was absolutely no one like the fanatical Keltazar. That’s why it was all the more puzzling. If he were to learn that the Emperor was merely a puppet of the Heavenly Council, that the future of the Empire was in fact nothing but a doll put forward by others, if he saw and recognized that fact with his own eyes… what would become of the man?

‘Perhaps that would be a punishment greater than death.’

What was clear was that Keltazar justified all of his actions with words like, for His Imperial Majesty, for the Empire. In other words, the moment that justification disappears, the moment he would have to admit his own crimes and face them head-on will arrive.

The moment all that he did, felt, saw, and heard becomes ignominious will arrive. And then, would the man go insane or would he feel no guilt at all, Leos wondered about that as well.

That’s why Leos held back on taking Keltazar’s life.

He shouldn’t die happily like this. He must clearly know that the lord he followed was a worthless, worm-like creature, he must recognize that his own actions were meaningless. His honor must be trampled into the ground. He must know that everything he had done until now was nothing more than a sandcastle, and he must die in agony.

To make that happen, Keltazar had to live until he knew the true face of the Emperor.

“I wonder. Even after learning that the Emperor is a sick, moronic imbecile, will you still be able to spew out whatever nonsense you want with such confidence?”

“Kill him!”

Keltazar’s command fell, and artifacts and various attacks began to rain down on Leos, but nothing managed to land a proper hit.

The five swords floating in the sky cut through everything, and then, Leos, immediately surging forward, killed dozens of the Shadow Order members with one strike, and then, penetrating to the center, killed over a hundred, and then over two hundred more.

As the corpses piled up exponentially with the passing of time, Keltazar wore an expression of despair.

“This…this can’t be… the supplies His Imperial Majesty provided… the Shadow Order I’ve been cultivating for over a decade… all that I’ve accumulated for the glorious Empire’s sake…!”

Keltazar was a fanatic. Even with death at his doorstep, he lamented more that the people who would lead the Empire to glory had vanished.

“The Empire…the Empire…for the sake of the Empire…you…you must die.”

Keltazar, enraged, ended up charging at Leos, and the result was obvious. With one swift move, a blade pierced his abdomen and Keltazar staggered and fell. But even as he spilled blood, he muttered.

“For…the great…His Imperial Majesty… all of this is for the Empire…”

Leo’s gaze locked on the man’s face for a split second, and a violent urge to cut him down right then and there surged within him. After all, every single piece of shit that had happened was Keltazar’s doing.

“My death… will be honorable… and my name… will be remembered… throughout the Empire…”

But Leo saw it. The look of liberation on Keltazar’s face. He’d done it, hadn’t he? He’d died serving the Empire’s glory and its future, all the way to the end. That self-righteous pride.

For this man, death was glory. Absolution.

Leo beat Keltazar’s body, breaking every bone in his limbs. Even then, the man mumbled,

“Great… Emperor… Long live… In death… we will… be remembered…”

“The things you did… they weren’t for anyone. Certainly not for the Empire. You were just a pawn in some other little shit’s game. And I, right now, will show you that.”

Leo said those words and immediately unleashed a dance of blades, scattering them across the room. It didn’t even take an hour for all 700-odd men to fall dead.

Left in the hall were just Keltazar, his body contorted grotesquely with shattered bones, Syrna, Enas, and Kozarik. Rakart, who had been on the lower slopes, had now made his way to the top and looked at Leo, speaking.

“Why didn’t you kill them? Let me help you finish them off.”

“Wait.”

Leo remained silent for a moment, not saying anything. Then, slowly, he opened his mouth and asked,

“Beline was my enemy. She betrayed me, personally.”

“…”

“But not you. You just didn’t trust me, you didn’t betray me. That doesn’t mean I’m not angry with you either. You didn’t believe in me before, and you came here to kill me, too.”

“…”

Everyone held their breath, not saying a word. They were all fully aware that Leo held their lives completely in his hands.

“It’s ridiculous, but I wanted to ask. Why didn’t you trust me?”

Leo had asked himself this question, over and over. But all that came back was an empty echo. That’s why he wanted to know. He wanted to know why they didn’t trust him. Was it really because he was a bad person? Or was it because he hadn’t been good enough? He was desperate to know.

It was a lifelong knot. Only after killing two members of the Heavenly Alliance and hundreds of others, did he feel a strange calm and become able to ask about it. Human life was fleeting, and taking it was so easy, he’d learned that. He could reach out, and they would all be corpses in an instant. But if he did that, he’d never get the answer to the question he’d asked himself his entire life.

-Thud-

In that instant, Enas dropped to her knees and mumbled.

“Leos… I’m so… so sorry… I wanted to contact you. So many times, really, so many times…”

“Enas!”

Kozarik, who was beside her, shouted, but Enas spoke to Leos, her hands trembling.

“I told you before… I have something to tell you. But not now. There’s no time for this now. Run. More than a thousand people are coming to attack.”

“It doesn’t matter. In the end, they’re no different than the Dark Shadows. Look. The Dark Shadows are all dead. Except for Keltazar and Belin, and you guys.”

“They’re not the Dark Shadows!”

Enas shook her head, tears streaming down her face as she spoke anxiously.

“I overheard what you were secretly talking about. The people coming for the surprise attack are the Emperor’s personal guard, secretly cultivated.”

“…Shut… up… Enas… Kozarik… kill…kill Enas…”

As Keltazar commanded, Kozarik immediately moved to cut down Enas.

-Clang! Clang! Clang!-

But one of Leos’s five swords flew and defended against it. Kozarik, with a rotten look on his face, spoke to Leos.

“You acted like you were going to kill us all… Why are you trying to save her now?”

Leos slowly walked and looked down at Kozarik, answering.

“Because Keltazar is trying to kill her. Even if it’s others, Keltazar has to meet a more horrible end. This is a setup for that.”

“You’ll regret this.”

“Then you will also regret it. That you wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t spoken. Kozarik, I know. That you, just like Belin, were part of the Dark Shadows and came to the Gate Administration Office as a spy.”

“How did you…?”

“No need to answer. Just die wondering.”

Leos cleaved Kozarik’s neck clean off. Then, looking at Enas, he asked,

“Answer.”

“I’ll give you information. The Emperor’s direct unit that is approaching now…”

“That’s not it.”

“…?”

“What you were going to tell me.”

Leos added, without a shred of expression.

“When we met before, you said you had something to say. Tell me what it was.”