The Reincarnated Lizardman Wants a Hamburger

The state of the underground prison was an absolute mess.

It was only natural, as nearly 100 knights, using aura that could even split rocks, were tangled in a chaotic melee.

Fortunately, the battle took place near the entrance of the underground labyrinth, so it was a relief. Otherwise, the labyrinth would have collapsed long ago.

In the midst of the ruins, Albert quietly observed the knights of the Emperor’s faction, who were bound and captured.

We won.

We won.

He had pointed his sword at the Emperor’s knights to uphold the beliefs he thought were right, but he never actually expected to win.

He was willing to risk his life to protect the loyalty he believed in.

He knew that jumping into the fray with just that thought alone would mean pointing his sword at his comrades.

But the result was the complete opposite of his expectations.

Victory.

And a complete victory at that.

With that single sentence, Albert finally let the strength leave his legs and collapsed on the spot.

As the leader of the Holy Sword Knight Order, he had the responsibility to oversee the aftermath of the battle…

Was it because he had lost too much blood? Or was it because the tension had finally left him?

He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“H-hey! Leader!”

“Haha… Louis. I’m fine. Just a bit tired, that’s all.”

“…Don’t scare me like that.”

He wanted to just let go and rest, but he couldn’t.

With Louis’s support, Albert struggled to his feet and looked at Kurt.

“Thanks to you, we were able to win. If it weren’t for you, it would be me and the knights of the Holy Sword Knight Order lying here right now.”

“We also received help. Thanks to the Holy Sword Knight Order joining us, we were able to defeat the Emperor’s knights more easily than expected. I’ll repay this debt by treating you to a proper meal later.”

“Hahaha. I look forward to that. But don’t worry about us and go to His Majesty the Emperor. If the gate opens because we’re late after coming all this way, it would be a disaster, wouldn’t it?”

“Right. You stay here and rest. There are quite a few injured, including you, so tend to them and keep an eye on the surrendered knights.”

“I see. I’d like to go with you all, but… Yes, I’d only be a hindrance like this.”

Albert couldn’t hide his disappointment as he spoke to Kurt.

It was regrettable that he couldn’t stop the gate himself, but he wasn’t foolish enough to ignore the condition of the knights, including himself, and act recklessly.

Even now, without Vice-Leader Louis’s support, standing alone was a struggle.

“For us, capturing the knights here is already the limit. Leave these guys to us and hurry.”

Albert said as he looked at Kurt and his group.

However… Kurt and his group didn’t seem as tense as Albert had thought.

“There’s no need to worry. We were just bait from the start. The situation might already be over.”

“…Bait?”

“It means that the decisive move to dismantle the Emperor’s plan wasn’t us.”

Why were Kurt and his group so calm?

Why did they provoke the Emperor at the banquet? Even if they absolutely disagreed with the Emperor’s views, declaring hostility against him in that situation would have been a bad move. It would have been better to pretend to agree with him while waiting for an opportunity to strike from the sidelines.

And even though Kurt and his group had won against the Emperor’s knights, it was just a result.

The real reason for their complete victory was that Shail Delphine and the Holy Sword Knight Order had defected from the Emperor’s side and fought alongside Kurt’s group.

And their defection was an unforeseen variable in the initial planning stages.

If Shail and the Holy Sword Knight Order hadn’t betrayed the Emperor, could Kurt’s group have won so easily? Far from an easy victory, even achieving victory itself would have been impossible.

In other words, Kurt’s group had planned this knowing that the probability of losing to the Emperor’s knights was higher.

All the questions pointed to one thing from the beginning.

From the start, the real dagger to strike the Emperor wasn’t Kurt’s group.

From the beginning, Kurt’s group had deliberately made conspicuous moves to draw the Emperor’s attention.

Their goal wasn’t to gather the Emperor’s knights to themselves as a process, but as the objective itself. They didn’t actually need to win against the Empire’s knights.

If it looked like they were going to lose, their original plan was to buy as much time as possible and then escape.

The real dagger to strike the Emperor, the specter of the Ancient Empire, was elsewhere.

It was the Resistance.

Unlike Kurt’s group, whose identities were already exposed to the Emperor and whose unusual composition made them unsuitable for covert operations, the Resistance was made up of slaves and second-class citizens scattered throughout the Empire, making them inconspicuous. The fact that they had joined hands with Kurt’s group was also hidden.

People always doubt what they see, and they are even less wary of those they ignore and look down upon.

But the darkest place is under the lamp. The Emperor, who longed for the glory of the Ancient Empire and was utterly arrogant, would be destroyed by those he had ignored.

They were the hidden trump card to strike the Emperor’s blind spot.

Some of the Resistance had been working as servants in the Imperial Palace and had already grasped its internal structure. Within less than a week, they had narrowed down the locations where the gate was presumed to be under construction.

Could it be that they didn’t expect the Resistance to play their hand in this situation?

In the face of such a shocking twist, Albert was left speechless.

“So, you’re saying that everything we fought together was just a show?”

“Not entirely a show… But our plan was to buy as much time as possible. Of course, the best outcome was to win.”

“…What if His Majesty the Emperor hadn’t concentrated his forces on you but had dispersed them instead?”

“If he had foolishly dispersed his forces against us, we would have picked them off one by one and gone straight for the Emperor. In the end, we didn’t need to execute Plan B.”

“…So that’s why you asked Marquis Delphine if all the forces gathered here were the full strength before the battle began.”

“Exactly. Fortunately, the Emperor considered us the greatest threat, which allowed the Resistance to operate freely.”

If the Emperor had dispersed his forces, Kurt’s group would have picked them off one by one and targeted the Emperor directly. If he concentrated his forces on them, they would act as bait to make it easier for the Resistance to operate.

Either way, it was a win-win situation to disrupt the Emperor’s plans.

From the moment the Emperor failed to consider the Resistance, this battle was already Kurt’s group’s victory.

“…Indeed, an excellent diversion.”

“Since the battle here is over, the Resistance’s part should be done too. The existence of mages is threatening, but that’s only when they’re protected by strong guards. With all the masters and knights pulled to our side, the Ancient Empire’s mage alone would find it difficult to stop the Resistance’s activities.”

As Kurt said this, he parted ways with the Holy Sword Knight Order, who were binding the Emperor’s knights, and crossed the threshold of the underground prison.

As they emerged from the underground, the sky they faced was a carefree blue, oblivious to what had happened on the surface.

There was no worry that the Resistance might have failed.

The two most important things in this plan were whether they could successfully provoke the Emperor to concentrate all his forces on them and whether they could keep those forces tied down.

With those two things successfully achieved, the plan was essentially a success.

As the group looked up at the sky after escaping the Imperial Palace’s underground prison…

Whoosh.

A streak of red light shot up into the sky from a corner of the Imperial Palace.

Flash.

And in an instant, the sky was dyed red.

Shail, who had emerged from the underground prison with Kurt’s group, looked at the flames and asked Kurt,

“Hmm. A flash magic in the middle of the Imperial Palace… At this time, the only ones who could use such magic are the Resistance. What perfect timing. Is this the signal of success?”

But contrary to Shail’s hopes, the expressions of the group who saw the flash magic were frozen in coldness.

“…Not a success?”

“The red signal… indicates mission failure. And annihilation.”

Kurt, who had been staring at the sky dyed in piercing red, immediately ran with all his might toward the direction from which the red flash had come.

And the group, along with Shail, began to run as well.

The battle wasn’t over yet.

Suddenly, a foreboding thought crossed Kurt’s mind.

Just as they had hidden the Resistance as their trump card, could the Emperor have also hidden a trump card they didn’t know about?

Kurt couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that the plan had gone awry.

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