9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 216 - Salvation (3)

The aerial fortress is falling.

From anywhere in Lüdelheim District 1, and even from distant places elsewhere if the weather was clear, you could see the massive citadel floating in the sky.

So the protesters, the riot police, and the people who had barricaded themselves in their apartments out of fear, peeking out their windows—everyone noticed the change.

“My God, the Supreme Leader’s residence…!”

“It’s falling.”

Christian, who had forgotten he was waving a flag and stood there gaping, was answered by Second Lieutenant Dominik Schuster.

It really was a crash.

Not coming down to earth by someone’s will, but simply falling because the force that had been holding up the castle had disappeared.

You could tell from how the ground supporting the residence buildings shook violently as if struck by an earthquake, with dirt and stone debris falling away.

“Oh my God, Supreme Leader…”

A capital defense corps officer muttered through tears. Everyone had stopped fighting and was just looking up at the sky.

The collapse of the aerial fortress.

No one could fail to understand what that meant.

Christian was the first to return to reality.

“Everyone! Take cover!! It’s falling right on top of us!!”

At his shout, both protesters and riot police suddenly realized the danger. That massive chunk of land was falling straight toward this open plaza where they’d been pushing and shoving in their fight!

“Fall back! Move back!”

“Get as far from the plaza as possible!!”

Tens of thousands of people began screaming and running. Just then, the White Raven Order broadcast from the radio with its amplified speakers had also turned urgent.

“Citizens of Lüdelheim, we have breaking news! The Supreme Leader’s residence is currently falling! I repeat, the Supreme Leader’s residence is currently falling! Anyone near the plaza in District 1, please evacuate immediately, and all surrounding areas should prepare for impact!”

No more gunshots rang out in the plaza. Everyone just turned and ran as far away as possible.

And through it all, the aerial fortress slowly but steadily continued its descent toward the ground.

***

Bang!

The moment the man in the celestial sphere was pierced by the bullet, the strange droning sound disappeared and the enormous room fell silent.

I realized the ring had melted away. In the room that had briefly become like a vacuum, I quietly stared at the man who lay dead.

They said he had the makings of an archmage.

If Schufaben hadn’t been a nation that systematically squeezed mages like an industry, he might have become as powerful as those mages I’d seen at the siege of Pontinell. Bringing lightning across the entire sky, freezing vast regions with frost.

But this person had been used as a tool to power the aerial fortress for over twenty years, unable to live or die.

Perhaps that spell connected to Eve Clothier had been his only hope of salvation. That someday he might be ‘liberated’…

“Son of a bitch.”

I ground my teeth. Then the quiet room began shaking violently.

“Ugh!”

The mana stones resonated and trembled, making a loud rattling noise. I fell forward onto the pile of mana stones and nearly scraped my knees before staggering and barely regaining my balance.

‘It’s already started.’

Now there really was no time left.

Standing was difficult, but I hurriedly shoved several mana stones into my pockets. Then I crawled safely on all fours toward the door. Just then, Julian was approaching to help me.

“Hurry!”

“Right, let’s go.”

With his support, I left the underground chamber. When we locked the door again, the room vanished without a trace.

Walking up the ten-story staircase was too difficult. Still, I gritted my teeth and ran. Falling down, getting pitying looks from Julian and being helped up, I finally made it back to the first-floor hall and pushed his back.

“You should find a safe place to hide now. No, if there’s a green dragon outside, somehow convince them to give you a ride and escape. When this sky island crashes into the ground, the buildings will obviously collapse too.”

“Stay safe.”

Julian said with a calm expression.

“You must become the hope of the new era.”

“What hope…”

I laughed and turned away.

Once again climbing the long, long staircase.

Enduring the terrible noise and vibrations, I grabbed the wall and took one step at a time.

‘This is my final gamble.’

I’d done everything I could. Everything had fallen into place perfectly, converging on a single point.

Cortana had gained independence, an elven nation was established in the Great Desert, Rubellia had toppled Schufaben, and other countries had also driven out the invading forces and restored their governments.

My friends had all played their parts well too. I believed that. Even Emma and Ian and Nina who joined later.

Now only one thing remained.

To put an end to my revenge.

***

Climbing round and round up the spiral staircase, I gazed out the window at the artistic structure of the aerial fortress.

If it wasn’t shaking so violently, if Damier wasn’t fighting covered in blood, if this place wasn’t the stronghold of evil, if it wasn’t a place where so many people had lost their lives and been brainwashed.

If all that weren’t true, it would have been such a beautiful and magnificent view.

Now I was going to meet the man who had become a demon to complete his own empire.

“Huff, huff, cough!”

By the time I reached the top floor, I somehow had blood flowing in my mouth.

Since all the mana flowing through the aerial fortress had disappeared, I couldn’t use the elevator. All the lights had gone out too.

I opened several doors along the corridor. After passing dozens of setins down the straight corridor, I reached the final door and quietly placed my hand on the doorknob.

I knew I had to hurry.

But a paralyzing fear was creeping up from my fingertips.

‘What if I fail?’

‘What do you mean what? I die.’

‘What difference would my death alone make? Kruger has already been abandoned by his people—even if he saves his life, could he really go back to how things were?’

‘Even if my revenge fails, this country will survive. That has nothing to do with me though.’

I quickly organized my thoughts and laughed softly before opening the final door.

***

In the slowly falling aerial fortress, Kruger’s space showed no change at all. No vibrations or noise could be felt. He was probably maintaining the spell with his own mana.

“Friedrich Kruger.”

I strode inside, and I could see an armchair turned the other way. Kruger sat in that chair, gazing out the wide-open window.

“Ah, you’ve come.”

The man who had been sitting languidly looked up at me.

“I was waiting.”

There wasn’t a trace of dark emotion in his voice.

Wearing the same clothes as usual, with the same expression, in the same posture, in the same place—Friedrich Kruger.

Even the way he was petting the golden dragon Chryseus with one hand was exactly the same. Except that Chryseus seemed to sense his fate and was trembling with his arms covering his eyes.

“Yes, you knew too. That the end was approaching. That’s why you didn’t run away and waited for me here.”

“Run away?”

When I spoke calmly, Kruger asked back as if he genuinely couldn’t understand.

“Why would I need to run away?”

“Because that was your last chance at life. The final opportunity that Eve Clothier created by sacrificing even her own life for you. But you didn’t choose it.”

“Hmm, Lucas. I thought you would understand.”

Kruger wiggled his finger leisurely as he spoke.

“I don’t understand—I can only predict. I’ve never understood you once, just as you’ve never understood Eve, or any other human being for that matter. So drop that sense of kinship you’re feeling on your own.”

I knew very well why Kruger hadn’t run away.

Because he couldn’t feel fear. Even if everything collapsed and he lost his life, he wasn’t afraid at all.

And the bigger reason was that Kruger only wanted peace and rest. If this paradise he’d built was destroyed, there would be no meaning in scraping by to survive somehow.

Only I, who had seen his past in detail, could know this reason.

No, but I don’t understand him.

To destroy the world’s peace for his own solitary peace, to plunge his people into hell for his own solitary rest.

If I understood that obsession, I’d become the same kind of bastard.

I could feel that my gaze toward Kruger was infinitely cold. Though the bastard himself didn’t seem to care.

“Eve said to make you king. Did she teach you the secret of this castle?”

“Yes. She told me just how viciously you’ve been exploiting one person’s life. And that I could bring down the castle by granting him rest.”

“Hmm, so you end this terrible dictatorship and become a hero who gets elevated to king, while I’m supposed to run away to survive on some deserted island. But Lucas, do you have the qualifications to be king?”

Kruger stood up from his seat and gripped my shoulder tightly.

“Urgh!”

The pain of my shoulder blade being crushed. The grip of the former knight captain was powerful enough to shatter stone in an instant.

Grabbed by the shoulder, I was dragged to the window.

Wham!

Kruger shoved my head against the glass window and made me look outside.

“Look, Lucas. Look at that chaos.”

Beyond the steadily falling aerial fortress, I could see people scattering like ants on the ground and the city burning with riots and arson.

“You think I created all of this. But Lucas, this is a scene you helped create too.”

“What… the hell are you talking about!”

I struggled frantically but couldn’t escape Kruger’s grip.

“Lucas, every time you answered my questions, you added this. ‘I am not giving answers to Your Excellency the Supreme Leader, but merely speaking what Your Excellency has thought on your behalf.’

But do you really believe that was true? Have you never once suspected that I was persuaded by Lucas Redan and waged war, expelled the elves, and oppressed the people according to his will?”

“Nnngh…”

“Lucas! This catastrophe was made by your hands! Not our collaboration, but your artistic creation! Everything happened just as you said, hahahahaha!”

Kruger burst into maniacal laughter.

I kept twisting my body while my mind filled with questions.

‘Why is he going this far?’

His paradise was already over anyway. From the moment the people tried to drag down the Supreme Leader, no, from even earlier when they began to doubt and rebel against the situation.

In that case, what meaning was there in mocking me while facing the end? Was it just indulging in final amusement, or…

Suddenly his laughter stopped abruptly. I stopped struggling and stared him down. Those transparent blue eyes filled with laughter.

“Ah.”

A slightly dazed sound slipped from my mouth. Kruger wasn’t insane, nor was he enjoying final amusement.

“You. You’re actually afraid, aren’t you?”

I could see the scene reflected in Kruger’s eyes. The collapsing castle and the green dragons flying to rescue people. The winter sky, clear as glass and so very bright.

Those eyes holding all of that were trembling mercilessly. The hand gripping my shoulder too.

The child born with his fear cut away had ultimately chosen not to understand fear. So he didn’t know what was fear and what wasn’t.

“Friedrich Kruger.”

I brushed away his weakened hand from my body and spoke.

“You’re not afraid of anything. Not death, not pain, not loss—none of it. Because you’ve transcended fear, you’re free from everything. If there’s one thing such a person obsesses over, it’s perfect rest.”

Right. This simple thing.

“You’ve actually already learned fear. Not fear of death or pain, but fear of the loneliness of being the sole aberrant existence in the world.”

The situation was so absurd that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Otherwise, why would you have separated from everything and built your own castle? Like me and Eve. When fear becomes too overwhelming, it becomes love! Similarly, you’re just a pathetic human who came to love loneliness out of fear, a complete loser! Just a wretched bastard shackled by obsession! Haha, hahahahaha!”

Blood flowed from my mouth as I laughed. When I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, the gray prisoner uniform was stained red. Kruger’s pupils, which had been watching his crumbling kingdom, shifted to me.

“You really are.”

His voice was infinitely gentle.

“So smart, and so much like me.”

He raised his hand. A large sword appeared in the air with blue light.

“So guess what I’m about to do now.”

I took a deep breath for a moment.

What would Kruger do now? Obviously. He’d do exactly what I’d been hoping and longing for.

I closed my eyes tightly and opened them. I could feel a sneer hanging on my lips.

“Try to kill me?”

“You know well.”

Kruger smiled just like me.

“You’re right, Lucas. Friedrich Kruger is a human who was forcibly separated from the world. Someone no one can understand, and who can’t be understood by anyone. Just as you said. I built my own paradise for eternal rest. And do you know what happened to that peaceful, boring life?”

“Lucas Redan appeared.”

I answered while gazing out the window at the crumbling buildings.

“At first it would have been interesting, right? A situation where a teddy bear in a glass greenhouse suddenly threatens your life! How amusing that must have been. Even knowing I was the inheritor of the covenant, that I was an opponent you couldn’t kill carelessly, you thought I was in the palm of your hand.”

“Right, Lucas. Wasn’t it fun? A toy that didn’t know it was a toy trying to harm its master. Gradually climbing closer to the throne and seizing power.”

“Thoroughly.”

I wasn’t enjoying it at all, but I answered that way.

“But you can’t have my throne. I don’t want to watch my paradise crumble.”

“That paradise—I didn’t destroy it, you destroyed it yourself!”

“Do you still believe that? I was your toy. You were my toy. That should be enough, Lucas.”

Whoosh—the sword swung. I quickly ducked.

Crash!

The sword struck the glass window, shattering it completely. Strong wind rushed in along with the noisy sounds of the outside world.

‘This crazy bastard!’

I retreated from the window almost by rolling. Kruger approached like he was using some kind of teleportation, laughing as he swung his sword again.

“Ahahahahaha!”

Kruger, laughing with genuine joy, swung his sword again.

‘This is it, this is the end.’

Let me die by that hand and just finish everything.

I stopped pretending to run away in fear and stood still. Kruger’s sword swept toward my chest. I flinched slightly and just dodged, his sword scraping past my chest. Hot pain and torn prisoner clothes. Blood splattered. Kruger’s pristine white clothes were also stained red.

“Yes, shall we die together? Death itself has no meaning, Lucas!”

“Then just commit suicide, you bastard!!”

I was standing at the window where all the glass had been shattered. The wind grew stronger, making my ears ache. The moment Kruger swung his sword again, I hastily dodged and put my neck right in its path.

‘This time it’s really over!!’

I shouted inwardly.

Clang!

The blade cleanly cut my neck, and my vision should have gone dark…

But something knocked Kruger away. He was sent flying backward and fell down, looking at me with surprise.

“Ah.”

The brilliant energy that had been swirling around me slowly subsided.

“When did you prepare this too, Lucas?”

Kruger, who had fallen with a crooked smile, got back up. I was trembling as I fumbled in my pocket. A mana stone that had lost its blue glow long ago was emitting a strange radiance.

“Eve.”

A whisper-like, powerless voice leaked from my mouth.