Little Tyrant Doesn’t Want to Meet with a Bad End

“Your Highness Victoria, I have a companion named Roel Ascart. He’s a black-haired, golden-eyed boy, around the same age as me. He’s… a very important person. Please, you must find him!”

“Ahh… Child, we’re in the midst of a battlefield. Even if you ask me to look for someone… Wait a moment, did you mention Ascart?”

Victoria was put in a spot by Nora’s question when she suddenly noticed a key phrase in what the latter had just mentioned. Her eyes immediately darted toward Ponte. The latter was in the midst of gathering his mana to cast another spell, but he, too, caught the girl’s words and quickly turned his head over.

“Teacher, is there such a person in your family?”

“No, I have never heard of this person before.”

Despite saying so, Ponte continued staring at Nora as he digested what she had just said. He felt like there was something important he needed to recall, but it just wasn’t coming to him for some reason.

On the other hand, after hearing how Victoria addressed Ponte, Nora immediately realized who he was. She quickly turned to him and said.

“You must be Marquess Ponte, right? You have to find a way to save Roel. He’s an offspring of the Ascart House! I believe that he might have been captured by the enemy soldiers!”

Nora’s desperate plea shook Ponte’s will. His flow of mana into the colored gemstone in his hand came to a halt and he began to hesitate between two different decisions. Even though it was a child whose existence he didn’t know of, the knowledge that the other party possessed the bloodline of the Ascart House pricked deep into Ponte’s heart.

What could he do? The Ascart House was simply not blessed with fertility!

The Ascart House had been quite prosperous over the last few generations, and it would have been all good if not for a single problem persisting in their family tree. For some reason, the patriarch of every single generation had almost always been a single child. Only in a few, rare generations did the patriarch have siblings.

Due to this, the Ascart House viewed every single family member with great importance, leading to a very different climate from the usual noble houses that had lots of successors but a great deal of dirty rivalry too.

“Child, are you certain that your companion is one of my family members?”

“I’m certain. I can swear on my bloodline that it’s the truth. Please, you have to find a way to save him!” Nora said as she bowed deeply to him.

The current circumstances left her with no choice but to set aside her pride. She simply couldn’t bear the notion of any danger coming to Roel. The two of them had already been through so much in this labyrinth. Things shouldn’t end like that. They mustn’t!

“Victoria, leave this matter to me. I’ll try to look around a bit.”

“But we’re in the midst of a battlefield! To find someone here is…”

“Our Ascart House has too few offspring. Even if he’s from the side family, I can’t just give up on him without doing anything at all. Don’t worry, I’ll fully activate the labyrinth before Wade manages to fully bite onto us!”

Leaving those words behind as a guarantee, the black-haired man dove into the crowd of battling soldiers and began looking around.

…

Meanwhile, at the midpoint of the battlefield, Roel was forging a path forward.

Inside the drain, Roel pulled off an elegant upward kick that accurately struck the ‘third leg’ of a soldier of the Elric House. He managed to maximize the damage with a minimal amount of exertion. Unfortunately for the soldier though, while he was rolling around the drain with his hand grabbing his crotch, one of Victoria’s soldiers rushed up to him and ended his life.

After dealing with an enemy, Roel took a few sharp inhalations to catch his breath. It was not that he was so free as to be able to casually deal with other soldiers along the way, but as the battle got more and more intense, a major crisis occurred for him—the drain was no longer his exclusive domain anymore.

Roel’s initial intention was to run along the inside of the drain until he arrived at where Victoria and Ponte were, but life is pretty darned good at finding ways to sabotage plans. As both factions clashed with one another above, a diverse group of people ended up joining him in the drain—alive, dead, half-dead, you name it.

Take the soldier Roel had defeated just a moment ago for example, he had rolled into the drain with another soldier from Victoria’s faction and emerged triumphantly from the scuffle. It was just a pity that victory was nothing more than a transient concept. Shortly after, he was defeated under Roel’s sure-kill secret technique, Cracking the Nuts.

“What’s happening? Why are there children on the battlefield?”

“He helped me earlier on! I think he’s on our side!”

Roel’s presence in this underground world was incredibly conspicuous amongst the other soldiers, but fortunately, the soldier who had worked together with him earlier to defeat the soldier from the Elric House vouched for him. Sensing an opportunity here, Roel quickly leaped out of the drain and made a grand declaration.

“Brothers, please escort me to Her Highness Victoria’s side!”

As Roel said those words, he drew Ascendwing and raised it into the sky. The beautiful shimmering blade of the holy sword swiftly caught everyone’s attention.

“This is the token Her Highness has left with me. It’s a weapon of the Twelve Wings series, a treasure tightly guarded by the Xeclydes! I need your help to escort me over to Her Highness’ side!”

Fearful that the soldiers had spells that could ascertain the authenticity of his words, Roel paid careful heed to his wording, so as to ensure that he was being truthful. Ascendwing was indeed left to him by ‘Her Highness’, just that it was ‘Her Highness Nora’ instead of ‘Her Highness Victoria’. It was not his fault if the soldiers misinterpreted the meaning of his words.

The soldiers heard his plea and took a good look at the holy sword. While they couldn’t determine Roel’s trustworthiness, they dared not hesitate for too long. Their goal was to retreat anyway, and it was not a huge deal bringing a child with them.

“New orders! Send the signal to our allies, retreat!”

The military officer in command of this squadron barked out an order, and the squadron immediately began retreating toward Victoria’s position. This abrupt deployment caught the attention of a certain keen-eyed, golden-haired man.

“That bizarre child…”

Wade, who was in the midst of channeling his spell to keep the labyrinth’s fog at bay as long as possible, was able to easily spot and identify the incongruous Roel in the midst of the battlefield. He thought about all of the doubts in his mind after meeting Nora, and a sharp glint flickered in his eyes.

His instincts told him that he shouldn’t let that boy get away so easily.

“There’s something queer about that boy we met previously. Capture him!”

In response to Wade’s order, Felder swiftly scanned the battlefield before locking his eyes on the target.

Roel immediately felt something prickling at his back, and a shiver ran down his spine. He instinctively turned around to take a look, only to see a terrifying-looking Felder shrouded in blood mist heading his way.

‘Billowing Bloodmist’.

This was a spell that channeled the mana infused within one’s blood outward to shroud one’s body in a blood mist. It was used for both defending against attacks and enhancing one’s spells. The strength of the spell depended on each individual’s specific constitution. Some could use it to deflect an arrow, whereas others could only barely slow one down.

When it came to Felder though, Billowing Bloodmist turned him into a war god on the battlefield. Rather than calling it a blood mist, it looked more like a crimson monstrosity wrapping itself around him. The sheer amount of mana concentrated around him greatly enhanced all of his attributes.

Roel was just about to witness firsthand how powerful the enhanced Felder was.

Felder started off with a powerful leap forward that produced a sound reminiscent of an exploding cannonball. His crimson silhouette arced across the sky before beginning to descend upon the hordes of soldiers like an unstoppable meteor.

Roel was utterly dumbstruck to see this situation, and the soldiers immediately realized that a crisis was going to befall them too.

“Shit! It’s the Elric Marquess!”

“Defend!”

The soldiers quickly raised their heavy tower shields to block Felder, but they were barely any help against a transcendent of Felder’s level. After landing on the ground, Felder charged forward a couple of times before finally arriving right before Roel and the soldiers who were escorting him. He swung his sword horizontally, releasing a crimson wave into the surroundings.

Kacha!

With a single strike, the tower shields broke apart, and over a dozen soldiers were knocked into the air. Roel was also struck by the shockwave of the collision and ended up rolling uncontrollably backward like a feather amidst a powerful gale.

However, it was not like Roel completely blanked out after witnessing Felder’s despair-inducing strength. Instead, he was quickly thinking about the cards he could potentially use to deal with Felder. So far, he had three trump cards in hand.

Of those three trump cards, the purple pendant rendered him immobile and Ascendwing could only teleport 50 meters away, a distance that Felder could cover in the blink of an eye.

Since it was impossible for him to shake away Felder, there was only one thing that he could do—pit his life against Felder. If he surrendered now, he would be entrusting his fate into the hands of another man, completely losing control over his situation. However, if things worked out, he might just be able to buy enough time for his escape.

The importance of planning was often only highlighted in emergency situations. In just a few short seconds, Roel was able to quickly make up his mind and react accordingly.

【Spell ‘Grandar’s Promise’ has been activated.】

【Countdown. 30… 29… 28…】

A familiar ticking sound echoed in Roel’s ears once more.

At the moment of activation, he seemed to see a desolate plain basked in the afterglow of a setting sun. The eyes of the massive skeleton, Grandar, were gazing down on him, silently urging him to offer the answer to the question he had asked.

This hallucination lasted for a mere split second before Roel quickly rose up. His mana began surging forth like a torrential flood. He raised his sword and fearlessly struck down on Felder, who was rushing his way.

Boom!

There was a loud explosion and shockwave, but this time, it was coming not from Felder but Roel. It looked as if there was a towering avatar that rose all the way up to heaven standing over Roel, looking down upon all beings beneath. This sight shook Felder’s heart.

The two swords collided with one another, but shockingly, the renowned Marquess Elric was actually sent staggering backward.

“You are a heretic!”

Felder roared furiously. He was certain that the avatar he saw standing over the black-haired boy was not a hallucination. While he wasn’t certain of the origin of the avatar, he was convinced that it was the god of a heretical cult. Only an ancient god could make an Origin Level 3 transcendent like him stiffen up with just a single glance.

Since the black-haired boy was a heretic, why did he choose to side with Victoria?

Felder couldn’t understand it, but there was one thing that he did know—the boy standing before him was an extremely dangerous individual. If he couldn’t force this boy into submission, he would surely pose a huge threat to His Highness Wade’s ambitions in the future.

Killing intent raged in Felder’s eyes as he raised his sword and charged forth once more. Even if it would bring him Wade’s criticism later on, he was determined to eliminate this dangerous variable standing before him.

On the other hand, Roel knew well that he was invincible for these 30 seconds, that was why he was making full use of this opportunity to go all out. At the very center of the battlefield between the two factions, a golden-haired man and a black-haired boy roared ferociously as they began engaged in a terrifying duel. A silver short sword clashed again and again with a white sword, producing powerful shockwaves that kept other soldiers at bay.

And yet, in the midst of this intense battle, the System continued to tick on mercilessly, seemingly counting down the seconds to Roel’s death.

【6… 5… 4…】