Chapter 429: The Lion King (2)  

hwiiiing-

The sea breeze had been blowing hard for days, carrying a strange heat, as if a volcano had erupted far offshore, as the fishermen had said.

The stench from the heat makes the whole of Don Quixote's castle, built on the cliffs of the coast, shiver.

The distinctive smell of dried fish.

This is the smell that comes from the process of drying the strangely large number of large fish caught due to the warmer water temperature.

The fishermen dried the excessive catch all along the coast, and the smell spread over a wide area on the sea breeze, even reaching Don Quixote's castle.

...However.

The stench in the hallway now was of a different kind.

King of Spear 'Don Quixote La Mancha Cervantes'.

Don Quixote's family patriarch and one of the seven warriors who support the empire.

The Great Emperor of the Sea (帊大帝) who ruled the blue sea with the strongest cavalry army, the Invincible Cavalry, and the strongest navy, the Armada.

And the father of one of the most promising heroes of the next generation, Don Quixote La Mancha Tudor.

As soon as Tudor opened the door, he saw the father he'd been longing to see.

However, Tudor's first emotion upon seeing his father was not one of sadness or joy.

"...?"

Questioning. It's nothing special.

It was the kind of innocent question that makes anyone scratch their head, not knowing what they're looking at.

A bedroom with no lights on.

Something black was moving on the large, desolate bed.

It was in the shape of a human, but it was twitching and trembling, and something was wrong.

Tudor takes a step forward, not knowing what it is.

Pasasasasasag-

Sensing the presence of humans, it began to move wildly.

Countless black waves spread out in all directions around the bed.

"...!"

Only then did Tudor discover the identity of those black things. They were cockroaches, flies, ants, centipedes, and various small creatures.

Weeeeeeng-

The stench intensified and the unpleasant sound of flapping wings echoed.

A stark scene was revealed above the bed, which was teeming with an enormous number of pests.

Cervantes the Spear King.

A superhuman who had carved holes in mountains with a single thrust of his spear and parted oceans with a single swing of his spear.

The entity that owned the most extensive territory among the Seven Great Families of the Empire.

The King of the Meadows, who ruled the entirety of the sea.

He lay on his bed, nothing but a skeleton and dried skin.

His body was infested with insects, and his two bony arms, with nothing but bones left, were tightly grasping the long spear that penetrated his stomach.

That's where the stench and insects came from.

Thud-

Tudor slumped to his knees.

"...Ah, Father."

A voice muttered despairingly.

An attitude of disbelief at what he was seeing. Silence. Deadly silence.

It couldn't be more silent, even in the grave.

No one dared to speak in the face of the horror before them.

And no one dared to speak to the fallen Tudor.

Best friend, best teacher, best father.

Tudor's pupils fluttered like a sailboat in a storm as he witnessed the miserable end of such a being.

Then.

"Wait."

Someone covered Tudor's eyes from behind.

It was Bianca, her voice shaking violently as she spoke pleadingly into Tudor's ear.

"Let's just do this for a second. Okay?"

Bianca desperately pulled Tudor into a hug. With trembling hands, she covered Tudor's eyes.

After a long moment of silence, Tudor opened his mouth like a collapsing dam spewing water.

"...Father!"

Tudor didn't speak for a long time after that.

Dolores, who had been standing beside him, stepped forward.

With her bare hands, she swatted the insects off the bed.

When they were gone, Dolores covered Cervantes's bare face with her own handkerchief.

"This is my body, which I will offer for you. Ite, missa est. Rest in peace. And go to a good place."

A saint's mass. It was a short but heartfelt farewell.

As soon as Bianca released her hand, Tudor collapsed on top of Cervantes' mummified body and choked back his tears.

The sound of water filling the parched furrows.

Emotions of pain, sorrow, hatred, and regret swirled through him.

"...You brought it on yourself."

Everyone, including Dolores, could see that this was the end of Cervantes.

Cervantes' cause of death was clear to all.

His body, weakened by poison and mental magic, had been taken by the demon, and he held the spear upside down with his own will.

And with truly superhuman will and patience that ordinary people cannot even imagine, he plunged the spear deep into his abdomen, penetrating all the way under the bed.

The whirlpool of black soot left on the bed, walls, floor, and ceiling clearly showed how hard the demon had worked to steal Cervantes' soul and take over his body.

Dolores scanned Cervantes' body with her holy power.

All strange residues, including miasma, were being purified.

"Even with his weakened mind, he resisted the demon to the end."

"I know. I knew it. I expected it to some extent, but...."

Tudor replied, his voice like boiling lead.

It's no wonder Cervantes had a strong mind.

Because he was the ruler of the sea and the ruler of the meadows.

...The question is what made his body, which was as strong as his soul, sick.

Dolores looked at the floor beneath the bed.

She could see the rotting carcasses of insects.

Dried and powdered, they must have been the first to pounce on Cervantes' body.

"...I can feel the poison. It also carries with it the spirit of a very terrible plague."

Dolores said as she touched the insect carcass.

The old, rotting insects must have died from gnawing on Cervantes' body, which was tainted with poison.

Cervantes' body still had a faint trace of the poison.

It had faded with time, but Dolores could still make out the poison that had killed him.

It was one Dolores was familiar with.

"...Red Death! He remembered the first time he'd met Vikir.

'There's a plague in the slums.'

Dolores had thought him suspicious at the time and had tried to avoid meeting him, but the matter he brought seemed so serious that she had to talk to him.

That's when he was first introduced to the dreaded plague of the Red Death.

'It's good to know that I've dealt with the Red Death before.'

Dolores knows the plague well, having cleaned it up herself.

The Red Death is a plague caused by an extremely poisonous poison created by Leviathan Family.

The poison that had even poisoned Cervantes the Spear King seemed to be a much improved version of that.

'It has become much more severe and demanding that even the Spear King could not do anything about it.'

Even the faded scent of the poison is enough to send chills down the spine.

Dolores remembered well the sensation of this poison in Cervantes.

Meanwhile. Tudor gritted his teeth. freeweb(n)ovel

"...Poisonous Leviathan!"

That was the name of the enemies who poisoned his father.

The ones who created the hateful poison and pestilence known as the Red Death.

Tudor's gaze then turned to the spear in Cervantes's abdomen.

'Gungnir', a spear symbolizing the head of the Don Quixote family.

Cervantes' spearmanship, which boasted the speed of a lightning strike and the heaviness of a tidal wave, could not be handled by an ordinary spear.

While all the spears of the most renowned masters broke, only Gungnir was strong and sturdy enough to truly embody Cervantes' spearmanship.

Although it is heavy, it has a high mana conductivity and does not leave any residual scratches no matter how strong the impact, so there is no need to sharpen the blade.

Tudor gripped Gungnir's polearm through bloody tears.

"I will surely avenge my father by killing Passamonte, and every last one of those involved in this affair will pay for it."

Then something surprising happened.

Tsutsutsuts...

Gungnir began to tremble slightly and was then slowly pulled out of Cervantes' body.

It was as if Cervantes was moving his hands on his own.

teong-

Gungnir slipped into Tudor's grasp, like a magnet finding its rightful place.

Tudor's grip on Gungnir nearly caused him to fall forward under its weight, but he managed to hold on to it.

Even Cervantes was holding Gungnir with both hands, so it must have been quite heavy, but Tudor stood up without any hesitation.

And like a lie.

Tsutsutsutsutsu...pulsseog-

Cervantes' flesh, which had maintained its posture while being eaten by countless insects, began to crumble into powder.

His remains, reduced to black and red ash, no longer smelled as foul as before.

Only the pungent aroma of his favorite cigarette could be detected.

Right at that moment.

Clap- Clap- Clap- Clap-

In the corner where the wall met the wall, in the darkness of the inner room, someone stood up, clapping.

...!

The 6 Night Walkers, who hadn't felt any sign of human activity in the room up until this point, stood up straight.

Then, in the dim light, the faces of the uninvited guests were revealed.

A white-faced, tall man with a slender build.

"You've finally been picked. Gungnir."

Don Quixote La Mancha Passamonte.

No, it was the appearance of 'Cimeries', the 4th Corpse.