Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 23 Gray Tower(4)

Translator: BaeBae Editor: BaeBae

“Can we trust that bastard? Boss, are we really going into the Gray tower with him?”

“I…I agree as well. We might all die because of him.”

“I believe your judgement boss, but I’m telling you, that guy is beyond crazy. Ignoring whether he’s actually skilled or not, you know what happens when you enter a dangerous place with a psycho.”

“I’ll constantly be worried whether I’ll be stabbed in the back. There’s no way I’m having him walk behind me.”

Huksel didn’t say a single word yet his crew was showering him with complaints.

The only one’s silent were Anya and Juan.

Anya was in silence meanwhile, Juan was blatantly watching them while listening in on their conversation.

Huksel put his hand on his forehead.

The biggest issue was that they didn’t know if Juan was actually talented or not.

If he’d showed them a bit of his skill, the expedition could have continued, but right now Huksel couldn’t force this.

“You seem to have a lot on your mind.”

Anya commented as she approached him.

“You don’t need to think too much about this. The tower’s a dangerous place for a boy anyways. Better send him out now rather than never.”

“Mrs…”

Huksel didn’t want to, but the word of the sponsor was hard to refuse.

Plus, if he’d insisted on bringing Juan, it seemed other members were set on turning back.

Huksel’s was struggling to make a decision.

After a long thought, he opened his mouth

“…..Alright. Juan will stay behind, while we’ll go up the tower. If it looks doable we’ll commence the raid, while if it looks difficult we’ll retreat and get Juan’s help, just in case he is useful.”

“Are you sure about this?.”

The one who replied was no Anya but Juan. Juan was smiling while twirling around Taltere’s sword.

“With you or not, I’m intending to head up the tower. I don’t have any reason to wait while you lot turn into corpses. If you want to go alone though, then we’ll split here as i’ll head on up first. Whether you guys follow or not I don’t care.”

“What nonsense are you talking about….!”

Anya shouted with a reddened face.

“It’s not a place where children can freely come and go! Do people from outside the border throw away their lives so easily?”

“That’s strange. From what I’ve seen, people from inside the border don’t value their lives as well.”

Huksel quickly swallowed Juan’s words. He must be hiding something if he is confident in heading in alone.

Like what his comrades said, if he was just crazy, Juan would most certainly die inside the tower.

Huksel made extensive preparations to survive this expedition. Inside the Gray tower, one life wasn’t worth anything if they were useless.

“Good. Let’s do that.”

“Huksel!”

“This expedition leader is me! Did you not give me your word, that you will trust my judgement throughout this journey?”

Huksel explicitly stated.

“Good. I only initially joined you guys because I liked your boss’s attitude. Am I to understand we are to act separately from here on? Right?”

As Juan laid his hand on the tower, a mist of smoke appeared and washed away changing the tower’s outer appearance.

It was the Gray tower’s true form.

The tower looked in good shape but in truth the fog of smoke was hiding areas where it had collapsed. Because of this, there were many places to enter the tower.

“I’ll give you one piece of advice before we go in.”

Juan who’d turned around looked at each member one by one.

“Advice?”

You guys looked sulky so I’m giving you a tip. First the thief. For your role, you’re a bit dim. If you aren’t going to pick locks, then at least you need to bring some combat skills for the team. Absolutely no courage and narrow minded.. You haven’t done any fighting so there’s really no advice to give.”

“Wha, what? This bastard!”

“And the magician. Please cast your spells faster. I don’t know where you learnt magic but you must’ve given up half way through training. Are you using ‘Kenan’ language to speak your magic? It has too many unnecessary words. If you’ve learnt the basics that’s enough. Try to graduate from it as soon as you can. For you, I recommend using ‘Pelt’ language.”

“Pe, Pelt? Why would I consider using that dead langu…”

“Learn the abbreviations or get it tattooed. Pronouncing it is easy, so your enhancements will be half less wordy. Next, the shield user. If you don’t quit drinking, you’ll find yourself dying from alcohol instead of a monster. You constantly feel tired and sore these days, right? Looking at your yellow hazy eyes, it won’t be long before you die. If you don’t have any skills, the least you could do is to have a strong healthy body. Also, when you’re defending, lift your shield a bit higher. And in times when you’re facing a stronger opponent, try reflecting instead of blocking.”

“…………….”

“Huksel. Out of everyone here, while you look the most promising, don’t go for low percentage fights. I can most likely guess that you’re struggling from debt and that’s why you rush into everything. But you shouldn’t be risking your life in every battle. Try to be more conservative. If you don’t do anything reckless, you’ll prolong your life. Don’t simply act on instinct and learn some swordsmanship. Didn’t you learn this at the guild? At least that’s what I’ve heard. And last, you. Woman.”

Anya who was suddenly pointed to, looked at Juan with a frozen expression.

“If you aren’t going to contribute in fights, then don’t say anything to the leader. Not only, are you confusing the members during fights, you could be struck from behind. Trust your leader.”

“Wai….wait…”

Before Anya could say anything, Juan had already disappeared into the fog.

After Juan disappeared, Huksel’s crew was again silent. Juan had pointed out their gruelling weaknesses that they were already oh so aware.

“Ha, saying those words as if he was some big shot…..”

Benson let out a murmur but nobody replied.

A day hadn’t even passed since Juan had joined them.

From one battle, Juan was able to see everyone’s weakness and point out how to improve.

“…….Boss, what to do?”

The group’s vanguard Torrell asked Huksel. Huksel was still regretting the fact they didn’t join up with Juan. However, following his path up the tower didn’t sound bad either.

It looked as if Juan wouldn’t immediately die upon entering.

“We’ll head in now as well. Do a final check on your equipment.”

*****

Before he headed in, Huksel checked the equipment he brought from straggling magic tower’s magicians and alchemists. He’d basically forced them to make it.

Most of the equipment would be considered illegal in the eyes of a priest.

Expensive as they were, Huksel who’d already visited the tower twice, believed these equipment were needed to successfully raid the tower.

“Lets go.”

Torrell stood at the front with his shield, followed by Huksel and Benson, Serum, Anya in that order. Each had one of their hands on the shoulder in front.

A misty fog that made breathing difficult, was clouding their sight.

It felt as if they were trudging through water.

Their whole sight was blinded, so their only source of certainty was that they were still linked together by touch.

Enduring the need to cough, Huksel’s crew slowly made incremental steps forward.

Then, the fog weakened.

Huksel let a sigh and looked around.

The fog was slowly disappearing inside the half collapsed tower.

While the fog was still thick, now they were able to see in front of them.

Inside the tower, everything was in ruins. They didn’t see any lifeforms.

Torrell looked around while sweating.

“Boss, that kid is nowhere to be found.”

“……..Don’t worry about him. Let’s think for ourselves first.”

Huksel tried focusing his entire senses to see if it made a difference.

Just because you couldn’t see anything, didn’t mean nothing was there.

Ever so slowly, some things changed.

The fog close to the ground moved against the drift.

There were a few areas where this was happening.

“It’s moving.”

“Boss?”

“Sereum, prepare the enchantment that I requested.”

Sereum with a nervous expression started the enchantment.

Huksel pulled out one of his equipment that he’d prepared.

The fog that was moving in a pattern suddenly moved towards Huksel’s crew.

Huksel nor anybody else knew what was going on.

“Close your eyes!”

Huksel tossed a circular ball up into the air.

Simultaneously, Sereum’s spell finished and the magic poured onto the ball.

For a moment, a flash of blinding light filled the inner tower.

The fog inside the tower was all pushed out from the blinding light.

And once the fog had all cleared, dark shadows appeared on the floor.

Taken back, everyone and everything just stood still in their place.

“Kill them all!”

Huksel covered his eyes from the light and ran forwards. His sword made contact and slashed at something that couldn’t be seen.

They’d been reprimanded by Huksel of their battle formations and tactics. But this being their first real battle together, they’d been late to follow his lead.

Huksel’s crew quickly slew monsters that couldn’t be seen.

The monsters that protected this tower were these monsters that couldn’t be seen.

To be exact they weren’t invisible, but were monsters coated in protective colours from the Gray tower’s mana that made them seem invisible.

Normally, an expedition group found themselves dead before they realised what was happening but Huksel had already seen this happen twice.

Another way was to shower them with black substance but spraying the whole tower with substance to find monsters wasn’t exactly ideal. So what Huksel had thought of was a blinding light grenade.

The monsters inside the Gray tower lived in a dark murky environment so they were weak to light. The blinding light was effectively used to reveal their shadows.

He had gotten this idea from the story, where the emperor turned himself into a sun and blew away the fog.

“The light is fading! Come together!”

As the light weakened and the shadows faded, Huksel threw another light grenade.

As he had used his entire fortune on this, he had plenty left.

The monsters, dumbfounded at Huksels method, were still moving about here and there to surround Huksel’s crew.

However, they simply couldn’t go closer due to the light in the air.

“Boss! These monsters can’t do anything!”

Benson shouted in happiness.

As they overpowered opponents that usually put fear into all expeditioners, they couldn’t contain their excitement.

However, Huksel couldn’t but feel a sense of nervousness within him.

Juan had come in before them.

So then, either the amount of monsters should have lessened or Juan should have been a corpse by now. But it was neither of the two.

Where had Juan gone off to?

At this moment, Huksel heard an unusual noise. A thunderous roaring sound was beckoning from above.

Beyond the fog towards the left, a massive impact echoed and shaked the ground.

Huksel panicked and looked above.

The tower was moving.

*****

Sina Solbein was looking at the tower off in the distance beyond the forest.

After being incorporated into the chasing group, she’d ridden without stopping through countless nights and days.

Her entire body was aching.

It was the same for every other knight.

“Right, there’s the Gray tower.”

Kato started a conversation. In all honesty, Sina didn’t want to reply back but couldn’t ignore an inquisitor’s words.

“I’ve heard it’s the place where the emperor’s wisdom was shone bright like the sun.”

“Now, it’s become a sacred place of ingratitude. I’ve heard many indecent folks attempt to go up the tower in search of the hidden treasure. Of course, adding themselves to the pile of corpses in the tower.”

“The emperor stated not to view human greed in only a negative way. He said greed is natural and emotions like love and bravery are found from a sense of greed.”

“Now, now, aren’t you well versed with the words of scripture.”

“Only the ones I know.”

In order to argue with a professor of Torra’s knight school, skim reading the scripture wasn’t enough.

But from reading it thoroughly, she’d only gotten a bad temperament.

The emperor’s words were perfect but the people who scribed his words weren’t. Therefore, errors and contradictions existed in scriptures.

The problem was some tried using misinterpreted information to their advantage and ignored the rest which was correctly transcribed.

Sina knew from experience when facing these people, stating the orthodox parts of the scripture would usually shut them up.

“Let’s hurry then. The sheath is longing for its home.”

Kato looked into the square glass. Inside the glass, the sheath was vibrating in the direction of the Gray tower.

According to Kato’s words, it pointed to where Juan was currently at.

And true to his words, on the way, they’d found traces of Juan at a village.

Sina still didn’t understand the principle behind it but nervously followed his volition.

“I don’t understand why he’s there. Didn’t you say he was initially heading for the capital?”

At Sina’s question, Kato’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Would someone who didn’t touch Daaron’s treasure trove at all, be looking for riches? Not a chance. More likely, his objective is the evil armor that the emperor sealed inside the tower. After denigrating and desecrating it’s divinity, he’ll make the weapon his.”

Sina didn’t reply.

While it was difficult to agree with Kato’s opinion, she kept recalling a particular scene in her head. When Juan had swallowed Taltere’s blood.

Plus, there wasn’t anyone normal who visited the Gray tower.

Beasts, humans, most were criminals with no future that were on the brink of despair or heretics that were part of a cult.

Sina and the Blue Rose knights hasted their approach towards the Gray tower.