Five Time Regressor Walks the King’s Path - Chapter 54
Chapter 54
The country was ruined on the inside. The army that should’ve rallied under his leadership couldn’t be touched, and countries had formed a coalition to threaten the empire while it struggled in turmoil.
The worst of the worst.
“Fool, if the plan had failed then you should’ve accepted that and found another way.”
“Don’t make me laugh! The emperor only desired peace and had no ability to properly govern the empire! Rather, the aristocrats looked down on him! He couldn’t even control them! If such garbage hadn’t taken the throne, the empire would’ve been the best nation there could be!”
While I was being sarcastic, the cornered Rosiane confessed to his crimes all by himself.
He’d probably already lost his mind in the middle of the conversation.
He gave up after knowing escape was no longer possible.
As he said, the emperor was obsessed with peace and didn’t rule the country properly.
Because of that, the aristocrats turned the country into a mess.
But having tried to reverse the situation through the use of war, Rosiane was the same as them.
Rush criticized him harshly.
“If you were going to do it, you should’ve succeeded. Didn’t you know that the most dangerous thing is when the incompetent take power?”
Humiliated, Rosiane swung at Rush with his fist.
He seemed to know how to handle aura since he put a good amount of it behind his attack. Rush didn’t avoid it and received it directly.
Then, without taking a step back, his eyes burned fiercely as he continued.
“Do you know how many people suffered while you ruined this country?! The first thing you needed to do was not prepare for war! You should’ve at least taken responsibility for the soldiers who entered the army to protect this country! You should’ve protected them from the hands of the aristocrats!”
Bam!
Rush’s fist, filled with anger, bashed Rosiane’s face.
“If you’re an aristocrat, at least learn how to take responsibility for the people.”
Rush, shaking his hand, glanced at the emperor.
“It’s as Rosiane said. Why didn’t you just do what was needed?”
At the moment Rush sighed bitterly toward him, the emperor’s neck suddenly twisted.
Rush was about to retreat from the frightening figure when thousands of poisonous needles shot out from the emperor’s body, pouring out in every direction.
What I thought was just a corpse suddenly became a time bomb. I pushed Rush away and swung the Heavenly Star Sword to defend.
The needles were shattered by the wind pressure generated by the sword swing.
However, my response was a bit delayed due to pushing Rush away.
A few of the poisonous needles stabbed into my leg before I was able to swing my sword.
Frowning, I swiftly reached out the emperor with his twisted neck and ripped his skin away.
This action revealed a small girl urgently trying to invoke spatial magic.
I kicked, stomped, and trampled her without hesitation.
I knew No. 2 was controlling the emperor by utilizing her necromancy, but I didn’t know she was inside.
I sighed and looked down at the poisonous needles stuck in my leg as I thought this was a close one since Rush was nearly hit.
Thanks to my high stamina, I wouldn’t die from this sort of thing, but the stinging was quite annoying.
“Chun-Sung!”
While I yanked the needles out, Rush hurried over and looked at my leg before falling to his knees, yelling.
“The poison needles… No, no! Doctor! Hurry up and bring a doctor!”
Why was he overreacting?
Frowning a moment, I soon found out Rush was panicking over.
When the needles suddenly shot from the emperor’s body, Rosiane was by the wall and had no chance to avoid them. He was hit and died instantly.
Rush saw that and was panicking like this because he believed the same would happen to me.
“Hey, I’m not dying.”
“W-what?”
Then Rush looked up at me with a tearful face. He looked me up and down and wondered while tilting his head.
“…Chun-Sung, are you really human?”
“Then what do I look like?”
“G-Goddess?”
“Wanna die?”
I was about to hit his head but only sighed and sprayed some potion on my legs.
Even if the poison was deadly, there was no way for it to break through my outrageous stamina stat, so it was an easy recovery with a bit of potion.
I looked up and around.
Some of the aristocrats had fainted at the round table, but many of them were still standing, as were the generals. They were all looking at Rush. Recognizing what that meant, I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Rush. It’s time to wrap things up.”
Rush listened to me and looked back at everyone in the hall.
Earlier, Rosiane confessed all his crimes with his own mouth and there was even No. 2 inside the emperor, so the situation was virtually finished.
That’s why there needed to be someone to wrap things up.
Soon after, Rush rose from his seat and the eyes of the aristocrats turned to him.
He slowly walked over to the throne and sat down. The moment he looked upon everyone…
“I greet His Majesty!”
The voices of the gathered aristocrats loudly resounded within the hall.
[The ‘Proprietor of Floor 29’, ‘Indolent Pleasure’, applauds your move.]
[The ‘Proprietor of Floor 29’, ‘Indolent Pleasure’, chooses you.]
[The ‘Proprietor of Floor 29’, ‘Indolent Pleasure’, baptizes you.]
And with that, Floor 29 was…
Hmm?
My head tilted to the side when I saw the window in front of me.
Normally, a baptism was given when one chose a special path that the Constellation didn’t originally intend, which garnered their interest and they chose that person.
Instead of a message declaring the Floor was clear, it was one saying ‘Indolent Pleasure’ chose me. That meant making Rush the emperor was…
“…It wasn’t the method to clear the Floor?”
Soon, my disheartened voice slipped past my lips.
Floor 29 wasn’t over yet.
* * *
About three days had passed since Rush was made emperor.
Currently, I was resting in one of the rooms of the imperial palace and grinding my teeth in a state of considerable anger over the fact that I had not yet cleared it.
“Hey, you rotten Constellation. I made Rush the emperor! I did all this! Shouldn’t there be a message declaring that I cleared this Floor? What the fuck is this?!”
Even though I let out a loud shout, I received no answer.
It meant that in the Constellation’s ending, Rush becoming emperor wasn’t included to begin with.
I banged the desk and wrapped my arms around my head.
I thought I could finally get out of this and return to my own body.
As soon as Floor 29 was over, I had already resolved to move onto the next Floor.
But what was this?
What the hell is…
Knock knock.
A sudden knock at my door.
As it was a room prepared by Rush, the emperor, the only one who could knock on my door was a direct maid assigned to me while I stayed here, so I immediately opened the door.
The maid spoke to me in a polite and formal tone with her eyes closed.
“Knight Chang-Sung, His Majesty calls.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know the details…”
When the maid said, “Wouldn’t you know when you go?” I had no choice but to cool down and go.
There was no one to stop me even if I walked proudly in the hallway of the palace without armor.
The passing aristocrats instead bowed to me, Knight Chang-Sung.
Well, I couldn’t help it because Rush raised my status to marquis on the spot.
He seemed to want to raise me to a duke but when I implied that it was enough, he stopped at marquis.
How long had I walked with the maid? When I arrived in front of the emperor’s office, another maid was waiting in front of the door. They knocked on the door of the office and I was told to come inside.
When the door opened and I entered, Rush stood there.
He seemed to be enjoying the night breeze while leaning against a window and I bluntly questioned him as soon as I saw him.
“Why did you call me?”
“Well, after becoming the emperor I hadn’t seen you for a while, so I thought I might forget your face, Chun-Sung.”
“Why don’t you just forget?”
“How can I forget you?”
Rush laughed softly when I answered with annoyance.
He stepped away from the window and came in front of me.
“Would you like some tea or something? I don’t know if I’m still lacking as an emperor, but I didn’t want everyone doing everything for me so I make my own tea.”
“I don’t need it. Just tell me why you called me.”
Rush was now just a nuisance to me since he wasn’t the clear method. I had to find a new method, starting from scratch.
Rush laughed for a moment at my attitude and came up to me.
“Would you like to go somewhere for a day?”
“I’m not in a situation where I can play…”
As I about to continue, I covered my face and replied, ‘Fine.’
I believed that making Rush the emperor would allow me to clear the Floor.
However, the path he was walking wasn’t the one created by the Constellation, and it evidently didn’t meet the clear conditions for the Floor.
‘It’s too late to clear the floor again.’
I might as well just follow the flow.
“You want to play for the last time before you become the emperor, right? The news that a new emperor has ascended the throne is not yet known to the people.”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
Although the war was in full swing, there was nothing Rush could do right now.
After my encounter with the Six Bladeworks, excluding No. 1, they were unable to fight. It would take some time for them to recover, so I decided to announce that Rush was crowned emperor afterward.
After officially becoming emperor, work would keep him busy all his life.
He spent three months in the army until now and spent a week training to be the emperor.
I opened the window, thinking that Rush also needed a day’s rest.
“Leave a letter that you’re going to leave with me. If you don’t, they’ll make a fuss over nothing.”
“I wrote it in advance. I thought if it was you, you would allow it.”
He was well prepared.
Sighing and shrugging my shoulders, I grabbed his hand.
“Hold on tight.”
With that, I hit the floor using aura and quickly crossed the high wall of the imperial palace.
And just before landing, I naturally used aura to reduce the rebound. Rush was looking at me with a face as if he had died and come back to life.
“Get used to it. I’ll do this when we go back too.”
“I might die.”
“The capital hasn’t felt the aftereffects of the war yet, right? Let’s go and do everything you wanted to do, for the last time. Do as you please.”
Pointing my finger as I finished, Rush let out a small laugh and began to walk with me down the street.
Did he not have much in mind considering that he said he wanted to play?
We just spent time walking around the streets eating food or watching simple games.
As it was night, after about three hours, the streets quickly became quiet and I felt it was time to return.
“There wasn’t much. Should we have gone to the underground bar one more time?”
“There was.”
Rush suddenly said so when I muttered about there not being much.
When I looked back at him, Rush was looking at me with a pondering look.
I smiled awkwardly at the sight.
“Really? I’m glad you’re satisfied.”
“There’s no way I couldn’t be satisfied. Chun-Sung, I played with you.”
“Rush.”
When I heard that, as soon as I was about to call him, Rush grabbed me by the wrist.
Both of us paused for a moment, and then Rush sadly stared at me before speaking.
“Chun-Sung, you’re leaving, aren’t you?”
