Hiding A Logistics Center In The Apocalypse - Chapter 92
Chapter 92: The Symbol of Resurrection (9)
TL/ED – Miso
Kugugugu……
With a low rumble, excruciating pain surged through me.
The target I had requested PAX to store was the Louvre Museum.
Naturally, it had been remodeled into a haunted house by Barnaul, and as a bonus, their European Branch, which they used like a bunker, and “Sisyphus, the Soul Thresher”, were taken in along with it.
‘Damn, this really hurts like hell…….’
While clutching my throbbing head, countless scenes flashed before my eyes like lightning.
The sight of the warlock Gatz and the European branch chief flailing about, having lost their roof.
Thousands of prisoners pouring down from the vanished giant disk.
And finally, my distorted field of vision due to the ground being twisted as even the underground facility of the museum had been cleanly carved out.
“My lord!”
“Protect the Representative!”
It was truly a historic-scale containment.
I couldn’t even move an inch, but the Knights of Camelot and members of PAX FC shielded my defenseless body.
Thanks to that, I was able to escape the threat of the swarming undead, but…….
“They’re on our side now.”
They were no longer the army of Barnaul.
Guaaaah!
Clatter!
The undead bowed their skulls and prostrated themselves before me.
Just like when I had taken in Camelot.
Because the statues containing the vengeful spirits had been stored along with the Louvre, I now became their master.
“Can’t thank you enough, really…….”
Originally, this would have been impossible.
Unlike objects or terrain, living beings, including humans, couldn’t be forcibly stored in subspace.
However, thanks to Barnaul painstakingly sealing the vengeful spirits of Fermegon into statues one by one, I was able to seize control of the undead just by storing the Louvre.
The Knights of Camelot, and now the undead from the Louvre, too.
I had suddenly become a full-fledged necromancer…….
But the warlocks of Barnaul weren’t just going to sit there and take it.
“Arise!”
A resounding voice filled with evil incantation.
Kugugugugu……!
Though their numbers had dwindled from losing all their statues, Barnaul scraped up every bit of their dark magic to stir up the dead in Paris.
Guaaaah…….
As a result, a significant number of undead and skeletons reappeared.
It was inevitable.
Corpses from Fermegon and Barnaul’s invasion were scattered all across Paris, and the spirits sealed into statues using Sisyphus were only a small fraction.
Of course, because they had to draw upon their dark magic directly, the warlocks of Barnaul also quickly lost their composure…….
Kwaaaang!
Dalgrarararak!
The Louvre Museum was gone, leaving behind a square-shaped crater.
And from that massive tomb, a large-scale chaotic battle broke out between undead and undead.
Chwaaak!
Giant demons that had been submerged in the river rose to their feet,
Rotten bat-winged demons darted between empty rib cages as they launched their attacks.
Kwoong!
Kwoong!
The thunderous footsteps of gigantic demons shook the earth.
Hiding lower-tier demons between their bones, they boasted an overwhelming presence like that of aircraft carriers.
Screeeech!
Puh-uhng!
Bboh-uhng!
I, too, scattered hundreds of “Demon Devourers” to hold back their offensive.
Thanks to seizing the Louvre’s demons, the situation had become far more advantageous…….
“Medical team! Over here!”
“Just move them for now! Treatment comes after!”
Thousands of prisoners freed from Sisyphus were holding us back.
PAX Men, without exception, guided the prisoners through the installed portals, and a large number of gargoyles seized from Barnaul were deployed as ambulances to transport the wounded.
Already, hundreds of people were in a coma.
Though we had druids, the natural enemies of warlocks, present, for now, all their regenerative abilities had to be poured into healing the injured.
Kwaaaang!
Crack!
Amid the chaotic clash of undead, bone dust soared like flames.
In the end, it was only the Knights of Camelot and I who stood face-to-face with the warlocks.
Meanwhile, the enemy was effectively in a state of panic due to the disappearance of Sisyphus and the European branch.
“What are you saying! You mean we can’t retreat?!”
“We must contact the main headquaters. But right now, the entire branch is……”
“This is driving me nuts, seriously…….”
Gatz shouted in frustration, and the European branch chief looked on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Tsk tsk…….”
It’s common sense when traveling in Europe to keep a close eye on your belongings.
Because they had carelessly turned the Louvre into a treasure vault, they had essentially prepared a lavish feast for me.
There were no further interferences.
We now stood in confrontation against the warlocks.
The first to respond to the tension were……
“……Barnaul!”
The Knights of Camelot.
Lancelot’s blue eyes blazed with intense fury.
Although they couldn’t wield holy weapons like Holy Spears due to being undead, each knight gripped a fully enhanced Cloud Lightning Sword.
Tat!
The Knights of Camelot moved.
As if measured with a ruler, they formed a formation as one body.
They hurled their swords, full of rage, toward Barnaul.
Sseung!
The warlocks, still caught in the confusion of the suddenly shifting battlefront……
“……?”
Fwoosh!
Where the knights’ swords landed, only dark-tinted afterimages remained.
“Snap out of it! You idiots!”
It was the handiwork of Gatz, the leader of Barnaul.
Scolding the warlocks, he raised his hand.
Though he had already exhausted a great deal of dark magic operating the undead, he squeezed out the last of his remaining strength and began conjuring illusions through black magic.
Fwoosh!
Fwooosh!
The illusions cast by Gatz were meticulous.
Even though the Knights of Camelot rushed the warlocks, their slashes only dispersed black mist again and again.
Screeech!
Whiiish!
Even Holy Spears fired with “Tracking Delivery” didn’t make much difference.
Dozens, even hundreds, of Holy Spears were shipped and embedded evenly across the ground, but only a couple of warlocks were taken down. Gatz, like a phantom, slipped away through the gaps effortlessly.
“Well, this is just…….”
It was enough to make a ghost cry.
Gatz disturbed perception as if he had never been there in the first place.
He didn’t launch a counterattack, perhaps his remaining dark magic wasn’t enough, but……
“……Knights of Camelot.”
He still had the weapon called hallucination.
Flinch.
At the low, resonating incantation of the warlock, the spirits of Camelot reacted sensitively.
Gatz spoke.
“You all know it, don’t you? That Arthur is still alive.”
“……Don’t talk nonsense. Arthur is dead.”
The death of the master they loved.
Lancelot denied it immediately, but Gatz didn’t stop.
He began directing his questions to the other knights of Camelot.
“Percival, can you really be doing this right now? Arthur is waiting for you in the Sylvania Forest.”
“That’s ridiculous nonsense…….”
“Why is it nonsense? That’s the place where you first met Arthur, isn’t it?”
Though Percival refused to believe Gatz’s words to the end…….
[The Knight of Camelot, Percival, has vanished.]
[Percival returns as a Wraith of Camelot.]
The intricately woven hallucination cast by Gatz erased him from the surface of the earth.
Gatz’s voice continued.
“Hey, Mordred. You definitely saw the steward poisoning the drink, didn’t you? Right now, those stewards are heading to Arthur with that cup.”
“…….”
“You’re the only one who knows that. How many more times do you want to watch Arthur collapse at the table?”
“But that was…….!”
Fwoosh.
[The Knight of Camelot, Mordred, has vanished.]
[Mordred returns as a Wraith of Camelot.]
Mordred disappeared with a puff of smoke, like a candle that had gone out.
And then…….
[Gawain returns as a Wraith of Camelot.]
[Bedivere returns as a Wraith of Camelot.]
[Hector returns as a Wraith of…….]
One by one, the Knights of Camelot vanished.
Gatz spoke to each of them without missing a single one.
He knew in vivid detail the experiences the knights had shared with the man called Arthur, and by nature, the knights, being vengeful spirits, could not resist the incantation of a warlock.
On the other hand, the more I listened to the stories, the more certain I became of Arthur’s death.
Dozens, even hundreds, of different stories revolving around his death.
Just as Lancelot had told me, all of them were extensions of the illusions born from Sisyphus.
“Master.”
In the end, the only one left was Lancelot.
He no longer responded to Gatz’s words, but he was already sensing his own impending disappearance.
“Arthur is dead. That death is what turned us into wraiths. However…….”
The pitch-black, hollow sockets of his skull.
The blue glow inside them was slowly fading.
“We were never mistaken.”
He grasped my wrist.
And then…….
[The Knight of Camelot, Lancelot, has vanished.]
[Lancelot returns as a Wraith of Camelot.]
Whoooosh…….
He scattered like ancient dust.
He left me with a message.
That he had never mistaken me for Arthur.
That though the Curse of Camelot had forced him to obey me, he had never confused that obedience with his heart or his soul.
“…….”
As I silently stared at the place where he had vanished, Gatz spoke to me.
“What are you getting all sentimental about? You can just summon them again. Well… that is, if you manage to bring out that Camelot you’ve been hiding so carefully.”
Judging from the clear, sharp tone in his voice, it seemed that this time, I was his target.
“Their wish was always to save that guy Arthur. It just looks like they’re loyal to you because their desires were twisted by Sisyphus. And then…….”
But I wasn’t a vengeful spirit that responded to his incantation, nor a wraith ground to pieces by the illusions of Sisyphus.
Perhaps because of that, it seemed he was trying to start by shaking my mental state.
“Logistics center boss, you don’t really care either, right? It’s just a few items coming in and going out. Why would you have such feelings for inventory items…….”
Gatz was slowly burrowing into my consciousness.
By extracting information, inflating various thoughts, and sometimes shrinking them.
Even though I didn’t feel that way at all in my heart, Gatz persistently fed absurd thoughts into my mind, like Camelot being just another item, that there were countless spirits like the knights scattered throughout the universe, or that Barnaul would become the savior of Earth.
And…….
In the end, the most persistently planted thought was this one:
“You think those guys will follow you without Camelot?”
“Damn, you sure don’t shut up…….”
Lancelot had once said something to me.
Their obedience to me had come from the Curse of Camelot, but what kind of heart they lived with depended on their own will.
Just as Gatz had said, I had placed the Knights of Camelot into the logistics center.
However, whether their hearts had come along with them, no one could say for sure.
Even if the logistics center could hold everything in the world, a heart was not something that could be packed into a delivery box.
“That doesn’t matter to me.”
I was the same.
What I wanted to store wasn’t the knights’ obedience, but their hearts.
In fact, in order to store that heart, I had to be able to let go of Camelot.
Though it had not been possible until now…….
“Ship.”
After painstaking effort, I was finally able to cast off their forced obedience.
Ziiing.
A portal rippled like blue waves.
And from within it appeared…….
Clank.
Twelve knights clad in silver armor.
“…….”
Both hands filled with life and warmth.
The hollow sockets, once as empty as caves, were no longer there.
Hot tears streamed down.
Moistening soft facial hairs, the tears fell, dropping cleanly to the floor from his chin.
Whooosh…….
The sound of a vivid breeze passed through my ears.
A man with long brown hair cascading on both sides of his broad forehead approached me.
I recognized him instantly.
That he was Lancelot.
“……Why are you crying like that?”
Now that all contracts had been severed, the Knights of Camelot stood free.
The knights, looking into one another’s eyes in silence, answered together by kneeling before me.
And then…….
Sring!
They drew their swords toward the warlocks of Barnaul.
Tsssss…….
A strange energy lingered around the tips of their blades.
What had changed was not just their appearance.
****
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