The Eldest Daughter Walks Down The Flower Path - Chapter 174

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Eldest Daughter Walks the Path of Flowers Episode 174

“What crime could the patrol members have committed? Most of them are prisoners forced into military service. What would those worthless prisoners know? It’s the responsibility of Robert, the captain of the extermination corps who failed to properly educate them.”

Heron said as he poured wine into Gerion’s glass with a gurgling sound.

“But that captain, being such a fool, shifted his responsibility onto those stupid prisoners and went up to the capital with his eyes blinded by rewards, begging for a seal. As a member of the noble society leading the South, it’s utterly shameful.”

“No, to think such a thing happened. This too must be reported to His Majesty the Emperor…!”

Watching Gerion gradually getting drunk, Heron smiled with satisfaction.

A few days ago, when Heron heard that the Imperial Monster Hunting Corps had refused to escort the investigation team that came to Monster Forest to survey the Forbidden Zone, he devised an excellent scheme.

Currently in the South, except for the Imperial Monster Hunting Corps, there was no extermination corps capable of escorting the investigation team, who were nothing but burdens, all the way to the center of the Forbidden Zone.

If the Imperial Monster Hunting Corps didn’t move, the investigation team would eventually have to give up their survey to the Forbidden Zone.

Heron planned to use this situation to push Robert’s subordinates deep into Monster Forest and annihilate them.

Whether it was luck or not, there happened to be a boy named Alfred, who was from a branch family of the Rodric Family, belonging to the investigation team.

Heron secretly called the investigation team members to the Rodric Family estate early in the morning, offering to provide them with entertainment.

Then he had Alfred deliver a note to the extermination corps saying that the investigation team had headed to the Forbidden Zone without escort.

His plan succeeded brilliantly, and the extermination corps stupidly entered Monster Forest tracking the non-existent investigation team.

Those stupid prisoners probably wouldn’t be able to return alive and well.

Then the extermination corps would have self-destructed, and Robert would become a laughingstock.

Imagining that scene, Heron burst into exhilarating laughter.

“Hahaha!”

White Mask, Rem, the leader of the ‘Black Mages’, looked up at his creation with ecstatic eyes.

The Thorny Bushes, which had once been a small mass, had now grown large enough to fill half of the basement.

It was in a state that couldn’t be hidden even if one tried to hide it.

However, the foolish Empress was rejoicing, firmly believing Rem’s words that it was to produce more black flames.

The weapon he had created was being called ‘Shab’, an ancient northern word meaning destruction.

It was a name given after the war with the northern kingdoms, or rather, the massacre.

That’s right.

It was a massacre.

Even Rem, who created it, couldn’t have imagined that the Flame of the Demon Realm would be so destructive.

It was completely different from when it destroyed a small building or a few living beings.

The Flame of the Demon Realm, having devoured more lives and more despair, did not extinguish.

After burning and burning even the blessed land of the gods, it created deep, black holes of despair.

Fascinated by that destructive power, the Emperor continued meaningless wars without knowing that demonic energy was gnawing at his soul.

Now the Emperor was in a state no different from a puppet of the Demon Realm.

Rem muttered.

“When one gains great power, one must naturally pay the price for it.”

The Emperor of the Empire and the Iszad Party nobles, including the Levelloa Family, were spreading the Flame of the Demon Realm across all continents while drunk on madness.

Now Rem could hear the breathing of evil beings waiting for their time beyond the pits of despair carved into the earth.

On the day Hestia’s seal is broken, that hole will become a passage connecting to the Underworld.

Looking at the giant mass of Thorny Bushes writhing as if alive, Rem said quietly.

“God’s choices are unfair, and His love is extremely narrow-minded. Because of this, all life is born into unhappiness. Since God has taken away true happiness from humans, humans must waste their given time searching for the meaning of life that doesn’t exist.”

Rem spread both arms and shouted.

“I have come to break that chain of unhappiness. All unfair things will disappear, and fair unhappiness and fair opportunities will be obtained. Now is the time when everything will become fair.”

The Emperor of the Empire ultimately failed to find a way to control Hestia’s Mana Stone.

Even the Empress, who saw with her own eyes the mass of Thorny Bushes growing larger day by day, couldn’t predict its danger.

Everyone thought this way.

“Surely nothing will happen, right?”

And the foretold despair came slowly like the changing seasons, yet suddenly at the same time.

Sensing Hestia’s impending rampage, Rem looked around at his subordinate ‘Black Mages’ and said.

“Now we will become gods.”

Rem lifted a teleportation scroll and shouted.

“Let’s go! Leviathan, the ark that will lead us to a new era, awaits us!”

At that moment, something surged from the darkness behind and wrapped around Rem.

“Ugh!”

Panicked, Rem hurriedly tried to tear the teleportation scroll.

However, the teleportation scroll that would take him to Leviathan was already burning brightly.

“Wh-what is this!”

“Aaahhh!”

“L-Leader! Save us!”

Rem opened his eyes wide and turned around.

Before he knew it, dozens of thorny vines had stretched out long and were wrapping around the mages.

Of course, the mages weren’t just taking it lying down either.

“Eek! Fire Ball!”

“I-Ice Arrow!”

They were resisting using scrolls containing spells that they had hidden all over their bodies in preparation for battle.

However, crude magic couldn’t work against Thorny Bushes imbued with divine curse.

Rem’s right-hand man, Ran, took out a black orb from his chest and threw it.

“Leader, dodge!”

The black orb thrown by Ran grazed past Rem and hit precisely at the center of the mass of Thorny Bushes.

“Ooh!”

It was effective.

The Thorny Bushes hit by the black flame began moving frantically.

As if cutting its own belly, the mass of Thorny Bushes split in half and poured out black substance like a waterfall.

And something appeared from within it.

Rem muttered in a daze.

“Black… angel…?”

That being, wrapped in black wings, was as beautiful as an angel.

However, the moment it opened its eyes, Rem realized.

“No, a demon…!”

The moment his gaze met those two eyes, red as blood and filled with nothing but pure evil, Rem finally realized what he had done.

‘I… might have awakened something that should not have been awakened…’

However, Rem didn’t even have time to regret.

The Thorny Bushes that had been tightly wrapped around the mages’ bodies began squeezing them.

“Aaahhhhh!”

Terrible screams filled the basement.

Soon, sounds like ripe fruit falling and bursting could be heard from here and there.

Amidst the red blood falling like rain, a soul that was never saved descended to earth.

Rem’s words applied to her as well.

God’s choices were unfair, and His love was extremely narrow-minded.

Her power was not what she wanted, and nothing she desired was ever fulfilled.

Still, she waited.

Clinging to a thread of hope, she had endured terrible pain for a long time.

However, hope never came in the end.

‘Stop it now.’

The Flame of the Demon Realm, which had been with her for a long time, spoke in a seductive tone.

‘Hestia, how much longer do you think you can endure? A hundred years? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? You must have realized it too. That there is no salvation for you.’

The Flame of the Demon Realm whispered softly.

‘You sacrificed yourself for everyone, but who acknowledges your pain? They erased your name as soon as you disappeared from their sight. Is there even one person who remembers you now? They don’t even thank you. You were just a sacrifice to their desires.’

She knew it too.

In fact, she had known it for a very long time.

‘Hestia, when does a person stop being human? When their appearance becomes horrible? When they commit horrible acts?’

The Flame of the Demon Realm burst into dark, and even darker laughter.

‘No. If even just one person believes he is human, he could remain human. But Hestia, have you ever been human even once?’

The flame’s words were right.

She had to admit it too.

What she had wanted to become was not an unfortunate hero.

She had wanted to be a beloved daughter.

She had wanted to be the proud lover of a man she loved.

But all of that had been an impossible dream.

Everything she had held dear had already weathered away with time, disappearing without leaving a trace.

Only she remained, enduring all this pain.

But even that was now over.

From between her blackened lips flowed laughter that was both ecstatic and sorrowful.

-Ahahaha…!

The demon that had once been a hero spoke.

-Yes. It was all meaningless.

That day, the Great Empire of Cardia met its doom.

At the time, Cardia was enjoying what appeared to be its greatest golden age, though its inner core was rotten and decayed.

The Emperor continued to achieve victory after victory in the northern conquest war, tainted by madness.

Though he had become a madman stained by magic, the Emperor became a hero, and though the lands had become ruins stained by magic, Cardia gained the largest territory since its founding.

The imperial citizens were praising the names of Emperor Claude and Empress Adrianne, Crown Prince Charle and Crown Princess Rollis, and House of Relbelloa, the greatest contributors to this conquest war.

All of it ended in an instant.

The demon did not move quickly.

As if taking a stroll, it slowly moved its steps while slaughtering the Imperial Guards who stood in its way.

With each step the demon took, despair spread.

Black flames spread and devoured everything, and black thorn vines wrapped around the entire Imperial Capital, crushing everything alive.

Blood rained down over the thorn vines as agonizing screams echoed throughout the Imperial Capital.

The maids who screamed and fled, the nobles who were spending their usual boring yet splendid daily lives, and the knights who appeared to deal with the demon all met the same end.

Wealth that seemed capable of conquering the world, power that could place everything underfoot, and even pure martial strength honed endlessly meant nothing before absolute despair.

Everyone died.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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