The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Imperial Commander Returns — Episode 1

Caw—caw—

A single crow descended to the ground.
The blood-soaked earth was nothing short of a feast.
Countless others of its kind were already swarming darkly across the expanse.

The crow thrust itself into the fray alongside them.
But even a crow wouldn’t want to eat something spoiled.
It drove its beak into what appeared to be the freshest morsel.

Peck. Peck.

“You damned—what the hell!”
—Caw!

A violent spray of feathers.

The crow whose beak had been caught flailed desperately.
At the sudden commotion, the surrounding crows launched themselves into the air as one.
But this one could not join them.
The crushing grip had already snapped its neck.

“What… is everyone gone?”

The man barely managed to prop himself up.
He hurled the crow aside and surveyed his surroundings.
Before him stretched a sight both familiar and horrible.

Nothing but corpses. Corpses everywhere.
Tragically, the overwhelming majority belonged to humans.
Demon beasts accounted for perhaps ten percent, by proportion.

The implication was simple.
The great war between humanity and demons, waged for the fate of the world itself—
There, humanity had suffered a catastrophic defeat.

“So I… will soon follow.”

The man, Delram, gave a bitter laugh.
His flank was torn open as if some massive beast had ripped into him.
The blood pooling within had already darkened and begun to rot.

The Mana circulating through his body had faded to a gossamer thread.
Once that vanished, it would truly be over.

A shadow fell across him.
“Hmm?”

A shadow had fallen over Delram’s head.
He lifted his head with difficulty and saw an old man standing before him.
A pristine white robe and beard—utterly out of place on a battlefield.
Delram recognized the face well.

The state religion of the Empire.
Cardinal of the Luminous Faith.

“Why are you here, Cardinal?”
“…….”
“What’s become of the Empire? Of mankind?”
“…….”

Delram asked, but Cardinal did not answer.
Instead, his entire frame trembled violently.
Had the journey all the way to this place in the depths of winter chilled him so thoroughly?

Crack!
“Hack!”

It was an instant after Cardinal swung his staff.
Delram, struck full across the crown of his head, crumpled to the ground.

And that was only the beginning.
From nowhere in his gaunt, aged frame came a torrent of strength—the enraged Cardinal seized Delram by the collar, shaking him with violent jerks as he roared.

“You damnable wretch!”
“Cardinal……?”
“It’s your fault! Mankind fell because of you!”

The blow to his head left his mind reeling.
Yet even as the world swam, he could not help but speak.
The accusation was too unjust to bear in silence.

“How is that my fault?”
“How? You unified the Continent and slaughtered every hero of every nation! Didn’t you? You murdered every champion who might have stood against the demons under that cursed Emperor! Every last one!”
“I see.”
“I see? I see? You wretched dog, I’ll have you fried alive for this……!”

Cardinal seemed so furious he could barely speak.
Then, his face flushed crimson, he shrieked like a man possessed.

“I told you to show restraint! The Luminous Divine One granted me revelation that if mankind grew weak, the demons would invade! I told you! But you wouldn’t listen—you slaughtered them all!”
“Forgive me… I thought it was a lie.”
“If only you hadn’t killed Brunhilde the Radiant! If only you hadn’t slain Gesan Naold! If only you hadn’t murdered Tamuka the Rune Master! If only you hadn’t destroyed Alendor the Dragon-Slayer! And from the East—good gods, how many did you butcher, you filthy beast!”

Cardinal’s curses continued to pour forth.
Yet to Delram’s ears, they came as if from a great distance, echoing and fading.
His mind grew distant; the Cardinal’s voice seemed to recede into shadow.

Delram understood.
He had not long left.
So he gathered what little strength remained and spoke his final words.

“Cardinal… I’m dying now.”
“Good! Die quickly, then!”
“You’re being harsh… I did only what I thought was right…….”
“Your mouth runs freely enough, doesn’t it!”
“In any case, I’m sorry… I will watch over you from the next world… so please, Cardinal, gather what remains of mankind and… hold the line for me…….”
“What—what did you say!?”

Death!
The final moment all must dread!

Yet this one was different.
Far from fear, he seemed to wear perfect peace.

And there was reason enough for it.
Delram’s life had been suffering itself.
From conscript to supreme commander of the Empire—
He had written a legend in flesh and blood.

It would have been impossible even born into a noble house of ancient lineage.
Yet a mere commoner had achieved it…….
How grueling that path must have been—there was no need to say more.

And now, eternal rest was being granted to him.
Death was the end of all things, but also the beginning of peace.

If there existed an afterlife beyond the heavens—
There he would rest at ease and cheer on humanity’s struggle.

‘No regrets.’

Delram closed his eyes quietly.
Or rather, he tried to—but then he made a terrible mistake.
He had genuinely enraged the Cardinal.

The Cardinal had lived his entire life in austere piety as a man of the cloth.
Yet even such discipline proved meaningless before Delram’s farewell.
The Cardinal’s eyes rolled back as he cried out, his words stumbling over themselves.

“You—you bastard! Flee by dying? Now, when the few people left are suffering at the hands of Demons and Demon Beasts, you alone would slip away through death?”
“No… it’s not like I want to die… I just…”

Delram gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
And never opened his eyes again.

The greatest commander under the Emperor’s banner, who conquered the Continent!
The final hour of the [Supreme Commander of the Empire].

“Cowardly worm!”

Thus Delram did not see it.
The Cardinal, his reason shattered, raising his Staff high to the heavens.
Offering everything to God himself…….

“O Divine Light! Grant this sinner no rest! Let him cleanse himself of his deeds and his guilt!”

Whoooosh—

A blast of light engulfing the entire plain.
It was the divine work of the Luminous Faith, sole religion of the Empire.

Tick, tick…….

Even time itself was being wound backward.

* * *

[The Seven-Year War!]

It was not an official name.
They simply called it that because the war had already lasted seven years.
Soon enough, it would be renamed the Eight-Year War.

The war’s beginning had been nothing remarkable.
The third prince of the Pior Kingdom.
That prince visited a neighboring kingdom and died.

Not murder, not poison—just an accident.
So the neighboring kingdom had no grounds for blame.
It should have ended with perfunctory condolences, a simple affair.
But these idiots couldn’t manage even that.

[Wasn’t that bastard a spy? Good digging!]

Sending an official diplomatic document like that took audacity.
The bereaved king rose eagerly to the provocation.

A declaration of war, swift and clean.
And so the war began.

-Your Majesty! Our forces will suffer grievous losses. If this continues, we face only mutual destruction. Please, cease the war!

The nobles pleaded desperately.
But the outcome was laughably easy: total victory.
Every royal of the foolish enemy kingdom—king included—went to the gallows, and their masterless realm fell into Pior’s hands.
The King of Pior, watching this, had a thought.

-That was manageable. And conquest… it’s absolutely exhilarating.

The conqueror’s blood stirred awake in the king’s breast, and he struck without hesitation.
His army, barely scratched, wheeled at once toward another kingdom.
And captured it just as easily.

Before long, eleven kingdoms remained on the Continent.
Thus began the prelude to the age of conquest…….

* * *

“…or so he said?”
“Who told you that?”
“The merchant who came yesterday, remember? I heard it from one of his hired guards!”

Older Brother from Upstairs chattered on excitedly.
But Delram, listening to him, wore a flat expression.

This was the Roof of the Continent.
A place so remote it might as well have been the edge of the known world.
The ravages of war didn’t reach this far.
Occasionally, mercenaries hunting Demon Beasts or peddlers hawking odd wares passed through, and they left behind nothing but useless gossip.

“Delram, you don’t seem excited?”
“What kind of reaction do you want from me?”
“Come on! Doesn’t your blood pump? A war! It’s the chance of a lifetime for common folk like us to rise up!”
“Sure—if we don’t get ourselves killed doing it.”
“But we’re fighting for the Pior Kingdom! Why worry? You don’t know this, but Pior is invincible. Invincible! A hundred battles, a hundred victories!”
“Ugh…….”

A sigh escaped Delram’s lips despite himself.
His eyes carried a look of contempt, too.
The boy bristled at the sight.

“Hey! Don’t you have any dreams? How long are you going to stay in this backwater digging up potatoes? You’re incredible with a sword!”
“Says who?”
“The hunter. He told me.”
“That old man doesn’t know the first thing. No matter how skillfully you wield a sword, it’s useless without a Mana Formula.”
“That’s exactly why you have to become a soldier. Earn merit, receive a Mana Formula, and rise to nobility.”
“Fat chance of that.”
“You pathetic coward!”

In the end, Older Brother from Upstairs abandoned his pickaxe and left.
He’d probably gone to find that mercenary who’d spoken to him.

Delram clicked his tongue and crouched back down.
Each time he turned the soil with his hoe, potatoes tumbled free.
But there weren’t many, and even those were small and shriveled.

Delram’s expression darkened with each handful.
Potatoes that could weather droughts—and even they yielded so little.

This was the Roof of the Continent.
The very name spoke of its altitude, so high that the air itself felt thin.
The climate was cool enough that even grain struggled to grow.
The only crops worth tending here were potatoes and buckwheat.

But there were compensations.
The cool air and steady wind meant the grass grew thick and lush.
With few wolves or demons to threaten the flocks, it was ideal for herding.

‘Still, winter will be hard this year.’

If the potatoes were like this, would the grass fare any better?
It couldn’t.
Without enough grass to graze on, the sheep would waste away—their wool would thin, and they’d give little milk.

The villagers would go hungry.
And when summer was this poor, winter was typically brutal.

‘Was there heavy snow that year, or wasn’t there?’

It was more than forty years ago—his memory had grown hazy.
Delram scratched his head and murmured to himself.

“Still, we won’t starve outright, will we? Not unless the young men of the village are suddenly conscripted all at once and dragged off to war.”

Delram, age thirteen, in the summer of that year.
The conscription officer arrived the very next day.

The Supreme Commander of the Empire Returns

Author │
New Normal
Publisher │
Choi Won-young
Editorial Director │
Lee Ho-jun
Editor │
Ko Dong-nam
E-book │
Kim Ji-su

Published by │
D&C Media Co., Ltd.
Registration │
April 25, 2012 Issue No. 20-260
Address │
1301-8, Coloron Digital Tower Villant 1st, 30 Digital-ro 32-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
Main Phone │
(02)333-2513 Fax (02)333-2514
Email │
[email protected]
Homepage │
blog.naver.com/gnpdl7

UCI G720:N+A092-20260714149

*This book is published by DNC Media Co., Ltd. (Papyrus) under contract with the copyright holder. The contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.

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