The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 3

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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 Empire’s Commander-in-Chief Returns — Chapter 3

Crack!
“Aaaahhhhh!”

Neighbor’s Son was screaming as if he were dying.
But it probably wasn’t quite that painful.
Delram’s instinct—honed over thousands of bone fractures, give or take—was telling him otherwise.
This one had broken clean and neat.

‘Or does pain feel the same even when it snaps nicely?’

Even as the thought crossed his mind, Delram moved.
He struck Neighbor’s Son across the throat.

“Ughhhh… hack!”

The noise stopped. Neighbor’s Son went limp.
This time too, Delram had been careful—avoiding the neck vertebrae and vocal cords, striking with the precision of long practice.
He caught the falling boy and laid him gently on the ground.

“Delram! What in the world are you doing!”

Sudden carnage!
Neighbor’s Son’s father cried out, late to the scene.
But Delram’s answer came smooth as silk.

“Uncle, you know what your boy is like, don’t you?”
……

That was all it took.
The old man’s shocked expression crumbled. His mouth fell shut.
Ever since the mercenaries had come through, his son had been spouting nonsense about going to war to win glory and make a name for himself.

“It’s a clean break—a splint and he’ll be good as new in no time. Take him home and get him into bed. I’ll speak to the Village Chief myself.”
“…Still, this seems rather extreme.”
“Do you really not know your own son? With a hothead like him, if he gets conscripted, he won’t last till the first real battle. He’ll be dead in the dirt before anyone can say stop.”
“Well… that’s true enough.”
“Word has it the conscription officer might come around again in two years’ time, come autumn after the harvest. So keep watch then too—and if he starts talking that nonsense again, break the other arm. Same way.”
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. You’re an only child’s father. If he gets dragged off to war and dies there, what kind of tragedy is that?”

Delram smiled at the old man.
This was the man who’d always been kind to a foolish boy and his widowed mother, sharing food from a meager table.
Because of him, his mother had gone to bed hungry fewer nights.

How could he forget that? It was more than forty years ago now.

That was what mattered.

He’d saved one man. Now came the turn of humanity itself.
Re-enlisting was the first step in that glorious undertaking!

Delram let out a deep sigh.
Ahead of him, he could see the conscription officer and soldiers.

* * *

Ordinarily, people in a rural village rarely gathered in one place.
Everyone was too busy scraping out a living to spare the time.

But today was different.
A crowd had packed itself in front of the Village Chief’s house.

“Mm, mm…….”

The atmosphere, however, was heavy as stone.
A young man knelt in the center, his face reduced to pulp.
Utterly beaten down.

Standing over him, regarding him with cold menace, was a Knight in full armor.
Blood dripped steadily from his gauntlet.
Clearly, the young man had been hiding until discovered, then worked over for it.

‘Setting an example.’

A typical conscription detail consisted of a single Knight and a contingent of soldiers.
The numbers were never overwhelming.
And since they rarely knew the local terrain, if the natives decided to hide or flee en masse, there was virtually no way to catch them.

So most conscription officers resorted to this tactic.
Beat the first one they caught like a trapped rat.

Shiiing―

Finally, the Knight drew his sword.
The well-honed Longsword sang as steel caught the light.
The young man, who had spent his whole life herding sheep, was beside himself.
So terrified he lost control of his bladder, he stumbled backward in a panic.

“N-no, no, please…….”
“Tell me who’s hiding or who’s run off. Do that, and I’ll spare you specially. You have three counts. One―”
“Th-there! There’s a pit over there! It looks like just grass from above, but if you prod it with a stick, there’s a cave underneath!”
“Well done.”

The soldiers headed toward a clearing on one side of the village.
Soon young men came dragged out in a line.
Two of them, as they were hauled forward, glared daggers at the one who had betrayed them.

“Village Chief, the count will be accurate this time?”
“Y-yes, yes, it will be.”
“Thirty-five men total. By the gracious mercy of His Majesty, I shall take fifteen. Bring the lottery.”

The soldiers produced a long tube with practiced efficiency.
Inside were several sticks.
Whoever drew the stick with the black mark on the end was conscripted on the spot.

Of course, the two who had tried to flee had no right to participate.
So thirty-three men lined up before the soldiers in turn.

Then came the hour of reckoning.
Each man wept or laughed as fate was drawn.

Surprisingly, the gap-toothed youth was not selected.
He’d wondered if some obscure charge might compel him into service anyway.
But the Knight seemed to harbor no such intentions.

“Ah, well…”

Then a sound of disappointment rippled through the men.
One youth had drawn an unmarked stick and stood dismayed.
Without hesitation, he asked to trade with the man beside him, who’d drawn the black one.
Naturally, the neighbor’s hand moved in a blur to accept the exchange before he could change his mind.

“You addled fool…!”
“Father! I shall return a nobleman!”

The father, watching from a distance, nearly lost his mind in shock and rushed forward, only to be blocked by soldiers. Helpless, he cried out, while the mother beside him—face drained of color—began muttering something incoherent before she collapsed.
The Knight, observing all this, looked thoroughly satisfied.

“Thank you, sir!”

Had he learned from a mercenary, or perhaps a retired soldier?
The clumsy form drew obvious snickers from the troops.

The village square lay suspended between despair and hope.
And then it happened.

“Mm?”

The villagers who’d been standing nearby scattered at once.
As if to say: certainly not me.

It was Delram.

“Delram. I am thirteen years old.”
“Thirteen is below conscription age.”
“Even so, I wish to serve. With burning passion in my heart, for the Kingdom! For Your Majesty, who shall reign eternal!”

It rotated with precision, then locked into position.
It was the Kingdom Military’s Spear Salute.
And not the clumsy, childish version that youth had performed earlier—this was sharp, deliberate, even more disciplined than an actual officer’s form.

“What is this kid?”

The Knight nodded deeply and asked:

“Thank you, sir! My late father would be proud as well.”

“Was that something your father taught you?”
“Yes! Though our family has fallen on hard times, I’ve heard that my ancestor once wielded a spear and cut through battlefields like a tempest.”
“Excellent. I welcome your enlistment!”
“Thank you!”

The Knight laughed heartily.
Delram laughed even louder.

The villagers watched the pair of them as though they’d gone mad.
And so Delram became a soldier once more.

* * *

Fifteen days.
That was how long the conscripted villagers had been marching.
At first, even counting the conscription officers, there were barely twenty of them.
But as they stopped at village after village, the numbers swelled, until they’d become a procession of over a hundred souls.

……

Despite the countless feet treading the road, the procession moved in silence.
Not the quiet of boredom, but the heavy quiet of dread.

Conscription was terror itself.
There were some—like those in Delram’s village—who spoke of returning with promotions, their spirits ablaze. But they were a tiny minority.
The vast majority understood the fear of war.
Hardly anyone who’d been conscripted before had come back alive.

Conscription meant death, plain and simple.
That was common knowledge.

And yet here were a hundred young men, backed into a corner.
All of them strong enough to be selected as soldiers, all of them whole and able.
So couldn’t they overpower the conscription officers and escape?

Some actually attempted something like it.
About ten of them had plotted together and devised a plan.
They’d flee in different directions.
There weren’t many Knights or soldiers to guard them, and surely if they bolted, the remaining ninety would seize the chance too—or so they calculated.

—Desertion is summary execution.
—Ahhhhh!
—Moreover, conscription is a Royal Decree. To defy it is treason! Send soldiers to the villages of these men and consign their entire families to the mines!

All ten of them were dead.
In an instant.
He’d swung his sword, cleaving three men in a single stroke, then crossed hundreds of meters in one bound and hacked the rest to pieces.

No survivors.
After that, the procession fell silent as a tomb.

‘Good grief.’

Delram clicked his tongue as he watched the scene unfold.
Of all his rotten luck, he’d fallen in with a complete maniac.

There were three broad kinds of Knights.
The commanding officer type, who lived with a certain flexibility.
The skill-focused type, who trained only their sword and cared nothing for strategy or leadership.
And finally, the pedantic type, who adhered strictly to principle and rules.

Unfortunately, that Knight was of the stubborn old-school sort.
And he was dead certain he wasn’t one—wouldn’t admit it even in his final breath.
So despite reaching an intermediate level of mastery that would welcome him to any knight’s order, here he was, stuck with conscription duties instead.
He’d probably stepped on some superior’s toes something fierce.

‘Well, forget this blockhead. I’ve got my Mana training to focus on.’

Delram shut out the distraction and gathered his focus.
Next came Mana Formula training.

What’s a Mana Formula, you ask?
Literally—a formula that allows you to gather Mana.
And Mana itself?

Unfortunately, no one truly understood it with precision.
But here’s a simple definition:

The source of all things, present everywhere in the world.
In other words—the key to transcendence itself.

‘Which is to say… the essential tool for getting ahead.’

By nature, humans couldn’t gather Mana.
But use a Mana Formula, and suddenly it became possible.
And from that point forward, new possibilities opened.

Gather it in the heart, and you wielded a mighty Aura.
Gather it in the mind, and you bent the rules themselves through magic.

In short: Knights and Mages.
Which made Mana Formulas extraordinarily precious.

‘I know of forty-two Mana Formulas.’

The one he meant to master was the last he’d acquired.
A treasure among treasures, granted by the Emperor when he rose to Commander-in-Chief.
Delram whispered its name silently to himself.

‘Phlurex Arts!’

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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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