I Became the Commander in a Trash Game Who Copies Skills-Chapter 175 : Chapter 175

Chapter 175. The East Wind (1)
I wandered over the ruins, searching through the debris.
There was no sign of human life.
All that registered on my heightened senses were the old smell of gunpowder, the metallic tang of blood, and the sound of the wind.
For reference, among the magitools the Emperor wore all over his body, there was also an item that tracked life signs.
It was a thick ring on the middle finger of his left hand, and its name as displayed in the game was ‘The Alliance of Two Lights’.
I knew it was an item that tracked things like breathing, heart rate, and mana wavelength, and that it had been created by the White Magic Tower about 200 years ago.
The then-tower master had supposedly made it to commemorate the permanent alliance between the imperial family and the White Magic Tower.
In any case, it was an item that detected all life signs within a certain range and hammered them into the user's mind, but unfortunately, it couldn't detect those who were thoroughly hidden by spells or stealth techniques.
Therefore, it was not suitable for my purpose.
What I was looking for now was the elves' hiding place.
The primary goal was to find a survivor and hear their testimony about the entity that had created these ruins.
I called over No. 31 and his organization members.
“A round chunk of iron with a bunch of spiky thorns, you say?”
“Yes. The thorns may have broken off or the round shape may have been dented when it was buried in the debris.”
“That's a unique shape.”
“If there is a sealed door or building under that symbol, let me know.”
“Understood. You all heard that? Spread out and look for a round chunk of iron with spiky thorns!”
The so-called ‘sea urchin-shaped’ chunk of iron, which I had described with difficulty as it was an inland region, was the symbol of the Paradise Elves.
It was a symbol not used externally, but for strengthening internal unity.
They had attached their own religious meaning of many becoming one and what not, but it wasn't particularly important.
They were a race that used the bodies of the younger generation as tools for reincarnation.
It was unlikely they had a normal philosophy.
In any case, that symbol was attached to each of paradise's religious buildings, the ‘shrines’, and in the basement of some shrines, there were the senate's hiding places.
The powerful members of the senate, as befitting of self-preservationists, had scattered their hiding places throughout their city.
They even had young bodies prepared inside for the [Immortal Reincarnation] trait to inhabit.
In the unlikely event that invaders conquered paradise, or if an internal accident such as a rebellion occurred and they died, they could immediately evacuate to the hiding place and wait for a chance to counterattack.
By the way, No. 31's organization members were more capable than I thought.
“Hey, I think I found it!”
“Here too!”
Even in this vast expanse of ruins, they found the watermelon-sized symbols buried among the debris one after another.
However, the results were not as good.
“Not this one. There's no sealed facility underneath.”
“What about this one? There's a spacious area below…”
“This is a warehouse.”
“Here! I think I found it here!”
“A fake hiding place.”
Four hours of wild goose chases.
The sun was already rising.
Honestly, it wasn't that the organization members lacked ability.
How easy could it be to find a specific-shaped symbol, a significant portion of which was damaged, in a vast ruin with only rubble, wood fragments, and frozen corpses left?
It was just that the self-preservationist senate bastards had annoyingly made numerous dummies when they built the hiding places.
Two more hours passed as we repeatedly discovered warehouses disguised as the real thing and empty structures modeled after the hiding places.
“…….”
I was getting a little tired.
I sat on a rock to catch my breath for a moment.
No. 31's organization members were still searching for the hiding place, but I suppose it was the privilege of a higher rank to be able to rest while others worked.
Still, I had worked without a break for the past few weeks.
As soon as my body recovered, I reorganized the city, defeated the beastmen of the Black Forest, safeguarded the Emperor’s death, and even assumed his identity to lead the transfer of the capital.
Wouldn't it be alright to take a little break?
Rationalizing it like that, I stared blankly at the search site.
By the way, as I watched quietly, the distinct personalities of the organization members led by No. 31 began to show.
Especially the woman who had found the most dummy hiding places.
Far from the average physique of a human female, she showed nimble movements in every action, just as her broad back and shoulders suggested.
She was the most eye-catching organization member.
Noticing my gaze, No. 31, who had subtly come over to rest, joked around.
“Ah, you were looking at Kale? That friend is no ordinary woman. It's because her bloodline is mixed with a lot of different bloods. I wonder if her family has a tradition of dating other races or something. Strangely enough, her current boyfriend is also a dwarf.”
“A dwarf?”
“Yes, though he's a half-dwarf. They say his father was exiled from his hometown? Something like that.”
“I see.”
“They say there's a giant and an elf among that friend's ancestors. That elf was probably exiled too.”
An elf.
Perhaps a distant relative of Karen's?
Since Karen was royalty, she might not be a relative.
Letting go of the useless thought, I looked back at the entrance of the ruined city.
The place where a grand city gate should have been.
The gate, the attached city wall, and the spire were nowhere to be seen, and instead, a deep crater asserted its presence.
It wasn't just there.
Similar craters, as if a meteor had fallen, were scattered throughout the city.
Even though I had learned numerous spells, the power that created those craters surpassed even [Infernal Meteor], which still ranked among the most powerful offensive spells I possessed.
I wonder if a crater like that could be made by gathering and dropping about four or five [Infernal Meteors].
In terms of level, it would be around level 9, and a unique spell at that.
But despite the traces of such a powerful spell, my doubts only deepened.
How could paradise have been destroyed with just that level of spell?
“…….”
The Paradise Elves were a boss-level faction.
It meant that until World Scenario 1.0, they were the ones who had often turned the entire continent into a sea of fire, no, a sea of green.
It went without saying, but they were not easily destroyed.
In the first place, according to the setting, paradise had a history of defending against an attack from another boss-level faction, the Ratmen.
They had tried to dig tunnels underground and create an underground city like in any other city, but the barrier surrounding paradise had blocked even the underground.
The strength of that barrier was well demonstrated in a conversation I had with Alina, who was filled with anger, when she asked about the Paradise Elves—the ones who had rendered dozens of the Viscount's soldiers impotent at the time.
‘That terrible race's city, can't we just destroy it with force?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because the barrier surrounding paradise is the work of a 12th-tier archmage.’
That's right.
Paradise was an impregnable fortress that could neither be infiltrated nor broken through.
To conquer it, one had to either nurture a 12th-tier mage or mobilize a hero of equivalent power.
Therefore, in most of the playthroughs where I had conquered the Paradise Elves, the strategy I chose was to isolate paradise itself and starve them out.
Although creating a siege network that could withstand the elves' full-scale offensive was not an easy task either.
Anyway, based on my long experience, a spell of that level couldn't even scratch the barrier.
It was clear that before pouring in the spells, the barrier had been removed with something else.
With something other than the spell that had created the crater.
“Uh, here! I think I found it!”
Just then, No. 31, who had gone to participate in the search again, waved his hand.
I followed and checked.
Bingo.
The senate's hiding place.
Although the sealing spell was destroyed, traces of the spell remained inside the arched entrance.
The problem was that most of the entrance was blocked by rubble and earth.
I drew my sword.
“Move aside.”
As befitting of a self-proclaimed magitool department store, there was also a type of magitool among the Emperor's possessions that amplified sword energy.
[Deploying [Imperial Green Flowing Sword].]
When I used the skill I had received from Marquis Ricardo long ago, the sword energy shot out over 2 meters.
“Wh-what is that.”
“Sword energy? Is he a knight commander?”
Ignoring the murmurs, I thrust my sword into the collapsed earth.
After stirring the sword energy, which went in as smoothly as a fork into a cheesecake, a few times, I dispelled the sword energy and struck down.
[Deploying [Randal’s Log Splitting].]
Rumble rumble rumble!
With a thunderous sound, the debris collapsed.
I jumped into the gaping hole.
It would be a mistake to think of a hiding place as the narrow warehouse one might commonly imagine.
Just as there were bomb shelters for nuclear war that were the size of a cramped single-room studio, there were also bomb shelters that were no different from a palace, equipped with a sauna, a swimming pool, and even a screen golf facility.
“Is this a hiding place? Wow, it's like a nobleman's mansion.”
The senate's hiding place was clearly the latter.
The owner of the palace-like hiding place was found quickly.
The innermost room.
A young elf was dead in a room that reeked of a terrible smell.
The body was in a gruesome state.
The corpse, mostly decomposed, was covered in mold, with only the skeleton and some traces remaining.
What was noteworthy was the damage presumed to be the cause of death.
Even based on the skeleton, less than half of it remained intact.
One left foot and one right foot below the shin, and the upper chest, neck, and skull.
“The torso is just gone, you know? He probably died without feeling any pain.”
“Did someone put explosives in his guts?”
“Ugh. Then it would have been blown to smithereens.”
While No. 31 and his subordinates were rummaging through the corpse, I looked around the room a little more.
In the corner, the coffin-shaped facility where the young body would have been stored was open.
Opposite it were a desk and a chair, and below them were dried food and drinking water.
It must have been prepared so that they could hold out in the room in the unlikely event that the rest of the hiding place collapsed when they woke up.
But there was something in the shadow under the desk.
A notebook and a charcoal pencil.
It looked as if it had been dropped under the desk in the middle of writing.
A few short words were scribbled in a hurried handwriting in the notebook.
“Elvish.”
Incomprehensible squiggly writing.
Just as I was wondering if I should go back and ask Karen, someone approached.
It was the woman with the unusual physique, the one who was said to be dating a half-dwarf.
Come to think of it, they said there was elven blood mixed in her ancestry.
“Huh? This is…”
“Can you speak Elvish?”
“I only know a few characters. My aunt taught me.”
“Translate it.”
“This is ‘east’, and this is wind? The wind that blew from the east?”
“East wind?”
“What's that?”
“You idiot. The wind that blew from the east is the east wind, what else?”
Listening to the organization members' casual chatter, I looked at the corpse of the elf who had written the death message.
The wind that blew from the east.
What did the dead elf want to say?
***
Even after discovering the first hiding place, the search continued all day.
As if they had gotten the hang of it, the organization members found about ten more hiding places.
The elven senate was composed of about twenty members.
They had found almost more than half.
However, no new clues emerged.
“Hah, it's the same this time. Should we bury it again?”
“Yes.”
They were all dead.
All of them with a significant portion of their corpses blown up or crushed.
Unlike the first elf we found, no one had left a death message.
Only the gruesome corpses, in contrast to the intact hiding places, showed the consistency of the deaths they had suffered.
“It's strange. There are no signs of a separate entry, but the bodies are smashed as if they were trampled by a giant. Were there really bombs planted?”
“The wounds are not from an explosion. They're closer to being hit by a giant blunt weapon.”
“That's true. Anyway, it was an honor to meet you, even for a short time.”
“Keep up the good work.”
I returned to the imperial capital with a few clues and many questions.
I took over the command baton from Archduke Gabir and continued with the evacuation plan.
The capital evacuation plan was completed over a total of a fortnight.
There was some commotion, such as the plague spreading in one refugee group and the evacuation order being changed by classifying them as an infected group, but that was all in the past.
Even the last infected group, whose mortality rate had dropped significantly under the Apothecary's dedicated care, left the city.
Exactly one month after arriving in the capital.
I looked down at the empty city from a hill northwest of the capital.
Now, even from the outside, the empire's flag, which no one was protecting, fluttered over the city filled with a sickly yellow aura.
I got up from my seat.
Next to me were an old grave and a newly made grave side by side.
The body of the former master of the empire, which had been preserved in the subspace, was buried next to his first love, as he had wished.
It was indeed a hill with many wild strawberries.
From this spot, the emperor would forever look down on the city where he was born and had dedicated his life to protecting.
I sprinkled dried roses on the grave.
It was about time to follow the refugee procession down.
Just then, the crystal sphere I had put in my bosom sparkled.
It was William.
A frantic voice.
“My lord Viscount, a request for support has come from the dwarves!”