Love Letter From The Future-Chapter 366: Bread and Dagger (64)

It was the same type of armor that Senior Delphine wore.

Sir Alex’s armor seemed to possess a similar function. His trembling hands struggled as he painstakingly removed the crumpled armor.

Once he shed the twisted armor that had been wrenching his bones, he seemed to regain some degree of mobility.

His wrinkled hand fumbled inside his coat until it eventually found a potion.

Reeling from his sudden assault, I was letting out groans. It didn’t take long for me to stagger to my feet, but by then, Sir Alex had already finished administering first aid.

An empty potion bottle was tossed onto the snowy field.

White steam began to rise from Sir Alex’s body. The figure revealed beneath his armor was shockingly robust—almost unbelievable for an old man.

Panting heavily, he spoke.

“Didn’t I tell you? Armor isn’t just for decoration.”

“...Sir Alex, if you push yourself any further, you’ll die.”

Struggling to my feet unsteadily , I issued him a warning.

By now, I was also running out of options, having taken considerable damage myself.

Without the Saintess to heal me, sustaining any worse injuries would leave my survival uncertain.

Yet Sir Alex showed no sign of hesitation whatsoever.

“Haha! That would be great... For this wretched life of mine to be ended by someone like you? Besides, here in the North, by the time you say, ‘I’m going to die,’ it’s already too late.”

At the same moment, Sir Alex drew a dagger from the belt strapped across his chest—a secondary weapon, likely prepared for emergencies.

Such meticulous preparation was exactly what you’d expect from an elite who survived countless battles.

In the end, I could do nothing but tightly shut my eyes.

“‘I’m going to kill you’... That’s what you should be saying!”

The old knight once again lunged towards me.

Blood-red aura dripped from his dagger. It was at that moment my eyes flew open again.

My pupils tore vertically.

Before the old knight could even register it, crimson letters were etched into the air.

The world wept blood.

Blazing flames converged toward the wounds left behind. In that split second, Sir Alex’s dagger finally reached me.

And then a dazzling explosion came.

Boom! Flames scorched the snowy field as a deafening blast erupted, the sight of snow and moss evaporating in an instant feeling almost surreal.

There was no way any human could survive being struck head-on by something like that.

Without so much as a scream, the old knight’s body was sent flying through the air. As he rolled several times, the flames engulfing his body gradually flickered out.

That was the end.

Along with the fiery glow of death, the spark of life was also fading. Sir Alex’s body began to slightly convulse.

He was well beyond saving.

I felt a searing pain in my eyes, but I pressed forward.

Step by step, until my footsteps eventually reached in front of Sir Alex.

The old knight lay face-down, barely breathing.

Anyone could see that he stood on death’s doorstep.

“K-Kuhk... D-Dragonblood script...”

With the last of his strength, he forced out a laugh.

His arm shook violently, as though attempting to lift himself one final time, yet how could he not resent a body that refused to obey?

A knight’s end was always this desperate.

“At last, the Imperial Family has caught wind of it... Ah, Yurdina...”

With those final words, he drew his last breath.

I looked down at the corpse I had just sent to its death, then lifted my eyes to the sky.

Snowflakes still drifted across the frozen plain and my pale breath mingled with the falling snow.

Everyone’s gaze was fixed on me.

Neither the elves nor the soldiers could take their eyes or ears off me for a while.

They would serve as witnesses to my crime.

I had committed a murder.

And I had done it for the elves.

This was the choice I had made.

***The arrival of a messenger at Yurdina Castle brought news of hope.

Alex, who had alone been leading the search for the missing, had found Ian.

As soon as he learned this, the messenger tirelessly rode all day to the castle, unaware of the full details of what actually occurred.

After all, he was the very soldier Alex sent out at the start.

Thus, the messenger knew little of what had happened afterward, remembering only the wailing of the elves.

Ian Percus had lost his memory.

Fortunately, he had been discovered early. While amnesia was a rare condition, there was hope that reuniting with the comrades who crossed the brink of death with him might aid his recovery.

Naturally, certain people rejoiced more than anyone else at that news.

The Saintess, Elsie, the Princess and Emma.

They were all Ian’s women.

Without delay, they assembled a small escort force and followed the messenger. Though no word came from Alex afterward, they assumed there must have been some reason for the delay.

Alex and the soldiers under his command were all veterans, seasoned in real combat.

The elves were hardly a match for them. They likely expected that Alex and his men were focusing on Ian’s treatment in the elf village.

That was why, upon arriving at the village, they were struck speechless.

There were no signs of life.

Burnt huts and shattered weapons were all that remained in sight, any trace of living warmth having long since vanished.

Before long, however, they did find traces of what had transpired.

They found mounds of snow.

Each mound was topped with a weapon thrust into it.

A spear, a sword... and a greatsword.

A heavy silence settled over the group.

“...Could these be elf graves?”

It was a foolish question.

Yet no one dared to refute the Princess’s words.

Because deep down, they all wished it were true.

Even knowing full well that elves lacked the means to forge such metallic weapons, they couldn’t stop their thoughts from spiraling.

A faint laugh broke the silence among the women.

It was Elsie. With her small hand pressed to her forehead, she let out a series of chuckles.

As if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“No, really, why would anyone bother making graves for elves? Honestly, you’re all way too soft... Anyway, where’s our master?”

She posed the question with a bright smile, yet no answer came.

Even so, Elsie didn’t drop her smile.

But her lips quivered, and before long, her blue eyes grew frigid.

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Her voice came out, heavy with suppressed emotions.

“Where is our master? Find him... I said, find him immediately!”

At that sudden, near-hysterical command, the soldiers scrambled to ready themselves to take action.

It seemed they intended to begin the search from this point onward. However, there was a more pressing matter to address first.

“...Dig them up.”

With two conflicting orders issued, the soldiers hesitated, glancing around nervously.

Elsie bit her lip and glared at the one who had given the second command.

It was Yuren.

Among those present, he was practically the only one still maintaining composure.

“Let’s dig up these burial mounds. Every one of them.”

“Hey, you escort knight. Did you not hear me? I said to find our master first...!”

“Elsie, stop acting like a fool.”

It was a remark that bordered on mockery.

Still, it was remarkably effective. Elsie’s fiery temper was instantly doused.

All she did now was gnaw on her lips.

Perhaps unable to think of a decent retort, she merely scoffed and turned away with a haughty expression.

She tried to hide it, but it was clear.

Elsie was afraid—afraid of confirming the truth.

And it didn’t take long for that fear to manifest itself as reality.

Inside the excavated graves lay frozen corpses.

They were  Sir Alex and his men.

Seria collapsed after seeing the lifeless body of the loyal knight who had been by her side since childhood. Falling to her knees, she covered her mouth and let out a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a gasp.

“A-Ah... S-Sir Alex? H-how could this...?”

Who was Alex?

A knight universally recognized as a loyal vassal of Yurdina and a trusted figure entrusted with military command by the Marquis Yurdina himself.

For decades, his unrelenting bravery, demonstrated across countless battlefields, earned him a reputation as a role model for the Northerners.

And yet, he was dead.

Few Northerners could remain unaffected by such news. The wide, disbelieving eyes of the soldiers said as much.

However, the truth that ought to truly shake them was yet to come.

One of the soldiers inspecting the bodies let out a shout.

“A—A will! There’s a will here! Looks like it was written just before they died....”

Before the soldier could even finish speaking, the crowd surged toward the spot.

Sure enough, there were words scrawled as if written moments before death.

A short sentence was etched into the frozen ground with blood.

The blood dried into a dark smudge, but the words were still just legible if one looked closely enough.

One of the soldiers cautiously began to read the words aloud.

“Let’s see, Ia... Ian? Ah! Ian Percus has...”

But he couldn’t bring himself to finish reading.

In the silence, the sound of someone nervously swallowing echoed.

The soldier nervously glanced around. But by then, all eyes were fixed on the words, and there was no turning back.

In the end, he tightly shut his eyes and stammered through the rest of the sentence.

“I—Ian Percus has....”

“...betrayed humanity.”

Someone completed the soldier’s sentence in a dazed murmur.

Every gaze turned toward the source of the voice. There, a lone woman with silver hair stood.

“This can’t be...”

She stood there, paler than anyone else.

Struggling to accept that the man who had lost his memory had now become their enemy.

Misunderstandings piled up like snow and the story was now drawing toward its final act.