Lord of Disease (JP-GL) 343

343: Unconditional Surrender

Surrender.

It was a fresh sound. In other words, capitulation, submission, yielding—in any case, they no longer wished to continue the fight.

“Drop your weapons! …We surrender!”

As they said, their weapons were thrown down. Swords, bows and arrows, and even the staves with gems, which were used as a magical aid.

A voluntary disarmament. —Though there was no rule that you wouldn’t be attacked if you dropped your weapons. And there was no rule that you shouldn’t attack.

And yet, they were probably hoping for the ‘conscience of the enemy.’

In a normal war, surrender was a realistic option. Not everyone fought to the death. Well, if there was a just cause, it was common to resort to ruthless means to see it through. —It was a depressingly common story, and one that was familiar to me.

And yet, if the objective was not slaughter, then it was often more profitable to spare the lives of the surrendered enemy. You might be able to get a ransom, and a prisoner exchange required a rough parity in numbers.

Whether or not the concept of a prisoner existed made a huge difference in the brutality of a battlefield. To fight to the death, and to fight until the outcome of the battle was decided, were two completely different things.

“…What do we do?” Aithys looked back at me.

I could feel the death knights below, watching me. Well, I could have left it to Rebecca or Harken, but if we were to fight to the last man, we had nothing to gain.

It was better to have as few deaths as possible.

“—We will accept their surrender.”

I announced from above.

“I am the Lord of Disease. Drop your weapons and accept your capture… But if you make any suspicious moves, there will be no mercy… Everyone, do not let your guard down.”

The air relaxed a little. The gruesome slaughter was over.

“To all enemy forces, I say. Drop your weapons, come forward, and form a line. Kneel, and look at the ground. My elite soldiers, line up behind them. —The supreme commander will step forward.”

As I had said, a single figure stumbled forward. He must have been the commander. He was surrounded by the death knights, their swords pointed at him, and he stopped. And the death knights moved behind the enemy forces, who had formed several lines.

“Take me down, Aithys.”

“Are you sure?” We whispered to each other.

“Yes. …I will show them courtesy. Remain on standby in the air.”

“Understood.”

Aithys landed Leaf a short distance away, and I, with Samarkand and Harken by my side, stood before the enemy commander.

“Then, once again, the terms of your surrender…”

“There are no terms. —Everyone! They have dropped their weapons. Do not cause them any unnecessary pain.”

I raised my voice, even louder than the sound of the griffin’s wings, which was now taking to the air again.

“—Cut off their heads. Grant them a swift death.”

“Huh?”

The heads of all the captured enemies fell, almost simultaneously. All of the death knights who had been standing behind them had immediately followed my orders and had swung their swords. On the bloodstained battlefield, the smell of blood, which had seeped from the smooth cut surfaces of their necks, rose.

“…What?!”

He, who had turned to look back and had seen all of his remaining subordinates killed in the blink of an eye, turned back to me, his eyes wide with despair and shock, and he questioned me.

“Did I ever say… that I would guarantee your lives?”

It was better to have as few deaths as possible. That was a principle of the battlefield. And a commander was only responsible for the lives of his own soldiers.

“There are no agreements regarding prisoners, and we do not have the resources to spare for the enemy…”

“—! Are you going to fight… until one of us is completely wiped out?!”

His words echoed, hollowly. I laughed, a weak laugh, from behind my mask.

“—Of course, we will fight until one of us is completely wiped out…”

“You’re mad…” He shook his head and spat, his voice weak.

“The curtain of madness has long since risen. You are a decent human being, and a decent commander… and for that very reason, you are not suited for this battlefield.”

Did he think there was a ‘compromise’? Had he been fighting… with that in mind? —With such a decent heart and logic, had he stood on this battlefield?

I felt a pity, rather than an anger. He and I were of the same race. But we lived in different worlds, and our logic was different. I could no longer hear such words.

To present a completely selfish demand as a negotiation, and then, to launch an invasion without a declaration of war against the party you had just negotiated with—there was no reason, no logic, in that. And to expect the enemy’s conscience to save you only when you had lost was, to put it mildly, pathetic.

At the very least, I would not expect the enemy’s conscience. Because there was no such thing on a battlefield. At the very least, we had not chosen to act as if there were reason and conscience on the battlefield.

“‘Destroy the demons.’ We have been told that, and have had swords pointed at us, for over four hundred years…”

There were things I wanted to protect. And they were heavier than the enemy’s lives. Heavier than my own conscience.

“…May a curse be upon your race!”

“Samarkand, grant the commander a swift death. He has surrendered. Do not cause him any pain.”

“Yes. [Sleep]. —[Word of Death].”

A sleep spell, followed by an instant-death spell. The order I had once requested. In some of the advanced countries on Earth, the death penalty was carried out in a similar order, though with drugs, not magic.

The enemy commander collapsed, and his body convulsed and then went still. I didn’t know if it was truly painless. But it was probably better than a death after torture.

It would have been a lie to say I didn’t want any information, but since the enemy was a large army, their route of advance was easy to predict, and we had no experts in mind magic to confirm their testimony. And as for torture… if we were to interrogate them, it would be Liz and Rebecca who would be in charge, but it was after a large-scale battle. I wanted to let them rest, and I was also afraid of a possible escape.

The villains in fiction usually lost everything because they were greedy, interrogating for information, torturing for their own amusement, and then trying to break them mentally.

And besides, I had ‘accepted their surrender.’ Of course, I had not stated any conditions. The fact that they had thought their lives would be spared was their own naivety. But at the very least, I had wanted to grant them a painless death.

“And besides… to think that his last words would be, ‘May a curse be upon your race’…”

It was so funny, so funny, that I laughed, my mouth trembling.

“So be it.”

I was the Lord of Disease.

Species: Human.

Objective: Human extinction.

If there was a curse at the moment of death in this world, or if there was a being who would grant a dying wish. Then all the curses would fall upon the humans.