OR1-EP3: The Bloody Coat of Arms (20)

The defeat of House Shaing was fatal for the Rebels. In the melee taking place in the city of Pendragon, two important mistakes by the Rebels gradually put them at a disadvantage. First, the rebels underestimated how difficult it would be to attack the palace; the guards defending Emperor Charles III were well-trained, and they used the palace complex and facilities such as emergency escape routes to engage the rebels in a tug-of-war that prevented them from capturing the palace for a long time. If the rebels had been willing to blow up the palace or strike indiscriminately, the battle would have been won or lost - but then the new emperor would have blamed the daring soldiers and officers. Secondly, the failure of the rebels to learn of the important fact that the Breisgau were secretly sending arms and equipment to the city and arming tens of thousands of household servants before the outbreak of the battle allowed the rebels to greatly miscalculate the strength of the royalists. After Eduard Shaing announced his surrender, a mixed force of citizens and noble house servants quickly broke through the blockade and assembled near the palace with the other Imperial army. Shortly afterward, Bismarck Waldstein's forces also arrived on the scene.

McNeil, who had just carried Grand Duke of Velaines in midair and flung him around, was pointing at the gate in front of him and said to the Grand Duke at this time:

"When you grow up, you'll be able to proudly say that you drove a tank over to rescue His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, who was surrounded by rebels, when you were a teenager."

Although the royalists managed to reach the palace, the situation did not look good for them. On the one hand, a large number of rebels were still launching an onslaught inside the city, and the lone royalists were unable to persuade the nobles, who were sitting on the sidelines, to participate in the battle; on the other hand, once the rebels realized that they no longer had a chance to quickly commit regicide and seize the throne, perhaps the rebels would simply choose to go down with the enemy, turning the palace into a coffin for the soldiers of both sides to be buried in. McNeil proposed blowing up the entirety of the exterior walls and outbuildings, a proposal that drew opposition from most of the Britannian officers. His previous tactics of unscrupulously bullying Grand Duke of Velaines and holding the lives of the entire family of the Shaing hostage against the enemy had already caused panic among the crowd, and such a fellow who had no fear of monarchs and nobles might take this opportunity to do something treasonous.

"I only made a suggestion; the choice is in your hands." McNeil spread his hands to express his helplessness, turned his head and walked beside Wang Shuang with his hands behind his back, "You are putting your Emperor in an extremely dangerous situation."

"I understand, but I will be the one to bear the blame and not you." Bismarck appeared to have no ill will towards McNeil, "Everyone believes that foreigners are justified in coming up with crooked ideas, and I'm afraid that those who listen to such crooked ideas will be targeted."

Given the urgency of the situation, Bismarck devised a program to rescue Emperor Charles. The Imperial Army under his command would focus on attacking the rebels around the palace to ensure that a safe escape route could be opened. At the same time, another task force would infiltrate the palace with the goal of finding the Emperor himself and getting him out of the area. Nine of the eleven Knights of the Rounds had mutinied, and Bismarck, needing to command nearby forces, gave the task of rescuing the Emperor to Knight of Six Marianne Lamperouge. McNeil was adamant about joining the war, reasoning that the Britannians alone could not break through the rebel blockade with their own forces if they were left out of the way as foreigners out of wariness.

"The numbers don't have to be large; three people will suffice." McNeil checked the weapons on his body one last time, "The Knights of the Rounds are just ordinary people, and they will die even if they are seriously injured."

The three of them organized their attire and climbed along the towering wall into the interior of the palace. This was McNeil's first time to enter the Britannian Empire's palace, and he imagined that the kind of splendor of the grandeur is different, the interior of the palace rather than luxury rather than a fresh and elegant atmosphere, he saw most of the flowers and plants rather than gold and silver jewelry, which made him can't help but feel ashamed for the presumptuous speculation about the aesthetics of the Britannian Empire's royal family. He had thought that the nobler the person, the more obsessed they were with these symbols of wealth, but it seemed that there were always exceptions to the rule, and perhaps some people reveled in the power to play with the destinies of others rather than the wealth that came with that power.

They walked on the path leading to the middle of the palace, there were quite a few corpses lying around in the surrounding gardens, one of the corpses was wearing a cloak with a golden longsword symbol on its back, it seemed that a Knight of the Rounds had been killed on the spot by the ordinary soldiers that they usually despised here. Wang Shuang walked at the front, a light machine gun in his hand, as long as any enemy dared to poke his head out of the nearby buildings, he would first send a string of bullets to the other party as a meet-and-greet gift. The Army Colonel from Nanting Protectorate believed that no one in the world could escape machine gun bullets, and if there were, the bullets weren't dense enough.

"I still can't understand your traditions." McNeil attempted to strike up a conversation with the teenage girl Knights of the Rounds, "While it is clear that killing people with bullets is the most efficient method, and that perhaps the soldiers themselves will be eliminated from the battlefield later on, it seems that you guys are deliberately choosing an inefficient means of doing so." With that said, he puffed out his chest confidently and looked warily at the paths on either side, "It only fools yourself, no one will follow your rules outside of the Britannian Empire."

"Then spread the rules." Marianne replied without looking back.

"That doesn't sound feasible." McNeil silently drew his dagger from his back, "Trying to force a set of logic on others as you see fit is undoubtedly foolhardy, and historically but those who wished to do so generally didn't come to a good end."

"They're too weak." Marianne responded with a wave of disbelief, "That's what happens to people who presume to do that."

"Is that so?" The smile on McNeil's face stiffened, "Maybe I should try to slaughter you here, no one will know what happened here anyway."

Wang Shuang's nerves tensed up, he didn't know why McNeil would say such words, but if there was a conflict between McNeil and Marianne, he would choose to support McNeil at the first opportunity. Just as he was still considering how to not injure the other party when the two of them pinched each other one after the other, a guy wearing a white robe suddenly appeared in front of him. As Wang Shuang fixed his eyes on it, he recognized that the guy should also be a Knight of the Rounds, so he directly raised his light machine gun and shot at the other party. Unexpectedly, dozens of bullets were fired, and the man still stood still, not moving.

"Hell, I don't remember when I shot without accuracy." Wang Shuang's hands trembled a little, "This is impossible."

After saying that, he continued to shoot at the other party, but not only did that person show no signs of being shot, instead, he took a step towards them with a long sword in hand. Seeing this, Marianne Lamperouge bypassed Wang Shuang and came straight to the front, pointing at the fork in the road beside them and said to them:

"This road can lead to the same location; you guys leave first and leave this person to me."

"You are relieved to let two foreigners rescue your emperor?" Although McNeil's tone was relaxed, the grave looks on his face did not relax, "There must be something strange about this matter, forgive me for refusing."

Wang Shuang pulled McNeil and left, he explained that the suspected Knights of the Rounds that stopped across the street was too weird, even Wang Shuang, who had always disbelieved in strange powers, felt fearful. Facing a huge number or strong enemy was not scary, what was scary was facing the unknown, and what just happened was obviously beyond Wang Shuang's expectation. Since Marianne decided to deal with that difficult character by herself, the best option for McNeil and Wang Shuang was to immediately leave the scene and go forward to find Emperor Charles.

The only person who could make Marianne pay so much attention was perhaps the Knight of One. Andreas Darlton had once told McNeil that some people could dodge bullets, McNeil had only taken the other party as a joke at that time, but now he sensed that the huge body of the Britannia Empire was hiding many secrets that outsiders had no way of knowing. The fact that the Britannian Empire still valued cold weapons so highly at the peak of the Age of Hot Weapons could not be explained simply by tradition and aristocratic rule-indeed, such a ruling order would crumble in the face of an alien gun.

"They may have been able to make swords superior to guns in combat at both short and medium range." McNeil crept closer to the grassy area off to the side, where he and Wang Shuang intended to cross to rescue the Emperor Charles where he was most likely to be hiding. According to Bismarck Waldstein's prior analysis and what they had seen and heard along the way, most of the Imperial Palace had been swept away by the battle, and there were only a few places left where the Emperor could hide. Halfway there, they found the body of another Knight of the Rounds in the bushes, which made McNeil couldn't help but marvel at the fact that the rebels didn't know how to fight at all. If these Knights of the Rounds really had the military command skills to match their name, then the rebels should have let each of the nine Knights of the Rounds lead their armies to kill the royalists in Pendragon. However, judging from the actions of Adolf Nordhaug and the corpses of the Knights of the Rounds, it seems that the rebels only regarded the Knights of the Rounds as high-ranking assassins, and that those who advocate the privileges of the nobility in their mouths actually valued the Knights of the Rounds even less than the royalists.

In front of them was a door shrouded in fire, they'd have to work harder to get through it.

"I don't want to learn how to drill a fire ring like a circus tiger just yet." McNeil sighed.

"I don't want to either, and I've never seen a circus." Wang Shuang planned to put out the fire with miscellaneous items first, "That's what you Britannians watch."

The two men barely suppressed the fire with sand and dirt and the clothes on their backs, during which gunshots were heard around them, McNeil and Wang Shuang were planning to flee the scene then and there, but fortunately there were no pursuers coming behind them. After the fire gradually reduced, the two were ready, by McNeil smashed open the door, at the same time raised the gun aimed at a suspicious target in the room. In the room stood a middle-aged man in a military coat-style cloak, surrounded by soldiers who had surrounded him, and there was already a dozen or so bodies strolling ungainly around on the floor. McNeil shot at the soldiers closest to the middle-aged man as quickly as his eyes could see, and with a series of gunshots, several of the soldiers fell to the ground dead. When these soldiers with their backs to them were hit, the soldier facing the duo attempted to return fire, however at that moment Marianne, who had burst out of the door on the other side, cut them off. The rebel soldiers inside the house had all been eliminated, and it seemed that Emperor Charles, who was trapped here, was finally safe.

"It was a dereliction of duty on the part of us subjects for putting Your Imperial Majesty in danger." Marianne knelt on one knee, "Please leave here immediately."

"You are injured?" Emperor Charles asked unexpectedly. It was only then that McNeil noticed that one of Marianne's arms was hanging down at her side, dripping blood downwards.

"The mystery man appears to be dead." McNeil whispered, "Then I kind of wonder just how good this Dame's real skills are."

"What a surprise to me." Emperor Charles turned his head majestically and looked at the two uninvited foreigners in the back, "You think so too, don't you? This empire is full of selfishness and betrayal, lies rule everything from the top down, and one by one, the Knights of the Rounds who swore allegiance to the Emperor have raised their flags against him. The chaos occurring today brings us in Britannia one step closer to extinction."

McNeil saw a resemblance in this man. There had been two men who, with their unrivaled charisma and talent, had set off a rebellion against the existing order of the entire world: Yuri Narmonov and Kane. But Charles pursued different things than they did, and while McNeil had always believed those two to be unscrupulous idealists, Charles seemed a bit more realistic.

"No, you have me at least." Marianne rushed towards the Emperor to show her loyalty, a cry that made Emperor Charles return his attention to the teenage Knights of the Rounds. By the time McNeil came back to his senses, his right hand was already raising his pistol and aiming it at Emperor Charles' back. It was a dead giveaway that Marianne couldn't see him move, and the king's double beside him didn't seem intent on stopping it - but the officer from the South Court Protectorate wouldn't want the Britannian Emperor who could provide them with support to die here.

Charles III was the overlord who would eventually show his sharp claws to the world, but killing him here wouldn't change anything at all. Michael McNeil didn't believe that killing someone or making someone disappear would change history, and there had been times before when people had gambled with the fate of the world, proving that it would only backfire.

Michael McNeil lowered his pistol. He was afraid to gamble, he was afraid to accept the possible consequences. He was just a passerby, he didn't even belong to this world, didn't deserve to play games with the fate of the billions of people who actually lived here.

"Then, come to me." Emperor Charles extended a hand towards Marianne.

Listening to such almost confessional words, Wang Shuang and McNeil then sat down unimaginatively on the floor to rest. They observed the room and recognized that it should have originally been a ballroom - in many fairy tales, princes and princesses usually met in such places.

"We may regret this." McNeil said to himself.

"Maybe." Wang Shuang leaned against the door frame, "Who knows? Regret is a constant in life."

OR1-EP3 END

Chapter Notes:

Trying to play a knight on the battlefield in an era of widespread gauss gun use is not wise.

The Knight of One of this period was called the strongest of all the Knights of the Rounds by Emperor Charles, however, this so-called strongest knight was easily eliminated by Mariannne with two-handed swordsmanship at the cost of minor injuries. As a comparison, Bismarck could barely force Marianne to use two-handed swordplay even with GEASS. Therefore, I find it hard to understand why Emperor Charles still calls this disreputable Knight of One the Strongest Knight, which may be a battle between Geass and KnightMare's superpowers anyway.