I Became a Level -99 Vicious Lord

Chapter 113

*Thump!* *Thump!* *Thump!*

Ten thousand statues advancing at a steady pace.

“Everyone, prepare for battle!”

The magic swordsmen drew their swords in unison and began chanting.

“So many of them. Hahaha. Apparently he feared his grave would be robbed because of all his sins.”

Kairos summoned the wraith knights by activating the [Phantom Armor].

But just one person.

Instead of preparing for battle, Otto rubbed his chin with his hand and pondered.

‘Do I have to fight this?’

As he thought about it, he wondered whether it was necessary.

‘It’ll take an entire year. There’s no sense in it. There’s a huge disparity in numbers. If we fight, we’ll have to bring our troops, who are waiting outside, down here, and then if the tomb collapses, we’ll all be buried alive. There has to be a way.’

However, Otto didn’t know specifically what to do.

Since this was his first time stealing from the tomb of Emperor Argonne, Otto could only try his hand at it.

In that case….

‘Let’s find out their weaknesses.’

Otto used his Clairvoyance skill to scan the approaching statues.

It was like an x-ray….

‘Oh my.’

Otto grinned as he spotted a fist-sized gemstone embedded in the center of the statue’s chest.

‘That’s right. Golems have a core.’

Most golems lose power when their core is destroyed.

Since these statues are also a type of golem, all they have to do is destroy the core.

“Just aim for the center of the chest, don’t fight it, the core is in the center of their chest!”

With that, Otto thrust his sword at the statue, which was now in front of him.

*Boom!*

Otto’s sword pierced the center of the statue’s chest.

*Crack!*

The core of the golem exploded, shattering the statue into pieces.

The strategy is not to engage in confrontation, but to destroy the core in the center of the chest.

“Advance forward, targeting its weaknesses!”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

Otto and the magic swordsmen broke through the center of the horde of statues head-on.

There was no need to fear the enemies as long as they knew their weaknesses.

“Oooohhh.”

Kairos ordered the Wraith Knights, mirroring Otto’s tactics.

“Aim for the center of their chests.”

Hundreds of wraith knights began to concentrate on the center of the statues’ chests.

*Boom! Pow!* *Boom! Pow!* *Boom! Pow!* *Boom! Pow!*

The statues that approached Otto’s group were quickly blown apart without even being able to unleash their combat power.

Their skills were so great that once the weakness was exposed, they were nothing more than empty scarecrows.

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With that, Otto and his men performed the miracle of Moses, breaking through the nearly 10,000 statues at a breakneck speed.

After about half an hour of furiously breaking through, Otto and his group reached the entrance to the tomb where the remains of the Great Argonne rested.

*Boom!* *Crash!* *Rumble!* *Boom!*

Of course, not all of the statues have been destroyed.

“Six men in groups of three. Take turns guarding the entrance.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Otto ordered the six magic swordsmen to guard the narrow entrance and made a straight run toward the mausoleum.

The entrance was narrow enough that if three of them took turns guarding it, they would be able to keep the statues at bay.

“My…. My eyes!”

When Otto reached the next passage, he was momentarily blinded and covered his eyes.

The reason was simple.

*Glitter!* *Shiny!*

All sorts of valuables and precious gold and silver treasures were piled up like mountains, and the sparkle caused him to lose his sight for a moment.

“Ugh.”

Otto barely managed to open his eyes from the brilliance, and looked around.

The result.

“Wow, how much is all this?”

Otto couldn’t tell if he was in a dream or in reality.

The sight of 10 kilograms of gold bars stacked up to 15 meters high in this open space made him doubt his eyes.

That wasn’t all.

It was hard to count the number of treasure chests filled with jewelry and other valuables.

The amount was astronomical.

The gold bars alone must have weighed well over several hundred tons. ….

‘Was this possible?’

In Otto’s memory, Julius would occasionally stockpile grain, iron, horses, livestock, etc., only to sell them back at a premium, or even monopolize certain items.

It was a common pattern for Julius to use his economic power to buy favor with his host monarchs by supporting them as bait.

It turns out the considerable financial power came from selling off the vast amount of gold bars and precious items here bit by bit.

Of course, not just anyone with a lot of money can do that….

What good is money if it’s not backed up by a high level of business acumen, extensive connections, and resourcefulness?

“You son of a bitch!”

Kairos burst out.

“What the hell are you doing being such a hothead? What’s your problem?”

“Where did that Argonne bastard get all these treasures, except from the blood of the people!”

“Huh?”

“If this bastard stole his way to the throne, he should at least do a good job as emperor! It’s bad enough that he built such a huge tomb, but now he’s storing all this gold and silver treasure in his tomb? Shouldn’t this amount of money have been enough to help the country’s economy? What the hell did he do with it?”

“Oh?”

Otto was honestly a little surprised to hear Kairos speak in such a monarch-like manner for the first time in a long time.

“It could have been used to fund the Northern Expedition!”

“…It’s that damned Northern Expedition again.”

Otto rolled his eyes as Kairos cast another well-placed shift.

‘That damned Northern Expedition.’

‘Did you put honey on the north or something?’

‘Why are you so obsessed with the north?’

In the past, Kairos had been known to become so obsessed with the Northern Expedition that he lost his grip on the people, becoming completely insane and committing tyranny in the process.

The history books describe his obsession with the Northern Expedition, a matter that hadn’t even fully unified the continent, as giving rise to a rebellion.

‘But it’s vague. Was it a mistake, in hindsight, no, it was more like foresight.’

Another way to look at it is that Kairos’ Northern Expedition was also his greatest achievement.

The Great Wall, the massive barrier that Kairos built for the Northern Expedition, was the last line of defense against the barbarians of the north and the Northern Empire.

Even that was said to be the work of the Great Emperor Argonne….

Anyway!

” That’s enough. Let’s keep going.”

Otto was eager to see more of the treasures and kept his stride even as he walked.

“Wow.”

The next room was the armory, where all sorts of armor and weapons were lined up.

There wasn’t anything particularly spectacular in the armory, but it was still more than enough to arm a few knights.

“Here it is.”

Among them were dozens of suits of armor made of [Obsidium], the material Kairos had been looking for.

It was enough to turn Agatho, Hildegard, Maximus, and the other Wraith Knights into Death Knights.

“Hey! Do you see any hope for your men?”

“Hehehe, those that will be, will be! Hahahaha!”

Kairos rejoiced like a child at having the first preemptive step toward giving his subordinates physical bodies.

Kairos had always felt guilty about his men, and now that he had found a way to give them flesh, he couldn’t help but be happy.

“That’s it, then….”

Otto gestured toward the mausoleum in the distance.

Toward the resting place where the remains of Argonne rested…

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Inside the tomb were two coffins.

The coffins were made of an unknown metal, pure white in color, and ornately embroidered with golden inscriptions.

『For death is but another great journey.』
『For here I sleep with my eternal companion, and here we shall be reunited.』

The tombstone bore the words that Argonne the Great had carved himself in his lifetime.

‘He’s completely engrossed in having fun.’

Otto snorted at the words.

‘But why are there two coffins? This one belongs to the bastard Argonne, and the other to….?’

Otto turned and looked at the coffin to his right.

And then.

“…….”

Kairos was looking down at the coffin to his right, expressionless.

Out of character….

‘What’s wrong with him.’

Otto noticed that Kairos’s expression was 180 degrees different from his usual one and realized something was wrong.

‘Wait a minute. If she’s sleeping with the emperor… she’s the empress.’

When Otto’s thoughts went that far.

“…Were you happy?”

Kairos’ voice was wistful.

*Shiver!*

Suddenly, Otto shuddered with goosebumps all over his body and jerked to his feet.

‘Ugh! You’re so unbearable!’

Although he don’t know what happened, one thing is certain.

Kairos had his heart set on the person sleeping in the coffin to his right.

And that she was buried here in the Imperial Mausoleum as the Empress of the Empire, the wife of the Great Argonne.

‘It’s bad enough that your brother-in-law stole your country, but now he’s stolen the woman you love, too, my brother. After all your pretenses of being a man of the world, you’ve turned out to be a brat.’

Not sure of the exact details, but from the looks of things, it seems likely.

He’s been sucked dry, all the way down to the marrow, by his half-brother, Argonne….

“I’ll be out for a while.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Otto cleared the mausoleum for Kairos for a moment.

‘You’ll need some time alone.’

And with that, Otto hunkered down in the armory, fooling around with the magic swordsmen to pass the time.

And then.

“What… What the hell!”

Otto jumped to his feet at Kairos’s shout from inside the tomb.

“Hey, what’s going on!”

“What, what is that!”