Day 171-180/Day 174

Day 174
The Rock Hero's party is still on standby in front of the spire today. By the way, the Rock Hero carries the【God of Iron Rock's Divine Protection】. He's like a rock and he has barely moved since yesterday, except to eat and to go to the bathroom. Although it looks like he's participating in conversations with his companions, he hasn't made any big movements.
The natural manner in which he has his arms placed on his legs as he sits cross-legged, as well as the atmosphere he's giving off, gives him an appearance that's similar to a great statue of Buddha in some respects.
Since it's convenient for us if he doesn't move for this, I manipulated Snake Grandfather and the others earlier and had them issue instructions to all of the private soldiers. By doing this, I was able to move each soldier to specific locations.
However, it would be unnatural if they were fully disarmed, so the soldiers were wearing a minimal amount of equipment. We were able to suppress them in no time once our preparations were complete because part of our group was on standby with each of the royal family's palace guards, and the general soldiers that had switched sides had already moved to these locations.
I used my clones to prevent the sound from escaping, so it remained quiet outside.
In this way, we were able to arrest all of the private soldiers in the Royal Castle without wasting any time. With that done, Kanami and I left for the location where the strong people, including the elites, had assembled. While we were on our way there, we secured the nobles we found that were part of the【Nobles Faction】.
I put them to sleep and threw them in prison so that we could deal with their punishment later. In this way, we were finished with most of the cleanup less than 30 minutes after the operation began. With this, the Royal Castle was taken back from the Nobles Faction and fell into the hands of the Tomboy Princess, a member of the royal family.
After we finished cleaning up inside the castle, the fully dressed Tomboy Princess approached the spire where the Rock Hero's party was located with a ceremonial sword hanging at her waist.
The Rock Hero's party was surprised when they first saw the Tomboy Princess and narrowed their eyes in order to determine whether she was the real thing or an imitation. However, they became even more suspicious of her once they determined that she actually was the princess.
Even though they were only suspicious of her for a short amount of time, the Rock Hero stood up as he picked up his battering ram, the Hammer of Isenbal, which he had placed beside him.
That alone caused the surrounding atmosphere to creak with a heavy feeling. The Rock Hero stood up and his 4 companions followed suit as they slowly approached the Tomboy Princess.
He did nothing but stare at her with an expressionless face, and his companions were doing the same thing as they waited behind him. A strange silence filled the room to the point that you could even hear the sound of someone gulping.
The Rock Hero's greatest trait is his raw physical attack power. His robust body, which has been naturally polished through many years of combat is like iron, and the physical strength that he exhibits can rival that of a giant. Characteristic of a【Hero】, his Combat Arts and other things like it are matchless, and the Hammer of Isenbal that he possesses has a long, pyramid shaped lump of iron similar to a battering ram installed on the tip of its long handle, which brings destruction when the weapon is swung at a high velocity. 
One time, it was slammed into the face of a【Gem Dragon】, a species of【Wise Serpent/Dragon】that had attacked the Royal Capital. The dragon's hard scales were crushed when he attacked it with the hammer, and it's said that he even damaged its extremely strong horns.
If you only look at the raw power of his blows, he's probably stronger than Minokichi as he is right now. With that sort of Rock Hero in front of her, I wonder what the young Tomboy Princess was thinking about.
The Boy Knight was waiting beside the Tomboy Princess just in case he is needed, but he wouldn't even be able to defeat the weakest of the Rock Hero's 4 companions, the Indigo Blue Knight.
There's a hopeless difference in their war potential. If he received a single blow from the Rock Hero, the only thing left of him would be a single slab of meat that would bear no hint of his former self.
Despite this, there were no feelings of awe shown on the Tomboy Princess's face as they faced each other. Still, her dignified standing posture made her look majestic as she stared at the Rock Hero with powerful intentions dwelling in her eyes.
Before long, the Rock Hero would be able to reach the Tomboy Princess if he stretched out his hand, so she drew the ceremonial sword that was hanging at her waist.
Unlike a normal sword, the ceremonial sword had a rounded tip. The length of the sword's blade made it easy for the Tomboy Princess to handle, and the shine that remained on the blade did not show even a single speck of imperfection on it.
The sword that she drew is a type of sword called Curtana, and it's an【Ancient】class magic item that possesses the【Mercy】and【Condemn】abilities.
The Rock Hero exchanged words with the Tomboy Princess that had drawn her Curtana. Because the conversation between the two of them was long, a summary of it would be that the Rock Hero will take one attack from the Tomboy Princess without resisting.
If I were to briefly explain how it ended up like this, it would be as follows. Since the Rock Hero had no intention of rebelling against the royal family that he had sworn his allegiance to, he had no intentions of supporting the Nobles Faction in the beginning.
However, because the Minister was killed, he became unable to repay a debt of gratitude that he owed to the Minister for saving his life on the battlefield. For this reason, he decided to repay it by cooperating with them. He would have searched for the Tomboy Princess if she had remained hidden, and it is very likely that he would have killed her.
However, he was impressed by the Tomboy Princess's bravery as she faced him head-on, so he chose to let her cut him with her Curtana. What a troublesome person. It's not like I didn't think of this outcome, but I guess it's fine since it was his decision.
The Rock Hero really is a tough guy in various ways, or perhaps I should say he's a fool that's honest to a fault. Well, maybe I should say that he's an extremely serious person instead. Following this course of events, the Tomboy Princess used her Curtana to cut the Rock Hero.
It was a splendid blow with the aim of cutting off his head. She was able to produce a clean swing from left to right, which I think was at least partially due to the training that I had been giving her. I'm sure that it would have been fatal under normal circumstances, with his severed head falling to the ground.
However, the Rock Hero didn't shed a single drop of blood, and his neck was still connecting his head to his body. This was the result of the Curtana's【Mercy】effect.
With the【Mercy】effect, when the user feels compassion from the bottom of their heart towards the target that they're cutting, they'll be pardoned and the blade will pass through. The target won't be killed and it seems they will normally believe that the ability was what saved them.
However, if even a tiny portion of her heart has not pardoned him, the Rock Hero's head would have been completely cut off. Even with his strong defense, his body would have been defenseless in front of【Condemn】's ability to ignore the defenses of its target, though this is restricted to living things.
I can't help but think that the Rock Hero did well, since he was aware of this fact and still agreed to let her cut him with her blade.
If he had been cut, I think the Tomboy Princess intended to make me do something just before he completely died. However, he was pardoned by the Tomboy Princess. By using the Curtana with an intent to kill, she had displayed proof that she had sincerely forgiven him for his participation in the current rebellion.
She didn't just do this to the Rock Hero, but she also used her Curtana to quickly cut his 4 companions, proving that she had forgiven them as well. I'm certain that the 5 slashes would have killed them if there was even the slightest notion that they hadn't been forgiven, and all of their heads would have been sent flying. The Tomboy Princess had made her true feelings clear with this, because there had not been any bloodshed.
I think even the Rock Hero's party was surprised by this. They looked dumbfounded as they confirmed that their heads were still attached, and they felt relieved after they had done so.
At this point, the Tomboy Princess seized the opening that was created and quickly began her "machine gun brainwash talk." As I observed this from a distance, I thought that it was really dirty to be able to read minds.
Being able to understand in detail what the target thinks, desires, what they're embarrassed about, and other such things appears to suit the Tomboy Princess though, since she hasn't been concealing her scheming nature lately. I'm actually amazed that it suits her so well.
I understood that she was skillfully grasping the minds of the Rock Hero's party, similar to how one would play with a puppet in the palm of their hands.
Since there's only a small number of people that really know about the Tomboy Princess' ability, it looked like she was even able to manipulate the Rock Hero. Because she proved that she had forgiven them this time through the use of the Curtana's【Mercy】ability, they were able to have a quick discussion.
The Rock Hero's final request was that even if the current coup d'etat ends in the defeat of the Strong Grandson and his allies, the Strong Grandson is the only principal offender that wouldn't be executed. It was decided that he would be imprisoned instead of being killed.
He came to the conclusion that this is the least he could do to repay his debt to the Minister. With this, because their reason to participate in the coup d'etat disappeared, they took this opportunity to leave the fight. They said that they will pay close attention to how things develop from now on.
As she finished brainwashing the Rock Hero's party, the Tomboy Princess wiped the sweat from her brow as a refreshing, yet somewhat wicked smile emerged on her face. She then saw me lying in a prone position in a remote location, using my silver arm like a sniper rifle and my red spear as ammo.
She gave me a thumbs up whilst a smile formed on her face appearing to say that the operation was a success. She didn't look anything like the princess that had just brainwashed 5 people a short while ago.
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Category:Novel
Category:Re:Monster Volume 4