Published at 26th of March 2019 2:33 am

Volume 8, 「Epilogue」

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Translator: Silver Editor: Namorax

The Great Leburan Empire, the nation dominating the western half of the northern continent.

Northeast of the Siena mountain stood the city Tishen, which had been under the Great Leburan Empire’s control until the other day.

Now, the Lord’s manor in the center of Tishen was occupied by the imperial army of the Holy Leburan Empire. The holy empire’s emperor, Domitianus Leburan Valetiafelbe, currently occupied the lord’s desk.

The young emperor had short, wavy, amber hair and his firm body filled out an ornate military uniform.

However, the overflowing ambition in his grey eyes as he glanced at the adjacent territory on the map was rarely seen in one so young.

Only one man dared to approach the room in which Domitianus resided.

This man was lanky, had a shaved head and wore thin-rimmed glasses. He bowed to the emperor, who remained focused on the wall map, before speaking.

“Congratulations on your victory, your Majesty. I am Todo Straus, chief of the Magic Academy. Did you find the 『Ring of Submission』’s performance satisfactory during the battle?”

Todo’s question put a smile on Emperor Domitianus’ face.

“The ability to control monster those rings provided was spectacular in action. We can devastate the surrounding territories with those monsters. I heard that you were the one who developed the rings. That is impressive. The west will fall with relative ease once we begin acquiring stronger monsters.”

Todo bowed his head at the emperor’s praise.

“Your praise is wasted on me. Once I’m finished compiling my field reports, I’ll return to the academy and begin working on the improved rings.”

Satisfied with the Todo’s answer, Domitianus was about to excuse him when he noticed the other man’s eyes darting across the room.

“Is there something else?”

Todo offered a small apology before answering the emperor.

“A friendly source informed me that Hiruku’s pope has been killed.”

Even Domitianus’ complexion changed upon hearing Todo’s statement.

“What!? Was there some kind of power struggle?”

“No, Hiruku attempted to invade its three neighboring countries, but one of them… Nozan… allied itself with Rhoden and the elves and managed to repel the invasion.”

Domitianus’ shoulders trembled, and laughter gradually sprung forth from his mouth.

“Gahahaha, the day the Hiruku doctrine is shaken has finally come… We need to look into the surrounding circumstances immediately. Hahaha, if the story is true the church’s influence will plummet. The groundwork for expelling the church has been laid.”

The emperor’s laughter died down as his gaze returned to the map hanging on the wall.

“…… In the coming future, the territories drawn on this map will be drastically different. We need to be alert.”

That utterance was but a whisper, but Domitianus’ mouth formed a truly twisted grin, a new round of laughter on the verge of breaking free.

◆◇◆◇◆

The imperial power of the West── the heart of the Great Leburan Empire── was characterized by the long and extensive history reflected in its streets. The people living there showed the dignity and arrogance their status offered to them. Visitors from other cities or counties actually felt that they were different from this place.

A woman, who attracted the attention of everyone around her, walked down the streets of the imperial capital with light footsteps.

Despite the dress she wore being somewhat more concealing than those of other women, her voluptuous figure drew the gaze of every man she passed.

He long blond hair, snow white skin and delicate features caused even a few women to sigh.

The attention gathering woman walked along the main street with purpose before suddenly stopping to gaze toward the southern sky.

“What, Thanatos-sama was defeated…”

She said only that… but Erin Luxuria, one of the seven cardinals, lost interest after uttering that comment and resumed her walk.

A small sigh escaped her lovely lips as she parted her golden locks.

“I knew this would happen when the dragon king appeared in Larissa… The pope may have granted me an immortal body, but there was no chance I could defeat such an opponent.”

However, no one could hear her monologue or even knew her true identity for that matter, those around her were merely enraptured by her beauty and the charm.

Occasionally she’d direct a smile to those men, but after awhile she disappear in the imperial city’s crowd.

◆◇◆◇◆

The capital of Nozan Kingdom, Soulia…… the main hall of the royal palace was filled to the brim with nervous people watching the ceremony take place.

Humans weren’t the only ones present. Many elves were in attendance, and there was a handful of familiar faces present as well.

The representatives of each involved party were taking part in the ceremony that was underway.

The three human kingdoms were present. There was the ruler of Nozan and lord of this palace, King Asparuf. Lord Branier of the Salma kingdom stood at his side. Finally, there was prince Sect of Rhoden.

The dark elf Fangas Furan Maple stood as the representative of the Great Canada Forest.

Goemon of the Blade Heart Clan acted as the beastmen’s representative.

They sat in a row at a long table and passed around parchments for each representative to sign. Once the signing was completed, they exchanged a few words and handshakes with one another.

With the general niceties wrapped up, King Asparuf turned toward the audience which had been watching with bated breath and addressed them.

“Today is the first day of a new era. Everyone gathered here is a witness to this momentous event. Let it not be forgotten that we, our neighbors, the Elves and the People of the Plains and Mountains banded together to overcome the evil that threatened this land!”

Asparuf went on to hotly speak about the country’s future prospects and about forging new relationships with the other races, all the while scanning the faces of the audience to ascertain their reaction to this news.

I was leaning against the wall in a corner of the main hall, sans my usual armor.

Ponta sat in her regular spot on the top of my head and was scratching her chin with her hind leg.

Ariane elbowed me in the side when she saw how Ponta and I were acting.

(Hey, Arc. Are you paying attention?)

While Ariane checked our surroundings, I held back a yawn as best as I could and whispered my response to her question.

(Sorry, Ariane-dono. I’m not very good with these types of things…)

When I said that, Ariane looked up at me with her golden eyes and whispered a response almost immediately.

(…… Arc, what are you gonna do when this is over?)

As I began to review my future prospects to answer her ambiguous question, a simple desire sprung up in my head. It wasn’t a bad idea, so I told her.

“When this is done, I’m gonna go relax at the hot spring.” “Kyun!”

Ariane’s eyes popped out when she received an unexpected answer, she was completely caught off guard by what I said.

Though it felt like I’ve been in this world for quite some time, it’s only been half a year since I first arrived… there was no need to worry about the big things just yet.

For now, I’ll just focus on the things in front of me.

Well… I’ll go to the hot springs first.Silver’s Final Thoughts On Skeleton Knight

It’s been nearly two years since I started this project and I can’t believe I managed to finish it. While there have been a few chapter droughts here and there, I’m happy that I stuck with this for so long. If someone told me a simple editing job for story about a thousand girl harem would lead to me translating a series to completion, I would’ve called them a liar. Since this is the last time, instead of focusing on the volume 8 alone, I’m gonna voice my opinion on the series as a whole.

Let’s get this out of the way first, Skeleton Knight wasn’t the best web novel series out there. Hell, I wouldn’t count it among the best isekai web novels. However, that doesn’t mean I think the series was bad, or I wouldn’t have kept with it for so long. Overall, I say the story is a solid 3.75/5. Considering that the author only intended to write a one volume practice novel that’s an impressive feat, but it still doesn’t make up for all of it’s short comings.

The fights scenes were serviceable at best and a repetitive drag at their worst. There were a few brights spots, like Ariane and Arc’s mock battle on the slave ship in V3 or Arc vs undead army in V6, but most of the fights took place on two dimensional plane without anything to differentiate them from one another. This problem wouldn’t have been so pronounced if Arc had the larger and more diverse arsenal the first chapter alluded to him having. Over the course of the entire series, he used a total of two warrior skills, five summons, and about six or seven unique spells. I knew he was hesitant to use higher tier spells, but having Arc fight with more than a few flying slashes and elemental bullets would’ve been a bit more acceptable in lieu of more complex fight choreography. The problems still exist for the other characters but their limited showings makes them less pronounced.

That this series wasn’t meant to be as long as it was is shown in the story’s world building. Although I have no solid proof, it seems that the series was initially meant to stay within Rhodan and its adjacent territories. The sheer number of Rhodan locations and characters visited once or twice in the first half of the series just gave off the impression that Arc and co.’s antics would be focused there. Then the world suddenly expanded in V5 and the details about the new location became less defined. Does any remember anything about the beastmen kingdom on the southern continent? It just seems like everything up to V4 was planned out and meant to go somewhere before the scoop of the story was enlarged and the plot threads in Rhoden were left hanging.

Finally, there wasn’t all that much to the “villains” present in the story. The pope was the best of the lot and that was mostly do to him being a dark reflection of Arc, but the cardinals were your basic evil flunkies with a somewhat unique naming scheme. The noble in V1 was only a gateway villain that lead to the royal trio. The beastmaster in V3 seemed like a skilled warrior and decent threat, but he suffered from a lack of build up and an immediate defeat, honestly if he managed to survive his fight with Ariane he could’ve been a nice reoccurring antagonist. Then we have Sect and the two emperors, we’ve seen a bit of potential from these guys, but the emperors aren’t even aware of Arc and Sect is still working in the shadows. While over-powered protagonist are suppose to crib-stump their enemies, it doesn’t amount to much if said enemies aren’t developed enough for schadenfreude to sent in.

With that out of the way, I loved Arc’s characterization, what little we got of it anyway. Arc avoids the overly serious edgelords and the rock stupid paragon extremes most isekai protagonist fall into. His a goofball that knows when things get serious and actually tries to adapt to the world. He didn’t let the darkness of his new home consume him nor did he remain completely oblivious to it. While he has a seemingly naive goal of uniting the races, he was willing to kill and exploit others to get his way if he had to. Don’t forget Nozan only freed the beastman because Arc made a binding contract with Lille and killed an army in front of the capital city. Sure I would’ve like to get more out of him with the returns of his emotions, but his interactions with Chiome and Ariane were always entertaining. Also, I love the fact that Arc was over-powered but not infallible, he had the power to rival the strongest beings in this world if he just learned how to use that power. It’s an idea that I’m surprised hasn’t been seen more often in isekai novels.

Despite my misgivings with the latter half of the series, the world this series takes place in is interesting and the ending left more questions unanswered than answered. The fact that this Arc isn’t the center of the universe helps with that. How long before Rhoden’s king passes and the war for the throne intensifies? Will Canada take part in the war between the empires? What brought at least six isekai protagonist into this world? How will the different nations react when they learn of Arc involvement in the war? Those were just the things off the top of my head and you could probably spin a volume or two focusing on each of those questions. This world has potential and could act as a platform for a diverse number of stories and it’ll be a bit of a shame if it’s just left there, which leads me to…

The next bit is a basically glorified fan fiction, but if Ennki Hakari decided to return to this series later down the line I have a two suggestions. It maybe a bit played out, but a short time skip might do this series some good. Let’s face it, Arc can’t be the wondering walking nuke anymore without it being repetitive and progression breaking. If there is little to no growth from Arc, a continuation would need to push him into a deuteragonist or supporting character role to a new isekai arrival. An Arc whose more comfortable with his powers and situation will open up an abundance of story lines the current Arc can’t fit into. Leave in his terrible sense of direction and his eagerness at finding rare ingredients, but touch upon his relationships with the handful royalty his on first name basis with, or really dive into sense of alienation his overwhelming power creates with everyone but the dragon kings. The existing story structure has reached a reasonable end and it’s time for a change up. At this point, Arc is a knew power player with a social circle larger and more diverse than the move set of every named character combined and the differing personalities and plights of that circle could be what draws Arc into the larger issues plaguing the world.

I could go on, but my thoughts are almost as long as the actual chapter. Skeleton Knight was a good story even if it didn’t always live up to it’s potential in my opinion. If Ennki Hakari comes back to this series I hope they are willing to experiment with new ideas and expand upon the ideas they introduced but didn’t follow through with in the series. Now if you excuse me, I’ve got to translate the story of a 40 something demigod training up a noble girl into a country destroying monster.

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