Volu 3, Chapter Fourth Requirent of Rescuing a Princess: “The Mandatory Antagonist for an Adventure — A Cool and Handso Character”
Translator: Lucathia
After hurrying along for two weeks’ worth of travel, we once again set up camp, but tonight’s atmosphere was unlike our usually relaxed one—it seed a little oppressive.
“There’s no one who can match our traveling speed, so why is it that we haven’t caught up?” Mike finally asked Ann. Even though they were childhood friends, it was clear by his tone that he was unhappy.
As a knight, Leaf upheld the noble belief that “princesses are always right,” so he didn’t say a single word. But rely seeing how he didn’t co to Ann’s defense let know that he was also starting to get suspicious. As for … I hadn’t opened my mouth to speak for approximately three days, so everyone customarily treated as if I didn’t know how to speak.
Confronted by everyone’s doubts, Ann only left behind the words “Wait for ” before she walked into the forest. She took a while to co out, and then told everyone, “We’re already very close, but I don’t know what the actual distance is.”
The item that could locate the princess was sowhere on Ann’s body, but she was unwilling to let us know what that item was, which was why she went into the forest.
After hearing such a vague answer, Mike was still sowhat unhappy. Ann quickly consoled him in a soft voice, “Mike, we’re really very close now. It definitely won’t take long before we catch up!”
Mike grudgingly nodded, leaving the topic alone.
When it ca to sleeping that night, I tossed and turned…and still couldn’t fall asleep! It wasn’t surprising. I had slept twenty-four hours and hadn’t woken up until dusk. If I could still fall asleep at night, I would have to start wondering if I were possibly related to pigs.
After tossing and turning incessantly, I decided to leave the tent altogether. After sleeping for so many days, I had better exercise my muscles and bones a bit. If I continue to eat and sleep, and sleep and eat in this manner, this could result in a fatal consequence—becoming fat!
Mike was currently on night vigil. When he turned to glance at , I smiled at him before silently turning toward the forest. His gaze was cold and he didn’t even speak to stop . It seed he looked down on a lot.
I walked into the forest. After I used my ability to sense elents to make sure there was no one around , I fished out a dragon-shaped badge from my pocket and pressed it down on my chest. In a low voice, I said, “Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, in the na of the descendants of Dragons, I command thee, activate!”
In an instant, black, skin-tight material spread from the badge on my chest to cover my entire body, while my lower face and vitals were covered with silver scales. At this ti, I discovered that even though the plating was silver, it didn’t gleam even in the midst of the night. Instead, it blended into the darkness. When I lowered my head to take a look, I couldn’t see anything and almost thought I had no body. That scared !
…
“Even though I did command you not to speak as you please, let’s forget about that command after all,” I said sowhat helplessly. Even when “silent,” I was still aware of it, so not allowing it to speak didn’t have much aning.
Understood, my lord.
After that, I walked this way and that, picked the closest and tallest tree, and began climbing. After changing into Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, climbing a tree was practically as easy as walking. In no ti at all, I climbed to the very top of the tree.
I lowered my head to survey the surrounding terrain. I then looked above at the starry sky and found the constellation I was looking for. Once I noted the position, I climbed down the tree and drew on the ground the terrain and constellation position that I had just observed.
It’s as I expected. I laughed grimly to myself…
My lord, soone is currently using their sensing ability to watch you.
I was startled. I’d always been the one spying on others. Now there was actually soone spying on ? I quickly asked Dragon’s Saint Brigandine, “From which direction is that person spying on ?”
Your servant does not know. My lord, the watcher has already retracted their senses.
They retracted so quickly? I pondered for a mont. It was most likely Leaf. He was an archer, so it was possible that he might have later received training in sensing elents. I might have startled him awake when I left earlier, so he customarily did a search. Since my holy elent is extraordinary strong, he would have imdiately discovered it was and then retracted his sensing ability.
All right, I finished my business. It’s about ti to head back.
At first, I wanted to return to the camp. However, when I rembered Leaf’s earnest action of rembering to use his sensing after he was startled awake, I thought I should also try sensing to see if there was any danger around. Otherwise, I would feel guilty when I climbed on Leaf’s back tomorrow.
I breathed in deeply and then extended my sensing to its limits…
Suddenly, I froze. I looked into the distance. Not too far ahead, there was actually a life form that had a very, very high amount of dark elent. I’ve only ever felt this much dark elent from Roland, who was a Death Knight. Even though Pink’s dark elent was no less than Roland’s, she knew how to hide her aura…
Could this be the princess’ kidnapper? I thought back to the queen’s request. Was this a coincidence, or did the queen already know that the opponent was a dark creature, which warriors are the most ineffective against, and so she forcefully made Leaf and tag along?
Other than the life form that was giving off the dark elent, I also sensed another life form with a very strong wind elent. It was most likely a mage versed in wind magic.
I furrowed my brow and wondered, “Has my ability to sense elents grown stronger?”
After I beca the Sun Knight, the holy elent that my body gave off beca so strong that I practically couldn’t sense other elents—except for the opposing dark elent. Recently however, it seed like I could sense elents even without deliberately trying to sense them. Just like when the demon wolf with the fire elent tried to sneakily attack , I was able to sense it beforehand.
“Could it be that I’ve been using too much magic recently, especially necromancy, causing my body’s holy elent to weaken?”
If this were the case, that would be bad. I’m the Sun Knight. My holy elent can only be strong and can’t be weak. It looks like I need to start being more careful. I can’t continue to randomly use magic that doesn’t belong to the holy elent.
At first, since I’d slept for so many days, I thought I would co out, search around, and exercise my muscles at the sa ti. However, if I couldn’t use my magic at whim, I think it’d be safer for to go back to sleep… Right when I turned around, a strong “wind” aura appeared imdiately behind .
I turned my head to look. Next to the originally completely empty underbrush, there actually stood a person who was wearing light, black armor and holding a pair of rapiers in his hands. The dark aura from this person’s body was formidable enough to rival that of a death knight’s.
However, he was undoubtedly a living person. Could he be…? I blanked out for a mont before I blurted out, “A dark knight of the Shadow God?”
But I thought so more. He knew magic for Instant Teleportation. How would a knight know magic? I could not help but question him, “You know how to teleport. Are you really a dark knight?”
The dark knight also blanked out for a mont before he blurted, “Such a strong aura of holiness! Are you really an assassin?”
Realizing that both of us doubted each other’s identities, we were imdiately at a loss for words. After falling silent for a while, the dark knight coldly asked, “You’re a pursuer?”
Even if I wanted to deny him, I couldn’t. In the vicinity, except for the fugitive in front of my eyes, there was only our group of pursuers. There wasn’t anyone else around, so I also coldly told him, “If you’re a fugitive, then I’m a pursuer.”
Although we were fugitive and pursuer, we stood rigidly without throwing any punches for a long ti. I didn’t want to fight with him because the manner he held his swords felt pretty much as imposing as Judgnt and Roland’s. I don’t make it a habit to seek death when I have nothing to do.
I think he probably didn’t want to fight with either, because the amount of holy aura on was excessive enough to drown out his dark aura. He probably doesn’t make it a habit to seek death when he has nothing to do either.
If the two of us were to start fighting, the probability that I would bombard him to death with my holy light, and the probability that he would hack to death with his swords, was around fifty-fifty. Because I have the principle of not striking when I don’t have the assurance of a hundred percent victory, I decided to let him go this once!
“I don’t want to fight with you,” I said bluntly.
Having heard what I said, the dark knight wrinkled his brow. Most likely to convey his goodwill, he put his weapons away, but he still lingered without leaving. The two of us coldly glared at each other—smack!
I coldly glared at my palm. This mosquito was sure brave, even daring to fly haphazardly around in front of while I was wearing Dragon’s Saint Brigandine! Does it not know that right now my entire body is pitch black, so I don’t have the problem of worrying about destroying my white gloves?!
I used my finger to flick off the specin on my hand. When I turned my head to look, the dark knight happened to look at with an astonished face. Without any cheer, I said, “What are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen soone kill a mosquito?”
The dark knight smiled, and with a joking tone, said, “I often see people kill mosquitoes, but this is the first ti I’ve seen an assassin kill a mosquito.”
Well, I’m sorry to say, you still haven’t seen an assassin kill a mosquito, because I’m a holy knight, not an assassin.
I yawned. “Since we’re not going to fight, I’m going back to sleep.”
“Wait a mont!”
My face fell. It looked like he wasn’t willing to let go. Too bad, since I’d wanted to go back and shout out loud: the fugitive is nearby; let us go catch him quickly. Once we caught him, found the princess, and finished attending the wedding, I would then have been able to return to the Holy Temple to be a church hermit. Hallelujah!
With his brow wrinkled, he looked at and said sowhat hesitantly, “The princess ca with willingly.”
When I heard this, my heart jumped, but on the surface I still answered coldly, “Every rapist always says the female seduced him.”
The dark knight’s face fell, and then he added another alarming declaration, “We eloped!”
Bastard!
For the most part, I believed him for no other reason than the fact that this dark knight was truly damn tall, handso, and striking. He belonged to the type where “the mont a man sees him, he will want to kill him to decrease his rival in love by one.”
He was exceptionally suited to be a dark knight, because a dark knight is precisely soone who is cold-hearted and regards everyone else as an enemy… When soone is as handso as he is, he must have regarded all the n around him as enemies to have lived to his age.
“If you eloped, then why did you leave behind that letter?”
I diligently continued to struggle and didn’t accept this “truth” too quickly… With this handso a kidnapper, I believed that even if the princess had truly been kidnapped, after associating with this handso guy all day and night for two weeks, the situation most probably would have turned into elopent.
The dark knight blanked out and asked in puzzlent, “What letter?”
“…”
I’d just discovered that the situation was even wilder than I had imagined. When I wanted to ask for clarification, I heard a burst of rustling noises drift over from behind. I abruptly shut my mouth. Evidently, the dark knight heard it too.
He glanced at , took out a magic scroll from his possession, spoke the words, “Instant Teleportation,” got completely surrounded by a whirlwind, and then disappeared from his forr place with a “swoosh.”
“So he used a magic scroll for Instant Teleportation. I knew there couldn’t be that many strange people in this world who don’t match up with their occupations…”
I muttered this while I dispelled Dragon’s Saint Brigandine. I gathered a little bit of holy light and stood in my spot to wait.
“Sun!”
Leaf was the first to jump out from the thicket. He looked up and down to take asure of . Once he saw that I was fine, he breathed a sigh of relief, but still asked in concern, “Are…are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” I said simply.
After that, Mike, Ann, and Austin all arrived as well. I saw that they all looked at with eyes full of misgivings. I calmly opened my mouth to explain, “I encountered a dark knight.”
When I said that, I paid attention to all of their reactions. Mike suspiciously blurted, “A dark knight? What’s a guy from the Cathedral of the Shadow God doing in our territory?”
Austin wrinkled his brow, looking like he was deep in thought.
Ann’s expression montarily beca panicked, but she proved herself a princess. She regained her composure within a split second and even gave a concerned look.
As I always did, I gave Ann a smile. This smile clearly relieved her. She didn’t reveal any more frantic looks.
Leaf asked doubtfully, “Could it be that this dark knight kidnapped the princess?”
I smiled brightly at Leaf who opened his eyes wide, looking just like an elentary student who didn’t know what he had done wrong. I quickly pondered to myself, weighing all my possibilities, before I decided to stick to acting stupid. I answered, “Sun doesn’t know.”
Mike actually roared lowly in an agitated and indignant way, “It must be him! Where is he now?”
“He used a scroll for Instant Teleportation to flee. I’m afraid he is already quite a distance away from us,” I answered truthfully.
Having heard what I said, Mike practically reached his boiling point and kept yelling that he was going to chase after the kidnapper right now. His fists were probably itching, given how he hadn’t seriously fought for two weeks, I thought.
Austin promptly pulled Mike back and began his earnest father-to-son instruction, saying things like how the distance was unclear; how if we were to chase after him now, we might not be able to catch up with him; how we hadn’t tidied up any of our camping equipnt; how if we didn’t catch up with him, we’d have a hard ti continuing our chase…
Once we returned to the campsite, under Mike’s insistence, we decided to set out two hours earlier the next day. After that, except for Mike—who decided to stay on watch until morning, everyone else squeezed into their tents to continue sleeping. But, who knew if there was anyone who was able to fall asleep after tonight’s happenings.
Leaf and I were just such a two-person group who couldn’t fall asleep. The mont Leaf squeezed into the tent, he stared at as if he wanted to ask sothing. I quickly used both of my hands to cover his mouth, not letting him speak. He opened his eyes wide to stare at .
I pondered for a mont, and then gathered holy light to my finger. I then used a line of light to sketch out words.
“I think we’ve been tricked by the queen and Princess Ann.”
After Leaf saw this line of words, he tried with great effort to copy by using holy light on his finger, sketching out words… However, what he had sketched was lopsided and askew. It took a lot of trouble to recognize that he had written, “What do you an?”
I thought for a bit and sketched more words, “I am only certain that Ann led us in a roundabout way.”
As for the business with the letter, only having the words of the dark knight was still too subjective, so I withheld from ntioning it for now.
Leaf furrowed his brow and sketched, “What should we do then?”
I thought for a mont, and then sketched, “The two of us cannot separate. As for the rest, let’s continue maintaining our current status. You only need to continue carrying on your back when we make haste!”
Leaf very earnestly drew six glowing dots, “……”
After around an hour, Mike began yelling and roaring, waking everyone up from bed. I didn’t care too much, since I couldn’t fall asleep anyway, but Leaf was startled awake. When he climbed up from bed, his face was full of exhaustion.
Seeing this situation I felt a pang of guilt, so when it ca ti to climb onto Leaf’s back, I even wavered for a tiny mont. Thankfully, I didn’t have too much of a conscience, so I was able to ignore that pang of guilt and continued to climb onto Leaf’s back.
Once Mike saw our actions, he imdiately yelled angrily, “Elmy, stop wasting ti carrying him. He’s useless anyway. Use your full speed to accompany us in chasing the kidnapper.”
Leaf imdiately refuted, “No. If it were earlier, leaving Sun behind would have been fine.”
Hey…
“But now that we know that the enemy is a dark knight with the dark elent, we must bring Sun along with us. Only he is able to counter the opponent’s dark elent.”
Mike laughed coldly. “After eting us, what doesn’t beco dark? Corpses belong to the dark elent, don’t they?”
After hearing this, even Leaf was stunned into silence for a mont. With a team assembled like ours, it could be said that if a god blocked us, we’d slay the god; if a demon blocked us, we’d slay the demon… However, on the road, there were only worthless demonic beasts and unscrupulous adventurer teams, so there wasn’t a single worthwhile battle. Leaf, Austin, and I hadn’t even lifted a single finger. The mont we had t the enemies face-to-face, they were all trampled to dust by Mike and Ann.
Also, we’d already made haste for two weeks at inhuman speeds, and had already entered the depths of the forest, but our situation still hadn’t changed. Mike still used his fists to solve everything, never once drawing his sword. Ann still used her feet to answer all of the n who opened their mouths to assail her, and only used her two single-handed axes to dissect dinner. Leaf’s only job was to carry ; not a single arrow was missing from his quiver.
Leaf hesitated a bit before he turned his head to ask , “Sun, it’s only for a day. Can you run along with us?”
Earlier, I had sensed the existence of a wind mage next to the dark knight. Mages versed with the wind elent are experts in the Spell of Flight and the Spell of Instant Teleportation. That was probably why even though our speed was already this quick, we still couldn’t catch up. Since we couldn’t catch up, why must I struggle so hard to catch up? Unhurriedly, I opened my mouth to say, “In order not to burden everyone’s speed, please do not let Sun concern you. Sun will soon catch up later.”
“Sun?” Leaf looked at in great astonishnt.
I waved to stop him from speaking, and smiled as I said, “Sun’s heart is already set. Brother Leaf, please do not stop Sun again. Sun has the God of Light’s blessing.”
Leaf hesitated for a mont, and then spoke sowhat grudgingly, “Okay then. You be careful, Sun.”
“Let’s hurry,” Mike urged relentlessly.
I gazed at everyone’s departing backs. Leaf turned his head again and again, throwing worried looks at , but the thicket was dense and their advance was very fast, so it didn’t take long for them to disappear from my sight.
By this ti, I murmured to myself, “All right, I heard that there’s a small, isolated forest town around here. Inside…there should be alcohol to drink, right?”
It had almost been a month since I had any liquor. As a guy who has a wine cellar for a basent underneath his room, my craving was strong enough to want to directly pluck fruits off a tree and use the yeast within my luggage to brew wine.
What? You’re asking why I’ve brought yeast?
Eh…
Sotis, between wine rchants, you can use your own yeast to trade for different yeast. Do you understand?
What? Aren’t I a holy knight? Since when have I beco a wine rchant?
Of course I’m still a holy knight. It’s just that people should make early plans for retirent! I’m already twenty-three this year. I retire at age forty, but no matter how much I save, my retirent fund will be miniscule. If I want to spend my later years in luxury, of course I need to think of a secondary profession. Besides, my skill at wine brewing is already great. If I don’t develop and promote it more, how would I be able to face all the drunkards under the sky?
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