The Pilgrims’ Ordeal (1)

The annual pilgrimage.

It had been the Rescue Knights Order’s yearly rite. The Rescue Knights had normally trained in each sector of the Hubris Peninsula, and once a year, through a regular pilgrimage, they had watched the forces of evil and borne the noble mission of spreading mercy across this land—protecting the people from poverty and suffering, and from wicked magic.

But when the Age of Jupiter had not come, the meaning of the annual pilgrimage had been corrupted.

The pilgrimage band had escorted food produced on the Hubris Peninsula to the outside world and set out to perform relief work. Yet relief had been only a pretext; the real objective had been to collect wanderers, vagrants, and criminals. In truth, it had been a supply run for serfs.

Knights had needed serfs to run their manors, and marriage and childbirth among serfs alone had not met demand. In brutal working conditions, serfs had died unnumbered.

Thus, those who had known the truth behind the Rescue Knights Order’s annual pilgrimage had sneered at them as legal slave traders and held them in contempt.

Of course, that contempt had to remain sealed in their chests. If they had let it spill outside, the Rescue Knights Order’s blades would not have forgiven them.

No matter how much the Rescue Knights Order had been considered a cut below the King’s Church, the fact remained: they had worn steel armor and had been armed with gleaming spears and swords.

And yet, at times, a day came when even the Rescue Knights Order’s spear and sword could not protect their honor.

Harabos, located in a southern tributary of the Kerim Mountain Range, had been a city of dwarves.

Having arrived at Harabos by ship loaded with grain, the pilgrimage band had sold off the grain and, after finishing their relief work, had been heading back to the Hubris Peninsula along the overland road.

In every village on the way back, they had “taken in” the children of farmers with no land to inherit, those imprisoned in jails, and those accused as witches who had no property—so poor there hadn’t even been money for the firewood to burn them. Their numbers had swelled.

Then, out in the wasteland far from the great cities—the symbols of human civilization—they had felt a strange gaze.

Someone had been tailing them. Wherever they went, blatant traces of camps had been left behind, and the corpses of beasts and magical beasts had been discarded.

The leader of the pilgrimage band had selected one squire and sent him out as a scout. When the scout still had not returned after half a day, they had proceeded as planned—and soon had found the squire, his body torn to shreds, hanging from a tree.

At that moment, the tree had risen.

A wicked spirit had dwelled within it, and it had transformed into a gigantic monster.

With a single punch from the tree spirit, a horse had collapsed, and the body of the servant riding it had been smashed. The startled pilgrimage band had fought the tree spirit and had finally won.

A battle with a giant tree monster, and a victory—normally, the sort of proud war story Rescue Knights would have boasted about over drinks. But they had felt no joy at all.

Because they had realized the ambush had only been the beginning.

From that day on, the pursuer had attacked the pilgrimage band openly. Each night, thick fog had rolled in, and when the sentries had wandered into the fog as if enchanted, they had been found as corpses the next morning.

And that wasn’t all. From within the dense fog, they had heard women’s seductive laughter—then, when they had come to their senses, the pilgrimage band’s numbers had somehow dropped again.

The serfs and peasants with free feet had vanished one by one—whether they had fled into the fog, or had been bewitched and killed by the monsters within it—until in the end only the prisoners locked in the jail wagons and the pilgrim knights had remained.

The commander of the pilgrimage band had turned toward the nearest city to seek rescue, but the more he had tried, the thicker the fog had become, and the stronger the enemy’s attacks had grown. Then, a young female knight of the band had proposed a dangerous alternative.

She had produced the Emperor’s gold coin.

The pilgrimage band’s commander, Beljuan, had been a seasoned Rescue Knight. His rank within the Rescue Knights Order had been Hospitaller-Paladin—the captain of a cavalry detachment.

They were treated as inferior to the King’s Church, but a Hospitaller-Paladin was never someone to take lightly.

It had not been a position one could reach by mere luck; to become a Paladin, one had needed recognition for extensive battlefield experience and the ability to command.

Yet the commander, who had accumulated all that experience, had been afraid.

He had fought countless monsters and many followers of the Kurt God Clan, but he had never faced anything like this.

He could not even grasp what the threat was—yet the enemy had borne clear malice, calmly cutting away their limbs bit by bit.

Just as they had been at a loss for how to respond, a subordinate had brought him a reckless plan.

“Please, Commander. Let me use this.”

A beautiful girl with black hair and blue eyes had stared straight at him. In her hand, she had held a heretical object.

The Emperor’s gold coin.

A sinister gold coin said to summon the evil spirits—the Emperor’s messengers—who had served Emperor Yaeslat, the ruler who had once controlled the Hubris Continent.

“Sir Izmilla. Do you understand what that means?”

The girl’s name was Izmilla. Her rank was Hospitaller-Errant, a trainee knight.

Yet she had been clad head to toe in dwarf-forged armor, armed with an azure-steel shield and a ceramite longsword. It was not gear a mere trainee knight could obtain.

She must have come from an extraordinarily powerful household, then for some reason taken vows and joined the Rescue Knights Order. That was the only explanation that fit—and now she had abruptly produced the Emperor’s gold coin.

“That is the Emperor’s gold coin. A tool that calls the soulless blasphemers. The moment we use it, our pilgrimage will be defiled. And even if we use it, there is no guarantee we will live.”

Of course, the commander was not truly repulsed by the Emperor’s gold coin.

No—he did feel repulsion, but not strongly enough to disregard his life. If he could survive, he wanted to do anything.

But from his position as commander, dying to an unknown enemy or being purged later for using the Emperor’s gold coin had been much the same.

‘Izmilla, you fool. If you were going to take responsibility, that would be one thing—but do you think I’m insane enough to approve it? Just use it yourself and report it afterward!’

The commander had suffered under Izmilla’s naïveté—she lacked the political sense for rhetorical maneuvering. It seemed it was time to show his own seasoned cunning.

“Do you think I do not understand the yearning of the young under my command to live? However, my faith commands that one must serve virtue wholly, rather than borrow the power of blasphemers. In truth, merely possessing such a thing should earn my reprimand—yet is it not the privilege of youth to wander in temptation? Sir Izmilla. Only someone young and promising like you may dare such an exception. An old man like me could never….”

‘If youngsters do it, the higher-ups will forgive it. More importantly, you look highborn—whatever you do, the lofty ones will find you adorable.’

He had dressed that meaning in a long-winded speech. And just as he had been making excuses to avoid responsibility, hail had suddenly begun to pour down over their heads.

“Aaagh!”

“W-What is this?!”

“B-Blood hail!”

“Blood hail? Blood magic?!”

The knights, raising their shields against the pelting hail, had screamed.

“Commander, I beg you again! Please let me use the Emperor’s gold coin!”

Izmilla had pleaded with the commander, holding her azure-steel shield aloft.

Then, from among the criminals locked inside the wagon, a young woman’s voice had rung out.

“Hey, you idiot! That old geezer is saying, ‘I don’t want responsibility, so you go do it yourself.’ How can you not get it?”

“What?!”

Izmilla had glared at the criminal who had hurled those insulting words at her. The woman had been sitting cross-legged under the “roof” of a large man’s body.

“Ah… it hurts, sis.”

“Shut up and take it, big guy. I won rock-paper-scissors. And you know this is nothing for that sturdy body of yours.”

In truth, the man had possessed a massive, musclebound body—like some ancient god’s statue.

A half-orc. Among those born of orc and human, some inherited not the orcs’ astonishing intelligence but only their cursed, muscular frame—and this man was one of the worst examples.

“Still, about that game… Isn’t it unfair you said it doesn’t count as a ‘rock’ because I’m missing my pinky? You always win.”

“You keep losing because I’m good at the game. ‘Rock’ means all five fingers out. Got it?”

“I hate that game.”

“It’s our family tradition. Shut up and do it, you idiot.”

This woman had been using her hulking half-orc younger brother as a shield while she sat beneath him.

“Excuse me—you were speaking to me just now? Insulting me is one thing, but insulting the faith of Sir Beljuan, commander of this pilgrimage band—”

“Ahem. Sir Izmilla. This is not the time. Protect our comrades. We do not know when the enemy will strike.”

“…Pardon?”

Izmilla had been taken aback by the commander’s response—suppressing her interrogation in this situation. Did that not mean the bandit woman had been right?

“Commander. Then are you saying I may use the Emperor’s gold coin?”

“Ahem.”

“…….”

Izmilla had begun to hesitate, watching Sir Beljuan’s mood. She had been the one to produce the coin, but seeing her commander so blatantly refuse responsibility had made her uneasy as well.

Unable to watch any longer, a young cleric stepped forward. Not a Hospitaller, but a young man who served as the Order’s archivist had drawn a triangular magic circle on the ground.

“Sir Izmilla. Forgive my presumption, but may I ask whether I might dare to use the Emperor’s gold coin in your stead—and bear that responsibility?”

“Ah… Lord Macdogal.”

“If summoning the Emperor’s messenger is an evil sin of selling one’s soul, then I will bear that sin alone. I will take responsibility as well. Of course, I do not know whether a lowly man like me may bear such responsibility—but with everyone’s lives hanging by a thread, how could I prize the safety of this single body? Only… if, as the rumors say, the Emperor’s messenger is the coin’s demon—”

“…….”

He talked far too much. Finally losing patience, Izmilla placed the gold coin directly atop the magic circle. As the coin settled within the triangle, the circle flashed and began to glow with a faint light.