And A New Mission (2)

The pilgrimage band that had been wiped out was reorganized anew, but the word “reorganized” hardly fit, because it had shrunk to a pitiful size.

They formed a new pilgrimage band by mixing those who had fled and survived during the ambush with vagrants from Coxhall. Belinz, who had arrived at the bishopric and requested aid, was appointed as the pilgrimage band’s commander.

Belinz, a middle-aged man in his forties, stared at Azadine with a prickly gaze.

“You are now a member of our pilgrimage band as well, Azadine… sir. And here is your adjutant, who will help you adapt to the Order. It is an exception for Headquarters to assign a squire to a trainee knight… but it seems you are that exception.”

“Aaaargh! Damn it! Why is it like this?! Why me?!”

The one introduced as his adjutant was Macdogal, who had been Izmilla’s armiger. It seemed he had been newly appointed as Azadine’s adjutant.

“I’m someone who, normally, wouldn’t find it strange to finish being a squire and become a trainee knight soon! In the first place, I was promised that….”

“What?”

“No, it’s not something I can say proudly. Anyway, I was promised I’d become a trainee knight if this mission ended safely! So why on earth do I have to become the adjutant of this soulless blasphemer?”

When Macdogal flared up, Azadine, who had been watching, added a single remark.

“Because you failed the mission this time?”

“What?”

“It wasn’t a success, was it?”

Belinz nodded as well.

“You’re saying you’re demoting me because the pilgrimage band was wiped out? That’s ridiculous! This isn’t my fault.”

“In an organization, rewards and punishments are, well. You know how it is, don’t you?”

“Aaaargh! Damn it all!”

Macdogal clutched his head and suffered. Azadine smiled as he watched Macdogal.

“Heh-heh. So you are my adjutant. Hey, adjutant. I need you to run an errand.”

“…….”

“Go buy some peppermint candies with this.”

Azadine flicked a single silver coin to Macdogal.

“Y-you’re serious?”

Macdogal was flustered that Azadine was ordering him to do errands in this situation. He was making it so obvious how much he disliked him, and yet he was using him anyway? Did the Messenger Clan really have no sense of social awareness?

But Azadine kept smiling and played it off brazenly.

“You’d better hurry back.”

“Tch!”

Macdogal did not salute the one giving the order, Azadine, but the most senior veteran knight present, Belinz. He bowed, then left to buy peppermint candies as told.

“Now, then. I’ve sent out the noisy one. What happens to the pilgrimage band now?”

After getting rid of the noisy armiger, Azadine asked the new pilgrimage band commander.

“We have been ordered to wait for a ship here. The pilgrimage is over. The band will return as-is to the headquarters of the Rescue Knights Order, Saint Mallory Fortress.”

“But do you even know what Saint Mallory Fortress is? You became a holy knight, so you should know something like that, shouldn’t you?”

Sephild, a survivor who had fled together with Belinz after abandoning the pilgrimage band, asked with a snickering grin. This man, a bit younger than Belinz, was openly ready to mock Azadine.

“Isn’t it the holy land and headquarters of the Rescue Knights Order? It’s also the place where the Hill of Wailing stands, where the Three Archangels and angels exhausted their power and turned into statues.”

“Well, you do know.”

“But waiting for a ship… is Nisraf coming, by any chance?”

Azadine’s voice brimmed with anticipation.

“The flagship Nisraf. The greatest treasure the Rescue Knights Order possesses—six hundred and sixty-six jangs long, made of a self-regenerating material that keeps it as pristine as new even after a thousand years, without a single barnacle clinging to it. A mysterious hull. It has neither sail nor oar, yet it is the only ship that can cross the Netherstrom. They will probably send that, won’t they? Since the pilgrimage band showed the disgrace of being wiped out, the Order will need to display its strength to recover the people’s faith. Few things show the Rescue Knights’ strength and mission as vividly as Nisraf. It’s proof of a miracle they can present immediately. I’ve dreamed of seeing Nisraf since childhood, but if things go well, I might even board that Nisraf. Heh-heh.”

“…….”

“Oh. Um.”

The Rescue Knights members stared at Azadine, flustered, as he rattled off Nisraf’s specifications without pause.

“Y-yes, probably so. Still, it’s impressive you even know about Nisraf.”

Belinz said that and cleared his throat.

“Anyway, Sir Azadine. You have been appointed as a platoon leader, and these are the members of your platoon for now.”

Perhaps his ability had been acknowledged, because Camilla, Kuntachi, and Bernard were assigned not as serfs, but to Azadine’s platoon.

“And your first mission is to bring the surviving peasants and vagrants and arrive at Vermilion Fortress on the Chadra Plateau.”

“Hm. With only a single platoon? And even if you call it a platoon, this isn’t even a full squad.”

There were at least fifty peasants and vagrants to move. Ordering so many people to be moved with only this many hands made no sense.

“Rest easy. We will accompany you as far as Saint Mallory.”

“Hm?”

Just then, a sudden commotion erupted around them. The entire city of Coxhall was shaking.

“My heavens!”

“It’s Nisraf! Nisraf has arrived!”

The Rescue Knights’ flagship, Nisraf, was entering the harbor. Just as Azadine had expected, after the pilgrimage band collapsed in the ambush and lost public trust, the Order sent the living legend, Nisraf, to demonstrate they still stood strong.

Azadine hoped, for a moment, that he might be able to board Nisraf, but that did not happen.

“Hospitaller-Knight Sir Belinz. You are hereby appointed as the captain of the escort company.”

“Pardon?”

“All knights listed here are to be transferred to the escort company and transport the peasants and prisoners to Vermilion Fortress. Afterward, you are to serve at Vermilion Fortress and await further orders.”

“T-then that means…?”

“You mean we are being sent to the Chadra Plateau as well?”

Azadine had known from the start that they would be going to the Chadra Plateau. But the other knights panicked when they learned they, too, were being assigned there.

“Y-you’re saying we must travel overland without even stopping at Saint Mallory Fortress?”

“Saint Mallory Fortress is a sanctuary, so you cannot bring prisoners or soulless blasphemers inside.”

The knight who had delivered the orders looked pointedly at Azadine. As long as Azadine was included in the pilgrimage band, they had never intended to bring the band into Saint Mallory Fortress.

“We were going to the Chadra Plateau anyway. But why is it so fun seeing the other knights’ faces get wrecked?”

Camilla laced her fingers behind her head and grinned.

“That’s because….”

Azadine smiled and answered back.

“With many companions on the road, and such a harmonious atmosphere, how could it not be enjoyable?”

On the Chadra Plateau, at Vermilion Fortress, there was—true to its name—a mine that excavated cinnabar (mercuric sulfide = vermilion).

But over the past half year, the platoon leaders assigned to the fortress had been dying one after another. At most three weeks, at shortest three days—this was already the sixth knight to become a traveler who never returned. The fortress was running without a single holy knight.

Vermilion Fortress’s soldiers were rough, vicious men—prisoners hauled in from all over the world.

The heads of those soldiers were each called squad leaders, and the most senior among the squad leaders at Vermilion Fortress was a half-elf man named Rijen.

This half-elf, with a teardrop tattoo carved beneath his eye, had received the unprecedented sentence of five hundred years for the crime of devouring human flesh—after having sex with his partners regardless of gender, then eating them.

His charges were so shocking and flamboyant that the moment he arrived, the fortress’s real boss effectively became him.

“Hmmm.”

And now, that squad leader Rijen sat at the desk in the top-floor office of the fortress—an office that should have belonged to the platoon leader—chewing jerky as he read a letter.

“Fireglyph sent word they’re sending another new platoon leader.”

“What? Those bastards are hilarious. Six greenhorn knights have already gone to the Yellow Springs in a row, and they’re not even sending an investigation team?”

Kallan, another squad leader and Rijen’s companion, grumbled.

Kallan was a former member of the Cotton Dwarf Mercenary Company, and he suffered from berserker fits, having slaughtered countless people.

In combat ability and sheer viciousness, he surpassed even Rijen, but when he entered a berserker state he became vulnerable to illusions. Knowing he was disadvantaged against Rijen, who used illusion arts, he had yielded the boss’s seat.

“Do you think any knight will come here if they’re scared? But they still need cinnabar, so they’ll keep sending idiots like this from somewhere.”

“Even if someone new comes, they’ll be a corpse right away. This fortress is cursed. Those stupid holy knights don’t look like they can do anything about that curse.”

“But, hmm. This new platoon leader sounds like they might be interesting.”

“Why? Don’t tell me it’s a female knight. Heh-heh. Then we’d have a reason to keep her alive longer.”

“No, not that. They say he’s from the Messenger Clan.”

“What?”

Kallan doubted his own ears.

“A Messenger Clansman became a holy knight? Is that even possible? That’s a soulless blasphemer.”

“Hm. I’m not sure it’s truly possible. Those tight-ass Order bastards wouldn’t recognize a Messenger Clansman as a holy knight. But one thing is certain.”

As Rijen’s lips spread into a grin, sharp fangs were revealed.

“My interest is piqued. Just the idea of a holy knight from the Messenger Clan is enough to get me excited.”

“Hey, hey. Don’t eat him. He won’t last a week anyway, but if you finish him off yourself, it’ll become a hassle. For once, hold back your bad habit.”

Kallan snorted, pulled out his pipe, and put it between his lips.

“Waaah… Sir Izmilla! How could you….”

Macdogal sobbed as he dragged a horse up the mountain path. Ahead of him, Azadine swung his ceramite longsword, Aurelia Dawn, cutting down weeds and opening the way.

“Stop crying, Macdogal.”

“What do you know? I adored Sir Izmilla! In my head, I’d already married her and built a happy family. So why….”

“Hey, keep your delusions in check. They sent the entire pilgrimage band to the Chadra Plateau and let only her slip out—how high do you think her status is? You think a commoner like you would stand a chance with someone like that? And even if that weren’t the case, she didn’t look like she had any interest at all.”

“That’s why I could have had a true love that overcame the wall of status.”

“That requires the other party’s consent, doesn’t it? Stop whining and take care of the horse. The road is rough.”

Azadine extinguished the flame clinging to the ceramite longsword and slid it back into its scabbard.

“How’s the rear?”

Behind Azadine, the armiger Macdogal and peasants armed with clubs followed along. At the very back, Camilla and Kuntachi watched to make sure the peasants did not run away.

“So far, no problems!”

Camilla’s bright voice rang out.

“Good. We’re almost there, so everyone, take about ten minutes here to catch your breath.”

Azadine ordered a rest.

“You’ve been saying ‘we’re almost there’ for a while now….”

“This is already the third break.”

They complained like that, but without anyone needing to say it, everyone sat down on the dirt road and took a rest.

Azadine smiled as he listened to their grumbling and focused his mind.

Arael’s voice manifested above his mind, looking around. From the sky, with a bird’s perspective, the surrounding terrain came into sharp view.

“Hm. Is that Vermilion Fortress?”

Through Arael’s voice, it seemed close enough to grasp. If Azadine had been alone, he would have arrived long ago, but moving along a mountain path with ordinary peasants inevitably took time.

“Hm?”

Then, through Arael’s voice, Azadine spotted a group approaching them. A force armed with crossbows and spears was coming down from Vermilion Fortress.

About ten people. It was not an especially threatening number, but the terrain was steep, and the side attacking from above held an absolute advantage.

‘It’s unlikely, but I should get out of the exposed area, just in case.’