After having food, they walked around the forest together. There were some demons coming to them, but they skillfully killed them. Those Low Level Demons didn’t even last more than two rounds before they died.
Noel hadn’t shown the result of his fight since he planned to take on Anna by surprise. At the same time, he started wondering whether to kill Anna right away.
On the one hand, he didn’t have enough information to prove Anna was the one that ordered the killing of his parents. There was a possibility of her being framed by others to take the blame. On the other hand, he had to kill everyone involved in that execution. Whether it was the royal family or the Stargaze Marquis Family.
So, Noel hesitated to do it.
‘Should I kill her or wait until the investigation? But I can’t really investigate anything right now. Only after I become a full-fledged knight of the Demon Banner Army that I can start investigating this matter. But it’ll only be one year later… Is there truly nothing I can do right now?’ Noel contemplated for a moment.
Soon, a place flashed in his mind.
‘That’s right. There is that place in the neighboring kingdom. My father visited them every year, so their relationship should be quite good. They might know something about my father. Still, the journey will take at least a month, two months for the return trip.
‘We’re currently two months in. And in the eighth month, I need to go to the Sword Saint Tomb… If that’s the case…’ Noel tried to get a good formula for his schedule, not wanting to waste too much time.
Noel finally opened his mouth. “Say, we’re going to go to the ruin six months after this, right?”
“Yes. That’s the best time to visit them.”
“If that’s the case, how about using the next four months to train ourselves?” Noel asked her opinions. Four months weren’t a short amount of time. Even right now, they didn’t have four months filled with training since there were missions from time to time. So, asking her for four months off was quite a challenging feat.
Anna fell silent and thought, ‘Noel was going to the Sword Saint Tomb during that time, so I can’t change it… Then, how about making a preparation for the Sword Saint Tomb? I once visited the Moon Temple after helping them.
‘I have promised that I won’t take everything Noel had in the past for granted, so I think this is a perfect opportunity to repay it. If we go to the Moon Temple, we’ll be blessed by the moon itself and gain the Spirit Technique that allows us to see through the dark. This will be extremely useful during the night or in the dark place.’ .
After some consideration, Anna opened her mouth. “Let’s go to the Moon Temple in those four months.”
“…” Noel narrowed his eyes because he didn’t expect that Anna would come up with this idea. “Do you know what you’re talking about? The Moon Temple is known to be a temple of sadness, you know?”
“Do you know the reason why the Moon Temple is known to be a temple of sadness?”
“No.” Noel shook his head.
“That’s because they’re always building their temple in a place where there’s sadness… like famine, drought, or whatever. Whenever there’s a place experiencing such an event that causes the people to lose hope, they’ll always appear.
“That’s why they’re known to be the temple of sadness. It’s because they take their sadness head-on and try to make things better. Some succeed, some fail…”
“Ah!” Noel instantly understood the meaning behind that sadness. “So, that’s how it is.”
“I am planning to go to the Moon Temple to help them and gain their blessing. The blessing of the moon… It is a kind of Spirit Technique that allows us to see through the dark. This will be extremely useful for our exploration, no?” Anna asked.
“That’s true.” Noel thought for a moment. “But how do we help them? Money?”
“Nope. Each temple has a different problem. If we help five temple in solving their problems, we can get the blessing.” Anna paused and recalled the map. “How about going to the moon temple located in Excar City? That place should be under Baron Excar.”
Suddenly, Noel got the notification from Ardagan.
[Mission: Help the Saintess of the Moon Temple in Argali Town]
[Description: The Saintess is facing a huge problem of her life. Go and save her within 75 days.]
[Reward: Moon Blessing and 21 SP]
[Penalty: Regret.]
“!!!” Noel widened his eyes in shock because this was the first time Ardagan gave him a mission with such reward.
On the one hand, he hesitated to accept it because the reward reflected the difficulty of the mission. On the other hand, the first reward came from the temple, not Ardagan. So, he thought the only reward was just the 21 SP, meaning the difficulty wasn’t that high.
Noel thought for a moment and asked, “Say, if we help the Saintess herself, can we get the blessing in one go?”
“The Saintess?” Anna didn’t expect that Noel would mention her. She explained, “Yes, we can. But the Saintess is always helping where she deems to be the hardest problem, so I don’t think you want to go there.”
‘Saintess? You serious?’ Anna added inwardly, ‘The Saintess of the Moon Temple once defected from the Moon Temple because she was possessed by the demon. She was known to be the greatest Saintess of all time, so her falling to that path was a huge blow to the Moon Temple. The reason I could get the Moon Blessing in my previous life because I had to slay the Saintess… But that event should be two years later.
‘Does he have some information? Does the Demon possess her right now and because she’s a good person with strength and mental fortitude that the demon has a hard time controlling her? That’s why he wants us to go there to help the Saintess? Then, how in the world he has that information? Noel’s secret is deeper than I imagine… Well, in his perspective, I’m the same I guess… Since I have the memory of what will happen in the future. I hope that I haven’t changed so much history…’
“Alright. Let’s go to Argali Town.” Noel nodded with a serious expression. “We’ll help the Saintess and get the Moon Blessing immediately.”