No one had predicted it. Everyone’s attention went toward that place because nobody thought that something would actually appear in a temple that they had already completely broken down. Even Zich turned his focus to the area. Even if all their attention had been focused elsewhere, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t be able to respond to a sudden event, especially when everyone here had skills that the world recognized. Among them, Zich was especially talented.
Bam! At the sudden explosion, people stopped focusing on the new object and turned their attention elsewhere.
“What are you doing?” Zich asked in a low, icy voice. His eyes shot toward a knight that was about to pull out a sword and jump out.
“Huh, uh? What…!” Danny yelled out in shock.
The knight clicked his tongue, clutched his sword tightly, and roughly deflected Windur. Then, he stomped the ground and his body flew backward like an arrow. The knight’s target was that holy knight who had just found something.
“Are you ignoring me?” Zich asked.
Shivers went down the knight’s back. Zich’s words were full of bloodlust, and the knight’s body moved before he could think. His body twirled and he swung his sword toward the back. Yet, his sword meaninglessly sliced the air, surprising him completely.
“Just kneel for now.”
Crack!
“Kkuurgh!” The knight felt a terrible pain in his shin and screamed. His vision was quickly blurred, but as expected of a trained knight, he stilled his body before he completely collapsed. Although his shin hurt severely, he gritted his teeth and endured the pain. Yet, it was all futile.
“I told you to kneel.”
Crack!
“Kugh!”
It was the other shin this time. In the end, the knight kneeled on the floor and glanced at his legs while his hands lay on the ground. His leg was extremely twisted in a direction that shouldn’t be possible, but that wasn’t all.
Crunch!
“Kuurrgh!” It was the hand this time. The knight’s eyes were redirected to his hand where new pain bloomed. Blood flowed out of his newly pierced hand, and a sword that looked like a tree branch was stuck inside it. The tree branch looked as if it had bloomed using his flesh and blood as nutrients.
‘Ah, I was…’ The knight finally realized who had brought him to such a state. Only one person walked around with such a unique and strange-looking sword.
“Who were you again?” Zich crouched next to the knight with two twisted legs and one pierced hand. Then, he thought for a bit and said, “I’m sure I heard your name when we began. Well, it’s okay since it’s not important anyway.” Even though Zich might have been able to remember the knight’s name if he thought harder, he decided to ignore it. It wasn’t important after all.
“Why were you aiming for a Karuwiman holy knight?” Zich scowled.
The knight’s eyes rolled upward so much the white of his eyes replaced his pupils, and foam filled his mouth as he trembled.
Thud! Eventually, his body fell to the floor and rolled like a piece of trash. His convulsions worsened; anybody could tell that he wasn’t in a normal state. Zich was about to place his hand on the knight’s body when the convulsions stopped. Not just the convulsions, but the knight’s entire body stopped moving. Zich could no longer hear the knight’s breath or heartbeat. Thus, he got up and pushed the dead knight with his feet, and the knight rolled weakly across the floor.
“…He’s dead.” Zich clicked his tongue and hung Windur on his back.
The sudden outburst was over, but the knights and holy knights who had pulled out their swords while Zich blocked the knight’s dash didn’t let down their guard. Thus, they were more astounded by Zich’s calmness.
“Put your swords back. The situation is over,” Zich said.
The knights wondered whether Zich had a mentality of steel or was just stupid. In any case, no matter what people thought of him, Zich continued to do as he pleased.
“Sir Chris Nunn, who is this guy?” Zich pointed at the now-dead knight.
Danny sighed. He closed his eyes for a few seconds like he was tired. As the vice-captain of the Steel Spear Order of Knights, Danny was also a skilled fighter who had countless first-hand experiences in battles. He had also responded immediately when the knight on his team had suddenly acted out, but Zich had responded so quickly that he hadn't been able to catch up. Thus, Danny caught onto what Zich was asking immediately.
“He’s one of the members of the Steel Spear Order of Knights, but I don’t know why he acted like that just now,” Danny responded. Then, he turned to his subordinates and asked, “Is there anyone who knows why this bastard suddenly acted this way?”
All his subordinates shook their heads and Danny scrunched up his nose. What happened just now wasn’t something that he could pass over lightly. Although Danny hadn’t been able to approach the knight because Zich had acted faster than him, it was also clear who the knight had aimed his sword at. The Karuwiman holy knights were also aware of this since they didn’t withdraw their swords again to keep up their guard. Danny knew how dangerous it was to bring about conflict with the Karuwimans.
‘But why in the world did this guy…!’ Danny wanted to grab his subordinate—no, ex-subordinate by the collar and question him.
“Can we assume that it wasn’t all your guys’ intention to ambush us?” Winstin asked coldly as he looked at them fiercely.
Danny quickly answered, “Of course! We also don’t know why that bastard did that!”
“Hm!” The holy knights continued to look at them suspiciously but placed their swords down for now. Yet, they didn’t sheathe their swords, and an awkward and tense atmosphere flowed between the two groups.
However, Zich easily ignored this atmosphere and moved towards the holy knights. While both the Steelwall knights and holy knights had lowered their swords but didn’t put their swords back into the scabbards, Zich swished towards them with nothing in his hand. The holy knights flinched; they wondered if they should stop him. If it was one of the Steelwall knights, they would have definitely stopped him from approaching them any closer. However, while Zich was Steelwall’s collaborator, he was also a Karuwiman holy knight. In the end, they had no choice but to allow Zich to come closer.
Zich approached the holy knight who was holding what they found in the fragments left behind by the Bellid temple. “Would I be able to take a closer look at that? It seemed as if that guy just now was targeting you.”
The holy knight was unsure of what to do but eventually passed it onto Zich. He definitely said it was a decree with a seal. However, the size of the paper was small; it was probably a fragment of a ripped decree. Zich checked the piece of paper and his eyes slightly widened. Then, he smirked. “This is funny.”
Winstin asked, “Sir, what is it?”
“Like this person said, it’s a decree—no, a part of a decree.”
“It must be a decree from the Bellids. Perhaps, is there anything important written on it?”
Winstin’s voice slightly went up in expectation because there might be something written on it that could help him increase his fame.
“No. Since most of it has been ripped apart, I don’t know what the order was.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“However, I can pretty much clearly see the seal.”
“Would it be all right if I took a look?”
Zich passed the piece of paper to Winstin. As Zich said, there were just some words, ‘This is an order,’ and a half-preserved seal. Since all of the details of the order had been ripped off, the only information they had was the seal. However, even this was an achievement.
“It’s been damaged, but not to the extent that we can’t recognize it. If we investigate this seal more, we might be able to catch traces of the Bellids.”
“There’s no need for us to investigate. I know where that seal is from.”
Winstin’s expression brightened at Zich’s words. “Is that so? That’s great news. Where is this seal from?”
Zich glanced at Greig and the Steelwall knight. Then, he said calmly, “It’s from Steelwall.”
“…What?” A crack appeared on Winstin’s bright smile; it was the same for the others. A couple of others weren’t sure if they heard properly, but most of the holy knight’s heads blanked out.
However, Zich kindly enunciated each word and said again, “I said it’s from Steelwall. More specifically, the seal of Count Steelwall, the master of this estate. I’m sure of it.”
People fell into silence. However, this only lasted for a moment. A large commotion soon swept across the people.
* * *
Count Steelwall was sitting with a deep frown. The expensive table he used to do his official work was shattered into two and sprawled in front of him. Even though the ink bottle had fallen to a corner of the room and stained the wall, Count Steelwall paid no attention to it. This was also true for Trell.
Trell would have nagged at the Count to keep his noble manners, but he kept his mouth tightly shut. When the ink bottle had fallen on the floor, the ink had slightly splattered on his clothes, but he paid no mind to it.
“…Another one appeared?”
“Yes, sir,” Trell replied calmly, like usual.
However, the Count, who had worked with him for many years, heard the slight tremble in Trell’s voice.
“Where is it this time?”
“It’s a village in an area called Shanas.”
The Count bent his waist and grabbed his desk shattered into two.
Crash! The already shattered desk was roughly thrown to the side. The Count grabbed a map from the dust and debris that the desk used to be. He wiped off the dust and spread the map.
“Where is it?”
“Sir, here.” Trell grabbed a broken feather pen that was crushed under the debris and spread one side of the map. He then drew a circle on one side. The Count laughed in futility; anyone could see that he wasn’t laughing out of joy.
“It’s really spreading all over the estate like a parasite.” Other than the circles that Trell made, there were numerous circles drawn all over the map. The circles indicated all the places where they found Bellid temples in. Bellid was the enemy of the whole world. Even though the Bellids had their bases all over the world, they had never imagined that they would have built so many temples on the estate. This problem was no longer a mere threat, but a catastrophe that tainted the Count’s honor and threw it with heaps of trash.
“What about the Karuwiman folks?”
“They’re in the same state. They’re digging up everywhere to try to find every single Bellid temple here.”
No matter how much the Karuwiman were respected, they couldn’t search all-around a noble’s estate so frantically like this. They also needed to respect a noble’s authority. However, it was a completely different story when so many Bellid temples appeared in an estate like this.
“Moreover, they sent an official request to ask more holy knights to be sent here.”
“…The state of the matter here is a disaster.” The Count gritted his teeth. However, there was something more important than this. Even the Count faltered a bit when he asked his next question; it was a matter that even as an iron fortress of the Kingdom, he was careful about. “…How are people viewing us?”
Trell sighed and replied, “They are becoming more and more suspicious of us.”