“I thought you would be here, sir,” Glen said while grabbing Zich’s hands and lightly shaking them. He still kept a certain distance, but Glen appeared happy to see Zich. From an outsider's point of view, it looked like Glen was happy to have some additional support and wished to avoid unnecessary conflicts. Yet, Zich didn’t think the same way.
‘This guy is scheming something.’ Zich thought Glen might have something he wanted to show him. Zich didn’t know what that exactly was, but he was certain that Glen’s reason for wanting to show him something wasn’t to make him happy.
‘The first thing I can think of is him bringing up something that connects the Steelwalls to the Bellids and mocking me with it,’ Zich thought, but that didn’t seem to be entirely the case. ‘Well, he seems really eager to show it to me, so I will eventually end up seeing it anyway.’
Then, Glen also shook Lubella and Weig’s hands in order. He returned to where he had been heading. Lubella and Weig’s eyes chased after Glen’s back, and he soon turned to the people waiting for him.
‘As expected, there’s Windne too.”
“Yes, Saintess. We also missed another face,” Weig said sarcastically, clearly showing his disdain.
“Are you talking about Sir Winstin Dyner?” Zich asked.
“You know about him, Sir Zich?”
“A couple of days ago, I went to destroy Bellid temples and met a small group of holy knights in the process. The person who led the group was him.”
“It seemed like he acted as soon as he saw a chance to accumulate merits, just like the greedy wolf he is.” Weig scowled blatantly. It was unusual for someone of Weig’s character to show such open disdain toward a person.
“You have a very poor opinion of the man.”
“Besides, whether I like him or not, he’s the one who guarded Chelsea Widne while she was still a Saint Candidate.”
Zich then looked back and forth between Chelsea and Winstin and commented, “They don’t appear particularly close considering their past relationship.”
Although the two were conversing, they appeared to be very distant and indifferent to each other; it was unthinkable that their relationship had once been one between a guarding knight and Saint Candidate, especially now.
“It’s probably because they both have no trust in each other. Winstin Dyner dislikes me because of his jealousy and greed. He doesn’t shy away from using any means possible to overpower me, and that was the reason why he became Chelsea's guard knight. He probably wanted to bring me down by supporting Chelsea as the next Saintess. Of course, he failed.” Weig appeared happy when he mentioned the part about Winstin’s failure and made it clear much he disliked the man.
“Of course, Chelsea Windne must have joined hands with him since she had nothing to lose. Like attracts like, and they were a match made in heaven. After Lady Lubella became the Saintess, the relationship between the two is as we see it now. I bet they both are blaming each other for their current situation.”
“If that’s true, then there is clearly a huge hole in the Karuwiman’s human selection process.”
“Yes, those two are the greatest reason why I thought your words hold merit.” Weig was referring to Zich’s previous conversation about Glen’s unfitness for his holy knight title.
‘I owe those two.’ Zich thought about Chelsea and Winstin, but of course, he didn’t plan on paying back what he owed them. Then, Zich looked around the temple.
“It’s strange.”
“You think so too?” Lubella seemed to have had the same thought as Zich and she nodded at Zich’s comment. “There’s no water here.” A body of water, which was one of the requirements for a Bellid temple, didn’t appear to exist in this place.
“Is there perhaps a big lake outside of the cave?”
“None that I know of,” Lubella replied. Since she lived near Violsa, she knew the place’s general terrain. There was a large river that people in Violsa used as their main source of water, but it was located on the opposite side of the city center. In the first place, the reason why people failed to quickly find this huge temple was because of the lack of a body of water. Normally, when they were looking for Bellid temples in an area, they searched for all places where there was water and investigated the surrounding area. Yet, the place that Glen found didn’t have enough water to support a Bellid temple. Furthermore, the size of this temple was quite large, so the body of water near it had to also be large.
‘There’s nothing.’ When Zich had first heard that Glen found a temple in this region, he had expected to see an enormous lake like the one that had existed in the Bellid’s northern base. Yet, no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find water near the temple’s surroundings.
“A Bellid temple stationed in a place without water… How should we think about this situation? Do the Karuwimans know something about this?”
“I don’t know about it.”
“I also have never heard of such a case. Although I have spent a long time getting rid of the Bellid bastards, it’s my first time seeing a Bellid temple without water nearby.”
Both Lubella and Weig appeared skeptical. One could think that they might have simply never heard of such a thing, but Lubella was a Saintess who remembered all sorts of records and history about the Bellids that the Karuwimans had gathered, and Weig had spent his whole life fighting the Bellids to the point his nickname was the Bellid Exterminator. The fact that even those two didn’t know about this case showed how unique this temple was.
“As I thought,” Zich said.
“How did Sir Zenard find a temple like this? Almost everyone has been searching near the capital,” Lubella asked. Normally, she would have just brushed off the matter and been impressed that the Karuwiman Honorary Holy Knight had managed to find a Bellid temple, but now, Lubella had doubts regarding Glen’s behavior. It was clear that she was influenced by Zich’s assessment of Glen. It was the same for Weig, but the two cautiously approached the topic.
“It really is strange, but that doesn’t make him suspicious since he could’ve been looking somewhere else after seeing that everyone was searching near the capital.”
Zich also agreed and thought, ‘The excuse that Glen prepared must also be similar.’
However, it was an extremely encouraging sign that Lubella and Weig were both suspicious of Glen. Zich planned to slowly shatter Glen’s perfect image like this and bring to light his true character. ‘Is there anything more rewarding than that?!’
Just thinking about reaching this goal made Zich’s heart feel more relaxed and lowered his stress. On the other hand, this was not the time to immerse himself with happy thoughts.
“Let’s ask Mr. Zenard questions later on and first focus on preparing for battle.”
His companions nodded.
* * *
Glen gathered a great number of people with the excuse that the Bellids were planning to retaliate against them, but honestly speaking, it didn’t seem like this was necessary.
Bamm! The mana inside Glen’s Tornium swirled fiercely inside. As expected of a demon sword that greedily sucked away its owner’s mana, it let out an overwhelming amount of explosive power.
Crashhhh!
“Aghhh!”
“Ugghhh!”
The Bellid followers blocking Glen’s way flew off as if they were leaves being swept away by a tornado. Their bodies were shattered into pieces, and their bloody organs scattered in the air. Judging by this sight, it was extremely doubtful that they would be able to live. Even after this, Glen continued to push back the Bellid followers with enormous force. Many people expressed their admiration for his amazing skills.
Zich carefully watched Glen’s fight. ‘He’s gotten stronger.’
Moreover, he didn’t get just stronger. The last time he had seen Glen Zenard, his skills weren’t even at Hans’ level. However, it was different now. ‘Hans won’t be able to handle him. In a way, his sheer power might be even stronger than mine.’
Of course, Zich didn’t think that he would lose to Glen. However, it was clear that Glen’s strength had significantly increased.
“That person is strong,” Weig said as he cut a Bellid follower in two and looked at Glen. He seemed to be impressed by Glen’s strength. However, he didn’t only compliment Glen. “However, there seems to be something off about him.”
“I also think the same.” It was impossible for someone to exponentially increase their strength as much as Glen. Even though Zich had gotten strong at an incredibly fast speed and was still getting stronger, he had nevertheless gone through a normal process. He did use a shortcut, but that had only been a small part of the process. ‘After passing a certain level, shortcuts don’t work anymore.’
This was also the reason why Zich had used the energy drain technique to increase his strength just once. As more and more mana was awakened, the effectiveness of infusing foreign mana into one’s body and forcibly awakening one’s dormant mana decreased. However, Glen’s previous state when Zich saw him last time was at a level that didn’t work well with shortcuts. Thus, it was impossible for him to have gotten so strong with any ordinary shortcut. There was only one possible explanation that Zich could think of.
‘Is he using a technique from Clowon?’ Zich was sure of this. However, even if it was a technique from Clowon, he didn’t think that it was possible to increase one’s ability like Glen did.
‘If that was possible, he would have used that shortcut way before, considering his personality. There definitely must be a side effect.’ As evidence, there was a noticeable awkwardness that Glen exhibited every time he moved. However, Zich didn’t think that this was the extent of his side effect. He was sure that there was a very critical side effect; if the side effect was not too severe, Glen would probably end up with a disability, but…
‘If it’s severe, he’ll lose his life.’ Zich clicked his tongue. He could guess why Glen tried to increase his strength to the point that he’d break his body.
‘Did he hate getting pushed back by me so much that he’ll throw away his life like this?’ Glen was really a fool.
‘No, he might also have superficial thoughts that if something bad happens, he can just regress again.’ Then, Glen would soon realize how horribly wrong he was.
Glen had been defeating the Bellids in the very front, and he glanced back. His gaze slightly met Zich’s and moved away. It looked like Glen was just trying to check the situation behind him, but Zich thought differently. ‘Really, that guy is one crazy bastard.’
Glen’s behavior just now was the same as a kid looking around to check the reactions of other kids to brag about how great he was. ‘I’m probably the main target of his show-off.’
It felt as if Glen was whispering, ‘How about it? Look at me! I can also do this much!’ right into his ears.
‘He’s trying to show off to the others at the same time.’
On the other hand, Glen’s plans seemed to have worked pretty well. The morale of the Steelwall knights and soldiers and Karuwiman holy knights seemed to have gone up due to Glen’s lead. They all rushed into the temple without hesitation. Since they couldn’t use complex formations due to the differences between the Steelwalls and Karuwimans, and their fighting space was restricted due to the cave’s terrain, they formed the most basic formation and merely pushed forward. However, due to Glen’s efforts and everyone’s individual skills and battle expertise, they were able to continuously push back the Bellids.
Zich stared at Glen and his ability that let him mercilessly butcher the Bellids. It was definitely amazing, but Zich’s gaze towards him was full of disdain.
‘Even after using Clowon’s legacy, your skills are only that level.’ Zich recalled Glen’s skills before he regressed and shook his head.