It was sometime between morning and noon.
In a clearing veiled by a faint haze of dust, the swords of two men collided.
The exchange had been going on for quite some time.
A faint layer of Aura rippled along Nedain’s blade.
Surprisingly, however, Glen’s sword remained intact despite clashing against it.
CLANG—! CLASH!
When Glen attempted to twist the angle of their crossed blades in a cunning manner, Nedain shifted into Half-Swording and pressed down on Glen’s weapon.
“Hup!”
Glen’s blade, which had been tracing a treacherous angle, stopped near Nedain’s shoulder and could advance no farther.
From that point onward, Half-Swording gave Nedain an overwhelming advantage.
Intending to force Glen down and transition into a wrestling technique, Nedain tightened his grip.
“Urgh….”
Glen’s expression twisted.
He suddenly gambled on hooking one of Nedain’s feet.
As though he had anticipated the move, Nedain pulled his foot away and drove his elbow into Glen’s solar plexus.
“Guh!”
The blow landed cleanly, forcing the air from Glen’s lungs.
As his body naturally tried to retreat a step, Glen reflexively struck the back of Nedain’s hand with his Pommel.
“Ugh!”
Nedain lost his grip on his sword, and the two men briefly faced each other in a stalemate.
“Haa… Once again, you have improved remarkably.”
Those words signaled the end of their sparring match.
Glen glared at him with a dissatisfied expression.
“Cough. Is that what you say after beating me senseless?”
“I was struck quite a few times as well….”
“If those are merely bruises for you, then I must be completely incapacitated. You deliberately restricted your Aura as well.”
As a High-Ranking Knight, Nedain could coat his sword with Aura.
Naturally, that would place Glen at an overwhelming disadvantage.
There was a vast difference between enveloping an entire blade in Aura and releasing it for a single instant through an Offensive Parry.
Merely producing Aura at the point of contact would not allow Glen’s sword to endure continuously.
After two or three repeated clashes, the blade might break.
“You will naturally learn to wield Aura in time. Our Knight Commander always says that Aura is ultimately nothing more than a tool. The most important thing is swordsmanship. In that regard, you are already exceptional, Young Master. Your ability to adapt is so impressive that even I occasionally find something to learn from you.”
The Lion Knights evaluated swordsmanship according to a knight’s overall ‘combat ability,’ excluding Aura.
Skill with a sword, situational awareness, wrestling techniques, adaptability, and even psychological warfare such as deception were all considered part of the same whole.
In other words, regardless of the process, the stronger knight was the one who won.
That was why the Lion Knights were regarded as excessively pragmatic compared to other knight orders.
However, for men who fought Orcs every day and constantly crossed the boundary between life and death, such teachings were not a choice but a necessity.
One had to survive before swordsmanship or Aura could be of any use.
“That technique you mentioned—the Offensive Parry? It is honestly quite difficult.”
“That is true. It is not something I would normally recommend to others. Still, someone of your skill should be capable of mastering it.”
“I simply cannot understand how you wield it so easily, Young Master. It is astonishing.”
In terms of pure swordsmanship, Glen was already equal to Nedain, the Vice Commander….
No, he might even be superior.
No matter how often Nedain witnessed it, Glen’s talent remained nothing short of astounding.
“However, from where I stand, it seems that you have improved as well.”
“I believe it happened naturally while following you, Young Master.”
“Hmph. Flattery certainly comes naturally to you now.”
When Glen mocked him jokingly, Nedain chuckled in response.
“I have been around far too long to start flattering you now, have I not?”
“Heh heh. It appears I misjudged you.”
“Are you feeling well? You slept as though you were dead yesterday.”
“…I suppose my exhaustion finally caught up with me. Still, I feel perfectly fine now.”
Glen felt a slight twinge of alarm but offered the vague excuse.
He could hardly admit that he had drunk something equivalent to a deadly poison.
The previous night, after drinking the dark crimson liquid and barely surviving the ordeal, he had naturally lost consciousness.
When morning came, his body had felt impossibly light.
At first, he wondered whether the Elixir had caused it.
However, even in his Previous Life, Glen had never heard that Blood Magic Elixirs were beneficial to the body.
He had probably recovered simply because he had slept so deeply.
“Let us end the sparring here. This should be enough exercise for the morning.”
The two men gathered their practice swords and were about to return to the village when—
“Young Master! Vice Commander!”
A knight approached while shouting urgently.
The sight gave Glen an inexplicable sense of déjà vu, and he frowned.
“What is it? Surely there has not been another attack?”
His voice made it clear that he was thoroughly sick of them.
Unfortunately, his prediction proved correct.
“How did you know? We received an urgent report from the knights scouting the surrounding area. A group that appears to be a Priestly Delegation is under attack!”
“A Priestly Delegation? Are they certain they did not see incorrectly?”
Glen and Nedain both looked surprised by the unexpected report.
There were almost no groups willing to attack a Priestly Delegation.
Even when lords waged territorial wars against one another, they left the temples of every faith untouched.
The moment one attacked a temple, one became the common enemy of the continent’s Four Great Religions.
Few could endure the consequences.
The same was true regardless of which religion the priests belonged to.
The Four Great Religions might quarrel constantly under ordinary circumstances, but they united completely in cases such as this.
It was not easy to spend the rest of one’s life fleeing the countless fanatics spread across the continent.
If one was captured and dragged beneath a temple or church, one would experience a ‘Purification’ so horrific that death would seem preferable.
That was why neither bandits nor mercenaries dared to recklessly attack members of the clergy.
“The two knights confirmed it several times.”
“…What will you do?”
When Nedain asked cautiously, Glen sighed before answering.
“Haa… What else can we do? Gather the knights as quickly as possible. We leave immediately.”
These bastards never allowed them enough time to rest.
A short while later, the Lion Knights disappeared from Remt Village in a thick cloud of dust.
***
“Latum (Worship)—Hernesia. Thank you for your assistance, noble sir.”
A priestess dressed in pure white priestly robes clasped her hands as though in prayer and bowed her head.
Her softly shimmering, blue-tinged hair spilled forward.
Glen also bowed as courteously as possible before answering.
“Latum—Hernesia. I merely did what was right.”
Just as the knight had urgently reported, a Priestly Delegation truly had been under attack.
They were followers of the Spring Goddess, known as the Church of Herne or the Church of Hernesia.
Fortunately, the church’s Holy Knights had held their ground despite being outnumbered, buying enough time for Glen’s party to arrive.
When a group of mounted knights charged into the middle of the battle, the bandits were quite literally swept away.
The instant one side of their encirclement collapsed, the remaining attackers abandoned the battle and fled without hesitation.
“Forgive me, but may I ask your name?”
“I am Ron Glen Repent of House Repent.”
“Ah, then you are the famous person whose name has been spreading throughout this region. I heard that you always aid those without the strength to protect themselves. May the Goddess’s blessing be with you….”
“It was nothing. Still, this is an unusual incident. Even the most foolish bandits would not normally attack a Priestly Delegation….”
“As these are troubled times, perhaps more people have lost their way. However, the Goddess sent us a benefactor at the same time, so we should still be grateful.”
Does that mean they should be grateful for being attacked?
Religious people were difficult to understand, both in his Previous Life and now.
Glen thought as much inwardly while maintaining a faint smile.
He had learned in his Previous Life that nothing good came from earning the hostility of religious fanatics.
“Then I, too, should give thanks for being granted the opportunity to aid the Goddess’s children. Presha (Praise)—Hernesia.”
The priestess’s eyes widened slightly.
“…You possess a truly devout heart. It seems that even I have learned something from you today. Ah, my name is Monica, a servant of the Spring That Overcame Winter.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Priest Monica. Forgive me, but where are you headed?”
The Church of Hernesia, which worshiped the Spring That Overcame Winter, maintained a meaningful following only in the North.
In this context, the North referred to the Duchy of Repen and the Duchy of Levanov.
There were occasional followers in the Kingdom of Arian, but their faith existed only on the level of a local folk religion.
In other words, encountering priests of the Church of Hernesia here was quite rare.
“We were traveling at the request of House Panario to conduct a Conversion Ceremony.”
“Pardon? Is House Panario not an Imperial noble house?”
“No. You must be confusing it with another family. House Panario is a viscount house located in the Kingdom of Arian. They sent us a letter requesting our presence directly.”
Glen frowned slightly.
That could not be right.
He distinctly remembered House Panario being located in the Empire.
While Glen searched his memories, Nedain approached him.
“Young Master.”
“Ah, Sir Nedain. This is Priest Monica of the Church of Hernesia. Priest Monica, this is Sir Nedain of the Lion Knights.”
After Glen briefly introduced them, the two exchanged short greetings.
Nedain immediately began signaling to him with his eyes, and Glen nodded.
“Priest Monica, please excuse me for a moment.”
“Of course.”
Once they had moved to one side, Nedain spoke with a grave expression.
“We pursued them as far as we could, but unfortunately, we failed to capture any alive. We examined the corpses instead… and found something strange.”
“What do you mean?”
“The equipment they carried was far different from that of the bandits we dealt with until yesterday. Their clothing and weapon types were similarly mismatched, but the quality of their equipment is the problem.”
“It was too good for ordinary bandits?”
“That is correct. Their equipment was closer to what one would expect from professional mercenaries. As I noticed during the battle, they also appeared highly accustomed to combat. Even their retreat was not disorderly. They withdrew strategically.”
“Hmm. I noticed that as well. In any case, there is no question that they intended to attack the Priestly Delegation, is there?”
“No. Although no one died, two of the Holy Knights were seriously wounded. Had we arrived even slightly later, they would have been in grave danger.”
That made the situation even more incomprehensible.
Why would a professional mercenary company attack a Priestly Delegation?
For money?
Both the party commissioning the attack and the mercenaries accepting it would be taking an enormous risk.
The moment their involvement was discovered, the responsible lord would be stripped of his position, and the knights within his own house would immediately rise against him.
“I do not understand. This is certainly strange. That Priestly Delegation said they were heading toward House Panario. Have you heard of it?”
“…I vaguely recall seeing the name in a report. As I understand it, House Panario currently stands in opposition to the Arian Royal Family.”
“Is there another house with the same name in the Empire?”
“Not to my knowledge. House Panario exists only in the Kingdom of Arian.”
That was strange as well.
If there had been only one inconsistency, Glen might have dismissed it as simple déjà vu.
However, there were too many for that.
The problem was that he could not connect them into a coherent whole.
Were they merely a long string of unrelated oddities?
…No. There was definitely something behind this.
Glen folded his arms and considered the matter for a moment before releasing a long breath.
“Investigate the corpses more thoroughly. Also search the area for any other groups that may be nearby. Something about this feels wrong.”
“Yes.”
After Nedain nodded and departed, Glen returned to the priestess.
“My apologies. My knights discovered something suspicious.”
“…Something suspicious?”
Glen swallowed dryly before continuing.
“They said the attackers’ equipment was far too good for ordinary bandits. It was more like equipment used by professional mercenaries hired by someone.”
As he answered, he carefully watched the priestess’s expression.
Naturally, he maintained a faint smile so that his scrutiny would not be obvious.
“Are you saying… that someone commissioned an attack against our Priestly Delegation?”
Her brow furrowed.
Surprise or anger.
…He still could not tell.
He would have to probe a little further.
“I cannot say. Who would commit such a heaven-defying act? Can you think of anyone who might be responsible?”
“Anyone who might be responsible…? Hmm.”
The priestess’s gaze lowered toward the left before shifting to the right.
She was recalling the past and drawing a conclusion.
“I have done nothing that should earn another’s hatred. As a servant of the Goddess, I could not behave in such a manner.”
Her expression returned to its usual calmness.
…He did not know.
Nothing was certain yet.
“Could House Sailharn perhaps have—”
“Young Master!”
Nedain’s urgent shout cut off Glen’s question.
Startled, Glen turned toward him.
“Unidentified knights are approaching us in force.”
What now?
Glen’s expression hardened.