Paladin of the Dead God C.181:

“Run! Keep running!”

“If we cross the hill, we can shake it off!”

“Damn it, what on earth is that…?”

Three Georg knights were running, panting heavily. It was a rare day when the rain had stopped, but the sky was still gray, and the mist clung to their bodies as if they were underwater. Inhaling the air that felt like they might drown, the knights ran and sometimes crawled, struggling to shake off the monster chasing them.

Since the Aldeon army started spreading its forces, the Georg knights had been taken aback by this tactic, but soon adapted. They realized that if they stuck together and attacked, they could defeat their enemies one by one.

Gathering forces in one place was a fundamental tactic. The Georg knights laughed at the stupidity of the Aldeon army and regrouped to launch their attack.

At first, they enjoyed some success by annihilating small enemy squads. But as they repeated the attacks, they began to notice something strange when their casualties increased more than expected. At the same time, strange rumors began to spread from the mouths of surviving knights.

A devil appeared in the misty rain.

“Wait, Hilton, where’s Hilton?”

“He got caught and killed! Just keep running!”

They laughed at the rumor, thinking it was a fabricated story by a knight ashamed of his defeat, but as their ranks thinned, the rumor grew. More and more knights who went on surprise attacks didn’t return, and the remaining Georg knights could only look at the misty forest with fearful eyes.

The Aldeon army was scattered as thin as the mist. In contrast, they were a well-forged sword, surely capable of cutting through like paper, yet they couldn’t bring themselves to charge into the mist.

With morale plummeting, the Georg knights had no choice but to abandon all restraint and return to the fortress of Elion.

If the enemy was a visible giant, they would grit their teeth and fight to the death.

But they couldn’t fight against mist or ghosts.

“Just a bit more…”

However, some knights couldn’t tolerate fleeing from mere mist. Those who had never encountered a devil intended to score one last feat before retreating, targeting a lone knight wandering through the mist.

And then, they encountered the devil.

“We made it! We survived! Here, we should be…”

The knight caught his breath and looked back. But behind him was nothing but pure white mist, like a blank canvas. The comrades who had been panting and running with him were nowhere to be seen. The knight realized the mist had silently swallowed his comrades one by one.

And now, it was his turn.

Footsteps. A slow silhouette appeared beyond the mist. It was the knight, looking as calm as when he was first encountered.

“They said we could survive if we got here, but there’s nothing, is there?”

***

The Georg knight gripped his sword spasmodically and swung it. It was more like a cornered rat going mad than a resolve to fight.

However, the action brought him a slight sense of peace.

Though done unconsciously, upon resolving to fight to the death, he invoked a miracle of Elil.

Isaac looked at the knight and spoke.

“I have good news and bad news.”

“G-good news?”

At Isaac’s sudden words, the knight steadied his breathing. He seemed more surprised that Isaac was someone he could communicate with, rather than the content of what Isaac had said. Upon realizing that Isaac was a rational being, his fear subsided, and he belatedly recognized that his opponent was the Holy Grail Knight.

“You’re the Holy Grail Knight, not a demon. What do you mean?” the knight asked.

“Which one would you like to hear first?” Isaac asked.

The Georg knight hesitated before speaking. “The bad news first.”

“You’re about to die,” Isaac stated.

The Georg knight closed his eyes tightly.

“… And the good news?”

“You’ll die quickly.”

With a swift movement, Isaac’s sword pierced the knight’s neck. The Georg knight stared at Isaac with wide eyes before slowly collapsing.

Isaac felt a tinge of guilt for taunting the knight at his life’s end, but it was a necessary process.

‘Elil…’

Elil knights, when driven to a do-or-die state, exhibit miraculous strength. There have been several instances in history where an Elil knight, lost in the chaos of battle, achieved impossible feats.

The knight just now had also briefly entered that state.

The so-called “do-or-die resistance” could be easily broken by either making the situation appear unnecessary for Elil’s miracle or causing the knight to voluntarily give up the fight.

Before leaving the knight’s corpse, Isaac resumed his previous task. He had performed this task every time a corpse was left behind. Just as he was about to bend down, he sensed someone and looked up. Someone was watching him from beyond the mist.

Isaac recalled that the knights he was chasing had been saying, “If we get there, we’ll survive.”

Even though they hadn’t survived and there was nothing there, Isaac instinctively realized where they had placed their hopes.

‘The silhouette looks like a female knight.’

Both moved simultaneously after assessing each other’s positions. Isaac intended to lunge forward but instinctively twisted his neck. A sharp sound of air being torn passed right beside his neck. Having narrowly avoided being pierced, Isaac pushed into his opponent’s range.

The opponent seemed as surprised as Isaac but immediately stepped back and kicked up her knee. Isaac blocked the kick with his elbow and stabbed toward the opponent’s abdomen. The distance was right for a piercing blow, but the female knight trapped the sword between her armpit, attempting to disarm Isaac.

Pain seared Isaac’s palm.

With her relatively free hands, the female knight slapped Isaac’s face. However, Isaac pushed back, throwing her off balance. She staggered backward for several steps.

Isaac was already using sword energy, but the opponent also used sword energy, so he couldn’t land a hit. By then, Isaac realized who his opponent was.

Isaac activated the heat of the Luadin Key, thinking that burning his body would force her to let go.

However, the heat wasn’t as strong as Isaac expected.

He belatedly remembered the opponent’s ability.

“Ugh!”

As if countering the heat of the Luadin Key, Isaac felt a chilling pain in his lungs.

Bang. Both realized that further fighting would only lead to self-destruction and separated simultaneously. The female knight felt her charred and crushed armor’s side and glared at Isaac, while Isaac touched his bruised face, coughing.

“Ugh, cough, cough… You’re not an easy opponent, Lianne Georg.”

“You’re quite remarkable in several ways, Holy Grail Knight.”

Lianne Georg, the general of the Georg rebels and one of Elil Kingdom’s swordmasters, looked at Isaac with cold eyes.

She seemed to be prodding at the wound in her side, which still stung, but it didn’t seem to be a significant injury. In contrast, Isaac thought the current weather and environment favored Lianne too much.

‘Lianne’s ability was a flashy and unconventional swordsmanship based on cold…’

The sword she wielded was likely Lumiarde, one of Elil’s holy swords. The cold emitted from Lumiarde, displayed through her swordsmanship, was both brilliant and savage.

A swordmaster with already excellent swordsmanship wielding a holy sword that could unleash miracles without limit was a difficult opponent.

Especially in such dense fog, if Lianne swung Lumiarde, her opponent would be fighting while feeling like their lungs were about to burst from pain.

Swish, thunk! At that moment, Lianne deflected an arrow that flew through the mist without even looking. The arrow continued in the same direction, flying back to where it had come from.

An irritated curse from Hesabel came from beyond the mist.

As Isaac considered a second round, Lianne spoke.

“Excuse me, Holy Grail Knight.”

“…Yes?”

“You look tired, and so do I. How about we pretend we didn’t see each other and move on? If we fight here now, one of us has to die before the other can go back,” Lianne Georg suggested.

Isaac was momentarily taken aback by her words. Was this really coming from the ruthless rebel leader and enemy general? Isaac needed to capture Lianne to end the war, and Lianne also needed to capture Isaac, Aldeon’s only swordmaster, to gain the upper hand.

However, she seemed more concerned with immediate fatigue than anything else.

“I just killed five of your knights,” Isaac pointed out.

“That’s fewer than the number of your people I killed today. Not that I’m suggesting we compete, but that’s how war is. Fortunately, there are no witnesses, so if we agree, this negotiation will be easy,” Lianne responded calmly, without any emotional inflection.

She brushed her wet hair back and continued speaking.

“I have plenty of honor, and I’m reasonably confident in my skills. The elders want me to avenge my father, so I’m doing it, but that has nothing to do with you, Holy Grail Knight. Let’s meet again later at a more important time.”

Isaac almost nodded instinctively but managed to restrain himself.

Is this how someone avenges their father? Are all the young people these days so indifferent?

“What if I refuse?”

“If you refuse… Elil’s knights don’t shy away from battles.”

Lianne raised Lumiarde nonchalantly.

Thud, thud, thud. The sound of air freezing and cracking filled the air. The invisible force around her sword froze the mist and spread outward. The cold was so intense that without protection, one’s flesh would be torn away.

Isaac thought for a moment and nodded.

“Let’s do that. The environment isn’t in my favor.”

“Right? I thought you’d be reasonable, not being a follower of Elil.”

“What about the bodies? There are more down the hill. Will you clean them up?”

“Hmm. Just tidy them up enough to show respect. We seem to have lost this area. Oh, if it’s okay, I’d like to retreat all our soldiers to the fortress. Could you slow your advance a bit?”

“I can’t promise, but I’ll suggest it. Fighting in this mist isn’t easy on the nerves.”

“Thank you… See you next time. Goodbye.”

Lianne waved her hand and disappeared into the mist.

Isaac watched the spot where she vanished, feeling entranced, and then immediately turned and started running. He needed to inform Mors that the Georg army was planning a full retreat, and they should launch a general offensive to exploit the opportunity.

***

Unfortunately for Isaac, Lianne didn’t trust her agreement with an infidel at all.

As the Aldeon army began moving to pursue the retreating Georg forces, they encountered traps and ambushed enemies. Eventually, Mors switched to cautious scouting and searching.

Isaac ground his teeth but also admired the fact that even the straightforward-seeming conversation with him had been part of her strategy. Then, he was impressed again when reports came in that not a single Georg soldier was seen across the entire frontline within a day.

‘Would the outcome have been different if I’d used the Touch of Chaos?’

He wondered, but unless he looked with full strength to the point of unleashing tentacles, the outcome wouldn’t have changed much.

It was impossible to read a swordmaster’s mind easily, and Lianne would have been wary, thinking Isaac, a follower of the Codex of Light, had no honor or trust.

Mors was taken aback by the Georg army’s genuine retreat and quickly mobilized the troops.

Three days later, the Aldeon army reached the fortress of Elion without encountering any resistance.

–TL Notes–

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