Dreams of the Holy Knight - Chapter 10

Dreams of the Holy Knight - Chapter 10

The Imperial Knights arrived at the West of Count Stevan’s. Noel, who was waiting for the Imperial Knights with a dark expression on his face, frowned when a familiar shadow approached him.  

"Your highness?"  

A blonde woman in a white uniform was striding along with her long legs.  Evgena, opened her arms out to Noel with a smirking smile.  

“Noel.  It's been a while since I've seen you, so let me give you a hug!"  

Noel, disgusted, passed by her and headed for the imperial knight commander.  Karus, the commander of the Imperial Knights and a close friend, greeted him with a light smile.  

“Long time no see, Sir Klein.”  

“Why is her highness here?”  

“What, did I come to a place I wasn’t allowed to? You used to be so kind when you were young, but since you’ve grown up, you’re no longer fun.”  

Before he knew it, Evgena came close and tapped Noel's shoulder.  Her golden eyes, which symbolized the royal family, were full of playfulness.  

Since the current Empress was the sister of Noel's father, Duke Klein, Crown Princess Evgena was his cousin.  

She was a good sister when he was young, so she occupied much of his childhood.  

“What did you come here for?”  

“To bring this.”  

Evgena raised her arm and shook it, and the two bracelets she were wearing clashed and clearly jingled.  A holy relic handed down from generation to generation in the imperial family was hung on her arm.  Noel frowned and looked at her.  

“How could you treat holy objects so carelessly? What if you lose it?”  

“Our Holy Knights Commander like always, still nags a lot.  It's something only the royal family can use anyway, so wouldn't it be safest to put it on my arm?"  

"Ha."

“Anyway, I brought it just in case when I heard the news that a deformed monster had appeared in the West.  If the sealed gates of the Demon Realm were reopened, shouldn't we at least borrow the power of the holy object to buy time? We don't have a Saintess to close the gates to the demon realm.”  

What she said was true.  About 500 years ago, the gates of the Demon Realm opened to the west and north, and magical monsters poured out from within.  Opinions differed as to why the gates of the demon world were created and how they were opened, but the dominant theory was that they were created by the black magic that was prevalent at the time.  

The damage caused by the constant hordes of monsters that poured out was extreme. The empire was devastated.  The arable land was devastated, and the river that flowed with the monster's poison was polluted.  As food and water became scarce, more people died from starvation than from the monsters.  The knights boasting overwhelming force, as well as the warriors and wizards who were cultivating their skills from all over the world, appeared and dealt with the magical monsters, but they soon ran into difficulties as they were outnumbered.  

The person who appeared at that time was the first Saintess, Adelaide.  Adelaide Armand, the daughter of a rural Baron, used her mighty powers to seal the gates of the demon realm after receiving a revelation from the Goddess.  As a side effect, she lost all her powers, her ebony hair turned silver, but the empire was restored with peace.  

Since then, Saintesses with strong holy power had been continuously produced in Armand family, and the seal to the gates of the demon realm had been strengthened.  

However, for some reason, no saints appeared after the third Saint Agnes.  People murmured that the Empire and Armand family had become hated by the Goddess.  

As 300 years passed without a Saintess who could firmly protect the seal, cracks began to form on the gates of the demon realm, which they thought would last forever.  The Pope and High Priests tried to strengthen the seal, but their holy powers were not enough.  

The monsters that haunted the Empire in the present era were those that somehow escaped through that gap.  The princess spoke, tapping the sword she was wearing.

“Anyway, let’s hurry with the subjugation.  We have to deal with it before the breeding season approaches.”  

“Is your highness also coming?”  

At Noel's question with a suspicious expression on his face, Evgena’s eyebrows twitched.  

"Of course!  Then who will carry these relics? I can take care of my body, so don't worry. You know well that one who can't use a sword is a disgrace to the imperial family?”  

“I'm saying this because you get hurt often because you're careless.”  

“There is nothing you can’t say to the Crown Princess.  I have no intention of turning Daniel into a widow.”  

“Okay, be careful.”  

The Crown Princess and the Imperial Knights, who joined the Holy Knights, formed a subjugation squad together and left the territory.  The farther away from the territory they went, the more frequent the monster attacks occurred.  

The uncomfortable feeling Noel felt at first deepened the deeper he went into the mountains.  Countless transformed monsters poured out from deep in the mountains.  

The thorns that spit out venom were larger than the body, and countless blisters that were harder than iron armor had sprouted on their shell.  The holy knights who were accustomed to beasts also put on disgusting expressions at the terrible appearance of the monsters that attacked them with their bizarrely twisted limbs.  

"Ha, ha……  There are so many transformed monsters?  Noel, isn't this very strange?"  

Evgena gasped, wiping her blood-stained hands.  

Noel, who opened his canteen and took a sip of water, also looked at her with a serious expression on his face.  

“It’s the first time I’ve see something like this.  I’m not sure what happened.”  

Just as he was holding his breath, the knight who had gone out to survey returned and reported the situation to them.  

“It seems that almost all of the monsters have been dealt with.  But I found a strange cave on the side of the cliff.”  

Evgena’s golden eyes darkened.  Soon she pointed her chin towards Noel and moved her steps.  

"Let’s go.  No matter how I much I think about it, it doesn’t seem like this happened naturally.”  

They reached the cliff after climbing a long way.  As the scout said, there was a cave hidden by trees near the cliff's edge.

In front of the cliff, there were traces of ropes and bloodstains of monsters.  They fastened their ropes and descended into the cave.  Noel and Evgena walked into the cave and had an idle conversation.  

“I don’t know what kind of trouble this is.  If it's a human prank, I'll definitely catch him and slaughter him.  Separate all the bones and flesh.”  

“Your highness, please have some dignity.”  

“Tsk, a younger brother should be cute.  Women don't like it when you're too serious, Noel."  

“You seem to keep forgetting that I am a holy knight, so I have no reason to meet a woman.”  

“Don’t you know that it’s a pity that you’re going to rot by being on your own?  If you meet the woman of your fate, you will be able to stop pretending to be a damned clergy member.”  

“So, did your highness also meet Sir Daniel and quit pretending to be a flirt?”  

Evgena was known for her free-spirited and casual romances, to the point where there was no man who didn't just pass by her. 

In the meantime, it had been three years since she fell in love with Daniel, her escort knight, and got married.  With the couple still in love like a fresh couple, people said that the crown princess met her soulmate.

Noel was also happy that she settled down with a man after her wanderings, but whenever she met him, he was now tired of her talking about fate.

“You know it well. You just haven't met that person yet?”

“Ha, that’s never going to……”  

As he was about to say that it would never happen, for some reason Lily's face came to mind.  As soon as he thought of her, his heart pounded hard, and the sweet smell of her body seemed to touch the tip of his nose. Last night, the time he saw her in his dream already felt distant.

But she was just a character in his dreams.  Noel was miserable thinking of a woman he could not meet in reality at the talk of soulmates. The crown princess looked suspiciously at his expression, which became dark without being able to speak.

"Hmm……  Why are you not answering?  Is there someone?”  

“…… There is no such thing.”  

Evgena’s eyebrows slowly rose.  Noel's reaction, which usually would have been to deny that it would ever happen and cut off the conversation, was now halfhearted. Her face was filled with interest as she watched her cousin's expression rapidly darkening. 

There's something.  Whatever it was, Evgena turned to the cave hoping it would work out as he wished.

After walking for a while, a large space was revealed with a dim light.  Their faces darkened at the scale incomparable to the cave entrance seen from the outside.  They looked around, and there were gruesome traces everywhere.  

On one wall, there was a huge prison that could fit dozens of monsters.  

Inside the bars, the corpses of monsters that were disassembled into pieces were scattered around, and the smell of rotting bodies was coming from the instruments of unknown purpose occupying the middle of the cave.  At the bottom of the cave, there was also a piece of bone that looked like it came from a human.  

“Who would do such a terrible thing?”  

The Crown Princess hurriedly covered her nose and furrowed her brow.  The sight of the monsters being so messed up to the point where they looked pitiful made her sick to her stomach.  

“Someone seems to have done an experiment with a monster.”  

Noel's expression hardened terrifyingly as he looked at the gruesome appearance of the cave.  What purpose was there to experiment with monsters? He thoroughly inspected the interior for any clues, and found a strange pattern painted on the floor of the cave.  As he got closer, there was an unknown pattern that was sparsely erased.  

“Here, there is a strange pattern, Your Highness.”  

Evgena moved closer to where he was pointing.  It was a mysterious pattern that kind of looked like a magic circle and kind of not.  Her golden eyes darkened.  

“I need to contact Magic Tower, Noel.  I wonder if it’s traces of black magic.”  

“If it’s black magic, hasn’t it been gone for hundreds of years?”

“……  that's what is said. Let's go outside for now. It seems difficult to be here any longer.”

* * * (read on pink-grapes.blogspot.com)

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