Chapter 467
Chapter Title: The Justice Guild
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467.
The city was burning.
This was the Tibun Viscounty, a border territory of the Canell Kingdom.
And this was a city in its outer district.
It was once a sizable agricultural city.
But as the flames of war intensified, they finally reached this place.
Cities and villages burned.
The places people called home were turning to ash.
Soldiers of the Pettiman Kingdom threw torches into houses, fanning the flames.
One of the Pettiman knights, commanding his soldiers on horseback, pointed the tip of his sword at the procession of refugees outside.
“Behold, proud soldiers of Pettiman! There are the wicked remnants of Canell! Do not let a single one escape! Strike them down!”
The soldiers flinched at the thunderous cry of the knight in the lead.
Seeing their hesitation, the knight roared.
“What are you doing! Pursue them at once!”
“S-Sir! No matter how you look at it, those are not remnants of Canell's army. They are refugees.”
There was no reason for remnants of the Canell army to be here in the first place.
The Canell Kingdom had recently been defeated in an all-out war with the Pettiman Kingdom and had pulled its forces far back.
While the Canell army regrouped, the Pettiman army was occupying Canell's territory.
There shouldn't have been any fighting.
Even the lowest-ranking soldiers knew this.
“Fools! The moment they hold swords and spears in their hands, they become an army of evil that threatens our glorious Pettiman!”
The man, who appeared to be a knight commander, bellowed at the soldiers.
His eyes bloodshot, he shouted, spitting as he spoke.
“In His Majesty's name! Uproot this evil! Uphold justice! That is your duty, proud soldiers of the Pettiman Kingdom! Slaughter them all!”
“B-But sir! There are elderly and children among them…”
The knight commander's eye twitched as he looked at the soldier trying to reason with him.
“You dare defy my orders?”
The knight commander dismounted and approached the soldier.
“It is not defiance.”
*Shunk—!*
“Guhk?”
The knight commander's sword was buried in the soldier's abdomen.
The soldier, vomiting blood and trembling, collapsed.
“Ignorant fools. You live under His Majesty's grace and yet you fail to realize it.”
A look of disgust filled the knight commander's eyes.
“You who have betrayed His Majesty's grace are no longer great soldiers of the Pettiman Kingdom, but traitors. Knights.”
*Shing—!*
At the commander's grim voice, the Pettiman knights drew their swords.
The soldiers' faces turned pale at the sight.
“Execute these vile traitors!”
“Glory to our great King!”
“Justice is with us!”
The knights, emitting Aura, moved to slaughter the soldiers under their command.
“Aaaargh!”
“D-Don't do this!”
The terrified soldiers fled.
They each held their weapons.
But they didn't even think of fighting back against the knights.
Having experienced the battlefield, they knew all too well.
How meaningless it was to fight against knights who wielded Aura.
The knight commander scoffed at the soldiers fleeing in terror.
“Having once served under His Majesty's name, they should at least face death with reverence. To run away so disgracefully… It seems there's no saving such frivolous trash.”
The knight commander readjusted his grip on his sword, turning to the twitching soldier on the ground.
“You die too.”
The moment he swung his sword to end the life of his former subordinate.
*Thump—!*
“From where I'm standing, you're the ones who look like irredeemable trash.”
A hand reached out and grasped the knight commander's sword.
The knight commander flinched and looked at the one who had caught his blade.
Cold, red eyes were staring back at him.
“Who are you! An agent of the Canell Kingdom!”
The knight commander roared, trying to wrench his sword free.
But the sword, caught in Leo's hand, didn't budge an inch.
*'What strength!'*
His eyes wide at Leo's unimaginable strength, the knight commander summoned his Aura.
“I'll cut off your entire hand!”
With that, Aura erupted from the sword like an explosion.
The knight commander's triumphant smile turned to one of utter shock.
The sword still hadn't moved from Leo's grasp.
Leo tightened his grip.
*CRACK—!*
“Gah?!”
The sword, along with the Aura, exploded.
Shards of the sword and Aura flew in all directions.
The fragments didn't leave a single scratch on Leo, but the knight commander's body was torn to shreds.
Lil appeared before the knights who were about to slaughter the soldiers.
“As knights on a battlefield, you intend to cut down your own subordinates. Have you no shame?”
At Lil's cry, the knight in the lead swung his spear.
“I don't know who you are, girl, but to block our path! You must have a death wish!”
With a shout, the Aura-infused spear shot toward Lil.
*Fwoosh—!*
But before the spear could reach her, Lil had already pulled out a battle hammer and sent the knight flying.
*CRACK—!*
“Gah?!”
The knight, struck squarely by the battle hammer, was launched into the air before crashing to the ground.
“So you're a knight sent by the Canell Kingdom!”
Lil glanced at the ten knights surrounding her, their Aura-clad weapons at the ready, then raised her battle hammer and slammed it into the ground.
*BOOM—!*
A wave of earth surged up and swallowed the knights whole.
“Kuaaaargh!”
The knights' dying screams echoed.
A moment later, the knights poked their heads out of the ground like moles, their mouths gagged.
Lil approached them, her battle hammer resting on her shoulder.
“You should be grateful I'm here as a Lumerne student. If I had come on family business, I would have smashed your heads in.”
The knights trembled in fear at Lil's grim voice.
Watching this, Leo took a potion from his pocket and treated the injured soldier's abdomen.
Then he approached the knight commander and spoke.
“I have a few questions.”
“You… you're not from Canell! Who are you!”
The knight commander screamed in response to Leo's question.
“Can't you tell by these clothes?”
Leo said, as if annoyed to even have to answer.
The knight commander flinched at his words and ground his teeth.
“Lumerne?! Lumerne is supposed to be neutral! I see! The vile Canell dogs have dragged Lumerne into this! Shame on you! To think those who aspire to be heroes would dare side with evil!”
The crazed knight commander shrieked.
Seeing this, Leo narrowed his eyes.
*'He's beyond reason.'*
“Long live our great King! Justice will be with the Pettiman Kingdom!”
Leo raised his foot over the frenzied, screaming knight commander.
“The Justice Guild will punish you…!”
*STOMP—!*
Leo irritably stomped on the knight commander's head.
*'The Justice Guild?'*
Leo's eyes narrowed at the last words the knight commander spoke before passing out.
The Justice Guild.
Leo had heard of them.
It was a Hero Guild.
Among human Hero Guilds, it was ranked third, after Twilight and Imperial.
*'Is the Justice Guild involved in this war?'*
Just as Leo was pondering this.
*Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—!*
The thundering of hooves shook the ground.
He turned to see knights charging at full speed, flying a flag with a familiar crest.
Leo checked the request form in his pocket.
*'The crest of the Tibun family.'*
They were the knights of Viscount Tibun, the one who had submitted the request to Lumerne.
“Whoa!”
The young knight in the lead was riding none other than a griffin.
A knight who rides a magical beast.
He was clearly a high-ranking knight.
The young knight looked at Leo and Lil's attire with a perplexed expression.
“A Lumerne uniform? What are Lumerne students doing here?”
Leo showed the request form to the puzzled young knight.
“We're students dispatched from Lumerne to resolve the request concerning the investigation of a hero's tomb robbery. We'd like to see the client, Viscount Relgen Tibun.”
At those words, the young knight dismounted his griffin and stood before Leo.
“Thank you for answering the request. However, the client no longer exists.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Lil, standing beside Leo, tilted her head.
“My grandfather passed away a month ago. The current Viscount Tibun is not Relgen Tibun, but me, Eshimon Tibun.”
Viscount Eshimon said with a troubled look, removing his helmet and giving a bitter smile.
“I thank you for responding to the request, but you've arrived at a truly difficult time, students of Lumerne.”
Lil's expression grew serious at Viscount Eshimon's words.
Leo looked at Eshimon and said.
“Could you explain the situation?”
Eshimon nodded in response.
“I will. But first, we should detain the knights and soldiers of the Pettiman Kingdom. I'll explain the situation afterward.”
At his words, Lil's expression grew serious.
“It seems things are more serious than we thought, Leo.”
“……”
“Leo? Is something wrong?”
“It seems so.”
After Lil spoke, Leo glanced up at the sky for a moment and clicked his tongue.
*'Someone's watching us from afar.'*
Leo's hypersenses detected a gaze.
“It appears something is happening.”
***
“You must be familiar with the history of the northeastern part of the continent.”
“Yes. Since the fall of the Tarim Empire 1,000 years ago, the kingdoms that splintered from it have been in constant conflict.”
The Tarim Empire.
It was a nation of heroes located in the northeast of the continent.
And the Tarim Empire was the most powerful human nation since the Age of Heroes.
The founder of Tarim was from the same era as the Heroes of Genesis.
To be precise, he was a hero from the generation before the Heroes of Genesis, recorded in the Hero Record as Tamus, the Knight of the Netherworld.
But he was known by a more famous title than the Knight of the Netherworld.
The Hero Emperor.
He was the strongest hero of his time, a man who had countless heroes under his command.
During Tamus's lifetime, the Tarim Empire was called the Hero Empire, a kingdom where numerous heroes had gathered.
*'Well, he might have been an incredible figure, but now he's become a complete object of ridicule.'*
After the fragment of Erebos was resurrected.
Tamus, the Knight of the Netherworld, declared he would subjugate Erebos.
However, the hero army of the Tarim Empire was defeated not by Erebos, but by the armies of the Monster Queen and the Giant King.
Of course, even after their defeat, the Tarim Empire remained intact.
The empire endured for another 2,000 years after the Second Coming of Calamity ended.
That meant Tarim possessed immense power.
But after that first battle, the Knight of the Netherworld and the Tarim Empire did not return to the battlefield, choosing to preserve their strength.
This is why they are ridiculed by later generations.
But in any case, as the most powerful nation in history, it left behind a vast legacy.
Based on that legacy, many heroes were born in the northeast of the continent even after the empire fell and fractured into numerous countries.
But after long years of war, the region's wellspring of heroes had run dry.
Leo recalled the history of the northeast as he spoke.
“The northeast has been fighting for a long time, but from what I understand, war has become so routine that they don't cross certain lines, right?”
More accurately, they couldn't cross those lines.
It was true that war was constant, with each nation claiming to be the legitimate successor to the Tarim Empire and vying to monopolize its legacy.
But after 1,000 years of conflict, bloody massacres no longer occurred.
To be precise, they had lost the very foundation needed to wage such wars.
They had hated and pointed swords at each other for a millennium, but now, their strength to wage war had been completely exhausted.
The lingering animosity meant the wars didn't stop.
But the nations of the northeast knew that the moment a full-scale slaughter began, it would mean mutual destruction.
The wars in the northeast had become a kind of land grab, where the losing side would retreat at the slightest disadvantage, and the winning side would not pursue, content with capturing territory.
In other regions, it had even come to be called a 'fake war'.
Eshimon let out a deep sigh at Leo's question.
“The situation in this region changed a month ago.”
Lil looked puzzled at his words.
“Has an outside force intervened, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
Hearing that, Leo crossed his arms.
“Is it related to the Justice Guild?”
“It is.”
***
“Your Majesty. Today, your great soldiers have brought news of another victory. Your territory has expanded yet again.”
“Indeed.”
The King of Pettiman's lips curled into a smile as he looked at the woman bowing before him.
“Lord Jerome, what do you believe is the reason for my army's victory?”
The Pettiman King asked the man standing beside him.
“Is there not only one reason for Your Majesty's army to be victorious?”
Jerome smiled faintly.
“It is because justice is with you, Your Majesty. As the true successor of Tarim, it is only natural that all this land becomes yours.”
“Hoo-hoo-hoo! Hahahahaha! Your words are always a pleasure to hear, Lord Jerome!”
Watching the Pettiman King burst into laughter, Jerome Cardium, the head of the Justice Guild, spoke.
“Soon, countless heroes will be born from among your subordinates.”
“Is that so?”
The Pettiman King beamed.
Jerome looked at the King and nodded.
“Of course. Real war gives birth to heroes.”