Chapter 272
Chapter 272
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 272
Chapter Title: The Holy Knight Doesn't Believe in God (2)
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Cariot of Blasphemy.
Raniel had first heard that name from none other than Sara, the saintess of the Delorhim Church. Sara often chattered about church business in front of Raniel, and that was when she first learned about Cariot.
"The whole church is on high alert because of one crazy holy knight. It's driving me insane, seriously."
A crazy holy knight.
"He ignores every order from the church, grabs the cardinal by the collar and throws him around, and now he's even rumored to have set fire to a church... Where the hell did this lunatic even come from?"
The madwoman calling someone else a lunatic.
Raniel's reaction to Sara, who was muttering irritably, was—needless to say—not sympathy. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"Sounds like he's living a pretty upstanding life."
Raniel, who had come to despise the Delorhim Church due to an incident from her childhood and had lost all affection for it after just one month in Sara's presence, saw it this way: the more the church badmouthed him or Sara ranted about him, the more normal he seemed. After all, wasn't she the prime example herself?
So Raniel sneered at the time and said,
"If even a lunatic like you—who'd bury a whole village alive—is calling him crazy, doesn't that make him normal?"
"Are you done talking?"
"Doesn't sound wrong to me."
Enraged by Raniel's mockery, Sara began listing off Cariot's misdeeds one by one, but even after hearing them all, Raniel's response didn't change much.
"Well, well."
If anything, she blurted it out as if amazed that her prediction had hit the mark.
"He really is normal."
Cariot of Blasphemy.
The holy knight who had endured thirty years in the demonic realm and returned alive after crossing countless hells. The reason he earned that moniker was as follows.
"That lunatic ate a demonic beast! He chewed and swallowed a demonic beast created by a heretic!"
A demonic beast made from humans as its base.
Eating it alive was no different from cannibalism, in the church's eyes. That's how they judged it and branded Cariot with the title of Blasphemy.
Along with the derogatory term "heretic."
Heretics who blasphemed Delorhim and harbored false faith were, naturally, targets for purge. It was an excessive measure, but the church was all too happy to label Cariot—who had long been a thorn in their side—an apostate to get rid of him.
Numerous inquisitors were dispatched for the purge. To kill Cariot, they willingly set foot in the demonic realm.
Years passed since then.
Cariot still hadn't died.
Now, the church no longer called him Blasphemy or heretic.
Immortal Cariot.
That was how he began to be known.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
The Trial of the Holy Grail.
To undergo that trial, three figures began gathering one after another at Cateron Castle. The first to arrive was the one-eyed swordsman.
"Berteng here."
The one-eyed Berteng.
The man wearing an eyepatch tapped the hilt of the sword at his waist. Like others facing the wall, he was clearly no slouch.
"It's been about five years since I hit the wall. That's when I faced that dreadful sword demon and truly felt it."
Berteng removed his eyepatch and pointed to his empty right eye socket, where a deep scar remained.
"Lost this eye to that monster five years ago. Every night, I dream of the sword demon. I believe becoming a transcendent will free me from that nightmare."
Lania van Trias.
Knight Commander Heinkel.
The Hero, Galahal.
Saintess, Sara.
With the four of them watching, Berteng put his eyepatch back on and pointed to the Holy Grail in Lania's hand.
"They say using that Grail lets you surpass the wall. Is that true?"
No need for lengthy explanations.
Lania immediately offered the Holy Grail to Berteng, and it reacted to him.
"Good. I'll take the challenge."
Time to escape the nightmare...
Muttering that, Berteng leaped into the well of light created by the Holy Grail. Exactly thirty seconds later, he was flung back out.
"Hah, haaaaaah...!"
Panting heavily, Berteng collapsed to the floor. Sweat poured from him like rain, and his face was not just pale but ghostly white.
"The sword demon... Why is the sword demon in the trial...!"
From his reaction, it seemed Berteng had faced the sword demon in the trial. He was clutching his neck, so that must have been where it struck.
Glancing at him coldly, Lania spoke up.
"Because the wall you're facing is the sword demon."
Lania said calmly.
"What you fear, what you want to overcome. That's your wall. The Holy Grail just makes it tangible for you. Surpassing it is all on you."
She tapped the Holy Grail lightly.
"Gonna keep challenging? You've got about two tries left."
"Are you insane? Just facing that monster makes me shake, and it nearly took my head in one swing...!"
As if the sensation were still vivid, Berteng kept rubbing his neck.
"I tasted real death. Twice is too much. If I'd known the trial was like this, I wouldn't have started..."
"Hey."
Lania frowned.
"You think surpassing the wall is easy?"
"...What?"
"Did you think you'd overcome it without any cost? What were you even thinking coming here?"
Even those born with talent spend their lives devoted to one path, sacrificing much to reach transcendence.
"No resolve, huh?"
The Holy Grail merely aids in that.
For someone without the resolve to properly face the wall within themselves, becoming a transcendent was, naturally, impossible.
"......"
Berteng fell silent.
Lania set the Holy Grail down on the table with a thud.
"Do it if you want more, or get out. I don't want to waste time."
Berteng left Cateron Castle without a word.
"Knight Nadion reporting."
The second arrival was Knight Nadion.
An elderly man with snow-white hair.
But his back was unbent, and Lania knew his face well too. Nadion, who had spent long years on the battlefield, had fought alongside the hero from the generation before hers.
"Aren't you... a comrade of the Indomitable Hero?"
Galahal recognized him too and lit up with excitement.
For Galahal, who loved tales of heroes, Nadion felt like a character leaped straight from a fairy tale.
"An honor to meet you, Sir Nadion!"
Galahal stood and offered a handshake. Nadion nodded with a faint smile.
"The honor is mine. For Galahal—the most heroic of heroes—to recognize me..."
"The hero of the Kurakt Mountains Extermination Battle, right? I've heard stories about you since I was a kid. Even your moniker, White Wolf of the Snowy Peaks..."
"Haha. Embarrassing. It's a title from my youth."
Nadion let out a wry chuckle.
"All ancient history now. Unlike my friend Indomitable, I missed my time to die."
There had been a time when he was called the White Wolf of the Snowy Peaks, but that was all in the past. Nadion knew well that he was now little more than a lingering ghost, unable to leave the battlefield.
"It'd be a lie to say I don't dream of that glorious past. I want to be a hero on the battlefield once more. To young eyes, it might seem like an old man's folly..."
Nadion looked Galahal straight in the eye.
"But like my old friend, I want a heroic death on the field."
"I see..."
Galahal nodded, impressed. Nadion gave a mischievous grin and whispered,
"Truth is, Indomitable and I made a bet. Who'd rack up greater feats and die more spectacularly. But he went out so dashingly."
Nadion thumped his chest.
"So I have to go out dashingly too, right?"
The white-haired elder looked boyish when flashing that roguish smile. Lania bowed her head in respect to the hero of old.
Nadion had faced his wall for thirty years, and the Holy Grail reacted strongly to him.
"Impressive."
On his first try, Nadion lasted three minutes.
Sweating profusely as he was ejected from the trial, he dragged his aged body back in for another go. In total, Nadion challenged it three times.
"Hoo, huuuuh..."
Hiding his trembling hands behind his back, the old man smiled wryly.
"If only I were a bit younger, I'd have won. Such a shame. Time is merciless."
His spirit could endure, but his frail flesh could not. Nadion ultimately gave up on the third try.
"Still, progress was made. I thought I'd reached the midpoint of the wall, but after the trial... it feels like my hand can now touch the edge."
A bit more training, and I might surpass it.
Muttering that, Nadion looked at Galahal.
"And personally, I owe you thanks, Sir Galahal."
"Pardon? For what...?"
"My son. I tried to stop him, but he insisted on following in my footsteps and went to the battlefield. Nearly died on his first operation."
Nadion smiled bitterly.
"A green kid who could barely wield a sword properly, all bravado—no surprise. They say you saved him then."
Slowly, very slowly, Nadion bowed his head.
His aged body bent toward Galahal.
"Thank you. For saving my worthless son."
"S-Sir Nadion!"
Galahal panicked and tried to stop him, but Nadion finished his bow before straightening up.
"I'm endlessly grateful that someone like you is carrying on after Indomitable."
Nadion departed Cateron Castle with a serene smile. Though he failed to pass the trial, his steps were light, satisfied with his own gains.
"What do you know, it's the saintess girl."
The last to arrive was Cariot.
"Man, seems like yesterday you were this tall, and now look at you? Time flies."
Immortal Cariot.
The holy knight so named waved cheerfully at the saintess. Sara looked uncomfortable, but Cariot just laughed it off heartily.
"Tough times. Oh, Heinkel, it's been a while."
"Doing well? Cariot."
"Well? What well? Same as always. Though lately, those young pups chasing me have vanished, so that's nice."
He set down the coffin on his back.
The ground shook with a thud.
"Heard there's a trial to surpass the wall."
Cariot opened the coffin.
A thick bloody stench filled the room.
"Give me a breather first. Need to tend to my weapons too."
The coffin was packed with all sorts of blades.
Varied in form, but all shared one trait: soaked in blood. Picking one up, Cariot smiled wryly.
"As you see, the edges are all dull. Gotta sharpen 'em up. Since I'm at Cateron Castle anyway, figured I'd check the frontline smiths' skills... That okay?"
Lania nodded slowly.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
Saintess Sara found Cariot a distasteful figure.
Not only was he uncontrolled by the church, but he had once been branded a heretic.
If the church weren't in such turmoil, they never would've pushed forward a man as undignified as him.
Sara stared at Cariot's back as he led the way.
The cross-shaped coffin on his back bore the emblem of the Delorhim Church. Glaring at it, Sara clicked her tongue briefly.
By rights, a man branded a heretic shouldn't bear the Delorhim Church's symbol. The church wouldn't have let him keep that heretic label either.
But the church now was not what it once was.
Ever since the cardinal's scandal in the north, its prestige had been plummeting daily. Only Elya van Grace's warnings had kept things from escalating further.
The north belonged to Elya van Grace.
But the nobles whispered that its true master was Lady Pairia, who attended Elya.
That cunning woman was relentlessly gnawing at the Delorhim Church, using the cardinal's deeds as pretext. Until voices of doubt toward the church arose in noble society.
Doubts about the church's actions grew.
Gazes upon it were no longer what they were.
Amid this, past crimes by the church were being reevaluated one by one, shaking the Delorhim Church to its roots.
No longer can the church bask in its former glory.
It had reached the point where they couldn't even spare manpower for a man like Cariot. And yet, he continued racking up feats on the battlefield.
In the current situation, antagonizing Cariot offered the church no gains.
They say the church discussed recognizing his past merits and lifting the brand?
But Sara wasn't thrilled about it.
She, the church's very symbol, now had to defend this undignified man.
"Anyway."
Sara snapped at Cariot as he headed to the smithy.
"You know my role was huge in letting a branded heretic like you represent the Delorhim Church in public like this, right?"
"Of course, I know. I know how hard our saintess girl worked."
"So from now on, show some loyalty to the church. Follow God's will properly."
God's will.
At those words, Cariot flinched and halted.
"Hey, saintess girl."
Cariot turned around.
His voice, stripped of playfulness, was chilling. His eyes were icily cold too. Meeting them, Sara swallowed dryly without thinking.
"W-What?"
"God's will, you said?"
Sara nodded.
Cariot let out a hollow laugh and asked her,
"Where the hell is God's will, anyway?"
A man who spent ten years in the church.
Thirty in the demonic realm.
He asked.
"I've been with the Delorhim Church since I was ten, working as a member for nearly forty years now. And I still can't figure out the great Delorhim's will."
His bloodshot eyes fixed on Sara.
"Do you know, saintess girl? What God's will is."
They were not the eyes of one who believed in God.
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