Chapter 226
Chapter 226
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 226
Chapter Title: The Pilgrimage Group's Tribulations 1
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Regular pilgrimage.
It was the Order of Salvation Knights' annual event.
The Salvation Knights normally trained in each sector of the Hybris Peninsula, but once a year, they undertook this regular pilgrimage to monitor the forces of evil and carry out their noble mission of spreading salvation across the land, protecting the people from poverty, suffering, and wicked sorcery.
However, long after the era of Jupiter had passed, the meaning of the regular pilgrimage had become corrupted.
The Order of Salvation Knights, who controlled the world's finest octo, the Hybris Peninsula, exported massive amounts of grain to every corner of the world each year.
The pilgrimage group escorted these grain shipments, performed superficial relief efforts in various places, and then selected wandering folk who had lost their land to cultivate, vagrants, and criminals, bringing them back under the pretext of reformation.
They claimed that the exceptional ones among them could become knights, but in truth, it was all about supplying serfs.
Knights needed serfs to manage their estates, and marriages and births among serfs alone couldn't meet the demand. Countless serfs died in the harsh labor conditions.
Thus, those who knew the true nature of the Order of Salvation Knights' regular pilgrimage scorned them as legal slave traders.
Of course, that scorn had to remain locked away in their hearts. If they ever revealed their true feelings aloud, the blades of the Salvation Knights would not forgive them.
No matter how much the Salvation Knights were seen as inferior to the king's church knights, the fact that they wore steel armor and wielded sharp spears and swords remained unchanged.
However, there were times when even the Salvation Knights' spears and swords could not protect their honor.
Harabos, located in the southern branch of the Kerim Mountains, was a city of dwarves.
The pilgrimage group, having arrived in Harabos by ship loaded with grain, sold off the grain, completed their token relief activities, parted ways with the ship, and were heading toward the Hybris Peninsula by land.
In every village they passed, they gathered children of farmers with no land to bequeath, criminals imprisoned for their offenses, and those accused of witchcraft but too poor to even provide firewood for their execution, swelling their numbers.
But then...
In the wilderness far from the great cities symbolizing human civilization, they suddenly began to feel strange gazes.
Someone was tailing them.
Wherever they went, blatant traces of camps remained, along with the corpses of beasts and magical creatures discarded there.
The pilgrimage leader selected one of his squires and sent him as a scout. But after waiting half a day with no return, they proceeded as planned and soon discovered the squire hanging from a tree, his body torn to shreds.
And suddenly, the tree came alive. An evil spirit had possessed the tree, transforming it into a massive monster.
One punch from the tree spirit toppled a horse, shattering the squire riding it.
The startled pilgrimage group fought the tree spirit and finally emerged victorious.
A heroic battle and victory against the gigantic tree monster would have been a boastful tale for ordinary Salvation Knights to brag about over drinks, but they felt no joy at all.
Because the attack was only the beginning.
From that day on, their pursuers began attacking them openly. Thick fog rolled in every night, and sentries, entranced by something, were dragged away only to be found as corpses soon after.
Was that all?
Seductive laughter from women echoed through the thick fog, and when they came to their senses, the pilgrimage group's numbers had dwindled.
The serfs and farmers, whose feet were free, either fled into the fog or were bewitched and killed by the fog's monsters, vanishing one by one until only the prisoners locked in the jail wagons and the pilgrimage knights remained.
The leader immediately halted the pilgrimage and headed toward the nearest city to request aid, but the fog only thickened, the enemies' attacks grew fiercer, and before long, they were utterly lost.
It was then that a young female knight of the pilgrimage group proposed a dangerous alternative.
She pulled out an imperial gold coin.
*********
This pilgrimage leader, Beljuan, was a seasoned Salvation Knight.
His rank within the Order of Salvation Knights was Hospitaler-Paladin, commander of the mounted shock troops.
Though the Order of Salvation Knights received poorer treatment than the king's church, a Hospitaler-Paladin was no pushover.
It wasn't a position one could ascend to by luck alone; one needed proven diverse combat experience and command ability to become a Paladin.
But even this veteran pilgrimage leader, with all his experience, now felt terror.
He had battled magical beasts and countless Kurt deity followers before, but he had never encountered anything like this.
Unable to even identify the nature of the threat, their foe pursued them with clear malice and obsession, methodically severing their limbs, and he had no way to counter it.
Just then, a subordinate brought forward a reckless plan.
“Please, Leader. Allow me to use this.”
A beautiful girl with black hair and blue eyes stared straight at him. The girl held an item of heresy.
The Emperor's gold coin.
It was a sinister coin that summoned the evil spirits serving Emperor Yaeslrat, who once ruled the Hybris continent—the Emperor's Heralds.
“Lady Izmira. Do you know what that means?”
The girl's name was Izmira. Her rank was Hospitaler-Errant, a squire knight.
Yet she was clad head to toe in dwarf-forged armor, armed with azure steel shield and ceramite longsword. Equipment no mere squire could afford.
She must have come from an incredibly wealthy family and joined the Order of Salvation Knights for some reason. That was the only explanation, and now she had produced the Emperor's gold coin.
“It's the Emperor's gold coin. A tool to summon the Emperor's evil spirits, the soulless heretics. The moment we use it, our pilgrimage will be defiled. There's no guarantee we'll survive even if we do...”
Of course, the pilgrimage leader didn't truly harbor a strong aversion to the Emperor's gold coin.
No, he did feel repulsed, but not enough to disregard his life. In this situation, he'd do anything to survive.
But as the pilgrimage leader, whether he died to the mysterious enemy or was purged later for using the Emperor's gold coin, it amounted to the same thing.
‘Izmir. If you'd take responsibility, fine, but am I insane enough to approve it? You fool. Just use it yourself and report it after the fact.’
The pilgrimage leader suffered from Izmira's simplistic lack of political rhetoric. It seemed time to demonstrate his veteran savvy.
“Do I not understand the young people's desire to live under my command? Yet my faith commands me to serve pure virtue rather than borrow the power of such heretics. Normally, I should reprimand you just for possessing it, but I understand the hearts of the young. Wandering in delusion is the privilege of youth, not for an old man like me. Lady Izmira. Only someone as young and promising as you can afford such an exception. An old-timer like me could never...”
‘I can't do it, but if you young ones mess up, the higher-ups will forgive it. Especially you, with your immense background—they'll look favorably on whatever you do.’
He spun this into a lengthy speech conveying that intent. As he made excuses to evade responsibility, suddenly hail began pouring down on them from above.
“Argh!”
“W-what is this?!”
“It's b-blood hail!”
“Blood hail? Eek?!”
The knights screamed as they raised their shields against the onslaught. Ice made from frozen blood rained down on their heads.
“Leader! I beg you again! Let me use the Emperor's gold coin!”
Izmir appealed to the pilgrimage leader, holding up her azure steel shield.
At that moment, a young woman's voice rang out from among the criminals locked in the wagon.
“Hey, you dumb girl! That old geezer is basically saying, ‘I don't want responsibility, so you go ahead and do it yourself!’ Can't you get it?”
“What?!”
Izmir glared at the criminal who had hurled insults at her. A young woman with a knife scar on her face was sitting cross-legged under the bulk of a large man, using his body as a roof.
“Ah, it hurts, sis.”
“Shut up and take it, big guy. I won rock-paper-scissors. Your sturdy body can handle this much, you know.”
Indeed, this man had a muscular build like an ancient statue of a god.
Half-orc. Among those born of orc and human, some inherited only the orcs' curse of muscular bodies instead of their astonishing intellect—this man was one such unfortunate case.
“But that game... Isn't it unfair that you don't count my missing pinky as paper? You keep winning, sis.”
“That's because I'm good at it. You have to spread all five fingers for paper. Got it?”
“I hate that game.”
“It's our family tradition. Shut up and deal with it, you idiot.”
This woman was using her giant half-orc little brother as a hail shield while sitting beneath him.
“Hey, you. Did you just say that to me? Insulting me is one thing, but insulting the faith of Beljuan, leader of the pilgrimage and Hospitaler-Paladin...”
*Ahem.* “Lady Izmira. This isn't the time for that. Protect your comrades. We don't know when the enemy will strike.”
“Yes?”
Izmir was bewildered by the pilgrimage leader's response, suppressing her inquiry in this situation. Didn't that make the thief woman's words seem correct?
“Ah, Leader. Does that mean I have permission to use the Emperor's gold coin?”
*Ahem.*
“......”
Izmir began hesitating, watching Lord Beljuan's expression.
She had pulled out the coin, but seeing her commander openly shirk responsibility made her uneasy too.
Unable to bear it, a young squire stepped forward. Not a Hospitaler but a young man bearing the order's emblem drew a triangular magic circle on the ground.
“Lady Izmira. If I may be so bold, might I use the Emperor's gold coin in your stead and bear the responsibility?”
“Ah, Mr. MacDougal.”
“If summoning the Emperor's Heralds is the wicked sin of selling one's soul, then I shall bear that sin entirely. I'll take the responsibility too. Of course, whether a lowly one like me can bear such responsibility is another matter, but with all our lives hanging by a thread, how could I prioritize my own safety? However, if the rumors are true and the Emperor's Heralds are devils of the coin...”
“......”
He was talking too much.
Unable to wait any longer, Izmira placed the gold coin directly on the magic circle.