Chapter 87
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: The Holy Knight Wants to Play
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Narchopep's pupils lost their focus.
He looked like an ordinary office worker who'd fallen victim to a voice phishing scam and lost all his savings.
Or maybe like someone who'd stopped by the hospital on a whim, only to get an unnecessary surgery at an outrageous price.
I got it. I understood.
He wasn't lying outright, just beating around the bush to deceive me, and with his brain, it would've been hard to spot right away.
I'm a Holy Knight with insight, so I could pick up on that easily.
I also knew to deliver the finishing blow while he was still dazed.
"Choose. Relocate your citizens, or go to war against Hellite."
"Heh, war with Hellite?"
"Looks like you've already forgotten."
I opened my divine power blatantly.
Different from Steron, faster than Roginin, more intense than when we first met.
Bam!
Narchopep, hit with a sudden flash in the eyes, toppled backward.
"Ugh!"
"I'm a Holy Knight. Guess who I belong to."
"Does that mean all this is the Holy Kingdom's scheme?"
Narchopep, covering his eyes with his forearm, cried out desperately.
"Yes..."
I paused for a moment.
"...Exactly."
My Insight Ability lay dormant.
In the whole world.
Truth. Real. True.
Chills ran down my spine.
Did the Holy Kingdom anticipate I'd pull something like this?
Or maybe they didn't care what I did, so I could borrow their name freely.
- 【Follow your own justice.】
That's right.
Luke must have looked at the moon and reported the situation to the Saintess. The moon's a satellite, right? A communication satellite. Has to be. That bastard Luke was muttering while staring at the moon.
Whatever I did on a whim was already approved in the name of the top Holy Knight, Luke Seid.
Yeah. That's how it was. Oh my god.
"Negotiations are over. You just pick. Kruuk."
I beckoned toward where the bandits were gathered.
"Yes! Boss. Vice-captain Kruuk reporting for duty!"
Kruuk came sprinting over like a bullet.
"See the guests off. Load up the cart with some ogre leg bones and a few ribs."
"How should I bill..."
"Just give it. For free."
Narchopep and Kruuk's eyes widened simultaneously.
For different reasons, of course.
For Narchopep, who was facing life or death, this precious gift had opened a path to survival.
For Kruuk, it was his first diplomatic mission.
"Then I'll pack just enough to pique Brad Merchant Group's interest."
"You caught my intent perfectly. Keep growing like that, and you'll make a fine governor of this fortress someday."
Kruuk bowed his head and withdrew. His steps brimmed with the energy of a praised future governor.
Fred watched him with intrigued eyes.
I puffed out my chest toward Narchopep and spoke.
"These are valuable goods. A gift to signify starting citizen relocation and opening trade routes."
I gave Narchopep no room to respond.
When running a scam—or dominating negotiations—the key was to overwhelm them, keeping their minds too rattled for second thoughts.
I knew that because I'm a Holy Knight with a middle school education.
I stretched my arm toward the sky.
"I command you: come to me."
A rat-catching hawk that had been circling overhead landed on my wrist.
Rat-catching hawks are about the size of pigeons. True to their raptor nature, their beaks curved downward like sickles, and their feathers were a two-tone of dark gray and black.
"Good bird."
I tickled its beak as I spoke.
"This guy's Narchopep. Play messenger for him for a while."
Narchopep's eyes flickered wildly.
Messenger? A sharp guy like him would know it meant keeping him under hawk-eyed surveillance.
I fed the hawk some corn and shook my arm.
The rat-catching hawk took off from my wrist.
Kreeee-ahhh!
It soared powerfully, letting out a long cry.
'What're you saying?'
I couldn't understand it, but it got my words.
"Prince."
"Speak, B-Boss."
"Keep corn in your pocket from now on. Rats or king grubs are even better. Fresher the better. Even taming beasts isn't free. Beasts are honest and straightforward. They don't bow to royalty. Feed them, don't harm them, and they'll follow. Trust matters, got it?"
"Y-Yes, understood."
Narchopep couldn't keep up with the rapid developments.
A perfectly unexpected turn of events, so his reaction was natural.
Anyone else would've danced to my tune too. Believe it or not.
'The ogre bones are a bit of a loss. Still, cheaper than tendons or hides. Never giving blood for free, though.'
As I stood, Narchopep stumbled to his feet awkwardly.
"I've forgotten what happened when you first arrived. The arrogant glares, the rude words—all of it."
This was a warning.
I hadn't forgotten, so don't screw up again.
"If you hadn't been the king's envoy—if you'd drawn a sword even once—I'd have killed you all."
No second chances. Screw up again, and I'd kill without hesitation.
"I'm the most extraordinary Holy Knight there is. Don't expect me to act all noble and dignified like the others."
"I'll keep that in mind."
I waited silently as Narchopep's group prepared to leave, no further conversation needed.
They departed, pulling a cart loaded with ogre parts.
As they receded into the distance, I asked Fred,
"Learn anything?"
"Mm."
Fred pursed his lips and nodded deeply.
"I'll report the details to Requiya."
Nice, Fred indeed.
Not only did he grasp my intent perfectly, he even knew how to apply it.
The gravitas of a long-time wanderer, I suppose.
"You'll do well, Fred Shobiding. Someday, you'll lead people."
"I'll strive to be of help."
Fred nodded solemnly, then asked,
"What's the reason for all this?"
"I'm an extraordinary Holy Knight, right? Isn't it normal for an extraordinary guy to do extraordinary things?"
Come to think of it, Fred was the first to call me that.
"That's not what I meant. You know what I'm asking."
"You always start with a demonstration. That's how on-the-job training works."
Wonder if he knows OJT.
"We need to send more birds to Fiore. These guys seem sluggish."
"They must think Fiore's royals won't move easily."
"Probably. They hoped Brad and us would have a go at each other. Fat chance. We can't fight anyone."
"No army, so naturally."
"Even if we had one, we shouldn't. We're not opening the fortress to build an army. We're beckoning the homeless. Like a frontier city. Who dies in wars? The powerless and poor. They die without attacking, get stabbed without knowing swords."
"True enough."
Fred, having scraped the bottom, was easy to talk to.
As the Brad delegation vanished over the horizon, Fred asked,
"Planning to charge tariffs on Fiore merchants?"
"No. Not thinking of it. If we do, we'd have to hit Brad's too."
"That's different from before."
"Different? From what?"
"You said no tariffs for Brad merchants..."
"That's true, right? No tariffs for Brad. It's their land."
"Fiore—"
"Fiore's foreign merchants. But to us, both Brad and Fiore are foreign. Let them tariff each other however. We'll be an independent, free city."
Whatever. It's not my first scam.
Can't Holy Knights change their words?
Ugh...
Fred made a sound like an old man with constipation straining.
Blood pressure spike could be dangerous.
He might keel over ass-up.
"If you don't get it now, mull it over, chew on it, think again. Eventually it'll become yours, and you can share it."
"That's wisdom, then."
"Think whatever."
Since when did common sense and conscience get packaged as wisdom?
"I'll leave similar matters to Requiya and you from now on."
"Understood. I'll do my best as I've learned."
Now, what should I do...
Time to tend to the dragonkin dozing crouched in the shady corner, nodding off.
And feed the pig-hippo sleeping with its tongue lolling out.
'Sigh, such noble creatures...'
Two weeks since taking the fortress.
Or not?
Sip. Let me check.
One... about 18 days?
"Boss, staring at the stars again today? Always slashing and stabbing at stars? You did it at night, now daytime too? Let's go hunting."
Damn, Ibu's lost his edge—like boneless bone soup. Kid's gotten bland.
Still, he was trying to change on his own, so I let him be.
Not a bad change.
Watching him, I was working on cleaning up my own speech.
"No more hunting needed. We have plenty to eat. Can't kill all the animals—they need to live too, or the world's done."
"Can't let it end. Ibu's super noble, doesn't wanna see it end."
"And it's not just looking. I'm training like this, sitting."
"Staring up at stars and down at the world is training?"
"Yep. Mind cultivation."
Wonder if he knows mind cultivation.
His soul's pure, so maybe.
"Observe, imagine, immerse—and something clicks."
"What clicks?"
"Sword mastery, mana circulation secrets, who I am, what I'm doing here—stuff like that."
Truth is, my mind's getting foggy; where I came from, who I was—it's all hazy.
Like a dream.
At least intense memories stick, like black history.
"Then Ibu trains sitting too. Ibu knows axes and mana, but not who Ibu is or why crashed here eating and sleeping."
Ibu must've gone through it already, hence the fool scent.
"Good. Sit here. Hey—no sitting on my lap again—"
"Okay, okay, got it."
Ibu and I watched the fortress and plains from the central tower's top every day.
The pig-hippo surveyed the world, tongue lolling.
The fortress bustled with residents.
Refugees poured in from north, south, east.
Dirty, ragged folk.
Old, young, sick.
We took them all in without discrimination.
Who discriminates against whom?
I'm the virus that flowed in myself.
Saying it like this feels saintly, but that's why I can't be one.
Not sincere.
Reason for taking them in is different.
Several reasons, actually...
One clear fact: they're not holy.
"Boss, too many citizens."
"Few compared to fortress size. We can house them all."
"Chaos expected."
"Everyone do what they can. Order will form naturally."
I'd only said fill the sanctuary with life—no hands-on work from me.
'I'm lazy. Wanna slack.'
See? Not very holy.
The Holy Knight wants to play.
Got it?