Twenty knights supported by Lord Carteyn.
Twenty holy knights drafted from the Holy Knight Brigade.
A total of six priests dispatched from the Cathedral.
No adventurers.
Total personnel: 46.
“Whew.”
Ludvik let out a light whistle as he surveyed the scene.
It was hard to judge whether the number of people present was high or low.
With the fog casting a shadow over Evian, how could one possibly tell if it was enough?
However, it seemed that Ludvik’s expression looked a bit disappointed, as if he thought the numbers were low, prompting Sister Aege to approach him with a gentle word of comfort.
“Well, it can’t be helped, can it? A volunteer adventurer who doesn’t ask for payment tends to be the least trustworthy type.”
“Well, that’s true. If I weren’t acting as a hero, I’d probably want at least a hundred gold coins to even consider doing something like this.”
Ludvik flashed a nonchalant grin.
Priest Vigrind, who was listening to this exchange, suddenly became curious.
The hero was said to be a gold-tier adventurer, much higher ranked than Yona, meaning he was considerably stronger.
So when he mentioned that he wouldn’t participate for less than a hundred gold coins, it implied he was confident in his own abilities. He may have confessed to being a coward, but that was likely just a white lie meant to comfort her, Vigrind thought.
Then, how wealthy could the hero possibly be?
If it takes a hundred gold coins to hire a gold-tier adventurer, just how rich must he be? Vigrind realized once again that she had barely touched even ten gold coins in her life.
‘No, no, I shouldn’t be thinking that way…’
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind.
Feeling slightly embarrassed by her fleeting crooked thoughts.
“Saint, are you scared?”
“Pardon?”
A long shadow loomed over her face.
Looking up into that shadow, she saw Ludvik’s smiling face looking down at her.
As always, his cheerful demeanor felt refreshing to those around him.
“Scared? Me?”
She hadn’t even entertained such thoughts.
Ludvik, still smiling broadly, reached out and gently patted Vigrind’s head.
His big hand, about the size of her face, rubbed her hair softly.
The red hair, styled in an updo, swayed gently, glimmering in the sunlight as it danced in response to Ludvik’s touch.
“My apologies, Saint, for your tiara being askew.”
Ludvik said as he glanced around before lowering his posture to whisper in her ear.
“Are you feeling a bit more at ease now, Saint?”
“W-Well—”
That’s not it at all.
“Nope.”
“I wasn’t scared.”
“And I’m not afraid either.”
Priest Vigrind was about to say something.
But the words wouldn’t come out.
Instead, he found himself thinking, “Isn’t it okay to just keep quiet?”
“Uh, it seems like…”
He ended up looking down.
A lie, this must also be a lie.
The thought that he was lying made Vigrind’s heart feel like it was being squeezed.
*
“First, let’s set up camp here.”
Ludvik, who had gathered a group of forty-six under the title of hero, tapped the ground with the tip of his spear.
The fog was still not visible, and since they needed to go deeper, the Cathedral Knight Commander and the Kartein Knight Commander looked at him with puzzled expressions.
“We have no idea when the fog might expand again. This ground is flat, making it a good spot for fifty people to stay, and there’s a pond behind us so it’s easy to find drinking water. Anyway, we’ll need to rest well today before we go into the fog, so let’s set up camp here.”
“The hero’s words are valid.”
Ludvik had a point. It was important to secure food and shelter for nearly fifty people, not just a small party of ten, so most of them seemed to agree with his reasoning that pushing ahead recklessly could have adverse effects.
While the Cathedral Knights and the Kartein Knights led by Scarlet were choosing a spot and preparing to pitch tents, Ludvik approached Sister Aege.
Having traveled this time on cargo wagons without any fancy carriages, the faces of the refined Cathedral priests were all dusty.
In the midst of this, Aege stood out, comforting the priests, and when she saw Ludvik, she quickly jumped down from the wagon and approached him.
“Hero.”
“Sister Aege, how are you feeling? Do you sense anything?”
“I can feel that the magic is getting stronger. It’s definitely thicker compared to when we came before. What’s more peculiar is…”
Aege looked around.
She was checking if anyone was listening, but the knights were too busy pitching tents and the priests were a bit out of it, struggling to take care of themselves, so there wasn’t a soul to overhear their conversation.
“I can feel that the magic is rising quite high. It’s very different from when we came before.”
“The magic… is high?”
“Yes.”
Since the moment the wagon stopped here, Aege had been continuously releasing her holy power to scan the surroundings.
It was a rather inefficient strategy since it only projected outward and didn’t return, making it a method most wouldn’t use. However, Aege believed it was necessary in this situation.
I thought it was necessary to do so.
It wasn’t completely ineffective.
The magic had certainly intensified compared to when the fog first appeared, and the source of that magic seemed to be very deep down, possibly even on the surface contrary to our thoughts.
And that it shot up very high.
“It keeps getting stronger. That’s clear. The wider the fog spreads, the stronger the magic must be.”
Sister Aege’s expression turned serious. In proportion, Ludvik’s expression also hardened.
“That means we don’t have much time.”
“Yes.”
Ludvik lifted his gaze to the sky.
The gloomy, overcast sky was, like the fog somewhere far off, covering the sunlight completely.
“…Well, I understand.”
Ludvik nodded and turned back to find Priest Vigrind.
Sitting like a sick chicken at one end of the carriage and dozing off, Priest Vigrind stirred awake at the sound of Ludvik sitting across from him.
His face looked quite pathetic, and Ludvik couldn’t help but smile wryly.
“Are you okay, Saint?”
“Ah… Hero. I’m so sorry for looking like this.”
“No, it’s fine. You must have had a hard journey.”
Ludvik’s gaze fell on the white robe Vigrind was wearing.
That robe, although holy, served primarily as a means to keep warm and didn’t have much function beyond that.
As a warm garment, it provided shade from the sun, and since he had worn it the entire way here, Priest Vigrind must not have gotten much sunlight at all.
“How is your divine power? Is it full?”
“Yes. It’s sufficient.”
“Excuse me?”
Ludvik’s eyes widened for a moment.
As far as he remembered, Priest Vigrind had been wearing that robe the whole time.
Even on the ship to Evian, he had kept the robe on, and since arriving in Evian until now, he had been wearing it.
There hadn’t been enough time to soak up sunlight.
Yet, he claimed his divine power was full, which puzzled Ludvik.
Divine power increases over time, but there is a limit to how much that can happen.
Priests each have different capacities for divine power, so the time it takes to fill up varies.
Priest Vigrind’s divine power would also increase over time, but once he became a Saint, he would possess a type of divine power that surpasses the regular capacity—in a fundamentally different nature.
And the means of filling that divine power was sunlight.
The more one is exposed to sunlight over time, the more divine power would accumulate.
The revealing nature of the Saint’s robes is precisely because of that.
“I was removing my robe during the times I was alone…”
“Ah, I see.”
It was only then that Ludvik nodded.
He nodded.
Sometimes, Priest Vigrind would send away all the attendants and spend time alone in the room, and it seemed that during those times, he was filling his divine power.
“The Saint is truly remarkable. You are always prepared for the concerns I had.”
“No, no. It’s only natural. You flatter me.”
Vigrind blushed and lowered his head.
“…Perhaps there may be a Demon. Saint, are you not afraid?”
Vigrind raised his head and looked up at Ludvik.
The smile that was always on his face had vanished, replaced by a rather stern expression.
How could one not be afraid?
Even when faced with Vervaria, his body froze in fear.
Just seeing that horrific figure would overwhelm any human.
“I am afraid, Saint.”
Ludvik said with a weak smile.
That self-deprecating laugh carried an ambiguous air around it.
“Facing a Demon isn’t different from confronting monsters, is it? I couldn’t even overcome my own doppelganger. The thought that there might be a Demon again makes me shiver. I might die, after all.”
The tip of his spear poked the floor of the carriage.
The spear tip danced around, gently tapping in front of Vigrind’s tiny shoes.
“So, I am afraid. How about you, Saint?”
Did he want to be a hero?
Vigrind thought while looking at Ludvik’s face.
Did Ludvik really want to be a hero?
As a gold-ranked adventurer earning a hundred gold coins, did Ludvik truly yearn to be a hero?
But she couldn’t ask that question now.
Ludvik’s face looked like he could burst into tears at any moment, making it seem too difficult to bring up.
“…The divine will does not give us trials we cannot overcome.”
A cliché saying.
Such words would offer no help at all.
But she didn’t know what to say.
“Saint, perhaps… about that trial. Isn’t it that those who cannot overcome it all die, and only those who succeed survive?”
“Ah…”
That might be true.
Vigrind shut her mouth.
What should she say?
“Stay strong, you’ll win, I’m here for you…?”
Nothing felt appropriate.
“…I seem to be unable to hide anything in front of the Saint. What a shame, here I am, showing my ineptitude once again.”
To the awkwardly smiling Ludvik, Vigrind couldn’t utter a word.
She couldn’t.
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