The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.
Hannah Scarlet Gospel 10:45
“Lord! I think we’ll arrive soon! Ugh.”
“Don’t push yourself, Hans. I’ll take the reins.”
“No, it’s fine, my lord. This much is nothing for a warrior of the North, haha.”
Having escaped from Saula, I was riding with Hans towards Calandra’s Academy.
All the soldiers and knights had thrown themselves to protect me, and as a result, most of our party was injured in various ways.
Although no one had lost their life or sustained permanent disabilities because of my artifact, the wounds left by the lingering energy of ‘Chaos’ had not completely healed, even though I used my recovery artifact.
So the other party members took a carriage towards the nearby city of Damaskus, while I planned to untie one of the horses from the carriage and head towards the academy.
Then the protesting knights appeared.
Despite their injuries making it hard for them to stand, they insisted on accompanying me for my safety, even though they would have suffered lifelong disabilities if I hadn’t used my artifact.
That’s when Hans stepped in.
“You fools! Are you saying you can protect the Lord in your current state? You’re barely useful as baggage! I’ll be the one to protect the Lord. You lot go quickly to the city to recover!”
And so, I ended up riding towards the academy with just Hans…
The problem was that Hans had also sustained injuries fighting Saula.
And she had been at the front line of the fierce battle.
The energy of ‘Chaos’ must have infiltrated her the deepest.
Even so, she hid the pain and accompanied me.
No one asked me why the being that overwhelmed all the knights suddenly disappeared.
This was also thanks to Hans.
Hans was the one who first witnessed me using ‘Gift’.
Perhaps because I collapsed shortly after using my power, Hans seemed to have mistaken my ‘Gift’ a bit.
For a ‘Gift’ that has detrimental effects on me, that is.
He might be thinking it comes at the cost of my life or lifespan.
“My lord.”
“What is it, Hans?”
“Thanks to you, my lord, everyone was able to survive.”
“…I was just trying to save myself.”
“You could have run away by yourself, my lord. I know you always have plenty of those tools with you. But this time, it seems like you used your ‘Gift’.”
“…Hans.”
“My lord, you are of the noble blood of Pulsreino, which is incomparable to us. You are a different existence altogether. There’s no need for you to sacrifice yourself for us.”
But I never sacrificed anything.
Of course, it was a risky gamble, but if I failed, I planned to use ‘Zana’s life’ to escape.
*
I am Hans.
I am Hannah Scarlet.
As a knight of the Pulsreino territory, I have watched the three children of the Grand Duke since their childhood.
Young Lady Seiren, Young Lady Meiru, and Lord Luke.
Young Lady Seiren inherited the blood of the Pulsreino family most strongly and has overwhelming talent in martial arts.
Though not up to her sister’s level, Young Lady Meiru possesses excellent talent along with tremendous effort and perseverance.
Unlike those two sisters, and uncharacteristic of the Pulsreino bloodline, Lord Luke had no talent for martial arts whatsoever. But he did possess the beautiful looks of the Pulsreino family.
Still, Lord Luke always wanted to adventure in this world.
When he was seven years old, he even wrote a novel about traveling the continent and showed it to me. It was so cute that I almost bit his cheek.
Anyway, Lord Luke wrote remarkably well for his age, surprising everyone in the castle.
Though he dreamed of adventure to that extent, the Grand Duke would not allow it without the outstanding combat ability of Young Lady Seiren or Young Lady Meiru.
And as Lord Luke grew older, he managed to bring in money from somewhere.
According to Lord Luke, he earned the money through some collaboration with a guild in Calandra, but honestly, is there a guild willing to partner with a little boy, no matter how clever he is?
As he accumulated the money, he established a mercenary group and, after receiving permission from the Grand Duke, set out on an expedition.
He claimed he would excavate ruins hidden all over the Empire.
As a condition for granting permission, the Grand Duke attached me to Lord Luke.
Although I’m lacking compared to the Pulsreino bloodline, my family had always served the Pulsreino family as formidable warriors of the North, so I could become the Lord’s bodyguard.
I traveled to various ruins in the Empire with Lord Luke.
He easily located dungeons and such, as if receiving divine revelations, and mobilized mercenaries to excavate them.
I’ve heard that excavating ruins is an extremely challenging task that treasure hunters might only experience once in their lifetime.
While excavating several ruins… it was probably the tenth one.
An incident occurred.
The mercenaries Lord Luke had hired rebelled.
“My lord, this is already the tenth ruin!”
“Yes, it is the tenth ruin.”
“For an ordinary person, seeing even one in a lifetime is rare, and yet you’ve found ten and reaped the rewards!”
“And?”
“Then why do we have no share of the spoils?”
““““Exactly!””””
One particularly rebellious mercenary sparked the others’ participation.
“A share of the spoils?”
“Exactly!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I definitely made a contract with you, as stated in that contract I determined your share. Didn’t I pay you a sum double that of the other mercenaries?”
“True, but my lord, you have acquired astronomical rewards! We did all the hard work! Shouldn’t you at least give us something more?”
“Enough of that, mercenaries. Don’t overstep your bounds. This person is the noble of the Pulsreino family.”
As the atmosphere began to shift, I tried to intervene.
“Pulsreino? What of it?”
“What?”
“This place is a ruin that no one else knows about but us. We could easily finish off you and the Lord here without anyone knowing about it.”
“Yes, you lowlife… you really think you can turn against the Pulsreino family!”
“Haha… The Pulsreino family? They will know nothing. The Lord and the knight here will perish in a trap during their exploration of the ruins.”
They were definitely planning to eliminate us and rummage through Lord Luke’s belongings.
Damn it! Do mercenaries have no sense of shame!
…How could I not sense the atmosphere turning until it got to this point… I’m unfit to be a bodyguard.
“…This can’t be happening… I must have balanced the favor through the rewards… Perhaps they grabbed all the rewards so effectively that it made it impossible in the actual game… Reality is… What should I do…”
The Lord, who always handled everything perfectly, was unusually trapped in confusion.
Quickly assessing the situation, I fled with the Lord from the mercenaries.
If they had been ordinary mercenaries, I could have handled a hundred of them alone, but they were elite mercenaries chosen by the Lord. Each one could use mana.
That was why I had trusted them, but who would have thought they would all betray us.
Dealing with them was already a hard task, let alone protecting the Lord while fighting!
“Noble ones, are you fleeing?”
“Catch them! If we get them, we can live the rest of our lives in luxury!”
“What the hell are you doing! Shoot arrows at them!”
A challenging escape ensued against numerous mercenaries.
Barely managing to break away from them, I arrived in a nearby city, battered and bruised, to seek help from the Lord.
The Lord listened to our story and quickly dispatched a punitive force to wipe out the mercenaries. Though the leader who incited them escaped, I heard they managed to eliminate all the other mercenaries.
The problem was that I had taken too much damage.
The priest who treated me told me that if I wanted to preserve my life, I should never touch a sword again.
To be precise, he said I shouldn’t infuse mana into a sword, but a sword without mana is no sword at all, meaning I was being told to lay down my weapon.
After spending my entire life as a knight, telling me to lay down my sword!
It was shocking and heartbreaking, but it was an honorable wound in my service to my lord, so I accepted it.
However, it seemed that the Lord was not of the same mind.
In the night, the Lord came to my bedroom where I was lying down.
My site has received a lot of DMCA notices, lol. From now on, I will update the MTL on https://darkmtl.com/.
The site is fast and lightweight because there are no ads yet. However, the theme is different from Cybor-TL, so take some time to familiarize yourself.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.