Chapter 422: How to Live as a Wandering Knight (3)
...Pow!
The hard skeleton shattered and all the hot stuff inside spilled out onto the ground.
The Poison Gnoll fell to the ground, spraying poisonous brain fluid, and after shaking its body for a while, it cooled down.
The gnolls that had followed the Poison Gnoll into human territory also fell to the ground, all of them dead.
Initially a single clean hole in the head or heart, the gnoll corpses piled up, their entrails and heads bursting open in a gruesome, messy mound that testified to the fierceness of the battle.
Knight of the Night. Tudor, a wandering knight in black plate armor, sat atop the corpses of the gnolls, breathing heavily.
"...It's hard to get used to having one arm."
The expression on his face has worn away as he continues to march, constantly exhausted and tired from the lack of sleep.
Muttering to himself in a dry voice, Tudor suddenly realizes that his tone and manner of speaking reminds him of someone he remembers, then smiled.
"Perhaps that's how he's always lived his life, and that's why he's so cold and dull in personality...."
Vikir. The Night Hound.
It had been quite some time, but his face and voice were still fresh in his memory.
Tudor remembered his old friend, expelled from the Academy long ago, now imprisoned in a prison in a faraway place.
Throbbing-
And every time he did, pain shot through his severed left arm.
Don Quixote's eldest son, the next in line to become head of the family, had abandoned the family name and turned his back on his family.
He left his severed left arm at home.
"...."
Tudor recalled a story he'd heard in a tavern before the fight with the gnolls.
'I also hear that Don Quixote and the Ushers are the subject of much gossip in town, and that the current patriarch is laid up with an illness, a very serious one, I hear. See you today and tomorrow.'
'They're superhumans! They're masters! They are not the kind of people who will succumb to disease or something like that!'
'They've been out of active service for years now. From what I've heard, Don Quixote's younger brother is the regent, and Usher's younger sister is the regent.'
'Hmm, I've heard that, but I've also heard that Don Quixote and Usher didn't have many members of their own families, so they relied on people from the outside world to help them. Is that why?'
The sound of teeth grinding came out of Tudor's mouth as he recalled the memory of that time.
Grrrttt!
Anger surges through him. A throbbing sensation in his missing left arm.
Tudor remembered that night, the night of his escape from the family home, clearly.
...Uncle Passamonte, who had been involved in escorting Vikir to Nouvelle Vague.
He had also vehemently advocated for the Nakajaniye Court of the Imperial Capital to sentence Vikir to death.
After the trial, Tudor had visited Passamonte several times to discuss the demon controversy and Vikir's punishment.
Even then, he had doubts.
Could his uncle, who had been so kind to him since he was a child, really be involved with the demon?
The uncle who had taught him what chivalry, romance, and ambition meant?
Es la misión del verdadero caballero. Su deber. ?No! Su deber no. Su privilegio.
-It is the task and duty of a true knight. No! Not your duty, but your privilege.
So?ar lo imposible so?ar.
-To dream the impossible dream.
Vencer al invicto rival,
-To defeat an invincible opponent,
Sufrir el dolor insufrible,
-To endure unbearable pain,
Morir por un noble ideal. -To die for a noble ideal.
Saber enmendar el error,
-To know how to fix a wrong,
Amar con pureza y bondad.
-To love with purity and good will.
Querer, en un sue?o imposible,
-To fall in love in an impossible dream,
Con fe, una estrella alcanzar.
-To have faith, to reach for the stars.
When he closed his eyes, he could still hear his uncle's voice in his ear as he recited verses from the epic poem.
... But that didn't make him doubt Vikir.
As far as Tudor knew, Vikir had never told a bluff.
That was the kind of man he was.
A friend who was close to his age, but like an older brother, sometimes even an elder brother, a trusted and reliable friend.
He could never imagine that Vikir would ever claim anything false.
And then there was Professor Morg Banshee, a familiar face at Colosseo Academy.
He may be a bit of a jerk and a pompous prick, but he's a fierce principled man and never speaks up when he's not sure about something.
Tudor, a former student at the Academy, knew this well.
So, the idea was to meet Passamonte face to face and investigate the facts.
...However, Tudor has not been able to even see Passamonte's face properly in recent years.
Passamonte, who had succeeded his father as regent after his sudden illness, kept Tudor out of his life.
Power struggles are a common occurrence in high-ranking families with complex family histories.
It's a common, clichéd trope that's always been part of fairy tales and legends.
But when it comes to his family, it's a different story.
During the vacation before Tudor graduation from the Academy, a secret civil war raged within the Don Quixote family.
His uncle's rebellion for control over the province.
Tudor is forced to flee the family home to escape a wave of assassins.
It wasn't until a sword was drawn to his throat that Tudor knew for sure.
Don Quixote's family had already been eaten by the Pasamonte.
That the sudden illness of his father, who was called the King of Spears, had been caused by a terrible conspiracy.
...And that in the end, Vikir, the old friend was right.
Tudor fled through tears. Through the pain and humiliation of having his arm cut off on the way.
As Tudor fled by boat, he remembered the words of Passamonte, who was at the head of the pursuing party, as he scowled at him.
"Do you mean to abandon your father and run away, and yet you are the son of the Lion King?
Enraged, Tudor plunged into a final, life-threatening battle.
...It would have definitely been like that if it hadn't been for Bianca who appeared at the right time.
To Tudor's stubborn insistence that he could not leave his father behind, Bianca calmly replied.
'Retreating is not running away, and it is not wise to simply wait when danger outweighs hope. A wise man does not risk everything in one day, knowing to save today for tomorrow.'
These were Vikir's last words on the court of Nakajaniye in the center of the Imperial Capital.
Tudor left the family, following in the footsteps of Bianca, who had turned her back on her family in the same situation.
The heads of the Don Quixote family and the Usher family, who had tried to declare neutrality in the face of signs of civil war, have since disappeared from the world.
The actual patriarch of Don Quixote and Usher family became Don Quixote La Mancha Passamonte and Usher Poe Madeline.
They searched the entire continent under the pretext of finding missing young patriarchs, and Tudor and Bianca had to go on an arduous escape.
The journey was arduous and dangerous, requiring them to penetrate several layers of vast siege networks and overcome countless guard posts.
And the people who helped and accepted Tudor and Bianca are the 'Nightwalkers', a group of followers and vigilantes who continue the legacy of the 'Night Hound'.
"...."
And now.
Tudor, who had followed in the footsteps of the Night Hound and become a Knight of the Night, looked down on the town from above the corpses of the gnolls.
The world had changed a lot. Famines, long droughts, giant wildfires raging across the empire, and hordes of monsters.
The lives of humans had been squeezed to the bone, and it wasn't something anyone learned about in textbooks.
A large man shoves a slender girl and rips a chunk of meat from a gnoll corpse.
The strong extorted and robbed the weak, and treated them as if they were not human.
-The truly strong are strong to the strong and weak to the weak.
-The strong do not bully others because they can afford it, but the weak bully others to hide the fact that they are weak.
A quote from the autobiography of 'Don Quixote La Mancha Alonso Quijano', a man from the distant past, a true ancestor of Don Quixote the Spearman.
But the romance of chivalric literature and the reality of life were diametrically opposed.
The stronger you are, the more you bully others, and the weaker you are, the more unfair things you experience.
However, the weak were not necessarily good and kind.
The reality was much different than what they were taught in the Academy and within their families.
It was not the strong who survived, but the strong who survived.
Such was the world.
Tudor had seen this kind of humanity many times before, and he could feel his own personality becoming duller and more calloused as the battle raged on.
It was a process of going from an aspiring hero to a battlefield veteran.
And why?
The more Tudor's personality, speaking style, and voice become more and more similar to Vikir's.
"Hahaha- I shouldn't even take on his way of speaking, that's too stiff."
Tudor smiled mischievously and then stood up.
Just then.
"...So, there."
Someone shuffled to the side.
Where Tudor turned his head, a girl stood.
The same girl who had just escaped the gnoll attack.
"Drink this!"
The girl held out a large bowl of clear water and toasted bread sprinkled with herbs.
Water and herbs in this time of need. Tudor felt his throat instantly tighten.
"Can I accept something so precious?"
"...Of course!"
The girl, who had been worried that her gift might not be accepted, replied with a wide smile.
Tudor ate the bread and drink the water.
He would have to travel a long way to get back to the Night Walkers' hideout.
When Tudor finished eating, he stood up and saw that quite a few people had gathered around him.
"Knight, Knight of the Night, please take us with you!"
"We have heard that following the Night Walkers will lead us to a place where there is water, food, and God's blessings!"
"Please have mercy on us...."
The people gathered are those who no longer have a place to live due to gnoll raids, famine, and wildfires.
At first glance, the crowd looked to be about 10% of the town's population.
And Tudor nodded to them.
"Follow me."
This is why the Knight of the Night had come all this way in the first place.
A secret but not so secret place where the Night Walkers gathered.
'Only there will fire and water escape, and only there will true salvation be found.'
That is where the land of salvation in the new Book of Revelation exists.
The mission was to move as many people as possible to the ark built by the 'Saint of the Night'.