Book 4: Move 6 – The Sixth Move to Slay a Dragon: “Defeat your enemies.”

*Disclaimer note: This is merely a translation of the original Chinese version. I do not claim any part in the creation of the original story.

 

After running for about half an hour – with the help of a Divine Wings on myself – I finally found them.

I had thought that they'd be further away; I hadn't realised that they were already so close…… I broke out in a cold sweat at the thought. They probably would have caught up to me if I had spent a moment or two more talking with Ecilan!

But as I approached them, I realised that they had settled down for the night; their camp fire looked to have been raised some time ago.

'Why not continue the chase if they were already so close?' I wondered. But for now, I cast a Holy Protection spell on myself as I observed them, ready to run away at the slightest hint of danger.

To my surprise, the holy knights weren't what I was expecting. Instead of the 'strong, handsome and elegant holy knights' image I had built up in my mind after Caecilia's constant drilling into my mind, they were instead sprawled out clumsily all over the camp area; some were leaning against the trees, some had laid out on the dirty ground and some were even slumped against each other. Sprawled out as they were in their various positions, one could easily tell that they were exhausted.

Each holy knight looked exactly the same. Dirty and tired and sleeping like a log. I couldn't tell which one was the Blaze Knight!

And it's unthinkable that they hadn't even set up a guard to keep watch!

The only ones still awake were Caecilia and Yuna who sat in the midst of the 'fallen' holy knights, looking rather tired themselves. But when compared with the knights lying all around them they looked practically wide awake.

But no matter how wide awake they are, the holy knights couldn't have left those two outsiders to stand guard, could they?

This scene before me seemed rather suspicious. If I was someone who couldn't care less about Caecilia and Yuna's lives and just rained down a number of lightning bolts on them, I might even have successfully sent these 'living, breathing gods' to meet the real gods.

I approached slowly, the stench of unwashed bodies and dried sweat hitting me; it's a wonder that Caecilia and Yuna managed to sit there calmly in the midst of this stench where it's most definitely the strongest.

Just then, Caecilia appeared to have noticed me, for she was staring at me in shock and suspicion, but hesitating to call out. Around us, not a single holy knight stirred; none of them seemed to have sensed the intruder amongst their midst.

I walked out from the cover of the trees under the wide-eyed gaze of Caecilia. I hurriedly lifted a finger to my lips and even dispersed the holy aura from around my face, but still she stared at me in suspicion, not seeming to have recognised me. But why? I'd already dispersed the elements hiding my true face, so she should recognise me……

Just then, I suddenly remembered Ecilan's insistence that I wear a full mask. Could it be……?

I removed the mask.

Caecilia's eyes widened in surprise, before she let out a breath of relief. She then nudged Yuna, alerting her to my presence. Yuna had originally been facing the campfire with her back to me. When she turned around and saw me, she nearly let out a sound of surprise, but managed to cover her mouth in time, stopping the sound from escaping.

I couldn't help noting that whenever they looked at me, their faces would always be turned towards me…… No, it was not their faces, but their eyes that must be facing me.

Why are they different from me? I don't need to face anything, nor do I need to use my eyes to see anything. I can see in all directions just fine without needing to turn my head.

So, when Ecilan said that I was blind…… I softly patted at the area around my eyes. So, I really can't 'see' anything? But, I'm definitely seeing something, I'm just using a different method from everyone else.

Different from everyone else…… just who am I?

I hesitated for a moment before putting back on the mask. I somehow felt more secure at the thought that no one could see my face.

"Creus," Caecilia scurried over to me and whispered, "What are you doing here?"

"They're too fast; they're almost catching up to me. Why haven't you guys slowed them down?" I asked her instead.

She rolled her eyes and whispered back, "You have no idea how scary the Blaze Knight is. He threatened to leave us behind if we dared to even breathe a single word. Even when we pleaded that a necromancer was after us, he still refused to soften towards us……"

"Has he left you behind?"

She glared at me and huffed, "Of course not."

"Well then, if he was going to leave you two behind, why would he bother to say it? He's just got a sharp tongue but I bet he's a softy inside-…"

"And how would you know?" she shot back. "He just might do as he threatened! You've never seen him when he's in one of his moods, it's really frightening! The Blaze Knight is known as the fiercest amongst the Twelve Holy Knights, you know."

"I--"

I was about to say that of course I knew that, when I stopped abruptly. Why would I think that? Why 'of course'? It's not like I really know the Blaze Knight. For all I know, he might really leave the two of them behind. After all, he hadn't wanted to bring them along in the first place, right?

"You finally took the bait."

I gave a start at that, as the dirt beside me blew up and from below came out a person. This person's fire and holy aura was so much stronger than the rest of the holy knights, so it was a surprise that I hadn't noticed him…… I had already known that Ecilan's holy aura was very much stronger than normal, so as another of the Twelve Holy Knights, the Blaze Knight's holy aura couldn't have been the same as the other ordinary holy knights!

I then further realised that those holy knights slumped all around…… there were only seven of them!

The Blaze Knight had placed his huge broadsword at my neck, but I ignored it. I tried to hide the shaking in my voice as I tried my best to speak in a steady manner. "Why did you trick me?" I asked Caecilia and Yuna.

They looked at me and tried to say something, but stuttered and couldn't form a complete sentence.

They couldn't have not known that the Blaze Knight wasn't amongst the holy knights, yet they gave me no hint or warning! In fact, they had even played along with his trick!

The Blaze Knight suddenly gave a mirthless laugh. "Ha, ha! This is the first time someone actually ignored my presence! Well, to show my respect of your bravery, I'll give you a painless death!"

At that, I finally turned my attention to the Blaze Knight and said indifferently, "That's fine, but I hope you won't mind your seven holy knights coming along me."

The Blaze Knight gave a little jerk before shouting, "What did you say?"

"Even though they are only pretending to be asleep, their exhaustion isn't faked." I gave a cold laugh at this. "They were so tired that they didn't even notice me using Chains of Darkness to tie them down until too late. And they've completely missed the bone spikes I had prepared below ground aimed directly at their hearts!"

The Blaze Knight turned to look around and sure enough, he saw his holy knights struggling within their chains but unable to get free.

Surprisingly, he didn't look worried, but instead shouted at his own knights angrily, "Get yourselves free! What the hell are you guys playing at?! To let yourselves become hostages, don't you know the meaning of the word 'shame'?!"

"We-we've tried, captain, but we can't get loose!" one of the knights shouted.

The Blaze Knight was surprised by this, and after a few moments, I said to him slowly, "So, Jacques, are you going to let me go or not?"

He immediately turned to me and asked in puzzlement, "What did you call me?"

"Chains of Darkness!" I roared out, and immediately hundreds of thick black chains sprung up around the Blaze Knight and tightened around him. There, we now have a second cocoon to join Ecilan.

However, the Blaze Knight wasn't ruffled by this turn of events and merely gave a cold derisive laugh. "Using dark magic against one of the Twelve Holy Knights? You might as well try to evaporate a river with a matchstick!"

"Lightning!" I cried out, this time unleashing the unicorn's specialty – lightning magic, and threw all of them at the chained Blaze Knight.

"… Argh!"

Anyone else would have died from the shock of all that electricity, but not the Blaze Knight. He gave a soft grunt before quickly unleashing his light magic in an attempt to destroy the Chains of Darkness, but the moment he had them destroyed, I immediately added on more chains, throwing in several shots of lightning at the same time…… After several rounds of this, the man was still able to stop from letting out any hints of the unbearable pain he must be experiencing. After this impressive display of strength and perseverance, I had to concede that they certainly lived up to the description of 'living breathing gods'. This guy just doesn't seem human.

"Such strong dark elements, who are you?" he asked in suspicion.

My heart gave a jolt at that, for I am the one who wants to know the answer to that question the most!

But instead, I asked in a forced calm voice, "Ecilan said that I'm the Sun Knight. Do you believe that?"

The Blaze Knight immediately let out an enormous burst of light energy, disintegrating all the chains in an instant. Thankfully, the chains on the rest of the holy knights remained intact, so I still had my hostages.

He gave me a derisive snort. "You're trying to distract me by spouting nonsense in order to subdue me!"

He then suddenly charged towards me; caught by surprise, it took me a moment to remember to remind him of the hostages I still had in my hands, but that moment was all he needed, for before I could say a word, he had already closed the distance between us and was standing less than a meter away from me.

"Whoa, hold on! Don't be rash now, don't you care about your holy knights?"

"You wouldn't dare kill them!" He roared as he grabbed me and dragged me closer. "I don't know how you managed to subdue Frost, but it must have been through underhanded trickery. But you are mistaken if you think that I am like Frost and will play by your rules and get tricked by you! I don't care about anything else except to beat you to an inch of your life, you meddling bastard!"

Meddling? I blinked at that description before blurting out, "Oh that's right, you're looking for the Sun Knight, right? But Ecilan really told me that I'm the Sun Knight--"

"Shut up!!" roared the Blaze Knight. "You are not the Sun Knight! You cannot possibly be the Sun Knight!!"

'Can't possibly? I see……'

I asked him woodenly, "I can't possibly be the Sun Knight, huh. So, Ecilan lied to me?"

"Don't you dare besmirch Sun's name!! Sun isn't trash like you! And he would never have harmed a single holy knight, never!!"

And with that, he swung his broadsword at me. At the same time, more Chains of Darkness sprung around his arms, stopping him, but with a flash of holy light the chains disintegrated again once more. But even so, that one moment was enough for me to escape his grasp.

I hurriedly backed several large steps whilst shouting out, "Bone Prison!"

From out of the ground shot out eerie ivory spikes which formed into a grimy-looking white wall, but the Blaze Knight merely cleaved open the wall with his sword.

'Bone Prison!' I added several more layers of the white boned walls between us as I warned him, "Stop! Don't come any closer unless you want to see your holy knights die!"

I tightened the chains on the holy knights, but other than startling a few grunts out of them in the beginning, they kept their mouths clenched tightly, not letting another peep out of them. However, just that one grunt was enough, and the Blaze knight stopped his attacks indeed, although he did look close to exploding.

Even though this fellow acted indifferent to their plight and was constantly challenging me to kill them off, it was obvious that he still cared for them. The moment he heard their groans of pain—no, no. It wasn't even a groan, but more like a soft grunt – he immediately stopped all attacks on me.

But anyway, since I'm not the Sun Knight after all, it shouldn't matter if I were to harm the holy knights, or even if I were to kill the Blaze Knight, right?

"You," I pointed at the Blaze Knight. "Stab yourself with your sword."

His eyes widened in disbelief when he heard that.

"Creus, please don't do this," cried Yuna. "They're only trying to get back the Frost Knight."

"And you believe him just like that?" I asked her mockingly whilst I formed dozens of sharp blades out of bone to hang above the holy knights.

"Stop it!!" roared the Blaze Knight as he raised his fiery broadsword, but his anger and actions immediately halted when I placed a blade to one of the holy knights' neck.

'I knew I had the right person!' I smiled in satisfaction. Since the beginning, I had noticed that this holy knight was the one to answer all of the Blaze Knight's questions; I knew that he would be different from the rest of the holy knights.

"Creus! Please don't!" Yuna sounded close to tears. "Please let them go! The Blaze Knight is one of the Twelve Holy Knights, they never lie! He really just wants to rescue the Frost Knight…--"

Yuna's pleas suddenly trailed off.

'Eurk!'

A shot of pain flared through me from my back, and I belatedly realised that an arrow was sticking out of it. And standing not too far away was Caecilia with her bow in her hands.

The Blaze Knight took the opportunity to swing his broadsword at me, and I tried to step back to avoid it, but the sword managed to cut me, carving a long deep gash starting from my left shoulder across my chest towards my right hip.

Another pain flared through my abdomen as I was kicked down and sent sprawling to the ground. He then kept me down, pressing his knee to my abdomen whilst holding his fiery broadsword at my neck.

But really, I could have told him that that wasn't necessary at all, for I ached so much that I couldn't have stood even if I tried. I couldn't concentrate through all the pain to gather any dark elements to me either. What a pity I hurt so bad that I couldn't even open my mouth to tell him that.

"Creus!"

Caecilia and Yuna ran over to me. Caecilia – the same person who had just shot an arrow at me – was now anxiously pleading with the Blaze Knight. "You promised you wouldn't kill him, Blaze Knight!"

"That's why he's still alive," he said coldly without even bothering to look at the two women.

I smiled wryly. I thought the reason I was still alive was because I had managed to step back a little…… so, what? To the Blaze Knight, this is letting me off leniently?

"But-but……" stuttered Caecilia. She then gave up and turned to me. "I'm sorry, Creus. Just don't make any moves; the Blaze Knight won't hurt you."

'Oh really?' I thought sarcastically. 'Short of killing me, I really don't know what else the Blaze Knight could do to hurt me any more.'

"Let's see this bastard looks like," I heard him roar before a hand was reaching over to tear the mask of my face.

I suddenly stopped struggling and let him. I wanted him to take a good look at my face and see once and for all if I really was the Sun Knight or not. Even if I really wasn't, even if they would now have a face to put to my wanted poster; I just stopped caring anymore.

'Tell me, am I, or am I not? Was Ecilan really lying to me?'

The Blaze Knight's eyes widened in shock.

"You-……"

'You?'

'You are really the Sun Knight?'

Or is it: 'You're that necromancer that's been wanted for ……'

Just what is to follow after that one word 'you'?

Well, I'll never know, for one minute the Blaze Knight was looming over me, and the next he was gone. I clenched my eyes shut and covered them with my hands, as if this could block out what I could already sense.

"Why?!" I cried out in anguish. "Why did you have to pick now of all times to take me away?!"

"Red!!"

I scrambled up and shouted at the little girl, but ended up coughing up a mouthful of blood. Everything started to go blurry before a deep black darkness fell over me. But just before I slipped away into the dark abyss, I could faintly hear the soft pitying voice of a girl saying, "Because they're lying to you, Creus. They're all lying to you."

'Ah, so not only did Ecilan, Caecilia and Yuna lie to me, now even the Blaze Knight is lying to me too?'

'But then, doesn't that mean that everyone is lying to me?'

 

Previous                                                                                                             Next

Book 4: Move 5 – The Fifth Move to Slay a Dragon: “Conquer any and all obstacles.”

*Disclaimer note: This is merely a translation of the original Chinese version. I do not claim any part in the creation of the original story.

 

The next few days were smooth sailing and there were no chords of dissent among us. Even our hostage, Ecilan Frost, was pretty satisfied……. Why, you ask?

On the first night of our Great Escape, he had sworn to the God of Light that he would not try to escape, nor would he try to harm any of us once I remove the Chains of Darkness from him. This was all done for the one purpose of…… cooking for us!

One can never judge a book by its covers. To think that one of the high and mighty Twelve Holy Knights would turn out to be a better cook than both Yuna and Caecilia combined together! After having tried his cooking that night, everyone henceforth refused to ever again settle for Yuna and Caecilia's cooking, including the two girls themselves.

A horse to ride on, a test subject for me to experiment on, and when I tire of playing with my experiments, delicious food waited to tempt my palate; ah, what bliss can match up to this?

"Can you not play with your bones whilst you perform holy light magic at the same time?"

Not for the first time – and surely not the last, Yuna tried to argue with me, spouting some nonsense about 'This is going against nature, the old time-proven laws of elements that states that light and dark elements cannot co-exist together peacefully is being completely trashed by you! You are committing a crime against nature itself!' or something like that.

"Are you saying that should our pursuers catch up to us, I shouldn't use dark magic to stop them and light magic to heal you guys at the same time?" I had thrown back at her.

At that, all the fighters in the group immediately blanched and rushed forward to shush her while at the same time trying to placate me.

'Heheh! I dare you to try to start that up again!'

So, where was I again? A horse to ride on, a test subject for me to experiment on, delicious food awaiting me when I tire of playing with my experiments, and a group of supporters who will rush to my defence when I am scolded as well as placate me…… I'll bet even the Sun Knight doesn't have as cushy a life as I do!

But what a pity that after only three days, our days of comfort were cut short.

Everyday, I would cast the spell Divine Wings on Walter before he would drop back behind our group to watch for any pursuers. That day when he returned to the camp and changed back into human form, he brought with him grave news. "The Blaze Knight is catching up to us. I saw him leading a group of about ten men less than a day's journey away from here."

"Do they have a priest amongst them?" I questioned.

"No," Walter answered with a shake of his head.

"Why hadn't they brought along a priest?" I asked with suspicion. "Priests can help to cast Divine Wings on them, right? Wouldn't that make the journey quicker and easier for them?"

Just then, Ecilan interrupted and explained dully. "A priest isn't capable of casting Divine Wings on ten people continuously for a long time. For that, they would need at least two priests, and they would need to be high-level priests at that. And even so, the priests would just be a burden as they are too weak and cannot withstand the journey at such a hurried pace."

At Ecilan's words, a thought occurred to me that Walter's estimate might not be accurate. "How much time would they need to arrive here?"

"With the Blaze Knight leading them the pursuers would most likely consist of holy knights from his own division, and if that's the case, if he says they would need a day's journey, then it should really take them five hours at most."

Everyone stared and gulped nervously at this.

"So quickly?" Archie cried in astonishment. "Are you sure they are holy knights and not of the thieves class?"

"Why are you being so honest?" I, on the other hand, was rather suspicious. As a hostage, Ecilan had not only behaved and kept quiet, he had even willingly cooked for his kidnappers and is now spilling all the intel on his rescuers to his enemies. Is there really such an obedient and helpful hostage as him? He might as well just declare himself one of us!

"Because escape is futile. When I mentioned that Blaze was nearby, do you know where he was?" he paused before giving the answer. "He was in the city of Fated Leaf."

Everyone reeled back in shock when they heard this, with the exception of myself. "Why? What about Fated Leaf City?"

Walter took a deep steadying breath before he explained, "Fated Leaf City is on the edge of Forgotten Echo, some distance away from Kissinger. For any ordinary person, it would take them six days to get here…-no, there are forests and the danger of thieves and wild beasts that one would need to get through, so I think ten days would be a better estimate."

"And yet they only took three days?" I asked in astonishment. "Have they been travelling without stopping for food or rest? Are they even human?"

"We are not normal humans."

Ecilan suddenly spoke up again. He looked at me as he stressed slowly, "We were never normal."

I blinked before turning to the rest. "Do you guys think he's telling the truth? If he's right, the Blaze Knight will catch up to us within five hours; we won't have enough time to escape."

"Of course what he says is true," Yuna said harshly. "He is a disciple of the God of Light and one of the Twelve Holy Knights-the highest order of the Light Church; everyone knows that they would never speak falsely!"

"And he doesn't need to lie to us, does he? We can't escape anyhow," added Walter, finally convincing me. Even without my memories, I refused to believe that there was anyone in the world who would never lie.

"If escaping is pointless, then we'll just have to attack them first," I considered calmly. "We'll ambush them instead."

"You want to go up against the Blaze Knight?!" cried Igor incredulously. "Have you gone mad?!"

The rest of the group were a little slow to react, having stared at me blankly before finally staring at me in shock when the words registered.

I tried explaining it to them. "They are only ten men strong while we have six. Plus, we have a hostage with us. If we can plan our ambush carefully, we would have a pretty good chance of winning--"

"Pretty good chance of winning? Only ten men?" Archie stared at me with his mouth wide open. "Do you have any idea who the Twelve Holy Knights are? The God of Light's Twelve Holy Knights, the War God's representative-the Son of War and the God of Chaos' Silent Eagle are legends! Real life legends! They hold even more influence than the Gods that they represent!!...... They are living, breathing gods themselves!"

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

'Really? That strong?' I thought as I patted Ecilan's head absentmindedly. "So, you're saying that this thing is a living breathing god?"

"… …"

"Creus, in a lot of ways, you're not a normal human either," muttered Walter in a low voice.

Yuna shook her head and sighed. "Just the fact that you managed to break the laws of dark and light elements coexisting together excludes you from the realms of normal. To simultaneously cast both holy spells and necromancy spells, heavens! I wonder just who you really are."

I tilted my head as a memory sparked in my mind. "Hadn't you guys said that I had been travelling with a holy knight and a dark elf? Perhaps they weren't really my companions but actually my teachers, or something like that?"

At that, a look of comprehension dawned on them……

I was about to mention Red to them as well when Ecilan suddenly said, "If you don't start setting up whatever ambush you had in mind now, you won't have enough time. The trap would have to be absolutely perfect for the Blaze Knight and his holy knights to fall for it."

You hear that? You hear that?! One really has to wonder if the Frost Knight has a grudge against the Blaze Knight! Wait a minute, Blaze and …… Frost? Could it be that they don't get along like 'fire and ice? And if that's true, is Ecilan actually using us to off his enemy for him?

"I won't kill him, but arranging a little inconvenience for him wouldn't be out of my way," I said after having thought it through. "Don't sweat it," I told him, patting his shoulder in a show of camaraderie. "Since you've been so cooperative with us and cooked for us, as well as telling us so much about him, giving you a helping hand shouldn't be too much trouble."

Ecilan stared at me blankly.

'He's probably embarrassed that I had figured him out, huh?' I nodded to myself.

"Alright, gather around, people. Here's how we're going to set the trap--"

"Hey, you know how to set traps too?" Archie interrupted. "At least leave something for the thief to do," he protested.

"He's taken over my job, why not yours too," said Yuna icily.

"Thank goodness my job's still secure," crowed Igor smugly. "Not only does he not know how to use a sword, he can't even hold one properly!"

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "I'm a priest…… and maybe a necromancer on the side, so of course I wouldn't know how to handle a sword."

But I noticed that as soon as I had said that, Ecilan stared at me in disbelief.

"What are you looking at?" I asked him impatiently. "It's not like I'm a knight like you, so what's so surprising about me not knowing how to wield a sword!"

Ecilan quickly turned to look away, but his expression looked kind of funny……

Whatever, weirdo!

~O~O~O~O~

I was hiding behind a small hill with the unicorn by my side and Ecilan still being carried on the unicorn's back. The only difference now was that while previously he had been wrapped tightly in chains and then laid across the back of the unicorn, this time he was chained to the back of the unicorn.

This way even if the Blaze Knight managed to overcome all of us, the unicorn can still escape with him. And as long as they haven't gotten back Ecilan, the Blaze knight cannot kill us, so really, this was a preventive measure in case our plan fails and everyone is captured.

In my place behind the hill, I stretched the images in my mind further and further, spreading out in ever wider circles…… until I finally found the Blaze Knight.

The amount of fire and holy elements that made up the Blaze Knight was staggering and impossible to miss. But I quickly noticed that Walter was wrong, in that there were only eight of them instead of the ten he had reported.

"Creus! Creus!"

"What is it?" I asked Ecilan absentmindedly, my attention still focused on the Blaze Knight. I suddenly got curious and asked, "By the way, what's the Blaze Knight's name?"

Ecilan quieted for a moment before asking in a soft voice, "You-have you really forgotten? Blaze's first name is Jacques, Jacques Blaze; and your full name is Creus Sun!"

I blinked, my attention instantly focused on Ecilan. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Creus Sun! You are the Sun Knight of the Church of Light, the head of the Twelve Holy Knights!" he cried in a fierce tone I had never heard from him before.

I am the Sun Knight? The head of the Twelve Holy Knights?

I paused before shaking my head and smiling faintly at him. "Heh, you nearly got me. You're trying to stop me from harming your comrade, Blaze, right? That's why you came up with such a story."

"I'm not lying!"

Ecilan said urgently, "That day when you vanished, Judge sent out eight separate troops in search of you. Earth and Stone were sent to Moon Orchid, while Blaze and I were sent to Kissinger here to look for you. The rest are spread out within Forgotten Echo looking for you."

"Bullshit!" I lashed out.

But Ecilan refused to give up, continuing, "Sun, you have to believe me. We should hurry back to the Holy Temple. Judge is furious, he said that if you go back completely unharmed he'll kill you; but if you dared to go back injured, he'll make you regret it."

"Well then, it's a good thing I'm not going back, isn't it?" I blurted out while I wondered who the hell Judge was.

"Leithe Judge. That is Captain Judge Knight's full name." Ecilan looked at me pityingly as he pleaded, "You have to believe me, Sun, you don't want to upset Judge. He's the only person you are afraid to go against."

'I'm afraid of him?' I snorted contemptuously. "You're missing a huge flaw in your story."

"Flaw?"

"That's right." I smiled coldly as I said, "Have you forgotten what Igor had said earlier? I can't even hold a sword properly, so how can I be a knight? So really, this lie of yours is stretching too far!"

"… …"

Ecilan was finally struck speechless. I smiled at him mockingly, before finally noticing that the Blaze Knight and his holy knights were approaching the first trap. I hurriedly signalled my teammates at the first trap.

Ecilan suddenly said, "Don't harm Blaze, or else you will regret it for the rest of your life."

"I won't kill him, I don't want to get chased down by the Holy Temple," I replied as I signalled them. Ecilan kept quiet after that.

 

Interlinking traps – activate!

~O~O~O~O~

Phase 1 – The Honey Trap.

Caecilia and Yuna lay slumped by the roadside. According to them, holy knights would never ignore damsels in distress, so they would definitely bring them along, thus giving them the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the enemy camp!

"This might have worked against the others," commented Ecilan suddenly. "But against Blaze…… Blaze has always been rather tactless, and of the Twelve Holy Knights, he's the least gentlemanly; he doesn't know how to – nor does he need to – act chivalrous to women."

"… … why hadn't you said something earlier?" I growled at him resentfully.

"I don't believe I have any obligation to help you," he said indifferently.

Erh! I couldn't say anything in response, as what he said was true. After all, he was our hostage, not one of our teammates.

"But couldn't you have cooperated with us just once more?"

'I-I can't believe it! He actually turned his head and ignored me! Wh-what kind of attitude is this?! Has he forgotten that he's the hostage, not me?!!'

Meanwhile, the Blaze Knight really did march past Caecilia and Yuna without sparing a glance for them, continuing on his merry way. I could even 'see' the embarrassment on Caecilia and Yuna's faces. Initially when they had heard about their part in the plan, they had looked so excited too……

Who would have thought that the first phase of the plan would fail just like that? "Damn you, Blaze Knight! How could anyone have called that cold unfeeling man a knight!!"

But as soon as I said that, Ecilan admonished me harshly, "It's not that he is unfeeling, but that he feels too much! Sun! When you were declared missing, Blaze was the first to rush out to search for you, and he was the one to cover the widest area in his search. He practically pushed him and his division to their very limits! It is for you that he treats them so coldly! You can forget everything else, but you should never forget that Blaze always has and always will be the one to support you most."

Ecilan's impassionate tone gave me pause to think over his previous words, and after a long tense moment I couldn't help asking, "If I'm really the Sun Knight…… I can't wield a sword, money and women are all I think about, and I can even cast necromancy spells…… The Lights above, what kind of Sun Knight would I have made?!"

'I am the complete opposite of the Sun Knight ideal that Caecilia was constantly praising!'

Ecilan quieted before saying in a calmer manner, "We aren't really what the rest of the world perceives us as, but we do try our best not to disappoint them." He paused before continuing, "If not for the fact that you had already used dark magic and ruined the Sun Knight image before I could speak, I would have told you that you were the Sun Knight the instant I could speak."

'I see.' I recalled all the times he seemed to want to say something but had kept quiet in the end.

"Ecilan," I called. He looked at me quietly. I looked back at him and said apologetically, "I really don't remember you or the Blaze Knight, so no matter if what you said is true or not, Walter and the rest of the team are my comrades now. So right now, I'm trying my best not to let them down. But I give you my word that, unless absolutely necessary, I will not harm the Blaze Knight."

Ecilan merely hmmed in reply before suddenly remembering something and cautioning me, "Sun, don't blindly believe that strange girl; there's something suspicious about her."

"You've seen Red?"

I smiled weakly. "To someone who's lost their memories, everyone is suspicious."

"Then suspect everyone. No matter that girl Red, or Walter and his team, or even Blaze and I."

I was a little taken back by this advice, but regardless, I nodded and accepted his advice.

I then turned back to focus on the situation at hand and threw out a lightning bolt. Not at the Blaze Knight and his holy knights, but at Caecilia and Yuna…… Ah, I can almost hear their screams.

"He can't leave two women alone if they're injured and on the verge of dying, right?" I smiled faintly. "If so, then I'll really have to reconsider if I want to go up against up someone so-…… someone like that for just five thousand gold coins."

I stopped myself in time from adding the word 'unfeeling'. Even though I still had my doubts about what Ecilan had told me, I still chose to give him the benefit of the doubt, as I had with Red. For even if it was rather unlikely, there was still a chance that what Ecilan had said was true, and if so I didn't want to blemish the Blaze Knight's name.

I can only half believe both Ecilan and Red, whereas Walter and the rest of the team…… well, to be honest, they aren't really capable of doing anything to me, so I'm not worried about them.

It is also precisely for that reason, that I can only believe in them right now.

 

When the lightning bolt struck them, the holy knights had indeed stopped and looked back hesitatingly before turning to look at their captain questioningly.

The Blaze Knight hesitated for a few moments before going back for the two women and casting a few healing spells on them. He then proceeded to ask the women a few questions as he peered around carefully, but he didn't manage to find anything out of the ordinary. He then called over one of his knights and together they each carried one of the women on their backs and continued on their way.

It is now my turn in the next phase of the plan. I got onto the unicorn, and along with Ecilan, I started out on my task – to lead the Blaze Knight and his merry men in circles – thus buying time for Walter and the rest of the team to complete their preparations.

I had originally thought that this would be an easy task, a piece of cake, for it shouldn't be any different from previously. After all, is it not the same, riding on the unicorn?

Well, that is true.

But! I now have to ride day and night without rest, for I had only a few moments to dump my ass on the ground and munch a few mouthfuls of bread before I am forced to remount and continue running away.

Those holy knights are monsters! They seem to know neither hunger nor exhaustion, only the swift and steady march after their target – me.

Whenever I try to travel on the smooth well-worn roads, they seem to magic horses from out of nowhere, forcing me to retreat back into the deep forests where the unicorn would have to constantly leap over and around various trees and bushes and other sorts of obstacles as can be found in a forest terrain. My butt suffered the brunt of it as a result of such rough riding, and I am forced to constantly throw healing spells at my butt, in fear that it might split in two sooner rather than later.

But thankfully my sacrifice is not in vain as they are forced to dismount and pursue me on foot through the forests.

But even though the unicorn is more nimble and is able to navigate through the dense forests unlike ordinary horses, it was being forced to carry two full-grown men and a bunch of baggage. So not only is the beast burdened down, it also had to take care not to shake too much, causing it to go even slower than the knights on foot.

"This is the border of Forgotten Echo and Moon Orchid, so the Church of Light would still hold some sway over the people here. It is very easy to gain the cooperation of the farmers around here to hear about your whereabouts or to draft a few steeds," Ecilan explained indifferently.

Damn it! I hadn't thought about that. I should have gone full out from the start when there was still some distance between us instead of purposefully slowing down for fear of them losing my trail.

But aren't Yuna and Caecilia with them? Were they unsuccessful in slowing them down…… or could it be that this is their slowed speed?

Well, no matter what, if this continues I'll be caught up for sure! The odds won't be good if they manage to catch up to me before I can lead them to the final destination…… Looks like I have no other choice but to attack them!

"Hmph! Jacques Blaze, one of the living gods, eh?" I snorted. "Well, let's see if you're really as they make you out to be!"

Even though I had no idea if it would make a difference between ambushing them during the daytime or at night, I took into consideration that their God - the Light God - had to mean something, so it would be best to avoid a conflict with them during the peak of the day. Instead, the inky blackness of the night would suit my purpose of sneaking an attack on them better. It also helps that I found it easier to wield dark magic at night.

So anyway, my plan was to sneak an attack on them at night and injure a few of them. Hopefully this will slow them down.

And according to Archie's teachings, one must cover their faces when doing naughty things.

So, I took one of Archie's daggers and hammered it into some kind of misshapen metal mask and tied it to my face with some string. I then put on one of Yuna's priest robes before covering it with a layer of dark elements. Next, I grabbed a strangely shaped piece of tree branch I found lying by the roadside to be used as a staff.

And last of all, I covered my face with a thick layer of dark elements, and I'm done!

"What do ya think? Do I look like a necromancer?"

"Not really."

Ecilan shook his head and said, "No necromancer would wear white robes. Furthermore, Blaze would recognise you just from seeing your hair colour and the lower half of your face."

I stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about? What lower half of my face? I've already covered it with dark elements, haven't I? And what is this 'white'?"

"… …" after a few moments of silence, Ecilan asked a completely unrelated question. "So, Leaf was right, you really are blind?"

"Leaf? Me blind?" I said doubtfully, "I can see you."

"Really?" Ecilan sounded angry for some reason. "Then tell me, what's the colour of my hair?"

"Colour?" I looked at him stupefied. 'What's he so upset about?' Pushing that question to the back of my head, I asked, "What is colour?"

Ecilan fell silent, before at last, he gave a sigh and said, "Forget it. You'll have to make the mask cover all of your face and then cover your hair and robes in a layer of dark elements so thick it is visible to the naked eye."

"So thick it's visible to the naked eye?" Can't you see it already with just a little elements?

"Just make it very thick!"

Ecilan refused to budge on this, insisting that unless I do as he says, I would be recognised instantly, that he didn't want Blaze to realise that his attacker was me as he would get very upset, blah blah blah……

So, to avoid being recognised…… or just to shut him up, I hammered another dagger and used it to cover the lower half of my face before adding thick layers of dark elements to my hair and robes. If anyone can still recognise me after all this effort, I'll-I'll-I won't listen to Ecilan ever again! So there!

When I had finally satisfied Ecilan and shut him up once and for all, I let out a sigh of relief, for this guy could be one demanding person. I've realised that whenever it's just the two of us alone together, his icy act would fall away to reveal his true nagging nature!

With all preparations complete, I gave a pat to the unicorn's neck and told it, "Unicorn, you stay right here with him and wait for my return. You are not allowed to wander away. You can try, but I guarantee you that you won't like the consequences!"

The unicorn nodded and even licked my hands. Seeing as I had to depend on it for my escape later, I magnanimously allowed it to lick me without saying a thing.

I absentmindedly rubbed my hands dry on the unicorn's neck before stepping out on my Night Ambush.

Oh God of Light! Please protect me and let this ambush go smoothly…… er, even if the target of the ambush is one of your holy knights, you mustn't play favourites!

 

Previous                                                                                                             Next

Book 4: Move 4 – The Fourth Move to Slay a Dragon: “Gather your minions.”

*Disclaimer note: This is merely a translation of the original Chinese version. I do not claim any part in the creation of the original story.

 

Earlier on, whilst the unicorn and the Frost Knight were casting their spells, I had a voice in my head that said…… I could do that too! Be it an ice wall or a lightning bolt, I felt that I could cast them all. And if what my gut feeling is telling is true, then I should quickly gather the elements while the Frost Knight is still slowly making his way over and sneak an attack on him!

The moment we made it out the gates, I shouted at my other three teammates. "Don't go along that route; don't follow me!"

They stopped at that and turned back to look at me.

I didn't bother letting the unicorn slow down and rushed past them. As I passed them, I shouted, "Hurry! Go!"

"He didn't even bother to stop!" Caecilia cried out unsatisfactorily. "And here I felt touched when I thought you were going to head on alone to draw away attention from us! Hmph!"

"If I stop now, I'll end up in jail! And you guys better start running if you want to avoid going to jail too!" I shouted back at them.

Sure enough, that got them running again, but in different directions this time.

Just as they had dispersed, I spied the Frost Knight coming up from behind. He looked completely unharmed, with not even a speck of dust on him. But I wasn't disappointed, for I hadn't been aiming the lightning at him in the first place. I was actually aiming at the shield formation holy knights. Well hey, they made an easy target, keeping stationary in their positions like that. It was as if they were asking for someone to throw an attack at them!

The Frost Knight paused for a moment before ignoring the other three and heading on in my direction.

"Run, unicorn, run! Run the fastest you can run!" I urged when I saw him hot on my heels.

The unicorn neighed excitedly in answer and started putting on speed. It was now galloping so fast I could hardly keep my eyes open. But that's alright. I'll just close my eyes then. Not like I actually need to keep my eyes open to see anything.

With the unicorn galloping at such high speeds, I started to relax a little. It's impossible for anyone to outrun such a fast beast…… unless a dozen ice spikes suddenly appear out of the ground in front of the beast, of course.

An ice spike had suddenly shot out from the ground, but the unicorn nimbly avoided it and made a sharp veer around it. But then another spike shot up a few steps away from us. Again, the unicorn successfully avoided it.

Looks like it intends to battle it out with the Frost Knight; it's pretty good at avoiding all the attacks, and we may still have a fighting chance to escape successfully – if I don't fall off first, that is.

"Damn horse!"

I threw a few healing spells at my sore rump as I roared angrily after the creature, "Have you forgotten that I'm not actually glued to your back?!"

The unicorn came to an abrupt stop and looked back at me, but it did not walk back. Instead, it cringed and look between me and the Frost Knight hesitatingly, as if considering changing riders…… Damn shitty horse!!

I had just healed my butt and was about to march over and discipline my wayward unicorn when a shadow fell over me. I looked up only to see the Frost Knight's frozen face looming right above me. He reached down and tore off my face mask.

I'm dead!

I paled as I awaited my doom, but then noticed that the other's expression, too, had changed…… huh? So his facial muscles hadn't frozen stiff after all?

For the first time, I saw an expression on the Frost Knight's face. He was looking at me with surprise…… an opening!

'Attack! I don't care what spells I may or may not know, but I have to attack now!'

"What are you doing here, S-"

The Frost Knight had asked in a disbelieving voice, but stopped abruptly before he could finish his sentence, staring at me with wide eyes.

A flash of inspiration shot through my mind and I flung out my hands at him as I shouted out, "Chains of Darkness, restrain all enemies of mine!"

Large amounts of dark elements shot out from my hands and swiftly formed into a dozen black chains – chains formed from dark elements compressed and moulded into shape.

I don't know if it was because the Frost Knight had never come across such a situation, but he looked baffled.

Well, whatever the reason, I made full use of the opportunity his slow reaction gave me.

The chains wound around him from his feet upwards, winding around his entire person and even sealing up his mouth – I didn't wish for him to cry out and attract the holy knights chasing after us.

Just then, he finally came to his senses and raised his holy popsicle to start slashing away at the dark chains.

'Did you think it would be so easy?' I sneered inside before crying out, "Unicorn, hurry and attack – if you dare to disobey, I'll tie you up as well!"

The unicorn immediately rushed over at my threat and started gathering holy elements at its horn. I had never seen so much holy elements before, so thickly gathered together that I could hardly bear to 'look' at it for long. And all of these holy elements were blasted out at the Frost Knight. However, this 'attack' merely managed to stop him from hacking through the dark chains. The guy looked perfectly fine.

"Stupid!" I shouted. "Do you not see that he's full of 'light'? What do you think attacking him with light elements is going to do, scratch an itch of his? Use attacks of other elements!"

In answer to my 'teachings', the unicorn reared up and screamed at the heavens. The sky above us was suddenly covered with dark heavy clouds, with flashes of lightning streaking through the skies. At another scream from the unicorn, the bolts of lightning began striking down heavily on the Frost Knight without stopping. Once again, the Frost Knight had to stop slashing away at his chains to defend himself. Again and again, he had to gather ice elements to form an ice barrier above him to block the lightning bolts raining down upon him.

In a surprise move, I dispersed the elements in the ice barrier - thus breaking it up - and before he could react, the lightning bolts finally managed to hit him.

One bolt, two bolts, three…… yet he still held on and refused to collapse. He was facing me through it all and seemed to be looking at me whilst he refused to give up and kept trying to gather ice elements to him.

Unfortunately for him, his gathering abilities could not match up to my dispersing abilities, and so he was unable to form another ice wall. In the end, he could only depend on that energy thingy that enveloped him…… Ah! I remember now, that energy is called Frenzy.

The unicorn kept striking down bolt after bolt, until after some time had passed, it slowed and then stopped. It then turned to look at me.

"Is that it? You're out of stamina already?" I rolled my eyes at it scornfully. "How useless. Are you really worth five thousand gold coins?"

And with that, I turned back to look at the Frost Knight. Up in the skies above us, even greater and stronger lightning elements was gathering – not by the unicorn, but by me.

'We're running out of time. The holy knights are sure to catch up to us soon, so I need to knock him out quickly, once and for all!'

The lightning bolt struck down.

The Frost Knight raised his head and looked up. For some strange reason, he actually dispersed the Frenzy protecting him…… and allowed the lightning bolt to him. He only managed to stay up for a second before collapsing.

That really startled me, but thankfully his heart was still pumping; he was just unconscious.

I walked over and picked up the fallen popsicle before giving a light kick to its unconscious owner. When I saw no reaction, I finally relaxed and wiped the sweat of my face.

I was worried that even with the unicorn and I together we still wouldn't be able to defeat him. But thank goodness it's now over.

However, I couldn't fully rest at ease without tying him up with several more rounds of the Dark Chains, not stopping until I had him wrapped up like some monstrous black cocoon.

Just as I had finished with him, I heard numerous heavy footsteps from behind. I hurriedly put back on my mask, covering my face just in time before the knights reached us.

I gave a cold laugh and slowly placed the popsicle to its owner's neck (although I had a bit of a hard time finding his neck – too many chains.)

"Don't come any closer if you value his life!" I warned them.

When they heard my threat, the holy knights instantly stilled, staring at the situation before them with wide eyes.

None of them dared to make a move.

"If you come after us, I won't hesitate to kill him!" I threatened as I dragged the cocoon onto the unicorn with me and left the scene. They could do nothing but watch us leave from under their very noses.

~O~O~O~O~

When I finally reached the meeting place with the cocoon and unicorn in tow, I was greeted with wide eyes and gaping mouths.

"You-you really know how to use magic?" asked Archie, gulping nervously.

"But that's impossible!!" cried Yuna. "How can a priest of the Church of Light use dark magic!"

'How am I to know? I just do.'

"Creus! What have you done?" The leader of the group – Walter – finally pointed out the main problem here.

"Is there a need for you guys to be so loud?"

Seeing things getting out of hand, I maintained my composure as I said nonchalantly, "We took the unicorn out of the city, and now we're going to sell it and share the spoils, right?"

"But what is that?!" Walter gestured at the cocoon I had thrown to the ground. "Sneaking a unicorn and selling it off secretly is one thing, but to kidnap the Frost Knight is a whole other thing!!"

"Oh god, it's the entire Church of Light that we are going up against……" moaned Yuna.

"Release him at once!" Walter ordered angrily.

"Release him?" I sneered. "If I let him go, what will you do if he comes back with an angry horde of holy knights? As long as we have him in our hands, those holy knights chasing after us wouldn't dare do anything to us!"

Walter couldn't say anything in reply. He opened his mouth to try to argue the fact several times, but in the end he couldn't say anything to refute my point and kept quiet.

"Don't worry," I assured them. "We'll release him once we've left those knights behind far enough. We can then leave with the unicorn and go somewhere far away from this place. We'll be alright."

Sure enough, they calmed down at my words, although Walter hesitated before saying apologetically, "I'm sorry, but after we've split the money, I think we should split up and go our separate ways."

My heart gave a heavy thump at that. I looked at the rest – although they, too, looked hesitant, no one spoke up in disagreement…… I looked away and said nonchalantly, "Oh, that's fine. As long as I get my share of the money."

"Of course," Walter nodded in promise.

I nodded back before saying to the rest, "Let's take a break, and we'll discuss where we should go next tomorrow morning."

"Agreed," Walter nodded. "Let's arrange night-guard hours for tonight."

"No need for that, I'll stay up the whole night," I said with a smile. "As you guys already know, I had been sleeping for the past ten days. It'll be even more difficult for me to fall asleep now then to kidnap the Frost Knight again!"

They smiled at that. "Thanks," Walter said to me.

I nodded back.

~O~O~O~O~

"Abandoned once more, eh?......"

I was lying on the ground gazing up into the night sky with the unicorn fast asleep on my left and the giant human cocoon to my right. The rest of the group were scattered all around, fast asleep, their slow and deep breaths echoing throughout the clearing.

'Heh, they may have abandoned me, but they had not thought to guard themselves against me?'

I slowly got up and walked towards them. 'How naïve! If I could subdue even the Frost Knight, what's stopping me from doing the same to them too?'

After all, one person escaping would draw less attention than a whole group of people. Moreover, if I were to leave alone with the unicorn, I would be getting the whole five thousand gold coins instead of only one thousand!

I walked over to Caecilia and crouched down, lifting my hand and…… tucking the edges of her cloak around her.

'Honestly! Kicking your blankets at such an age!'

I shook my head in exasperation and turned around to return to my previous position, when I saw to my surprise an unexpected guest standing there.

That's……

"Red?" I called out softly in surprise.

But, the unicorn's still asleep there! If Red appeared here together with the unicorn at the same time, does that mean that she's not the unicorn? Or could it be that Red would appear whenever the unicorn's asleep? Or, perhaps Red and the unicorn never had anything in common in the first place……

Whilst I was still trying to figure out their relationship, Red had skipped up to me and offered up to me something cradled carefully in her hands. "Big Brother, you dropped this."

A book.

"I dropped this?" I flipped open the book, automatically looking down at the pages…… another unnecessary action I cannot understand. Not like my eyes can help me to 'see' what's written on the pages.

I felt around the elements of the book – wood elements of the book with very faint traces of stone elements interspersed among them, forming 'words'. But such minute traces of stone elements made it hard for me to make them out clearly and it took me a while to see what was written there.

'The Comprehensive Book of the Arts of Necromancy' was what was written on the cover of the book.

"And there's something else," Red continued with an innocent tinkling laugh. "But it's not here. Head in the North East direction and you'll find it."

"What is it?"

Red tilted her head to one side and said, "Pat your chest."

I did as told, patting around my chest, when I suddenly felt an out of sorts feeling…… had it always been empty here? As if something was missing.

Filled with questions, I looked back up, "Red, you have my book and also know where my things are… do you know who I am…? Red?"

I blinked, but could no longer sense Red around. She'd vanished again. What's going on?

"You're awake?" I suddenly asked, but this was no longer addressed at Red, but at the Frost Knight who laid not too far away, his eyes wide open and looking at me.

'If it weren't for the Chains of Darkness gagging him, he'd probably be cursing me to the nine depths of hell,' I thought. Even without my memories I knew that no one would enjoy being trussed up like a turkey.

I walked back and sat down, cheekily patting his head and saying, "No need to worry. As soon as we're far away enough from your holy knights that they can't catch up to us, I'll let you go. So don't bother struggling."

I paused before continuing in a cold voice, "It'll save you a beating."

The Frost Knight merely blinked in response and really didn't struggle. He just laid there looking at me quietly.

All night long, I flipped through the book of Necromancy Arts, trying out a few of the spells on my handily available guinea pig – the Frost Knight.

"… …"

And throughout it all, the Frost Knight kept trying to gather the ice elements to him, but he was still no match for my dispersing abilities.

~O~O~O~O~

And so the next day, we started on our Great Escape. But the first problem of our journey was - how does one transport a human-sized cocoon around?

Caecilia was the first to suggest helpfully, "Yuna can help to boost up my strength so I can carry him!"

'Hmmm… the Frost Knight must be quite good-looking for Caecilia to sacrifice for him so.'

"And how long do you think you can carry him?" I scoffed. "One day? Three days? Or maybe five days? Or perhaps we can think in terms of weeks?"

"Umm…" Caecilia hesitated at this. "Three… no, five! Five days!"

Ah… So the Frost Knight is handsome enough that someone would willingly carry him for five days.

I suddenly got curious. "Caecilia, if it was me, how many days would you carry me?"

Caecila inspected my face carefully before answering, "If I were to consider only your looks, I would carry you for a week, but now that I know your true colours, I'd say……"

"Don't tell me I'd only last a day…?" I asked worriedly.

"No," she refuted me mercilessly. "I'd want to run away from you as far as possible."

"… …"

'Well, at least I have good looks worth seven days of carrying,' I tried to comfort myself. I then looked at the unicorn, before turning to look at the Frost Knight appraisingly. "Oi! Are you a virgin?" I called out.

Everyone's jaws dropped at my question.

The Frost Knight merely glared at me, disdaining to answer me. 'Ooh, to dismiss me so…… Oh yeah! He's still gagged by the chains. My bad.'

I quickly released the chains gagging him and repeated my question. "Alright, you can speak now, so tell me, are you a virgin?"

He continued to glare at me without speaking a word.

"Even if he is, he wouldn't admit it, would he?" Igor tried to diffuse the situation. "To admit to such an embarrassing thing…… Ergh! Creus, not that I'm saying that you being a virgin is embarrassing!" he hurriedly explained.

I shot a glare at him before drawing the popsicle hanging from my waist and holding it to the Frost Knight's neck. "Are you or are you not a virgin? Answer me!"

Even faced with the threat of losing his life, the Frost Knight maintained his silence. Great, now what? Chop his head off for real?

'Should I torture it out of him?' I pondered my options before a thought suddenly struck me and I smiled.

I sheathed the popsicle before lifting the Frost Knight up and throwing him onto the unicorn…… The unicorn didn't even try to evade him.

The sound of sharply drawn breaths echoed throughout the clearing. "…… damn!" whistled Archie.

"Since when were there that many virgin guys over the age of twenty?" muttered Igor.

"I am not a virgin!" I roared in protest.

Archie shrugged while Igor tried to placate me. "Of course, of course. If you say you're not then you're not."

Now that the logistic problem had been solved, we left without wasting another minute and started on our Great Escape. Also known to myself as the Great Boring Journey.

Because I had to pace myself to the rest of the group's speed, the unicorn could only walk at a slow trot. Bored out of my mind with nothing to do, I turned to the human-sized cocoon for some conversation. "Is your name really called Frost?"

The Frost Knight shook his head.

"It isn't? Then what's your real name?" I asked curiously.

He looked at me for a few moments before answering. "Ecilan Frost."

"What a hard name to pronounce," I complained with a frown. 'Ecilan? Who the hell names someone Ecilan?'

"I've never dared to hope that you would pronounce my name correctly," he replied dully.

I blinked at that. "What's that?"

He quieted and covertly looked at the rest of the group from the corners of his eyes before focusing back on me and shaking his head. "Nothing."

"Well then, Ecilan, are there any of the other Twelve Holy Knights running around here?"

I may have asked the question, but in truth I wasn't expecting an honest answer. But it wouldn't matter if he had replied honestly or not as I had my ways of determining if he was lying, and thus getting the answer I want!

"Yes, the Blaze Knight is not too far from here," he nodded.

I was surprised, for Ecilan's heartbeat had remained steady – he wasn't lying! He actually told me that one of the Twelve Holy Knights was around here; and he even told me which one of the Twelve Holy Knights it was!

"Will he come after us?" I asked worriedly.

Ecilan nodded and replied without a shred of doubt: "Yes."

Great, we had a new problem. I frowned as I asked him, "What if I were to use you as a hostage?"

Ecilan frowned lightly at that as he thought it over. "He'll retreat," he finally replied, "but he won't give up. He will never give up."

I smiled mockingly. "How naïve. Do you really believe that your companions would never abandon you?"

He nodded. "The Twelve Holy Knights will never give up on one of the Twelve Holy Knights."

"Is that so?" I said in a quiet chilling tone. "If the opportunity arrives, let's put this faith of yours to the test, shall we? Let's see if he will give up on you when it comes down to a matter of life and death."

"He won't." Ecilan kept his gaze steady as he said confidently, "The Twelve Holy Knights will never give up on one of the Twelve Holy Knights."

I snorted at that. Who would have thought that such an icy personality would turn out to be such a great naive idiot!

By then, we had reached a fork in the road. Everyone stopped and turned to look at Walter.

Walter looked at the road signs, saying "The road to the right leads to Moon Orchid in the North East, while the road to the left leads to the borders of Forgotten Echo. We may have two paths before us but I don't think we really have a choice here."

He looked at Ecilan before sighing and said, "With one kidnapped Frost Knight in tow, it would be suicide for us to step into Forgotten Echo. It'd just be a one stop free pass to the prisons for us."

"Well, but of course!" Yuna glared at me and said coldly, "Forgotten Echo is where the Church of Light is based; everyone would recognise one of the Twelve Holy Knights--"

"Especially the head of the Twelve Holy Knights – The Sun Knight!" Caecilia suddenly cut in with a dreamy smile on her face. "I've heard that the Sun Knight has gleaming golden locks of hair, deep blue eyes the colour of a clear sky, with skin as fair and soft as……"

Caecilia suddenly trailed off and stared at me. Don't tell me she's using me as the base of her Sun Knight fantasy?

I couldn't help saying jealously, "What? Is the Sun Knight a girl? From the sounds of it you're describing great beautiful woman!"

"It's-great beautiful man!" Caecilia instantly woke up from her daze and defended loudly. "And he's a real elegant and beautiful person, unlike you. Even if you have the same golden hair, blue eyes and fair skin, you don't have the aura and bearing!"

"An elegant and beautiful man, huh?" I patted Ecilan's head, purposefully messing up his hair before looking at him in satisfaction and saying, "Isn't he one of the elegant Twelve Holy Knights too? Look at him, all bundled up like a fat round cocoon. In what way does he look elegant? Your Sun Knight is probably not much better than him."

"Don't bully him!" Caecilia cried fiercely, rushing up to comb back Ecilan's hair (and covertly getting a feel of his face at the same time). "And besides, the Frost Knight doesn't need to be elegant; he's the aloof ice prince type! And the Blaze Knight we mentioned earlier is the wild feral type!"

"What, does the Church of Light choose the Twelve Holy Knights based on their looks?" I rolled my eyes. "Or else why would they all happen to be handsome and beautiful guys?"

"It's not like that," Yuna shook her head as she explained wryly. "It's just the fantasizing of the girls; the Twelve Holy Knights aren't necessarily good-looking."

"But- the Frost Knight really is handsome! So not all of them aren't real!" shouted Caecilia. She looked back down at Ecilan and asked, "Right, right? At least the Sun Knight is a super hot guy, right?"

"I don't know what your standards are," he said indifferently.

"He should be better-looking than Creus, right?" she asked anxiously.

He kept quiet for quite some time, but under the torrent of questions from Caecilia he finally relented and said, "More or less the same."

Caecilia frowned at that, while I smirked at her. "You see! Rather than fantasizing about some Sun Knight, you might as well just look at me."

"Well, at least he's more elegant and has greater bearing than you!" she retorted.

Just then, Walter cut through us and walked towards Ecilan with a question. "Why are the Twelve Holy Knights here in such a small backward place? I mean, this is the Church of Chaos' territory."

"We're searching for someone," he replied.

"Who is it?" Walter asked.

Ecilan merely shot a cool look at Walter but didn't reply.

Walter dared not force an answer from him, so he walked away when he saw an answer was not forthcoming.

On the following journey, we continued to make way in our Great Escape, but this time it wasn't as quiet. This time, Caecilia seemed to find everything disagreeable with me and wouldn't stop quarrelling. Archie would keep coming up to me and try to steal a feel or two…… What?! Of course not me!! I meant the popsicle I had hanging at my waist!

And Igor, on the other hand, kept bothering me to show him some other spells I knew.

I thought about it before getting off the unicorn and crouching down on the ground. Feeling around the ground as I probed my senses further down……

'Hmm. There doesn't seem to be any human remains here…… ah! Here's something!'

I removed my hand as pieces of white started poking their way out of the ground.

"Bones?" Caecilia peered at the pile of bones.

I started to carefully control the elements and push dark elements into the bones as I arranged them together. I hope I did it correctly…… but what a pity there weren't any human skeletons down there, 'cause there were plenty of 'examples' of human skeletons around me now to check from.

After arranging them to my satisfaction, I added some more dark elements at the joints of the bones connecting each other as replacement of the long-rotted away ligaments; and then to make it a little cuter, I made flesh and blood and a pair of long ears out of dark elements…… with the end product – a cute black rabbit started hopping around.

"N-necromancy…" Yuna cried weakly. "For some reason, I can't even find the energy in me to scream anymore. Creus, you're looking less and less like a priest of light."

Whilst everyone else were staring at the rabbit with wide disbelieving eyes, Caecilia rushed out - surprisingly unafraid – and scooped the rabbit into her arms. "How cute! Creus, don't let it disappear!"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Okay."

The rest of the group calmed down when they saw how harmless the rabbit stayed in Caecilia's arms; Igor even got excited about it. "Creus, if you can make a rabbit, can you also make a horse? We'd be able to move faster with horses."

"Sure, if you can find me some horse bones."

"Where the hell am I going to get horse bones from……" he rubbed the back of his head embarrassedly.

I shrugged. Without the bones, I couldn't do a thing. About ninety percent of the necromancy spells required bones to work.

"Then could you make a sword of bones for me?" Igor asked again. "In those legends of dragon-slaying, the heroes always make swords from the slain dragon's bones."

"If you can give me a design for the sword, I can make you one."

Archie cut in with sarcasm, "What, this big ol' brute? He can write his letters, sure, but that's about it. You can't expect more from him, much less some fancy design……"

"Enough fooling around, guys. We should move on," Walter called out, reminding everyone that we were still on the run. I got back onto the unicorn and we continued on.

"You shouldn't have used necromancy in front of them."

"What?" I looked down at Ecilan who was laid across the back of the unicorn in front of me. It was him who had spoken just now, albeit in a very low voice.

"What did you say?" I asked him.

But Ecilan only looked at me and kept quiet.

Seeing this, I, too, pretended not to have heard anything and took out the book on necromancy and continued to study it, using the person closest to me to experiment on. Who happened to be the trussed up Ecilan.

"… …"

Hey, you can't blame me for using him as my test subject! He's just so perfect for testing on and oh so convenient too!

No matter how I experimented on him, he would maintain his frozen expression and not a peep would escape from him. Other than his cold stare, he made no other protest and took it all in stride. The crème de la crème of test subjects!

My experiments continued until Caecilia noticed what I was doing to her precious Frost Knight, and together with a similarly angered Yuna (but for more righteous reasons), they each grabbed an ear and twisted, warning me not to bully him again. At the risk of my ears being twisted off, I unwillingly acquiesced and gave up on my experiments and turned to trying out spells which did not require a test subject.

Bone Locater Spell – searches for available bones underground.

Bone Prison – a defensive spell-creates a wall of bones to shield one's self from attack.

Bone Spikes – summons spikes of bones up from the ground to spear enemies.

As I flipped through the book, I found that they were all more or less about using dark elements to control and manipulate bones.

So I flipped to the back of the book for something that didn't have anything to do with bones. And sure enough, the more interesting spells were all in the back, like The Spread of Death – a wide spread offensive attack; hard to shield against and it had a wide range of attack, making it hard to outrun. However it had its down points too – it killed the victim too slowly. It's noted that there had been cases where the victim had yet to die before the caster ran out of power and could no longer hold the spell long enough to finish them off.

But the spell is enough to strip the opponents of their fighting strength, and is extremely effective when faced with large numbers. At least, that's what the book says.

Hohoho! Better learn this one, then! After all, I've got the Frost Knight held captive; there're sure to be hordes of holy knights coming after me sooner or later.

"Don't read it; you shouldn't be learning those things," Ecilan suddenly spoke up.

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "And what things should I be learning?"

But again, Ecilan fell silent. Honestly, what's up with this guy!

But seeing as he 'no longer objects', I continued on with my reading.

Hmm… How to summon a Death Knight……

 

Previous                                                                                                             Next

Book 4: Move 3 – The Third Move to Slay a Dragon: “Raise money to fund the adventure.”

*Disclaimer note: This is merely a translation of the original Chinese version. I do not claim any part in the creation of the original story.

 

When I got back to the weapons store, Igor was no longer there. I figured that he'd probably got tired of waiting for me, so I hurried back to the inn. Sure enough, the moment I opened the door I saw everyone sitting around inside, even Igor.

"Where the hell did you run off to?" Igor asked me in annoyance.

I ignored him.

Women should be better at guessing one's age, right? So I turned to Caecilia and asked, "Caecilia, how old do you think I am?"

Caecilia who was busying with the nets and traps blinked at my question. The others, too, put down their work and looked up at me.

When she saw my serious expression, Caecilia straightened up and gave my sudden question some thought, scrutinising my face carefully before saying with certainty, "Probably around twenty-three or twenty-four; definitely no older than twenty-five. "

Damn it……

"Could I possibly be eighteen years old?"

"Definitely not!" Caecilia immediately rejected the possibility.

I got quiet at that.

So, I'm a twenty-three to twenty-four – possibly even twenty-five – year old virgin…… Could there be anything harder to accept than this?!

"Creus?" asked Yuna gently. "Do you feel that you should be younger? It's alright, people will mature in time, so don't worry. Eighteen is a bit unlikely, but maybe twenty--"

"Ah!" Caecilia's sudden cry cut Yuna off, as she stared at the open door.

The unicorn that I had hidden outside had impatiently pushed its way through the door and trotted up to me. I could sense that its muscles were a little tense as it kept a wary eye on the rest of my teammates.

"How did you find it?" my teammates asked in surprise and glee.

I, on the other hand, was feeling a lot less happy about it, and said dully, "I didn't find it, it found me."

Yuna and Caecilia moved forward and reached out to touch the unicorn, but it shied away and hid behind me, bumping its head against me in uncertainty. The girls' actions had probably made it feel uneasy; it was stomping and snorting heavily. Upon seeing this, I gave it a few pats to calm it down.

As I patted it…… why's everyone staring at us so?

"Don't unicorns only allow the touch of virgin girls?"

I froze at that and said defensively, "I'm not a virgin—ah!"

Oh shit!

They blinked before turning to look between the unicorn and I.

The unicorn – not pleased that I had stopped petting it – was now trying to push its way into my arms. I tried to push it away, but was no match for its strength. I couldn't do anything to stop it from rubbing its head against my chest…… damn horse!

Just then, Caecilia started snorting in laughter.

She was followed by Igor who gave an unapologetic bellow of laughter.

Walter tried to keep himself from smiling, but was unsuccessful. He finally gave in and burst out into chuckles.

Archie gave me a pitying look and patted my back, consoling, "Perhaps forgetting everything was a good thing after all. Pfft, hahaha! A twenty-five year old virgin…… hahaha!!"

Halfway through his failed attempt at consoling me, he could no longer control his laughter and burst out laughing…… right in my ear! Thankfully, I was well-prepared this time and had quickly covered my ears. The others, on the other hand, had been too busy laughing at my plight and so were caught unawares, receiving the full blast of Archie's loud penetrating laughter. They looked to be in agony.

'Hmph! Serves them right!'

After his laughter had died down, I immediately retorted, "Who said I'm twenty-five! According to Caecilia, I might be twenty-three! And Yuna even said I might be twenty. That's right! I must be twenty!"

Just then, the unicorn started licking my hand. I immediately snatched my hand back and smacked its head. Even with their headaches, Yuna and Caecilia cried out in alarm for the beast, but the damn horse didn't seem to feel anything and continued pressing up against me…… Damn it!!

'You damn perverted, virgin-loving unicorn, get away from me!

'I'm definitely not a virgin!!'

"Seeing as Creus has brought the unicorn back…… pfft! Wahahaha!"

Caecilia's serious words turned into mirthful laughter midway in her sentence. She was laughing so hard that drops of tears were leaking out from the corners of her eyes and she was unable to get another word out. She was then followed by Igor. I covered my ears in preparation…… but to my surprise, Archie did not burst into a second bout of laughter. Instead, he smirked at me lasciviously as he put an arm around my shoulders. "Never say that Archie doesn't look out for you. Next time, I promise to bring you with me to the brothels, where you can finally leave your days of virginity behind. Hohoho……"

Archie merely smirked at my refutations. That bastard!

Just then, Walter finally recovered enough to speak. "Cough, now that we have the unicorn, we can go and claim the reward! We should do it soon to avoid any unnecessary turn of events, giving the others the chance to steal our reward."

"The reward? I object!" I said moodily, still upset about them laughing at my plight.

"Don't get upset, Creus," said Walter as he smiled wryly. "We didn't mean to make fun of you; we were just joking around with you."

"Oh, I'm not upset." I smiled faintly as I explained. "I really do object to handing the unicorn over to the Adventurer's Guild."

Caecilia's laughter suddenly stopped; Walter went quiet; Igor scratched his head in bafflement, and a look of incomprehension flittered over Yuna's face.

"You can't be thinking of keeping the unicorn for your ride, are you?" asked Archie warily.

As he asked me the question, Archie made as if getting ready to run over to me and snatch the unicorn from me. However, the unicorn was clinging too tightly to me, and I doubt that it would allow anyone else other than me approach it; its glowing horn which was emitting even more light aura than usual would attest to that.

So even though Archie had moved into position to snatch the unicorn, he made no further move to come closer.

"I'm a priest, not a knight, remember? What the heck would I do with a horse?" I rolled my eyes at Archie before explaining to the rest. "Listen carefully. If the Adventurer's Guild is willing to offer five hundred gold coins for this unicorn, what do you think this signifies?"

"That the unicorn is worth way more than five hundred gold coins……" answered Walter. He then hesitated before continuing, "We understand this too, but no one would try to sneak a unicorn out of the city, because every gate out of the city is being guarded. And if we fail this operation, we would forever be blacklisted by the Adventurer's Guild, and even be hunted down!"

"Then we'll just have to make sure that they don't know who it is, duh?" I said matter-of-factly.

"How can we possibly not get noticed?" shouted Yuna upset, "Creus, stop fooling around."

'Fooling around?' I got distracted for a moment. 'This sounded really familiar…… Do others often scold me for fooling around?'

"Hold on guys, I think it might actually work!" Archie shouted. "We could mask ourselves!"

"Masks?" Walter echoed thoughtfully.

Mask? I blinked at that. Is he referring to using other elements to cover our faces? Even though I already had something like that in mind, I hadn't known that this was called 'masking'.

"No!" Yuna objected, glaring at me and shouting, "You shouldn't do bad things, Creus. You are a priest of the Church of Light."

Caecilia hesitated, looking at the latter's angry face before mumbling reluctantly, "Erm, this doesn't seem like a good thing to do……"

Walter, too, snuck a glance at Yuna before shaking his head. "It's not proper."

I ignored their objections and turned to Archie. "Archie, how much is a unicorn worth?"

Archie hesitated before mumbling, "I heard that the Adventurer's Guild was thinking of giving the unicorn to the Silent Eagle as a gift instead of selling it. But if we were to sell it, according to the rumours I'm getting from the black market, at least-at least….."

Everyone quietly perked up their ears, and I purposely baited them: "At least?"

"It would start from at least five thousand gold coins."

When I heard this, I spun around and grabbed Archie's shirt, shouting, "Five thousand gold coins?!!"

Archie was startled by my move. "Hadn't you already known?" he asked.

How could I have known?!

I had only guessed that the damn horse would be worth a pretty sum, but I never knew it would be worth this much. Five thousand gold coins! That's ten times more than what the Adventurer's Guild is offering, and this is merely the starting price!

"Five thousand gold coins……"

I tried to imagine what five thousand gold coins would look like, before realising I had no idea what a gold coin even looked like. I don't even know what one hundred gold coins look like, let alone five thousand!

Could it be that I used to be really poor?

"Five-five thousand gold coins…… That's a lot of money!" Caecilia shrieked.

"Five thousand…… That War God's Glory Staff I had been eying was only worth three hundred gold coins……" muttered Yuna distractedly.

In the end, when they couldn't decide what to do, everyone turned to look at the leader of the group – Walter – to await his decision. The latter was still deliberating, but when he saw everyone looking at him, he said hastily, "Don't look at me, I didn't suggest this. You should be asking Creus' decision instead!"

They then turned to look at me. I gave them a warm and gentle smile to calm them down before calmly saying, "When it comes down to it, it wouldn't matter to the unicorn who it will be sold to, right? And besides, see how much it likes me? I'm sure it would prefer to stay by my side rather than to go to the Adventurers' Guild. If we bring the unicorn along with us, it'll be happy to stay with me for a longer while. So to the unicorn – and to us as well – it's a win-win scenario."

"Isn't that right, my dear unicorn?" I smiled at the creature as I bent to rub its ears.

The darn thing seemed to take that as permission to cover my face with its saliva…… I wonder if there's demand for unicorn saliva? If the unicorn itself is worth five thousand gold coins, I might be able to sell its saliva for a gold coin!

"I guess you have a point, and the unicorn does seem to like you," nodded Walter.

Yuna shot a glare at him before protesting unhappily, "Walter! How can you believe this nonsense Creus is spouting off?!"

Archie ignored Yuna's protests, busy working out math problems. "Five hundred gold coins turn into five thousand gold… and that divided by six… deducting the team's expenses… would mean that each could get at least five hundred gold……"

"What is wrong with your maths?" I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "It's five thousand minus my twenty percent share, and then deducting twenty percent off from that for the team's expenses, with the remainder split evenly among the five of you, which should give each of you about 640 gold coins. Of course, if you are giving up a hundred gold, I won't say no to that."

"You're asking for more even after allocating a 1000 gold to yourself?!" cried Archie. "I think you're even more suited to my role as a thief than me!"

But his protest was drowned out by Caecilia's cry of "640 gold coins!" Caecilia was instantly all for sneaking the unicorn out.

Even Yuna was affected by the huge amount, wavering between her morals and the sinful calls of money. "The War God's Glory Staff... no, shouldn't do bad things… but the Glory Staff……"

Seeing that everyone was on the verge of agreeing, I quickly gave the final push. "This way, the unicorn's happy, I'm happy, you guys are all happy. See? Everyone's happy, so why not?"

Huh? The Adventurers' Guild won't be happy, you say? Well, that's none of my business. It's not like I know them.

I watched as they stared at me, their inner struggle shown plain as day on their faces. Especially Yuna; she kept mumbling about 'glory staffs' and 'bad'…… until in the end, I heard only 'glory staff'; the word 'bad' had completely disappeared.

Sure enough, she finally gave in. "Creus, you-you are definitely not a priest from the Church of Light… you are the devil! The Seducer!"

"Why do you say that?" I smiled my brightest, most innocent smile. "See? Even unicorns love me! I must be the world's kindest, most virtuous Light priest!"

"Yup, he's the devil……"

"…… definitely the devil……"

"The devil's evilness is so powerful even unicorns are forced to bow to him…" muttered Walter under his breath.

This is when selective hearing comes in real handy – I simply filtered out their 'silly' comments and continued, "Well, if everyone is in accord that five hundred gold coins simply cannot compare to five thousand gold coins, we should start discussing our strategy now. We can't keep the unicorn here forever without being discovered."

Everyone quieted down; there were no oppositions this time. Looks like everyone had folded to the lure of five thousand gold coins.

"Firstly, you guys have to think about how we are going to get the unicorn out of the city without anyone noticing."

"Hold on! What do you mean 'you guys'?" complained Caecilia. "If we do the planning, what are you going to do?"

I shrugged irresponsibly and said, "I'm an amnesiac, remember? I haven't cast a single spell that a priest should know, so I want to test out my abilities and get a feel of it. I wouldn't want to end up becoming your burden and slowing everyone down."

"… ah…" she gave in reluctantly while the rest nodded supportively.

"Creus, you should try and see if you can cast Divine Wings – it adds speed; should come in handy when escaping," suggested Yuna. "Holy Protection and Divine Wings help to shield against blows and increases speed respectively. Those are spells that Warrior priests who specialise in increasing fighting power lack. But I'm told that Divine Wings is a bit more complicated. Not only do you need light elements, you also need to be able to use wind elements, so not all priests are capable of casting it. But there's no harm trying."

"Alright, I'll try my best."

"You should first try to gather some light elements," instructed Yuna.

I had no problem with this, for there are always an abundant amount of light elements gathered around me. So with just a wave of my hand, I had the light elements rushing to my hand.

By then, no one was bothering to brainstorm about ways to escape the city. Instead, they were all staring dazedly at my hand. I looked around me before finally picking the one who had dared to leave me alone in the city – Igor. I flung the light elements at my test subject while yelling out, "Holy Protection!"

Yuna sighed and said, "Not like that, Creus. You have to chant the incantation first……"

The ball of light had simply circled around Igor before dispersing. I stopped to think about it. If it were going to shield against attacks, shouldn't the light elements be more sturdy and solid? So, I started pressing the layers of light elements into a thin but solid layer, before using this thin sheet to 'wrap' him up, as if he's wearing paper-thin armour.

"My goodness…!" exclaimed Yuna.

"What is it?!" cried Igor anxiously. "Yuna? He didn't bungle it up, did he? Creus! What the hell did you do?!"

I, too, was startled. 'I couldn't really have made a mistake, could I? But he looks perfectly fine to me!'

Yuna did not reply Igor and instead shouted, "Archie!"

"Yes!" The thief leapt to his feet in surprise at being called upon.

"Attack Igor," she commanded.

"Huh?" Archie stared at her blankly. He wasn't the only one stunned.

"Hurry up!"

Folding in to Yuna's urgings, Archie walked over to Igor with confusion on his face. Just as he had raised his fist – and at the same time Igor had braced himself for the coming blow – Yuna called out again, "Don't use your fists, use your weapon!"

"Yuna……" pleaded Igor, nearly in tears.

Archie hesitated. In the end, he lowered his arm, 'I dare not' written all over his face.

Just then, Walter suddenly gave a cry and – and he then began shifting shape…… Fur started growing out of his skin and his hands became huge meaty paws, each paw equipped with five large black claws. I shifted away from those claws. If I were to get swiped by those claws, I would definitely lose something.

Walter finished his transformation and became a bear. A huge black grizzly with a V-shaped patch of white fur on his chest.

I goggled at him. What's going on? Is Walter human? Or a bear?

"Walter?"

Igor cried out weakly, before instantly paling when he saw the Walter-bear swipe at him. He was unable to avoid the blow and crumpled to the floor instantly, but still Walter refused to relent. He continued to kick and stomp heavily on the fallen man……

I stared at the scene before me, mouth gaping wide open. What the hell's going on?

"What are you guys doing?"

Although Caecilia sounded a little worried, she looked more curious than worried to me as she watched Walter who was already changing back to human form and Igor who was slowly getting to his feet. "Are you alright, Igor?"

Igor rubbed the back of his head in confusion. When he heard Caecilia's question, he scratched his face sheepishly and said, "No, I'm fine. Weird, I didn't feel a thing."

"Really? But Walter sure didn't look like he was holding back his punches!" exclaimed Caecilia in amazement before turning to me excitedly. "Creus, me too!"

I had silently breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Igor's uninjured self, so when I heard Caecilia's request, I immediately gathered some light elements and pressed them into a thin solid layer before wrapping them around her too.

"Quickly! Quickly!" yelled Caecilia excitedly as soon as I was done. "Archie, come and hit me! Ah! Err…… use your fists first."

After seeing Igor's example, Archie no longer hesitated and threw all his weight behind his punch. Even though Caecilia knew that she wouldn't get hurt, she couldn't help closing her eyes at the coming attack. One second, two seconds, ……

When she opened her eyes, the sight of Archie enthusiastically swinging punch after punch at her greeted her eyes. She exclaimed in wonderment, "It doesn't hurt! It really doesn't hurt at all!"

"Of course it wouldn't hurt," said Yuna matter-of-factly. "With such a thick layer of light elements protecting you, I think only 'Frenzy' would have been able to break through. Unbelievable. If Creus casts this Holy Protection on all of us, we wouldn't even need to bother with any plans and just force our way out of the city. There aren't many high-levelled fighters capable of Frenzy in this city. "

Walter shook his head, saying, "It's not that simple, Yuna. You, too, can feel how strong the Holy Protections are, can't you? It'll be hard for Creus to repeat the same on so many of us… he would have to gather a lot of light element--"

Archie, Yuna, Walter, and last of all–me. There – that's all of us done! With the Holy Protection done with, next should be the Divine Wings. According to Yuna, I would need to add wind elements in addition to the holy elements. 'Hmmm… I wonder how much wind elements I'll need?'

"… …" – Walter and Yuna.

I gathered some light and wind elements and just 'meshed' them up together, but this led to an outcry from Yuna as she warned anxiously, "Be careful, Creus. It's dangerous mixing elements of different types together. If you're not careful it could explode!"

When they heard that, everyone instantly backed away from me and rushed towards the door, prepared to get out at any time but staying inside to watch what I was doing.

Okay, that's them all meshed up together. I looked at my test subject candidates and noticed Archie – he was the one furthest away with half his person already out the door.

Alright. You're next!

I threw the mixed ball of wind and light elements at him, adjusting them as they fall on him and arranging for more of them to gather around his hands and feet. All the while, Archie was trembling like a leaf and not daring to move a muscle. When I was finally finished arranging the elements to my liking, I looked up and said, "Archie, run around a little and see."

Archie nodded before muttering a prayer, "May the War God be with me." He then got into position to run and lifted his foot……

Boom!

Archie disappeared, followed by an ear-shattering boom. When we looked around for our missing teammate, we noticed a human-shaped hole in the wall.

Igor and Caecilia gaped at the hole.

I, on the other hand, looked on at the human-shaped hole woodenly. The Holy Protection is one of the God of Light's divine spells; yet, you ask for Her rival – the War God's – protection…… Really?

"Are you alright, Archie?" called out Caecilia.

"I'm fine……"

Archie popped his head back through the hole and grinned at us cheekily. "Didn't hurt at all."

Everyone let out a sigh of relief at that. Yuna then turned to me and said, "Too much wind elements."

I nodded.

It seems that too much wind elements had caused the overwhelming burst in speed, so I should mix in less. But for some strange reason, I had the feeling that I had used the right amount of wind elements, and that Archie merely hadn't mastered such intense speeds.

If anyone were capable of mastering such great speeds, he would be as swift as the wind.

As swift as the wind, huh?…… to that person's enemies, he should make a formidable foe even more frightening than a windstorm.

After adjusting the amounts of wind elements several times, I finally got the right mix. As Archie and Caecilia were originally of the nimbler speedier types, I need only add a little wind elements. Igor, Walter and Yuna, on the other hand, needed more. As for me, well…… I'm more of the latter type than the former.

Looks like priests from the Church of Light aren't one of the speedy types either.

Archie, Caecilia and Igor were running around the room in some twisted game of tag, having the fun of their lives with the new spell.

"Divine Wings and Holy Protection on each and every one of us! Your gathering abilities are amazing! No, not even! To get the right amount of wind elements in your Divine Wings, you even had to cast the spell multiple times!"

I smiled and said confidently, "I wouldn't have had any problems even with twelve people!"

Yuna blinked at the odd number, but continued, "I don't think I can contradict you on that. Just who are you, Creus?"

"A priest from the Church of Light," I answered. I paused before asking her unsurely, "Isn't that what you said?"

"Really? Well, I'm not so sure now……" she muttered.

"Well, let's just forget about who I am right now," I said to both Yuna and Walter. "Shouldn't we now think about our strategy to escape this city?"

Walter sighed and watched the three idiots running around. "What strategy? With this speed and shield, no one short of a high-levelled profession would be able to stop us."

"And what if we do meet a high-levelled profession?" I asked worriedly. "Remember, this is five thousand gold coins we are talking about here. Wouldn't the Adventurer's Guild have hired some high-levelled adventurers to guard the city gates?"

Walter and Yuna shot me a strange look. Walter shook his head and said, "How could high-levelled adventurers possibly lower themselves to guarding a city gate? At their level, they could even become the city's commanding officer if they wished it so. Have you ever seen a commanding officer guard a city's gates?"

I kept quiet at that. 'I see, so high-levelled professions are a big deal huh?'

Just then, Archie had stopped fooling around and ran up to us. "I know, I know! There's only one high-levelled thief in this city; there's no other high-levelled professions in this city other than him."

"Thief, huh?"

Walter and Yuna exchanged looks at this news, the former smiling as he said, "That's good to hear. Even if he's a high-levelled thief, he won't be able to stop us as his profession deals more with the shadows and hidden missions. Alright, it's decided! We'll just storm our way out!"

"Mm." I nodded my head in agreement before turning around and seeing the unicorn. I suddenly had a bad feeling. "And who's going to be in charge of the unicorn?" I asked in dread.

"Duh, you of course!" sang Walter and Yuna in unison.

"Whaat?! But I'm a priest!" I objected. "Priests are supposed to stay in the back in these kinds of situations!"

"Are you sure you lost your memories……" muttered Walter under his breath.

"Well, what you said is true!" Archie patted my back. "But! You forget, Creus, that you are the only virgin in our group! You see? The unicorn refuses to allow us 'impure' people to touch it, so only you, the only 'pure' person here, is capable of leading the unicorn out of this city. "

I stared at him expressionlessly. "Would you like me to send you to the God of Light, where he may cleanse your soul and make you a 'pure' person once more?"

Archie burst into laughter at that. With no warning forthcoming, I was subjected to the full blast of his loud laughter, causing my ears to ring and a migraine to form in my head.

"Creus! You are a priest! Priests have no attacks; therefore, you pose no danger to me at all!"

…… perhaps it's time that I try and see if I'm truly incapable of magic spells.

~O~O~O~O~

And so there we were, sneaking around in the shadows and dark alleys of the city as we made our way towards the city gates with our 'contraband goods'. After a lot of effort and luck, we finally managed to sneak the unicorn into an alley not too far away from the city gates, and were now preparing for our final dash to freedom (and our five thousand gold coins).

If we were to make our mad dash, both Yuna and Igor wouldn't be able to run fast enough, so we decided that they would join in the queue to exit the gates, leaving Caecilia, Archie and Walter with me. In his human form, Walter would have slowed us down too, but once he transformed into his leopard form he could have beaten even Archie.

"Just how many animals can you turn into?" I asked the leopard beside me, but the large cat only stared at me.

"Walter can't speak after turning," smiled Caecilia. "But to answer your question, he can only turn into a bear and a leopard. He gets super strength when he's a bear, and super fast when he's a leopard."

"In that case, Walter will be in charge of causing a distraction, while Archie and Yuna will clear up a path for me. I'll storm through. If we get separated, make your way to the meeting place we agreed upon."

Two humans and one leopard nodded before putting on our masks. Archie had prepared them for us beforehand, saying that they were a must when doing naughty things…… So…… masking one's face is some kind of tradition?

I put on my mask, still not quite understanding its purpose, before covering each of my teammates' faces with a cloud of holy aura so that their faces wouldn't be seen.

Of course, as a leopard, Walter didn't need any.

I pulled the unicorn to my side, and as both the unicorn and I looked at each other, I suddenly had an uneasy feeling…… Do I even know how to ride a horse?

As I stared at its flawlessly white back, I was in no mood to admire the unicorn's graceful lines. I felt extremely nervous; if I fall off its back……

"What if I fall off?" I asked with a pinched look.

"Fall off?" Caecilia looked at me strangely. "Does it matter? You're a Light priest! Just heal yourself!"

Really? Is that all? But why do I feel that if I were to fall off its back, there would be very, very bad consequences?

Archie frowned as he watched me hesitate to get onto the horse. "Creus, looks like you've never ridden a horse before."

"I'm a priest, not a knight! It should be normal for me to never have ridden a horse before!"

Archie scratched his head. "That's true," he said, forced to agree. "But how are you going to ride away on the unicorn if you don't know how to ride a horse?"

"Well –as long as I just hold on tight and don't fall off, I should be fine, right?" I said as I braced myself to the ordeal.

Caecilia rolled her eyes at this. "Just hold on tight? Yeah right. Are you sure the unicorn even knows where to go?"

"Unicorn!" I stared the unicorn in the eye as I said forcefully. "Later, no matter what happens, you are to storm out the city gates, got it?"

The unicorn nodded.

"It can actually understand us? That's so bizarre…… Or could it be that this unicorn is actually a druid?" Archie's inane ramblings earned him a head butt from Walter the Leopard.

I drew in a deep breath before leaping onto the unicorn's back without any mishaps. Archie whistled in surprise and admiration. "Perfect form! Perhaps you do know how to ride a horse!"

'Really?' I suddenly felt full of confidence as I gave the unicorn's flank a kick. The unicorn gave a prideful toss of its head and a loud neigh before setting off.

"Aiyah!!"

Caecilia burst into laughter before turning to Archie. "Archie, how could a person who knows how to ride fall off his horse? And on his back too? Haha!"

"I just hadn't had a good hold of it, is all!" I said defensively myself as I got up from the ground.

After dusting myself off, I smacked the unicorn's head and scolded it, "What did you go rushing off so suddenly for? You trying to knock me off on purpose?"

The unicorn lowered its head and gave a small apologetic whicker as it looked up at me piteously.

"Alright, alright." I softened a little at its pitiful eyes and relented, only reminding it to be more careful next time.

The unicorn perked up and started licking at my hand happily. God knows why this horse likes licking me so much!

And so after that brief incident, I got back onto the unicorn's back. When everyone was fully prepared, Walter the Leopard rushed out into the crowd, drawing cries and attention from the crowd gathered around the gates. There were even a few screams of terror.

"Where'd the leopard come from?" roared the city gates' guards as they fanned out and surrounded the leopard, carefully keeping their sharp spears pointed at the leopard.

"Now!" I shouted at Caecilia and Archie. At my order, they rushed out as planned, and I nudged the unicorn out behind them…… This time, the unicorn dared not leap at full speed as before and instead kept a steady but quick pace. Feeling the wind in my hair and the smooth gallops of my ride, I felt that riding wasn't so bad after all.

I sighed with feeling as I said, "This is soo much better than riding on a person's back."

Right after I said that, I stopped to examine my words. 'Weird? How would I know whether riding a horse is better than riding on a person's back?...... Could I have ridden on someone before…… but that's preposterous!'

Ergh! Whatever, now is not the time for this. Ahead of me, Caecilia and Archie had already cleared a way for me. I grabbed on tight and said in the unicorn's ear, "Hurry now!"

The unicorn instantly increased its pace, causing the wind to whoosh past my ears. The city gates were not far away now. However at the same time, people were beginning to notice the unicorn and my presence.

"It's the unicorn!" someone shouted.

The crowd stared open mouth before quickly gathering their wits and coming at us with all sorts of weapons. I even caught sight of a broom coming at us!

The city guards immediately gave up on the leopard and turned their attention on us, but Caecilia, Archie and Walter started attacking them from behind. Even when faced with all sorts of weapons like spears and swords and daggers, they still flung themselves at the crowd fearlessly. The crowd paused at this show of recklessness. Especially when they saw with their own two eyes how the blades bent upon hitting them, leaving the three of them completely unharmed. They stared at this display in shock.

Perfect opportunity to escape! "Quickly! Unicorn, go faster!" I cried in excitement.

The unicorn immediately put on a burst of speed, and I could see the gates just ahead of us! Everyone had been drawn away by the distraction, so no one was around to guard the gates; no one to stop us!

But, the pleasing wind whooshing in my hair came to a sudden stop.

Not too far in front of us, a huge wall suddenly came up from nowhere. The unicorn gave a jolt and tried to stop its pace, but our mad dash was too strong and quick for us to stop so suddenly. It tried its best to stop, to slow down, its hooves scratching against the dirt road, trying fervently to gain some friction, but still inertia carried us forward.

I clung to the unicorn with both hands and feet, grasping its mane tightly and doing all I could do to stay on its back.

In the end, the unicorn couldn't avoid hitting the wall, but thankfully it wasn't a very heavy impact as the unicorn had slowed down considerably by then. The unicorn stumbled a bit before shaking its head and steadying itself.

My heart was pounding in my chest. That was too close. If the unicorn hadn't reacted quickly enough and slowed down in time, at that speed, I would have been knocked out from the impact. And chances are I would have woken up to find myself in jail!

I let out a breath of relief before examining the wall before us. The wall was composed entirely out of ice elements – it's an ice wall!

"What's going on?"

Caecilia, Archie and Walter had caught up to us and were staring at the ice wall.

"Knock down this wall!" I cried out in anger.

"With what? We're an archer and a thief!" Caecilia and Archie shouted back.

'Who the hell's counting on you?' I rolled my eyes at them.

By then, the unicorn let out a blast of light aura and threw it at the ice wall before us.

"Let's go!" I cried, but the unicorn neighed in dissatisfaction, and a second later I could see why, for the large amounts of ice elements had once again gathered to form another ice wall. And I could feel that this ice wall was thicker than the previous one. I didn't think the unicorn would be able to destroy it with just one blast like just now.

If we can't destroy it with just one blast, we won't be able to dodge the attack from the person behind us – the origin of the ice wall!

I patted the unicorn's neck and said softly, "Turn around."

Everyone had long since turned around by then; I heard Caecilia's shocked cry of "How could it be?! Holy knights from the Church of Light!"

"And not just holy knights……" Archie's voice trembled as he said, "Look at their leader, his insignia on his chest marks him as…… one of the Twelve Holy Knights."

"It's the Frost Knight!" Caecilia moaned. She sounded close to fainting.

The Frost Knight?

Sounds familiar. My attention shifted from the group leader's ice and holy aura to his appearance. He had an icy look on his face, his entire posture was frozen stiff and he even held an ice popsicle in his hand!

He truly is worthy of his name 'Frost' Knight! …… Is he even going to eat that popsicle?

The Frost Knight raised the popsicle at us and said in a frosty tone, "Freeze." (@_@)

"Who do you think you're trying to scare with that popsicle of yours?" I asked. To avoid being recognised should we ever meet in the future, I had purposely lowered my voice when replying.

The Frost Knight said nothing in reply, nor did he do anything; not even the muscles on his face twitched. I'm beginning to think this guy's face had been frozen solid.

Everyone else, on the other hand, had some kind of reaction to my challenging words. Even my teammates had drawn a sharp breath; as for the Frost Knight's holy knights, they had exploded in anger at my disrespect. "Silence! How dare you insult our Frost Knight Captain's Holy Frost Blade!"

Holy blade huh? But it totally looks like a popsicle…… I guess you could call it a holy popsicle,… but a blade?

"Creus," Archie said in a panicked undertone. "Th-the Frost Knight is even stronger than a h-high-levelled swordsman. It's impossible for us to w-win against him. He's one of the Twelve Holy Knights! What should we do?! What should we do now?"

"Calm down! We don't need to win, only to escape," I said quietly.

Archie's face fell at that. "It's impossible to even escape from him… Creus, you-you've lost your memories, so you don't understand how scary the Twelve Holy Knights truly are. Th-they are as scary as the gods themselves!"

"Bullshit," I rolled my eyes at him. "I don't care if he's the devil king himself, you guys will hold him off and buy us some time so the unicorn can knock through the ice wall."

Although his face paled even further at the order, he, Caecilia and Walter moved to shield the unicorn and I from the holy knights, moving into position to attack. When they saw this, all the holy knights were surprised; with the one exception of the Frost Knight – his face had yet to twitch.

"Defensive positions," he called out calmly.

The holy knights immediately moved into a neat formation and braced their shields, forming a wall of shields and raising their swords through the gaps of their shield wall.

Twenty or so holy knights forming into defensive positions around the four of us? Do they not have the intention of capturing us?

As we were puzzling over their unexpected move, a gap opened up in the wall of shields and the Frost Knight walked out towards us alone.

At the same time, the unicorn let out a large burst of lightning elements, and from the skies came streaking down a lightning bolt right onto the ice wall behind us. Unfortunately, I could tell that the ice elements had yet to break up.

Ahead of me, the Frost Knight was steadily pouring more ice elements into the ice wall. As long as we don't take him down, attacking the wall would be pointless, for he would just keep creating another one until either he or the unicorn collapses from magical exhaustion.

The unicorn screamed in anger and pawed the ground furiously, as if thirsting for a showdown with the Frost Knight……

"You better behave, or else…" I warned as I smacked its head.

The unicorn whinnied plaintively and lowered its beautiful head dejectedly.

Just when the Frost Knight was no more than ten steps away from us, another ice wall formed up from the ground in front of us, blocking him from reaching us.

This was followed by another bolt of lightning behind us, identical to the earlier lightning summoned by the unicorn.

"Run!" I shouted.

There was a second of blankness before my teammates comprehended what was going on. Archie was the first to react, immediately slipping around the unicorn and I and running away. His actions reminded Caecilia and Walter of the opportunity and they too started running.

As Caecilia passed by me, I kicked the unicorn's flank, signalling it to follow quickly.

As we made our escape, I could feel the ice wall behind us crack and crumble apart. But not to worry, I still had a couple more bolts ready to throw in the Frost Knight's way and stop him from following us.

At last, we escaped the city.

 

Previous                                                                                                             Next